text:
After 15 years in biomedical research and 11 years hiatus what career options do I have left?
I had a very exciting research career (stem cells) PhD with the group that cloned Dolly, post docs at NYU and Cornell, even Assistant Professor in Memphis. Not a great publication record but my mentors always wrote amazing references saying I was top 5% scientist they met.
Then we moved a lot, I found it harder to apply for jobs and stopped
for 11 years.
Now I need a job and don’t know how to use my CV. Research seems a nonstarter. A couple of years ago I almost got a Research Scientist position but didn’t go through now I am getting no replies. Also tried teaching/college but also a nonstarter because I don’t have formal teaching experience.
What else can I try? Other career paths that might be open to me? Any certification, course that might revamp my CV and help reinvent myself?
I also have a Veterinary Medicine degree (Italy), a Masters from London Zoo, and what I enjoy the most is love reading and writing about science, science communication on social media or other platforms.

If you almost got a research scientist position two years ago, then perhaps something like that is still possible and you should carry on applying to positions like that. Have you kept up-to-date with veterinary medicine or your research field? Have you published science communications articles recently?

I haven’t any recent publications and my Vet Degree is from Italy and it is a complicated and long process to have it re-certified in the States. I’ll just keep trying. Thank you so much for the reply.

I didn't mean recent publications - I meant just reading other people's research, or maybe going to conferences. If you have a convincing reason for the hiatus and you are still in touch with things, that might help. Also could you talk to people that you previously worked with, to ask for advice?

There's a tremendous shortage of vets in the States.


text:
Should I send a PDF or Google Drive link to professors?
To avoid the spam filter by Gmail, should I directly attach my CV in PDF format or should I upload my CV in Google Drive and put the Google Drive link at the end of my email?
I heard PDFs that contains links (I have so many links in my CV) usually go to  the spam folder. Do you think putting a Google Drive link is the best option to send my CV to professors?

Who knows how university Spam filters work. Some would block drive links, some would block PDFs, some both some neither. I am not sure there is an answer to this that would work generally

I think the problem is that you have many links in your CV. Are they links to papers ? If yes, why not use DOIs ?

@Nobody not just doi, I gave links to the journals linking the dois, moever, I link to every Institutes and every references.

Slightly off topic, but I would remove the full URL for doi and just do doi:[whatever] . It's nicer to look at, gets the same point across, and avoids this issue entirely. This is also how I've usually seen doi presented in CVs.

Fairly typical safety policy these days is that you are not supposed to click on any link from people you don't know. Yeah, some don't follow it, but what if the person receiving your CV does?

I hope you are not cold-sending your CV to people without having made contact first. (Academics get tons of emails from people that want to work in their lab. Most such cold emails end up in the trash, because most senders are just spamming hundreds of academics without investing the time to tailor their applications.) And now, if you have first established some contact with your recipient and exchanged a few emails before sending out your CV, the spam filter should be aware that you are a trusted contact by the time it sees your PDF CV.

Incidentally, I beg to differ with the common advice here not to use DOI links in PDFs. It is getting far to easy to generate impressive-sounding papers with LLMs (be it for a CV, or as "references" for a piece of academic work), many of which are hallucinations or entirely off-topic. Links you can click on is the only time-efficient way to figure out whether a reference even exists, or is relevant. I have been recommending to only accept theses with such links.

@StephanKolassa In my opinion it is good to keep CV as simple as possible. It is sufficient to provide just 2 links to profiles at orcid.org and scholar.google.com. Links to papers and institutions can be included into the profile information.

If your emails land in the spam filter of the people you send it to, it may be an indication that what you are sending is spam. Many institutions have processes in place for hiring PhD students that do not involve you emailing individual professors. In that case you should follow the procedure outlined on their websites and all emails to individuals are just spam.

@StephanKolassa if you click on any link provided in a CV, you can as well spend the time manually looking in your favoured search engine for the impressive papers referenced in the CV: you spend marginally more time (copy&paste in google instead of clicking on the link, the time spent to read the abstract is then the same) and you have a first check on the quality (your brain start to understand where the paper is published etcetc).

A Google Drive link would strike me as odd and would not count in your favor if you emailed me.

Reiterating other answers and comments: PDF without links. Everything else has some security dangers. The links do not add so much...

You could also send the pdf along with a second, follow up, mail after a day or so saying that you have sent the earlier mail and asking if it was received. You could instead and more simply, in the first mail, ask for a brief reply that it has been received.

"You could instead and more simply, in the first mail, ask for a brief reply that it has been received." While you could do that, it not particularly likely you would get  a reply.

It depends on who you send this to.
If they expect an email from you I would go for a link, ideally to a page (google docs style), and to a PDF as a second option.
Why? Because the online content can be changed as needed (possibly with versioning) but when you attach a document it is gone. And you must the rely on filenames such as article-V2-reviewed-draft-v4-final-reviewed-reallyfinal.pdf
If this is cold emailing and they do not expect your email I would send an introduction paragraph mentioning that the article is in the body of the email and as an attachment for their convenience.
Why? Because nowadays everyone avoids clicking around.

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text:
Adding More Empirics During "Revise and Resubmit" Process?
So, I (an early career researcher) have an article submitted to a journal in Political Science. In the article, I use several interviews with very specific and very busy people from my related field. However, after I submitted the article, one participant-to-be got back in touch and said they have time now and we can conduct the interview. I did that. That participant gave some nice quotes and basically confirmed my research outcomes alongside others. Now, the amount of interviews in the paper is on the lower side of the spectrum and I want to include the last one as well.
The question is: Is it weird if I add another interview in the revision process to the paper? So, for example, it will go from six to seven interviews. I will, of course, explain what happened in the response letter as well (late response; it was in line with what the other interviewees offered; if there were something abruptly wrong, I would have pulled the paper anyway).
So is it acceptable to add more supporting empirical data at this point? Again, analysis does not change, premise does not change, etc.

If it improves the paper, especially its reliability, then I see no reason not to add the new material. As you suggest, giving the editor a heads up is correct, though it might slow down acceptance if they think a more complete review is needed.
If the new material is consistent with the old, it might not be needed, but on the other hand, the editor might just accept it without much worry.
If they don't like what you have done then you can go back to the original, but that doesn't seem especially likely.

So, I'll just add this to the response letter for each reviewer and the editor, at the very beginning. The revisions they asked were straightforward but editor called it "major revisions" - though I got the point, the changes are minor but they are major for it to be publishable. But should I send an email to the editor beforehand or revision letter is enough?

It is probably enough to point out the changes when you submit the revision.

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text:
What is the difference between a Teaching Philosophy and a Teaching Statement?
Context: I am a PhD student in mathematics currently applying for tenure-track positions at small colleges throughout the US.
In general, most openings I've seen are asking for what they've termed a "Teaching Statement," while the remainder ask for a "Teaching Philosophy."  Is there a difference between these two documents?  If so, what is it?
I've posed this question to a wide variety of people (colleagues, panels, etc.), and they can't seem to arrive at a consensus.  Some say that there is no difference whatsoever, whereas others say that a statement is supposed to be much more concrete and give more specifics than a philosophy.
I realize that this question was already addressed in some of the answers to this question, but I'd like to hear a little bit more detail, if possible.

One of the confusing aspects of the various fields of academics is that within one field there can be many terms that essentially mean the same thing. People may try to state that there is a difference but normally the differences are so minor that it is essentially hair-splitting.
The difference between a "teaching philosophy" and "teaching statement" is basically the second word used in both terms. If there is more difference then this it is so nuanced that the average person would fail to notice.

There are two ways to describe your attitude to the teaching: to tell what you think should be right and why (a very dangerous thing for a recent postdoc to do on a job market, by the way) and just to list your formal experience and methods to deal with common classroom problems (how to motivate the students, what amount of workload to put on them, etc.). In normal world the first would be called "teaching philosophy", and the second "teaching statement", but in reality administrators just use whatever word sounds nicer to them. So, do not pay any attention whatsoever to the wording, but rather think if you have a friend out there who could tell you what exactly is expected (a small liberal art college would have a very different way to evaluate your teaching statement/philosophy than a big research university and there are plenty of "shades of gray" in between).

They both are definitely different.
Teaching Statement consists of:

Statement of Teaching Interests. (Don't reproduce your CV)
1.1 Some history of your teaching
1.2 Institutions taught in, along with Courses
1.3 What do you love teaching?
etc., etc.
Statement of Teaching Philosophy. (Don't reproduce your CV)
1.1 What do you think should be outcomes of your teaching?
1.2 What teaching methodology do you use? Pedagogy, means "leading children" or Andragogy means "leader of adult men". etc.
1.2 What technologies - OHP, Slides projector, Computer hardware and software; Conventional Blackboards, white boards or An interactive whiteboard (IWB) or Smart board?
etc., etc.

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text:
How to determine which college textbooks are most widespread?
I've come to realize that there's a specific pretty basic topic at the level of college algebra/precalculus which is given competing, contradictory definitions in different textbooks (link). And this topic also shows up at the high school level. I'd like to follow up on this and determine the proportion of students exposed to each type of definition, and ideally a breakdown by geographic location (say, nationality) if possible.
What's the best way to go about determining which college textbooks are most common/ biggest sellers/ used in more classes/ have more students exposed to them (or any related metric)? Or even better: any way to determine what proportion of students are given one of a few different, competing definitions for a topic?

I'm much more worried about textbooks which write i=sqrt(-1)...

@MassimoOrtolano: If we can find a research strategy, perhaps we should investigate that as well.

You could also try asking the publishers.  It might not work, but I could imagine some would want to advertise how popular their books are.

@BenCrowell: Possibly a good idea, and better with subject-specific rankings? E.g., Ratti is #95 in Pre-Calculus, Sullivan is #9.

@MassimoOrtolano: sqrt(-1) is undefined, and thus can be defined at will, as long as one does not attempt to use the same laws for regular square roots for -1. In general, the use of sqrt(-1) is much less confusing than that of the letter i, which is almost impossible to reliably avoid occasionally using as a summation index (at least for a combinatorialists like me).

@darijgrinberg In principle you're right, but actually there are a couple of issues. First, those textbooks, which are common in engineering, define i as sqrt(-1), without defining what sqrt(-1) is and what its properties are. In addition, students tacitly assume that that symbol has all the properties of the square root defined on the positive reals, and this is an endless source of errors. So, though it's true that you can always restrict the relation w^2 = z to a function, the usage of the symbol sqrt() can be misleading, because students who don't know the whole story get confused.

In some sense, this problem and the one pointed out by Daniel in the link to Mathematics.SE are very much related.

@MassimoOrtolano: Ah, sure, this makes no sense as a definition. I was talking of it as a notation.

Check out the Open Syllabus Project which aggregates syllabi from university websites. Might be a good starting point to determine which are the most popular college textbooks for your research.

This is not a literature review question; this is a market research question. (That's not a problem, but understanding the nature of the question helps to determine the most appropriate approach to take.)
Are you asking this question out of personal curiosity, or do you want to undertake a formal research study?

Personal curiosity: I recommend that you contact sales representatives of multiple publishers and ask them these questions. You should first contact the representative for the books with the contradictory definitions. You can ask each of them which are their main competing books, and why their book is superior. (If you only ask the main competitors, they might be reluctant to give you that information; however, if you ask them to compare themselves, they will likely willingly volunteer that information.) You can ask each sales rep your questions about the market penetration of their textbooks. I doubt looking at Amazon rankings would be meaningful, since I would guess that most university textbooks are still purchased through university bookstores, not through Amazon--I don't know that for a fact, though.
Formal research: You need to look into how to do a formal market research investigation. Sorry; I can't help you much here with practical details, but at least I hope this points you in the right direct.

To answer your question: I would like to make a formal research study feasible. Ultimately the end-goal is really "what proportion of students are given one of a few different, competing definitions for a topic?".

You should probably edit your original post with this clarification. That said, my answer remains: you would want to employ formal market research methods to answer this kind of question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_research. Although your goal is scholarly, I think the non-scholarly market research technique would be the best way to go about answering that question. Unfortunately, I'm not a market researcher, and so I can't tell you the specifics of how to do that.

You could ask relevant schools for the textbooks in use, if any. Probably listed with syllabi, and ask the faculty where not/lecture notes are given. Ask specifically about the subject, it might not be covered, or some other source is used for it, not the book (I've been known to do this, use the textbook as rough guide and fill in with material freely available on the 'net).

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text:
How many recommendation letters should you ask a professor to write?
Say a student who wants to further her study in a specific field, so she applies for multiple programs at several universities. Each of these prospective universities requires her to submit at least two recommendation letters. The question is that how many recommendation letters should she ask a Professor to write?
If she has applied for 5 programs at 5 universities, then she needs to submit 10 recommendation letters. She knows 10 professors of her former school, in this case, should she ask each professor to write one recommendation letter for her, or ask the two professors she knows best to write 10 recommendation letters for her?

This isn't a comment on the question per se, but applies to all the answers so far: by preference/as far as possible, ask your referee to write a letter to five universities, rather than asking them five times to write to one university.

When I was applying to grad schools,  I asked four professors for rec letters  and divided them by relevance between schools to cover the 2-3 letters required. I asked them to write a generic letter for the less important backup schools, which I was pretty sure I was going to get into anyway, and then to tweak it to specifically cater to the more important schools (especially when my letter writer knew people there). I am not sure whether or not this is the best practice,  but it's what I did.

Your goal should be to get the absolute best letters possible.
Most likely, of the ten professors the candidate knows, there are two that will be 'better' letter-writers than the others - in the sense that they know her better, have taught her in multiple classes (more than the others) that she has done well in, the candidate may have done some research/reading course with them, etc.
In general, these two should be asked to write a letter each that they would send to the different programs. If a student were to come to me and ask me to send letters to five different programs, I would not write five entirely different letters. The letters might have some minor differences if the programs have some significant differences (applied vs theoretical program, or something like that), but they would be mostly identical.
The only situation where you might ask a third person is if they are a better choice for a particular program, e.g. they might be an alum of that program, or might know someone there personally, might have had the candidate in courses that are particularly relevant for that particular program, etc. In that case you would ask them to write a letter for that particular program in lieu of the default choices.

Normally, you should choose the two people who know you best and can write you the strongest letters, and ask each of them to send one letter to each program to which you are applying. Each of them will write one letter and send copies of it, with minor modifications if needed, to every program, so it isn't much more work than sending one letter.
This is to your advantage (you get the strongest letters) and also minimizes the total amount of work.
If a program needs more than two letters, or you think another professor would be a more suitable writer for one particular program (for instance,  if they have connections to that institution), then you can ask for letters from them as well. But there's no need to get letters from more different people purely for the variety.

From my point of view as a recommendation writer, it's not much harder to send out 5 recommendation letters for a student then it is to send out one letter, since the letters vary only slightly and in most cases the letters can be submitted online.  In my experience, when students ask me for recommendations I typically end up sending out four or five letters per student.
Thus I don't think that it is at all unreasonable to ask your recommendation writers to send out multiple letters (within reason.)

As a professor, the student gets ONE letter. With dozens of requests each year, writing them is very time-consuming and somewhat daunting when one has a "to do" list with multiple students. To be honest, it seems that some students just ask every professor they've had to write one, which is poor planning and perhaps "letter shopping" for the best one.
Students should accept a generic letter that will suffice for any program. I teach nursing so usually, it's for a student's first job as an RN. A few years later ask for a letter when applying for graduate school. I have agreed to those "only" if I know the student very well. Since I do not teach classroom courses anymore, usually I refer them to faculty who know their academic work (not just their clinical work). I hope that's helpful.


text:
Why can't friends or family members write recommendation letters for graduate admissions?
When browsing their web sites, I noticed that apart from those listed academic requirements by different universities, they all require at least two reference letters from applicants, but they did not officially state that who should write those recommendation letters.Although I have collected several recommendation letters from my former teachers, I found it was quite hard to reach my former teachers whom I had not contacted for many years.It almost took me two months from the day I sent out my first email to the day I got enough recommendation letters from my former teachers.
It has been puzzling me why the recommendation letters should be written by school lecturers or professors.The people who know you best are business partners, your close friends, family members like your parents, siblings, why they are not qualified to write the recommendation letters for me?

Because it's a test on how determined you are in getting admitted. Someone who just get a letter from his/her friends look lazy to me

The title of this question is a little misleading. Why shouldn't friends and family write a recommendation letter? In a word, bias. But why can't supervisors or co-workers or civic leaders write a letter? That's a more interesting question, I think.

@JR that's a different question. If you want to ask about that, go ahead and ask in a new post.

I myself applied to graduate school quite a few years after getting my B.S.  It was not easy to get recommendations from faculty who had taught me, as they had mostly retired and some had in fact died over the years.  I did get one academic recommendation, but the professor admitted to me that he did not remember me and had to write his letter more or less based only on my transcript.
In my opinion, a good admissions committee should realize that situations like these occur, and be flexible about what sorts of letters they require.  (I was fortunate that the admissions committee where I was applying was flexible and I did get admitted.)
That said, I would consider a lack of academic recommendations for someone who has recently been in school to be a red flag.  Someone who is applying to grad school should have been a good enough student as an undergrad to have made a positive impression on at least a couple of professors.  Unless you have the excuse of having been away from academia for a number of years, you should definitely have academic references.

Because they cannot be objective.
Because they do not have firsthand knowledge of your academic abilities.
Because they do not have the background necessary to compare you to other graduate school applicants.

Also see Kisses of Death in the Graduate School Application Process, page 2, "Harmful letters of recommendation," subsection "Inappropriate sources," and Protocol for writing a recommendation letter for someone you only know on a personal basis.

Because how many friends or family do you know that would write a totally honest letter (or refuse to write you one if it wouldn't be a good one)?

Does those rules apply to all graduate programms, ff524?

@kitty Yes. Unless the application explicitly says they want a character reference, it is implied that they are looking for an academic reference.

Thank you, ff524! I see one of the universities states that they accept professional recommendation and academic recommendation. What exactly is a professional recommendation?

@kitty A professional reference is one from somewhere you have worked. Generally a boss or supervisor. Ideally the job will have been connected to or involved in research, and the recommender will be an active researcher who has a relevant PhD. You should be careful with these, a recommendation is very different in the professional vs. academic realm. Make sure that any professional recommenders understand the academic culture.

one of the links referenced above by @ff524 was actually asked by myself. The two main reasons are the following:

Lack of objectivity / inherent bias in favor of applicant
Lack of knowledge of academic discipline where candidate wants to apply.

The dilemma I faced that led me to asking the question, I was able to solve by brainstorming with my friend for other more appropriate resources to aid her. Even if the candidate is poorly qualified for the program which he or she has chosen to apply for, very few family / close friends would be willing to disclose this fact because as family, they have an inherent interest in seeing a relative succeed.
A major part of a recommendation is to assess the professional characteristics and prerequisite knowledge an applicant needs to have to be successful in the program, knowledge that family and close friends are unlikely to accurately have and objectively evaluate.


text:
How to thank a good teacher?
Say if you were a graduate of ABC university, and
When you want to thank a teacher of this university because she used to help you a lot in some courses or because she has the same hobbies and interests as yours, and you want to be friends with her:

Should you just send a thank you letter to her or buy her a present?
If you choose to buy her a present, should it be a brand-named and very expensive one?

If this teacher's contribution was to your studies, e.g. went out of her way to help you, in addition to whatever you do for the teacher, send a note to the department chair and/or dean saying how helpful the teacher was to you.  Give specific examples.  (Chairs and deans get the complaints, but seldom the good news.)

In their teaching evaluations

About which educational level are we talking? Secundary school? College? ... I know in some cases, you must be careful, especially if the teacher also supervises the exam, since a gift can sometimes (probably not intended) be interpreted as an attempt to get higher grades...

@CommuSoft, I believe the word is bribery.

@Octopus: well I'm not a native English speaker but in Dutch, bribery implies both parties made some kind of agreement on that. By giving a gift, the teacher does not necessarily agrees on giving higher marks, but it can "change the mood" a bit...

Be careful with expensive presents! In some countries (for example in Germany) a teacher is only allowed to accept presents worth under a set amount of money (10 Euros? I am not sure. It is low.) We even had a teacher being sued to pay over than 20 times more because she accepted a present from her school kids.

Send your praise, short but well formulated, to both the teacher and, for example, the head of department (I am assuming it is by e-mail). This way the praise gets a touch of official praise which is usually sorely lacking in academia.

I agree with bob and peter and vladhagen, she has her boss too. so try to tell her boss the best about her. but in a academic manner. because with this act you help her to obtain the better state. and that is whats she try for.

@BenBitdiddle is department really take care about teachers evaluation?

@alex http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/31623/24384

No gifts. Words speak volumes. If you must give gifts, something handmade is better than anything purchased. Purchased gifts, especially more expensive gifts, may, in fact make your instructor feel uncomfortable and skirts the line of appropriate teacher-student relationships.
At the very minimum, a handwritten, thoughtfully articulated note is the easiest way to thank a good teacher.
A handwritten letter to the department Chair is even more powerful, but the best way to thank a truly outstanding teacher is to nominate him or her for a teaching award. Most institutions have teaching awards that give excellent instructors public recognition, something to enhance his or her resume and best of all they sometimes come with a small monetary reward.

As a college instructor, the one thing that has meant the most to me in terms of thanks has been when students tell my superiors how much they enjoyed having me as an instructor. Even just an email to my boss from a former student was a very solid form of thanks. It made me look good; it also made my supervisor proud of himself for one of his lowlings having success. For me at least, this was the ultimate thanks.

It's not really obvious to me who the superior to a professor is, though. Is it the dean?

The department head is a possibility. And obviously this answer is not a cure all. A coffee maker may be the answer sometimes (Credit Bob Brown).

I might even ask the teacher, "Who is your supervisor?" or "I would like to thank you for your help this semester and desire to pass this on to your chief. Who is he/she?"

A good thank-you note is always appreciated by a former teacher.
I would recommend that if you are a current student at the university, and may have that former teacher again, that you not purchase a gift with a significant price tag, as that could be viewed as creating a conflict of interest. On the other hand, a small memento of personal, but not monetary, value is still appreciated. (For instance, a photograph or small handmade item or perishable good would be OK.)
If you are an alumnus, then the rules are obviously different. However, before giving an expensive gift, you might want to consider if there's an alternate use of the money that might be even more appropriate or appreciated (e.g., a donation to a charitable organization in the teacher's name).

A small gift that's meaningful to the teacher might be appreciated more than a more expensive gift.  I used to gripe about the lack of good coffee in the classroom building where I taught.  A student gave me an inexpensive (less than $20) coffee maker on the day she graduated.  I'll remember that for a long time.

I would also argue against an expensive gift. Not only because of an already mentioned conflict of interest (or possible view of bribery), but also because there might be regulations that prohibit giving gifts above a certain monetary value. There was an interesting case in Germany where students gave a (school) teacher a gift and because it was over the (low) maximum value public officials may legally accept, the teacher had to pay a huge fine. I guess she'll remember that gift, but not in a good way. ;-)

I'll suggest that you write a note. Use paper.
You can add a small gift to this - something that she can keep on her desk, a souvenir perhaps, that is related to her passion/subject.
Other than the great advice above, simply in terms of writing the thank you note, you may find this link useful:
http://www.artofmanliness.com/2008/10/23/the-art-of-thank-you-note-writing/

I'll mention the main points here, and you can use the link for a more elaborate guide.
a. Always write the note as soon as possible.
b. Send it through the mail.
c. Use real stationery.
When writing,
i) Begin by expressing your gratitude for the gift/service.
ii) Mention specific details about how you plan to use a gift or what you enjoyed about an experience.
iii) For some recipients, add some news about your life.
iv) Close by referencing the past and alluding to the future.
v) Repeat your thanks. (in short)
vi) Valediction.
I hope this is useful in penning the actual note.
Cheers!

It is traditional at the time of graduation to give your stole to someone who has provided you with an unusual amount of help and support.  A lot of times this is given to one's parents, especially if they have paid for it, but it can also go to a mentor, as a profound expression of gratitude.

Sending a not very expensive gift but chosen carefully, with a personal note, as suggested above is good.
However, teachers often appreciate if students stay in regular contact with them, discussing future career/family plans and sharing updates about batchmates. It all depends on the kind of teacher and the level of your relationship.

If you google "rate my professor", you will find some very popular websites that you can provide good feedback. Most of those who use such websites, are for giving negative feedbacks.


text:
Include personal scripts & algorithms in scientific paper
as the title said I want to include a lot of scripts I wrote in scientific paper but how I do that do I upload them In GitHub & then cite them or include them as additional materials at the end of the paper.
Thank in advance

Yes to both, though providing code through a service like GitHub may be preferable as you can obtain a citable DOI and your readers will know where to find updated code, if any. Figshare is another option. Providing code in your supplement can provide redundancy, especially if you would like readers to cite your paper when they use your code. See Rule 8 under these Ten Simple Rules for Taking Advantage of Git and GitHub for more details.

OK that's good..If you have any additional informations I would like to know.

Also if I'm not wrong  GitHub will cease from existence in 2020..So what happen to my scripts!

Nothing lasts forever. You can, of course, host the code at a place you control, as long as readers know where it is and you have a way to ensure it will remain accessible.

Let's assume I host my scripts in my Owen website,is it possible to get a citable DOI?

No. You will be responsible for making material on your own site accessible and citable.


text:
Time delay in papers peer-review process
I submitted a paper to a high impact Elsevier journal. However, the problem is things going very slowly. In fact the first reviewer submitted his comments after 30 days exactly which is today but the other one didn't bother at all to accept or decline the invitation.
I'm a reviewer myself and I know sometimes you get busy but this behavior of not declining annoys me so much. If you are busy, just decline and not leave the invitation without respond for over 30 days. What do you suggest? Should I contact the editor and encourage him to take the process himself since it requires 2 reviewers to take decision, or should I suggest other reviewers which may/may not respond to the invitation & take another 30 days or more to respond.
It's been more than 8 weeks since the initial submission and going this way the research loses its novelty since others will implement what I found. So any suggestions?

This seems mostly to be a frustrated rant more than anything else.

@Jon Cluster kind of..


text:
The next step after abstract submission in conferences
Well after the initial abstract  get accepted in conference, then the conference committee decide wether im going to talk ot submit poster.... Now the  question is i need to write a full paper since they said "special edition on conference papers will be published by springer".
If its not necessary  to provide full paper does the poster /abstract get published instead?

This is likely to vary from one conference to another. In the cases I've seen in computer science, abstracts are distributed at the conference, and this sometimes counts as publication, but a special edition published by Springer would include only selected papers (not mere abstracts, not posters). The way to find out how it works in your conference is to ask the organizers.

Well i ask however i got no response....

Well, if they don't know, how could we know? This varies greatly with the venue.

Im asking if anyone face such kind of situation.

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because this information can only be learned from the conference organization.

Obviously only the conference organizers can answer this question definitively.  But typically, computer science conference proceedings only publish papers, not abstracts and not posters.  So if you want something to appear in the proceedings, you have to submit a paper.  Conversely, if you don’t submit a paper, your abstract won’t appear in the proceedings, so even if it’s distributed at the conference, it won’t count as a publication.
(On the other hand, you also typically have to submit a paper, not just an abstract, if you only want to give a talk/present a poster. So your statement “I have to write a paper” sounds really weird; don’t you already have a paper?)
The word “special” also suggests that the program committee will invite a subset of accepted authors to submit papers to the proceedings.  (For example: They might only publish papers that correspond to presentations, not posters.)  Sometimes these invitations are sent out before the conference, sometimes after.  (For example, they might ask for feedback from conference attendees on which presentations/posters to invite.) If you don’t have such an invitation (yet), submitting a paper may not even be an option (yet).
The “special edition” might also refer to a special issue of a journal. In that case, a small subset of presenters will be invited (typically after the conference) to submit full archival papers for publication, after the usual peer review process.
This should all be spelled out explicitly in the original call for submissions.

"Special" does not necessarily means that the PC will invite a subset of the papers. It can also be an open call dedicated to the conference where other submissions, not limited to the conference presentations but close to the scope of it, are welcome.  In any case, all these should be explicitely written in the CfP. But I think I agree that the sentence points out to some LNCS proceedings (this is, probably, what "special" refers to)

@JeffE by "do i have to write a paper" im reffering to the fact that im already writing 3 others papers for journals plus im so lazy about adding another paper to my agenda. The corenfence doesnt clarify anything about publishing papers so i can understand wether it worth it adding another paper into my agenda or just withdraw and not attending....

@PsySp Good point.  Special issue protocols vary widely.


text:
How many US institutions use letter-grades without + or - indications for GPA?
I'm currently reviewing graduate applications and had discussions with friends at Carnegie Mellon University. There, undergrad grades are assigned as A, B, C, with no + or - designations. Thus, a student who might get an "A-" (3.67 towards GPA) would always be rounded up to an "A" (4.0) and these friends said that "B+" (3.33) would almost always secure an "A" as well.
In this grading scheme, there's a huge range of performance that might earn a 4.0 GPA. A student performing B+ / A- work (e.g., 3.5 GPA at my school) would be rounded up to a 4.0. That makes a big difference when I compare to other schools that use the traditional A-/B+ US grading scheme.
As far as I know, this is a rare grading scheme - but I'm curious if there are other US institutions that use this scheme?

Source: CMU University Grading Standards

I know there's considerable variation - and  I'm not really looking for a 'shopping list' - more a question of whether there exist other schools with little nuance in the course grades like this. IMHO it generates inflated GPA / QPA because good-but-not-top performance will still net a top letter grade.

There is quite a lot of variation. Some don't even use 4.0 as the top. In some places the grade assigned is a letter grade, not a number. The numeric conversion, then, doesn't involve rounding. It is just the number equivalent to the letter. The numbers are used to compute overall GPA, but do not relate to numeric grades in and individual course. Some courses (mine) have numbers between 0 and 1000, with letter grades defined by a table, but the university only sees the letter grade.
Other places the grade assigned might be a number such as 3.67, though I think this is fairly rare in the US.
Plus and minus grades is a fairly recent refinement (50 years??). One university  in my past had problems when they started to give A+ grades since graduate schools then considered the place to have a 4.5 scale, not 4.0. This effectively downgraded gradates with "perfect A grades". The had to rethink the system in a hurry.
But to find out which for some set of universities you need to do the research. Contact the registrar's office if you want the true picture.
And some parts of your question suggest that you are confusing an individual course grade with an average over several courses, each weighted differently. The weights come from the "credit hours" assigned to the course. Thus a course that meets five hours a week might be "worth" 5 credit hours and an A there contributes 20 "quality points" toward the GPA. A course meeting one hour a week would "count" less toward the GPA.
I took a writing course once in which the prof defined his grades thus:
An "A" on a writing assignment means that it is written as well as it can be written. A "B" was assigned if it was written as well as any college student could expected to write it. Etc. I forget the rest. The course was 3 credits so an A gave you 12 points toward your GPA, since the conversion was the typical A = 4.0.
Add up the "quality points" and divide by the number of credit hours completed to get the GPA. But there was no "average" in a given course. Just a grade.
If I had to guess, I'd suggest that more places use plus and minus grades now than don't. Before ubiquitous use of computers it was harder to have a more nuanced system, but now, the prof just needs to check a box for each student and the computer takes it from there. And some older, more conservative university systems want to stick with tradition. Why change what ain't broke? So, if you got your degree from CMU in 1960 and your grandkid did in 2015, your grades are on the same scale. Nominally, at least.

I tried to eliminate the aspects of a course vs. an average for the student. They're connected - in my question, it's easier for a student to gain a high average because of the lack of nuance in the grading scale. (My school uses credits to weight the QPA, but not all do)


text:
How extended must my extended paper be?
I have been approached to submit an extended version of a research paper in a journal.
The original paper is already published in a conference proceedings by publisher A.
What "degree of extension" do I have to provide so that publisher B will (legally?) be able to publish my work?
Also, does "extended version" in this case mean additional results, or purely textual extension?

What field are you in?

@JeffE Computer Science

Which subfield of computer science?  (Yes, it matters.)

@JeffE Sorry - Information Security in Computer Science

In most subareas of Computer Science having the paper with "at least 30% of new material" would be acceptable. This is particularly true of conference->journal paper transition, for instance when a conference version of the paper is extended with new results, more thorough description of the research contribution (and/or methods, materials, related work) and then submitted to a journal. Sometimes this also happens when a conference organizes a special issue of the best papers in a journal.
Nobody will measure how many words/letters you added, but you should be able to convince the reviewers/editors that the paper is extended. Pointing out the differences between the previous publication and the extended paper in the introduction would normally help to reviewers to assess if the extension is enough. Basically, what you want to avoid is Salami Slicing or Least Publishable Unit (see comment by BlackPudding at Is it unethical to submit for review multiple articles which overlap in some respect?)

As pointed out by aeismail, every journal have different policy. Usually, the journals/conferences accepting extended papers mention such things in there Call for Paper as well.
For example, this is a quote from CFP of Special Issue on Emerging Systems and Applications for Wireless Health Computing

All authors who presented papers at Wireless Health 2013 are invited
  to submit extended versions of their papers to IEEE TETC for inclusion
  in this special issue. Given that the Wireless Health 2013 proceedings
  will be published, it is required that submissions to the special
  issue have at least 30% new content.

Though, it is not very clear what exactly 30% new content means here, but it does indicate that your extended paper should have at least some new significant observation from may be at least  the same results of your original paper.

"it does indicate that your extended paper should have at least some new significant observation" - where is that indicated?

I don't think there's a single "default" answer here. However, I would suggest that if you are planning to publish in B's journal, that you do both kinds of extension: provide both additional explanations that were in the original material, plus present different results (if possible) than what was in conference proceeding A. You should also avoid direct repetition of material, where possible.
However, before agreeing to this, I would also consider asking the journal editor to provide you some examples of what he or she considers "extended versions" of other proceedings, and review them to see what you think of the extensions. If you're not comfortable with the changes (in that they're not expansive enough to be a "new" paper), then you're free to tell the journal you're not interested.


text:
How can someone from a developing country study pure mathematics/theoretical physics at a university abroad?
The quality of university level education in developing countries (North Africa in my case) is mediocre at best, especially in the sciences (my interests lie primarily in mathematics). I've found that the appropriate places for getting this education would be France or Russia, more specifically ENS and l'École Polytechnique in Paris (I'm aware that going to the classes préparatoires aux grandes écoles is strongly advised, but how can I avoid going there if possible?) and the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow (which teaches in Russian which I will vigorously try to learn).
Can I study in my original country for a little while then go there? How do each of them cost? How can I proceed to achieve this almost impossible goal?
If you know of any other good mathematical institution that accepts student from North africa, please suggest it.

You can't avoid going to a class prepa; and to only target these two is way too slim - probably the top 10 if not 20 ecoles d'ingenieur have top math education (...that is, if the recent changes didn't wreck the system). The entry exam to a an Ecole expects what amounts to a B.A. in math/physics, so you must attend a preparatory class. That said, good schools in England or Germany, say, have, language barriers aside, good quality math as well.

Polytechnique has what is called "Admissions parallèles" for foreign university students .

@IbrahimApachi on the contrary, aiming only for two top universities is risky. A more sound strategy is to aim high AND a bit lower, just in case.

@Davidmh what would be a good  third choice?

@DanielFaustMontana Sorry, I have no idea. But I would apply for all the schools you wouldn't mind going to.

@IbrahimApachi And when you apply only to "top schools" and are rejected, then what?

@Ibrahim Apachi  yes I do know of the difficulty of this endeavor,but no matter how untalented one can be, there still a chance of getting there ,isn't there?

Hi Daniel. Long time no see ;) So, what did you go for ? Hope all is well.

The African Institute for Mathematics (http://www.aims.ac.za/) is an institution meant to help those in your situation. Essentially, it is supposed to offer talented budding mathematicians from Africa the fundamentals to be competitive to apply to the top places all over the world.

One alternative, if you wish to study in a French-speaking country is the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in French-speaking Switzerland. It ranks highly in international rankings (overall higher than the schools you mentioned, although I don't know specifically for maths), and costs about 1300$/year in tuition (4.5 - 5 years to get Bachelor and Masters).
On the contrary to the French institutions you listed, the selection does not happen before you start the studies, but during them. The school is typically easy to enter, but there is a high dropout rate.
The typical route for prospective students who do not have a Swiss high school diploma is the Cours de mathématiques spéciales (never mind the silly name). It's a one year intensive math program to get you ready for the EPFL programs.
There is a significant community of French-speaking North-African students there, so it looks like this route is popular for you fellow nationals.

Seems pretty good,but I couldn't find any influential mathematician that studied there,does that matter?

@DanielFaustMontana I don't know the mathematics field well enough to answer that question.

Let me clarify the classes prépatatoires stuff : their sole function is to prepare student to a competitive exam.
I don't know if as a foreign student can directly apply to the competitive exam.
However, as a foreign student you can apply for this instead :
(http://www.admission.polytechnique.edu/home/ingenieur-polytechnicien-program/the-ingenieur-polytechnicien-program-23948.kjsp?RH=1252490031181)
It states that :

The Ingénieur Polytechnicien Program of Ecole Polytechnique recruits
  the best students who have completed two or three years of
  undergraduate studies in Science or in Engineering

Please check this admissions conditions as well:
https://www.admission.polytechnique.edu/home/ingenieur-polytechnicien-program/admission-requirements/admission-requirements-24008.kjsp?RF=1262268322650
You should give a phone call to the schools you mention. It's very likely they will help you sort this out!
As per this :
http://www.admission.polytechnique.edu/home/ingenieur-polytechnicien-program/finance-your-studies-how-does-it-cost-to-study-a-l-x-/
Tuition fees are 4.000EUR, 12.000EUR, 8.000 EUR for 1st, 2nd and third year.
Please let me add that Polytechnique is the most prestigious school in France. Not being able to find the aforementioned elements by yourself is a kind of concern. I really don't want to be rude, but really want to emphasize that the education level is very very high!

Btw if you are interested, the exam takes place this month...

That's kind of expensive,do they offer anything to bypass that?

(Your idea of a 'good' institution seems rather strict to me.)
Montreal is home to a number of students from north Africa (and many other places), and gives you a choice of two languages (although English will be needed for most research careers in mathematics). Their fees are relatively low (although that might be changing).

authors: رندؤ الموسوي


text:
What tool or process can I use to see revisions on papers I am grading?
Like many professors, I ask for drafts of papers of more than a few pages (1500+ words). I provide comments focused on content. (I might make occasional corrections to grammar or word choice--particularly if a term of art is misused--but since I am not teaching writing-focused courses, would be more likely to refer a paper with consistently poor grammar, misspellings, etc., to the campus writing center.)
The problem comes when I am grading revisions. Occasionally a student will overlook some of the recommended changes. Maybe they ran out of time, maybe they disagree with the suggestion, maybe they're just surly. I don't know. But sometimes when looking at revisions, I will want to know what has changed in the text, and will end up having to look and awkwardly compare their draft submission.
My question is what tool or process can I use to see revisions as I am grading the final submission?
I will briefly share some experiences and biases:

Microsoft Word with Track Changes: I'll entertain arguments that this is the way to go, but I have two issues which I'll make clear up front. I have tried this, and when students get my revisions, they will accept my in-line revisions, but it doesn't make them think about what they are writing. Of course, they could still make changes based on margin comments. Another issue is that I am using Linux. Doing track changes in LibreOffice does seem to work, but I am not confident that this won't lead to errors.
Crocdoc (tool built into LMSes like Canvas and Blackboard): I love Crocdoc. The student can upload in MSWord or PDF and you can view and edit in the browser. You can do copyediting marks on the page, but unlike MSWord Track Changes, the students have to make the proposed change themselves, rather than just accepting your edits. Margin comments and global (assignment) comments are also supported. The problem is that you can't simultaneously view versions without actually downloading the files.
Version control system (e.g. GitHub): Might be able to get away with this in a technical program. Would be happy to hear people's experiences if anyone has used this for grading papers as opposed to coding projects.
Plain text/markdown: Even without using a version control system, I could use diff tools to view revisions on my local machine.
Use strikethrough and bold in the document: Would be similar to my experience of journal article revisions. Main problem is sometimes drafts are very preliminary, in which case the final "revisions" will be almost an entirely different paper. Maybe don't use in that case?
Google Docs: I've tried this. It wasn't bad, but without typical LMS tools I had a huge problem keeping submissions organized (in terms of what I've already reviewed, when student edits constitute a submitted revision). This would work better for supervising a thesis or independent study, but was tough with a class of 20. Also, I was annoyed by constant emails as student marked my comments as "Resolved".

These are just ideas. Feel free to expand or ignore, and please suggest things I haven't thought of.

In addition to whatever gets recommended here, you should talk to your school's Enterprise Systems department (or the equivalent thereof - essentially, whoever is in charge of your school's LMS, if there is one). If there's enough interest from you and your colleagues, they may be able to approach the LMS developers and ask for an additional feature like this. Alternatively, they may be able to provide an in-house solution (depending on the size of the university). I met with some LMS devs at a conference once (as a student) - they seem to be fairly receptive to such suggestions.

Also - you could always try running Word under Wine on your Linux machine and using the built-in comparison features.

Is Crocdoc any different from "regular" PDF annotation tools?

Do you need to compare just revision n-1 with revision n, or at any two arbitrary points in time? The former is surely easier.

I haven't used PDF annotation tools so I don't know. Comparing n with n-1 would be adequate for my needs, though obviously the more general case would also be useful.

I've certainly used tracking changes in LibreOffice successfully in the past (on a couple short projects).

Do you have the ability to specify the 'product' they use (i.e., can you go as far over to the bright side as Latex? Sharelatex (web based latex) works very well for seeing 'history' of changes in the content of the latex file. The difficulty might be in annotating - but if you can annotate a  pdf of the draft, then upload it into the workspace (version 1), that could provide working version of drafts.

I can specify products within reason (should be free or gratis, and web-based or cross-platform). LaTex has a steep learning curve and I would only do that in an entire program (i.e. other faculty using in their classes) committed to LaTeX. Something similar that used Markdown (or plain text) might be doable.

At my university, our agreement with Google is designed to make sure the content is hosted in the US so that FERPA-covered materials can be posted to it (I think. I know it's true for Gmail). This includes shared Google Docs which would have the full change history. If that works for you, then you could easily go with that. I'd check with your university-wide, central IT department (if you have one) to see if this option is available to you, too.

What if the OP is in Europe ot in Australia?  Does the OP need to be FERPAc?

My present institution actually uses Google Apps for student and faculty email, so this is an option. I have tried it and had issues with the lack of LMS tools to manage submissions. I've updated question with this information. I wouldn't mind seeing this answer expanded if you can address your experience with it.

@Llopis, then I can't help them. I don't know the student privacy laws in those countries. I don't even know if there are any. The OP should check with their university IT people to find out what's required and whether Google Docs is allowed for student work regardless (or any other cloud-based solution).


text:
Who owns an academic journal?
Reputable academic journals have independent editorial boards, but who owns the journal? Are they owned by academic societies, universities, academic publishers? Are there several different ownership models, and are some more common than others?
This question is distinct from the question of who owns copyright on the articles, since journals can publish some or all of their work with copyright retained by the author, or with a Creative Commons license, etc.

The answer seems to be, yes, all of the above...

Not only are all of these models used, but the owner, publisher, and brand can all be different from each other.

The answer seems to be "yes all of the above," true, but I also think it's an interesting question for deeper elaboration. Is one kind of ownership more common in some countries, fields? + 1 (but fyi "disciplinary societies" to me sounds like punishment societies, not professional ones")


text:
Which is the most accepted measure for an individual's academic productivity?
Among the various indices for academic productivity/impact in the respective field, which is most accepted one?
You can see some productivity measures, used in academia, here and here
This question is inspired by the comment here and should not be confused with this
Clarification:
The word accepted meant to be taken as accepted in the respective field of activity, for various requirements, say appointments, career advancements, selection for awards, invitation as an examiner, editor, reviewer etc. These measures might not have much impact on the general public, and that is not being asked.

The "eyeball norm". I am afraid.

There is no accepted numerical measure for an individual's academic productivity.  The available measures can sometimes be useful, but they all have serious weaknesses and many detractors.  In particular, there is no widely accepted or safe choice: if you make any public use of a productivity measure, many people will react angrily, no matter which measure you choose (and their anger may well be justified).
Added in edit:  In my experience, citation and publication counts are sometimes mentioned in letters of recommendation, but just as a crude numerical measure, rather than with any serious importance attached to them; most letters do not mention them.  (I've never seen an h-index mentioned in a letter or job application, but perhaps it is more common in physics.)  Hiring committee members occasionally impose minimal numerical standards, but just to rule out inappropriate cases ("we won't consider anyone for a tenure-track job unless they have at least two publications", say).  In the departments I'm familiar with, nobody uses them to choose between serious candidates.  Like Dan C says, they just aren't that useful: they add a small amount of information, with a lot of noise and even systematic bias.

Adding a clarification. Accepted meant, accepted in job interview, promotions, etc in the respective fields than in the general public.

There is no such measure in mathematics that is widely accepted for use in interviews, promotions, etc. (and I believe the same is true in other fields, although there are a lot of diverse academic fields out there, so who knows).  Occasionally administrators impose these numerical measures on faculty, who generally complain that the results do not reflect genuine accomplishment.  When I said "public use", I meant as opposed to using it secretly.  For example, if a department announced that it was using the h-index to rank candidates, that would upset many people.

This is something about the number of  departments/institutes that accept a particular ranking over some other ranking; leaving out the differences in opinion. Thus the 'accepted ranking' may be quantified.

I agree with Anonymous Mathematician that likely any numerical measure will be insufficient.  The best measure is that of esteem by your community.  This will often be reflected in:

invitations to speak
inclusion in special issues of journals
election to society offices and/or
professional awards.

As much as administrations would find it convenient, scientific impact cannot be distilled to a few numbers.
Edit:
I think part of the issue is that Noble is asking for some metric that can be used by non-experts to judge a researcher in a field other than theirs. And essentially, what we (Suresh, AnonMath, JeffE, myself, etc.) are saying is: "No. You can't really get a good answer, without asking experts within the field of the person you want to evaluate." In some sense, this is a predictable power struggle. Outsiders want a way to do it on their own, and the insiders are saying "No, you can't do it right without us."

Don't the esteem, some way or other related/tied to these measures?

@NobleP.Abraham Only very loosely.  For example, some groundbreaking results get cited dozens or hundreds of times.  Other groundbreaking results are so hard that it's difficult for anyone else to say anything more on the subject.  So the paper may get cited far less, even though it's a magnificent achievement.

Agreeing with you on drawbacks of such measures, but don't certain institute prefer some particular metric over other, when competent candidates apply for a job?

PhD institution is important, but by far the most important is publications and letters of recommendation.

+1 for the edit.  Yep, that's exactly what we're saying.

It is pretty clear to me that in fundamental mathematics, such a measure exists and is widely used: existence (and number) of papers in the five or ten most prestigious journals.
In France, publishing in one of this paper is very important for getting a professor position. We tend to pretend we judge people on the content of the papers, but the first thing we look at is for Annals of math, Inventiones and the like in publication lists.
The US system is less known to me, but it seems very important to publish in one of these journals to get tenure too, at least for some people: I have heard a well-established colleague saying that when he was refereeing for, e.g., Annals of Math (arguably the most prestigious of all), he asked himself whether the paper was worth giving the author a career for the rest of his or her life.

I feel like pointing out that the very use of the word 'productivity' reflects a certain kind of bias towards "quantity". Ultimately, there are many different ways in which a researcher can make useful contributions to their field, and society at large. Maybe a key insight, a new way of thinking, a set of tools, or even a large group of students. Any particular measure of impact captures some subset of these, but there's typically no way to capture the entirety of a profile, and if you resort to numbers, the problem gets even worse.

Thanks. Exactly, these measures are about quantifying a quality. While the metrics may not fully fulfil their purpose, they are being used for various purposes. I would try a simple example: consider two scientists applying for professorship, they have equal qualifications, in terms of number of publications, number of students graduated etc. The only difference they have is the number of citations to their papers. Their impact on society at large is somewhat a difficult quality to measure. So, these indices have to be utilized, for an unbiased award of professorship.

I would argue that there is no unbiased way to evaluate scholarship, and so one must embrace subjectivity while being transparent about it.

Agree, there is no unbiased way

two scientists applying for professorship, they have equal qualifications, in terms of number of publications, number of students graduated etc.  The only difference they have is the number of citations to their papers — The situation you describe simply doesn't happen; in the real world, ceteris is never paribus.  What happens in practice is we invite both candidates to interview.  If both interviews go equally well (which, again, never happens) we scrutinize their reference letters, we argue about the quality and promise of their research, we argue about fit, we disagree, and we vote.

@JeffE Thank you for your inputs; what happens in actual practice is important. That was just a made up example, to ask what if such a situation occurs.

I should also emphasize that all of the numerical metrics you list — number of publications, number of students, number of citations — are of secondary importance to the perceived quality, impact, and importance of the applicant's research record, as judged by experts in their field.

@JeffE Can you a add your thoughts as an answer. Should  the question be edited? Suggestions are most welcome.

I don't think I'm saying anything that Dan, AnonMath, and Suresh haven't already said — None of the various indices are accepted as accurate measures of productivity, impact, or reputation.


text:
Keeping track of definitions
I recently handed in my master's thesis (CS), and I did what you should not do for your own peace of mind's sake: I skimmed it again afterwards. I realized that I had not updated some statements to reflect the omission of some definitions that had existed in an earlier version, an error that I didn't catch despite proof-reading - I assume because I was in the mindset and knew what the statements were about, so I missed that some symbols were not defined in the relevant context during proof-reading.
I also recently came across this speech by Leslie Lamport on how to write clearly structured proofs, and the structure he suggests should lend itself very well to organizing mathematical publications in such a way that everything is easier to cross-reference as well as check for syntactical and semantic problems.
Has anyone else had the problem that only after they finished working on something, they realized that it had undefined symbols/statements that made sense in an earlier version, but need updating to the current one? If so, how to track those issues? An off-the-cuff way would be to have a dependency graph in the background, but I'm not sure something like that is available.

I could not think of suitable tags to assign to this question; feel free to add any you consider fitting.

Perhaps the best way to avoid such issues is to ask someone else to read the document.

An annotated glossary might help if your paper format allows for that. My paper. I define everything in that section, then use the terminologies freely throughout.

I don't think the annotated glossary idea is a good one: not introducing the new terms you are using "inline" requires the reader to go back-and-forth to that section, which is very boring. It might be a good idea in hypertexts, or as an added facility.

@akappa Sorry, I've been getting horrible with my sentences lately. I cover the details needed to explain my point in the paper, and then expand on it in the glossary if necessary. So any changes you need to make in your paper, you should check the glossary to make sure it reflects that, and then check other entries that the glossary entry is used in.

Naive suggestion, which works only for notions that are not dictionary words: Run over your text with a spellchecker whose dictionary you have not modified, and check that the first appearance of every unknown word is its definition? It's a crude tool, but it might catch at least a few issues of this kind. Of course, if you have an index of your notation, then it is even easier, as you can look for the first appearances of the words in the index. But there is still the question of making sure that all notions you are using appear in the index...

Do you write in LaTeX? The glossaries package can handle all of that. By inserting macros for each symbol and technical term, you can keep track of each occurrence and easily create an index of definitions. This does require a conscious effort throughout the writing process – it defeats the purpose if you don't use the macros for every occurrence of a symbol.

@Moriarty I will have a look at that, that sounds exactly like what I'm looking for - thank you! If you'd like, please add that as an answer, I'd like to give you credit for it.

This happens all the time.  I find it helpful to put it aside for awhile before a final proofread.

Whenever I am doing a mathematics-heavy piece of writing (in LaTeX, of course), I tend to track the formal notation with two tools:

Every piece of notation (symbol or otherwise) gets its own \newcommand, which is used religiously.
At the first point where formal notation starts to be used, I add a table of notation that includes all of the significant notation.

It is further typically the case that each of these is broken out into its file (e.g., notation.tex, symboltable.tex) that is input into the main document, so that there is no chance for the definitions to spread around into different parts of the document.
There are several nice things about using this approach:

Using LaTeX commands for notation ensure that notation will be consistent
It is easy to change notation by changing the contents of the command
When you remove a piece of notation, you can delete the old command and be assured of errors anywhere that the command remains
The commands file can be used as a checklist for completeness of the table, and the table as a checklist for completeness of the definitions in the text body.

In many cases, the table may not survive all the way to submission (though I very much like to have one, it is an easy thing to cut from an over-length paper), but adding or removing it is just one \input line to comment in the source file, so it can still be very much a part of the manuscript development process, even if it's not showing up in the final manuscript.

That sounds like a very useful approach; I would be interested in a publication using that style, would you mind linking to one of yours?

@G.Bach Here's a good example: A Calculus of Computational Fields.  This is one where the table of symbols has been removed in the final pass.  Another example, where the table of symbols is retained: Bridging the gap: a roadmap to breaking the biological design barrier


text:
PhD examiner disappeared, what I can do?
I past my PhD viva with minor corrections in June. Both examiners were happy and promised to send lists of corrections the following week.
Unfortunately, only one did that (and confirmed I corrected all of his comments). The other examiner hasn't replied any emails from me and my advisor for two months until now.
This examiner is a really nice person, so I'm afraid something wrong might have happened to him. If this is the case, I will also be in a great trouble, because if I can't finish my PhD, I have to enrol again in September, i.e. next month.
I'm doing a postdoc in the US, doing enrolment again means I have to go back to my school in the UK to show my original passport and Visa etc.
My advisor told me I should not worry. But the September deadline is close, given 2 months without any responses.
My questions are:

What should I do now?
I also know prof A, who is the head of the group of this examiner. I talked to him twice in workshops, and connect with him on Facebook. It means he only knows that I'm a random student in that neighbour university. Should I ask him about my examiner?

One of the benefits of being an academic is being able to take a summer vacation. You may not get rapid responses until the next term starts. Have you tried asking the department whether they know hos to contact the missing examiner before then?

@keshlam one automatic reply we received saying he would be on vacation until July 20, i.e. several weeks ago. And I don't think it is common for vacation to be longer than 2 months. As I've mentioned, I can't wait until next term.

@jakebeal Thanks for your edit, but you only change my British English words to American English words.

as I said, ask the department to help you find out what's up. Administrative Assistants can work magic.-

@keshlam do you mean my department or his department? he is in a different university.

His. They're the ones who would know, and who he'd be most willing to listen to.

@qsp My pardon: I didn't realize that enrol was actually a correct spelling in British English.  My main point was the tag edits; please feel free to undo my Americanization.

@qsp What happened in the end, did both examiners sign off?

In circumstances such as this, you should consult the faculty member or administrator in your department who is responsible for overseeing the thesis examination process for doctoral candidates.
Different departments have different ways of handling such non-responses. In some cases, they may simply say that the examiner has, through non-communication, implicitly accepted the thesis "as is." Other departments may unfortunately insist on having both examiners "sign off" on the final submission before it is accepted. My department, for instance, leans toward the first policy, in that it is the actual supervisor of the student who "accepts" the final submitted version of the thesis.
However, without talking specifically to people in your department, it is impossible to tell you what will happen here.


text:
How safe is it to provide my credit card information to an admissions office?
Recently, I got admission to a PhD program in the United States. And they have prepared my I-20 and the other documents to send me by mail.
They have offered me to provide them my credit card number and expiration date so they can send the documents by express service. They also offered a free regular service too.
How safe is it to provide my card information to an admission team? I know, probably, they will not misuse it, but do they protect it afterward too?
Do they have any obligations for the protection of the information.
Is it a common offer in all the USA?

Is this through an automated form / payment processor or is it being requested in an email?

@guifa it was through an email.

Is there some reason why you need these documents quickly?  If so, I recommend telling them, "I'm not comfortable submitting my credit card information over email." Do you have a way of making a wire transfer?  If so, you could ask them for their bank's SWIFT code and account number.

I wouldn't send any personal information like that through an email, even if I were sure the email was sent from a secure and trusted location. Whether this be for an admissions office or anywhere else.
My advice would be, if you wanted it, to call the admissions office directly and provide the information over the phone to get the express service. There is an added fail-safe of you looking up the number and calling it yourself to ensure it is legitimate.
Otherwise, just take the free postage if you are that concerned about having your details stolen.

You may also want to see if your bank allows you to generate a one-time transaction number.


text:
Is there a rule of thumb regarding the minimum threshold for a person to be 2nd author of a paper?
I’ve been working on a machine-learning project for the past several months, and I will publish a paper on it soon. On the other hand, there is a person with whom I have worked on various things since a year ago. However, I haven’t told this particular project to him until it was pretty much completed. Even after I revealed it to him, his net contribution to the project seems to me rather negligible.
For example, he made no contribution in terms of original ideas, designing of the algorithm (as he wasn’t informed of my project until later) or writing the paper, and his only contribution to the codes is just one small function, which is a variant of a function I wrote and he thought was useful for supplementing an evaluation of my algorithm. Though he offered to run my algorithm on his GPU; it seems that he hasn’t tested it yet. So far, all the results were achieved with my GPU. Besides, even if he gets a good result on his GPU with the code exactly same as mine, I'm not sure whether he deserves to be a second author of the paper.
There is one project we worked on before but didn’t result in any paper, to which my algorithm can be applied, so that another paper can be published on. My suggestion is that I will help him to apply my code to this past project, so that he can be a co-author of the past project rather than the current project I’m working on.
Does this sound reasonable? Or am I being too parsimonious? Is there any relevant rule of thumb?

Seems reasonable, unless you think one paper that combines the algorithm and applies it to the prior project would be a stronger paper.

If your friend is at all reasonable and things are as you say, he probably doesn't expect anything more than an acknowledgement.

@John “If my friend is at all reasonable, and since it doesn’t cost her anything, she probably won’t make a fuss about including me as an author given that I contributed to the implementation of the project.”

@KonradRudolph True. Whether or not a person expects something more and whether or not they would accept something more are two very different questions.

There’s no minimum limit. Second authors can contribute ideas, work or anything that went into the paper. Some might even cynically say that contributing reputation is enough.
Having said that, if you’re not satisfied that your friend has actually contributed anything significant to the paper that warrants author status, you can always mention him in your acknowledgement section instead of adding him as a second author.

Thank you for your input. I will definitely mention him in acknowledgment in that case.

"Some might even cynically say that contributing reputation is enough" +1

Does this situation change if your friend is not your friend and actually your advisor?

@CarlosMougan This might be different for different places, but in my day, it was customary to afford advisors / supervisors an honorary position as last author even if they didn't do the experiments / analysis / writeup. They probably guided your thinking and almost certainly had some influence on helping you (academically) get to a position where you could write the paper. If not an honorary author, at least mention them in the acknowledgements. Leaving them off completely was a bit of a slap in the face in those days.