Abstracts on entomology

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15.12.2015 14:45, Makarov

Perhaps, the text of the abstract was also over-praised in the reviews. The expressions "perpetual inventory activity of flora and fauna with the maintenance of an interactive database" M. B. are easy to read , but not easy to understand ... I'd like to see flora doing her inventory indefinitely.

In my youth, I wrote formally positive reviews a couple of times with a large number of comments and a final conclusion that nevertheless the work corresponds. Then I realized and left-the author can not be re-educated, the situation can not be improved. Negative reviews (even from opponents) usually do not affect the dissertation candidate, but at least there is clarity.

Fantasy: suggest that the Higher Attestation Commission review the approach to reviews from opponents. The opponent should be charged with writing a negative review, and the dissertation candidate should be charged with a reasoned response to criticism.

Likes: 1

17.12.2015 9:03, Лавр Большаков

After the closure of dubious entomological councils, smart guys with unusual topics rushed to defend themselves in zoological, environmental, etc. councils. This is the root of all evil. And the applicant is hardly to blame. In such cases, I blame the manager for 95%, it was he who set such a bar for the qualification work.
Time will judge everyone.

As far as I can remember, we never had much entomological advice. But "ecological" - almost in every institute that has turned into a "university"at the behest of the pike. And these "ecological" councils have always been hotbeds of boundless near-dissertation corruption and purveyors of crowds of fake "degree holders". Although this is also observed in entomological councils-perhaps, except for ZIN (however, they often pass weak PhD theses, but simply because of the lack of a better one, applicants are still forced to work there).
Indeed, the organizers of corrupt dissertation pipelines are the heads of institutions and their close associates, who play the role of"managers". Among young applicants, there are more "innocent victims", and among those who are older - more careerists and bribe-givers.

17.12.2015 13:26, Victor Titov

Ad publication date 03.06.2015
Ad address on the HAC website http://vak.ed.gov.ru/dis-details?xPARAM=200255
Information about the applicant
Type of dissertation Candidate's program
Surname, first name, patronymic of the applicant Oksana V. Kosheleva
Title of the dissertation topic Riders of the family Eulophidae (Hymenoptera, Chalcidoidea) Stavropol Territory with a special discussion of the Tetrastichinae subfamily
Code of scientific specialty 03.02.05-Entomology
Branch of science biological sciences
Code of the dissertation council D 002.223.01
Organization name Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Abstract Abstract file
Internet address of the ad on the organization's website http://www.zin.ru/boards/00222301/theses.html
Internet address of the dissertation text on the organization's website http://www.zin.ru/boards/00222301/theses.html
Contact information
Address of the organization 1 Universitetskaya emb., Saint Petersburg
Phone of the organization (812) 328-12-12, 328-00-11
Dissertation defense date 20.10.2015

___________________________________________________________

Date of publication of the ad 03.10.2014
Ad address on the HAC website http://vak.ed.gov.ru/dis-details?xPARAM=174224
Information about the applicant
Type of dissertation Candidate's program
Surname, first name, patronymic of the applicant Irina Strakhova
Title of the dissertation topic Chalcid riders of the genus Elasmus Westwood, 1833 (Hymenoptera, Eulophidae)
Code of scientific specialty 03.02.05-Entomology
Branch of science biological sciences
Code of the dissertation council D 002.223.01
Organization name Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Abstract View file
Internet address of the ad on the organization's website
Internet address of the dissertation text on the organization's website
Contact information
Address of the organization St. Petersburg, Universitetskaya emb., 1
Phone of the organization (812) 328-00-11
Date of dissertation defense 16.12.2014

This post was edited by Dmitrich - 12/17/2015 13: 29

Likes: 3

06.01.2016 0:54, Makarov

Returning to Dmitry Leonidovich's remark: "these people wrote exactly a positive, not a negative review, understanding the value of words." "The price of a word" is a subtle matter, we will have to reason. I'll start with an example. The phrase "I do not know this type of Bembidion" can have very different meanings. If it is pronounced by Igor Belousov, who is fluent in the world fauna of the genus and thoroughly knows it within the USSR, then we have a characteristic of the beetle – this is at least a rare (possibly new) species. If the same words are uttered by a graduate student Kolya Kozlov, who has identified two copies of runners in his life, we have a characteristic of the graduate student's knowledge. Developing this analogy, we will fix the first position: the expert's opinion is valuable.

If you look at the positive reviews (I don't mean only E. K. Hakobyan's dissertation – you should look more broadly) on the abstract, then in most cases it is a text on 1-1.5 pages, 2/3 of which are occupied by the standard title, conclusion and attributes of the reviewers. And they are usually written by non-specialists. In fact, this is not a review, but a refrain of the spell "the dissertator is good and his dissertation is good". The situation is compounded by the widespread opinion (often taken as an axiom) "a positive review is a good deed". First of all, this is not an axiom. What if the dissertation is bad? Or even stolen (sometimes...). We need to figure it out first. Secondly, the authors of positive reviews by default consider themselves the "right majority", and the authors of negative reviews get the role of a deliberately wrong minority. Both the former and the latter have the most disastrous consequences for the defense procedure and science in general, since in principle they do not imply a reasoned discussion.
This situation results in a characteristic asymmetry: a lot of short, low-content positive reviews against a few fairly complete and well-reasoned negative ones. The reaction of the dissertation council, as well as the scientific society, is expected – the "forces of good" must win, and the result of the defense is predictable. Let's fix the second position:" just positive " reviews are not only formal, but also harmful.

The question is: what should be a positive review? Answer: It should be based on shortcomings. It is obvious that every work is imperfect to some extent. The tasks of the author of a positive review are (a) to find valid (!not comments like "the font is wrong") shortcomings and (b) to logically prove (!not postulate) that these shortcomings do not detract from the merits of the work. This will also reduce the share of reviews from non-specialists and restore the practice of scientific discussion to some extent.

This, of course, is utopia. In relation to the original topic, this is a certain basis that forces me to (a) repeat the almost New Year's wish "Citizens, do not write such positive reviews" and (b) object to Dmitry Leonidovich about specific positive reviews. Take, for example, a review from a leading organization. After deducting the standard revolutions, we find two parts in it – positive and negative. The first one takes up a little more than a page and is reduced to a retelling of the abstract; the second one is twice as long and contains almost two dozen reasoned comments. Characteristic ratio? Moreover – in the positive part we will read:
1a) ... it is shown that according to the ground beetle fauna, the territories of the Urals and the West Siberian Plain are divided into two parts - northern and southern. The border between these parts runs between the middle and southern taiga ...
2a) ...the distribution of ground beetles in 5 groups of biotopes is shown: forest, meadow, floodplain, swamp and anthropogenic ...
3a) It is shown that in the northern and middle taiga of the Khanty - Mansi Autonomous Okrug, the largest number of species is recorded in meadow and floodplain habitats, slightly less in forest ones; in the southern taiga, meadow biotopes are also richer, but more species are recorded in forest ones …
4a) ... issues related to the protection of ground beetles in the region and in Russia as a whole are considered. The paper analyzes the lists of species of all ground beetles included in the regional Red Books of the subjects of the Russian Federation, discusses the problems ... The result of the chapter is recommendations for the protection of caraboid species. …

and in the negative – almost mirror image:
1b) Accordingly, it remains unclear where the information about the southern taiga subzone in the region came from and where its border is located. ... In this regard, the conclusion about the position of the faunal boundary between the southern and middle taiga does not seem justified.
2b) Complexes of species found in forest, swamp, meadow, floodplain, and anthropogenic biotope groups are identified here. ... This classification looks very primitive, since it was obtained without taking into account the abundance of species. Thus, even species confined to strictly defined habitats ("stenotope" in the commonly used sense of the term), under certain conditions, may be outside the typical habitat. Actually, this effect is clearly shown by Edmond Karlosevich in Chapter 5.3., when floodplain species, fleeing from flooding, occupied forest biotopes. Based on the author's logic, should all types be called polytopic during a flood?
3b) The author confuses the concepts of "abundance" and "number of species". Thus, the author "confirms" the conclusion about "an increase in the share of forest carabid species from north to south" (in fact, an increase in the number of species in forest biotopes) by quoting the work of I. Lyubechansky - "the highest number of ground beetles in the southern forest-steppe ". observed ". in forest biotopes".
4b) ... provides a list of 16 ground beetle species for which it is planned to "study the biology, ecology and habitat in order to identify their conservation status and category of rarity". At the same time, not a word is said on the basis of which data this list was compiled.
The picture is familiar and characteristic.

So is this a positive or negative review? In form-positive, in fact-negative. And how do you know which words the review authors value?

06.01.2016 12:28, Лавр Большаков

To be honest, I didn't expect my remark to spark a discussion. I may have made a mistake. I wanted to say that the review authors wanted to write a POSITIVE review. Hence these mandatory words. They obviously didn't have the task of evaluating the work critically. By understanding the price of words, I meant that they probably understood that the work was not very good, but they wrote that it was quite good..

As Kirill Vladimirovich showed above, in reviews with comments, you can often see the "internal struggle" of review authors between the requirements of corporate ethics (inherently vicious and corrupt) and their own conscience. On the one hand, the reviewer, especially if he is a so-called "professional" (an employee of a scientific or educational institution), is under pressure from the corrupt system, which requires positive conclusions for the sake of self-preservation. On the other hand, as a specialist, he simply cannot fail to note at least the most glaring shortcomings of the dissertation. However, even if the review is negative in content, the conclusion "Worthy"is crucial. This is the tragedy of the national system of certification of applicants.

Likes: 1

07.01.2016 1:44, Dmitrii Musolin

Of course, not enough, of course they understood that they were lying or lying. A person was asked to support a "good dissertation candidate "(or "good supervisor"), and realizing that they overestimate the grade, they write that although there are comments, everything corresponds. And they understand that (in all conscience) the price of their words about compliance is a penny...

I thought that all this was clear from the very beginning.

But in general, we are idealists. Now graduate school is the 3rd stage of higher education, although graduate students are not yet called students, but they are already "studying", they have disciplines and practices, now there will be a state exam and a report defense. They no longer have time to do science. And for a university or research institute, they MUST be released and protected, otherwise there will be no competition. jobs and funding. We are simply between two fires-and were, and will be...

A thousand apologies on my part - but I will venture to turn to Dmitry Leonidovich again. Please explain - in the phrase "By understanding the price of words, I meant that they probably understood that the work was not very good, but they wrote that it was quite..." - what is the "price of words"? Theoretically, I understand that the concept of "price" is twofold-it can be both big and small. So you mean that authors don't value their words very much? Then everything falls into place and I apologize again - I shouldn't have written so much in vain.

Likes: 1

07.01.2016 12:21, Coelioxys

Almost always, opponents and the leading organization are appointed according to preliminary agreements of the manager/applicant. It is clear that few people want to write a review for a dissertation-this is time and effort with minimal (or even zero) payment. Therefore, they always agree in advance. The review of the leading organization is also often written by only one person, the rest are attributed. So on the basis of what should we expect negative reviews from them? Plus, the measure of "worthy-unworthy" is very stretched, there are no clear criteria, hence the different interpretation.
And Mr. Bolshakov is very wrong if he believes that the research Institute has some kind of system that obliges you to write positive reviews for bad works. Many people are simply too lazy to write any reviews at all, and even negative ones, which still need to be worked on, are even more so.

08.01.2016 1:57, А.Й.Элез

And Mr. Bolshakov is very wrong if he believes that the research Institute has some kind of system that obliges you to write positive reviews for bad works. Many people are simply too lazy to write any reviews at all, and even negative ones, which still need to be worked on, are even more so.

Does he think so? I understood it differently: a system that makes writing a review with a negative operative part extremely unprofitable for the opponent. More precisely, it objectively forces him to condition this part not by scientific, but by other considerations. Yes, there is no formal obligation; but what's the use? Kozma Prutkov taught me to look at the root.

And why refer to laziness, if Comrade Lavr Bolshakov stated the existence of just such banal situations, when the strength and even brains to indicate negative points in the motivational part of the opponent was quite enough and it was a small matter - to insert the particle "not" in the operative part of the review in full accordance with the already formulated criticism of nonsense, those. in their conclusions, just do not contradict, like the last scum or idiot, their own premises. But it often turns out that these two additional letters, although not great work, but almost always a considerable lookout (career, family, money - you never know what). And it is much more real than in the case of an unexpected post-protective shoo-in in the Higher Attestation Commission, not being able to present their well, very honest indications of shortcomings in the motivational part of the review. And this is exactly the system-although, of course, it presupposes the presence of the corresponding academic rabble, which is often not too lazy to bother many pages to lick who needs it, but which is punctured by laziness just for a couple of crucial letters in the struggle for the truth.

This post was edited by A. J. Elez-08.01.2016 11: 24

Likes: 1

08.01.2016 11:28, Лавр Большаков

Almost always, opponents and the leading organization are appointed according to preliminary agreements of the manager/applicant. ... The review of the leading organization is also often written by only one person, the rest are attributed. So on the basis of what should we expect negative reviews from them? ...And Mr. Bolshakov is very wrong if he believes that the Research Institute has some kind of system that obliges you to write positive reviews for bad works. ...

You are contradicting yourself (and common sense). First, you admit the commonness of vile corruption collusions when dragging dissertations, and then you write that it is only I who believe that "in the research institute".
In fact, for more than 30 years of communication with so-called "professionals" (not only from research institutes, but also from educational institutions). I have discussed with them many times their "moral anguish" about bad dissertations. And in the vast majority of cases, employees are afraid to write negative reviews, because bullshit applicants have high-ranking and influential "bosses", whole states of corrupt scribblers of positive reviews,and corrupt VAKS. Concerns were expressed that "attacks" from the administration and hanging a "scandalous reputation" could be organized for a negative review.
Many people prefer not to write at all or refuse to oppose. I know of isolated cases of writing negative reviews, but only when the corruption defenses were excessively shocking, or affected their own interests.
Thus, the formation and maintenance of a SYSTEM of MUTUAL RESPONSIBILITY is evident, which ensures the functioning of corrupt dissertation pipelines.

Likes: 2

08.01.2016 20:50, Лавр Большаков

By the way, it is a great mystery for me - how are "leading organizations" appointed?
It is often seen that the " leading organization "not only does not" conduct " the applicant's research in any way, but also often does not have specialists in the field of defense in its staff.
I remember a case not so long ago. My colleague (the only lepidopterologist in a scientific institution) was suddenly asked by the management (absolutely not entomological) to write a review of a "leading organization" for a more than bullshit dissertation on bulavous Y. Siberia. But the colleague already knew that the dissertation was disgusting. And he refused to give a review under the pretext that " the applicant has never visited us and does not take into account our limited collections."

Likes: 1

20.04.2017 20:38, Dmitrii Musolin

Colleagues, good afternoon!

According to the tradition that has developed here, I post information about my dissertation: https://www.zin.ru/boards/00222301/theses.html

Musolin Dmitry Leonidovich
dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Biological Sciences
"Shield insects (Heteroptera: Pentatomoidea): diversity of seasonal adaptations, mechanisms for controlling seasonal development and responses to climate change"

Specialty 03.02.05-entomology
Date of publication of the dissertation on the website March 13, 2017
The dissertation was accepted for defense by the decision of the Dissertation Council on April 19, 2017, Protocol No. 5.
Abstract placement date: April 19, 2017
Dissertation defense will take place on November 14, 2017 at 14 o'clock
Information about official opponents: E. B. Vinogradova, V. B. Golub, A. N. Frolov, I. M. Sechenov Institute of Evolutionary Physiology and Biochemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences

I hope that the criticism will be informative in content and decent in form.

Likes: 1