It’s not a lab coat June 16, 2014
Posted by mareserinitatis in engineering, research, work.Tags: Bobbsey Twins, clothes, ESD, pauli effect, smock, work, zap
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I’ve been doing some work in the lab, and after I fried something, decided I needed to be a bit more careful. So out come the blue smocks.
Of course, some people prefer to call them ESD jackets. I’m one of them, but I absent-mindedly revert to ‘smock’ when I’m not thinking. I prefer to call them jackets because ‘smock’ evokes images of an granny in a ruffly apron who speaks in a high, squeaky voice (almost as annoying as Karen from Will and Grace).
Come to think of it, they’re about as flattering…
My coworker had a pretty good description: he said we looked like the Bobbsey Twins. I’d never heard of them, but after seeing this, I think he’s right:
That’s approximately the correct shade of blue for an ESD smock. However, I wish my ESD jacket had a ruffled collar. Or that it was actually purple.
Maybe divorce is the answer… June 10, 2014
Posted by mareserinitatis in career, engineering, family, feminism, research, science, societal commentary, work.Tags: feminism, hyphenated names, marriage, names, proposals, reviewer comments, sexism, stupid
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I think I am going to change my name. It’s very annoying.
My last name, anyway.
If I had it to do over again, the one thing I would’ve done when getting married is to keep my maiden name. Hyphenation was not the best idea by a long shot.
This has been an issue (a lot) because I worked with my husband for so long. I suspect it will die off as we are no longer coworkers. However, one of the most bizarre things that has come up is that I recently received some reviews of a proposal that we wrote before he changed jobs. One of the reviewers noted that as a co-PI, I had the same last name as the PI and so a conflict of interest was a possibility.
Huh?
My university has a clear and very detailed conflict of interest policy, and I’m not clear how this applies. As far as I can tell, this has nothing to do with conflict of interest as these policies are almost exclusively focused on outside financial obligations. I checked with the funding agency, and that was all they had listed for conflict of interest, as well.
If he were supervising me or vice-versa (that is, one of us was a subordinate), such a scenario would violate internal policies to the university. However, even if he is PI and I’m a co-PI, we both reported to someone else. Further, a PI isn’t necessarily a supervisory role. Do faculty members who collaborate on research supervise each other or collaborate? (My experience says there are very few faculty who view their role as co-PI is that of being supervised by the PI.)
In any case, it’s a completely ridiculous comment to make on a proposal review because we could have been two completely unrelated colleagues who happen to have the same last name. I can think about some of the areas of research I do, and I know of several groups of researchers, particularly in Asia, where many members of the team do have the same last name. I never once jumped to the conclusion that there was a problem with this.
Of course, it’s obviously my fault for the name, so I should probably fix it. Do you suppose it’s cheaper to go through the legal name-change process or to just divorce and quickly get remarried?
Macrocat bows (or sits) to peer pressure June 9, 2014
Posted by mareserinitatis in pets, photography.Tags: Gigadog, macrocat, pictures, teradog
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I’m sure that my name in dog language can be translated as “giver of tasty treats.” While Mike is “provider of kibble,” the dogs know that when I’m in the kitchen, something tasty is likely to magically appear on the floor. (While this is usually voluntary, there have been a lot of occasions where it was not.)
The down side of this is that any time I have food in my hands, they flank me until I stop moving, and then they show off their awesome sitting and laying down skills. Gigadog is particularly bad when I have bananas. We think she’s really a gorilla in a dog suit: she can hear a banana peeling through closed doors.
This morning, I had a banana and they immediately implemented their “immobilize and beg” routine. However, Macrocat saw them sitting and decided he would help. You see, he’s realized the dogs do this when there is food nearby, and sometimes that food might be tuna. Unfortunately, he wasn’t impressed with his piece of banana as he just attempted to bury it with imaginary hardwood flooring-derived sand, but the dogs were happy to take care of it for him.
Malevolent butterflies in the stomach June 7, 2014
Posted by mareserinitatis in engineering, papers, research.Tags: conference, health, illness, papers, presentations, travel
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I’m sitting at my computer this morning with somewhat bated breath. I was supposed to be presenting a paper at a conference about now. Instead, I am at home, and my major accomplishment was getting out of bed and getting dressed. Oh yeah…and I ate a bagel and a banana without getting sick.
I was on my way to the conference and decided to leave a day early. I was going to spend the night in Minneapolis with some friends and then continue on the next morning from there. I was doing great until about a half hour before I got there, and then I started having stomach issues. The problem with having celiac disease that was undiagnosed for so long is that I’m *always* having stomach issues, and I more or less ignore them now. “Oh gee. I must’ve eaten something that didn’t agree with me,” is one of the most common phrases I’ve used over the past five years.
I met my friends for dinner and then went back to their place. I found that the stomach pain kept getting worse, though it was coming and going intermittently. After about two hours, I needed to go to the ER because I was in very serious pain along the bottom of my ribcage. I spent the next couple hours getting checked for gall stones and pancreatitis and losing my dinner and getting lots of drugs. The doctor’s conclusion is that I either had a bug…or I did eat something that disagreed with me. The only problem is that I have no idea what it could have been.
Fortunately, a colleague was also attending the conference, and he agreed to give my presentation for me with the consent of the session chair. I got to come home (which is a long story in and of itself), and rather than worrying about how I was going to do on the presentation, I get to worry about how my colleague will do.
The whole situation is ironic, however. I’ve always told people that I get sick to my stomach before I have to give a presentation, but I guess this time it was literal.
When is it plagiarism? June 6, 2014
Posted by mareserinitatis in engineering, research, papers, work.Tags: engineering, IEEE, papers, journals, reviewer comments, peer review, plagiarism
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When I sit down to write a paper, I usually try to start from scratch. I type up an outline and try to fill it in, and then I begin work on all the different parts of the paper. While it has been tempting to reuse sections of previous papers, particularly the introductory material, I try not to do that. If you work in a specialized field, people are going to notice that they’re reading the same thing over. My writing may be fine, but after the 3rd or 4th time, it’s going to bore even me.
The issue came to the fore as I’ve been reviewing papers for a conference. While it’s not one I think I will be able to go to (it’s usually in Asia), I have reviewed for this conference the past couple years and really get some interesting things to examine. However, this year, all of the papers I reviewed has issues with self-plagiarism: that is, they copied verbatim materials from their own previous papers. Many of the papers I review are now being checked automatically for similarity to other papers, and while the process is supposed to be double-blind (that is, they don’t know I’m reviewing their paper, and I’m not supposed to know that I reviewed theirs), it makes it very easy to figure out who wrote the paper I’m reviewing: it’s the one with huge tracts of text that are identical but never referenced.
As I mentioned, I try to write papers from scratch, but I started to wonder if this was an ethical issue. After all, if I wrote a paper, shouldn’t I be allowed to copy it? It turns out that it’s not a good idea. In particular, most of the papers I’m dealing with will fall under IEEE copyright rules (that is, the authors transfer over copyright of their written materials should the IEEE publish those materials). Therefore, if you wrote the paper and it was published by IEEE, it’s simply not a matter of copying your own writing but plagiarism of IEEE materials. In fact, the IEEE communications society has an explicit policy that says,
IEEE Publications has long maintained the policy that verbatim copying of another’s work (plagiarism) is unacceptable author conduct.
The Communications Society values the intellectual contributions of its authors, and vigorously enforces the IEEE policy on plagiarism. As IEEE modifies its publication policies, it is important that authors who submit their work to ComSoc journals and magazines are informed of these changes.
In November 2002, the IEEE Board of Directors approved a new policy on Duplicate Publication and Self-Plagiarism. This policy is found in the IEEE Policies document, Sections 6.4.1B(f) and 6.4.1B(h). These two sections are given below.
(f) Plagiarism is unacceptable. The verbatim copying or reuse of one’s own research (as indicated in paragraph “h” below) is considered another form of plagiarism or self-plagiarism; it is unacceptable.
(h) Except as indicated in Section 6.3.4 (Multiple Publication of Original Technical Material in IEEE Periodicals), authors should only submit original work that has neither appeared elsewhere for publication, nor which is under review for another referred publication. If authors have used their own previously published work(s) as a basis for a new submission, they are required to cite the previous work(s) and very briefly indicate how the new submission offers substantial novel contributions beyond those of the previously published work(s).
I know people who do this regularly. All you have to do is read enough of their papers, and it becomes obvious that the intro section is commonly recycled by several authors. I really don’t like the practice because it also drives up index values for papers that are simply examples of related work while not being foundational. On the other hand, it is a pain to rewrite those sections every time.
I’m very glad the Com Soc is being very explicit about their policy. However, other places are not as explicit, and this is honestly something that no one has ever mentioned to me. It’s something I would like to see delineated more clearly by all publications as I think it would draw more attention to using ethical practices in paper writing and submission.
When reviewing, I can’t be certain that the person writing the paper is aware of the policies on self-citation, if there even is one for a given organization or venue, so I generally mention that it’s a good idea to change the text. I’m always curious what the editors/session chairs do with this feedback, though. Do they take it seriously? Finally, it reinforces to me that it’s never a good idea to reuse previous writing unless it’s properly attributed, even if it is my own.
The symptomatology of a glutening June 2, 2014
Posted by mareserinitatis in food/cooking.Tags: celiacs, gluten, gluten free diet, health, symptoms
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I’m going to be traveling later this week, and I realized that I am slightly terrified after having a bad ‘glutening’ over a week ago. I went to Jimmy John’s and ordered a gluten-free unwich. Then, without thinking, I asked them to add extra lettuce. The extra lettuce came from a bin into which people wearing contaminated gloves had been sticking their hands.
It was awful.
The first thing I noticed was during a run the next morning. A couple friends and I were doing an 8-miler (and that’s a good thing to have friends for because it’s a LONG run without them). My hand was really starting to hurt, and I asked them if their hands ever swell up while running. Both of them said, “Yep,” and I didn’t think much more about it…until the next morning, when I couldn’t get up. In fact, I spent three days unable to get out of bed because of crushing fatigue and horrible brain fog. I desperately wanted to get up, but even when I managed it, I would do something inconsequential, become exhausted, and not be able to focus on anything anyway. And pain all over my body. Not achiness, like the flu, but pain and swelling. GI symptoms started two days later. And then a week after that, with still swollen hands, I developed a rash (probably dermatitis herpetiformes (DH)…I still have purple marks) all over my right wrist with a couple spots on my hand. At first I thought it was poison ivy, but I hadn’t been anyplace where I would get it, and the rash was too diffuse.
I had this fantasy that maybe, once I’d been off gluten for a while, the reactions wouldn’t be so severe. I was wrong and they’re actually worse. (While I had skin problems most of my life until getting rid of the gluten, the DH is something entirely new.) I am terrified something like this will happen on a trip and I’ll be laid up the entire time.
This is me after a glutening. I don’t think this would work well at a professional conference.
On the up side, it really does make me appreciate how much better I feel the 99% of the time I have managed to avoid gluten. I like not feeling sick and exhausted and brain dead all the time.
Math is a #firstworldproblem June 1, 2014
Posted by mareserinitatis in education, math, teaching.Tags: math, teaching
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I was recently having a conversation with a friend about teaching when she launched into a complaint about students not understanding logarithms. The conversation became somewhat off putting because this friend fell into the trap of equating mathematical knowledge with intelligence. A lot of people do it: English majors will imply one is an idiot if one doesn’t appreciate the succinct stoicism supplied by Hemingway, for example. (And I use this example because I’ve been on the receiving end of such criticism: I can’t stand Hemingway, and it was torture having to relive it when the older son was reading and explaining Old Man and the Sea for one of his classes.) Hemingway hating aside, many of us tend to use certain sets of knowledge as a reflection of intelligence, and that’s rather simplistic (and not all that intelligent of us).
The reason this particular discussion irritated me is because there is a level of classism that seems to go hand-in-hand with assumptions about mathematical literacy. While being mathematically literate is a good thing, the reality is that I’ve met very mathematically illiterate folks who were able to navigate through life with no problems. Not knowing logarithms didn’t hinder them professionally or personally. Not knowing logarithms was no indicator of their intelligence. Not knowing logarithms didn’t stop them from appreciating, or at least tolerating, Hemingway.
In my experience, math illiteracy often has a basis in background. Kids whose parents are highly educated and/or wealthy often have a greater chance of both being exposed to advanced math concepts as well as being able to use such concepts more proficiently. In my classes, I’ve noticed a huge problem: kids from larger, urban schools and who aren’t minorities seem to be more likely to stick with engineering than either minority students or those from rural backgrounds. Kids who have engineers in their family are more likely to stick with it, as well. While this isn’t a surprise, and there’s been a lot of explanation as to why this is so, I suspect exposure to and comfort with math concepts is a big factor. Not only are they already feeling at a disadvantage because they are having to start farther behind their peers in the curriculum progression, they are often advised to change majors because their lack of math implies they aren’t cut out for the rigors of a technical profession. I’ve heard about this happening to my students as well as it happening to me. (I was once told that I should never have been accepted to college because I didn’t know Euler’s formula giving the trigonometric form for imaginary numbers.)
Living through those types of experiences has made me go out of my way to ensure that my kids have an excellent background in math before entering college. At the same time, because I’ve made a point to provide that level of education, I’ve become aware of many kids who don’t have those opportunities. There are a lot of bright kids who are forced to stick with grade level instruction despite the fact it’s obvious they’d benefit from acceleration. And then there are the kids for whom rigorous instruction and acceleration aren’t possible because it’s beyond their parents’ means and ability.
Back to my friend, it was hard to convince her that these kids weren’t stupid, and she seemed unwilling to accept that there wasn’t something wrong with the world that kids who don’t understand logarithms can actually go to college. I apparently couldn’t convince her that they’d be okay and maybe they just needed a bit more guidance to assimilate into the world of mathematical literacy. Perhaps we should’ve discussed literature instead.
Indices of usefulness May 28, 2014
Posted by mareserinitatis in engineering, papers, research.Tags: citations, conference, index, papers, publications, research
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While tootling around on IEEE Explore, I noticed the metrics tab on many of the articles. I’d never really looked at it before. (I’d seen it was there, but never paid much heed.) I clicked on it and thought,
OMG! Someone looked at my paper!
That was kind of cool. I wasn’t sure if that meant that someone just looked at the online page that includes the abstract or read the actual paper. According to IEEE, “Usage includes PDF downloads and HTML Views.” Awesome.
Except I noticed something rather disturbing. I have one paper that has been looked at over 200 times, but hasn’t been cited once. On the other hand, I have another paper that has a fraction of the views but has been cited several times. To be perfectly honest, I consider the first paper to be far better than the second one. Then there’s a third one with several more citations than any of my other papers but barely has been looked at. And I consider this paper rather…Ugh.
This left me pondering: why do some papers get cited while others don’t. I don’t think quality is the issue because, as I mentioned, the papers that are cited more are ones that I consider to be some of my less favorite papers. I don’t think innovation is an issue, either (although for some people it is).
I have noticed that papers with co-authors who travel a lot to conferences get more citations than other, better papers (although these papers are usually cited as examples of particular applications and not so much for foundational material). And conference papers seem to be cited more than journal papers. Going on that, I’m starting to wonder how much of citation (at least in my field) tends to be more of an issue of looking for certain authors (particularly ones they’ve seen at conferences) versus doing an in-depth lit review.
Given how I don’t like to travel a whole lot, this does not bode well. It’s also a bit disconcerting to think that the only thing that matters is actual citations when an uncited work could actually be having a bigger impact and wider readership than a cited work.
A Rite (Triangle) of Passage May 13, 2014
Posted by mareserinitatis in education, family, gifted, homeschooling, math, older son, teaching, younger son.Tags: homeschooling, learning, learning styles, math, pythagorean theorem, visual-spatial, younger son
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The younger son recently started his pre-algebra class. Somehow, this has made math a bit better. I think the fact that it has algebra in the title makes him feel very accomplished and that, in turn, has made him more enthusiastic about math.
The other day, he was doing some of his homework, and the lecture was confusing to him. I listened to the lecture and then said, “It makes more sense if you draw a picture.” He responded that, “Pictures always help me learn better. I guess the math program doesn’t realize that some of us are visual learners.” I was both amused and quite stunned. I think I’ve been discussing educational theory a bit too much at the dinner table. I can tell he’s listening to us.
Tonight, he hit a milestone. He called Mike over, and I followed, so he could ask us how to pronounce “pythagorean.” He was sure he’d heard us talking about it before (yeah, we discuss this stuff around the dinner table), and he wanted to be sure that was what it was.
“Oh, wow!” I said. “You’re doing the Pythagorean Theorem. That’s awesome!” Suddenly, there was an impromptu round of cheering and high-fiving. The older son even came over and gave his little brother a big hug, saying, “Woo hoo! The Pythagorean Theorem is awesome.”
As the lecture progressed, it reiterated the terminology, focusing on right triangle legs and hypotenuse. Given I’ve had ZZ Top in my head, I had to immediately sing, “She’s got legs! She has a hypotenuse!” I wasn’t able to come up with much more, though.
Yes, I have to admit that I realized how odd it was, in retrospect. We were having a celebration that younger son had made it to the Pythagorean Theorem, and we were all making a huge deal about it.
But younger son didn’t think so. He thought it was awesome and giggled continuously for the next few minutes. I guess he likes having a math cheer team.
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Reviewers say the darndest things June 11, 2014
Posted by mareserinitatis in career, engineering, research, work.Tags: proposals, reviewer comments
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I’m not sure what happened this year, but as the feedback from this past fall’s proposals have come in, I’ve been a bit flabbergasted. It seemed like last year, the feedback was a lot better. There were a lot of suggestions for improvement.
This year’s comments were…stupid. There was nothing constructive about it. There was nothing that could be used as suggestions for improvement.
Aside from the commentary I mentioned yesterday about my marital status, there were lots of other fun oddities to pick on.
I think the first thing that was frustrating were the contradictory comments. Reviews like “excellent detail” coming alongside “too technical.” Some of that is to be expected.
What I wasn’t expecting was a resubmission from the previous year having stellar reviews in comparison with the first year (totally nailed the broader outcomes, which were cited as rather weak the previous year)…yet the ratings didn’t change at all. Huh?
Next there was the reviewer who obviously pasted some of his/her review from another proposal into our review. Ironically, I think this reviewer also commented on formatting issues in the proposal. (I apparently didn’t notice that Word puked on a reference.)
Then there was the reviewer who cited some ‘scientifically based’ concerns about a chemical that we were using. There were supposedly health issues associated with use of this chemical…which had nothing to do with what we were doing. Worse yet, he was completely wrong. One only need to look at the CDC website to find toxicity info saying that the claims the reviewer were saying had been “well established for a decade” had never been proven and were probably related to something else.
Finally, I’m really beginning to wonder how many reviewers actually read the proposal at all. When you’re inundated with questions that were clearly addressed in the proposal (including the above mentioned toxicity issue), you gotta wonder how effective the skimming really is.