fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
rapid-fire hypotheses on afropessimism
By: Genders Black Communisms
Tags: Academia, Black Liberation, Afropessimism, Intellectuals, Antiblackness

anti-oppression medium pages are often removed by oppressors. worried something may disappear? save a public-facing copy via archive.today, wayback machine, etc
Revolutionising Journalism Education in International News Reporting Via Zoom
By: Dr. David Dunkley Gyimah
Tags: Journalism, Academia, Zoom Lectures, Media, Education

Fast forward to 2020. COVID-19 lockdown has pushed all lectures online. It can be difficult enough teaching how to be an international reporter in-person, because the methodology involves sitting in sanitised surroundings.

A former senior BBC executive refers to this as air condition journalism. Quite how you impart emotion on the necessity of a risk assessment, should a missile come your way, is challenging.

One day VR of the kind, such as “Carne y Arena,” by Alejandro González Iñárritu will be common place. The experience puts the viewer in the moment. In this case the desert as Latin American immigrants find themselves under assault. Imagine being a reporter in this situation?

But until then, what?

In 2006, a decade from now I tell Apple Inc, in a presentation that yielded a profile on their front page, we will be streaming from our homes into businesses. You have become the brand.

Television has already given us the tools for this feat ahead. We’ll gladly watch hours of TV. What if online lectures became a personalised TV programme. This is what the Open University attempted did in the 1970s and perfected in the 90s and to date I still watch Bob Ross’ Joy of Painting on BBC Four. I watched it yesterday!

In lockdown can you provide a comparable experience for the next generation of journalists? I see fault lines, particularly in the pipeline. Zoom has become the default, but I can see a number of new features to make this process a better experience. Three key words here are:
From The Classroom To The Community
By: Ebony
Tags: Academia, Podcast, Blog, Community, Harvard

We are two Harvard Divinity scholars who created Keeping It Real. because we believe academia desperately needs to be translated from the classroom to the community. Right now, there is a clear disconnect between relevant scholarship and its application to reality as we know it. Without bridging this gap, the very purpose of the academy is undermined.

Keeping It Real. is a safe space for dialogue about the nature of humanity as it reflects through various systemic oppression. While we emerge from the perspective of the African and Indian Diasporas, our conversations extend well beyond. Every episode dives into unique scholarly works and breaks it down with clear opportunities for self-transformation and social change.

Through our educational platform, you will be exposed to critical academic theories and concepts for social movement building. We are specifically concerned with dismantling power structures rooted in hegemonic ideologies such as white supremacy, brahminism, heteronormative patriarchy, classism and ableism. These discussions are intended for every audience as we believe the oppression of one people is the oppression of all peoples.

We aim to create the kind of the world where our children really can be judged solely on the content of their character, we must fully understand these systems and how they inhibit our ability to reach our true potential.

Tune in so we can KEEP IT REAL WITH YOU! Stay up to date by following our Medium blog and instagram, and subscribing to our YouTube channel.
Revolutionising Journalism Education in International News Reporting Via Zoom
By: Dr. David Dunkley Gyimah
Tags: Teaching, Journalism, Academia, Storytelling, Zoom Meetings

We faced a crisis in cracking teaching online. Two-hour straight lectures were not going to work, particularly staring straight down the tube.

But first a flashback. Two main problems need solving to capture this extraordinary event in the photo above. How do I convey what this experience is like and how do I preserve it? I’m near the Syrian border teaching a group of young Syrian journalists Cinema Journalism.

It’s a style of news making that makes use of cultural, social and literary forms in storytelling pulled from different cultures, which more often fictional cinema makers deploy.

I interview the storytellers after my training session and then organise them into a photo-shoot. Below is the completed product which drapes across video.

When I begin this story, I have attendants attempt a mental image of the scene by describing a cinematic narrative.

Imagine this I say:
Points North Honored with Top Sales Award for 2020
By: Points North
Tags: Academia, Adp, Certified Payroll

Minneapolis, MN October 23, 2020 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Points North, a premier certified payroll and data compliance software company, has been named ADP Marketplace’s Sales Choice winner for 2020. This distinguished award is given to the ADP Marketplace partner that resonates most with ADP clients and prospects.

“It is a great honor to be recognized by the ADP Marketplace and their National Sales divisions,” said Nick Foucault, Director of Sales and Product Management. “At Points North, we are committed to delivering key solutions to our clients and partners. Our niche products help solve major compliance and reporting needs across North America. Our product teams are committed to continuous innovation and feature development. We are very proud of people, and thankful to be recognized by ADP Marketplace with this award.”

“Points North knows exactly how to sell their solutions. They have a deep understanding of the industries they serve, and they are able to translate complex scenarios into relatable use cases for our DMs” according to Craig Cohen, DVP and general manager, ADP Marketplace. “The team at Points North is an absolute pleasure to work with”!

This award comes on the heels of an exciting additional 2020 product launch on ADP Marketplace. ACA Reporter from Points North is now live and integrated with both RUN Powered by ADP® and ADP Workforce Now®. This robust integration helps mutual ADP and Points North clients to comply with both federal and growing state Affordable Care Act requirements. This additional product compliments the current offering of Certified Payroll Reporting, available on ADP Marketplace.

Points North is excited to be an ADP Marketplace partner and will continue to serve our mutual clients.

About Points North

For 26 years, Points North has helped companies from the small business to the enterprise levels meet their critical data reporting and compliance requirements. Their innovative products being offered are designed through extensive user research, and enhanced through ongoing enhancements. Learn more about Points North at https://www.points-north.com.

About ADP Marketplace

ADP Marketplace is a digital storefront designed to help employers create HR ecosystems for their companies using solutions from ADP and leading third-party partners, enabling companies of all sizes to extend the value of their workforce solutions seamlessly across their entire organization via a secure, single-sign-on process. Learn more on ADP Marketplace.
How does medium work?
By: Mark Mohan Kaggwa
Tags: Médium, Academia, Confusion, Social Media

How does medium work?

The energy invested in making a research publication is draining. The worst part is promoting the article. With so many media platforms available, you wonder which one will reach your readers. With medium, the confusion just increasing
The Top Signs You’re Ready for Grad School
By: Imad Adel
Tags: Graduate School, Academia, Education

Grad school is a major commitment. From the grueling applications and preparation exams to the financial burden and return to long hours spent studying and writing papers, there is a lot to think about. If you return at the right time, the payoff of new career possibilities and higher salary makes it all worthwhile. Here are some signs to look for that will let you know you are ready to make the leap.

1. You Like Your Field…But You Need More

Do you enjoy what you do but feel you have hit a wall? Perhaps you are perpetually hitting your head on that glass ceiling of salary. Maybe you want more responsibilities. You have a thirst for more knowledge about your field that is unfulfilled by applying your undergraduate expertise to your current role. You are ready for a new academic challenge that will propel you to new career heights.

2. You Do Not Like Your Field

On the flip side, perhaps you fall into the camp of people who dread Monday mornings and yearn for Friday afternoons. You feel unfulfilled by your entire field and find yourself daydreaming during work hours about the types of subjects you wish you had majored in instead. Fortunately, this is more of a sign that you are ready for grad school than a missed opportunity. Many graduate programs accept wide varieties of bachelor’s degrees or require only an additional course or two that you can take at a community college.

3. You are Not JUST Looking for a Way Out

One of the biggest mistakes people make is rushing into grad school just because they want a quick fix for a bigger problem . Some find themselves longing for the greater flexibility of the student life. Others are desperate for a career switch but enter grad school before knowing the right direction. Still, others erroneously believe they will find deeper fulfillment in their current field if they study it further. If you do not fit into any of these categories, you have reached the point where you are ready to consider grad school.

At the right point in your career, a graduate degree will open doors that nothing else can. It is a huge decision and an even more significant commitment, but there are ways to determine if it is the right one for you. Take a moment out of your day to look for these signs that you are either ready for grad school or need a little more time.
What is philosophy?
Tags: Philosophy, Academia, What Is

P hilosophy is…

(in aphorisms)

-the rejection of common sense

-saying the obvious with extra jazz hands

-religion for adults

-saying Im confused but with a larger vocabulary

-seeing that nature is too strong for principles

-an exhaustive process which ends only because everyone reaches an agreement that it is time to go home to bed

-about proving things true that are obviously false out of a sadistic contrarianism

-reasoning from arguments that you cant fault to conclusions that you cant accept

-starting with something so simple as not to seem worth stating and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it

-challenging fashion and comforting lies

-saying “I don’t know” in increasingly complex ways

-the pressing questions of our lives

-dissolving confusion

-to become better, happier, or wiser; a love of wisdom and (not) a quest for truth

-making people feel stupid

-realising you didnt understand your question

-confessing our concepts are inadequate for our reality

-articulating your prejudices

-verbal volleyball of example and counterexample

-how ideas fit and relate

-a life of perpetual critique

-the opposite of activism

-thinking about the stuff you cant eat

-affectation

-giving complicated analyses which appear to involve impersonal logical-reasoning but which always end up by demonstrating one’s pre-existing positions were correct

-coming up with reasons for what you already think

-reconciliation

-argument vs rhetoric

-professional shit-stirring

-pointlessly worrying about the big questions

-analysis

-overthinking

-questioning what you read

-carrying on debating

-bunk

-a subversive and dispassionate understanding

-therapy

-linguistic masturbation

-examining and curiosity; consistency and counterexample; arguments and categorising
Why is switching to more sustainable inputs so hard?
By: Simon Jd Schillebeeckx
Tags: Digital Sustainability, Academia, Supply Chain, Business, Sustainability

In 2016, two colleagues and I started a research project in Finland with a simple question in mind: Which inputs should firms buy? While plenty of research investigates how buyers should deal with their dependence on specific suppliers, much less attention has been paid to which inputs firms should acquire in the first place. We hypothesized that the choice of what to buy would be significantly influenced by sustainability characteristics of the focal input materials but that managers would take account of various internal dependencies that mde input switching harder or easier.

Our findings suggest that managers are less interested in sustainability features of an alternative input when their products and processes rely heavily on the focal input. On the flip side, the interest in sustainability increases when the company has a strong brand or great creativity. These findings paint a challenging picture of the future. Even in the ideal case scenario of an alternative input that is equally good, priced the same, and significantly more sustainable, most managers do not want to switch. Our paper explains why internal dependencies cause inertia and hence dramatically slow down progress to a more sustainable supply chain. The full article is available in open access here.

This has implications for the work we are doing at Handprint.

Handprint is on a mission to imbue every business transaction with positive impact. While businesses should prioritize refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle, redesign, repair and so on, many companies will face internal barriers to act, even if alternative solutions are available. Yet those barriers need not lead to apathy. With Handprint, any business can integrate positive impact (e.g. reforestation, plastic removal from the ocean, coral reef reconstruction) into its businesses in a seamless way. Integrating Handprint does not require complex changes to existing processes and can be coordinated by the marketing team, with the peace of mind that the impact is real. It’s as simple as that. Impact as a Service, at any person’s fingertips.

Here’s a practical example. Imagine you are using plastics in your production process. While there are bio-plastics available, many companies may not have sufficient access to those or may think they cannot handle those properly with existing equipment. Via Handprint, they could connect with an ocean clean-up group and reverse the footprint of their production process and products by contributing to plastic removal from the ocean. This changes the conversation these companies can have with their clients. The budget is predictable and easily managed, and the reputational benefits can sometimes be on par with the benefits to the earth.

We are building a cornerstone of the regenerative economy. Come have a look
ResearchCoin Giveaway — Week 5 Report
By: Patrick Joyce
Tags: Academia, Research, Blockchain, Science, Ethereum

Results from week 5 of the 1M ResearchCoin giveaway

Another 1,000,000 RSC was distributed to ResearchHub users for sharing, curating, and discussing academic literature last week. In total, there were 1131 votes and 93 papers posted on ResearchHub during week 5!

Below are the top earners from last week:

In the wake of the news from AlphaFold, an AI designed to predict a protein’s structure from its amino-acid sequence, Kusuma shared week 5’s most upvoted paper.

“The protein folding problem” is a review centered around the importance of studying protein-folding and the challenges the field faced in 2017 — many of which are addressed by AlphaFold.

The second most upvoted post was a paper shared by Chukwuma Chidera which described an improvement to the traditional susceptible, infectious, recovered, deceased (SIRD) statistical methodology used to predict future COVID-19 cases. By adding additional information like the sensitivity and specificity of COVID-19 testing, the authors are able to more accurately predict Kuwait’s long-term COVID-19 infection numbers.

Trending Hubs

Now you can browse the most active ResearchHub communities in our new trending Hubs category on the Hubs page.

Plans for week 6

Week 6 of the 1M RSC giveaway started on December, 7! Go to ResearchHub and start sharing, curating, and discussing scientific papers to join in.

We will post another update next week. Until then don’t forget to follow ResearchHub on Twitter and invite your friends to sign-up!

Finally, if you are interested in helping us moderate the ResearchHub community grow stop by our community Slack and say hi!
It is confusing, isn’t it?
By: April M. Hamm, She They
Tags: Academia, Medical Research, Comment, Science, Peer Review

It is confusing, isn’t it? Especially considering the hoops most folks have to jump through to get their papers published and grants funded.

When you realize how easy it is for some people — breezing through “peer review” like we just know your shits da bomb so we’re not even going to check— wth can you do?

When racists and idiots control literally everything, there’s no way to challenge their “authoritative” decisions or to express discontent with status quo and be taken seriously.
ResearchCoin Giveaway — Week 6 Report
By: Patrick Joyce
Tags: Academia, Research, Blockchain, Science, Ethereum

Results from week 6 of the 1M RSC giveaway

Welcome back to the weekly 1M ResearchCoin giveaway update! During week 6, there were 797 votes and 101 papers posted on ResearchHub.

Here are the top earners from last week:

The most highly upvoted paper of week 6 was submitted by Titus Osikhiana Ogahbrai and discussed the physiological mechanism that integrates the human cardiovascular and respiratory systems. Pressure receptors in the Carotid artery are able to detect the increase of blood pressure caused by an individual heartbeat and uses that information to coordinate exhalation.

Trending Hubs

During week 6 the most active Hub were: Cryptocurrency, COVID-19, Medicine, and Neuroscience!

ResearchHub’s trending Hubs

Plans for week 7

Week 7 of the 1M RSC giveaway started on December, 14! Go to ResearchHub and start sharing, curating, and discussing scientific papers to join in. We will post another update next week. Until then don’t forget to follow ResearchHub on Twitter and invite your friends to sign-up!

Finally, if you are interested in helping us moderate the ResearchHub community grow stop by our community Slack and say hi!
Academic
By: Erika Fischer-Laine
Tags: Academia, Wonder, Scholar, Adventure, Short Poem

Photo by Janko Ferlic from Pexels

She wants to drink from the fruit juice sky…

She reads a verse.

She wants to map out an expedition to the heights…

She writes a verse.

She wants to buy gem stones and sit by a fire…

She wants to rehearse.

She wants to hear a lover sing and the moon soothe…

She begins to rehearse.

She wants to learn of architecture and breathe in the dust of time…

She learns a verse.

She wants to embrace all tastes of citrus fruits – most notably orange and lime,

She learns all the verses.

She wants to disagree with teachings in a castle, or a mountain, or a farmhand’s small home…

She will disperse.
Academics and Profession
By: Sanjivani Jha
Tags: Academia, Students, Professional, Art, Jobs

I will begin with a simple yet significantly meta-statement, (a Whitmanian characteristic that I humbly adore.)

“What if the search for meaning is the meaning?”

The locus point of today’s post will be Academics and Profession it is going to be a catalogue of my personal interpretation of these words.

What is interesting to me is the common correlation drawn between the two; how what you study is what you become. While I think of them as entirely opposite, I would go far as saying mirror images of each other.

Academia being the divergence and Profession being the convergence of your education.

The flexibility and vastness of academia go unused because we are fed to believe that you must study what you professionally want to be I have my problem with the commercialized attitude towards education, it has become “investment” when it should have been “interest”.

I remember talking about the capitalistic behaviour of love in my Urban Love post but it breaks me, even more, to realize that it has its hands on Education too and further deep to my horror.

Socially charged pressure creates this tension within you of what you can study so you can have a job on the same so basically, in the present, you start with the future and end up messing both.

This nag that you have to have a point in what you are doing is nothing but an impatient capitalized or consumer behaviour than demands immediate or assured outcomes and cares little about the craft, learning or meaningfulness of the work.

I implore, that we can reverse this by not forcing ourselves to make sense of the knowledge we receive, it’s okay to sponge it and let time make sense of it. Don’t restrict yourself from studying something radically different from your course, you never know, and when have things ever gone the way you plan, use this side of unpredictability and uncertainty.

Academia does not necessarily equate to Profession, you can retire from working but never from learning.

What you learn with interest will always have more to say in your life than what you learn for earn.

Knowledge>>Professional Pursuit.
Attachment Styles in Academia: Choosing An Advisor
By: Allie Igwe
Tags: Choosing An Advisor, Attachment Style, Academia

Attachment styles are formed in childhood and impact how you interact in relationships well into adulthood. There are four primary attachment styles: (1) Secure (2) Anxious/Preoccupied (3) Avoidant/Dismissive (4) Fearful-Avoidant/Disorganized and they can impact the way people form, maintain, and dissolve relationships. It is possible for these styles to change over time and it is normal for people to have different attachment styles in different contexts. It is possible for a person to be securely attached in friendships and anxiously attached in romantic partnerships. I also believe it is possible for a person to be (generally) securely attached in their personal relationships and have non-secure attachment styles professionally (or vice-versa).

When you enter graduate school and choose a mentor, it is almost like choosing a parent. Obviously, students are autonomous adults; however, the mentor holds a lot of responsibility when it comes to training and guiding students on a successful career path. It is common to refer to labmates as lab siblings and the mentor of your mentor as your grand-mentor. There are clear power dynamics inherent to the mentor-mentee relationship and, as a result, the professional attachment style formed at the beginning of a student’s training can have a long-lasting impact on research progress and the student’s well-being.

In a secure attachment style, anxiety is provoked. The student tries to reduce anxiety by seeking solutions from their mentor. The mentor responds positively to the request, which reaffirms a sense of security and reduces anxiety. Research progress continues.

In non-secure attachment styles such as anxious and avoidant, the student tries to reduce anxiety by seeking support from their mentor. The mentor refuses the request. The lack of responsiveness increases feelings of insecurity and anxiety. The student may give up on getting support from the mentor, suppress anxiety, and distance. Research progress stalls unless another style is used or another mentor is found.

When I started in academia, I was anxiously-attached through no fault of any mentor. I came in that way. I knew it was important for me to find a collaborative mentor that was readily available and able to help me become more securely attached. If you are more securely attached, you might be able to handle a wider range of (non-abusive) mentors. Consider your current attachment style and the type of mentor that would best support your research career.
No, Kiddo, I Am a Doctor!. Help Wanted: WSJ needs new editor
By: Adelia Ritchie
Tags: Journalism, Wall Street Journal, Academia, PhD, Jill Biden

Years ago, in a small southern town where I was a professor of organic chemistry at the local college, I was appointed to the airport authority board, over the objections of a Mr. Buford Ennis, chairman of that board for more than two decades. And I quote, “If you put that woman on mah bo-ahd, Ah’m gonna hafta resign!” I guess the county commissioners wanted him gone, so I was confirmed and unanimously voted chairwoman by the other board members, all males. I suppose none of them wanted such a big job.

This was a first! A woman running this powerful board was a tectonic shift, and this small Republican town never accepted it and has never gotten over it. For me, that’s no problem.

What was a problem was the editorial policy of the local Mullet Wrapper, which was –– as told to me by the offending reporter –– not to include honorifics with people’s names. What she didn’t say out loud was that honorifics were attached to men’s names. In a single sentence in a news item, they gave my name as “Dee Ritchie” (not even my formal name) and the college president’s name as “Dr. Lxxxx Txxxx.”

That was decades ago, back when we expected men to be assholes toward professional women, to be threatened, to be jealous, to belittle and demean all of us, in whatever roles we served.

Being a product of the 60s and a bra-burning ERA activist in the 70’s, I might have believed that we had made our point(s) back then. Fast-forward another 50 years and we find that old white males are still petty, threatened, and pig-headed about us, what we’re capable of, what we’ve accomplished in this world, and how angry we all are. Still.

Thankfully, my alma mater is distancing themselves from that Epstein idiot, and an ocean of soy ink has been spread across forests-worth of newsprint to decry the arrogance and stupidity of that op-ed piece.

And the good news is, for all you writers out there, that surely there will be openings on the WSJ editorial staff very soon. Stay tuned.
50 años de Chile China
By: Pablo Ampuero Ruiz
Tags: Academia, International Relations, Chile, China, Webinar

Photographer and Social Anthropologist, doctoring at the Max-Planck-Insitut für ethnologische Forschung in Germany. https://ampueroruiz.info
Trust the Routine
By: Lucy Dan 蛋小姐, She Her 她
Tags: Academia, Poetry Prompt, Life Lessons, Poetry, Lovethyself

Trust the Routine

Photo by niklas_hamann on Unsplash

In this moment,

it seems doubtful

impossible

that my degree will ever end —

it’s been two years,

halfway,

yet I’ve barely started.

In those moments

of self-doubt,

of overwhelm,

of PANIC!,

I remind myself

to trust in the routine,

as we overestimate

the work we do in one day

but underestimate

the work we do in one year.
Planning Your Research to Publish in High Impact Journals
By: Jennifer Lazaro
Tags: Writing, Academia, Research, Science, Publishing

When you are writing your first article for a journal, it can be stressful! You know you need to tailor your research towards the right audience, but you don’t know how just yet.

Bentham Science and Diffusion Editing hosted a webinar on ‘Planning Your Research to Publish in High Impact Journals’. The webinar provides tips and information that can help you aim high with your research publications and to learn how to write and submit your work effectively to great journals.

The webinar will teach you essential tips and tricks to enable you to achieve your writing aspirations by publishing your research in high impact journals. Although this presentation emphasizes ECRs, it contains information useful to all interested in writing for publication.

For more details on targeting your research towards High Impact Journals and breaking into the research industry, visit our website.

You can also connect with Bentham Science on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
People don’t become happy because of what they have, but who they are.
By: Kenzie Herianto
Tags: Self Improvement, Happiness, Academia, College

A photo of me and my team after the cartography class.

When I first started college I met many kinds of people, those who strive and do their best like a madman to get good grades through any means necessary, those who does not care a bit about academics, and everyone else in between. Well I am the type who sits on the front-most row every class. I try to do my best in class, and I am proud of it to the extent I am really confused by those who seems to just want to have fun in their lives. How could they stay happy knowing they have bad grades and uncertain future? My first semester was glorious, I got a GPA of 3.96. But as the semesters went through, my grades start to drop, especially now, during the pandemic. In fact, I am writing this at 2 a.m. when I should be sleeping right now. It just happens that I am now not the ambitious student I used to be.

Getting bad grades and feeling depressed, I started thinking is my worth decided by my grades? do I want people to see who I am just because of my grades? Recalling me being myself at the first semester, I was already cheerful and brave not even having any grades back then, to the extent of sharing christmas cards after the final exams to many people. I just enjoyed the process and being myself, I don’t care what others think even if I was the ambitious student and probably some doesn’t even like me.

I think the reason my grades start falling down is when I thought that my people only see my worth because of my grades, and as it gets worse, I feel worse as well, and because I don’t feel good, I don’t study well, thus not getting good grades. Thinking about it, the only person in this world worthy to value our worth is only ourselves. Even if the whole world thinks the opposite, we will still feel good if we believe we are doing great, and feeling good will lead to good thoughts, and to good actions, thus good future as well.

So how do we make ourselves feel good? Maybe it is possible to lie to another person about how we are feeling about ourselves, but lying to ourselves about how we are feeling is impossible. The only possible way to make ourselves feel good is to do good things, and to place ourselves as the person whom we wanted to be, in short, to do the things that needs to be done. Realizing that we are moving on the right direction will make us believe that we are doing great. This is why happiness is not based on money or material. Even if someone has a lot of money/material, as long as they realize that they are not doing the things that should be done, they will still feel bad about their lives. Same applies to someone who does not have anything, but is doing good things, they will feel happy regardless.
Taking a leave. Starting January 1st, 2021, I am doing…
By: Sauvik Das
Tags: Academia, Work Life Balance, Leaves, PhD, Professor

Edit: An earlier version of this article was not fair to people I care about; I tried to make my experience more than what it was. I do believe that we should normalize the pursuit of life over academia sometimes. Anyway, I’ve significantly re-written this to focus on the just the fact that I’m taking a leave for a year, and that I’m not quite sure what I’m doing with it yet, and that that’s okay. Sorry! This is not the article that was originally shared and unless you know me personally, you should probably just skip it :)

Starting January 1st, 2021, I am officially taking an 80% leave of absence from my position at Georgia Tech [1]. The 20% will give me the space to advise my Ph.D. students and manage my active awards.

But outside of that? I have ideas, but nothing set in stone. I’ll be in Pittsburgh for the duration, so if you know of an interesting opportunity for which I’d be a good fit working out of Pittsburgh, feel free to reach out!

Everything is okay! I look forward to what the new year will bring. And I very much look forward to rejoining my colleagues back at Georgia Tech in 2022.

—

[1] Though I should note that my department at Georgia Tech has been very supportive of junior faculty in the midst of the pandemic, and all of us are getting a one-year (opt-out) extension on our clocks owing to the challenges brought on by the pandemic.
I vantaggi dell’Eurostudent
By: Irene Fratellini
Tags: Academia, First Post, Study Abroad, Professional Development, Startup

Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more

Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore
Holding Distant Hands
By: Tim Varner
Tags: Lifehacks, Academia, Poetry Prompt, Mental Health, Poetry

Photo by Dollar Gill on Unsplash

As an unmarked box is delivered, to our humble front door

A careful night of planning, together but apart once more

Lined with an outfit, a board game

And a perfectly pre-chosen film

We dress in each’s attire and count the minutes til’

With a rapping at the door, posing as an unknown surprise

A companion’s delivered food, could it be a burger or maybe fries

In unmarked boxes, the aroma is wafting great

The Styrofoam mystery, will serve as a disposable plate

We dial in together and open in a shock

Our favorite foods in front of us, munching as we talk

Joking on the outfits, we had chosen as the others cover

We begin to roll the die

Taking turns with one another

In a game of twists and turns, triumphs and setbacks

Each move we make is fantastic, causing our smiles to crack

With a winner declared, we rest into our most comfortable spot

A classic holiday film, with a resembling plot

The actors are distant, across the globe it seems

But in one fell-swoop they’re brought together

Just as this night of dreams
Soft skills: le capacità che non pensavi di avere
By: Chiara Russo
Tags: Academia, First Post, Soft Skills, Professional Development, Startup

Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more

Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore
Plagiarism Alert
By: Sanket Patil
Tags: Academia, Plagiarism, Research

Just a while ago I came across something extremely bizarre and disturbing: the strangest case of plagiarism. Someone has parts of my PhD thesis and/or possibly entire sections including figures from papers I had published (with my advisor and collaborators) more than ten years ago, made some small seemingly random changes, and published multiple papers. That too as recently as 2019!

I completed my PhD from International Institute of Information Technology — Bangalore (IIIT-B) under the supervision of Prof. Srinath Srinivasa. My PhD thesis entitled “Designing optimal network topologies under multiple efficiency and robustness constraints” was published in 2011. You can access it here through the Shodhganga portal. You can find more of our work on Google Scholar.

Today, while working on something I had to look up some old research work that I had done a long time ago. That’s when I came across these cases of plagiarism. With a quick search I found two such instances. There might be more.

One of the papers published in International Journal of Innovative Technology and Exploring Engineering (IJITEE) in 2019 is entitled “Designing Optimal Network Topologies with Numerous Robustness and Efficiency Constraints” (The “authors” have replaced “under multiple” with “with numerous”). You can access the paper by clicking this link. Other details: ISSN: 2278–3075, Volume-8 Issue-7, May, 2019. The first author is a research student and the second author is apparently an Assistant Professor at a university, who is likely the supervisor of the former.

This is a screenshot of some of the figures from the above paper. I remember spending tens of hours painstakingly creating these.

You can find the original work in Chapter 5 of my thesis. A term I had used was “Symmetric Multi-hubs”. They have changed it to “cruciform multi-hubs”. But that cleverness does not always come in handy it seems. They call the other classes of topologies as “purposeless hubs and spokes” and “purposeless CSL”. I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean.

The same authors have published another paper with plagiarized content in a journal called International Journal of Recent Technology and Engineering (IJRTE). It’s called “Designing Optimal Network Topology Based on Genetic Algorithm Framework”. Other details: ISSN: 2277–3878, Volume-8, Issue-1, May 2019. You can access it by clicking this link. This features parts of Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 of my PhD thesis. Interestingly, the authors do cite three of my papers, but that doesn’t absolve them of blatant plagiarism.
Do they all?
By: April M. Hamm, She They
Tags: Academia, Inclusion, Diversity, Diversity And Inclusion, Higher Education

Do they all? It’s amazing, that with all the efforts to increase diversity in higher ed, programs still manage to recruit a more or less homogeneous student body where everyone shares (more or less) the exact same worldview and lived experiences.

Truly Amazing!!
Eidolon Is Dead. Long Live Eidolon.
By: Nandini Pandey
Tags: Writing, Academia, Public Scholarship, Byedolon, Classics

Within minutes of the news of Eidolon’s demise, social media flooded with testimony to the life it breathed into classics. Who could have imagined that in five short years, this scrappy, upstart, woman-led magazine could revolutionize a field that for centuries has been a byword for conservatism? Eidolon amplified voices and sparked conversations we’d never before imagined. And now we can’t imagine how we’ll go without.

I’ll leave it to others to give Eidolon the public laudatio it deserves. I just want to offer my personal thanks to a them that’s also an us and you. To me, Eidolon has never been an abstract noun so much as a group of people engaged in conversations that were alternately difficult, angry, funny, and necessary. Writers who placed their histories and humanity at the fore of their classics, and in doing so, changed how authority looks and how scholarship sounds. Above all, readers of all ages, races, and gender identities, spanning institutions and continents, who felt that finally someone was speaking for us.

I’m proud to have been part of this community. And I’m a better classicist for it. Sarah Scullin and team helped me unlearn the hedging, posturing, and self-whitewashing I’d internalized in grad school. I’m a clearer thinker as a result. It was here that I learned how hard it is, and how invigorating, to communicate complex ideas without condescension to a wider public. And it was here that I learned to write from my whole self, and not just a scholarly persona; to recognize how my experience as a human in this world has shaped and enriched my classics.

It was on Eidolon, too, that I and many others first felt the dignity of being a writer — of crafting voices that transcend hierarchies and traditional reward structures. It’s been a while since I accepted writer’s fees, because I always felt I should be paying Eidolon. Tens of thousands more people have read my articles here than will ever pick up my book. Throughout it all, you, dear readers, have been my therapists and confidantes, my light during the darkness of the past four years.

Eidolon has given me so much more than I gave. And I’m not the only one hoping to pay it forward. Lest we forget, it was Helen’s eidolon, not Helen herself, who kept the battle going. We, the people of Eidolon, have always been more than the banner. And the work we continue in its name has only just begun. It’s on us to keep expanding who gets a voice in our field and a place at the table. It’s on us to recognize and reward public-facing, socially conscious scholarship. It’s on us to be the change we want to see.

Thank you, Eidolon, for giving us not a possession for all time, but inspiration without end.

Eidolon is dead; long live Eidolon.

Nandini Pandey still can’t quite believe it.
ResearchCoin Giveaway — Week 4 Report
By: Patrick Joyce
Tags: Academia, Research, Blockchain, Science, Ethereum

Results from week 4 of the 1M ResearchCoin giveaway

Welcome to another weekly results blog for the 1M ResearchCoin giveaway. During week 4 there were 103 papers,70 comments, and 962 votes shared on ResearchHub!

Below are the top earners from week 4:

Chukwuma Chidera shared this week’s most upvoted post — a paper which discussed how biofertilizers improve soil irrigation and the yield of intercropping systems in southern India

Jordan Nelson’s post on the impact of scientific rebuttals came in second place. This paper shows how published rebuttals receive only 5% of the citations received by the article they rebuke.

Third place in week 4 belongs to a post from Kusuma about an opinion article that reviews Oxytocin’s role in moderating the brain activity which allows a person to distinguish self from others.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to the ResearchHub community during week 4! The most active hubs during the week were:

Plans for week 5

Week 5 of the 1M RSC giveaway started on November, 30! If you would like to participate — start sharing, curating, and discussing scientific papers on ResearchHub today.

We will post another update next week. Until then don’t forget to follow ResearchHub on Twitter and invite your friends who would like to help us accelerate the pace of scientific research!

Finally, if you are interested in helping us moderate the ResearchHub community grow stop by our community Slack and say hi!
Prototyping and its power!
By: Sugar Network
Tags: Design Thinking, Academia, Design, Innovation, Global

Written by Melanie Calleja, SUGAR Alumn from 2018/19 & teaching assistant at our member institution Design Factory Melbourne.

“Never under estimate the power of visuals! Even a rough sketch is a prototype.

Prototyping is such a useful skill to have when designing anything from a product to a service.

Simply put, prototyping is communicating an idea through a visual, tangible means to gain feedback.

Prototyping should start as quick, low fidelity built ideas, to invite user feedback. This is because your user will interact with your paper prototype differently to how they would interact with a high fidelity prototype. The same goes with giving feedback. You would rather give more critical feedback to a good idea that took 10 min to prototype then a good idea that took 5 hours to prototype, right?

The only way to know if something works… is to build it! Always start a prototype with a question in mind. We make lots of assumptions when designing something, so it is important to know what you want your prototype to answer. For example, Does this shape feel comfortable in a users hands? Does the mechanism open when I pull here? Do these parts fit together? Through building you discover new questions and understand what the value to the user is.

When testing, be mindful of what you say. One of the hardest thing is not telling the user how to use the prototype. Let your user make their own assumption and talk you through what they are thinking, what they are doing and why. Let them know there is no wrong answer and document everything!

And then… Iterate and build again!

Thank you to Design Factory Melbourne for your knowledge and guidance.”
The Test
By: Clark Kilgard
Tags: Academia, Politics, Reality, Facts, Law

The president and his press secretary have made allegations of broad-based election fraud. However, in court, Trump’s lawyers back away from actually asserting fraud or conspiracy. Attorneys, who are officers of the court are restrained by professional ethics, rules of civil procedure and rules of evidence. They could face sanctions from the court.

This is a good example of what each of us individuals and our social networks should do. Yes, it is one thing to have opinions, to say whatever you want, to present “alternative facts”, to believe conspiracy theories; but there comes a point where all of those assertions must give way to professionalism and basic rules.

It is both the professionals and the traditional rules that people have come to despise. I was in Junior High School. Our teacher had made a statement in a history class about which a classmate disagreed. An argument ensued in which the teacher tried to explain that he had studied history longer than my 14-year-old colleague and should be listened to on this point. My friend complained: “I have a right to my opinion.” That is what is going on in our social-political life. One’s opinion is thought to trump (sorry, couldn’t avoid that) a professional’s knowledge.

When I was teaching, I simply told the class that right or wrong, the textbook had the last word. They had a right to their opinion (We were studying World Religions) but the text would be the standard they must meet when I gave a test. I am sure that my Junior High classmate eventually had to meet that standard as well. In the same way, the president’s attorneys have to give way to their assertions when they stand before a judge in a court of law.

We do not let just anybody write a textbook. A professional or group of professionals who stand in the stream of teaching authority and academic tradition are usually called upon. The text must also meet the standards of the knowledgeable teachers that will recommend its use. Our accredited, academic institutions are responsible for training those teachers and providing a forum for those professionals to question each other and review each other’s work.

Some of us have chosen to go with my classmate’s “I have a right to my opinion.” approach. That is their right. They will despise the “elites”, the professionals that try to hammer out the truth no matter how inconvenient it may be. They rail against the rules, insisting that they are free and no one can tell them what they can do or not do. They will tune in to whatever bolsters what they already believe.

Then comes the test…
I stand still
By: Franco Amati
Tags: Academia, Uncertainty, Poetry, Scuzzbucket, Prose

Image by Peter Olexa from Pixabay

I swam upstream

through treacherous currents

of criticism and strain

to find myself at the mouth of the river

facing certain death in an academic ocean

I crossed a desert

trudging through sands and winds

of poverty and debt

thirsty and starving for more fertile land

only to find my chosen career a mirage

I climbed the mountain

gasping for the thinnest air

choked and abused by the system

seeking mental landscapes of freedom

wishing my ideas weren’t theirs

I ran through a dangerous forest

filled with deceitful snakes and hideous apes

because I saw a beautiful clearing ahead

but I had no idea until it was too late…

at the edge of the forest was a precipice

I can’t continue

I can’t go back

I can’t jump

I stand still