What to do if I only want to study master not PHD with a professor

I would focus most of the meeting on the professor's research, and use that time to show that you would be able to jump into research right away.  Probably the best way to do that is to

Read the professor's papers beforehand and display a sincere interest in his work.
Have an elevator pitch prepared for each of your previous projects so you can talk about them intelligently and with enthusiasm.

If the meeting goes well he should start discussing potential projects with you, and you should be actively engaged in this discussion, and ask intelligent questions.

Near the end of the meeting, inform him of your plan to do a PhD elsewhere.  It's better to be rejected by this guy upfront than to be accepted under false pretenses.  In order to go to a strong university you will need his letter of reference, and he might write you a weak letter if you deceive him.  (If he's really a jerk he might write you a weak letter specifically so you have to stay with him.)

But it's important to discuss this issue after he already wants you, and is on the verge of making you an offer.  Otherwise he has no reason to even consider you.

(If he specifically asks about your future plans, you should be honest and unapologetic.  To many professors, being ambitious is a good thing, and shows you are higher quality than the students who come in wanting to stay.)


Post-doc vs. Assistant Professor choice, but neither ideal

It is uncommon for people to move up from a teaching school to an R1 school. It happens, but rarely, and your chances are slim. So this seems like a dead end regarding your goal, though of course teaching can be quite satisfying for a lot of us.

The offer of a postdoc elsewhere at least allows you to continue dreaming about a permanent position at an R1 university. Of course, there is never a guarantee that you will get such a position, whereas the AP offer you have at least offers this certainty.


Can I quote a full paragraph which contains some other citations?

I assume that the citations in this paragraph are not material to your dissertation.  I also assume that they are also not material to the quoted paragraph.  If so, then you can omit the citations and note that you have done so by adding "[citations omitted]" immediately after the quoted paragraph.

For example, if this is the original quote:

  "Counterfactuals are thus temporally asymmetric: Events in the counterfactual world prior to the antecedent would be more similar than would subsequent events to those of the actual world (e.g., Edgington, 2004; Lewis, 1979). This asymmetry may be related to the finding that people have an easier time imagining counterfactual alternatives to later events in a sequence than to earlier events (Miller & Gunasegaram, 1990). The earlier events seem fixed, the later events more mutable, at least when no further relations constrain them (see Byrne, 2005; Kahneman & Miller, 1986; Parker & Tetlock, 2006)."

You could quote it this way:

  Counterfactuals are thus temporally asymmetric: Events in the counterfactual world prior to the antecedent would be more similar than would subsequent events to those of the actual world. This asymmetry may be related to the finding that people have an easier time imagining counterfactual alternatives to later events in a sequence than to earlier events. The earlier events seem fixed, the later events more mutable, at least when no further relations constrain them." [citations omitted]

EDIT
By "material to the dissertation or quoted paragraph", I mean cases where the citations are important or central, and leaving them out would leave a void for the reader.  For example, let's say your dissertation chapter was a comparison of two rival theories, and your quotation made specific points about one or two of the prime authors of those theories.  It would then be material and including the citations in the quote would be valuable to the reader.  Another case: let's say your quotation was a commentary on what one or more authors said or did.  Leaving out the citations would make it ambiguous for the reader as to what source material your quotation referred to.


Does use of computer translation as an aide when writing a paper require a citation or disclosure?

My opinion (note: opinion) is that you don't need to do a citation here as the words are yours originally and the meaning/essence isn't intended to be modified in any way.

However, my opinion, also, is that it might be useful to note that auto translation was done. This is just so that a reader fluent in the translated language might be forewarned that any anomalies of language might be explained by the use of the translator.

I think that the workflow in such a case is to tweak the translation in any case as such things are still far from perfect. In this case, especially, it is clear that the translator is just a tool. You state, in fact, that this is your workflow, of course.


Digital media rights for online courses (US)

Per brief linked by @ff524 in the comments (updated location here - PDF), there seems to be a reasonable argument that anything you could do in a face-to-face classroom is reasonable to do in an online learning situation as well, as long as similar barriers to entry apply.

The classroom exemption basically says that what you're doing isn't really a "public" performance per se, it's use in a small-group instructional setting.  Hundreds of thousands of people can't just drop in, like they can for a publicly posted resource on the internet.

As such, it seems that if you use technology to shift that small group around in space (e.g., via online streaming) or in time (e.g., via asynchronous viewing), then it's still instructing a small group.  The legal details might or might not be resolved, but the argument would be strong and there's clearly no moral or ethical issue.

If you just post something publicly, however, then you've removed the barrier to entry, and the number of people who can potentially be using that resource is unbounded.  Maybe there will never be more than just your students, but what if for some strange reason the lecture went viral? While that probably won't happen, there is a moral and ethical (and likely legal) line being crossed when you decide to make something that is otherwise restricted freely available to the entire internet.

In between the two cases, I believe, is a grey area of MOOCs, in which there is a barrier to entry, but the technology is used to greatly scale up the number of students that are being served by a lecture.  Since it sounds like you're planning to stay small, however, that's not something you would need to worry about for now.


How to respond to a two very different referee reports?

Follow carefully the indications of the editors, and to the best of your ability try to follow the ones by the referees. Usually both agree and so there is no conflict. When there is, then the editor's opinion wins, as they are the ones with the power to decide whether your manuscript will be accepted or not. That being said, it is wise to not ignore the comments from the referees even if they seem to have been ignored by the editors. If the referee claims your work does not add anything new to the field, what would you answer? I would try to see it as a valid criticism and answer it the best I could. Think that this kind of question can come also in e.g. a conference! In that context what would you answer?


You're asking a question to which you already know the answer (no, a PhD is not the real measure of someone's qualification as a college teacher) but to which you offer no alternative.

Many other professions have the same kind of requirement: Lawyers need to pass the bar exam. Doctors need to go through residency and pass exams. Engineers need to be licensed. None of these formal qualifications are good matches for all aspects of a professional's job profile, but they are sort of the best anyone can come up with to ensure some kind of measurable qualification.

In the case of professors: For better or worse, professors need to both do research and teach. It may be true that a PhD primarily measures quality in the former, but teaching well also has a component of actually knowing the material and having a PhD is a reasonable assurance that someone actually understands the stuff they teach. Of course, it would be good if professors had more pedagogical training, but the same would apply there as well: How would you ensure that a candidate for a job has that training? By asking that they have taken a course and can produce a corresponding certificate? One might in that case point out that there, too, are many ways to accumulate pedagogical knowledge and that asking for a certificate is erecting an unreasonable bar in the same way as you suggest with the PhD.


How to get interdisciplinary when your program isn't

You need to pick an advisor who will support your interest in going outside of the area of his own work.  More likely than not, that means somebody who you both get along with well and who is tenured, so that they are not feeling pressure to "get work out of you" towards their own career goals.  Be up front about wanting to expand your area of interests.  You may, in fact, find a professor who is interested in supporting you in this, because they are interested in expanding their own interests, and the best way for two professor to begin collaborating is often to be co-advising a student who stands between them.

Which brings me to my next point: you are likely going to need to start connecting with professors in the other department where you are interested in working as well.  Start sitting in on seminars, get to know people, and see where you can find a connection.  You might or might not end up needing formal co-advising, but you will certainly need to have at least informal mentors who you can go to for advice in the other discipline.

What is certain, however, is that you need to be very proactive about searching out your interests and taking on risky projects that will let you "get your feet wet" and figure out how you relate to the other field.  You are also likely to take longer to graduate.  Interdisciplinary research is a much harder path, but also potentially a much more rewarding one.


PhD student hiring a LaTeX expert to typeset thesis?

(I will quote a comment by kahen and a chat message by Ulrike Fischer.)

You have got three qualities of the thesis production: good, cheap, fast. You can choose two.

Hiring a LaTeX specialist is good (if you find a good one), fast (if you find a good one) but expensive --- typesetting a 100-page thesis can take around 20--30 hours of work, easily more depending on the text, on the person you work with, on the amount of discussion about the appearance, proofreading etc.
Making it yourself is cheap. However, unless you are Jarod from the Pretender series or you know LaTeX already, it cannot be both good and fast.

Of course, making it yourself is better in moving your LaTeX skills forward, but I do not think this is crucial for an academic career, surely it is not more crucial than submitting a quality thesis in time. People hire services of all kinds, you get grant-writing, typesetting, conference organization, IT, etc. --- very various kind of out-sourced services for which someone can say: "A good researcher has to be able to do this."

To answer your question about LaTeX services: I doubt universities have, in general, such services themselves. Some have a LaTeX theses class (of varying quality), some even do not have this. However, there are independent LaTeX consults and consulting companies. I can't list any since (1) I don't know them and (2) this is not an advertising site. However, remember that these people are highly specialized, and the prices of their services reflect this.


How to assess the long-term stability of a college as part of a job search

While college failures are rare they do happen, especially in generally poor economic situations. But I think that mismanagement is more likely to be a factor when they do fail. But some advice, probably not complete.

I hope the place is regionally accredited with one of the major agencies. Otherwise, not a great bet.

I hope the place is not for profit. Otherwise...

I hope the place is a bit diversified in course offerings and student body and faculty and administration. A place traditionally founded and run by a single family is less of a sure bet.

I hope the place draws students from a wider, rather than a narrower, geographical area. A national or international student body is best, but a few places can make do with only a regional reputation. How wide is their reputation?

I hope they don't need to accept every applicant for financial reasons. Otherwise they have no cushion when times get bad.

It is good if they have some endowment that they manage wisely as a cushion and to enable opportunities.

I hope that they are open to new ideas, both in curriculum, and in management, but that is hard to judge. I hope that they don't need to chase every new trend to stay viable.

I hope that the faculty is collegial, both within and across disciplines, though that is more of an indicator of a good work environment than longevity.

I hope that a lot of decisions are made by the faculty and that the faculty is generally listened to in important discussions; curriculum and beyond. And that the administration respects those decisions.

I hope that the board of directors is also diversified, not just cronies of the college president.

I can probably think of more and will update as it occurs. I've worked at a couple of problematic places. None failed, but they did fail at being a satisfying place to work at times.


Cannot present paper at conference. Instructor wants to move me to second author

Who presents a work should not affect its authorship.

Authorship is determined by the contribution to the publication.  That work is complete at the time when the publication is accepted and the camera-ready is submitted.  Now, it is entirely reasonable (and in fact common) for a paper to be presented by somebody other than the first author, and it's quite normal for the presenter to highlight their name in the presentation.  In no way, however, should that change the authorship of the paper.


Should we add reference of achievement awarded to a project in the final project report?

This is really just an opinion based on the comments here. I'd suggest that you leave it out of the publication, but inform the publisher's editor of the award. Ask them for advice about including it or whether the publication can add a note instead.
For a less formal "local" publication or a report to a professor, I'd suggest putting it in.
On the other hand, if I saw it in the publication, I doubt that I would object. But it doesn't really add anything to what you say in the report.


How often do funding agencies require funded authors to publish their work in open access venues?

SHERPA, which produces RoMEO, also produces a database on funders' open access policies, called SHERPA/JULIET. There is a statistics page on the JULIET website.

According to this page, 26% of funders worldwide require publication in an open access venue, 30% encourage this, and 41% have no policy.

When it comes to archiving the publication in an open access repository, 68% of funders require this, 12% encourage, and 17% have no policy.


How do you manage to work on multiple research projects?

There is no easy solution to the "task switching" problem; it really is a strong function of how you work.

In my previous job, I had a rather distressingly large number of projects to work on—as many as eight or nine, depending on how you define a project—at any one time (oddly enough, my academic position requires me to work on just as many projects, but in a supervisory capacity). For me, what helped to have to "task switch" was the fact that I had to provide regular progress updates at team meetings, and meet deadlines for the project. I couldn't spend weeks on a single project, because then I'd have to scramble to meet the approaching deadlines for everything else I was working on. So deadlines and meetings where you have to talk about your progress are good ways to make sure you keep on top of things.

With respect to literature, I'd suggest setting aside some time each week for literature searches and literature reviews. I'd also use this as a chance to "switch gears" for a bit—use this time to keep up to date on the project that isn't taking up the majority of your time.

Finally, if you're going to put away a project for several weeks or more, then you should definitely keep good records before switching your focus. Make sure you leave yourself a note of what you just finished working on, where you left things off, and what you think the next steps for the project should be after you return to it. That way, you're not figuring out where you left off—you've told yourself how to get yourself back on track.


Is it okay to resend an email to a journal asking for the status of a submitted manuscript?

Yes, you should definitely send another polite email. You could also write directly to the editor, since your situation sounds fairly unreasonable. You deserve some sort of response to your submission. I would consider withdrawing the paper and submitting it elsewhere if you don't get a response.


Doing all the simulations and plotting, do I deserve an authorship?

I am hesitating whether to mention my desire to be listed as a co-author to my advisor.

Please mention it to your advisor right away.

They may say, "You're right, you should be a co-author." Or, "Given your specific contributions, it wouldn't be appropriate to list you as a co-author, but you will be listed in the acknowledgements." Or they may say, "Given your current contributions you can't be a co-author, but if you also do XYZ for the paper before it is finished, then it would be appropriate for you to be 3rd author."

You may agree or disagree with their answer.

We can't really tell you definitely whether or not you should be a co-author. (We don't know enough about the content of the paper, or your contribution, and it wouldn't be appropriate for you to give that level of detail here.)

But, you should definitely talk to your advisor about it (preferably right away, and definitely before the paper is submitted).

Edit: The OP made the following comment -

  After digging out some info about the previous undergraduate students, I find all of them are not listed as authors. But they are indeed acknowledged in the paper.

If you think for some reason your advisor will be reluctant to include you as an author, you can do some preparation for your talk with them as follows. Then, if your advisor's first reaction is "I've never given authorship to an undergrad before," you are prepared to politely and non-combatively make a case to your advisor for why you think you merit authorship.

Check if your university or department has any formal policy on authorship. For example, here are three different policies.
If you have no university-specific guidelines, you can refer to the IEEE rules.
In either case, identify to yourself things you have done that you think qualify you for authorship according to the guidelines.

Then, if your advisor's first response is "No" and you disagree (after listening to the reasoning), you can present your side (which your advisor may or may not agree with).

Also, if your advisor's assessment is "No, you haven't done enough to warrant authorship," you can ask  "What else I can do before paper submission that will 'bump' my contribution up to authorship level?" I have had students in the past whose contribution to a paper didn't warrant authorship. In those cases, I told them: "Your current contributions do not merit authorship (only acknowledgement), but if you also do X, Y, Z, you will be an author."

(Note: I'm not advising any kind of escalation at this point - you don't even know yet what your advisor will say! But you may feel more comfortable with some kind of plan in mind for how to explain your contributions (as you understand them) to your advisor if advisor says "No" and you don't think advisor fully understands your side.)

In any event, talk to your advisor as soon as you can.


Should I mention that I will be opting for the non-thesis option in my statement of purpose?

As a prior commenter noted, you can be silent on the issue without prejudice from the admissions officer.  In fact, it's quite common for graduate students not to make the thesis/no thesis decision until they have a semester or a couple of quarters behind them.  The decision to write a thesis is often the product of one's evolution during graduate work.  For example, if you were to decide that you want to pursue a doctorate, then writing a thesis has distinct advantages, the most important of which is that it prepares you for writing a dissertation.  Conversely, if you want the broadest knowledge and lab experience, course work is preferable.


If your institution has an honor code or similar description of the requirements for academic conduct, it may prescribe what you must do.  The solicitation of a "ringer" to take the exam may itself be an offense.  If there's a prescribed action, follow it.

If not, consider that an accusation of cheating by the professor necessarily creates an adversarial situation.  If you do report this to the professor, please copy the department head, dean, chairman of the honor council.  Copy at least one other person who can support the professor.  Include a copy of the student's email with your report, and retain your own copy for a very long time.

Do not respond to the student.  Chastisement will not do any good, and while the student is awaiting your reply, he or she isn't looking for someone else to take the exam.


Publishing a non-invalidating comment to a recent paper- should I contact the original authors if I know them?

My comment would not invalidate paper B

So you are in a very different situation than the post you quote.

In your case you can manage so that your comment is not harmfull to the authors of B.

You clearly seem interested into getting a reward by publishing your idea (I do not say this in a negative way), so I would do something like III. I do not think it makes sense to add more authors on an 'opinion' paper.

Do you need some input from the authors of B or are you just trying to be polite? In the last case I would only contact them after having a first draft or at the same time you submit comment. You can turn your email into a 'thanks publisfor this inspiring paper' note. The authors should be happy that you are building upon their idea!


It means it's held around lunchtime and they aren't going to be providing lunch, but you are welcome to bring your own and eat during the event. So the event is somewhat informal.


I can't recall ever seeing such a format being used, particularly in the context of books (as opposed to papers). Part of this is, I think, a desire to be clear. For instance, what does [WVDE13:2] mean? Does it refer to the second chapter, or to page 2? Or does it refer to a specific work? Without the clarification of "p.", it's relatively ambiguous from a first glance. As a reader of a book, that can get very annoying over extended periods of time.

Given that, you are free to use any style that your publisher allows; if it's something relatively unorthodox, then you should explain that somewhere (perhaps a comment prefacing the bibliography would suffice).


What are the publication options for academic contributions that don't lend themselves to a journal article?

What are the publication options for...software packages for scientific computing,

The software can be made available on the Internet, e.g., via GitHub. (A personal website could be used too, but GitHub has many advantages.) A tutorial for the software could be published using traditional channels.

  and  presentations of information that include interactive elements that are integral to the usefulness of the resource.

To include interactive elements you'll need a medium that can support such elements. Publishing a video on the Internet might suffice, e.g., on YouTube. (A personal website could also be used.)

My answer doesn't address the (new) peer-review aspect, which was added to the question after my answer was written.


Where to include a "description of scientific expertise" in an application?

You could, of course, just ask them for advice on this. But since they list is as a separate requirement they are likely expecting a separate document. This lets you expand it a bit more than you might in the cover letter and go into some detail as appropriate. You can give background on the projects you have led or participated it, including, perhaps, outcomes.

You can also briefly discuss outcomes and impacts of the projects. Lots of possibilities if you have a blank slate.

And this may be just a research statement by another name.


Include background to ideas for future work in related work chapter of master thesis?

While is always interesting to venture in new areas while writing your thesis, the overall advise I usually get is to keep a solid straight line story, this way the readers won't feel confused on why did you put certain stuff that you did not use at all.

The main objective of the related work, should be to put your own work into context with respect to your peers, but your present work, not your future work. You would be basically citing your future work, which would not be good.

You can always write a Future work section that can be as long as you want.

My overall advise when writing your thesis (especially for Masters) is to keep it simple and straight.


What should I do if, after choosing a Master Thesis topic, I find an existing thesis on it in another language?

You can still write on the same topic, you just need to expand the knowledge that's already there and offer some new, original insight to the issue.


Conducting independent research while in a university

This isn't a question that can be answered in general. It varies by place and by university. Some universities, like commercial organizations, will want to claim that all of your IP developed as an employee belongs to them. Others will pose no obstacle. Your best answer will come from the university you are interested in. There may be a legal affairs office that can answer such questions.

For an individual, having the university claim ownership can, possibly, have an advantage as they may support commercialization of your ideas and share the profits with you. But you can't assume that. So, it is best to ask before you begin so that you know of any limitations.


Is there any evidence that graphical abstracts are beneficial?

I'll note that you aren't going to get citations just because your abstract is "interesting". Especially if it is just interesting "visually". Your work has to contribute to a thread of research that someone else wants to extend. A casual reader might say "cool", but that won't result in a citation.

But you need interested readers who are working in your field and whose work will benefit from your own. You need to reach them, of course, but the venue in which you publish would, it seems to me, be far more important than any "flash" in an abstract.

No, I don't have any research, but would doubt much if any effect. Spend your effort where it does the most good.

Places like Nature get a lot of sophisticated but relatively casual readers who just want to be kept up to date. A visual abstract will help them. But they aren't the ones doing the work that will cite your work.

So, yes, beneficial to the casual reader, but not necessarily a citation builder for yourself.


Suggestions for a non-traditional interview?

Without more information, I would not assume that they will not ask you about your research, publications, and dissertation.  Assume that they will.  My impression is that they want to go beyond this "CV stuff".

I suggest that you should spend more time to understand the motivations of the organization sponsoring the post-doc and why this is funded as a training grant rather than as something else.  Do they put special emphasis on making their research relevant to the real world (i.e. to policy makers, to the social groups being studied, to the general public)?  Do they aim to develop social scientists that go into non-traditional careers or interdisciplinary work?  What has this organization done in the past that they themselves call "innovative"?  Do they aim to redefine the boundaries and methods of social science?

Regarding how to prepare, there are plenty of books on creativity that have exercises that might stimulate this part of your brain.  But I'd guess that spending time on these books won't provide a good payoff for you.

A better strategy would be to organize a debating group with some peers.  They don't have to be at your university.  You could do it on-line via Skype or Google Hangout.  Arrange a meeting and specify an important+controversial topic in your field.  Focus the debate on how this topic could be researched in a new and different way, such that breakthrough results might be achieved.  For example:

Could the problem be reframed, rescoped, or redefined?
Could new methods be applied or existing methods be combined?
What new methods/approaches have already been tried but have failed? Why?
What methods or approaches from other disciplines might be adapted or applied to this topic?
What if this topic was researched at a much larger scale? much smaller scale? Over a long time period? At a single moment in time but in great detail?
How can research results become more compelling, rigorous, or widely applicable?

And so on.

Basically, your debating group will be exploring the space of possibilities just beyond what is being done today and assessing the prospects of improvement or innovation.

The value of doing this in a group rather than solo is that you will be engaging in the same modes of thinking and communication as the interview. You can and should challenge each other to clearly explain and justify your ideas, and to properly characterize them even if they are sketchy or "wacky".

You might find that this sort of preparation isn't for you.  If so, then maybe you might have to admit to yourself that you aren't an "innovator".  That's fine. There are many other good roles in social science that emphasize other traits and skills.


Lack of supervision at end of PhD - how approach publishing?

Your university should have a policy in what happens if a supervisor retires or otherwise becomes unavailable. At this stage it may not produce the ideal outcome, but you should explore it. It sounds as though somebody, either your supervisor or your institution, is not doing their job.


Should I, as an amateur, get my result published based on a well known professor's opinion?

Assuming the following premises are true:

The professor you state is well-known and established in his field
You have produced a tangible result in this field
The professor endorses your result to be new

Then,

  Get the result published!

I do not see any reason for this not to be published. Better yet, contact the professor for further directions (see comments).


Is asking an author I'm reviewing to cite me a conflict of interest?

If I were you, I would ask myself the following question:

  is it better for the paper to be aware of my work?

I believe this is the main question you need to ask. If you see your work is relevant to the problem and can enhance the paper content, then you have to point to it. If you see your work as a complement of the paper just reference it in the review.


Does a bad grade in one course (with otherwise OK record) affect graduate admissions?

It's not a deal breaker. I had awful grades in many courses but I got offers with TA/RA-ship/fellowships from a couple of top 25 US PhD programs in Math. The reason, I think, was that I had very high GRE scores, I had participated in undergraduate/masters "research" projects for a few years with professors at my schools, and I had pretty good recommendations. My research statement was normal and earnest. I didn't have any extraordinary ideas nor some well defined research agenda in it. I think that, overall, the rest of my portfolio made up for my awful grades.

In your case, it's just one course. That does not signal any systematic problem. If you feel particularly insecure, you can address it in your personal statement but don't talk about the professor in question negatively, instead you can focus on how you were tardy once but it does not reflect your work usual work ethic. I cannot speak for top 10 schools. They may have a sufficiently large pool of applicants who may beat you on every metric.

Also, Math departments at large public Universities generally need lots of bodies to TA/grade their numerous remedial and baby-calc type undergraduate courses and generally do the culling at the qualifying exam stage. You may find their standards for an incoming PhD class to be more forgiving.


I have read research paper of the professor to whom i want to apply for internship but cannot understand it fully

Professors are, or at least tend to be, busy people. So my primary advice is to keep it short and to the point. Tell them which year you are in, that you are looking for a research internship, add a very high level topic you are interested in (the more specialized a topic you insist on, the less likely a match can be found), and that you went through their papers (add names if it’s not too many), and that you enjoyed reading them. They will write back to get into any details if interested, or maybe even refer you after talking to you if they aren’t.
I do not agree with what was said here too that understanding every step of a paper is needed or even helpful. You are an undergrad seeking to learn from them by working with them, not a peer-level collaborator. Obsessing about getting every word when some will be standard tricks or conventions obvious to researchers in the field but not outside is both frustrating and wasting time you could have used more productively. What you ideally need is a good grasp of the paper’s intuition and internal logic. The professor should realize in a follow-up discussion if they feel you are prepared enough.


How to become a supervisor? Finding students to supervise

These are the possible approaches in which you can get people (especially students) to know you. Since, you are in a hospital working as a statistician it would be more valuable and increase the chance of getting students.

Deliver talks at local organisations/universities: You should try to meet the head and principal of the university. Discuss with them your profile and eager to talk to the students. If your talk is well accepted by the students, some of those students would surely be interested to work with you. Moreover, professors would also like to collaborate with you.
Visit conferences and present your works: Work on your own and write research papers, visit the conferences or seminars. There you will get to know few aspiring students and people to work with.
Discussion with your own colleagues in the hospital: I am sure you may not be alone and wanting to work on research. There will always be someone. Since, you are new; talk to your colleagues and propose your ideas to work on it. This will help you get the above points (1) and (2) easily.


Ways to display extra-curricular/independent learning

I faced this exact problem when I was applying to grad schools. Here are three ways that worked for me (in order of importance):

Include this information in your statement of purpose.
I do not recommend going through a laundry list of all the books you have read, however, I would mention the new topics that you are familiar with, how you have been learning them (independent study), and how you are looking to continue furthering your knowledge (which is presumably by study at the university you’re applying to).
Have your letter writers vouch for your independent study.
Most universities require letters of recommendation as part of your application. It is a good idea to choose letter writers who can speak to your different strengths, and I think it would be beneficial to have at least one of them who is familiar with all of your self-study. I met with my professors who agreed to write letters for me so that we could talk about my application and preparation for grad school. One professor asked me specifically to prepare a list of topics I’d studied independently so that he could write about it in his letter to the university.
Contact professors at the schools where you want to apply.
Getting professors familiar with your background can be helpful so that they can point you to even more resources for self-study, and they may also be helpful when going through the application review process. There is no guarantee this will influence your application, however, it possibly has some bearing on it, and it more importantly will help you become better at self-study regardless.


How should I list the conferences and courses I attend as an undergrad student to my CV?

Yes, I would suggest you include these in the CV for a graduate application.  It probably won't make a huge difference in admissions, but it is evidence that you are interested and involved in the research community in your field.

You can list them in any way that seems appropriate; there's no strict standard format for a CV.  You probably have sections for "Education" and "Work experience" and maybe "Publications"; make a similar section entitled "Conferences attended" or "Conference participation" or something like that.  Include the title, date and location of each conference, and maybe a short sentence discussing the scope of the meeting and your role.

(As discussed in the question you linked: later in your career, you will probably want to take this section out.)


What's the bargaining space in a post-doc employment contract - in the Netherlands?

Legally, as far as I understand, it is not possible to negotiate new terms that contradict the terms of the applicable collective labour agreements in the Netherlands. Many labour agreements however leave some room for negotiation, see e.g. Appendix 3 in the file you linked. In practice however there I would not expect there to be much room.

As for your example questions:

As Bill Barth pointed out, Section 1.9 arranges IP ownership, and indeed the employer owns everything. See also point 4 of Article 1.9.3. I don't see much room here for negotiation.
This is not part of the collective agreement. Your contract may have certain provisions, for example the amount of teaching (if applicable). You should discuss this with your supervisor/boss on what is expected and how much freedom you will have. Here there may be some room for negotiation.
Again, this is something the supervisor can answer. It depends on how much budget the group has available, or if your work is part of a grant funded project, how much there is available there.


Does a research competition with monetary prizes count as commerical use?

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and this is not a legal advice.
In general, this depends on at least the following factors:

particular text of the formal license under which the dataset is provided
the laws of the country where the parties (licensor and licensee) reside
definitions that are used to determine whether the activity is considered to be commercial or non-commercial if the actual license text is unclear about it
status of the organization where the research is conducted

However, usually, the commercial purpose has the connotation of direct income generated from the goods or services produced with the help of the licensed content. In the case of the research work that happen to win a certain competition, I would argue that would not be considered a direct income. Thus, should constitute non-commercial use.
From the Creative Commons study on non-commercial use, the following definition of the commercial use is very common:

… in any manner that is primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation.

I would argue that no academic research has the primary goal of monetary compensation. Winning in the competition for an academic researcher usually is "collateral damage".

To reiterate,

The definition of commercial and non-commercial use is license-specific; therefore, without the text of the license, it is impossible to determine whether a certain way of using the licensed content is legal or not.

If in doubt, consult a lawyer or use the legal services that most educational institutions provide.

The use for academic research that might/did win a competition is very likely to be within the non-commercial use clause of the license.


Is it OK to review a manuscript written by an editor who handled (and accepted) one of your papers?

Short answer: yes it is ok to accept the review.

Long answer: Yes, it is (still) ok to accept the review. If you can only review paper written by authors you have never ever interacted with, at some point in your career, you'll stop reviewing. Especially if you are working in a small field of research. For me, in your case, it is more than fine to accept the review. The question becomes more tricky if it is from someone you work(ed) with...

If you want to try out some really tricky reviewing scenario, try out this test: http://blogs.biomedcentral.com/bmcblog/2015/08/21/quiz-can-navigate-tricky-peer-review-scenarios/


Things like that happen. (Also, as mentioned in the comments, you might be wrong on the reason of their behaviour.)
Close mentoring

Assign meetings, say, weekly.
Make it very clear, you want to see some progress each meeting.
Steer the student in the right direction in each meeting.

You'd need to define their topic, the extent of work, etc. early on. No freedom, no "choose your own topic" – it's already too late for this. Pick one, make sure the student is Ok with it, say "go".
What I also tend to do after the topic definition: Elaborate on the amount of work. "If you do this, this, this, and this, it's an A", "if you do only this, it's an F, I need at least that and this additionally to let you pass." Notice, that "having written the actual thesis at least okay'isch" is one of those things they need to pass. Do not forget to mention it!


What are the risks associated with taking a semester off while doing a Master's degree?

I know several people who have deferred their degree's at all levels for one reason or another.  In all these cases, the student has spoken not just to their professor but to the relevant department admin person and it's been pretty straight forward to enrol and pick up from where they left off.  None of them have suffered from taking time out.

I think you need to ask yourself a couple of questions so you can figure out which is the best solution for you.  Here's a few that spring to mind....

Is taking a semester out really going to solve your time problem?  If you will have the same issue again the next semester you enrol in then taking time out is probably a little pointless.

If you take time out, do you think you will stay motivated enough to re-enrol again?

If you stick with it this semester, what can you do to generate more time?  You mentioned you travel to see family at weekends - is this something you can stop doing for the semester or is visiting an absolute necessity?


What to do when you're cited, but the author doubts the validity of your results

So your study was (by design) limited in scope, they're researching something outside of your scope, and your approach fails to provide a solution in their problem area.  It sounds like you and they agree.

Take a close look and see whether they actually said that your study was compromised, or whether you simply got defensive because they said your method failed when they tried to use it.

Your discomfort may be caused by the fact that you've failed to look at it from the perspective and scope of their paper.  They have to prove that there's a problem, and that existing approaches (including yours) don't solve that problem, because that motivates the solution they present.  If they aren't making any claim that your approach doesn't work within the scope you claimed, then while you may have preferred that they used verbiage such as "Our problem is excluded by the approach described in user67334's groundbreaking work on (other problem)", they didn't.

Instead they used words which are descriptive from the perspective of the problem they're discussing, and since that's a limitation you already explicitly acknowledged, doing so doesn't actually detract from your work in any way.


Is there such a thing called native speaker bias when publishing?

Let me share with you my personal experience and feeling about this issue. I am not a native English speaker and I am aware that my word choices and the patterns of my sentences makes it clear to my audiences and especially my readers. However, I have received several positive compliments in the referee reports of my papers about my writings. Therefore I strongly believe that people who are in charge of deciding about accepting a paper mostly consider the logical and grammatical correctness of the writing of the paper ( and of course its scientific value). So I would be very surprised if I see such a phenomenon as you described.


Spent time between two campuses, one isn't degree granting. How do I list this on my CV/Application?

As your professors suggested you can just list X University. This is the university that grants you your degree, it does not matter at which campus you studied. Since X University is willing to associate with the branch campus so strongly I would assume the campus has a similar reputation and as such I don't see how anyone would be deceived there.

At the same time I don't think it would hurt your application to mention that you studied in two countries and experienced two cultures. Having experience dealing with different customs may smooth your interaction with researchers from other cultures. You can for example make a brief mention (one or two sentences) in a motivation letter. Of course you should consider carefully whether there are more important things you could mention in those sentences.

If you insist on including this in your CV make it clear that it is a single degree. My personal preference would be to have this in a single line, for example:

X University .... City A, State and Campus B .... City, Country B

Regarding your transcript: Don't submit the same transcript twice. It will only lead to confusion and likely the assumption that you submitted the wrong transcript for one of them.

Regarding your publications: Don't worry about what affiliations are on there. It is not unusual to have affiliations to different departments of the same university on research work. Affiliations on your publications carry no weight in who granted you your degree.


Not sure what you are asking here.

If you want us to tell you how you learn then we can’t, you have to sort that yourself.

With regards to questions, your supervisors seem to be expecting developed questions perhaps about the algorithm you propose to work towards a solution (not sure if they will be open to coding questions though), but not questions such as “what is a pill” so you have to get up to speed - which you are doing with this reading.

Have you planned meetings with your advisors? Perhaps once a week may be a good point to start, at least initially. How it develops depends on many things, type of research, outcome etc Some seem to work together every day, others don’t.


Does putting an article I wrote on university site conflict with IEEE publishing rights?

Whether your institution plans to put it online is a question you have to ask them.

Whether they are allowed to put it online depends on the policies of the journal where it was published. You will need to read the copyright  transfer agreement that you accepted when the paper was published.


What if your advisor excludes you from lunch with students during conference?

Does he behave similarly in your University? Do you find anything else in his behavior which hurt you often e.g., he doesn't talk to you much, he doesn't pay much attention to you, he doesn't care about your research etc etc..? How about other group members? Do they behave in a same manner?

If all these yes, then he might be avoiding you. If no, then did you have refused to have Chinese food before? If this is the case, then he might be thinking that you may not like Chinese food, because you had refused before to have Chinese food or there may be some other silly reason. So you should not think much.

  Does it mean that advisor want to avoid me? Does he hate me?

Just knowing from this incident it is not possible to say anything. As I mentioned, if similar kind of things happens in your university also, then you may be true to some extent.

  Can I proceed my ph.d. In this group?

Do you really feel very uncomfortable to continue your PhD in this group? How many years you already completed? If it is just a begin and you have other option, then you can think of alternative.


Good idea to warn students they were suspected of cheating?

No, you should not single them out. If you have evidence of cheating, then charge it. If you have suspicions then you should swallow and ignore them so as not to prejudice the students in the future.
If you want to announce to the entire class that there were a few other cases that were suspect, not naming names and not singling out any individual, that would be fine and the message would be delivered.
Some people would take such a singling out very badly. Psychologically. Especially if they didn't cheat.


How to address a mistake in an old paper in a very prestigious scientific journal?

Some journals accept a type of short correspondence or comment in which objections to some published material can be submitted. If you can articulate your objections in a scientific way suitable for publishing you may try this approach. For example, imagine the original analysis has some error. Reanalyzing the data gives different results and invalidates the previous publication. Conversely in this approach the authors of the original study have the opportunity to reply to your complaints.

An example of this is a commentary published in Nature Genetics, where the authors highlight important deficiencies in the design of the experiments in an earlier publication that can lead to incorrect conclusions. Of course, the authors of the original paper are allowed to respond to the comments.

Correspondences have the advantage that can be very short. I am not sure at this moment if Nature also accepts this format.

If the material that demonstrates the error in the original publication is substantial it may grant an additional publication. This is for example what happened with the paper that demonstrated the divergence between human and mice inflammatory responses, which led to a response paper analyzing the same data, and arriving at the opposite results.


Am I helping my graduate students too much?

One of the solutions for limiting / demarcating the time you spend on MA students is to set aside specific office hours for that purpose.

For example, you could dedicate Fridays 1p - 5p for the purpose of answering MA questions on theses. If they have questions or if they want to show you revisions of their thesis, then they need to sign up and come to your office hours in person and you would be happy to walk them through things. You need to make clear that the only e-mails you will accept regarding the theses are for signups (or use an online signup system in your course management system), otherwise you'll defeat the purpose of this.

This serves a dual purpose.

First, it allows you to schedule your life (and balance your e-mail queue).

Second, it sets up a small but perceptible cost to see you in the eyes of the students. If they know they only have a 15/30/50 minute slot once a week, they will see your time with them as a limited resource in contention with others and try to use it more efficiently by preparing their questions and materials to review ahead of time. In the process, they may answer their own questions.

Of course, you'll want to select time/times that will work for you and your students, but when you chart out your week you should try to set a top limit for student contact hours (and e-mail hours) until you get tenure.


Why do so many researchers in CS fail to clarify their symbols and notations in research papers?

In the case of the first paper, the meaning of these equations are well-known within the subfield of reinforcement learning. (See Barto and Sutton's book for background.)

For instance, V is usually a value function which is the expected reward from following a policy π to termination. (The Q function - the value of taking an action from a state is also often used without full definition as well.)

I can't speak about CS as a whole, but in subfields like reinforcement learning, this is somewhat common. Personally, I find myself getting more and more formal the older I get. But, CS doesn't demand the same rigor as might be found in mathematics, so people get used to not providing it - and don't demand it of their graduate students.


Differences between German computer science doctorates

In general, the latin title of the degree conferred at a German university is of purely historical relevance (basically, indicating how the original four faculties of the middle ages split into the dozen or more departments of today, which happened in different ways at different universities -- obviously, Computer Science split off of Electrical Engineering in Darmstadt, rather than, say, Mathematics as in Munich); the important information is which department conferred the degree (which differentiates a Dr.rer.nat in Mathematics from one in Physics or Chemistry).

There is, however, one exception: The Dr.-Ing. (Doctorate in Engineering) still has a special place as an indication of the high regard in which German academic engineering is held (mostly, needless to say, within Germany, as well as by those directly influenced by this system, although a hundred years ago this was indeed something special), and is the reason why Darmstadt is offering a choice -- in effect, it's a marketing strategy to get students to enrol by offering them a degree that's perceived as more attractive. (This is also related to the fact that some universities still hand out "Dipl.-Ing." diplomas even though the Bologna process turned every other degree into a Masters.)

As to whether the choice of degree will make a practical difference in finding a job, that's hard to say. My feeling is that it will most likely play a role when transitioning to industry in Germany, where someone with a Dr.-Ing. might be seen as more "hands-on", practical-oriented, than with a Dr.rer.nat. (especially at small or medium-sized companies which might hesitate to hire a purely theoretical PhD). On the German academic job market, on the other hand, the university (and research group) where you got your title would be much more important. Outside Germany, I'd be surprised if many people cared much about the distinction (unless they themselves are the proud holders of a Dr.-Ing., of course...)


What should be done when the theory behind a PhD thesis turns out to be wrong?

Why was the theory wrong? "It didn't work" is not the end -- the end is knowing why it didn't work. There are at least two possible answers:

There is some fundamental, obvious mistake at the core of the model that should have been caught a long time ago. In this case, it may be a matter of starting over. It's difficult to produce a paper/thesis if the story is "I made a stupid model and it didn't work."
There is some previously-unknown reason why the model didn't work despite smart people thinking it would. This is likely an interesting, publishable result. In fact, it could be even more interesting than a paper that just says "we used a model and it worked as expected."

It sounds like the data is valuable as well. Even if it is a matter of starting over again, this dataset sounds like it could lead to a publication or be an ingredient in the new thesis.


I think, and this is really only conjecture since I don't know the history, is the potential conflict with the ESNU system where E stands for excellent. The ESNU was (and potentially still is) used in US based elementary education.


How to locate most important literature in an unfamiliar area

The process you are currently using was the basis of my process. Unfortunately, I do not know of any real systemic way. I always found important papers way later that were disconnected to the main body of work.

Here is what I did, using the Papers app (for Mac), but subsitute any paper repo of your choice:

Find the top few highest cited papers in this area; usually these
can be found easily or from pointers from others
Scan the references of these papers to find papers they cite in
common or papers with titles that look very relevent; these are likely prior works that are also relevant
Use Google Scholar to find highly cited papers that cited the
papers found in 1
Repeat 2 on those references list

...
stop when exhausted.


It means that you should state the qualification that was completed before the highest degree you have.

So, for some completing their education in the UK, if they have a BBA in business, the prior qualification could be A levels.


Why are my submissions not accepted by top conferences, while similar papers from others are accepted?

One thing I do not have in my papers is bringing unnecessary but sophisticated math jargon to show something important is happening. For example, I noticed in other's papers although the contribution was for instance adding an extra objective term in the optimization framework, they used complicated algebraic representations or visualization techniques to related their contribution to some bigger underlying phenomena! But the short answer is they did it because it obviously should make the outcome result better.

I can think of several ways to interpret this observation, some more charitable than others.

Computer science research papers are not about the results per se, but about the techniques developed to attain those results. It's possible that in the revirewers' eyes, the apparent connection to the larger underlying phenomenon is the main contribution of the paper.  The main contribution is not merely that the outcome is better, but at least an attempted explanation of why the outcome is better.
People are bad judges of the quality their own research results. More to the point: Your opinion of your research is irrelevant; only your peers' opinions actually matter.  If they find your papers less interesting than others, then by definition your papers are less interesting.
Emerson was wrong.  The world will not beat a path to your door if you merely build a better mousetrap.  You have to sell your results.  For your papers to be accepted, they must follow the cultural expectations of your audience.  If the IJCAI/ICML/CVPR audience expects a certain level of mathematical sophistication, then papers that do not display that sophistication are less likely to be accepted, even if that sophistication is unnecessary.
It is very easy to confuse mathematical depth/complexity with importance/difficulty. Top theoretical computer science conferences have a reputation for preferring more mathematically "difficult" papers to papers using more elementary techniques, and lots of reviewers assume without justification that any result that appears straightforward in retrospect must have been easy to derive.  But unless someone proves that P=NP, "trivial" is different from "nondeterministically trivial".
Because CVPR, ICML, and IJCAI are enormous conferences with low acceptance rates, acceptance decisions have high variance.  Given the breadth and complexity of the field, the ridiculous number of submissions, and the limited time for reviews, it is impossible for the program committee to make fully informed judgements about every submission.  There is an element of randomness even at smaller conferences, but for larger prestigious conferences, the randomness overwhelms the actual "signal".  In 2014, NIPS ran an experiment with two independent program committees; most papers accepted by one committee were rejected by the other.  It amazes me that anyone found this result surprising.
PC members are apes; they do apey things. As in any other large community, there are sub-communities within machine learning that prefer their own papers to others.  Even though submissions are blinded, reviewers can identify tribal affiliation—if only subconsciously—by writing style, citation patterns, choice of method, choice of data set, or choice of evaluation metrics.  If you're not in the right tribe, your papers are less likely to be accepted.


Would I need to cite explanation of linux command lines?

Common Linux commands can typically be listed without introduction, when you're writing for Linux users.1 More advanced commands require introduction. As you've hinted, providing your own introduction is rather tiresome, because numerous introductions already exist. Hence,

I suggest that you simply quote what others have said and provide a citation to the original.

Ideally, I'd recommend quoting man pages, since they are reputable, but you might have to rely on other sources when man pages provide insufficient detail.

1 What constitutes a common Linux command is rather vague. I'd certainly include cat, cd, and cp. I'd also include less and more. Thereafter I'd be a little hesitant, should grep, ps, ... be considered common?


Can I take GRE year prior to applying graduate schools?

I took the GRE general exam several years before applying for grad school and that was no problem. ETS, which produces the GRE, keeps records forever. The school, however will probably not, at least not automatically.

You could ask the school to look for them, but run the risk of getting the admin grumpy. I'd only advise that option if paying the $27 fee for ETS to send scores again is financially difficult, in which case i'd make sure the university admission understands that.

See here for more details from ETS:
http://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/scores/send/asr


Perhaps one little "therapy" often relevant is to try to remind yourself that you are the authority in reading papers critically, and the goals are about progress, not evaluation of you by some third party.

It is understandable that "school" has left one with an excessively paranoid concern about being attacked, being "checked-on", being examined, being doubted, and so on. Indeed, "school" often includes exaggerated measures that express very clearly an antagonistic, adversarial attitude of "teachers" toward "students". Naturally, many negligent students are able to ignore this pressure, while students who were already doing the right thing are the ones who feel that somehow they're not doing enough. A similar dynamic exists in many human enterprises.

So, again, the thing to repeat to yourself over and over is that now you are to function as an authority, you are to assess these papers. The point is not so much any more someone else's assessment of your "performance" (often on meaningless, contrived, artificial tasks).

In particular, the common "teaching-examining" devices of "trick questions" should be forgotten. When encountering a new idea, don't immediately be worrying how someone could use the idea to trip you up, but, instead, what constructive use you could make of it. In particular, if it does not (at least for the moment) seem useful to you, then don't spend a lot of time on it just for the sake of self-defense against trick questions! Nevertheless, one should often keep a "pointer" to seemingly useless ideas, because their utility may be discovered only later.

But don't study things whose utility seems null. Move on, just keeping a "bookmark", so if/when something percolates into your head later, you can go back and look a second time.


Pursuing PhD with no relevant coursework. Is self study and publications sufficient to show competence?

Reading "stuff" doesn't demonstrate competency, but publishing papers certainly does. If you can "use" something, and demonstrate it, then no one will really question whether you are capable of using it.

Don't worry about it, other than to worry about the difficulty of getting yourself to the point where publishers are willing to accept your papers. The rest will follow naturally.

I'll point out that professionals do this as a matter of course. If they need competency in a subject to publish, then they just do it. They wouldn't normally take a course (for credit) and wouldn't require any certification. Academic life is, among other things, a continuous path of study.


What's an efficient way to learn simple formulas by heart without understanding?

Note: this answer was migrated from physics.SE, so I've had to re-render the formulas as images. The answer is also specific to learning physics, though it might work for other fields too.

This looks like a classic XY problem. I don't know of any practicing physicists that use a special memorization scheme 'without understanding', and I think such a thing would be counterproductive. Here are a few tips that might help instead.

1. Use conceptual handles

Here are formulas for the speed of sound in a gas, the speed of waves on a string, and the frequencies of oscillation of a mass on a spring and a physical pendulum.

The intuition for all of them is the same: the numerator is some measure of a restoring force, whether that's how hard the gas pushes back, how hard the rope pulls, the strength of the spring, or the torque of gravity. The denominator is always some measure of inertia, proportional to the mass of the system. Thanks to this intuition I don't have to remember anything, except that a square root is involved.

As another example, consider all the annoying conversions between wave quantities,

along with many others. To remember the conversions between (ω,k) and (T,λ), I just use

which is the fundamental definition of the wavenumber four-vector. This fixes the factors of 2π, since that's the change in phase of one cycle. There's no place all these little tricks are written down; everybody has their own and it's best if you make them yourself as you go.

2. Don't worry about judgment

I was just watching a summer school lecture where a renowned theoretical physicist took a good 30 seconds to flip a fraction. This is completely typical and not embarrassing at all. Some people function better rearranging symbols in their heads and some function better using chalk or paper. Personally I can't do anything in my head; I have to use paper or write it out in the air, but I have never felt judged for doing this. If your colleagues are being judgmental, they are being rude and you shouldn’t let them get you down.

When I see somebody able to remember or rederive something much faster than me, I often ask them what their conceptual handles are. Unless the person is exceptionally rude, they’re typically happy to explain. (This is especially true in physics, where mere memorization is uncool.)

3. Chunk concepts, separately from tools

If you're having trouble writing a grant proposal, the solution is not to memorize the exact sequence of muscle activations needed to write every individual letter. Similarly, if physics feels too 'big', the very worst thing you can do is to make it even bigger, by unpacking every equation into eight separate equations. Learning is instead done by chunking things together.

For example, take the derivation of the wave equation, which is a full two pages of math written out. You don't want to store every line in your head. Instead, you just want to store a general intuition that "curvature means a restoring force because strings under tension straighten out", which gives you the ∂²y/∂x² term. To get from that to the final result you need to know Newton's second law (giving the ∂²y/∂t² term), the small angle approximation, and the binomial approximation. But none of these are specific to the wave equation -- they're just general tools.

As another example, I was lost when first exposed to tensor notation. It looked like there was an enormous amount of stuff to memorize! But it faded away once I sat down and wrote out all the allowed manipulations. It turns out there aren't that many, ten common ones at most. All tensor calculations up to graduate level are just using the same ten steps over and over again, so in a technical sense it's actually easier than high school algebra, which has many more allowed manipulations. Once you have this understanding, many derivations get shorter; they get chunked into "use the standard steps, plus this one trick in the middle".

Then all you have to do is remember the trick, ideally with a conceptual handle.

4. Construct your own understanding

As I emphasized above, the best way to get this kind of understanding is to construct it yourself! There's no shame in revisiting a subject that's "basic" and rebuilding it yourself from the ground up; I've done this with calculus and mechanics several times whenever I felt I was getting rusty. Make a formula sheet, or if you think visually, try drawing a mind map or a dependency diagram. Challenge yourself to rederive key equations without a reference. If you do this a lot, you'll naturally construct the necessary conceptual handles and chunks, and get better at recognizing which tool to use.


What does "Experience as a superior" mean?

As a Finn, and without further context, I read that as leadership experience. I would translate "superior" as "esimies". Esimies is Finnish for superior (of someone at work, in the sense that they are responsible and have power over other people; not in the sense that they are superior as human beings or scientists or anything like that). Have you lead a research group or supervised PhD students? Have you been the principal investigator of some project?

I don't think there is any precise definition available.

If the recruitment system is also available in Finnish or Swedish, you might also look at the equivalent term there and check what it means.


What part-time jobs are suitable for PhD students?

Two obvious answers are:

Marking (grading). Ask your supervisor if they have coursework that needs to be marked (for a price).
Tutoring. Put a note up in your departmental office offering to tutor undergraduates. If you're doing a more mathematical degree, you could tutor undergraduates from other disciplines. For example, helping out with some statistics coursework.


Why are most universities reluctant to offer open-ended contracts to research-funded-staff (such as postdocs)?

Using the term "postdoc" may cause confusion, because to me a postdoc is by definition an early-career researcher hired for a limited period.  But the question as I understand it has nothing specifically to do with the terminology.  It amounts to why universities don't offer long-term contracts conditionally on maintaining adequate external funding, but rather offer successive short-term contracts.

One answer is that sometimes they do offer long-term contracts.  In U.S. academic medical research, it's common to have long-term "soft money" positions for which most or all of the funding comes from grants.  There are even tenured soft money positions, in which you have a guarantee that you cannot be fired without good reason, but where there is no obligation for the university to pay the salary except as supplied by external grants.  (Sometimes they are responsible for a small percentage of it, and sometimes none at all.)  This becomes less common as you move further from medicine, but long-term soft money positions exist across science and engineering in the U.S., at least in small numbers.

Why not always do this?  One reason is to avoid raising expectations.  My impression is that it's rare to offer a long-term soft money contract unless there's a reasonably high chance that money will continue to be available for quite some time.  Even if there are no legal obligations, it's terrifically awkward to fire someone from a position for which they mistakenly believed funding would continue, and it's easy for people on soft money to be irrationally optimistic.  (You see this frequently with tenure-track jobs: someone starts by recognizing that they genuinely might not get tenure, but after a year or two their nerves have settled and they find it tougher to take the possibility seriously.)  This means there's a strong incentive not to offer long-term contracts that are too speculative.

Another issue is whether the department or university really wants this person to have a long-term affiliation.  There's sometimes a feeling that people on short-term contracts don't really count for the department's reputation, since they are just visiting anyway, while people on long-term contracts count more.  This means other faculty members have more of a reason to exercise oversight.


How to survive as a theoretician in computer science?

Here are some problem which I think may be problematic after my PhD:

Your first course of action is to find out if your worries are actually true. Talk to your supervisor(s), who are presumably also working in theory, and find out if they share your concerns. Some countries and universities are more amenable to highly theoretical work than others. For instance, I work at Chalmers University of Technology which prides itself on industry impact, so doing purely theoretical teaching and research is not of highest priority here. However, if I look at some other research universities, things appear to be quite different.

In general, you may see things too pessimistically. It is true that, by and large, researchers in theoretical fields publish less than in applied fields. However, faculty search and promotion committees are usually aware of that and factor this in when making decisions. That is, they will not put your CV next to a person in software engineering and conclude that the SE person is better than you just based on publication or citation numbers. Generally, you will be compared against people in your own field, and your achievements will be measured against the standards of your field.

However, specifically when it comes to funding, your stance that you are entirely disinterested in applications may in my experience indeed become a limitation at some point. There are funding agencies in most countries that focus purely on foundations, but competition tends to be stiff as all theoretical researchers compete for the same funding. Applied funding is often more plentiful and also more varied, and simply due to there often being more diverse avenues to get your research funded, competition is often less intense.

That said, I have seen many theoretically minded researchers develop some interest in applying their theory at some point in their career, so just because you are not interested in applications right now does not mean that you will remain entirely disinterested forever. The other question is how much funding you really need when you are only interested in theory: given that you will not have much need for infrastructure and staff programmers, often a little funding can go a long way in theoretical fields.


Faculty leaving to get a second degree, see training, etc. Is it heard of in Academia?

The most common way I have seen this occur is through collaboration.

Rather than starting from scratch learning like a student in another professor's lab, the faculty member would start a collaboration with someone at the same or another institution. As part of this collaboration, it is possible to trade and learn skills from each other.

Especially in the situation you describe, it sounds like you have skills that are directly useful to a potential collaborator who has the wet biology background without the computational side, and such a collaboration could increase rather than decrease your productivity.


You performed a valid service and gained valuable experience. You should definitely include this on your CV.


From post-assessment to interview in a faculty recruitment in Denmark

The University of Copenhagen documents that part of their recruitment process as follows:

Assessment

• The Assessment Committee makes a non-prioritised assessment of the academic qualifications of applicants with respect to research, teaching and outreach and other requirements listed in the advertisement.
• HR undertakes legality checks and sends assessments out to applicants for consultation.

Interviews

• The manager tasked with recruitment decides in conjunction with the Appointments Committee which of the applicants submitted for assessment are to be invited for interview and possibly a trial lecture.
• Academic and personal characteristics are assessed and explored in more detail at interview.

So, there is a selection, but no ranking.


Manuscript evaluation for becoming an editor

Different editors treat this differently. Some of the things I looked at:

Does it look like a serious research paper? If not, desk reject.
Does the paper pass plagiarism detection? If not, desk reject.
Is it plausible? The methods used should conceivably lead to the results. If it's not plausible, unless the authors provide a convincing explanation, desk reject.
Is the paper review-ready? A paper that has lots of typographical errors, has figures without axis labels, is written in incomprehensible English to the point where I cannot in good faith ask reviewers to wrack their heads deciphering the paper, etc - reject and resubmit.
Is it within the journal's scope? If not, desk reject.
Does the paper have anything interesting to say? Chances are I won't be able to judge the significance of the paper myself, but the authors ought to have written something in the introduction about why their research matters. Something like "this material is important because of [reasons]. Nobody has ever done [calculations] for this crucial property. We do it in this paper and suggest [methods] to make an even better material." would be helpful. If the authors don't give a reason for why their research matters, a desk rejection is more likely.
What tests did the authors conduct? How do the authors know their results really are reliable? If no error analysis is performed, desk reject. The same goes for any standard tests, e.g. before one can claim that a new drug is effective, I'd want to know if there was a control group, if the results are statistically significant, etc. If the authors do not discuss these standard things - desk reject.

Beyond this it depends on what the reviewers say. Reviewer reports can be very varied so it's hard to make statements about them, but the idea is the same: I read what they say and come to my own conclusions. It is possible that I don't understand what the reviewers or the authors are saying, in which case things can really seem like a coin flip. Peer review isn't a scientific process. As a personal guideline, when in doubt, I accept the manuscript. Another person might lean towards rejecting.


Researchers had a paper retracted due to plagiarism and no one at their university is aware of it

If you were in a position of more influence (e.g. a faculty member) or if you were a student at a university where you could be confident that the general attitude coincides with your own (such as most universities in the USA or Europe, at the very least), then I wouldn't hesitate a moment to notify the dean, and escalate the case further as necessary.  No respectable institution would turn a blind eye to this, not least because of the eventual embarrassment when it comes out in the press that they graduated a student whose thesis was known to be plagiarized.

It's hard for me to say what you should do in your situation, because I've never been affiliated with a place that didn't "have a firm attitude about plagiarism".  But given that the indictment of plagiarism is already public, you might approach this from the angle of protecting the institution.  That is, you could cautiously approach the department chair and explain that you're worried about the negative publicity the department (and the university) may be subject to based on what is happening.  You don't need or want to suggest that you're going to approach the press and create that publicity -- everything is already out in the open, anyway!  You also shouldn't suggest what the consequences for the plagiarists should be.  You're only working to protect the good name of your institution.  In this way perhaps you can address the problem with someone in authority such that you are both on the same side.


What does "author title" mean in a manuscript submission system?

If the author does not hold any of the usual academic tiles such as Dr/Prof./Asst. Prof. the status quo defaults to Mr/Ms/Mrs.


What effect does a journal having multiple ISSN codes have on reporting citations?

From what I can understand, currently active journals that are published both online and in print will have both a p-ISSN and an e-ISSN. This means that your paper (which will be published in both channels) will be attached to both ISSNs. See Wikipedia:

  When a serial with the same content is published in more than one media type, a different ISSN is assigned to each media type. For example, many serials are published both in print and electronic media. The ISSN system refers to these types as print ISSN (p-ISSN) and electronic ISSN (e-ISSN), respectively.[citation needed] Conversely, as defined in ISO 3297:2007, every serial in the ISSN system is also assigned a linking ISSN (ISSN-L), typically the same as the ISSN assigned to the serial in its first published medium, which links together all ISSNs assigned to the serial in every medium.[4]

ISSNs of different types for the same journal are connected through ISSN linking (ISSN-L). A file of ISSN links can also be downloaded from the ISSN website, to check whether specific ISSNs are really linked. You can also read about ISSN linking at wikipedia: Wikipedia: International Standard Serial Number#Linking_ISSN.


Pedagogical reasons for time-limited exams

Is there any sound pedagogical reason for a time-limited examination (closed or open) at the undergraduate/advanced UG level ?

For many subjects, yes. For others, no.

I had an exam for a subject in school called "technical graphics". It involved drawing parabolas and projections and so forth on a big sheet of A3 paper with pencils and protractors and compasses. It was widely-regarded to be a subject of skill more than knowledge: the exam was timed and you had to accurately and quickly and carefully draw up four or five questions. A small inaccuracy becomes compounded through the rest of the drawing. Given unlimited time and some basic knowledge, nearly anyone could ace the exam since acquiring the necessary knowledge was easy; but acquiring the skill to do the timed exam was hard. And it was the skill we practised in class. Was this skill useful? Was it a learning outcome to draw quickly? I would say yes, of course; if I were to become a draughtsman (leaving aside CAD et al. for the purposes of the analogy), learning to draw quickly and accurately would be important to my livelihood. And it was the tightly-timed test that put emphasis on this learning outcome.

Likewise if I were doing a cookery lesson, cooking quickly would be important. If I were doing a programming lesson, programming quickly would not be as important, but it would still be important. And so we get into the usual varying shades of grey.

Generalising, we can define different types of learning based on the two main types of memory targeted: procedural memory (residing below the level of conscious awareness) and declarative memory (facts and/or knowledge that can be consciously recalled or inferred from other such facts/knowledge). Some subjects – like technical graphics or cookery or programming – put a strong focus on development of procedural memory alongside declarative memory. Other subjects – like biology or history – emphasise declarative memory far far more than procedural memory.

As such, I would say that the importance of a time-limited exam for a subject is correlated with the emphasis on procedural learning for that subject. A teacher may then wish to consider whether or not procedural learning is important for their subject or not.


How is a PhD student staying in their institution as a postdoc perceived by future employers?

As someone hiring post-docs and staff members, I am leery of someone doing a long (defined as ~ >6 month) postdoc where they were a PhD student, particularly with their same advisor. Why? To me, the purpose of a post-doc is to have a clear demonstration that the new PhD can move into an at least slightly different area and rapidly come up to speed and be productive on something new. Staying where you are just means finishing up loose ends, whether correct or not. If in the 6+ month range, you've got some explaining to do to me in the interview.
I'm not upset by a few-month "postdoc" with their PhD advisor, finishing up things, as they are looking for the next position to come open. But a post-doc has to be something new - it is the time to show off your new-found abilities to learn and make progress. Why? Because that is what you are going to have to do for the rest of you career. You aren't going to keep doing your PhD project for the next 30+ years.
For my postdocs, what does showing off look like? We hand them a project, and expect that within ~3 months there should be progress sufficient for starting to submit abstracts to conferences. And then they get another new project to get going, with abstracts going out on it 3 months or so later. The point is that in the first year there should be conference presentations and papers heading out the door on the new work at my institution. They should have an interview talk based on that work. That is what a postdoc should look like, and what I look for out of their postdoc when hiring new staff members. And that does not seem to happen for a postdoc staying at their PhD institution under their PhD advisor - it is just too easy to wrap things up, not start new, well defined projects that are different.
I would like to add that for the next 2-5 years (or more based on what happens) I will be much more flexible with this. Clearly the pandemic is not going to help anybody's career trajectory, and the constraints on jobs, moving, and everything else will make life for grad students and postdocs far more complicated than usual (and everyone else, too). Still, choose wisely - what will make you better at what you want to do?


Question concerning proofs of theorems in defense PHD thesis

That will depend on circumstances. Typically you will be examined by a committee of (mostly) professors in your field during your defense. The defense itself may be open to the public or not. Most of the committee will have read, or at least skimmed your dissertation.

Exceptions abound. Some committees have an outside member from a completely different field. Some are private with possibly a public talk before or afterwards. Some defenses are not just a defense of the thesis, but a defense of your entire understanding of the field.

You need to speak, primarily, to the committee. It may be that a proof is required. It may be that a proof is too long to give in such a talk. You should be able to, at least, give an outline of the important proofs and to say what, if anything, is novel about them.

In some mathematical work the theorems themselves are the most important thing. In others (quite a lot, actually) the proof methodology is more important. That is to say, the "what" vs the "how" of the thesis. Make sure you understand which it is (and if that is the case) and that you spend most of the time on that. You have to give a solid overview also, of course.

Get advice from your advisor on this. He or she will probably know your committee members and how they behave at a defense. Are they passive, are they active questioners, are they skeptical of everything? Are they generalists who want an overview or nit-pickers who want every detail?

If you have an outside examiner, be prepared to give reasonable "layperson" explanations of all of the basics that underlie your work. There is a story, perhaps apocryphal, of a candidate in Chemistry being failed after giving a good talk and writing a good thesis because she couldn't adequately explain Ph (acidity) to an outsider after using it extensively in the talk. She studied that so long ago that the simple explanation just escaped her. (This may be a bedtime horror story told to candidates just to scare them before their defense.)

On the other hand, some defenses are really just a celebration by the faculty of the wonderful work that they do in producing such fine candidates as yourself. Possibly ending with Jerez (Sherry).


How to convince your PhD adviser about the research value of the topic?

I believe you are rushing ahead of yourself. In popular areas as applied CS, all areas one way or another may be considered overcrowded. Take any hot topic right now and you are going to see multiple publications with incremental updates / improvements. Still, a new dataset or a new test case ignites new research and so-on. No CS problem may be considered entirely solved. The fastest algorithm may be impossible to use for some datasets, its preprocessing may not scale and slower algorithms may be more parallelizable and more attractive to use. New hardware (CUDA / multiprocessor chips) change the way we write algorithms and so-on. There is a not a single criteria for what is the "best" solution. Stil, this is something you cannot know just by a literature survey.

Have you actually implemented any of the previous solutions to get a grasp of their advantages / disadvantages? Will you be able tomorrow to implement on your src code the state-of-the-art in this suggested problem or you assume it is too perfect to improve (to avoid the trouble of actually doing the implementation). Have you asked /contacted any of the authors if they can provide datasets or binaries for their solutions? Have you actually created multiple datasets to test previous solutions (and yours)? Or is everything just in your head. If yes, you must get them out of your head and into your PC.

If you actually implemented a quick and dirty (1-2 months) implementation of your advisor's suggestion, get some insight of how it behaves and 100% confirmed that your results are much worse than state-of-the-art solutions then no one (including your advisor) will object to you changing direction (no one likes dead ends). But this time will not be wasted. You have learnt what went wrong, you improved your coding skills and you see the research area more clearly. Maybe then, you can even come up with a test-case where your solution is way better than previous works, you perhaps know how to combine this problem with other related sub-problems and you have a solution that works (although not optimally) to partially satisfy the grant's requirements.

So, out of the books / papers and start writing some code!! It is more fun after all.


Retaking an undergraduate course due to poor grade before graduate school applications

Yes, it would look (a bit) better. Yes, focusing on other things is probably (not necessarily) a better use of your time. If the course is a foundation course in what you intend to pursue then it might be more important, but mostly because you have missed some necessary insights.

A single "bad" grade isn't likely to mean much of anything as the admission process looks at many things and isn't, fundamentally, driven by a few numbers. You might be far better off taking the next course in sequence if any and setting yourself up for still more advanced work than to "stall" for a bit while you make things up.

It feels like "grasping at straws" to me. If this would be an essential block, then you probably have far more important issues to deal with.

But do what you can to do better in future, possibly by asking more questions or doing more "exercises" in your courses.


How can I increase the chance of receiving review requests? Is it appropriate to contact editors to offer my services as reviewer?

I think being a reviewer can round out your overall scholarly portfolio, but that is definitely not the big ticket item for a CV, especially if you are on or seeking a tenure track position.  If you are an early career investigator, focus on publishing high-quality articles, and then the request for reviews will start to flow.  You can reach out to editors and offer your services.  But, to be frank, I would invest your time in producing, rather than reviewing, scholarly works.