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What is the significance of the overview slide in a presentation?
The first slide which follows the title page of my presentation is the overview slide. It has the title for each section to follow in the talk (thank you Latex!).
My question is how much time is to be spent on the Overview slide, given the talk lasts twenty minutes? Should I talk about each section's one-line-synopsis to let the audience mull it over? If the answer is no, how do I transition smoothly from the Paper Title Slide to the one on Motivation for the talk (For example : Why I love Science?).

What do you mean exactly by "overview slide"? From your first paragraph, it looks like you mean a dry slide with the list of section names (which can be generated automatically by, e.g., Beamer's \tableofcontents). @Jakebeal in his answer seems to understand it as a handwritten slide with an introduction/synopsis (which is maybe what you called "motivation slide"). Please edit and make it clearer.

I often skip the overview slide in short talks. Instead, after giving motivation I simply say what the talk it is about: This talk will introduce you to Nutella, analyze its deliciousness, and compare it to peanut butter. Finally, we will talk about Nutella extensions - chunky Nutella, with chopped hazelnut.
In general, the overview slide allows the listeners to pace themselves, and understand where in the presentation you are.

I have a sidebar to point out where I am in the presentation even though the Overview slide is long gone.  In this context, I want to know how audience "would understand where in the presentation you are".

I think the overview slide is the most important slide in the talk.
I like to use my overview slide to encapsulate the whole talk in a single diagram.  A heuristic that I find holds true is that in a good <1 hour talk, you can say one idea: that idea might have a lot of different elements and side points as part of its explanation, but it all really anchors down to one core statement if you want the talk to hang together tightly. And that's what's on my overview slide.
You can tell it to the audience straight, too.  I like to say, "Here's my talk, summarized in a single slide" and then explain the ideas.  It's also good to give people the "punchline" of your talk right up front too, and then promise that by the end of the talk they'll understand how it works / why it matters / whatever.
One important further thought: I strongly recommend that your overview slide be very diagram/image-driven.  Have people listen to your words, rather than read them, and a diagram will stick with their minds much better.
Edited to add Per request, some examples of visual overview slides from talks that I have recently given:

Visual overviews are great. When possible, I like the overview slide to be based on some structure, e.g. an experiment flowchart. I also like to return to the overview when transitioning, highlighting the place we're going to; often, I'll put up a normal overview. Then after summarizing, switch to overview w/ 1st piece bold, remaining pieces faded. Subsequent transitions have 'finished' pieces normal, next piece bold, upcoming grey, to keep the audience grounded.

Do you have an example of an image-driven overview slide? All that I can recall seeing in person are simple bullet lists.

@MikeA. Here you go!  Three recent examples...

This may somewhat depend on the field and maybe I am a bit biased, but I have not seen a single overview slide (following the title) that was not a total waste of time so far. Eloquent Science agrees with me.
Essentially, there are two flavours of useless overview slides:

The overview slide and what the speaker says alongside it tell me that the talk has a more or less standard structure. To give an extreme example:

First, I will give an overview; then I will present my methods; then I will present my results; finally, I will draw my conclusions and give an outlook.

Nothing of the above helps anybody to follow the talk better or in any other way, as they already expect something along the lines of this to happen. If there are deviations in the detail, this is nothing they need to know at this point of your talk. Even, if your talk has some very unorthodox structure, e.g., if you start with the results and then have the methods follow, you can mention this when you start describing the results and do not need an overview slide for this.
The overview slide and the speaker tell me something about the actual content, such as

I first introduce the problem of banana transmogrification. Then I explain our latest progress on flux compensators. Finally, we will report on our results on transmogrifying bananas with flux compensators.

The problem here is that most people attending the talk know next to nothing about flux compensators or banana transmogrification and thus will have forgotten that flux compensators are going to appear in this talk halfway through your first slide on bananas. Sure, there will be one or two people in the room who read your recent paper on apple transmogrifications with flux compensators, but those are not the people who need your didactic attention – they would probably even understand the talk if you went through the slides backwards.
This does not mean that you shouldn’t explain that the reason why you are talking about flux compensators is that you want to use them for banana transmogrification, but that’s something you should do when you transition from banana transmogrification to flux compensators. In general, you have to remind the audience again and again why you are doing things, explain connections to what you have said before and guide them through your talk with this, but that’s something that happens during the talk, not in the beginning.

As already said, this may be somewhat field-dependent. So, you are probably best advised to think about what you are going to present on this overview slide and take the point of view of the audience to consider whether it really needs and understands this information at this point of the talk and is not better said later in a more fitting context.
Also, there are a few occasions where some general sort of overview slide can be a good idea. For example:

In a long talk that is separated into several large and seemingly unrelated chapters, you might give a brief overview after the introduction to the general topic.
If you address several aspects of something that are at first separate. For example, a colleague of mine once gave a talk where he “took a tour through the parameter space” of a system and regularly showed an overview diagram of the parameter space like a tour map, indicating what places were already visited and what came next.

If the answer is no, how do I transition smoothly from the Paper Title Slide to the one on Motivation for the talk (For example : Why I love Science?).

How would the transition from an overview slide to a motivation be more smooth than from a title slide to a motivation?
That being said, I do not think that this transition needs to be smooth at all. The transition from whatever happened before you started talking to you talking is very unsmooth already, and thus it won’t be any worse if you dive straight into the big important reason why you are doing what you do.
However, often something relevant to your motivation appears in your title and you can build a transition on this. For example:

As you probably guessed already, I spent some time on transmogrifying bananas and you probably wondered why anybody would want to transmogrify fruit in the first place.

(I intentionally ignored your example topic, as in this case the whole talk would be a motivation.)

I couldn't agree more and would like to up-vote twice.

It depends on what you mean by "Overview" slide. If it's an opener slide that introduces and communicates the core idea(s) to the audience, this is likely the most essential part of a talk; this is where you have to engage your listeners, it should motivate your whole talk.
If, however, the "Overview" slide is basically just a bunch of headlines ("Table of Contents"), I would consider this slide a waste of everybody's time. Instead of boring the hell out of your audience reciting headlines, your narrative should be easy to follow without ever presenting a ToC (in German, I would refer to that minding your "roter Faden"; I guess it's called "Golden Thread" in English?).

I never use "overview" or "agenda" slides.
They basically show what you will be talking about, which you will repeat afterwards anyway.
When you read a book, do you expect to have an overview of what will be happening? Or a movie? Or at a concerto would the pianist stand up and say "I will be playing the piano and the guy over here the trumpet"?

I have actually attended a concert where this happened – it wasn’t particularly good though.

While it is not up to me to jugde anybody using an overview slide or not I still sustain the position that the analogy is flawed. Textbooks (and that's the closest thing to a scientific presentation) actually do have an overview of what they contain... and for a reason one might add.

@Ghanima: you are not expected to read a textbook in 20 minutes or an hour. You also get to choose it based on the content. When you attend a presentation  you do not leave after the first slide, when you have made up your mind.

@WoJ, while it might seem a little unpolite, it is very well possible to leave after the first slides. There are actually quite some cases where it would have been good to leave early. It happens now and then that the abstract or the announcement promises, uhm, well, "more" or something different than is actually presented. (And again it is not up to me to jugde your style of presentation, be it "overview" slides or a really big-ass kind of a motivational one. There is simply no right or wrong here.)

@Ghanima: a propos leaving after a few slides: this reminds me of a mathematician (I forgot his name) who sent a proposal at a conference titled along the lines of "Proof for Fermat's Last Theorem". His presentation was about something completely different. When asked why he did not present about the submitted topic he answered that should his plane crash, history would remember him as the one who solved the problem, but died before having a chance to enlighten the world :) So yes, sometimes leaving is the right thing to do :)

A good overview slide is part of a road map that allows the audience to know where they are in the presentation.  The overview itself provides the initial road map, and then as you get to major sections, you should have signpost slides that indicate where in the road map you are.
This helps the audience in a number of ways.

It gives them a good idea for what to look for in your presentation, particularly if they are only interested in part of it.
It helps them understand the relevance of the earlier slides.  This is particularly important if you have some earlier section that may not seem directly related to your point but is necessary to understand it; but even without that, the signpost slides combined with the overview can help put the different pieces together.
It provides some structure, similar to how bulletpoints in this list make it more readable; with no signposts or road map it is like freeform text with no paragraphs.

Without that overview slide, the audience has to spend some effort figuring out how to put all of those bits together.  Do the work for them, give them a road map, and let them spend their effort understanding your important points instead!

Including a sidebar is a far better option than using an outline slide (see example below). As noted in other answers, the audience already  knows the order your talk will follow. A sidebar, however, is useful in that it gives the audience an indication of how far through your talk you are. (If I had a dollar for every time I wondered how much longer a talk would go for…)

If you have to wonder how much longer the talk would go, you probably do not care much about the talk anyway. Also, there are simpler ways to indicate this. These sidebars are just a waste of space and steal focus.


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Is it OK to mention a two-body problem during a tenure-track interview, if getting the job would actually resolve the problem?
I'm having an upcoming phone interview for a tenure-track position and I expect that I will be asked the usual "Why would you want to work here?" question. Apart from reasons relating to the research competency and culture of the university, a major reason for me would be that moving to that institution would essentially resolve an ongoing two body problem - not entirely, as my spouse is not working at said institution, but at a place close to it.

Is it fine to mention this during the interview?

Currently I reside in Europe, whereas the institution is in the US. My reasoning is that telling them should make it clear that I would indeed be serious to move there.

There are really two ways people can take this:

"If we extend this person an offer, he will actually accept." This is what you are hoping for. This can be good, especially if you are "too good" for the place you are applying to, where people might wonder why exactly someone with better prospects would choose to apply at a lower rate institution. Then again, it can backfire - if the institution assumes you would accept their offer for unrelated reasons, they might be less generous in the package they offer (pay & perks).
"So... he only applies here because of his spouse?" This would be bad, or at least suboptimal. People might wonder whether you are really committed to working there. If choosing between two candidates whose portfolios both match what the institution is looking for, people might lean more towards someone who doesn't "need" his spouse working close by to apply.

I subjectively believe people will more often have reaction 1 than 2. So this argues for disclosing your motivation. Then again, note how this can reduce your possibilities in negotiation.
To be honest, I'd try to wow people with your experience, portfolio and all-around wonderfulness and keep this aspect below wraps. Unless people ask point-blank: "Would you really relocate from Europe to the US?" But that would likely come up later in the application process than in the initial remote interview.
I looked through Workplace but didn't find anything related. You may want to think about flagging your question for migration there - after all, similar considerations would also pop up for non-academic job seekers.

3. If this resolves his two-body problem, we can be pretty sure he won't leave before he retires.

@gerrit: ... unless the second body gets a job elsewhere.

I'd reason that if both have found permanent positions, this is a strong motivation for neither of them to apply elsewhere, even if it would enhance their career; knowing how difficult the two-body problem can be to resolve.  Unless perhaps it would reduce a 90-minute commute to a 15-minute commute or so.

There is no permanence in academics until one gets tenure. We had a 2-body team leave our university as 1-body received a tenured offer elsewhere.

I was on a search committee last year, where the reaction of the every member was (1) and we were salivating at the idea of getting a colleague "past our coverage", but both the dean's rep and the department chair also had their eyes on the "don't need to stretch the package" issue.

Some details here can be highly country-dependent and even position type dependent though. (Just remarking this...)

It's sad that people can't be open about this distressing matter to the higher-ups.

You may want to read the answers to the question When during the application process should a candidate mention that their spouse is also looking for a job .  In general, there are several positions on when to acknowledge a spouse, and none of them is clearly "the best" for everyone. The gender of the applicant, the type of school, and the particular two-body problem are all factors.
You actually have the "better" kind of two-body problem, because your spouse is not looking for a job at the school. You would want to make that clear if you mention your spouse. There are two main concerns about the two-body problem:  (1) the school may not have a second position already secured, and so letting them know you need two positions makes them less likely to offer you one; and (2) the general potential bias that claims "someone who is married will be less dedicated to the institution" (this is why some people don't wear their wedding ring to interviews). In your case, the main issue is how you feel about (2).
But didn't you already indicate in your cover letter some reasons why you would be willing to relocate to their location? This is one of the things that a cover letter should always include: some reason why you not only want to be at their school, but also want to live in that area. For very prestigious schools this is less important, but for smaller schools they may take the question very seriously. If you didn't include anything like this in the cover letter, be sure that you have something to mention during the interview.

Are there people who apply for faculty positions remote from where they currently reside who aren't willing to relocate? Isn't the application itself a pretty strong indicator of willingness to move to the university in question?

@Bill Barth: at least in math, it's common for people to apply to many jobs - some students in my cohort applied for 80 or more. It borders on absurd: an  applicant can't possibly be a good fit at so many schools. But desperation is a strong motivator...  So schools sometimes have applications from people who actually don't want to live near the school - or who never even considered whether they do, in a rush to apply. Particularly at non-elite schools this can cause headaches in the search process and higher turnover of faculty. So giving them a reason to think you'll be happy is important.

It's also my experience that many applicants have no idea what it would be like to live in our small town and work at our institution- they're just applying to every position.  Many applicants seem to ignore the information in the advertisement about basic aspects of the job (e.g. whether or not its a tenure track position, the teaching load, etc.)  This results in a lot of wasted time during the phone interview process talking with applicants who would never consider working at our institution.

I think it's OK to mention this, but I would phrase the answer differently: "At this point in my life, I'd really like to [return to/reside in] the US, so I did my research and decided that your institution would be a great fit for where I want to go with my career".  I think it's OK to mention your spouse if they press, as long as you have some other believable reasons for wanting to return (and if you don't, you may want to reconsider the move).

While it is acceptable, I'll say - why risk it? Don't tell them.
You have a good enough reason; and if you _really_must_ say something vaguely recalling your 2-body problem, either say what @twihex suggested, or perhaps: "Another reason for preferring [the university] is that I've talked about the potential universities with my family, and we feel that [name of city/town university is in] would be a nice place for us to live. [consider adding non-generic sentence about the mild climate / international atmosphere / amenities for children / etc."

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How should you respond to your teacher who cannot help you with a recommendation?
I had a meeting with my former teacher in my former school.
While we were enjoying our tea and pan cake, I saw Prof. Nickname, and we invited him to join us. An hour later, after the tea, Prof. Nickname left first and was walking back to his office. I ran after him and asked if he had time to write a recommendation letter for me, and he told me that he was busy with his teaching and could not write the letter for me. I could see on his face that he felt so sorry about it, and I wanted to comfort him but I did not know what I should say. Given that situation, how would you comfort your teacher who could not help you with a recommendation?

"Thank you, I understand." ... and then let the subject drop.
Also, consider that the expression you say may not have been sadness that the professor did not have time, but discomfort with having to say no to a request in person.  In addition to possibly being true, "I don't have time" is also often used as a standard face-saving code for "No."

Why do you assume it is YOUR responsibility to "comfort" this big boy over his "emotional distress" at declining to write the letter for you?
I think it is more like jakebeal said, that his perceived discomfort was at having to refuse the request in person, rather than at not having the time to do it.
In my experience, professors who feel very strongly about a candidate will MAKE time to write a recommendation for them.
In the meantime, you should accept that:
1) This professor, for whatever reason, did not feel strongly enough about you to make the time.  He may simply have poor eyesight and couldn't remember who you were, did not successfully connect you in his mind with who you were as a student.  When you ran to him after the meeting, he may have been embarrassed about it.  Or he may simply have been deep in thought about a particular problem and distressed at having his thoughts interrupted.
2) This professor does not require any comforting from you.
On the positive side, your enthusiasm and confidence should serve you well, so keep your assumptions and move forward.  You assume that the professor valued your work but didn't have the time; keep the assumption that your work was highly valuable, whether or not this professor realized it.  Keep the assumption that the failure to recognize this is the professor's lack of awareness and is his problem.
While it is wonderful that you want to comfort others, be careful not to overdo this in situations that do not call for it.  Make sure you are fully using your attention and energy first to strengthen your own foundation, before giving this kind of energy away to others.

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What to do when research leads to poor results?
I am an MSc graduate and work as an independent researcher. I spent 10 months on a paper. I wrote many scripts in Matlab to implement four other comparative methods as well as a new method that my MSc professor had proposed. Each of these methods was so difficult to implement.
Unfortunately, the method that I was going to propose does not work well compared to the comparative methods, which were introduced already 3-4 years ago.
What should I do now?

Plan better ahead. You knew it will be a long project and you risked. Why did you think automatically your algorithm will be  better than the others? It sounds like you had some idea and you jumped in it without much thinking.

Don't suicide !!!

@Greg :(((((((((

Hey, Don't worry, Try harder. If you found the way to implement that at the first attempt. You would learn only one thing. But now you know several ways that it can not be implemented. You have found more than you expected, isn't it? .

It was a new method and my prof and I thought it works good on our problem. But sadly it is not. @Dinidu

This is how I spend most of my time. If you want to do research, you have to be prepared to be disappointed on regular basis. The state-of-the-art usually is what it is for good reasons. Many of your ideas won't work, or won't work as well as you hope. Research isn't like in the movies, where some savant improves an entire field just by having a quick glance over the problem.

Is it okay to tune my method better than comparative method? It is unfair but I can be silent and I am pretty sure that reviwers wont argue.  @MarcClaesen

It is of the utmost importance to make a fair comparison to prove state-of-the-art performance. If you cheat, you will get burned. You may get published, you may get cited, but if you get caught (which will happen when someone tries to repeat your experiments) you're in trouble. Integrity is extremely important in research. So in short: NO, that is not okay.

This could happen because you are going to do a new thing ,which is not yet found a way to do it. So I think as Joel Reyes suggest you can create a good technical report. Then present it. This is only if you feel that you must stop this research.

@Jamaisavenir no, it is not ok to report forged results.

What do you mean when you say you are an "independent researcher"? Do you have a boss who is paying you and to whom you have to report your work? Is your research motivated by an industrial application?

@Greg Negative results are still worthwhile results. Chiding people for negative results does nothing worthwhile while encouraging research fraud and p-hacking. If we had more sensible/ethical reviewers and journals willing to publish negative results rather than always going for the "sexy" results then science as a whole would be vastly better off and the OP wouldn't need to treat this like a disaster.

@FedericoPoloni I am just saying, I am researching without any affiliation to university , industry or ... I am a high school teacher but spend most of my time in research. But I am not get paid for my reseach works...

“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”
― Thomas A. Edison

Welcome to the club, we've all been there. You have nothing to be ashamed of, you've worked hard and replicated other methods. Publish your work as a replication paper, and you could mention your proposed method and document that it doesn't give improvement. This is all perfectly respectable. Personally, I admire good replication papers. If you want to discuss the difficulties in implementing the other methods, that's also helpful. Just the part about 'independent researcher'  you have no supervisor and no guidance: try to seek one out (from industry or academia) - approach a bunch.

I suggest we need a tag replication or replication-paper.

hmm  I was really hoping for a better result. the part about 'independent researcher', I don't like to be told. However I still work with my M.sc prof and using this method for my problem  was his suggestion :((. @smci

@Jamaisavenir each of us always hopes for a better result, that's just life sir... it doesn't hurt to find a second mentor, or just start corresponding with other useful people in the field to see if they have any useful guidance/suggestions... sounds like you're working in a vacuum... don't blame your supervisor too hard, but like I'm saying, do try to distil the implementation lessons you learned in replicating, and publish them! (e.g. journal, correspondence, workshop, colloquium) That stuff is like gold-dust, and I love seeing papers on it, even if some turn their noses up at it.

"Poor" and "null" are not the same thing.

My eventual MSc thesis was a detailed description of a list of methods that I found didn't solve the problem I was trying to solve. Much later, I worked as a programmer in contract research for a few years, and several of our paid projects for customers resulted in detailed descriptions and prototypes of things that didn't work as well as hoped. It's what research is, unfortunately.

You may also find the answers to this question helpful: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/30995/what-to-do-when-you-spend-several-months-working-on-an-idea-that-fails-in-a-mast

"No honest effort is ever wasted. At the very least, it can serve as an example of what not to do."  Negative results are still results.

I recommend that you record your failures and not just your successes.  In your case, I suggest you write a technical report giving all the details (the implementation, the comparison, the conclusion).  It may not be considered as a publication worthy of your resumé, but at least it serves to document your efforts and may prove to be useful in the future (in case other people are thinking of using your proposed method).
Also note that your method may appear worse when compared to others using a certain metric (say, time complexity) but may appear better when compared to others using a different metric (say, space complexity).  You might want to look at your method again.

i agree that a negative result is a result as well. also compare the answers to this thread: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/46300/refuting-a-hypothesis-in-a-dissertation

In a previous edit OP said this is an algorithm of his research adviser. So, for political reason, he may not want to go around with a big flag stating it doesn't work and he proved it..

@Greg, thanks for pointing that out.  To Jamais avenir, if the idea for the method came from your adviser, then you will need his/her permission before you write anything.

@henning A negative result is indeed a result as well. And refraining from publishing negative results lead to publication bias.

@Greg For other political reasons, the advisor might insist that the student wave a big flag stating that their method doesn't work and he proved it. In the long run, it's always better to admit your failures than to try to hide them.

@JeffE In principle I agree, and I would recommend that to the SUPERVISOR. However, I don't think the OP should bet on it automatically, or go against the supervisor, if she/he do not share these principles.

In the past ten months, you achieved the following:

Validate existing results and implement them in Matlab.
Show the quality of an alternate method.

To me it seems clear that the only way to prevent this time from being a waste is to publish your work or conclusions. First of all, others who work with Matlab may be able to take your implementations and use them for further research. Secondly, if you don’t share your findings on the alternate method, someone else may decide to spend ten months on it before coming to the same conclusion.
That should be sufficient motivation, but of course your negative result can be considered positive in an unexpected way. Either right now by you, or later by someone else.

+1 for "if you don’t share your findings on the alternate method, someone else may decide to spend ten months on it." This is why the research was not a waste of time – even if it didn't find the breakthrough that was initially hoped for.

Next time, perhaps implement only one of the already existing methods and then the newly proposed idea. If the litmus test is that your new idea outperforms all of the baselines, you can test that already early on.
In general, incrementality is key: if you're looking at a task that is going to take you 10 month to realize you need to be aware of the risk you're taking. Be prepared that the results may not end up being what you hope for, or, if you cannot take that risk, find an alternative way of moving forward. Good planning is a valuable skill to have.
For now, would it be possible to analyse in depth why the new method fell short? Is there perhaps a certain sub-problem that it does very well on, in which case you could still extract a (somewhat weaker but) positive result?
Minimally, I'm sure you gained some new insights, and perhaps are even in a position now where you can correct some misconceptions you might have had about your problem: the outcome of your experiment is that something inherent in your problem is not like you thought it was, or else your method would have worked. So you may ask yourself what is it that's different?
If an unexpected obstacle drops on your path, don't just stop. Look for a way around it, or a new direction altogether.

+1 for the incrementality suggestion and for the suggestion to analyze why the new method fell short.

The first step is to see if your research is salvageable.
Does your method offer any advantages? Does it work better in certain scenarios? Does it require less/different inputs, and so will be useful where only those inputs are available?
Can you imagine any scenario where it WOULD be better to use your method over the state of the art?
While it can be difficult to publish null findings (i.e. my method wasn't better), it is generally possible to publish findings which include some form of positive results (i.e. my method wasn't better overall, but was better when x).

These aren't poor results. Assuming your methods are good, they are good results - they answer a question. They may not be the results you want, but they're still good.
If you don't publish somewhere findable then someone else is going to waste their time unknowingly repeating work you've already done.
Publish

Publishing the results of research allows others to assess these results and build upon them. If the results are negative, it is still worthy for science to publish them because this will prevent others to spend precious time by trying to do the same and failing, without knowing that somebody else has already done it. Negative results may be published without review on repositories such as Arxiv or Zenodo (the later gives a DOI that may improve citability) or, with review, in journals such as PeerJ or F1000 Research (the later even had once a promotion for negative results).
Some may frown upon publishing in relatively low-ranked venues (where negative results would typically find their place), and a reason may be the opportunity cost of spending time to publish the result. I would argue that the time spent for publishing the result is minimal relative to the time spent doing the actual research that led to the negative result. If the time spent for publishing the result would prevent somebody else to spend an order of magnitude more time trying independently the same thing and failing, then publishing would bring an overall positive value to science, and therefore is worth doing.

Many sub-areas of computer science not only value novel algorithms, but also case studies. While the top conferences and journals tend to favor algorithmic contributions, your can still go for the not-excellect-but-good conferences with a good case study.
So if you can extend your experimental results to a good case study, this is still a good contribution. Often, this mean crafting the benchmarks in a much more careful way than you would do it for showing that your novel  technique is good, as you need to convince the reader that the cases that you consider resemble the practice well. So you may need to invest some more time.

Well research is all about finding new things and not getting the desired results.
Since you planned to achieve something and working on that in the course of your tasks you must have found some undesired results. Its better to focus on what you got and what caused that instead of focusing on what you wanted to get. Hopefully you will reach your goal.

As a researcher all results are Great results, especially when the outcomes are unexpected or under expectations. It is these moments of 'failure' that the greatest discoveries of our times have come from, it is the exception to the 'rule' that have resulted in whole new disciplines and industries. there are no poor results, only poor analysis of the results. Case in point the Michelson-Morley experiment that had completely unexpected results that led to the Special theory of Relativity, and Pauli's discovery of the neutrino because of a mass loss.

This might be consoling, but it does not provide an actionable answer to the question. Can you explain how your remarks might help the OP to figure out what to do with their project?

All results are great results? Really.  What if OP failed to prove proposed method are significantly different than comparative method.  A priori we know one method is better than the other.  We just don't know which.  In that case, OP's tests were not sensitive enough.

thus proving a result is a great result, in this case the need to find a better differentiating parameter. in other words the test needs to be refined further. or the proposed method is non-sequitor to the problem at issue

You've provided evidence that some failures are great results.  That's quite far from your claim that all results are great results. It's just not true; 90% of all results are crud (but then, to plagiarize Sturgeon's Law, 90% of everything is crud).

and this site is proof.


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What does it mean when a professor says that he'll pay me as a 'mission' for an internship?
I applied for and got selected for a summer internship at a renowned research lab in Germany. The professor says they will try to fund all my expenses, but will pay me as a 'mission'. What does this mean? I have never heard of this phrase before.

Not so sure but as each sort of work should be paid, they should pay you for what you will do for your internship. Probably, they will not take you as a research assistant, which requires a contract between you and institution. So, I think, in order to be safe jurdically, professor proposes to do your internship as a mission. It is like "outsourcing" .

Can you paste in the entire sentence containing 'mission,' as written by this professor (be it in English or German)? I suspect (assuming the note is in English) they mis-translated a german idiom. Barring any further info, my best guess is that what's meant is that they are committed to funding you somehow.

In my experience, there are typically three methods for dealing with funding for a short- to medium-term visit:

Directly collect travel and living expense information (e.g., via receipts) and advance/recompense money to those documented expenses.  This can be quite painful to actually implement for anything more than about a week.
Take on the person as a short-term employee, paying them a sufficient wage that it is expected all told to cover their travel and living expenses.  This can often be complicated due to subsidiary problems with HR, hiring policy, etc., and may often be much more expensive for the host depending on how their overheads are calculated.
Give the person a lump sum of money that is expected to be large enough to cover their travel and living expenses.  This is the simplest method, but requires available money that is allowed to be used for this purpose, which is often hard to come by except in specific visiting scholar funds and the like.

My guess is that the statement about "mission" may be an unusual or mistranslated phrasing referring to the third type of funding.  The only way to know for certain, however, is to ask for clarification from the person who used the phrase.


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What do you need to work in administration at universities?
I would like to work in administration at university and I was wondering if there is any specific course/qualification that will increase my possibilities of doing so.
In particular, I was thinking of any job in the "support staff" in charge of general administration. This would include posts related to providing support to students and/or staff with general questions or paperwork but also including organisation of activities, improving processes/how things are done, etc.
I am currently living in the UK so I would also be interested in any specific information for this area.

Work in adminstration... doing what? There are many different administrative positions, each requiring different qualifications.

Voting to close as overly broad.

@ff524 I was thinking of any job in the "support staff" in charge of general administration. This would include posts related to providing support to students and/or staff with general questions or paperwork but also including organisation of activities, improving processes/how things are done, etc. Does that help?

Please don't vtc, it is a good question! See the ontopic specs of the site, it passes.

Usually you apply for these types of bottom- and mid-tier positions through the human resources (HR) departments of the universities. This is the same in the UK or the USA.
If you search on the HR website, they will give jobs and the requirements for those jobs. For example, the first example below is a job posting that I pulled from the University of Illinois HR department's website. You will note that it requires a high-school degree or GED. This is rather typical. When I last hired a staff person, we required an Associates degree or equivalent work experience. The "equivalent work experience" allows us to hire people without an AA degree if we feel that they have enough skills even without the credentials.
The second example below is from Cambridge University in the UK. It notes that you must have at least A levels for this position.
Note that many universities in the USA have union contracts for their clerical and technical staff. This makes applying for jobs as an outsider very difficult because the union contracts usually stipulate that jobs are first filled from job pool candidates (i.e., union members). This may likely be true for the UK as well.


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Do I add an acknowledgement upon initial submission? (to an anonymous review)
When do I add anacknowledgement to a (philosophy of science) article?. Even though the acknowledgement does not specify my name, it does say something about where the work was done. Do I add the acknowledgement only when the article is accepted?

Personally, I only add acknowledgements after the paper no longer requires blinding. Acknowledgements add nothing for a review, and "Thanks to [blinded], supported by grant [blinded] from [blinded]" always seemed too silly to bother with.


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Grounds for an ethics complaint? UK math prof. publicly misrepresenting results from an unrelated discipline
I'm a Ph.D. candidate in social sciences and last month I presented and defended my thesis in an Eastern European university. The full text of my thesis is available to the public. A couple of weeks after my defense, a math professor from the U.K. wrote a blog post in which he utterly misrepresents my results and suggests that my work is pseudo-science. His opinion does not deal with statistics or any other parts that may be a common ground for mathematics and social sciences. When I tried to publicly defend my work on his blog and to point out that his claims are malicious and untenable, he accused me of homophobia, implied that I am a psychopath, and said that the methods I'm using have driven people to suicide (none of which is true, but rather nonsensical - I had a serious WTF experience when reading these claims).
All of the above happened on a niche blog that is widely read among my colleagues, and I fear that it will affect my career as a researcher. Some signs show that this may have already happened. I want to file an ethics complaint against this professor at his university and I would like to hear whether the above are sufficient ground for such a complaint. Do university ethics committees dealing with other cases beside research misconduct and harassment? Should I present this as a research misconduct case or as something else? I feel that this belongs to presenting flawed interpretation of data and misrepresentation of qualifications or experience which is not held (a math professor thrashing social science research), but I do not think that a blog post would qualify as 'research' at all.

ff524 is right.  University regulations are quite lax on these matters, but UK laws are extremely strict.  I believe under UK law the burden of proof would lie on the math professor in such a case.  Seek professional legal advice, which you probably cannot get on Stack Exchange.  Also, consider ignoring the matter.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

Just to be clear: Is it "a math professor from the U.K.", or someone claiming to be "a math professor from the U.K."? What is the rest of the blog like? Matter-of-fact and neutral analyses, or exaggerated, higly opinionated and even borderline satirical intentionally confrontational articles?

@O.R. Mapper: A math professor from the U.K. who use a pen name but whose identity is widely known (he even publicly admitted that he is the one behind it). And the later; overtly political opinion articles which are, more often than not, intentionally confrontational.

To go along with @xLeitix's comment, realize that, particularly in social sciences (but not restricted to), many people denounce other people's work as not important or interesting.  People in different camps tend to look down on each other, so you need to get somewhat used to "outsiders" making biased criticisms of your work/field.  As a consequence, I expect most people in different camps pretty much ignore what other camps say most of the time.

@ff524 actually, at my university launching an extreme ad hominem attack on a fellow researcher by calling them a psychopath and similar things with no factual basis could well be interpreted as hate speech and a violation of university policy that may be subject to disciplinary action. Academic freedom has its limits, just like freedom of speech. I'm speaking hypothetically here, I don't know of a precedent where this policy was actually used, but in the abstract it's not strictly true that "universities are not supposed to police what their faculty say".

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

Cases like that are best treated in "cold blood". Get one or two trusted friends to listen to your story and get them to give an outsider's view of how the blog appears. We cannot judge without further details how consolidated your work is, but I'll take here the stance that it is well-founded, scientific work without major methodological flaws.
One thing you have to remember is that in my experience, there is a significant "facultism". Mathematicians, especially, are, in my experience, not prone to any other type of discrimination, but they do look down on practically all other disciplines (with possible exception of physicists, whom they begrudge the ability to get away successfully with the most outrageously ill-founded mathematical sleight-of-hands).
You have to realise this, and that social sciences will not rank very high on mathematician's scale; so, rather than your particular piece of work being attacked here, it may be that it is your whole discipline. If that is the case, this can inform your strategy.
In your responses, you should stick to facts, not too many, but point out where he is wrong. Factually and focused. Don't make long replies, or people won't read it, pick 1 or 2 points where he is clearly wrong.
As for personal attacks, if his blog is satirical, and you attempt to silence it, you will, as mentioned before, get backfired upon. He is much better trained than you to run a smear campaign.
If you do not wish stay silent on the personal attacks entirely, you could try to say something along the line that he is not trained to judge your psychological makeup and should confine himself to make judgement about facts that he understands about. However, it would be even grander if you would just brush it off as not the issue of the moment and completely concentrate on discussing your results.
One thing that strikes me is his accusation of homophoby. You should check where this comes from (if not from the devolution of your interaction with the person): if there is something in your results that could be interpreted in a way that is politically unwelcome to various agendas (and it doesn't matter which one it is), you need to tread particularly carefully. In the latter case, it is particularly important to utterly refrain from any entanglement into personal invectives, and clarify, drily and accurately what your results say and what they don't say; where their limits of applicability lie and where they are valid.
I haven't answered about the ethics complaint. That's because I think, yes, you might have grounds, but, no, it may not be a good idea. Instead, see my advice above.

"his accusation of homophoby (...) should check where this comes from (...) if there is something in your results" - this is mere speculation, but given that the OP mentioned an "Eastern European university", it is conceivable the blogger is not specifically referring to the OP or their research there, but mixes things with general political statements, and I remember some suggestions to ban public promotion of homosexuality in Poland created quite some visible international media uproar a few years back.

@O.R.Mapper Well, that may be. However, if the blogger mixes up invectives about the status of politics in a country with the work of individuals from that country, that's clearly disingenuous and borderline scientifically unethical (by linking political agendas with scientific discourse). In any case, a fresh PhD candidate is likely to be more vulnerable by such vicious attacks, and the more it is important that he defends his thesis (not himself! He shouldn't need to!) by facts. All assuming that the work is reasonably sound, for which the peer-acceptance may be an indicator.

Sure, the fact that (in particular when drawing from thei author's background as a professor) scientific discourse is mixed with, as pointed out in a comment by the OP, "overtly political opinion articles which are, more often than not, intentionally confrontational" points to an unusual, and possibly questionable hybrid of different media types.

Thank you for this answer Captain Emacs. Though cold blood is a rare asset nowadays and particularly in cases when we feel injustice and bitterness, your suggestion sounds reasonable.

First, and foremost, be very cautious about taking this issue outside of the scientific realm of argument.  If you start to file ethics charges or libel lawsuits, then you are likely to be casting yourself in the role of censorious scientific villain, and it is likely to not go well for you.
Instead, if you feel that your work really is scientifically defensible, I recommend that you stick entirely to the evidence to defend it.  If you cannot do so, then that is a serious problem --- having not read your thesis, I have no idea whether you or your critic has a better case.  Do note, however, that being in a different discipline does not immunize you from a person's criticism: a critic need not have any credential at all to point out a potential flaw in your work, and the nature of science is that if you cannot defend against criticism, your work cannot stand.
Finally, I would strongly recommend talking to your advisor before you take any further steps and strongly heeding their advice.  Your advisor is likely to know better than you whether to take your critic seriously, given the state of your work and the field, as well as what types of response are likely to be wise or foolish.

"if you feel that your work really is scientifically defensible" It is. Not mentionning that the final version of my theisis was reviewed and accepted by the thesis committee and that I already have a number of peer-reviewed publication from it. In the rather unlikely situation where it turns out to be pseudo-science, I will never do research again and start a new career as a life insurance agent.

I fail to see what “BCA vs. Singh” has to with a “censorious scientific villain”. In this case, esoterics sued a scientist for libel and did not only lose but suffered serious backfire.

@HunSoc obviously we don't know if your thesis is scientifically defensible or not, but just the facts that it was approved by your committee and parts of it were accepted for publication do not guarantee that it is (though these are certainly encouraging signs that provide some evidence for its validity). Conversely, even if it turns out that there are flaws in your thesis, that does not automatically turn it into "pseudo-science". I think it's important not to see this as a black and white issue but to consider objectively whether and to what precise extent your work can be defended.

@Wrzlprmft I am calling the BCA censorious for attempting to silence its scientific critics through formal complaint rather than evidence-based argument (in this case via libel suit).  I think that "villain" is a fair characterization of the attitude of many towards its actions (thus, the backlash).  If the OP attempts to silence critics through allegations of impropriety, there is a significant risk of being perceived as acting in the same vein.  Whether the OP's work has more merit than the that defended by the BCA, I am not in a position to judge, as it has not been shared.

Personally, I'm delighted to learn about BSA vs. Singh in the UK, thanks greatly for including that.

@jakebeal I do not want to censor anyone. I'm a big friend of free speech, actually. But I think equally highly of responsible behavior, and the two do often not go well together.

@HunSoc "Free speech" is often the defensive cry of harassing bullies, while "responsible behavior" is often the defensive cry of censorious bullies: without knowing the particulars of your situation, we strangers on the internet simply cannot judge how the balance stands.

It might be worth taking some time to familiarise yourself with some related cases.  I can only think of one off-hand, but I'm sure that others could point to more.  It could be reassuring to know that this sort of thing happens to other people, and that they survive.  I'm thinking of Terrance Deacon.  In this case, the defendant won the case, but only because the complaint was "without foundation."
As for the "pseudo-science" assertion -- that's an easy term to throw around.  It might be useful to read up on that, too, e.g. in the work of Imre Lakatos.

"But what distinguishes knowledge from superstition, ideology or pseudoscience? The Catholic Church excommunicated Copernicans, the Communist Party persecuted Mendelians on the ground that their doctrines were pseudoscientific. But then the problem of the demarcation between science and pseudoscience is not merely a problem of armchair philosophy: it is of vital social and political relevance."

The main thing is to approach the issue in a professional manner.  Remember that people say all kinds of rude things on the internet that they wouldn't say in person.  A polite phone call to the professor in question might be interesting, though potentially also quite fruitless.


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What is 'Persuasive Data'?
I'm submitting an abstract for the World Molecular Imaging Conference and they advise:

Please include a Persuasive Data file if you would like your abstract to be considered for an oral presentation. Persuasive data should include figure captions that explain the results of the figure without requiring the reviewer to re-read the main text.

The Persuasive data file should be .pdf or .doc
I have never come across this format before, does anyone know what a persuasive data file is? I'm guessing either extended abstract or actual experimental data?

I don't know about your field, so I'd follow Roland's advice ... but in some fields the term refers to pretty charts or other figures to explain the crux of your argument.  Think of it as an elevator speach in picture form.

Basically it is an infographic/data visualization which includes a graphic summary of your results, can be a chart, a graph an image etc. One must be able to view it and be exposed to the main results/conclusions.


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In computer science in the US, is there a bias towards hiring junior faculty straight from PhD programs?
In computer science in the US, is it harder to get employed as a professor if you've had to do post-docs, or if you decided to work in an industrial research lab for several years?

In many fields these days, it is exactly the opposite: it is hard to get a faculty position until you have spent time as a postdoc.  Graduate students are often considered to be simply too inexperienced to become professors.  It is also the case that in some fields (e.g., biomedical research) postdocs are a source of cheap labor and professor positions are scarce, so there is a "market" that pushes people toward more and more postdoc.
Industrial labs are a different matter: they may effectively count either for or against you, depending on the situation.  In essence: if you are in a postdoc-like position, doing a lot of publications, it's probably in your favor.  If you are mostly doing proprietary research that cannot be published, then it's likely to count against you instead.
Specifically in US computer science, the field is currently in transition: historically, there were few postdocs and much hiring directly from graduate school (my own advisor did not even apply for his post).  Now, however, the field is moving toward more postdocs before professorship.

In Europe some institutions even formalize this. I have seen junior prof. job announcements that required "between 2 and 8 years after PhD graduation". I have heard that many institutions claim to have been burned by hiring seemingly great people directly out of grad school, which then turned out to be incapable of working on their own agenda.

@xLeitix Most postings I have seen just require that one has demonstrated the ability to do independent research (with the underlying assumption that this is impossible to demonstrate while working as closely with a supervisor as one does during a PhD). I suppose this might be a difference in fields.


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How do professors from very small or unranked universities in the U.S. attract graduate students?
US News and World only ranks about 100 graduate programs in computer science 300 research universities in the US. How do graduate programs of small and/or unranked universities attract graduate students?

Perhaps more students want to go to grad school than those 100 programs can accommodate? Just because you want to go to a top 10 program doesn't mean that you are qualified for them. Further, perhaps a non-top-100 program is strong in the area you are interested in. How do undergraduates end up at colleges not in the top 100 (or 1000) rankings?

I guess you are talking about the US here? You should say so specifically, because for other regions the answer will be entirely different.

@xLeitix I very much doubt they'll be entirely different.

Related: How can a researcher in his early career attract good PhD students?.

This question seems to presume that there are a shortage of students, which just isn't the case. With a surplus of demand (students) the beat schools take the students they want, and everyone else trickles down.  Until there is more than one slot per applicant, there is no need to "attract" them.

@DavidKetcheson According to US News Best Graduate Schools for CS, there looks to be ~150.

The US in particular are very attractive to many international students. Some are willing to go to any university that will accept them, and care very little about the rankings. I can definitely see this to some extent in Canada.

Not everyone has the GPA / research experience to be accepted to those top 100 Universities.
Not everyone is confident enough to apply to those top universities and they feel more comfortable going somewhere closer to home.
Many students have constraints making relocation impossible (e.g., cultural obligations to their family where they cannot move more than 10 miles from their parents), so they go to graduate school in the closest program they can.

While I agree with these, I don't think this answers the question. The question is specifically about how these places attract graduate students.

I would think it is a matter of differentiating your department from those at other universities in ways that you are capable of. Perhaps you don't have the reputation and resources to compete with large programs, but are there other areas that make you unique? What makes your program special? What does your department/university/locale offer that is different than other places? Is it a particular sub-specialty? Specific industry-contacts? Killer internships?


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Differences in the capitalization of my name
In my passport, my name is "SABBIR HASAN" because there was no option to write  in smaller letters.
I registered on the GRE with my name as "Sabbir Hasan", and I am also writing it this way on the online graduate application form.
Will the difference create any problem?

All the passports I have seen have the name written in capitals.

Names are case insensitive.  ALL CAPS is used on paper documents to simplify correct spelling of the name.  When filling paper modules they often require ALL CAPS to avoid unreadable handwritings (and some of these module may even be read by a computer using OCR, and caps might help such programs).

@Bakuriu: that is not true. E.g., strictly speaking, MacDonald and Macdonald are considered to be two different names.

Remember that if you're from a country where people use the cyrillic alphabet, you can end with Vičin, Vyčin, Vitchin, Vichin, ... written in place of Вичин. Something like a mistake in capitalization is a minor thing certainly.

@Bakuriu You might be interested in falsehoods programmers believe about names.

@isanae Your link brought up the memory of a student of mine who had XXX written in the first name field of his student's ID card. Is your name XXX?, I asked him. No, I have no first name, my name is just [...] but the system couldn't handle it, so the office put XXX.

I used to work for someone (in the UK) whose name was 42. He had a sign on his office with "42" on it (which at first glance looked like the room number).

@Federico French passports write the family name in all caps but the given name(s) with only initial capitals. (I do not know how they handle people with only one name.)

This should not cause any problems.  People working on graduate admissions typically quite well understand that different systems mess with names in different ways.  Certain types of permutation might cause difficulty, but ALL CAPITALS versus Standard Capitalization is so routine as to likely go entirely unnoticed.

There is absolutely no issue here. Although we traditionally use capital letters for only the initial letters of names* and school teachers will tell you it's wrong to do otherwise, the capitalization isn't considered to be part of the spelling. Rather, it's part of the orthography of the langauge, which is the set of conventions we use when writing it down. Thus, "Sabbir Hasan", "SABBIR HASAN" and "SaBbIr HaSaN" are all considered to be the same name. The choice of capitalization is more similar to the choice of a font than a choice of spelling.
* This is a simplification, as Ronald MacDonald, Ludwig van Beethoven and e e cummings will explain.

In addition to Ronald and Ludwig van, c might also object (lowercase and italics...) https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/19/17372526/grimes-c-boucher-name-change-elon-musk

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


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Admission to Ph.D. program at U.S. university without guaranteed funding
Recently I got admission from one U.S. university for my Ph.D. study, and they offered me a kind of scholarship that only covers my tuition fee. When I asked them about other funding possibilities such as RA or TA positions, they said that at this point they are not offering any RA or TA positions to any incoming students, only when you arrived at university, you can find one by yourself.
My question is whether this situation is common in U.S. universities. I have heard that some students can get an assistant-ship even before attending the Ph.D. program.  Although I have an admission letter in my hand, without enough funding for my future study I really do not what to do. Therefore I desperately need suggestions from people who have been through this and have experience.

@PeteL.Clark I'm not sure which quantifier you are talking about --- I thought that my edit had preserved meaning and just cleaned up grammar.  Please feel free to undo anything that you feel changed meaning.

@jakebeal: The OP wrote (in boldface): "my question is whether this situation is common in every US university".

Ah: I see "common" and "every" as conflicting with one another, and think the question is really about "common"---the OP doesn't seem interested in whether it's a universal experience, but rather whether it is a frequent situation and thus how to approach it.

@PeteL.Clark Like I said, I don't think I changed the meaning, but please feel free to undo.

The way you are asking the question, the answer is a clear no: this is not common at every university, certainly not in every department at every university.  In my department (mathematics, UGA) to the best of my knowledge we have not had -- say for the last decade -- any PhD students without funding (occasionally from an outside source) that is sufficient for them to live on (albeit less than lavishly).  This situation is quite common in mathematics departments in the United States, and I think it is similar in other STEM fields.  In the social sciences and humanities, funding is distinctly more scarce, but certainly many entering PhD students get funding in these areas.
You ask for advice.  To get good advice you should speak to someone who knows more about your situation.  This advice is centered on the situation in mathematics, but nevertheless I think it is worth hearing: I would think at least twice before entering a PhD program that was not committed to supporting me.  The academic job market is very tight right now, but unevenly so: it contracts severely at every career stage, so that the majority of people who had a lot of success getting placed at one stage find themselves having more difficulties with the next.  Not just anybody gets funding for a PhD program: the resources need to be there, and you need to be (in the judgment of the admissions committee) worthy of them.  However, it is not nearly as hard to get student funding as it is to land any kind of post-PhD academic position (tenure-track or otherwise: actually, in many cases it is harder to land a research postdoc than a tenure track teaching job).
If you have a very specific plan -- worked out with at least one faculty member in the program -- for your success in that graduate program, then maybe things can work out well for you even without advanced funding.  Short of that: depleting your own financial resources to fund your graduate career is certainly, on average, a poor investment.  Please think carefully before you do this.

thanks for your advice, I am really appreciate that, another question is that do you think it is appropriate to contact faculty member in the program, especially my future adviser regarding the source of more funding possibilities..

@Daniel: Absolutely yes.  If there is a faculty member in the program who will be your advisor if you enroll, then you should talk to them about the funding situation.  Since they've made an offer to you, the ball is in your court and you should not hesitate to ask "tough questions".  E.g. I would certainly ask about the funding situation for other students of the advisor and what s/he anticipates in terms of future funding.  Be upfront: your reasons will be understandable to all.

One more data point: As far as I know, my department (mathematics at the University of Michigan) never admits Ph.D. students without offering funding unless we know (usually from their application) that they have adequate funding from some other source.  This was certainly the policy when I headed the graduate admissions committee, and I believe it remains the policy.

I know of several programs that regularly give out completely unfunded offers, and it seems to be fairly common in economics to give out a significant amounts of offers that don't include first-year funding (but possibly guarantee funding after that). It isn't the norm, but in certain fields it definitely isn't rare.

@Roger Fan: For what it's worth, the question has been edited since I answered it.  The OP actually asked "Is this common at every US university?" As my answer reflects, it is more common in some fields and programs than others.  I'm curious though: could you give examples of economics programs at US universities with the funding structure that you describe?

I should add to this (excellent!) answer by pointing out that in fields where funding is more scarce, the "return on investment" if you exit academia with a PhD tends to be lower. Consider not only your finances during the PhD, but also what you want to do when you finish. If you have little intention of continuing in academia, a "non-STEM" PhD may not pay for itself over time even if you get funding. That said, research is fun – and if you get paid enough to live on, that makes the opportunity cost a lot easier to swallow than if you are draining your savings.

@PeteL.Clark UCLA (look for the "unfunded 1st year" comments in these gradcafe results) and Brown (see this post for details) are two examples off the top of my head. I can confirm those schools because I know people who have gotten those offers, but a quick google turns up reports of those kinds of offers at quite a few schools (including several top ones).

@PeteL.Clark I think there's a couple reasons for this, though I'm not certain of any of them. One is that it's very uncommon for 1st-year econ students to TA, unlike many other fields. Another is that many econ programs have large cohorts and relatively high attrition rates (at least relative to what I'm familiar with), so they lose quite a few students after the first year.

@PeteL.Clark Brown's site also apparently discusses their MA track PhD offer. "The MA students do not receive financial support from Brown University or the department and have to pay tuition. Upon successful completion of the first-year courses and the PhD core exam, they are guaranteed admission into the second year of the PhD program with a fellowship and a tuition waiver."

@Roger: Thanks, that's very helpful.  The fact that the students are "MA track" makes some difference...but it is interesting how strongly their own offer letters emphasize that this is just a technicality.  It's also strange that an Ivy League school found its way to a funding structure that is less generous than most state universities.  Perhaps, being economists, they have a clearer understanding of the incentives and financial structure than most?!?


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I see many Indian researchers going to the USA as postdocs. But I see very few Indian faculty leaving India. Why?
As you may agree that most departments of most US university will have a number of Indian postdocs. But why very few Indian professors leave India to join US universities. I wonder why?

"Every department of every US university": citation needed.

Edited to make statement defensible.

@Aron Perhaps you may want to state your field? I know quite a couple of computer science professors in the US with Indian roots, comparable to the number of postdocs with Indian roots that I know. Is your question based on your personal perception, or can you back it up with some data that shows the imbalance?

Are you specifically asking why people who already have faculty positions in India rarely leave them to take faculty positions in the US? This may be not so much anything to do with India or the US, as simply the fact that people who have permanent faculty positions anywhere tend to not leave them.

@DCTLib, I was just wondering why Indian professors usually do not leave their job and go to US for opportunities. I know there are many Indian origin faculty, but perhaps they are in US from the time of their PhD or postdoc. Has any one seen any faculty coming directly from India?

@Aron I think in order to get meaningful answers, you should tell us why you would expect them to move in the first place. For better or for worse, most people that leave their home country do so because they see better opportunities elsewhere. Once people have a professor position in their own country, the urge to start somewhere else more or less fresh is almost by definition not super-large.

@xLeitix: By definition? I grant that most settled faculty prefer to remain settled, but there are any number of reasons why someone might want to move: better pay, better students, better institutional support for research, lower teaching load, proximity to other researchers, or simply because one would prefer to live abroad. Anecdotally, I know of many people who have faculty positions in the non-rich world who seem to have a somewhat rough time of it.

I think the answer is likely to be much the same reason that you see many postdocs shifting between the US and Europe, but few faculty changing shifting between the US and Europe as well.  Postdocs are in a transient period of their career and will readily move to follow opportunity.  Faculty, especially once tenured, are likely to be settled and not particularly interested in moving, no matter where they started.
Now, India is still different than the US academically, but as India continues to develop and Indian academia continues to expand, the difference is decreasing and one should expect the flow of scientific talent to continue to become more balanced, as is happening already.

It's also important to note that in the US most universities prefer to hire at the assistant professor level rather than at the associate or full professor level.  Even if someone at a higher level of experience were willing to accept an assistant professor position, it's likely in practice that they would not be hired.  Thus it can be very difficult to make a lateral move to a position in the US as an associate or full professor.  Things open up again somewhat for top researchers at the full professor level, but that's a very small part of the market.

In addition to jakebeal's answer, I would like to add some points of my own. India is a developing country with not much money to spend on funding. Thus only a handful research institutes can support good quality research and education. Talented students who don't find enough resources in India go to abroad to pursue their endeavours. The people who remain in the country are the ones' having a 'sense of patriotism' and are here to serve the country. Hence, they refrain from leaving.
You will find most of the Nobel laureates  and Turning award winners from India being non-residing Indians.


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Is there a convention for referring to a scholar's academic status?
I'm currently preparing an online tool for scholars, and part of that work involves creating a database with different categories for students at different stages of their college/university education (i.e. freshmen, second-semester juniors, first-year graduate students, etc). I'm struggling to find a standard classification system to use that would allow distinction between all of the stages in an undergraduate and graduate education. I could just use "first-semester senior" and the like, but if there's an existing standard - particularly one that even allows for students that don't use semester classifications - I don't want to complicate things with my own classification scheme.
Is there a convention, especially an international convention, that distinguishes between all or most of these stages in educational progress?

I have a feeling that "candidate for [degree] - term #[x] out of [y (number of standard terms)]" is probably going to be the most specific you can get, simply because of the enormous variation in higher education systems around the world.

Yes, there are many such standards. (Ha ha only serious.)

To illustrate the difficulty: as someone who did his undergrad in Europe, I have no clue what your proposed stages (freshmen/junior/senior/etc.) mean.

@Mangara, yes that's what I was afraid of...looks like I get to make something up!

I think @waiwai933's suggestion is the most reasonable. Except, I would eliminate "term" (due to how the meaning of this varies) and replace it by "candidate for [degree] (excepted in [year])". This seems to be how most people put things on their resumes.

There is no international standard. You will at best find national standards. The problem is that an undergraduate degree can range from 3 years (there may even be shorter ones but I have not heard any examples) to 4 or 5. In some countries a masters degree is a graduate degree in some it is an undergraduate degree. moving to graduate school, Phds range from fixed three years through fixed four years to "individual length. A masters is not necessary to do to move from an true undergraduate studies to PhD, which means it will be an optional step in an education for some.
This means you will have problems defining a solid difference between undergraduate and graduate with the masters belonging to both. You can of course call students by the year they are at at each level but it would probably be beneficial to then know if it is m'th year out of n years to be possible to evaluate. The terminology for undergraduate students at different levels common in, for example the US, which you mentioned in your question is certainly not used internationally.
Based on this "mess" you should probably try to find a system that is as simple as possible and, for example, in the case of the masters simply define it for the site as undergraduate or graduate. Referencing to the year into an education will probably be understood by everyone. There are attempts, for example, within the European Union to synch levels and educational systems but so far there is much left to do to reach such goals if it ever will happen.

E.g. in europe, we collect "ECTS"-points (ECTS = European Credit point Transfer System) which sum up the time (successfully) spent for courses, in addition to semesters. So a student can have 50 ECTS and be in his/her third semester. Usually one does 30 ECTS in one semester (at least in Germany). Each ECTS should be an overall workload of 30h.
This seems to be a bit more objective than just taking the semester into account, but in most cases it just confuses people ;).
In your specific case I would recommend going back to the system's specification and clarify what the information is used for and what the consequences are. Checking this might make it easier to come up with a good solution (or might end with removing the requirement).


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Are patents appropriate in taxpayer funded academic settings?
I am asking because I work for a non-for-profit academic hospital where the vast majority of the funding comes, one way or another, from the taxpayer. It is certainly possible, actually encouraged, for us to file for patents should we find some new way to diagnose or predict disease progression.
But, I will mention this again, we are funded by the taxpayer so we are already getting a salary and resources to do our work from them. Is it filing a patent and consequently delaying the publication of our research in order to find out a way to commercialise the work something that could be considered ethical?

Presumably the hospital gets at least a share of any patent royalties?

Thinking more on this, I have come to agree that patenting things - devices, or drugs - is necessary. However, I wonder if this question would be answered differently if the thing being patented is, instead, a model? For example, would it have been appropriate for Krebs to patent the eponymously named Krebs cycle as a way to think about energy metabolism in a cell?  Or the cell cycle? Or, could the inventor of the SIR model of infectious disease spread have ethically patented that method of tracking infectious diseases?

Where I am (Europe/Germany) a discovery such as the Krebs cycle cannot be patented (nor can be business ideas or pure mathematical algorithms): it would not be a technical invention.

Yes it is ethical.
The patent will typically be owned by the institute and it will get most of the revenues (this is why they encourage it). The inventors usually get some form of compensation. Revenues from commercialization is partially how your salaries can be payed and could in fact save tax-payers money.
More importantly, developing a new diagnostic or therapy will in the end improve the lives of the general public (and even save lives in many cases). Currently, due to the immense costs involved, the only way to get a new therapy to the public is in a commercial setting.

I understand the answer above, but a follow on question I'd ask is: is it ethical to keep this 'good idea' away from other scientists, who indeed might be able to make better progress on it than only the idea generator themselves?
It seems to me that the end goal of all of this should be patient care, and to best benefit this, my opinion is that publication in an open access forum is the first, and most important way forward. I understand that without the protection of a patent, businesses can't be built, and indeed, that our whole society is based on this concept of capitalism. But, it doesn't jive with my sensibilities as a physician.

Open access is important, but have you ever heard of a drug sold by an academic institute? In the end if you want a treatment to reach the public it will have to be commercialized. This does not mean that the research will not be published, by the way. The investment in development of a new drug is ~1 billion dollars - this amount can only be raised in a commercial setting.

What Bitwise said. The discovery is all well and good, but making a drug is a commercial endeavor, and a patent helps ensure at least some of that money will go to the research program that spawned the idea.

All these are good comments but is there a reason that companies will only pursue ideas for which they have patents? if something is in the public domain they can work knowing that another company is not to come and sue them as it seems to be the case in the mobile phone market.

@DavidBasanta development of the drug is extremely expensive. Copying and manufacturing a drug that does not have a patent is actually easy - this is exactly what the generic pharma industry specializes in (they wait for a patent to expire and then copy the drug and sell it very cheap). The company that does the R&D uses the patent to sell the drug at a high price before the patent expires so they can compensate for their very expensive R&D. That's why a drug company won't do anything without a patent - they won't be able to get back their investment in R&D.

Remember that the patent describes publicly the invention. So the knowledge/idea is open access (just download the pdf from the patent office). But using the knowledge has an embargo period (until the patent expires) during which using the patent is "behind a pay wall".

Yes, definitely patent it else if you publish and if idea is good other companies will develop and make product out of it and will patent all the process around it, and later charge for their product based on their market position. In the end the tax payers money would generate profits for companies which could be anywhere in world. If its patented and the hospital holds ownership/shares, and later licenses it you would have generated extra revenue for public institution a return to society instead of companies.
On other extreme considering similar idea comes to other person working in big company and if they file it before you, you loose everything you may still publish it but you are not the first, and the worst case you/society will have to pay for it. So secure with patent as soon you are in stage you can defend the patent application. See it as way of getting money back to government for their investment in research.

This is actually a very tough question to answer (what is appropriate, that is what is just).  You can even go back and wonder about patents themselves and some of the misbehavior associated with them (patent trolls, submarine patents, "business process" patents, etc.)  Then there are copyrights and the (literal) Mickey Mouse extension in duration.  However, this is a real rathole to dive down (moral justice).
Instead of dwelling on justice question may advice is to reframe a little and think about what is legal and what is customary.  Basically our society has decided to allow these patenting behaviors.  The rationale (not saying if I agree or not, just sharing the concept) is that by $$ incentivizing researchers (even those already getting state funding) that the benefit is worth the cost.
However, there are obvious differences where the research is in areas of national security (and even publication may be limited).  Also industry almost always makes paid researchers sign over their rights for discoveries as part of the employment contract.  So obviously other models are possible.  [However, these researchers generally have higher salaries.  And higher job security, at least versus grad students.]  So, obviously other models are possible.
My advice is not to get too flustered by the moral issues here and just deal with the system as is (in your institution).  Also, note that the VAST majority of patents don't earn any money.  If anything there is a little bit of a game with more senior researches (in academia and industry) being better able to get the IP department to spend more time/money pushing their patents through the system.  The reason for this is prestige, not economic value.
For a practical example, the institution I worked in (academia) had a policy that some fraction of the value accrued to the school and some to the researchers.  BUT if they decided not to spend the money on a patent filing, than you could do it on your own and get all the value.  This created possibility of perverse behavior where if you really discover lighting in a bottle, you would want to DOWNPLAY it, but disclose it.
I did push one patent through the system, described above.  It was not lighting in a bottle but I felt like it was closer to a real innovation and had greater likelihood of $$ earnings than some of the stuff the senior faculty was pushing through [one name professor was the husband of the head of the IP department...surprise, surprise, he was the leading patenter on campus!]  Or at least that was the story I told myself when dressing up my research and convincing the IP department to spend the money.  ;-)
Some final related practical advice.

If you push a patent, get a copy of Patent it Yourself (Nolo Press).  Don't actually patent it yourself...use an agent (preferably on someone else's dime).  But it will give you the basics of how things work.
Read a few (include them in your lit searches).
Learn how to write one.  The patent agent will still "write it" but they do a lot better job when a researcher has done the meat of the work ahead of time.  Better patents are sort of like lab reports with description of examples, materials of construction, testing, etc.
I actually just gave the agent a draft.  I see bad things happen when people just dump some drawings or figures onto an agent.  He knows some things you don't about patent law but he can mess up the science/engineering logic and this can cause issues during the patent office examination or if the patent is ever litigated.  [This could be a personal thing though...I take the same attitude with publications...write them myself so it is the way I want it.]
Also, there is a sort of way of justifying things.  "It is well known in the literature that technique A can be used to get effect B but at the cost of issues C.  Issue C is a serious hindrance in trade (cite).  We present a new method by mixing some D in with the A to get effect B, with a 50% decrease in C."
Buy and read the book Laser:  https://www.amazon.com/Laser-Inventor-Laureate-Thirty-Year-Patent/dp/0595465285  The book describes a grad student who had a 30 year patent battle over who invented the laser.  He "won" (perhaps it was settle, but I think he prevailed) because he had gotten his lab notebook notarized by a drugstore clerk!  Few practical lessons from that:  use your notebook, know when you have lightning in a bottle (almost literally in his case) and be prepared for some fight if the thing is actually worth something.
I have had a patent fail because it was a year after publication. (I misjudged the time because I didn't realize Chem Abstracts was considered publication and was just thinking about the "real journal".  So don't cut things too close.  [That said, in all likelihood, you are just an academic trying to get prestige, so figure out how to get both a publication and a patent out of the research.]

Most patents loose money.  You should not use taxpayer money to fund a patent that will loose money.
https://www.allbusiness.com/97-percent-of-all-patents-never-make-any-money-15258080-1.html
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2014/06/18/13633/#3cf5de626f1c

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


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Finding it extremely difficult to get through with my Masters thesis. Stuck with a mediocre thesis
I am very close to finishing my masters and am finding it extremely difficult to get through with my thesis. Although my topic is relevant and interesting, nobody, including my supervisor is able to guide me well. All my thesis reviews until now have gone really bad because they think I am not doing anything fancy.
I have discussed this with my guide and am not receiving any help. I feel my guide is not much experienced in this area of research. I am currently in the middle of my thesis where I cannot change my topic. I feel stuck and demotivated. I feel all the effort that I am putting in is going down the drain.
I feel sad and miserable all the time. All those students who didn't perform well earlier are putting up their best work now and are appreciated while I am stuck here with my unappealing work. I really want to take some time off this work but cant due to the  tight schedule of my reviews. I already had serious anxiety issues and this is making it worse.
I really want to know if any of you faced similar issues and how you overcame it. Any suggestions on how to recover are welcome.

What do you mean by "reviews"?

Periodical assessment by a panel of faculties

Have you talked about that to the student office? You might be now too late, because you are towards the end of your project. It is very hard to work on a field where the supervisor cannot guide you. Any chance to switch topics/supervisors? Keep in mind that choice of a good topic may also be a lot of luck, but definitely the supervisor must be on board.

Yeah changing topic would just worsen my situation at this stage. We dint have a lot of options for selecting a supervisor. So I just chose the one who whose willing to guide me.

That's bad. Try to identify where you are stuck, write it on a list, and find out where you can move, and try to focus your progress there. Do it on paper, this will help clearing your mind, trust me.

First, I suggest that you talk to a professional counselor about your frustration and how to cope with it. If you don't do that you could wind up in worse shape than you are.
However, "mediocre thesis" is probably a misstatement. You are stuck and you aren't getting the feedback that will help you advance. Your advisor isn't providing it and may not be able to. However, there might be other faculty that you can speak with that will have some ideas.
Many students at about your position find themselves in a bit of a burnout situation, having worked hard for a long time without a break. I went through that and also once worked with an unhelpful advisor. I had to change institutions to break the cycle, but, had I been braver, I could have shortened my process by insisting on a change of advisors. Later I found that things like regular (aerobic) exercise helped me maintain a more sensible work flow.
For the thesis work itself, you need someone, probably a faculty member who can get you through whatever technical block you are facing. You say the topic is relevant and interesting. But you may be missing some important insight. Doing the same things over and over may not lead you to that. It may be a small thing or not, but try to get some assistance. If you can't change advisors, and they can't help, look elsewhere.
But first, deal with the emotional/personal issues.

Thank you. I shall try to seek help.

Universities often have a counseling office or one dedicated to student assistance of various kinds.