Science and humor? An unexpected pairing, right? But hear me out!  Weaving humor into your scientific presentations, while explaining complex and multifaceted ideas, is a clever trick to keep your audience engaged.  Think of it as a light dust of sugar, not a heavy coat, to make the pill of knowledge go down easier. In fact, science and humor already have a popular connection – look no further than the success of shows like The Big Bang Theory or The Infinite Monkey Cage. But why does humor leave a strong impact? 

Imagine you’re on a treasure hunt in a big castle with many rooms, but you don’t know which room has the treasure. Each room has a secret passage to other rooms. A hidden Markov model is like a map that helps you guess which room the treasure is in, based on clues you find. You start in one room and move to others through secret passages. Each room represents a hidden state, and the clues you find represent observations. By following the clues and the map’s rules (like which passage to take), you try to figure out where the treasure is hidden without seeing it directly.

As part of your post-graduate training, you will encounter the need to formulate a thesis statement. Although this may appear to be a simple component, when faced with writing a thesis statement, you may find yourself wondering what to focus on! After all, this crucial element serves as the foundation of your research papers and essays.

Simply put, plagiarism, or claiming a piece of text as your own when it is not, is a violation of publishing ethics. And charges of plagiarism are serious because the whole edifice of science rests on scholarly publishing: if you are dishonest in this matter, what is to prevent to you from being dishonest in even more serious ways such as data fabrication and image manipulation? That is why plagiarism is bad for you. What is worse, you can be guilty of it unwittingly, often out of sheer ignorance.

The importance of a well-prepared patent application cannot be overstated in today's competitive research landscape. As an early career researcher, your innovative ideas hold the potential to shape industries and drive progress. However, these ideas are vulnerable to exploitation and misappropriation without adequate protection.

The 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) came into force in 2015. Since their introduction, we have seen great improvements in many areas: clean energy is growing steadily, education is improving, and gender equality is looking more attainable each year. Unfortunately, we have seen not only stagnation for some goals, but even worsening trends.

Recently, mounting concerns have led to a surge in efforts globally to strengthen research integrity. Government agencies, academic institutions, and publishers have taken to initiating, fortifying and updating research integrity measures. Here we review some of these recent research integrity initiatives. 

1. National/regional policies and initiatives 

Understanding Sampling Methods: Non-Probability vs. Probability Sampling