4.11.1 Top new questions this week

4.11.1.1 Are there any research papers about TeX?

https://tex.stackexchange.com/landing/r/newsletter?cta=question&id=423566

Some time ago there was a question on this site Are there any open research problems in the world of TeX? 
In a similar spirit, I'd like to ask, whether there are any research articles out there in  ... 
[tex-core] [latex-misc] [big-list] [research]
 

asked by Henri Menke https://tex.stackexchange.com/landing/r/newsletter?cta=user&id=10995 47 votes

answered by ShreevatsaR https://tex.stackexchange.com/landing/r/newsletter?cta=user&id=48 38 votes

4.11.1.2 Scientific applications of the tikzducks

https://tex.stackexchange.com/landing/r/newsletter?cta=question&id=422989

Are the tikzducks used to explain any scientific stuff? 
I'm currently compiling a list of such applications for an upcoming talk, so even if you are not able to share your image, it would be helpful  ... 
[tikzducks]
 

asked by samcarter https://tex.stackexchange.com/landing/r/newsletter?cta=user&id=36296 23 votes

answered by Christian Hupfer https://tex.stackexchange.com/landing/r/newsletter?cta=user&id=31729 21 votes

4.11.1.3 How to improve TikZ diagram with a lot of edges?

https://tex.stackexchange.com/landing/r/newsletter?cta=question&id=423268

I have a diagram with 5 nodes and edges to each other, which leads to clumpy corners: 
\documentclass[parskip=half]{scrreprt} 
\usepackage[svgnames]{xcolor} 
\usepackage{tikz} 
... 
[tikz-pgf] [edge]
 

asked by Josef https://tex.stackexchange.com/landing/r/newsletter?cta=user&id=3190 14 votes

answered by Zarko https://tex.stackexchange.com/landing/r/newsletter?cta=user&id=18189 22 votes

4.11.1.4 Which engines can compare strings expandably?

https://tex.stackexchange.com/landing/r/newsletter?cta=question&id=422741

The pdfTeX engine introduces the primitive \pdfstrcmp for expandable string comparison, with the input itself fully expanded, for example 
\edef\foo{\detokenize{foo}} 
\ifnum\pdfstrcmp{\foo}{foo}=0 % 
... 
[pdftex] [tex-core] [strings]
 

asked by Joseph Wright https://tex.stackexchange.com/landing/r/newsletter?cta=user&id=73 13 votes

answered by Joseph Wright https://tex.stackexchange.com/landing/r/newsletter?cta=user&id=73 13 votes

4.11.1.5 Unable to redefine litres unit in siunitx

https://tex.stackexchange.com/landing/r/newsletter?cta=question&id=423604

I'm using siunitx to format units correctly. One of the units I need to use is litres - but the default l looks too much like a numerical 1 for me. I'd like to use a lower-case curly l (\ell will  ... 
[siunitx]
 

asked by JustinT https://tex.stackexchange.com/landing/r/newsletter?cta=user&id=23155 8 votes

answered by JustinT https://tex.stackexchange.com/landing/r/newsletter?cta=user&id=23155 10 votes

4.11.1.6 Fancy curves in Tikz

https://tex.stackexchange.com/landing/r/newsletter?cta=question&id=423488

I really want to reproduce the following diagram using Tikz. 
I have tried the following, but I can't seem to do the curves using smooth lines. 
\begin{document} \begin{center} 
... 
[tikz-pgf] [graphics] [tikz-styles] [graphs]
 

asked by pafnuti https://tex.stackexchange.com/landing/r/newsletter?cta=user&id=153370 7 votes

answered by marmot https://tex.stackexchange.com/landing/r/newsletter?cta=user&id=121799 7 votes

4.11.1.7 Creating package options which are mutually exclusive and choosing a default

https://tex.stackexchange.com/landing/r/newsletter?cta=question&id=423409

I want to automatize some of the code that I usually include to setup my theorem environment functionality into a package. So here is what I do to control within which counter my theorems are  ... 
[package-writing] [package-options]
 

asked by John Dorian https://tex.stackexchange.com/landing/r/newsletter?cta=user&id=153517 7 votes

answered by Christian Hupfer https://tex.stackexchange.com/landing/r/newsletter?cta=user&id=31729 7 votes