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Convention for naming something after its discoverers when many were involved
I would like to refer to a mathematical construction by the names of its discoverers. The issue is that the same construction was discovered by two groups simultaneously, through quite different chains of reasoning. One paper has two authors and the other has five, so there are seven researchers involved in the discovery in total. Obviously I can't refer to it by all seven names, and I'm wondering if there's some other reasonable convention to follow instead.
So for example, if one paper is by A. Alpha and B. Beta, and the other is by G. Gamma, E. Epsilon, Z. Zeta, E. Eta and T. Theta, would it be reasonable to refer to it as the Alpha-Gamma construction, leaving off the names of the other authors? Or would I have to call it something more ad-hoc like AB-GEZET, after their initials?
If it makes a difference, the field is information theory, so I guess somewhere in the intersection between maths, computer science and data analysis. I'm confident that the authors are not listed alphabetically on either paper.
Also in case it makes a difference, the reasons I want to do this are

It's a solution to a fairly well-defined problem that a number of people have been working on for a while, and it's pretty non-trivial.
There are many other proposed solutions to the same problem, so it's handy to attach names to them in order to distinguish between them.
It seems like a nice thing to do for the researchers involved, at least one of whom spent their PhD on it.

I have heard (I'm not sure how official these things are) that in modern scientific fields people are trying to phase out naming things after the people involved, as it makes learning the subject difficult - remembering a set of random names that don't describe the things as against calling it by what it is or what it does.
So while this might seem like a nice thing to do for the scientists involved, it might make your work clearer and easier to understand if you just describe the thing (construction) and then mention or site the relevant authors.
E.g. the folding solution to the paper box problem presented by Dr. Origami et al. and Dr P. Airplane et al.
(Forgive my silly example, I have no experience of information theory and don't really know what a "construction" is in your terminology.)

I didn't mean "construction" as a technical term here, I just couldn't think of a better general term to describe a thing that one defines in order to solve a problem.

Another reason to use the names is that I want to compare and contrast it with other groups' solutions. I guess I could just keep saying "Alpha et al. and Gamma et al.'s solution", but it's a bit long-winded. Maybe I'll just introduce some special notation for it instead.

Also I guess it would be "Alpha and Beta and Gamma et al's solution", since one of the papers has only two authors

If I need to refer to a particular paper many times (I am comparing my method to theirs) the convention in my field is to take the first letter of author's names and the last digits of the year, or if their are many authors we would use the first author's initial. So in this case you would say something the first time you refer to them like this:
"The solution of Alpha and Beta 2011 (hereafter AB11), also proposed by Gamma et al. 2009 (hereafter G09) shows that ..."


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Are the referees of a journal allowed to reveal the title of the papers they review after the review process?
I am wondering if a referee can reveal the title of the papers he/she has refereed for a journal (either by talking about it in the pub, posting it on facebook or another mean) after the decision has been made.
The reason for my question is that I have seen some people revealing titles of the papers they referee but I have not found an authoritative reference for judging this behaviour.

Related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2022/can-i-show-my-co-author-the-final-version-of-an-accepted-publication-i-reviewed/2024#2024

Don't do that.
Everything related to reviewing is confidential.
You will certainly upset some editors if you reveal your identity to the authors without the editor's permission. (Remember that the authors usually know who was the editor. Perhaps the editors did not want the authors to know that they asked you to review the paper?)
More generally, there is nothing to gain by doing this, and everything (= your reputation) to lose. You do not want to do anything that someone might interpret as a violation of the confidentiality of the peer-review process. (Even if you had both the authors' and the editor's permission to publish this information, others might not know that.)

For what it's worth, I strongly concur. Even if "nothing bad" happens in many cases, the "bad" that might potentially happen in others far outweighs whatever convenience "only_temporary anonymity" might have.

Thanks for this. I agree, even if this behaviour is not regulated explicitly, the implications of violating this confidentiality can be considerable.

I find this answer unsettling: it basically says you shouldn't do it because it may upset some people (the editor, or onlookers), but no reason about why they might be upset (i.e., what is the actual harm). I agree that what you are asking about is not something commonly done, and doing something uncommon may always upset some people, but by this justification it is always a bad idea do to something uncommon...

If you want to be in the clear, warn editors about what you plan to do before accepting their review request (so they have a chance to object, and you have a chance to refuse if they object), and point out when you publish the reviews that you are doing so with permission. If you do that, I don't see what would be the problem.

I looked up the policy of journals in the fields of physics and chemistry, and their policy regarding reviewers does not directly address your question. Most ethical guidelines say the same thing: manuscripts sent for review are confidential. For example, quoting from the APS Guidelines for Professional Conduct:

Privileged information or ideas that are obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for competitive gain.

From the more loquacious ACS Ethical Guidelines:

A reviewer should treat a manuscript sent for review as a confidential document. It should neither be shown to nor discussed with others except, in special cases, to persons from whom specific advice may be sought; in that event, the identities of those consulted should be disclosed to the editor.

This clearly covers the case of revealing the part (or any part of it) before it was published, as well as nonpublished parts of the paper (i.e., the published version is of course public, but anything else is still confidential).
However it seems to me that, narrowly read, there is material that this rule does not cover. For example, the text written by the reviewer is not indicated to be confidential (except insofar as it reveals part of the authors’ confidential material), and it seems clear that you retain the right to publish it. (Whether it's a good thing to actually do is another matter. Except in extreme situations, I would advise against it.)
So, once a paper is published, are you allowed to reveal that you were a referee? I think so. Is it a good thing? I don’t think it hurts anyone.

PS: I interpreted your “after the decision has been made” as meaning “after the paper is published”. In the interval of time between editorial decision and publication, it is clear that this information is confidential.

Thank you, very good answer. Your interpretation of my French is correct. Indeed, it looks like there is no problem on telling everyone about your previous reviews. The only problem might be possible retaliation if the review was tough or media pressure if the review was too generous (something like " "Some day, and that day may never come, I will call upon you to do a service for me").

Extrapolating your observations... I think there is "conflict of interest" if there were understood to be any possibility, positive or negative, for referees revealing themselves. Permaninent anonymity avoids several such issues.

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What is the perception of foreign Universities (Non UK) in the US for prospective academic positions (Postdoc/Tenure)?
First of all, I know that your work speaks for you, and if you have really good papers, you have better chances, but just bear with me, and for the sake of argument lets assume that your research is only one of the points to consider.
I did my undergrad in what could be considered the best University in my Country (Mexico)and got a Magna Cum Laude.
And then, I did my Graduate studies in the University of Tokyo publishing a couple of Journal Papers (I'm really pushing for that 3rd one!)
This question is directed to people in the US, since I'm looking to find a permanent position.
What is the perception Universities in the US have of foreign Universities? I happen to know that UK Universities like Cambridge and Oxford have no problem (for obvious reasons), but a professor friend of mine told me that other Universities are just not that well known. And having a degree from the Hawaii University was better than having a degree from Tokyo University. (As a side note, he is a professor at Haw Univ, and he wanted me to apply over there)
I just want to know how true or false this is, and realistically speaking how hard/easy is to get a position as a postdoc and eventually a full time professor if you are not from a US univ.
For example, do I have the same chances as someone who graduated from a top University (your Ivy leagues, Public Ivy League, MIT, Stanford, etc) or do I least have the same chances as middle range Universities?
As a side note, I have a postdoc in the UCLA lined up, so I guess that'll boost my chances a bit.

I'm confused. Are you looking for a post doc as it says in the title, a permanent position (i.e., one with tenure), or a tenure track position.

Right now I'm pondering on that, I want to see how many postodcs are a reasonable number to get a tenured position in the US, if I come from a foreign Univ. I just modified the title so it makes more sense, thanks.

And having a degree from the Hawaii University was better than having a degree from Tokyo University. (As a side note, he is a professor at Haw Univ, and he wanted me to apply over there) — Yeah, I saw that coming.  He's wrong (at least in computer science).

A postdoc in a US institution with letters from US faculty can "reset" much of the potential disadvantage from doing a PhD from a non-Us university.
Having said that, in addition to the "familiarity" issue that @aeismail brings up, there is also the issue of logistics. The effort involved in bringing someone who is outside of US over for an interview is high, so the potential expected payoff bar gets a little higher. In your case, since you'd be in the US, this would no longer be an issue.
But getting back to the basic question: There are a number of foreign universities that are "well known" in the US, and applicants from those schools will not be perceived as weaker in any way. Also, for specific subject areas this can be even more specific (i.e a weak university might have a strong specialization in topic X, and so students working in X will be highly rated).
As for how many PostDocs you need, since you work in machine learning (i.e computer science at large) you should read the "best practices for postdocs" document that the Computing Research Association just put out.

Your answer seems to contradict another answer which says that hiring committees don't care about brand name they only care about research output? Except you've said that "students working in [highly ranked ..] will be highly rated".

Another of my answers ?

Sorry for being confusing. I can't find the question I'm talking about, but it was about the importance of an institution's ranking (where they got PhD) in getting a postdoc position, and JeffE's response got 30 upvotes and the message was that it doesn't matter as long as your research record is very strong.

I don't recall the answer, but I do think that because of lack of familiarity, foreign university branding can make a little difference. Ultimately, everything is swamped by your research, but these are more subtle signals that open doors (or not)

I don't think there's as much of a perception problem with foreign universities as you might think. I'd say the majority of postdoctoral associates are international, and most of them have not gone to universities as well known as Oxford and Cambridge. More likely than not, forging personal connections with the advisor you want to work for as a postdoc will matter much more than the university.
That said, individual professors may have a bias toward hiring people from "known" schools, because the risk factor associated with hiring them is presumably much lower than someone from a school they've never heard of. Such a bias is of course understandable, but it also means that they could lose out on some potentially promising candidates as a result.

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Is there other way to get into more advanced study of math, with a low GPA?
I am a second-year undergraduate majoring in mathematics. In my first year of studies, I didn't do really well on my exams and therefore my results were not good, with a GPA at around 2. I didn't really put time into it, but when I started learning advanced probability, I found that I am interested in it and want to study more and am even thinking of doing research. Also I think I have found my way to study math as I didn't quite do before. In that semester, I got 2 A+. In my school, I heard that people who apply for a master's degree normally have a first-class honors degree. Is there another way to get into more advanced study of math, even with a low GPA?

Admissions committees (at least in the US) are generally forgiving of low grades in your first year, especially if you (and your recommendation letters) tell a compelling story about hitting your groove/finding your passion for the material in your second year.  Keep your grades up, get some undergraduate research experience, and you'll be fine.

Basically, you have to compete with people that have a "first class honors degree."
Don't worry about the fact that you started with low grades and they (mostly) didn't. What you need to show is the fact that you are just as capable as them of making high math grades going forward.
Your two A-pluses are a good start. This may be a case of "he just found himself in his sophomore yea.r" That will at least get people to "sit up and take notice" (me, for one). The question people will ask, is something like, "is this a fluke, or can he keep it up over a whole program of study in math?
What you need is "several" more courses with As over the rest of your undergraduate program. You might take an extra course or two so that you get more As to replace your bad freshman grades. If you get to the point where people are thinking, he made "mostly As in his last ten math courses," it will do a lot to dispel concerns about your early grades.
Good luck.


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How does the PhD thesis examination result impact academic job success?
In majority of universities around the world, the PhD examining committee should meet and allow PhD student to defend his/her thesis. Based on the thesis content and student performance in the viva, the committee decides whether to grant PhD to the candidate or not.
In most of the cases that I have seen, there are 4 types of decisions

Accept as it is (Distinction in some universities)
Accept with Minor Revisions (without re-examination of thesis)
Accept with Major Revisions (without re-examination of thesis)
Major Revisions with re-examination
Reject (No PhD; some universities grant MSc instead of PhD if the work is fine but its contribution is small).

Now my questions are:

How often do employers ask for PhD examination Committee decision report at the time of application/interview?
Considering the PhD requirement by almost all universities for the professorship positions, how the decision by the committee members impacts employment. My main concern is about the first three decisions of "accept." Can a PhD graduate who has "accept with major revision" never gets job in good places"?

At least in the US context, I've never heard of such a report being asked for.
In fact, in the case of my own PhD (at MIT) no report ever existed. In the major US research universities I've been at, PhDs are  ungraded. You either get one or you don't.
For sure, the outcomes on your list are all possible. Where I've been though, there is a sheet of paper that has to be signed by the faculty committee members saying that the thesis was successfully defended and accepted. The details of what needed to happen to convince the faculty that the thesis or its defense was good enough were the criteria that the committee used to decided when to sign the sheet (your cases #1-4) or when to tell a student that they never would (your case #5) but they were never part of a formal report.
Perhaps in countries where the specifics of the examination process are more clear, this might be asked for? It's still hard for me to imagine.
If you're going into academic jobs, the letters from the committee members, and the dissertation itself, will tell folks much more than any formal report on the first draft of a dissertation will. If you're heading into academia, you will be asked for those things.

Most faculty know that dissertation defenses can be capricious. A single holdout can ask for unreasonable changes.
If there's any doubt in my mind (as a member of a search committee) as to the quality of the dissertation, I'll read the dissertation.

Unfortunately, I have seen this unreasonable situations a lot in the country I did my PhD (I don't know others). But, asking recruiter to look at the thesis is somehow less practical due to time and location implications. Anyhow thanks. One upvote for the truth.

I've never seen the decision asked for in job applications. I don't know whether it is something that could reasonably be asked for (that might depend on what country you are in, or what subject).
Personally, I suspect there might be more of an indirect effect. Minor revisions I would expect to be pretty much the same as no revisions, but a request of major revisions might indicate that the thesis isn't so good, which could correlate with chances in job applications. On the other hand, it may well be that the meaning of 'major revisions' varies considerably by university, so no meaningful comparison could be made.

I have seen them ask very rarely. But, there are. Look at this example for a postdoc in Denmark (http://employment.ku.dk/faculty/?show=685713).

Given they want someone to start work only a month after the application deadline (!), it may be the main point is to be sure the person will complete their PhD in time - there can be funding issues if someone tries to start a postdoc without having graduated at least unofficially.

So you mean it is an exception? aand people usually do not ask such document?

I don't know. As I said, I've never seen it asked for before. It may depend on discipline and/or location.

@Espanta, I've never seen that before in US or UK applications and I'm actually a little unsure what they mean by a "provisional of final evaluation" and if that really refers to the report you are suggesting.


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Is there any automated way I can detect if a co-author plagiarized before our paper is submitted?
My professor, a co-author and I have been working on a paper for more than a year. I was doing the math and simulations, my co-author was responsible for the writing, and my professor was editing the paper. Now editing of the paper is done. Unfortunately, the co-author is no longer available. My professor called me today and told me he has observed that my co-author copied some sentences from the reference papers. So he asked me to check all of the sentences and highlight and rewrite them again if I found that they were copied. He believes that, these days the reviewers are more concerned about the use of similar sentences in the paper.
So, What should I do? Check all sentences with other papers? This is not possible without using a machine. the paper contains more than 8000 words. Do you know what software I can use to do this?

Copying a sentence (or more) from another paper is not plagiarism provided the material copied is enclosed in quotes (or indented if a large block) and properly cited.  Is that the case?  Or are the copied sentences presented as though the three of you had written them?

The copied sentences are not enclosed in quotes. Some of them are cited but some not. Actually the content and our method is new. But some explanations and sentences are copy paste. @BobBrown

I guess you want something like the reverse of diff for two very different files. I have no idea how well this works, but WCopyfind seems to do just that: http://plagiarism.bloomfieldmedia.com/z-wordpress/software/wcopyfind/ Here's what they say in the instructions: WCopyfind compares text or word processor documents with one another to determine if they share words in phrases. WCopyfind reads .DOCX, .TXT, and .HTML files natively and it does a pretty good job of reading .PDF files, as long as they contain text content rather than pure image content.

I have heard about these software. They don't work well for my case. These software check the text line by line.So, this wont help me much. But I think, Journals check the plagiarism themselves(they warn about cross ref and cross check). so they should have a software to do it. I was wonder if I could check this matter before they check it for me . @YuichiroFujiwara

@Electricman The description of the software on the official page and blog posts from users seem to suggest this particular one does much more than typical line-by-line comparison, though. It looks like it detects identical strings of words/phrases of which you can determine parameters like length. But if you tried it and think it's the same as line-by-line comparison, I guess I was wrong; I've never used it myself. BTW, services like CrossRef are usually for publishers; such a large automated checking needs access to tons of copyrighted papers.

Anyway, if what you want to do isn't locating a string of words in document A which also appears in document B, what exactly do you want to do? I thought this was basically what CrossCheck was doing...

Okay @YuichiroFujiwara I will give it a try and tell u about the progress. thanks for the suggestion though.

@Wrzlprmft the titular question is clearly a shopping list, but the final "paragraph" asks a reasonable question of what should I do.

@Electricman In line with StrongBad's comment, I have changed the title of this question. I believe this is in line with what your intent but please roll back my changes if I am wrong.

The title is fine and clear.  thanks @earthling

The software Wcopyfind didn't help. I also tried some other softwares too. But the results were poor. @YuichiroFujiwara

@Electricman That sucks. Sorry to hear that. Seems like you need to get a hold of the co-author or go the complete rewrite rout, which, while not related to what you asked, is probably a much better option in the first place...

No problem. What do you think about using turnitin? It has been suggested here from a guy. I googled and it seems Elsevier(where I want to submit) uses turnitin for crosscheck. @YuichiroFujiwara

@Electricman I would guess it wouldn't work very well. It's for undergrads' essays and such. It may be good if you want to check if your student copy-pasted a wikipedia article, blog post and the like, but I'm not sure if its data include enough academic papers. In your case, you sort of know where your co-author copied text from, and it's not from where undergrads typically copy-and-paste. You may miss plagiarized text if you only compare your manuscript against Turnitin's data, which is a big problem.

It seems your guess is not correct. the part you said It may be good if you want to check if your student copy-pasted a wikipedia article, blog post and the like, but I'm not sure if its data include enough academic papers Please see the TurnItIn FAQ here : http://turnitin.com/en_us/features/faqs
Answer of Q 2 says: For example, Turnitin partner CrossRef boasts 500‐plus members that include publishers such as Elsevier and the IEEE, and has already added hundreds of millions of pages of new content to our database.Really sounds like nightmare @YuichiroFujiwara

"Unfortunately, the co-author is no longer available." Do you mean that he died?  If not, how can someone be unavailable in 2015?  Anyway, a division of labor in which the person who is "responsible for the writing" is unavailable is a very poor idea.  Also: isn't fixing problems with the writing called...editing? If the professor puts this on you, I am concerned that he is not contributing enough to the paper.  Anyway, I agree with everyone else: it sounds like you are the one who cares about this paper enough to do it right.  So do it right...and choose better coauthors next time.

@PeteL.Clark . My co-author went to the mandatory military service so he is not available at this project any more. Also, I fixed that plagiarism problem by completely rewriting the paper while ago. But my professor and I observed some numerical manipulation which was done from the left co-author as he was responsible for part of the Matlab programming. Now I am sucked at it to fix this problem for few month. My professor doesn't help me with Matalb programing of the problem and just gives me intuitive math descriptions. :(

I am both confused and concerned about the description of your work process:

I was doing the math and simulations, my co-author was taking the care of writing and my professor was editing the paper.

It seems clear you are making a contribution worthy of authorship, but as for your "co-author" and professor, it is not clear if their contributions are worthy of authorship. the fact that the co-author is unavailable make the situation difficult. High end plagiarism detection software is still not particularly good and I would be hesitant about using any work written by someone who is known to have plagiarised in the past, especially in the absence of drafts to confirm the absence of plagiarism.
The issue with using software like TurnItIn is not its abilitity to detect and parse copied material, but the limitations on its underlying database. Plagiarism detection software generally does not have access to non-open access publications. If your co-author copied from non-open access publications, then the software will likely miss it. A publishers, like elsivier Edith a large amount of pay walled material may add their own publications to their database making it easy for them to catch the plagiarism.
My suggestion would be to rewrite all the material by the co-author. You could either work from his version and maintain his authorship, or if his only contribution was the writing as you say, then rewrite those sections from scratch and drop him from the list of authors.

It takes a lot of time and energy to rewrite the paper. @strongbad

@Electricman It all really depends on how much you care about quality. If you want to be sure and you can't trust your co-author (and I agree with StrongBad here, don't share authorship with others who have plagiarized in the past), then you need to re-write it. The time and energy is the cost of choosing your co-author poorly. Bad decisions have consequences.

@Electricman: It may take a long time to rewrite the paper, but it will be more damaging to you if the paper is retracted for plagiarism!

It is a good tip to know, So TurnItIn cannot detect the plagiarism from non-open access papers. Well I know where my co-author copied from. We have 30 references in this paper and he modified some sentences mostly in the introduction and problem description parts to make the writing easier. So, I should read all 30 refs and compare it with our manuscript. sounds like a big effort but easier than re-writing the whole piece. @strongbad

@Electricman NO! That is not what my answer is saying. If you go looking for all the copied material and you miss just one occurrence, your reputation will take a big hit. It might be easier, but it is not worth the risk.

It seems your answer is not completely correct. the part you said Plagiarism detection software generally does not have access to non-open access publications. If your co-author copied from non-open access publications, then the software will likely miss it. Please see the TurnItIn FAQ here : http://turnitin.com/en_us/features/faqs
Answer of Q 2 says: For example, Turnitin partner CrossRef boasts 500‐plus members that include publishers such as Elsevier and the IEEE, and has already added hundreds of millions of pages of new content to our database.Really sounds like nightmare @StrongBad

I don't understand your adversion against rewriting it. What is more important? Your future career or making this assignment as easy as possible? Rewriting is the only sure way you have, anything else might still bear a risk, as small as it is, but if anything goes wrong, your reputation is terminally ruined. And 8'000 words is a small thing. My current manuscript (book) is now on 90'000 and not done yet.

@Electricman some content published by Elsevier and IEEE are open access. My experience looking at similarity reports is that TurnItIn does not have access to all of Elsevier's journals.

Thanks for your information. None of our references are available for open access. And I know that my co-author only changed some sentences of our references. I've tried to find them manually but it was not possible. So in line with your suggestion I am going to re-write the whole manuscript :((( @StrongBad

I am going to re-write it :(( @PatricHartmann

@Electricman: Believe me, it's the best choice. The damage plagiarism, even just accidental, can do to your career justifies the additional workload.

Your institution may use a standard service which you would have access to - you could contact your academic admin service and ask them.  "Turnitin" seems quite widely used.

unfortunately they do not have it. Also, I am graduated few month ago. @jool

@Electricman You can still use TurnItIn's product for students.

I wish you could recommended something free @earthling

@Electricman The free stuff is garbage. "You get what you pay for" is so very true in the world of plagiarism checking.

That is really true, but not only for the world of plagiarism checking. I should find someone who has turnitin, maybe some universities have it already for their students @earthling

Your Prof. should know if there is an auto-checking service available and would presumably have access to it.  Failing that, how about your co-author?

Unfortunately my Prof doesn't know. I asked people from other universities and they don't use Turnitin at their university too. I think it's bx, our subjects are not taught in English here so the assignments are not in English as well and Turnitin cannot detect plagiarism for non-English  manuscripts. @Jool

While TurnItIn is designed for undergraduate assignments, iThenticate is designed for this exact scenario: detecting plagiarism in academic publications. I've used it successfully in the past, and while it is not cheap you can purchase a license to check a single document at a time.

I have written the paper again as this question was posted before your answer. Thank you for your helpful answer. If next time it comes up I will use that. @corvus


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Is it the norm to allow professors from different departments on a PhD committee?
Or is this the exception to the norm? I know that it's allowed at Brown - but I wonder if it's unique.

At many (most? all?) universities, a committee is required to have at least one professor from outside the department (other than the chair, if the chair holds a joint position).
Other requirements are to have at least one professor at rank higher or equal to the rank of the chair (the advisor).

At my university, all PhD committees are required to include at least one member from outside the student's department.  My department narrows this requirement to "at least one member from outside the university".  (In practice, the external member is almost always from another computer science department, which violates the original intent of the university's rule, but there you go.)

I'm also in the CS dept, and in my previous university the "outside" member was usually a CS faculty from another university. This makes somewhat more sense to me than the norm in my current university, which is to have some one from another dept at the same university (Usually a math faculty, sometimes EE, but at times it even gets to a linguistics faculty.. :)


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Is there generally a high amount of variability in the number of hours grad students put to work each week?
As in, it's certainly not a standard 8-5 job of 40-50 hours per week. Is it common (and expected) for them to sometimes put in 80 hours a week, and to occasionally put in 10 hours? (say, during times of personal crisis or of particularly intense coursework?)

I believe that most of the students are event-driven. That is, if they have an important deadline, meeting, exam, TA section (agghh...), then they spend more time to prepare and be ready for that event. Whereas after an important deadline, (or finals week, etc.) they allow themselves to be more relaxed and spend less time "working".
However it is quite strange to define how much time one spends on "research". Many people get very nice ideas just before the go to sleep, or while taking a shower... The mind is running 24/7..  Even though those people are not "in office" they do work on their research.
I agree also with the answer of Lars that it really depends on the student's personality and preferences. I've known students who really need their schedule to be well defined. They showed up to office daily at 9:00 and left at a fixed time (I guess that being married with kids kind of forces you to have a fixed schedule). So there are no fixed rules.

It depends on you. If you really want to, you could probably have quite regular working hours (except for the odd deadline). I would say that 80 hours a week is excessive and if your advisor expects you to do that, then you should think about changing your advisor/course.

unless of course the student wants to work that much, or work that much some of the time (not that I think this would be necessary or required)


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Abbreviations in journal papers
Do I expand abbreviations at their first use per section or per paper?
This is an IEEE publication, but I haven't come across any specific instructions.

If possible, just avoid abbreviations entirely.  (Of course it may not be possible.)

I would do it per paper, unless the paper is extremely long and some abbreviations are defined (and used) in the start, but not used again until 20 or 30 pages later.
It's okay to remind a reader what the abbreviations mean, but avoid annoying the reader by being overly and unnecessarily repetitive.

Thanks- paper is only 11 pages long, so I'll probably limit it to the first instance of use per paper.

I also expand the abbreviation on first use in captions and the abstract.

The standard is once per "document," whether that's a report, or a book, or a journal article. However, longer documents will typically come with lists of abbreviations and symbols; many journals also do this. Even then, it's still better to define it once in the text first:

standard widget units (SWUs)

before using it again later.

(SWUs) — Shudder.  Just spell it out.  Ink is cheap.

Ink is cheap, except when you have a page limit to worry about.


text:
Publishing Same Research Paper on a National Conference as well as International IEEE conference
I submitted my final year research paper for a national level conference as well as international level IEEE conference. I was notified that my research paper has been accepted for the national level conference before 2 weeks ago. And I submitted camera ready papers, registered and ready to present the paper next week on the national level conference.
But yesterday I received a mail from IEEE conference by mentioning my paper is accepted for the conference and asked for camera ready papers based on their template.
Is this situation normal? Can I publish my paper on national level conference as well as international level IEEE conference?
Please note that there will be proceedings for both conferences.

Did you at any point promise to any one of these conferences that you had not submitted this work anywhere else?

No. I didn't promised to any of those conferences.

Did either conference explicitly forbid simultaneous submission to another publication venue?  (Most CS conferences include such a clause in their calls for papers.)

@JeffE no there were no such clause in both conferences.

You cannot publish the same paper at these two conference. For an IEEE conference publication, you have to transfer copyright on the paper to the IEEE, which precludes publication in another proceedings.
You shouldn't have submitted the same paper to two places simultaneously. It's clearly against ethical standards in academics. It is not your fault, if there wasn't a clear indication on the conference submission site, and your advisor hasn't intervened (he should have). Still you have to deal with the consequences now.
And the consequences are that you have to withdraw your paper from one of these conferences. If you have the choice, it would probably be better to withdraw from the national conference. Call yourself lucky if you don't get into deeper trouble from this.

it is too late to withdraw paper from the national conference now. because I have already registered for it.
Is it ok if I make considerable modification to the research paper when I submit camera ready papers to the IEEE conference?

@KanishkaDilshan: Definitely not unless you get explicit permission from the program committee.  They accepted it as original, unpublished research, rather than a revised/modified version of a previously published paper.  (Any modifications big enough to make it truly different would also make it no longer the paper they accepted.)  Most likely they would no longer be interested in it under such circumstances, and definitely you cannot assume they would be.  (However, I would suggest withdrawing it rather than asking, because asking them emphasizes the issue of simultaneous submission.)

In Japan, they have a loophole for this, and is based on what Silvado mentioned on preclusion. They basically say in the website that the conference is not indexed, and they only give handouts and digital proceedings with no ISBN number.
The document the IEEE holds the copyrights of is the document you have submitted after doing all of the modifications the reviewers suggested, that is the reason some authors get to publish their papers in their own webpages, as long as it is not the same document.
I would advice against doing any modifications to any of the papers, since it has already been accepted and it is not the papers the reviewers choose, it would be unethical and you can get in more trouble.
I do agree that you should withdraw one of the papers.
Edit: I forgot that the IEEE updated its copyright policies, you actually cannot do that anymore

The copyright stuff in the second paragraph is not right.  There is no general copyright exception for using the version before modifications based on reviews, and the IEEE copyright transfer covers both versions.  However, clause 8 of the retained rights section of the IEEE copyright form at http://www.ieee.org/documents/ieeecopyrightform.pdf allows posting of preprints under certain limitations.

You are right, this was under the old policy, I remember there was a big fuzz about this. Thanks for the clarification: http://www.ieee.org/documents/authorversionfaq.pdf


text:
How can a graduate school applicant improve his application for next year's season?
It seems I'm about to have a bad application season, as all schools I'm waiting to hear from have given out offers of admissions to other applicants. I'm trying to come up with a viable plan to turn my application into a successful one for next year's season.
Here are some important things to note:

I come from an unknown school, but my reference writers earned their Ph.Ds from well-known schools in the U.S. (top 25 via NRC ranking). They all encouraged me to apply to top 30 programs in the US.
I am an international applicant.
I am interested in pure mathematics.

Some fall-back plans I have is to actually get involved in research during the summer and fall, and I'm hoping I can get a serious publication out of doing this.
So for the people who have served on admissions committees in the past, what else can I do? Should I not bother to apply to the same programs I applied to this year?

Have you finally got accepted by any schools? Your own experience might be a very nice answer to this question.

Publish.  I have seen the following pattern more than once.  (1) Applicant X applies to my department's PhD program and is rejected, not for any major flaws, but just for not standing out from the crowd.  (2) X joins a MS program at a different university.  (3) As a master's student, X publishes one paper and has two more in submission (or at least preparation).  (4) X reapplies to my department's PhD program, with a detailed technical discussion of his results in his statement of purpose and stellar letters from his new department.  (5) X is admitted in the first round, with a fellowship.
If you haven't done so already, show your complete application to the people who wrote your rec letters, and ask for their brutally honest feedback, especially on your statement.  Often students who write statements without some faculty feedback write them to the wrong audience. ("I'm smart; hire me." makes a bad statement of purpose.   "Here is the mathematics I've worked on and what I'm interested in looking at next." is much better.)
It's a long shot, but if your recommenders know faculty at the schools you applied to, you might be able to get some second-hand feedback through them.  Maybe.

To steal a phrase from real estate, "Network, network, and network". At this point, you can't really improve your GPA, you can't write a senior thesis, and you can't do undergraduate research. Your best bet is to talk to as many people as you can in order to (1) improve your letters of recommendation and (2) network with researchers.
Personally, I would recommend against taking more undergraduate classes, unless there's a specific deficiency in your academic record.  Simply taking a course to raise your GPA will likely not have a large impact or be a good use of your time and money. However, if you're missing a subject area, this is the time to fix it. For example, I graduated as a psychology major, and needed some math courses when applying to biomedical engineering graduate programs, so I took a course on diff eq's and linear algebra. That course ended up being very helpful later on, both on my application and when joining research labs.
You mention that you hope to do research over the summer. Adding publications to your record will significantly help your chances, as it makes your academic record less important... the reviewing committee will often consider publications as proof that you can "do it". You should expect, though, that you will be grilled extremely thoroughly on your work during the interview process.

There's a lot of helpful advice on this front in the thread How do you get a bad transcript past Ph.D. admissions?
Basically, your situation really isn't all that different from the one discussed in that thread—your credentials don't seem to qualify you for international study. However, you may have some additional possibilities to consider:

Were your IELTS/TOEFL scores below par?
How strong were your letters of recommendation? Do they actually attest to personal attributes, or is it merely a recitation of your performance in class? The latter do you essentially no good in admissions to a US-style graduate program.
Do you have the opportunity to take more classes before you apply in an attempt to improve your standing?

These are some possibilities, but without knowing more about your situation, it's hard to comment further.

I just want to add to the first bullet. TOEFL score is very crucial to the application of international students...


text:
How to negotiate the salary for a UK faculty position?
Following several interviews, I have been offered two faculty positions in the UK. Salary is among the factors I consider to choose one of the positions.
How can I reasonably negotiate the salary? Can I suggest the highest value in the range advertised? Or I shouldn't be greedy.
In general, how negotiable is salary in the UK universities?

Possible duplicate of How should an academic negotiate his/her salary?

@Coder not really a duplicate; as the answer notes, the UK context for salary negotiation is very different from the (US?) one in the linked question.

@Coder I don't think it's a duplicate, because that question doesn't take into account the country. Salary negotiations in many countries are barely allowed, or not allowed at all.

Be careful when negotiating for a higher salary. It could backfire. At my university an incoming Lecturer (Assist Prof) aggressively negotiated for a +5 points in scale (see @strongbad answer). Although he got the extra salary, upon arrival he was hit with the demands the school would have from a lecturer with 5 years experience (teaching, funding, supervision, etc.). I find it fair, but he couldn't cope and had to resign after 1 year. Usually, there are strings attached to a higher salary. Be sure to know what they are.

Salary is generally not very negotiable in a UK university. Further, the benefits of a higher salary are less pronounced in the UK than in the US. Pay in the UK is defined by a universal salary scale/spine. There is a maximum point on the spine you can achieve through normal progression. Progressing pass the standard maximum is extremely rare.
I have never heard of a department hiring beyond the standard maximum. What this means is that if you start at the standard maximum (the highest point on the scale obtainable through standard progression), you will make 10k more  then a colleague who starts at the bottom. After 3 years, the pay gap will be only 5k (still a 10% raise) since the person who started at the bottom progressed and you did not. If you both get promoted at that point, you will both start at the bottom of the next tier. In other words your negotiation to move from the bottom to the top was worth 20k over the course of your entire career. If promotion takes longer, the difference maxes out at around 36 k (depending on the specific spine points).
Many department offer the lowest spine point. It is often, but not always, possible to negotiate up a few steps based on years of experience. In my experience as an American who worked in the UK, Brits find it insulting to negotiate a startup package and salary. It seemed most Brits took what they were offered (or maybe an extra step or two) while international candidates asked for the top of the range since the salaries are much lower then they expected. The international candidates are then internally laughed at for being cheeky yanks, but often paid more then their British counterparts.

"The international candidates are then internally laughed at for being cheeky yanks, but often paid more then their British counterparts." I don't know why you'd laugh at someone if they succeed in getting paid more.

@Thomas There's a whole genre of British (well, mainly English) satire/comedy devoted to this theme...

Would it be "cheeky" to ask how the pay was determined? (within the same grade, but how are the different points determined?) I'm guessing based on experience. So would it be rude to ask about that?


text:
Is there a list of reputable open-access-only publishers?
Many new publishers have recently appeared because of the open access model (they do not need to struggle with sale & marketing). Some of them are shady business efforts, but some have strong scientific standards and their journals are reliable.
Beall’s List of Predatory Open-Access Publishers lists unreliable publishers. Is there any resource listing reliable Open-Access journals? Such list can introduce us reputable publishers we have not come across yet.
The answer to the question "how to identify" can be found here.

Just as you would with non-open-access publishers: Look at the editorial board, see if there is someone you know on there (if not, stop here); if yes, ask one of these people whether they are actually editors and whether the periodical can be trusted.

@darijgrinberg not a reliable approach. Many big names do not care to e mentioned here and there. And many journals put their names without permission. The name of someone on the editorial board does not mean s/he is contributing to the journal's editorial process.

@henning I further edited the question to avoid the duplication. Hope it is close to what the OP is looking for.

@Googlebot: this is why I said to pick someone you know and ask her!


text:
What prevents people from manipulating data to write better papers?
Many papers use nonstandard data sets, which means the authors could have manipulated the data behind the scenes to make their paper look more impressive.  It seems that this could be done very easily: for example, one could cherry pick the items of the data set to make it seem like an algorithm has 90%+ accuracy while in reality it's about 60%.
What prevents people from doing this?  Is there something I'm missing?

Are you asking what kind of safeguards or practices reduce the probability that such junk papers get published?

@Antonio Vargas How common is this and how it's prevented?

Sure, you can, and if done correctly it will work at first. But when you are caught, your reputation as a scientist is lost forever. As a wise man said, you can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

Are you asking about running an experiment, then throwing out experiment data points that makes your idea look bad? Or are you asking about evaluating an idea using an experiment that you know is going to make your idea look good? Or something else? This question is very unclear.

@ff524 The 1st.

The content of this question seems reasonable to me (a little naive, but a sensible question), so I assume the downvoters are objecting to the phrasing.  I'll try editing it; feel free to revert if my edits don't capture what you intended.

In science everything should in principle reproducable. Have you ever thought about what this could imply regarding manipulation of data? I think it means that if you manipulate your data you have to be very lucky to guess right or eventually the fraud will be detected.

If you're willing to lie and have built up a reputation as a scientist over decades then you can get your papers published in the most prestigious journals. The problem is, that you need to a) Have a reputation to lose in the first place and b) Risk losing it when people can't replicate your experiments.

@LeonMeier I wouldn't necessarily disagree, but most "non-reproducible junk" is probably the product of straightforward mistakes rather than fraud. As somebody said in a different context, "never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity".

@NET_GUY "What prevents people from doing this?"  Ethics?

And then someone uses your algorithm on his own data set and finds out it doesn't do what you said it would do. Your reputation is ruined, and you will never publish anything again.

@Polygnome "...you will never publish anything again...." This may be exaggerated. Your reputation may take a dent but often enough flaws in pulications are downplayed as mistakes and subsequently forgotten because the attention has already moved on. I'm quite sure that systematic verification of published (hitherto unchallenged) studies would reveal quite some percentage of unreproducable works, for whatever reasons...

"What prevents people from doing this?" Maybe most people aren't so bad per se? Maybe they just don't want to.

@Trilarion Yes, I have simplified the process, but at the core, thats what academia uses to prevent fraud. High entry barrier + harsh consequences. not enough papers are systematically reproduced, though. Thats certainly something that should be improved.

I don't think this is a duplicate to the linked question. The answers here show that the deterrent is not the detection method - discussed and asked for in the linked question - but rather the consequences to career and the lack of a longtime benefit from manipulation.

Can I use what I described above to publish a paper without much hassle?

Yes, it's easy to write a fraudulent paper, and it's not hard to get it published if you are willing to publish in a journal with low standards.  (Some predatory publishers will publish literally anything if you are willing to pay them.)  You might even get it published somewhere respectable if you fake everything convincingly, by getting results that are good enough to be impressive without being so implausible that reviewers become suspicious.

Is there something I am missing?

I'd bet that what you're missing is the role of reputation in academia.  If you don't maintain a good reputation, you'll be ignored and marginalized, with no ability to influence the field.  If your only goal is to produce a paper, then there's a lot of scope for mischief, but this generally won't lead to a successful research career.  If people are unable to build on your work, they'll become suspicious and your reputation will suffer.  (And if they aren't even interested in trying to build on your work, then by definition you aren't having an influential career.)
It's not impossible to succeed in academia by fraud, as demonstrated by the people who succeeded for some years before they were caught.  However, it's much harder than faking a single paper.

Very nice answer. One could maybe add that more and more journals require/encourage side by side publication of primary data. On the other hand, one needs to be aware that a certain part of scientific publications is faked. I think I remember a systematic too optimistic reporting on new drugs. They are almost always less effective in the long run than reported initially when they are discovered which seems to indicate maybe not outright data manipulation but at least biased interpretation of data.

@Trilarion Medical research is just crazy in general.  A lot of these weird claims that x can lead to y are based on flimsy data, but it makes great headlines so those are the "discoveries" we hear.  It's kinda scary.

What prevents people from doing this? Is there something I'm missing?

In addition to the factors mentioned in Anonymous Mathematician's excellent answer, I think another factor at play is that while it is not very difficult for a dishonest person to (temporarily) get ahead by faking data, the rewards for doing it aren't very great compared to the effort it takes to implement this strategy successfully. Even the barrier to entry in academia, getting a PhD, is high enough to deter the most dishonest people, who are the kinds of people who may be tempted to use fraudulent strategies to attain professional success, money etc. And the payoff for this kind of fraud is ultimately quite modest -- you might get a job with tenure, but is that really worth the trouble of working on something you have no real passion for, and doing so in a dishonest way, for so many years?
The bottom line is that Academia is simply not an attractive place for fraudsters, certainly much less attractive than other industries or career tracks (which I won't name) where fraud and other antisocial behavior can reap you much greater rewards in a much shorter period of time. So yes, a hypothetical fraudster who ends up in academia can gain some traction in their career using dishonest methods (until they are caught at least), and occasionally we hear stories about such people. But these stories are rare precisely because academic research as a career option is most appealing to people who by and large are passionate about advancing human knowledge, and therefore are not predisposed to committing major acts of scientific fraud.

An example is Jan Hendrik Schön. He manipulated data on a big scale. But after people found out about it, he lost his job (and academic career) and even got stripped of his doctor title.
Apart from this, I guess that most scientists are actually interested in honest academic research (i.e. finding out something truly new) and not in a career build on lies. Moreover, many scientists suffer from some other extreme, they believe that they are imposters (while producing valid science).


text:
What should I do if someone else claims an award that I actually won?
I am a PhD student. A few years ago, I won the best paper award at a conference.
However, they didn't post the list of winners on the conference website.
But when I google the name of the conference, the very first search results include someone who already graduated and claims on his personal webpage and LinkedIn profile that he won that award.
The only proofs that I have are the award itself and a congratulation email from the committee.
Currently he works at a company so I don't know how to handle this case especially after his graduation he may no longer care about consequences.
What can I do in this situation?

If the old conference website is still online: write an e-mail to the organizers of the conference, kindly asking them to update the website to include the best paper award winners. You can attach the old confirmation email.

I suppose this depends on the conference, but at least at some conferences there are many more than 1 best paper award. CHI 2015 gave out 21, for instance: http://chi2015.acm.org/program/best-of-chi/ So are you certain there was only one such award?

Yes I am more than sure.
There are two awards: Best Student Paper award that I know who is the winner and the Best Paper award which I won. I even know the second and third winners..

This is messed up, and should have consequences. After ideally getting outside proof as suggested by @lighthouse, and assuming the other person is at a reputable school, their adviser should know as someone like this shouldn't turn academic lifer. I'd let the adviser know, per email, keeping it short but pointing to supportive evidence you have and are happy to share. If that leads nowhere (adviser doesn't care), I'd go up the ladder. If it's a school with doubtful reputation, just shrug: they won't care, and you shouldn't either.

I just came to know from his adviser website that he has already graduated..
@gnometorule: Unfortunately he graduated from a very tough university in the US and now he works at a good company..

@gnometorule: He works in a research lab? do you think they may care about that.
It's the only award that he pretends that he has won..
BTW he graduated from an MS program and he used that award for his application to get the admission since the conference was a year before his admission to the program.. And also he used that in his job applications..

Is this a case where he could possibly have the year wrong? For example, perhaps he won at the 2015 conference but listed 2016 by mistake? Sometimes with deadlines and such in one year (e.g. Nov 2015), but the conference in the subsequent year (e.g. June 2016) it's not too hard to switch them up by mistake. If the conference doesn't list winners, do you know for sure this is not the case?

@marcman: I am sure about what I am saying and the guy has only one paper submitted to that conference..
he is not a PhD student and that's why his list of publications is very short.
Myself I went to that conference 4 years in a row and researchers from our small community we know each others..

@user2987: Well in that case, the best solution is either reach out to him to correct the situation and/or reach out the conference organizers to see if they'll put the true results online. If neither works, just let it go. Karma comes around. As long as it's not directly impacting you, don't waste your energy on such a vagrant. If it is impacting you, you can always link your citation of the award to a picture of you accepting it or something similar.

@marcman: You are totally right and I do agree on what you said however I am not upset because this may have an impact on me but mainly because I do care about science and ethics in the scientific community..
If everyone doesn't care this would encourage many others to do so..

@user2987: Beware the slippery slope fallacy. As you said, it's a small community in that field. If he tries to continue too deeply, someone will probably look to check and figure him out. Or, he'll falsify something else and getting caught will lead to a further inquiry into what else is false. It's rare that someone who habitually lies and cheats makes it far in science and research in today's world

@user2987: if he's in industry, I'd just let it go. I would have hated to think that he turned academic job market star of his year for a number of invented credentials. Just focus on your life. If you ever have to prove that this is your achievement, you can. Also, what marcman says.

Send him a message
Even if you think you know the only truth, maybe there is something you don't know about this award.
If there is no response in.. let's say 48 hours, let's go to phase 2
EDIT : concerning the timing, @O.R.Mapper is right, if he is on a vacation... bad luck.
Send a message to the committee
They gave the award, so explain the situation, and ask them to put on their website the name of the winner for each year.
Explain why you want this.
If the commitee is reacting (if not, will be hard :/)
Send a (still) polite mail to the cuprit and tell him he MUST remove what he puts online.
No response ? let's go to the last part
Write to his university
Even if you think they might not care, it's still a graduate student, it's bad for the reputation of the university to have graduate student with a bad behaviors.
EDIT : as said by @CaptainEmacs , do NOT to accuse someone, even if you're sure it is the truth. Tell politely that you think he might have mistaken, that is all.
I think that's the proper way to do it.

Take care: be very careful in checking your facts: if you made a mistake in assumption and that year saw two best paper prizes (I have seen scaled up to three - which may make sense if there are several outstanding papers); or even if the committee made a mistake and told him he got a prize; and if you then accuse him of cheating, he will be very upset (you would be!) and it is hard to predict what may actually transpire from this.

There was a ceremony of awards attribution and announcement that all participants attended and everybody knows in the conference that there were only two awards: Best Paper Award and Best Student Paper Award. There was another prize which was for the the runner-up that's all..
I am more than sure about my words and as I mentioned in one of my previous comments we work in a very small community and we all know each other.

Then if you're entirely sure, you MUST anyway contact him. Just in order to be sure he didn't mistake with another things etc...

In your place, I would never let go even if he is in industry. He might have get his current post because of this, and it's not ethical.

Even if this is some actual misconduct, making any assumptions based on an ultimatum of 2 days for someone who might well be on a vacation of several weeks seems ... questionable.

Yeah, I'll edit that.

Firstly, there is a chance there is a misunderstanding -- they have mis-written the year for example (I did exactly this on my website at some point. I won an award for best Phd Thesis at a conference, but wrote the wrong year). It is extremely difficult to politely ask someone if they are lying, and my advice is not to directly approach the person in question. If they are lying, I imagine they still won't change anything, and what could you do in that situation?
If you are concerned about someone thinking you cheated, asking the conference to put up a list of previous winners is a good idea, as that then gives you a reference point.


text:
Is it OK to ask my host for an externally organized stay which hotel is being booked?
I will be spending 2 weeks in China later this year, to visit a university and talk to the various research groups. The host university will be paying all my expenses.
My contact person at the host university has asked me if I would like for him to make hotel reservations for me or if I would like to do it myself.
Ideally I would like for him to make reservations, as he knows his own city. But am I "allowed" to ask to see the hotel first, before he makes reservations for me? Or is that considered impolite and rude as they are paying for me?

I am not sure I understand "to ask to see the hotel first". Do you mean see it on Internet? How do you know what you see on Internet is for real?

@scaahu Just to know the name at least, so I can check it online

I guess you can ask, but I would be very surprised if the hotel was actually terrible. If you invite a visitor and agree to pay his trip, you usually also invest the few extra bucks to find him a nice play.

I suspect the university owns its own hotel and you will be staying there.  I think this is a good thing.  You could easily waste all your time in traffic.

@emory I don't think it is very common that universities own their own hotels for guests.

@xLeitix there are 85 university owned hotels in the US.  I suspect the number is higher in China.

Given that it's in China (and I'm assuming you're not Chinese), I would let the host do it for three reasons:

It's important to be gracious to the host. This is a general rule in most cultures, but particularly in East Asian ones. Letting your host be a good host is part of this. Trust your host's judgement here.
My experience with Chinese hotels from Shanghai to Xinjiang is that there is minimal to negative correlation of the quality of the hotel to the website or the official star rating.  It is highly doubtful that you could ascertain anything superior from afar than what the local person would know.
Logistics. The host may want to put all of the people in a particular hotel (or spread them between a particular few) because of logistical reasons: geography and   they have only one van to pick everyone up, etc. etc.

I would let your Chinese hosts handle everything. If you have particular needs (room must face towards the south; hotel restaurant must have halal food; etc.) then let them know. Otherwise, let your host be your host.

@BillyJean Being a Chinese myself, I definitely recommend this answer.

If you have specific requirements regarding the hotel (accessibility, star level, kitchen availability, etc) you may want to send them to your host. The chain of command in academia is rather long. I would suggest that in your case it is something like
you -> your host professor -> their secretary -> their travel agent -> hotel
Each time you want to change your request, it has to pass through the whole chain, which makes the process particularly time-demanding and reduces the efficiency. It is a good idea to keep the number of such iterations as small as possible.

Whether or not there are secretaries and travel agents involved depends very much on the particular university and the seniority of the host. It's perfectly possible that the asker means literally that the host will book the hotel.

If all you want to do is get information about what hotel is being booked, you can always ask them to provide it so that you can share the information with your family and friends as well as the people in your office so that they know how to get in touch with you in case of an emergency.

If you want to have the final decision on which hotel to book, then ask your host for a recommendation of local hotels and how much he's prepared to support your housing expenses. With this information you can book the hotel yourself, and if it exceeds your host's housing support you can pay the difference. Remember that your host is not your travel agent.
However, I think you have a much better chance of getting a superior hotel for the same money if your host makes the housing arrangements. As a local, he likely gets better rates than you are as foreigner. Also the hotel proprietor will be eager to get the next guest your host invites.


text:
What does "This question is left for future research" imply?
In computer science, and probably other disciplines as well, it is common to end every paper with a "future research" section. I always wondered what is the utility of this section. In particular:
A. How common is it, that a question from a "future research" section is actually researched by the same research group?
B. How common is it, that a question from a "future research" section inspires future research by other research groups?
Both these questions can be studied quantitatively, even semi-automatically, by comparing the contents of "future research" sections to the titles and abstracts of papers published in a later date. Has such a research been done?

I can only add anecdotical evidence, but at least in software engineering this section seems to be mostly fluff.

The existing answers are good.  Let me just add one more phenomenom I've seen in my area: it is not uncommon for the "future research" section to contain ideas that the authors don't plan to follow up on, but they think might be interesting.  Maybe they hope to inspire other researchers.  Maybe they're just curious, but don't have time to continue to pursue those questions.
Occasionally, the future work section is used by authors to respond to criticism that "you should have done experiment X" from reviewers.  Adding a sentence to the future work section is an easy way to respond to the reviewer and be able to claim you've acted on their comment in some way: it lets the authors respond to the reviewer comment with something like: "our future work section makes clear that we didn't do experiment X and we consider it out of scope for this paper, but we agree it would be interesting, and we've added it to the future work section".  You can form your own opinion about whether you think this is a good phenomenom or not; I'm just reporting on what I've seen.  Sometimes I've even seen authors include this kind of statement in the future work section of a submitted paper, as a preemptive innoculation against comments the authors anticipate getting from reviewers.  I don't know whether it is really effective, but you can keep this in mind when you read future work sections.  Occasionally this additional perspective may help you understand better why sometimes stuff gets written in the future work section.

I cannot provide a quantitative answer, but from my personal experience I can say that these are often questions that the the same group will study.
Consider that due to the publication process, at the time the paper is published the research is often much more advanced than the results published in the paper. For this reason, the researchers may wish to add "future research questions" regarding what they are currently working on (and may even have some preliminary results on). In this way they "set up" the conceptual continuity and importance of their current work.


text:
Using papers published before admission to partially fulfill PhD requirements
Some papers I wrote recently as an independent researcher, several years after receiving my Bachelor's degree have been accepted at good CS conferences (rank B in the CORE conference ranking).
I'm considering getting a PhD. Is it realistic to expect that these papers can be used to partially fulfill my PhD requirements?

The answer is usually no (publishing often isn't even listed in official PhD requirements) but you'd have to ask your advisor/department/university.

I'm only considering getting into PhD and don't have "my" advisor/department/university. And I've seen publishing listed in official PhD requirements: "It is expected that a dissertation should contain at least two publishable papers (in a peer reviewed journal or highly regarded conference proceeding) – and preferably three" http://www.gc.cuny.edu/Page-Elements/Academics-Research-Centers-Initiatives/Doctoral-Programs/Computer-Science/Program

"Publishable" is not the same as "published".

@JeffE My understanding is that they just mean "published or accepted" there.

That's not my understanding at all. "Publishable" is a statement about quality; "submitted" is merely a logistical hurdle.

Is it realistic to expect that these papers can be used to partially fulfill PhD requirements?

Probably not, if you're in the U.S.  There's a concept of a "Ph.D. by research", which is awarded on the basis of past research accomplishments.  This only barely exists in the U.S., although it's more common in some other countries.
Instead, the way most U.S. Ph.D. programs work is that the dissertation must be based on research conducted as part of the program.  One reason I've heard is that overseeing research in person makes it easier to judge how well or honestly you are carrying it out or how much assistance you might be getting.  In any case, being unable to use your previous papers in your dissertation is generally not a real obstacle to graduating quickly, if that's your goal.  Much of the time in a Ph.D. program is spent developing the ability to do high-level research, and if you already possess that ability upon entering you could finish substantially more quickly than usual.  (I'm not convinced that finishing quickly would be a good career move: it's almost always much better to focus on depth rather than speed.  However, you shouldn't worry that putting your prior work off-limits for your dissertation will be a burden.)

Most academic work is only judged on what you produce during the period of study, so in that sense it is unlikely that an institution would accept previously published papers to tick certain boxes.
It's worth clearing up this issue of publication underlying your question. A PhD is awarded for performing and documenting research of publishable quality during your candidature. It's up to your external examiner to decide whether your work meets that standard, but it helps them make their decision if it has been published (as it means some others have peer-reviewed it).
If your previous work is a solid foundation for your new work, then it may count in your favour, but it would be even better to publish your new work. As you have experience of producing publishable quality research, this goal should be within your grasp :-) Best of luck!

Although I'm a social scientist, this would not be acceptable in my program. In fact, I was not allowed to use a paper I had published during the program directly in my dissertation.
Of course, you can very likely make use of elements of your previous research (e.g., the literature review and perhaps even data) to help reduce the amount of work required to complete your PhD dissertation. At the end of the day, you are going to have to ask your dissertation committee chair and/or department chair what the rules of your program are -- but at most schools in the US, the department wants to see evidence of your ability to work as independent scholar before they let your graduate.


text:
Health aspects of White board vs black board
I am wondering about the health aspects of black boards and white boards.
Black boards have now been around for centuries. Their only detrimental health effect is the chalk dust. Some senior colleagues tell me that they are having breathing issues after several years of teaching. Then again, it's just chalk, which is chemically fairly well-understood.
White boards are a rather recent fad in academia. They do not -seem- to produce dust as much as blackboards, but nevertheless there is a mess over time with ink dripping down onto the floor, and you need replace the erasers regularly. Last but not least, I have no clue about the ink used in those pens and their health effects.
Do you have practical advice how to handle black boards and white boards, and do you know about medical research about them?

They said chalk dust was bad for computers.  Back when we had floppy disks and such old-time devices.

Give them a piece of slate and a flint...

Ink dropping to the floor? What the hell do you do to your whiteboards?

@Polygnome I imagine it's not a case of ink dripping (as a fluid), but rather the kind of flakes you get when erasing markings have been left to dry for a week or two.

I had a teacher who had a special chalk holder because she was allergic to chalk (and regular BandAid bandages, IIRC). I'm not sure if this was dustless chalk, which can provoke a milk allergy because it contains casein.

Slightly off-topic but blackboards are way cooler to write on.

The most important question is whether the coating on Hagoromo chalk contains casein or other allergens.

Black boards - If it ain't broke , don't fix it.

@astronat ever seen Walter Lewin with a chalk & blackboard , go check it out !

I remember in college I had an instructor that used very smelly markers, and I would get really dizzy if I sat in the front row.  Of course, there are low-odor markers and dustless chalk, so keep that in mind.

I thought that lecturers have abandoned both and switched to slideshows

I'd personally prefer chalk-/blackboards over whiteboards. Generally easier to clean well - and chalk can be washed of hands (just needs a sink). - I've seen whiteboards that were a messy smudge and markers that stank horribly... Now whiteboards can be good - with good markers in for example and office. But good markers are not often used in teaching where someone tries to save money by buying cheap stuff...

Chalkdust is not just a breathing problem. I avoid using a blackboard because I will have itchy hands for 2 days after. I have heard multiple other people complaining of the same issue.

I totally thought this was going to be another "race-related" post when I saw it in HNQ

Academics seem to be prone to systematically underestimate the health impact of chalk dust. (As an aside, am I the only one who’s glad to be rid of constantly having cracked skin on my hands?)

Whiteboards are hardly a "recent fad". They're not recent (they've been common for at least 20 years) and they're not a fad (ditto).

"Then again, it's just chalk, which is chemically fairly well-understood." Yeah... about that... it's not the chemical makeup of chalk, it's the fact that you're constantly breathing a particulate, which is awful for your lungs. Any fine dust, be it chalk, wood dust, asbestos, fiberglass, dirt, sand or other particulate will eventually wreak havoc on your lungs. http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/wood-dust-safety/

The only type of board that doesn't affect the air in the classroom is a digital whiteboard (aka a smartboard). If you're using an actual white board or black board be sure that your room is well ventilated and cleaned often. For chalk boards specifically some sources recommend chalk holders and even face masks.
Here are the papers I found on the subject of white/black boards and health:
Blackboards

Effects of Chalk Use on Dust Exposure and Classroom Air Quality

Although using chalkboards in the
  classroom is a traditional and effective teaching method,
  chalk generates a large amount of airborne dust, and
  particularly submicrometer dust and nanoparticles that can
  penetrate into the respiratory system.

Investigation of Lecturer's Chalk by X-Ray Florescence and Fast Neutron Activation Techniques

The presence of Ca and small traces of Al, Fe, Mg and Si elements in the different lecturer's chalk samples were confirmed utilizing Fast Neutron Activation Analysis (FNAA), lifetime, and X-ray florescence (XRF) techniques. [...] It is highly recommended that Chalk dust is
  considered an irritant and an occupational hazard as shown in this investigation.

Assessment of Airborne Fine Particulate Matter and Particle Size Distribution in Settled Chalk Dust during Writing and Dusting Exercises in a Classroom

Though real-time airborne chalk dust generation was found to be low in this study and chalk dust contained only calcium carbonate or calcium sulphate predominantly and did not contain toxic materials, chalk dust could be harmful to allergic persons and may cause lacrimation and breathing troubles in the long run and certainly is a constant nuisance in classrooms as it may soil clothes, body parts, audio visual aids and study materials. The issue of allergy, lacrimation and breathing problem is certainly critical, considering that classroom teaching involves predominantly children and also in many cases teachers who might have crossed the middle age, thus becoming more susceptible. Exposure to low concentrations of fine particles for longer durations can be a matter of concern for children.

Trace elemental profile of School Chalk from a few Companies in Punjab
areas by WDXRF Technique

The results of this study confirmed the presence of the elements like Ca, Al, Fe,
  Si, Ni, and Cr are in significant concentrations. The exposure to elements like Ca, Al, Si, Fe, Ni and
  Cr causes irritation to eyes and skin, cough, potential health symptoms includes accumulation to
  lungs. The study confirmed that black board chalk is an irritant and occupational hazard.

"Dust free" chalks

Investigation of particulate matter performances in relation to chalk selection in classroom environment

Surprisingly, dustless chalk made from Gypsum cannot be called really as dustless because of more [particulate matter] emissions.

Allergenicity of casein containing chalk in milk allergic schoolchildren

Dust free chalk often contains casein, which can cause asthma if someone is allergic to milk (typically it's infants and children who have this allergy).

Whiteboards
I didn't find as much research on whiteboards, unfortunately.

Solvent Exposure during use of Solvent-Based Whiteboard Markers

It does not appear that heavy use of
  solvent-based whiteboard markers by students in a classroom situation would likely result in
  excessive acute solvent exposures.

Analysis of the indoor air quality in greek primary schools

[C]lassrooms using chalk in blackboard are characterized with significant concentrations of large  sized  particles  (PM2.5 &  PM10),  while  classrooms  using  marker  in  whiteboards  from increased VOCs and CO concentrations

Volatile organic compound emissions from markers used in preschools, schools, and homes

I couldn't read enough of this paper to reach any conclusions, but it seems relevant nonetheless

Total nit-pick here xD Not a serious criticism nor even a health concern for modern devices, but a digital whiteboard will produce constant radiation, which will in turn affect the air by heating it. I'd think the "safest" surface to use would be something akin to an "etch-a-sketch" in how the materials are contained within the writing surface. I don't know if anyone has bothered to make a large-scale one with a stylus instead of the knobs; that would be neat :)

I have no idea if it was potentially toxic or not, but the stench of some whiteboard markers is most definitely detrimental (to learning/teaching). I have no idea who made these pieces of rubbish back then, but it wasn't a major recognisable brand name.

@kayleeFrye_onDeck Then use a smart board with e-ink display. It requires no power to remain "on" only to update.

@Tschallacka Ooo, I like that! Thanks for the recommendation :)

Why don't use Ziteboard (https://ziteboard.com) an online whiteboard? You can set the background to black or white.

Why a Black board should be preferred-

White on black is easier on the eyes in a well-lit classroom.
    (due to the difference in contrast)
Black boards provide more flexibility - you can shade and colour with chalk
more effectively, you can write with chalk from any point in the chalk piece,
unlike the marker that has a tip
Tend to be more economical than markers as chalk is cheaper than marker ink.
Chalk is easier to clean than marker ink if it accidentally gets on your
clothes while teaching.
Chalk boards don't produce glare unlike the glossy surface of a whiteboard.
(students sitting at certain angles will have glare issues )
Marker ink residue is more harmful than chalk if ingested.
Marker ink has an unpleasant smell, whereas chalk is odourless.
Marker tips tend to widen and wear out sooner.
While writing, the rough surface of the Blackboard rubbing against the chalk
gives adequate feedback to the writing hand, so it is easier to handle,
unlike the smooth slippery surface contact between marker and whiteboard.
Dustless chalks are available that have a wax coated layer to prevent dust
from flying out.

As far as scientific evidence goes, the human eye is most comfortable reading white on black OR black on white, so it is a matter of convenience as I see it.

Chalk, you can rub it away,
But, when you make those small errors, reaching for the duster/sponge is inconvenient, so you rub the marker ink with your hand and it creates a blob in the whiteboard as well as in your hand.

Not sure, but I'm guessing chalk is more environmentally sound once all the factors are taken in to account?

Chalk doesn't dry out if you leave the cap half-off.

High quality markers don't stink/smell noticeably. - I also got a comment on some good ones even having a bit of resistance once. Unfortunately, organisations seem to buy whatever is cheapest - and some of those markers really stink... (I have no idea why...)

Most of your points are just "bad whiteboard markers suck" but, in any case, this isn't an answer to the question. The question isn't "Why are whiteboards better/worse than blackboards?"

'Chalk boards don't produce glare unlike (...)' I disagree. From experience in school and universities I can tell you blackboards can (and may of the ones I've encountered here in Spain most definitely DO) create a glare that can make you completely miss whole chunks of the blackboard for hours. (To be clear, I'm not saying whiteboards don't, just that blackboards do)

@xDaizu good ones don't but some do , but is considerably lower than white boards .

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Updating an application for a faculty position
I would like to ask if it is appropriate to update documents (e.g. cover letter) in the application package for a faculty position.
Thank you very much for your response
Kind regards,
Yannis

Welcome to Academia.SE. Your question is a little unclear. All documents provided in an application should be up-to-date. You could edit your question by expanding on what do you mean by "update documents."

I assume you're talking about making updates to your application materials after they have been submitted.  If you applied using a website that has a built-in facility for updates, then sure, go ahead.  It might not help (someone who already read an earlier version may never notice the update, or they might not bother to read updates received after the application deadline), but a few reasonable updates won't hurt your chances.
On the other hand, you should be wary of making updates if they aren't handled automatically, for example if you have to send an e-mail.  If a staff member has to update your file, you should be respectful of their time and avoid submitting any unnecessary updates.  A nontrivial change to your CV (such as a prize, or a grant/paper acceptance if you don't have many so far) could be worth an update, but you should not ask a staff member to run about making minor tweaks to your file.


text:
Can a conference paper be an extended version of a previous conference paper? Will it face copyright issues?
I am currently reviewing a conference paper, which I found is just extended version of a previous conference paper. I have heard that a journal paper can be a new version of a conference paper with some new stuff added, while the paper I am reviewing is something like this. Would this paper be rejected simply because of the copyright issue?

Unless there are large blocks of verbatim-copied text, this is not a copyright issue, but rather an issue of intellectual novelty.

@JeffE even if there are large blocks of verbatim-copied text, it still isn't a copyright issue but an issue of intellectual novelty - if I wrote the original paper, I have the [copy]right to include large blocks of it in any way I want, simply that wouldn't qualify as "original, unpublished research" that most venues require for publishing.

@Peteris Maybe. Just because you wrote the original paper doesn't necessarily mean you have the legal right to reuse the text. That depends on the exact copyright agreement you signed/clicked on.

I asked my Advisor, he told me that I should reject it by showing how similar these two are on technical aspect. And I did that.

It would seem that you should contact the organizing committee of the conference and get their advice. To me it seems kind of low to write papers that have very similar content but it does happen.  If you are questioning it that much I would bring it up with the Organizing Committee and see what they say. You don't even have to mention names or specifics but just get their general opinion.

This depends entirely on the conferences involved.  Some conferences will allow an overlap of up to 30% with other works (for example), and others require entirely original products.  In either event, it is imperative that the earlier paper be referenced in the later one, ideally with an explanation of what is new.

I don't know if I read the question correctly. You are the reviewer? Not the author?
If you are the reviewer, the thing you should do is: Open your e-mail client, write to the jounral/conference editor that asked you to make the review, and tell them that you found this, and ask them if they will even consider it for the publication or not. It would be good to give them a link to the other paper, or send a copy attached (if you're legally allowed to do that).

The only case in which it is intellectually honest for conference paper to be an extended version of another is if:

There is a major difference in the length of the two papers (e.g., 4-page extended abstract vs. 10-page full paper), and
The paper declares the relationship up front with a proper citation (e.g., "This paper is an extended version building on the results already presented in [XXX]").

I see the relationship between conference and journal versions as different.  In computer science, where the principle is typically "30% new for the journal version," the theory is typically that the journal version is a final and archival version which ties up all of the critical loose ends and inserts all of the portions omitted for space purposes in the conference paper.  Thus, it essentially supersedes the conference paper.  A second conference paper, on the other hand, should generally present a new piece of work not previously shown.
Thus, for a conference, if both of these criteria are not fulfilled, then you are dealing with a case of salami-slicing and possibly also self-plagiarism and the paper should be rejected.


text:
Is it a standard practice of tenure and promotion committee to ask for review reports of some published papers of the one evaluated?
Is it a standard practice for tenure and promotion committee to ask for referee reports of some published papers of the one evaluated?

Right to what? There are no laws keeping journal article referee reports private or anonymous. This is only done by convention.

I have never heard of it.  Is this a hypothetical question, or is this happening to you?  If the latter, maybe you should clarify the country and whether the committee asks this of everyone going up for tenure or just some people.

Does this not violate confidentiality?

@Kimball This is merely a hypothetical question.

Maybe it does, but there's no law giving that confidentiality. Also, maybe it doesn't. Single-blind reviews are anonymous to allow reviewers to speak their minds without fear of reprisal. Double-blind reviews are blind to fight bias among reviewers based on the authors' identities. Revealing the contents of reports after the fact, especially for accepted articles doesn't affect either of these issues.

Sometimes reviewers' reports are even published by the journal.

@BillBarth I was just checking the links you provided and at the end of the email from Nature with the reviews there is a clear note stating: "This email is confidential and subject to copyright" (http://news.sciencemag.org/sites/default/files/NATURE%20REVIEWS.pdf) so I guess one could say that at least in some cases there might be some (copyright) laws involved.

@Miguel, yes, I assume that Nature published those reports with the reviewers' express permission or just assumed they had a fair use right to them. In the case user describes, I would guess that some reviewer somewhere might try to sue over the copying of their report in the reviewee sharing it with their tenure committee. I don't think the suit would be likely to win because there are lots of defenses available. Also, Nature can assert that it's confidentiality, but that doesn't make it so. Plus, there's no law that I know of that would help them if someone breached the confidentiality.

My university (a private R1) does ask for referee/reader reports in the case of newly published material in tenure and promotion cases. This is done when the scholar has  recently published material that has not been cited elsewhere (thus, no bibliometric citation data) and the committee wants to ascertain the contribution to the field of study that the text may make.
Assuming your publication was accepted, you should view this as a good thing. Referee reports in those circumstances are positive, highlighting the contribution you are making to the field (otherwise, why would the journal publish it?). Folks on tenure and promotion committees also know to read through the negative cruft on reader's reports, so don't worry about that issue either.
p.s. I should note that at my university (as well as others), there is pushback against the use of pure bibliometric data (impact factors) as a way to ascertain a scholar's prominence in the field, but that is another question.

Review reports as in your title: yes.  Asking an outside expert in the field for comments about the published work of the candidate.  This is standard practice in some places and in some fields.
Referee reports as in the question: I have not heard of that.  Except maybe in the case of a paper that has been accepted but not yet published: the referee report or editor's letter may be used as evidence of the acceptance.

I can't think of a committee expecting candidates to preserve the referee reports of previously published papers. I delete the referee reports from my mail box as soon as a paper is published.
They can ask, however, the acceptance letters of the papers listed in your CV as accepted for publication but not yet actually published. In case you don't provide the acceptance letters, the committee might not (or will not, depending on the country, institution etc.) consider those publications in the evaluation process.