def remove_latex_crap(incoming):
    subs = [('~', ' '),
            ('\\emph{', ''),
            ('}', ''),
            ('{', ''),
            ('\\', ''),
            ('--', '-')]
    text = incoming
    for s in subs:
        text = text.replace(s[0], s[1])
    return text
remove funny latex characters and text from incoming string
dataset/ETHPy150Open msprev/unite-bibtex/pythonx/core/formatter/util.py/remove_latex_crap