I had a question since I was a child. I was always curious about the fact that all animals can swim in water. They don't need any training or to learn swimming. But humans need to learn to swim. Why ?
I am a technical person and not in biology after my 10th year in school. Can anybody please shed some light on this question?
Where can I find a database of impact factors where self-citation has been removed? A journal's self-citations are defined as those citations by that journal's papers towards other papers in the same journal.
The reason I want to know this is to know which journals are engaged in coercive citation so that I know which journals I should avoid.
Answer
Update from March 2016: it seems like ISI Knowledge offers citation counts with person-level self-citations taken out. Any of that should be treated as experimental, of course. Don't know if this could work for a journal.
I don't think any of the existing systems take out the self-citations. The publishers and journals are not interested in seeing reduced impact factors, so few editorial boards and fewer yet commercial publishers would be interested in anybody producing such rankings. If a discipline has its independent referencing and citations systems, they might be interested in such more objective analysis -- e.g., economists have their CitEc (Citations in Economics), a part of RePEc (Research Papers in Economics), which does track self-citations (see the 2012 Nobel prize winners, Alvin Roth and Lloyd Shapley as examples... the first one has as many self-citations as the second one, total citations). I would venture a guess that mathematicians might have a similar system. But I doubt that natural or social sciences do.
The high impact journals are obviously important for publishing, getting good academic jobs and getting tenured. However, impact factor may only tell a part of the story, and some disciplines have reputable journals that may not have the highest possible IFs. Let me take again economics as an example that I am familiar with. In most US departments, you'd get tenured if you have a paper in either American Economics Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics, or Econometrica. (The QJE is often said to mostly publish MIT and Harvard folks.) AER is only 19th in this list of impact factors (which may be as good as any other list that's not password protected by ISI), and I have never heard about some of these journals. The AER's impact factor of 2.5 is not even funny for a biologist seeking Science or Nature publications, though -- the impact factors of the latter are what, 30 or so?
I work in industry and tend to care little about the journals outside of my area (statistics); generally, statistics journals tend to have IFs between 0.25 and 4. The reality of my particular field (survey research) is that people just submit their paper to proceedings of the annual conferences and move on with their paying projects, and don't have the time to BS back and forth with the reviewers. There are people in academia who need to publish-or-perish, so you would see some typical academic papers with rather small contributions to the knowledge, but their authors either have their own time or slave labor force grad students to write these up.
As a guiding rule of what journals to avoid, you can start with commercially published journals and respect the professional organizations publish their journals themselves, without Wiley or Elsevier grabbing them as a source of income... although I can imagine that coercive citations is what the editorial boards insist on, which may or may not correlate strongly with who publishes a given journal. I have received requests to cite the given journal more (this is a problem for disciplines with an overproduction of journals fighting each other; again, in my industry, there are probably four or five decent ones, and they don't need to fight), but tended to ignore them.
I see a number of answers in this site where building contacts over a glass of beer is encouraged. Moreover the cream of academia belongs to the Western world, where beer culture is common. Unfortunately though, I am a rigid teetotaler and I do not know about the ins-and-outs of the preferences of drinking friends of mine. I confess I'd make a terrible company at a public house. But I hasten to add that in general, I am amiable and move around quite well with people within my limitations.
Does my being a teetotaler put me at a grave disadvantage when it comes to establishing intelligent academic contacts?
I recently received a "revise and resubmit" decision for a submission to an Elsevier journal, and the deadline to resubmit is in about 5 weeks. Since I have to consult with my coauthors for my revision, and one of them is a professor who's not exactly fast in replying emails, I'm worried whether I'll be able to get a revision ready in time.
Is the resubmit deadline strict? Once the deadline passes and I don't make a resubmission, is the paper immediately rejected? Is it usually possible to ask for an extension?
Answer
In my experience, paper revision deadlines set out by journals are not strict. They are set out as a way to schedule and organize the journal operations. Perhaps deadlines for revisions are also to put a bit of pressure to authors to actually perform the changes in a reasonable time.
However, you are expected to meet them as a way to be respectful of all the people handling your manuscript, from the journal staff to reviewers and the editor(s).
As one comment stated, it is always a good practice to let the editor(s) and the handling staff know if you cannot meet a deadline, and to propose a new deadline that you would strive to meet.
Not meeting a deadline for a revision does not imply that your work does not meet scientific standards. Thus, rejections are not likely to happen. Still, not meeting a deadline and not offering explanations in advance would suggest that you are busy but rude.
Is it common in academia to include the number of results a Google search on a keyword yields as an evidence for the prevalence of something online?
I'm not intending to base my research paper on this evidence; it is just a supporting point in a paragraph.
For example, I'm writing a research paper on Stack Exchange; one of the paragraphs is about how popular Stack Exchange is in the internet.
In one of the paragraph, I would mention that a Google search on the keyword 'Stack Exchange' yielded about 49,600,000 results, which shows how popular it is among netizens.
Answer
Do not do this. The "approximate" number of hits Google reports is completely worthless. To see why, look at this number on both the first and the tenth page of Google hits:
When I just did this, I got "approximately 9,010,000 hits" reported on the first results page... but only "approximately 48 hits" on the tenth page.
Your results will probably vary, depending on your search engine bubble (another reason why this number is useless).
A friend told me, during a 3 minute discussion, that viruses that are endemic in host $A$ and make repeated jumps to host $B$ but can't be transmitted between individuals of species $B$, may slowly adapt (through these repeated jumps) to be able to be transmitted between individuals of host $B$ and become epidemic.
I don't know much about epidemiology. I don't understand how a virus population that is endemic to host $A$ may adapt to host $B$ with repeated jumps while the viruses that jump to host $B$ are dead end because they cannot be transmitted further more. Or Are these viruses able to jump back to host $A$ to bring back their newly acquired adaptations to host $B$?
Also, I might misunderstand the meaning of "repeated host jumps transmission". I first thought it meant repeated jumps from a reservoir population in host $A$ to host $B$, but it is also possible that it describes the dynamic of a virus population that is adapted to jump from species to species and they actually gain this ability by keeping jumping and jumping. But then, how could a virus species get adapted to jump from species to species? I'm a bit confused…. Can you give me some hints about this process of cross-species transmission through repeated jumps?
Answer
A friend told me, during a 3 minute discussion, that viruses that are endemic in host A and make repeated jumps to host B but can't be transmitted between individuals of species B, may slowly adapt (through these repeated jumps) to be able to be transmitted between individuals of host B and become epidemic.
This is...mostly true. A good example is avian influenza - there are a number of human infections linked to contact with infected poultry, but the virus is not particularly good at sustaining long chains of human-to-human transmission, likely due to differences in the respiratory tract between humans and birds.
I don't know much about epidemiology. I don't understand how a virus population that is endemic to host A may adapt to host B with repeated jumps while the viruses that jump to host B are dead end because they cannot be transmitted further more. Or Are these viruses able to jump back to host A to bring back their newly acquired adaptations to host B?
What they mean by repeated jumps, or what they should mean, is not a virus hopping back and forth, but a virus going from A to B many times. This is my problem with your friend's statement, it's not so much a "slow adaptation" as, well, random chance.
Imagine that there's a mutation in Virus A, which lives in chickens, that will make it well adapted to live in human beings. It's an extremely rare mutation, so the dominant strain of Virus A is maladapted for human to human transmission. That means most Virus A infections in humans will be the non-productive kind, that will infect a person, but not go on to infect other people. But, with enough rolls of the dice, a human might get the human-favored Virus A, and since there's now intense selective pressure for that strain of the virus within its new human host, it might establish itself and take off.
When I was working on my dissertation, I had translated some first chapters of a book that I was using into my native language. The reasons I do this because I could consider myself pretty good at reading English comparing two other students in my group (iBT TOEFL reading score: 25/30), and because my specialization was very new to my country (there was (and still is) only three groups, including our group, work in this), therefore seriously lacking good resources. While translating not really prove that I can afford a PhD, it does indicate that I have some contributions to the scientific community. But the translation is unfinished (only first 4 of 25 chapters are translated). I can continue to finish it, but it won't be in near future. Should I write this down on my CV/SOP?
Answer
Unfortunately, most hiring committees would at best ignore this contribution and at worst wonder if you allocate your time wisely.
The work of translators is (unfortunately) given little value in academic communities with the exception of the field of literature and even there it is deprecated. The rationale is that the work is not the result of independent research nor does it add any intellectual value -- it is inherently wholly derivative.
There might be some association of value if your translation had been finished, published by a reputable scientific publisher in your country, and you had been given awards or otherwise acknowledged for providing an important service to your community. But even then, there is a perception of someone as being "just a translator" that is hard to shake off.
Note that Famous People® are allowed to do translations and be recognized for it, but Famous People® have latitude in their work that non-famous people don't.
At the very worst, a committee might worry that the fact that the translation is unfinished and that you have put effort into doing something with little recognized value means that you don't allocate your energy and time wisely, and that you are not capable of independent research.
The same also applies for authoring textbooks. Textbooks are also seen as inherently derivative and while they make the publisher and author money, are not indications of original scholarship.
At this point in your career, you want to be seen as the generator of original scholarship.
I am a math student and never take notes in class. I feel like I am offending the professors by not taking notes. In general, do professors like students to be "active" during class? I have never learned much by taking notes.
I see other graduate students furiously taking notes...and then I am afraid that professors may write that I am lazy in recommendation letters. So maybe I should just takes notes?
After publishing an article, assuming that the publisher doesn't prevent you from sharing an article online in a public place, the authors might want to receive additional feedback.
Are there good online methods for attracting and receiving comments on one's article, in addition to collaborators, reviewers, and emails? If possible the comments should be public so that other people could reply to comments.
I submitted a paper to an Elsevier journal in August and the status has been "with editor" ever since. I was concerned that it had not been sent for review for 4 months and I sent inquiries twice without getting any response. I am wondering if I should just withdraw my paper?
In this comment, it was claimed:
Predatory publishers thrive because when you apply for a job or a grant, few read your papers. They check the papers you pinpoint and the number of publcations. That's where these publishers step on and that's why people choose them. Not because they don't know. Of course there might be a few accidentally doing it, like the OP in this question, but most of the people who are in academia for a while select them only to increase faster their publication list.
By contrast, I cannot remember a single case of somebody reporting their experience with such publisher on this very site that submitted a paper to a predatory publisher knowingly (except for exposing them). Now, there is no denying that there is a strong bias here since people who intentionally choose a predatory publisher are less likely to admit it or ask questions here.
So, I am curious: Is there any data or good argument to support the claim that people who publish with predatory publishers are aware that they are not publishing with a regular scientific publisher?
Answer
There is some circumstantial evidence against the claim that most people who publish with predatory publishers are aware that they are not publishing with a regular scientific publisher.
Many authors of papers published in predatory journals are inexperienced with academic publication. From [1]:
The majority of authors who publish in predatory journals have no other publications, whereas the second largest group consists of authors with fewer than five journal publications elsewhere; very few authors have published more than 10 articles. In contrast, the histogram reveals that group 2 authors, those who publish in OA journals that have a robust review process and subsequently rejected Bohannon's false submission, generally have a stronger publication record. With the exception of a few new authors, most group 2 authors have published journal articles previously; in fact, some authors have published more than 30 articles.
(Group-1 journals are open-access journals with low-quality or no peer review; group-2 journals are open-access journals that have more rigorous peer-review process than the journals in group 1. All are biomedical-science journals.)
Many prospective authors are unfamiliar with predatory journals and unaware of predatory practices in the academic publishing industry.
In a survey of 145 medical and veterinary science participants in a scientific writing workshop [2]:
Thirty-four of 142 (23.9%) respondents were aware of the DOAJ; 7/143 (4.8%) were aware of Beall’s list, 33/143 (23.0%) were aware of the term “predatory journal”, and 24/142 (16.9%) were aware of the Science article about predatory journals.
In another (very small) survey of U.S.-based authors who published in criminal-justice journals on Beall’s list [3]:
Just under half (44%; 4 respondents) of the respondents had heard of the “Scholarly Open Access List” and one-third of the respondents had heard of the term “Predatory Journal.” Furthermore, all but one of the respondents was not aware that they had published an article in a journal associated with the predatory journal list. One respondent questioned the accuracy of their association with a predatory journal, and stated
… should not be on the list. They had more referees than any other journal I’ve pursued and I’m [the] author of 20 peer reviewed papers (sic).
References:
[1]: Xia J, Harmon JL, Connolly KG, Donnelly RM, Anderson MR, Howard HA. Who publishes in “predatory” journals?. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology. 2015 Jul 1;66(7):1406-17. DOI: 10.1002/asi.23265
[2]: Christopher MM, Young KM. Awareness of “Predatory” open-access journals among prospective veterinary and medical authors attending scientific writing workshops. Frontiers in Veterinary Science. 2015;2. DOI: 10.3389/fvets.2015.00022
[3]: Noga-Styron KE, Olivero JM, Britto S. Predatory Journals in the Criminal Justices Sciences: Getting our Cite on the Target. Journal of Criminal Justice Education. 2016 Jul 8:1-8. DOI: 10.1080/10511253.2016.1195421
There is a paper I want to cite where, on the title page of the article, the authors names appear without any middle initials (i.e., one of the authors is Mark Smith). However, this one author frequently publishes using his middle initials (i.e., Mark E. Smith). What is the appropriate way to cite this-with the name as it appears in the article, or the name as the author typically uses it? For what it's worth, the source article appear in a mathematical journal, and I want to cite it in a paper that will eventually appear in a mathematical journal.
Say you have a homework assignment and you're struggling with it. You ask a question about some portion of it on a site like physics.stackexchange or math.SE or stackoverflow.com, etc.
You then cite the help you received in your homework, as well as including a link to the post which helped you.
Given that you are removing the "dishonesty" part of the equation, is this still considered cheating? Or would a professor just not give you credit for the part which they feel you didn't do on your own?
Answer
This depends a great deal on the professor and course in question. Better to ask first if you plan to do this. Also, check the syllabus if there is a stated policy regarding help on homework.
Recently I received an invitation for Phi Kappa Phi honor society. I do not know too much about those organizations and I was wandering what are the benefits (or possible disadvantages) of joining?
I was searching online and people keep mentioning that it is good for your resume, networking etc. However, it seems to me that I just need to pay for membership and they will put me on the list, how could it be beneficial for me?
Could you please tell me if worth considering? And is it really beneficial to have those things on my resume? Do graduate schools or employers pay attention for those?
Answer
Do graduate schools pay attention to joining Phi Kappa Phi or other honor societies?
As I understand it, eligibility for membership in Phi Kappa Phi is entirely determined by grades and class rank. If so, it won't help with grad school applications, since the admissions committee already has access to far more information about grades than they would learn from knowing the applicant is a member.
Some fields may have honor societies for which membership conveys more information, but I do not think there is any widely known, field-independent example in the U.S.
In my experience on graduate admissions committees in mathematics, I've never heard anyone discuss honor societies at all.
I joined an honor society as an undergraduate, not because I saw personal benefits to it but because my parents would have been disappointed if I had declined membership. The only consequence for me has been that they occasionally send me a newsletter, but I'm told some people do find membership to be useful or meaningful.
The information between the brain and peripheral nerves is sent via electrical pulses or signals, How then does a non-metallic human cell manage to conduct an electrical signal?
Answer
This is quite a big question! I'll try to outline the basic view.
First, let's review how neurons signal between each other. The canonical way for a neuron to send a signal to a downstream neuron is by generating an action potential, the "electrical impulse" you have heard of. This action potential causes the release of neurotransmitter at a point where the two cells are very close to each other called a synapse. The downstream postsynaptic cell receives the neurotransmitter signal and converts it into a small electrical signal. If enough of these small electrical signals happen in a short time, they sum together and are likely to initiate an action potential in the second cell and the cycle repeats all along the circuit.
How is the electrical signal generated? The basics of how this works was worked out most famously by Hodgkin and Huxley in 1952. The short story is that the plasma membrane is selectively permeable to ions. Let's build the concept from the ground up.
Imagine a sphere of plasma membrane that represents a simple neuron. For starters, we assume that this membrane is bare lipid with no membrane-associated proteins. Because of the hydrophobicity of the bilayer, charged particles cannot diffuse through the membrane.
The cell is bathed, inside and outside, in a solution containing many ions (charged atoms), including sodium (Na+), potassium (K+), chloride (Cl-), and calcium (Ca2+). As we noted above, these ions cannot go through the membrane without "help".
Now we add an ion pump protein into the membrane which will pump sodium ions out and potassium ions in. This particular pump, the Na-K ATPase, creates an excess of sodium ions outside the cell and an excess of potassium ions inside.
Now we add a potassium ion channel to the membrane. This protein creates a pore in the membrane that only allows potassium ions through. This particular protein's pore is always open. Now things start getting exciting...
What do the potassium ions do now that they can go through the membrane? Ions will move based on the forces created by their electrochemical gradients. The pump created a chemical gradient by putting excess K+ inside, so the K+ ions start to flow out through the ion channels. But K+ ions are positively charged, so when they flow out, positive charge starts building up outside and negative charge builds up inside. This electrical gradient opposes the chemical gradient, tending to pull the K+ ions into the cell while the chemical gradients pulls K+ ions out. The influx and efflux reach an equilibrium at the Nernst potential, where the electrical and chemical forces equal out. For physiological concentrations of K+ ions, the K+ equilibrium potential is about -80mV or -90mV. This means that K+ ions will flow until the outside of the cell is 80-90mV more positive than the inside of the cell. We started at 0mV, so K+ ions mostly flow out.
We now have a membrane potential, a difference in electrical potential between the inside and the outside of the cell at about -80mV (usually closer to -70mV or -60mV in "real life"). In particular, this membrane potential is the resting potential that exists when the cell is not active. We can simplify for now and think of the resting potential as being set by a resting permeability of the membrane to potassium ions, but not to sodium ions. We call this membrane polarized, and thus depolarization is when the membrane potential becomes more positive, and hyperpolarization is when the membrane potential becomes more negative.
Now, we add to the membrane a voltage-gated sodium channel, an ion channel that passes only sodium ions but is usually closed. The voltage-gating means that this ion channel is sensitive to the membrane potential. At the resting potential, the pore is closed and the membrane is still impermeable to sodium ions. When the membrane potential becomes slightly more positive, the channels opens and sodium ions can flow. This channel is also inactivating, so that when it opens it only opens for a short period of time, letting in a limited amount of sodium.
What way will sodium flow when we open this channel? Because of the negative resting potential (-70mV) and the excess of sodium ions outside due to the pump, both the electrical and chemical gradient will drive sodium ions into the cell. The sodium equilibrium potential is usually around +60mV.
To complete the machinery for generating an action potential, we also add a voltage-gated potassium channel to the membrane. It works just like the voltage-gated sodium channel that is also closed at rest and opens when the membrane potential becomes more positive. This channel opens a bit more slowly than the sodium channel does, but it does not inactivate.
Ok, so how do these parts come together to create an electrical impulse?
The cell sits at its resting membrane potential, with all of its voltage-gated channels closed. It receives a signal from an upstream cell that causes a slight depolarization. The action potential will initiate when the membrane potential hits the threshold potential.
At the threshold potential, the voltage-gated sodium channels open letting sodium ions flow into the cell. The sodium flux pulls the membrane from the resting potential (-70mV) towards the sodium equilibrium potential (+60mV). These values are far apart, so the driving force is large and the membrane depolarizes rapidly. This is the action potential upstroke.
The depolarization also activates the (slightly slower) voltage-gated potassium channels. The potassium ions flow out and drive the depolarized membrane (about +20mV at the action potential peak) back towards the potassium equilibrium potential (-80mV). At the same time, the sodium channels are inactivating so that sodium is no longer depolarizing the membrane. The repolarization rate is usually slower than the depolarization rate. This is the action potential downstroke.
The whole process of the action potential depolarization/repolarization cycle takes about 2-3 milliseconds in an "average" neuron. Once the cell reaches resting potentials again, the membrane is basically reset. The voltage-gated channels are turned off. The ion pump moves the potassium ions that flowed out and the sodium ions that flowed in. That patch of membrane is ready to fire another action potential!
As a final note, I'll mention that the voltage-gated sodium channel provides a mechanism for the action potential to propagate down the axon. The action potential is initiated in one location of the cell, and creates a depolarization. This depolarization causes the voltage-gated sodium channels in neighbouring regions of the membrane to open and generate an action potential cycle of their own. This is how an action potential travel down axons (and sometimes dendrites too).
Many of us often talk about Bachelor's and Master's students, PhD students, researchers, professors, and postdocs.
But, do we know what we actually intend when we say "Post-Doc"?
We all know that a Post-Doc is a person who, after finishing his/her PhD, works for one or two years as a scientist in a scientific research group. Beyond this simple definition, I would like to know what you think about Post-Doc roles inside a laboratory and a group.
What is actually a Postdoc fellow?
Is he a debutant researcher? Or is he just a ultra-super-student? Or is he half a super-student, and half a researcher?
What is a Postdoctoral fellow supposed to do?
What do you expect from a Postdoctoral fellow?
I am applying for a PhD programme in Europe. For that I need to write a cover letter. It will be more like a SOP (technical but shorter version, as it's one page) or it can be more general stuff, as in why I want to do a PhD, what I like about this particular field, what background I have. Any suggestions welcome.
From Raichle ME. 2010. Two views of brain function. Trends in cognitive sciences 14: 180–90:
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common cause of progressive cognitive decline and dementia in adults. While the amyloid cascade hypothesis of AD posits an initiating role for the β-amyloid (Aβ) protein, there is limited understanding of why Aβ is deposited. A growing body of evidence based on in vitro, animal studies and human imaging work suggests that synaptic activity increases Aβ, which is deposited preferentially in multimodal brain regions that show continuous levels of heightened activation and plasticity across the lifespan. Imaging studies of people with genetic predispositions to AD are consistent with these findings, suggesting a mechanism whereby neural efficiency or cognitive reserve may diminish Aβ deposition. The aggregated findings unify observations from cellular and molecular studies with human cognitive neuroscience to reveal potential mechanisms of AD development.
Answer
I think the article that quoted(1) is different to what the link shows now(2). However, both the article quoted and the one in the link are relevant to the question.
Alzheimer's Disease : In a nutshell, AD is the most common form of dementia. Although the exact cause is still under investigation, several genes have been implicated in the development of AD. One of the things you see in the brain with disease progression is beta amyloid plaque deposition which disrupts brain activity.
Brain Activity : While the brain consumes around 20% of our body's energy at a baseline, an increase in brain activity only increases this consumption by around 5%. Hans Berger, the first to record an EEG stated that "mental work, as I explained elsewhere, adds only a small increment to the cortical work which is going on continuously and not only in the waking state".(2)
However, there are a few 'intrinsic' networks or regions that perform functions such as "information processing for interpreting, responding to and predicting environmental demands". One of the areas active in this state of the brain is referred to as the 'default mode network' (DMN). It's thought that DMN is the main target of the amyloid plaques responsible for Alzheimer's Disease.(2)
However, there are other multimodal regions of the brain that perform processing of various types of information. It's now suggested that "regions vulnerable to Ab deposition do not simply involve the DMN, but rather comprise multimodal brain regions that are highly interconnected, plastic, and capable of rapid ATP generation"(1).
So it's a variation of activity in these particular areas - not all - that are implicated with Alzheimer's Disease. When you are performing a task, activity in these areas diminish.
Why keep the brain intentionally active : The reason for the hypothesis that actively engaging in challenging activity may reduce the risk of AD is that individuals with a high cognitive reserve have been shown to cope with the pathological changes such as beta amyloid deposition better. Cognitive reserve has been linked to a bunch of factors including "education, occupation, socioeconomic status, social networks and lifelong participation in cognitive and physical activity" and reflects "lifelong patterns of behaviors, endogenous factors (including genetics) and exposure to environmental factors"(1).
Moreover, it's suggested that perhaps higher cognitive reserve increases neuronal efficiency which has been shown to reduce plaque deposition.(1).
So InquilineKea's question and jp89's answer aren't really contradictory.
August, et al. Lifespan brain activity, β-amyloid, and Alzheimer's disease. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 2011. 15(11):520-526.
Raiche. Two views of the brain. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 2010. 14(4):180-190.
Hafkemeijer, et al. Imaging the default mode network in aging and dementia. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Molecular Basis of Disease. 2012. 1822(3):431-441.
Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine. 16th Ed. McGraw Hill.
There are a lot of questions about admissions on this forum, including many which discuss the importance of the GRE. However, my question is a little more specific than most of them.
In short, what does it take to not get "filtered out" of graduate schools admissions, particularly in competitive engineering/STEM programs?
I have read some answers on this forum that mention that candidate profiles are divided into MAYBE/PROBABLY NOT/NOT groups, where applicants who belong on PROBABLY NOT/NOT groups may not have their applications read by faculty--which makes sense, given the hundreds of qualified candidates they can choose from. (See this and this). This practice is consistent with what I've heard from other professors. However, what does it take to not automatically fall into those categories?
JeffE, for instance, mentions that, in his school, candidates are/were filtered by GRE and GPA. How does this process work? Are GRE/GPA scores the only filters or are other qualifications taken into consideration during the initial triage (i.e., publications)?
For instance, I received unimpressive GRE scores (~90% Q / ~70% V / ~10% AWA, ran off-topic). Moreover, while I ranked first in my graduating class, I am an international applicant from a (top) Latin American school and the committee may not be able to interpret my GPA. While I could take the GRE again and score better, that would consume time, energy and money (getting to the nearest test center requires 10+ hours of travel as well as sleeping over), all of which could be better spent in other parts of my application. Nonetheless, I believe I have an otherwise very strong application, having various first author publications in top journals and conferences, very strong LORs, 5+ years of research experience, and regularly serving as a reviewer for a top journal in my field.
However, my concern is to be rejected in the initial triage, given that I have no idea about what would get me past it.
I was wondering whether anyone knows how to identify what animal the following bone belongs to. I assume it a femur, but it seems rather short and squat. The following photos show two views of this bone and I've placed a 15cm ruler in the frame with the bone.
I am interested in a new fast moving field in which none of the professors at my university have an interest. I have even started to work on some areas that show promise in the current scenario.
As I am working independently, and this will be my first paper, do I have a reasonable chance of getting it published (assuming it turns out well)?
What mistakes should I absolutely avoid while working on this paper? (to maximize chances of publishing later on)
The title says it all I believe.
Do I need to request permission from a colleague to cite their information as a "personal communication"?
"Do I need to" may be a little restrictive, so I'll also ask, would you feel wronged or offended if your personal comm. were cited without your express permission?
Answer
I think we don't even need to consider permission in order to resolve this question. The more fundamental question is this: how do you know that "personal communication" is the right citation and not a publication?
Your colleague may have been passing on information that they or somebody else had already published. Even if it was not published when the colleague spoke to you, it may have been published (or at least submitted) as part of some manuscript since. It may also have been communicated to you in confidence---you would hopefully remember if this was the case, but in some cases it may be easy to forget, e.g., if it was said during a UK meeting held under Chatham House Rule or at a Gordon Conference.
I would thus recommend contacting the colleague to ask what the appropriate citation for the information is. At that point, the colleague can make an appropriate judgement and either point you to a standard citation, tell you to cite as personal communication, or request that you not publish the information.
I feel awkward addressing myself as Dr. X or Prof X. I know that this is common practice (e.g. in emails, letters, etc..). In emails, I prefer to just use my initials or first name. Is this a common experience (i.e. not wanting to be addressed as Dr. or Professor)?
I had today an experiment that we put 95% alcohol to the blood which made it completely transparent so hemolysis must have occurred. I started to think about the reasons.
I think that this is because alcohol dissolved the lipid membrane of cells outside of the cell. Alcohol molecule is also very small. I think that I can go through the bilayer too. So I started to think that the other possible reason was that alcohol went inside the cell so caused
What are the main reasons why Alcohol cause hemolysis to the red blood cell?
This is related to this question, but it is more a special case of it.
I reviewed a manuscript, which was submitted to a reputable traditional journal. The journal has a single-blind review system. I liked the manuscript a lot, as it was closely related to my research interests. However, the authors did not do a great job in reporting the manuscript, and I provided a long review with several suggestions for improving the report.
I suggested major revisions, but the editor rejected the paper. That is ok for me; it is the editor's responsibility to take such decisions. What is important is that the process is now closed.
By re-reading my review together with the other two referee's reviews, I came up with a couple other suggestions that I truly believe would benefit to the manuscript. Would it be a bad practice to contact the authors now that the paper is no longer under review? I do not mind unveiling my identity, and I would do that only because I want to advance the research in the paper. That is, I just want to help them.
Answer
It sounds like a good thing to do, since the reviewing process for this journal is over. I would certainly appreciate it if I where the author of that article (passed the frustration that generally follows article rejection).
It's almost certain that it will be submitted somewhere else, so your (free) inputs will benefit the authors and the community.
This is valid, of course, only if you are not reviewer again in the next submission, you should definitely decline if it happens.
I am looking for recommendations to good textbooks introducing modern immunology. Review articles, preferably modern (post 2000) would also be useful.
Please, include a brief comment with each book recommendation.
About book listing questions on SE: I understand that SE sites in general have adopted in the last year a policy against book listing questions. Instead, book lists should be moved to tag wikis. However, since BiologySE is still beta and young and the tag-wiki for immunology is mostly empty, I believe we would benefit from a question listing good introductory books to modern immunology, at least temporarily. Eventually, when Biology.SE matures, this question should be closed or locked, and the book recommendations herein moved to the tag-wiki for immunology. Moreover, for most other SE sites I have seen, the tag-wikis usually gather information that first appeared in questions like this, even if the question is eventually closed or locked. That's why I think this question will be useful to the community, at least temporarily.
Is it a bad thing in academia if a student works from home? Missing department talks and seminars is obviously bad, but in case a student is pursuing a problem alone and he feels comfortable researching at home, is it viewed negatively? At times the time spent on travel and a crowded lab may disrupt one's flow of thoughts, so in those cases home provides an edge.
Is physical attendance deemed important by the department as long as they are kept in the loop regarding your progress?
Answer
The answer is it depends - both on the student and the culture of the department.
There are of course some situations where working from home is impossible - graduate programs that are heavily lab based come to mind. Below is a summarization of my thoughts from a more data analysis driven field, having done both.
Positives
Negatives
Overall, I wouldn't say its bad. I know successful academics who work almost entirely in their office, and who work almost entirely from home. I'd say the best way to promote on-site work, if a university is trying to accomplish that, is not to focus on the bad parts of working from home, but on addressing what makes it appealing. I finally moved entirely to a working from home setup because I got tired of "work" involving camping out in cramped spaces, without the materials I needed, fighting for power outlets.
As for whether or not your physical presence is important to the department - it depends on the department. I've known some who don't care as long as you show up to what you need to, and others that absolutely want you there, and subtly penalize those who aren't around.
I got my PhD one year ago; I am looking for a position (e.g., postdoc). I am going to a fairly attended conference, and was pondering about how to make audience aware that I am on the market.
Would you find any of this appropriate? What would you advice me to do?
EDIT In case you think it's not a good idea, I'd be interested in knowing why. Otherwise, I'd be interested in any additional implementation advice (how to formulate that, or whatever comes to mind).
Answer
Don't be shy about advertising. As you and Dave suggest, place it at the end, but you don't need to be very subtle about it. I've seen a number of talks where people advertise the fact that they're on the market, and everyone understands the need to do this. Presumably you're worried about it seeming desperate, but it isn't.
Recently, I contacted a publisher about the draft of a book that I wrote about a year ago. I found their advertisement over the net. This is a scientific book that I have worked on for about two or three years and have revised it more than four times.
The publisher proposed that if I pay a certain amount of money that they can publish my book in a month or two.
Does this kind of pay-to-publish or self-publishing of books confer any reputation in academia? What are the advantages and disadvantages to doing so?
Answer
I would recommend that you ask yourself a question: why do I want this book "officially" published? You could, after all, just make the material free online via arXiv or as a webpage or an archival technical report of various types depending on its contents and your situation.
Serious and reputable academic publishing houses are always looking for good books to publish. The right ones for your field will generally have booths at the major conferences in the field, with representatives that you can talk to.
I am currently writing my PhD thesis, and I have published an article together with my supervisor. The third chapter of my PhD thesis (1/3 of my whole thesis) is basically the paper. I plan to include the 30 pages of the article of the content that I have produced almost unchanged, except that it fits to my thesis layout, and I will remake the images, remove the introduction and some other minor changes. I also will add some new content, but this is mostly 3-4 pages.
My first question is, how do you actually cite 30 pages? Do you add a sentence at the beginning of the chapter like that?
The content of this chapter has been published before in ...
My second question is, should I ask the "author service" of the journal where my original article has been published if it is okay if I reuse most of the content from the article in my PhD thesis?
There is nothing regarding this issue in my PhD regulations.
[Edit]Some additional information: I am from Germany, I am doing my PhD in math, and I published the article in the journal Numerical Linear Algebra with Applications.
Answer
For the first question: When the chapter is really just your paper (reformatted), I would go with what you already suggested; begin the chapter with a small text saying "The content of this chapter has been published in ...".
If it is an extended version, then "The content of this chapter is an extended version of ...".
Regarding the second question: first read the copyright transfer that you signed. Often, it already gives permission for reusing the text and figures in your own thesis. If it does not explicitly state this, or is ambiguous, then it is best to contact the journal.
I'd like to download automatically tons of papers listed on .bib file so I'm trying to find a way to facilitate the process by, e.g. I import or input to a tool a certain .bib file which contains a list of literature, the output is the literature's .pdf file. Any idea to do so?
I am an undergraduate student and have recently been accepted by a professor to work on a robotics project in his lab. The professor mentioned that I will be working with a Phd student.
My confusion is as to what work I'll actually be able to do as the Phd student who is obviously more qualified will do majority of the work. So, will I just be left with useless work like analysis/ report writing or will I actually be given work?
When should one ask for letters recommendations of the people of one's choice? E.g. when applying for a PhD program, should you ask for two or three letters all at once or should one collect a letter immediately after one has finished something significant like an undergraduate thesis, an (under)graduate research paper or Master's thesis, so that one has all the letters together covering maybe 2 or 3 years when applying for a PhD position?
Answer
You can choose either of the options, but I would wait at least till I've had quite a few accomplishment. However, some professors take a long time to write, so it would be good to approach them at least a few months before you start applying. Letter of recommendation can be collected and filed till the time you need them.
This may be a silly question, but why do people in academia tend to write their emails as jhon(dot)doe(at)gmail(dot)com?
I want to create a fairly long survey for my doctoral research. The target audience is teachers in the area. I have the option of using the software my institution provides (Qualtrics), Google Forms, SurveyMonkey, or perhaps something different. I'm leaning toward my university's software because the URL has my university's domain and might seem more trustworthy or legit than SurveyMonkey. Google Forms is pretty slick, though, too.
My one requirement is that I need to be able to branch based on answers.
What are some pros/cons of using one software over the other for academic work? Is it okay to do a survey with software not provided by my institution?
(PS--This is actually on behalf of my wife. :-) )
Answer
I don't think that survey URL's domain plays a significant role in trustworthiness of a doctoral survey request. What is far more important IMHO are the contents and writing style of the invitation letter as well as having solid professional or academic online profiles (as most likely most people will be looking you up anyway).
In regard to the software selection aspect, my advice is to check the following resources: this Wikipedia page, this Quora wiki page and this Quora thread. Just keep in mind that some answers are posted by people, affiliated with firms - creators of some survey software. Finally, I would like to emphasize that, when selecting survey software, it is important to consider its features and format flexibility in exporting the results for further data analysis (I assume such analysis is planned).
I've recently started doing postdoc in an European country.
Since the first day, I am having problems with working in the lab environment. The research group is too individualistic (there is no shared protocols, project and any kind of support) and some people are behaving in quite toxic ways. One of the lab members doesn't even look or talk to us (me and another student) since we arrived here. He ignores and turns away whenever he sees us, as if we are not worth it.
The main problem is the postdoc though. He is too assertive, aggressive and sort of being a bully in lab meetings, trying to get involved in every project and confront you without significant reasons. He even interrupts when he thinks it is boring and not delivered very well or wants you to prove (show RAW data) when he doesn't think it is enough. The PI does nothing and she is so dependent on him, lets him to be a co-PI or the kind of bad boss.
So, basically, I don't know what to do. I know that I can't stay it more and be productive here, but I am in a small country, where all the academic world knows each other.
Do you have any suggestions about finding another position or doing applications at the same university? If you could give some ideas, I'd be very grateful. I totally feel paralyzed.
After working on a project some times, some results are obtained and we decide to publish it. I know publishing a paper and applying a patent can actually happen in the same time, but is there any difference for their priority?
For example, if I obtain a patent first for my results, will it make it more difficult to publish the same results in academic paper, or vice versa?
If I do it together, will there be any conflict between them?
Answer
In the U.S., you may file a patent application up to one year after the invention is described in a publication, in public use, or on sale. So if you publish something on your invention and also wish to patent it, you only have one year from the date of publication to apply for the patent. Similar rules may apply in other countries; it's a good idea to consult a lawyer.
There is no conflict the other way around; you can publish after the patent application (or at the same time) without issues.
This is a small plant from my backyard. I have found the flower closes in the evening.
Answer
This plant belong to Malvaceae, and the yellow flowers open towards morning to mid-day.
This plant is most-likely Sida rhombifolia or may be Malvastrum tricuspidatum .
From broad leaves it seems not Sida acuta
Check epicalyx ( made up of bracteoles)... is there is no epicalyx then Sida rhombifolia. If epicalyx is 3, it is Malvastrum tricuspidatum
look also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sida_rhombifolia,
Epicalyx of Malvastrum tricuspidatum :
C= Corolla (all petals), K= Calyx (all sepals), E= Epicalyx the bracteole
3 bracteoles
I am a PhD student in mathematics, and I noticed that on my peers' CV's, they often list conferences they attended. It seems as if they just attended these conferences, they did not help organize, nor did they give a talk.
Should I list conferences I only attended on my CV, or does it look like obvious filler?
Answer
In general, you can put pretty much whatever you want in your CV (unless there is a template, in which case deciding what to put or not should be pretty straight-forward). The question is: what is the point of putting a piece of information in your CV?
Usually, a CV is used in the context of a recruitment process, where the point, in the end, is to give reasons to the recruiter to recruit you instead of someone else. Hence, a piece of information contained in a CV should be instructive, for instance by ensuring that you do have the proper credentials, or by providing evidence that you can be apt to the position you are applying for.
Perhaps attending conferences is something relatively rare in your field, and you have attended more than the average PhD students? In that case, listing all the conferences you have attended could indicate you are very interested in keeping up with recent advances in your field. It could also show that you enjoy travelling. Perhaps you have secure internal or external funding to attend that conference (i.e., the funding was not automatically given)? That's also good evidence. You could list them if it provides evidence for an aspect that you are willing to emphasise in your application.
On the other hand, if the conferences you have attended had nothing special, or do not help emphasising any particular point, then you might want to keep the space in your CV for something else.
I applied to graduate schools this year, and at the tail end of February, my first pick school sent me an email that to me, sounded like they had filled all the available TA positions. So naturally I chose my second pick school (that did offer me a TAship).
Today (April 16th), I receive an email from my first choice school saying they would like to offer me a TAship (apparently somebody declined their offer).
The graduate adviser at my second choice school had told me before that sometime she made offers to candidates in the summer, so I am thinking if I were to contact her and ask to be released from my agreement, she might be OK with that. (I realize there are formal rules that apply)
Would it be such a bad thing to ask my second choice school to release me (if they say no it will be somewhat awkward for me and if I just walk out on them, I am not sure what they can do).
TIA, GB
Does the peripheral nervous system have a system of routers that decide where a message is meant to go based on some kind of address, or does a signal from the brain follow a single, unbroken chain of neurons that starts at the brain and ends at one destination?
For example, let's say my brain wants to send a message to my left pinky, telling it to contract. In the first model, a series of action potentials travel down my spinal cord, reaching a node in my chest. The action potentials encode the "contract" command as well as an address. The node in my chest reads the address, and routes the signal down my left arm. It reaches my left hand, where another node reads the address and sends the signal to my left pinky, where the signal reaches the appropriate muscle, telling it to contract.
In the second model, every single muscle in my body has a particular chain of neurons that runs in parallel to my brain. If my brain wants to send that signal, it doesn't have to specify an address, it just sends the "contract" command down the path that says "Leads directly to left pinky and nowhere else".
If the second model is true, does that mean that the large, visible structures that we call "nerves", such as the vagus nerve, are actually bundles of point-to-point connections?
Anywhere I can find more information about this would be awesome. I'm a comp sci/biochem double major, and really love reading about the body as an information system.
Answer
The second model is the one. No tags, flags, or routers, just a 1-to-1 system.
A striking example of this is are the different effects of spinal cord injury, which depend on the place where the injury occurs.
And I quote from the apperalyzed website:
Spinal Cord Injury Overview
When a person suffers a spinal cord injury, information traveling along the spinal nerves below the level of injury will be either completely or partially cut off from the brain, resulting in Quadriplegia (Tetraplegia) or Paraplegia.
[...] The brain will still be trying to send messages downwards to the muscles in the body, known as motor messages. These messages however, will be blocked by the damage in the spinal cord at the level of injury. Nerves joining the spinal cord above the level of injury will be unaffected and continue to work as normal.
Quadriplegia / Tetraplegia [occurs] when a person has a spinal cord injury above the first thoracic vertebra. Paralysis usually affects the cervical spinal nerves resulting in paralysis of all four limbs. [...] Paraplegia [occurs] when the level of spinal cord injury [is] below the first thoracic spinal nerve [and leads to] paralysis of the legs and abdomen up to the nipple line, [but] paraplegics have full use of their arms and hands
This example shows that there are strict one-to-one connections (2nd model) and that messages are not simply flagged and routed to their destination via the shortest or quickest route available among a bunch of redundant, ill-defined pathways (1st model). Hence, there is only one way from the brain to the periphery; once severed the message cannot be simple re-routed via parallel lines.
Another example is the make-up of the sensory-motor cortex:
The picture shows that the motor cortex (muscle control/motor output) as well the sensory cortex (sensory input) contain a complete image of the body. Each part of the motor cortex and sensory cortex is devoted to the control or sense of one specific part of the body, respectively.
Nerves are indeed typically bundles of 1-to-1 fibers. For example, the optic nerve contains fibers that carry info from one, and only one well-defined and localized pixel from the retina to the brain.
Principles of Neuroscience by Kandel and Schwartz is a great book with a wealth of info.
Let's assume that some scientist discovers a phenomenon that has never been noticed before.
He wants to write a paper about it but he doesn't want to constantly write "effect of change of some properties blahblahblah". Can he therefore name this effect with a name of his choice? For example "Discoverer's name's effect". Or "fluffy puppy effect" (just because he likes puppies)?
The same for constants. Can one name newly discovered constant "my name constant"?
This question can be simplified to: "what are standards for naming new physical entities?"
I saw a description of the "minimum requirements" for a cell at http://creation.com/origin-of-life in the section called "What are the minimum requirements for a cell to live?" and I'm wondering if this is scientifically accurate - and if not - what are the real requirements?
[note/warning - the link above is to a creationist site - I'm only quoting this source because I'm trying find the science involved and I didn't find other sources talking about all the necessary pieces. I'm not trying to promote creationism with this question so please don't attack the source or me for bringing it. If you can find a non-creationist source which outlines these requirements, I'll be happy to update the question and remove this source.)
In summary it lists the requirements as follows:
The context of the question is similar to Can scientists create totally synthetic life? and a question I wrote What is the most complex biological organism (or precursors) that we have been able to synthesize from raw materials?.
I'm trying to understand what would be involved in making a cell from scratch. Somehow I found this source but I don't know if it's accurate.
Answer
So, to make cells from scratch you would need: amphiphilic molecules to form a membrane, a decent mix of simple molecules (sugars, nucleic acids, peptides) that serve as reactant and building blocks for more complex things, some simple catalyzer (metals, minerals, pepetides, aptamers, etc..) to run the reactions, enough energy to maintain lots of reactions running and keep them far from the equilibrium. Of course, lots of time...
An even more minimalistic approach would use a single molecule to do the enzymatic job while storing evolvable informations. In this case RNA alone has been proposed as substitute for proteins and DNA in a very minimal cell. In theory also DNA alone could do the same. However the minimal tasks needed to be done: maintain the self (to be compartimentalized), to grow (to have a flux of molecule not in equilibrium), to divide, to maintain the information stably enough to be useful for the next generation and at the same time prone too mutability to evolve.
One more point. Life itself doesn't strictly require to be compartmentalized. You can think of a network of chemical reactions that have the ability to grow, to replicate its components etc but without a cell membrane. However I think that a cell-like form of life is somewhat more likely to happen.
There are many cases when people commit altruism. One is relationship. I am willing to die for 2 of my children or 8 nieces, say an evolutionary psychologist. Another is reciprocal altruism, which is just a selfish cooperation rather than true altruism.
In the 1930s J.B.S. Haldane had full grasp of the basic quantities and considerations that play a role in kin selection. He famously said that, "I would lay down my life for two brothers or eight cousins".[8] Kin altruism is the term for altruistic behaviour whose evolution is supposed to have been driven by kin selection.
Is it possible that humans may be altruists not for their 2 children or 8 nieces but to say, 1000 people that are similar to them.
If so, how does "Be altruist to 1000 of people similar to you" evolve?
Note: If the answer is negative, then we will have a hard time understanding voting. Why sacrifice your time. However, if the answer is positive that humans do love other humans "a little bit" then voting, or even suicide bombing make sense. Those humans sacrifice their little time to improve reproductive success of those who are similar to them.
Answer DOES NOT have to be about humans. If you can show me why strong/weak chimps tend to help each other or whether alpha males like one another, that'll do. Of course, naturally we would expect that leaders need followers and followers need leaders. But sometimes there are behavior that defy even this complementary nature.
Similarity does not have to be genetic. For example, fellow programmers and fellow engineers tend to be gang up.... Or does it have to be genetic?
Answer
The above answers are good, but have unfortunately confused some of the concepts in the theory, I will do my best to explain.
What we are assessing is how does one behaviour evolve, links with cooperation and altruism are applications of this. The process of selection in evolution removes the the worst individuals from the gene pool, thus those with comparatively good genes survive to reproduce. With physical traits these mechanisms are well understood, with behaviour there are still multiple theories which have not been concluded but our understanding of them is reasonably complete.
Inclusive fitness is the combination of direct and indirect fitness, direct being your personal fitness, indirect being fitness gained from others. In general this is measured in terms of reproductive success (RS) (the number of offspring you successfully raise to reproductive maturity). Out of this understanding came Hamilton's Rule:
r.b > c
Where r is the relatedness, b is the benefit & c is the cost. In this scenario the cost is a reduction in RS, the benefit is a gain in RS. Benefits are multiplied by the relatedness to the offspring. In normal diploid organisms (Gets DNA from both parents) you are related by 0.5 (half from mother, half from father), but only related to your brother/sister's offspring by 0.25. Thus, if you have two children you have a direct fitness of 1, if your brother has two children you gain an indirect fitness of 0.5. Thus, you would prefer under normal circumstances to have your own children rather than raise your brothers.
Altruism is suffering a cost for someone else's benefit, @Winawer mentions the greenbeard theory, which rests on the assumption that if you can tell someone has the same genes as you then you know that you are related to them in someway and this will be on average be greater than to any other individual. Altruism is a behaviour, defined above, and not a specific action like giving up your own reproduction, thus it is a part of cooperation and not separate from it.
It is true that there are different forms of altruism however these are all just perspectives pertaining to the same theory. ALL behaviour is selfish, reciprocal altruism is just an example of this. Reciprocal altruism, is "If you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" (You need help now, I may need help in the future), it is altruistic because you suffer a cost for another's benefit but it is selfish because it is still in the individual's interest to help. This is where prisoners dilemma comes in, this is basically asking the question "how do I pick the most optimal situation in this scenario?"
For simplicity, it is generally ill advised to study behaviours in humans because of the implicit bias we have in our judgment on ourselves. From political and religious associations that cloud judgment to the fact that we always strive to see ourselves differently. Also, there are all sorts of ethical difficulties in actually testing and manipulating theories on us. Thus we normally study animals to get around this. However your question specifically talks about people so I will try and answer this based on biological theory alone.
Based on the foundations above, why would someone behave altruistically to someone only 'similar' to you? The biggest difficulty is knowing that we understand all the costs and benefits involved, most of the time we only know some of them and its impossible that you can know all of them because you can't know what you don't know. Humans have effectively 'bootstrapped' behaviours which are 'for the good of society' building on from previously developed behaviours. However we are still fundamentally asking a question about Hamilton's Rule. Being seen as a part of society induces altruistic behaviour towards you (because you are seen as worth something), this is good for you and the costs associated with being altruistic are usually low. Thus you would never rationally die for 1000 unrelated individuals unless you had at least had all the children you were going to have and raised them to be independent. But you would vote, by voting you suffer a tiny cost, your time, for a huge benefit. Benefits might include:
There could be thousands of other benefits that I can't, off the top of my head, think of. The cost is negligible and the benefit is intangible but probably higher than the cost. Relatedness isn't important (so long as it is greater than 0), if the cost is sufficiently low or the benefit is sufficiently high. I hope this has helped clarify your thinking and answer the question.
For further information:
Provides the foundations
Hamilton W.D. (1963) Evolution of altruistic behaviour. The American Naturalist 97 354
Hamilton W.D. (1964) The Genetical Evolution of Social Behaviour I . Journal of Theoretical Biology 7 1
Hamilton W.D. (1964) The Genetical Evolution of Social Behaviour II. Journal of Theoretical Biology 7 17
The current controversy mentioned in another answer is from this paper, it is widely dislike but does have some support. It is slightly off topic from from the question here, but eusociality is fundamental to our understanding of evolutionary behaviour:
Nowak M.A., Tarnita C.E. & Wilson E.O. (2010) The Evolution of Eusociality. Nature 466 1057
How can I find out which authors are influenced how strongly by a certain academic author X?
Answer
A website that offers some related information: http://www.semanticscholar.org. Sadly, they don't give the precise number of citations, but a list of "influencing" and "influenced" researchers based on a metric which incorporates the number of citations.
I recently graduated with the highest GPA in my undergraduate class of 350 students. My current CV reads -
GPA: 3.x/4 (Ranked 1st out of Undergraduate Class of 350 students)
However, this feels slightly forced and awkward. Is there any better way to write this?
Thanks!
We know that Alexander Shulgin synthesized MDMA, 2C compounds and several other tryptamine derivatives and phenethylamines. But how did he find out that the average dosage of an unknown compound is X mg? For instance, if I synthesized a new psychoactive compound, how could I find out the dosage?
I'm writing a contribution for a double-blind submission system.
Since I would like to supply more data than I could show on a small number of pages, I'm looking for a way to reference supplemental data in my manuscript, such as software scripts, figures or databases.
I could upload on GitHub, RPubs, Figshare and Zenodo, but all of these would expose my real user name (and I don't feel like making a throwaway e-mail account with a new repository for every anonymous publication that I intend to write).
Is there any way to get the above services to do what I want? Or is there a similar service that would allow anonymous hosting of research data?
It would be even better if I could later (e.g. after publication) declassify the information, with the link from the manuscript still being intact.
Is it achievable to perform a doctorate while working in a private company (not in college) full time (8 hours per day, 5 days per week)? Or is it too much work or stress?
Answer
Each situation is different, and it might be hard to generalise, but roughly speaking, you can see a PhD thesis as requiring about 3-4 years working full time. For some people it might be a bit less, for others a bit more, but that's a good average. In addition, a PhD includes of course "technical" work, but also "academic training", such as learning how to write a paper/thesis, presenting papers at conferences, supervising students, etc.
Now, two cases are possible: either you already have some technical material from past work (e.g., you've been working 20 years in industry), in which case you have already completed some of the 3-4 years, and you mostly need to focus on how to output your work; or you don't, in which case, you still need to complete all of the work.
I've known some people in the first case, and they managed to do a PhD while working full-time. They would usually come in half a day per week (in agreement with their company), and work at home in the evening. In the second case, it seems unrealistic to do both a full time job and a full time PhD. In some fields, you might be able to do a PhD over 7, 8 or even more years (I've heard about someone in history who wrote his PhD in 7 years, while working full time as a school teacher in the mean time), but it might not be the case everywhere.
In addition to Daniel's answer, and including Sylvain's comment, I'd add that some French universities forbid starting a PhD without having some source of income, either through some funding or through a full-time job. Most funding forbid to have a full time job on the side, and if your full-time job is completely unrelated to your PhD topic, then you might have the green light from the administration, but not from the academic institution in charge of the PhD programs.
EDIT: I somehow forgot to mention that the indicated amount time in my answer concerns good PhD, and by good, I mean a PhD that will allow you to get a job in academia afterwards, which mean not only getting the degree, but also getting good publications, good collaborations, good reference letters, etc. If you only care about the title, then you might find some universities happy to make you pay tuition fees to deliver you a diploma after a few years. If you want to go to academia later, then you need to be a junior researcher for a few years, in order to demonstrate that you might be worth hiring as a confirmed researched, and then later as a senior researcher.
I had a final exam today in my dynamics class. I took the exam with Adaptive Services because of my medically diagnosed ADHD, Anxiety, and OCD (among other things). I have been studying since Thanksgiving break and felt pretty confident going into it. I was even in the library just this morning teaching my classmates how to do things before the test.
Well, as soon as I was handed my test and opened it, I completely blanked looking at the first question. I was luckily that I had the extra time, because I started remembering things slowly, but before I knew it the 3.5 hours have already passed and I was out of time. I ended up getting 3/5 questions done (don't know if they were right), and made progress with the others so I am hoping the partial credit will be enough.
This is already my second time taking the class; I had to withdraw last Spring. I really don't want to be forced to take this class again: it is very time consuming and rigorous, it is a prerequisite for all my other classes (so if I failed I cannot move on), and, the main reason, I know the material.
Unfortunately, I really don't think it will be enough. I am devastated. I have been having a lot of trouble with my university lately, and I have strongly considered dropping out after last Spring. Failing this class will probably be my tipping point. I don't want to drop out, but I can barely afford it to begin with, failing the class could cause me to lose financial aid, and I can be far more productive doing something else than retaking a class I already have a strong understanding of.
I am wondering whether emailing my professor might be a good idea. I don't want to come off as defensive or making excuses. I'll be the first to admit I'm not the best test taker, I am lazy when it comes to school work, I don't get the best grades, etc. so I fear that it will look like an excuse to my professor. I just want to say something along the lines of:
Dear Professor, Thank you for a good semester, I enjoyed your class but I am nervous of how the grade on my final will come back. I have been studying very hard and felt like I had a good grasp of the material going into it, but as soon as I sat down and looked at the first question I blanked. Over the course of the exam, I was able to work some stuff out but I don't know if it is enough and I'm afraid it won't be. I am not expecting any type of compensation or anything, but I wanted to bring this to your attention incase there was anything that could be done. Thank you, happy holidays.
Do you advise sending this mail?
Endoscopic procedures are used to look inside cavities like intestine, esophagus etc. Is it being used to look inside blood vessels?
I know that some publishers sometimes send copyright infringement emails to researchers putting their articles on a personal website. How often do publishers actually sue researchers for copyright infringement for putting their articles on a personal website? (assuming the authors didn't have the legal right to do so)
I am mostly interested in United States-based authors, but I am curious about other countries as well.
I do not fully understand - if not original, what will be expected of me? I am currently working on my MA thesis and realised that I just don't have any great insights and I feel I have nothing to contribute really. It really makes me sad, but I just can't find anything. I am in the Humanities, so there is almost always something to contribute if one looks long enough (or that's what I thought). But time is running out now and I feel I am just standing there empty handed.
Can I still get a good grade? What is required of me now? I don't quite understand.
When two prey (or resource) species share a common predator (consumer), they can be in apparent competition. An increase in one prey species can increase the common predator density, which negatively influences the other prey species.
A textbook (Molles, Seventh edition, ISBN-10: 0077837282) gives an example of apparent competition that confuses me. It gives another definition "one species facilitating populations of a predator or herbivore of the second species." Thus, one of the species does not have to be consumed by the predator/herbivore.
The specific example is that there are two plant species. Species A becomes the habitat for the herbivore (but is not consumed by the herbivore). Species B is consumed by the herbivore. Therefore, an increase in species A will increase the herbivore density and has negative effects on species B. I thought that to form an apparent competition relationship, it has to be mutually negative relationship (-,-). In this example, there is no mutually negative relationship. Furthermore, the plants do not share the common herbivore.
This is simply a definition question. Different sources have variable definitions, but is the example really considered an apparent competition?
Answer
Competition-like interactions where only one species suffers ([0,-]) are usually labelled amensalism, so a suitable term for the situation you describe should be "apparent amensalism". I hadn't actually seen this term in use from before, but a quick Google search reveals that is in fact used. One example is in Jaworski et al. (2015):
Indirect interactions mediated by shared natural enemies are known as apparent competition, if negative interactions are reciprocal, or apparent amensalism, if one prey suffers from the presence of the other prey (Holt 1977; Holt and Lawton 1994).
As part of my work as a graduate student in maths I currently teach a basic second semester calculus course. It seems like every semester I teach, one or two students want some sort of special privilege to turn in homework late for a month or take a test a week after they are supposed to. Many times they have somewhat legitimate reasons (documented depression, getting a divorce, wife having surgery.....). How should I handle these cases? I am not big into putting up with lots of late homework or late tests, but then again I would want someone to be lenient with me if things such as the parenthetical reasons above arose in my life.
How should I handle students with such situations? Should I write them off and just feed them to the dogs or should I allow them to catch up at their own pace? My honest opinion is that school is a sort of competitive game (Bad, yes, I know) and if they lose they lose. We do not shorten the football pitch because some club's striker is not a good runner. However, I think students should be allowed to have a chance to make things right.
Answer
If people have a legitimate reason for wanting an extension of the deadline, I would simply give them the extension. If they cannot provide a good reason, i.e. they simply procrastinated too much, they have to take responsibility for their behavior, and they do not get the extension.
This has nothing to do with being a hard-ass, but being fair. Other people have done the work, and giving people that procrastinated an extension is not fair to them. In addition, getting work done that you where assigned (even if it is hard or boring) is a valuable lesson to teach a student. Their future boss will also not be sensitive to a missed deadline because of procrastination.