How are interactions with professors on postgraduate open days taken into account in admissions decisions?

Objective criteria (such as grades, test scores) are often used to make the "first cut" of candidates. At the second and final rounds,  admissions decisions are made holistically and subjectively. 1 It is there that your being proactive and going to the Open Day, talking to professors, and the postgrad admissions tutor become things that  count in your favor.

How much they will count is uncertain and unknowable. Ultimately it is your suitability to the program that is most important.

1. In the United States, the use of objective criteria such as race  has been cause for lawsuits and scrutiny by the Supreme Court.


What should I do if I cannot accept any of the hypotheses in a replicated experiment?

Honestly report about the results you have achieved, including any errors and omissions in the method that have occurred, or any reasons why you think the results are not as expected.

If you produce a good analysis and report, then it won't matter so much that the results were not as expected.

The point of a bachelor thesis is mainly to demonstrate that the student is capable of applying the skills learned over the prior years in a larger setting. The goal is not to produce original publishable results.


Strategies for teaching with facial aphasia (inability to recognize faces aka prosopagnosia, face-blindness)

Unless it is too embarrassing to you, you might actually consider simply telling your students about your facial aphasia at the beginning of the semester.  You can explain that even though you care about them and know who they are as people and students, you won't be able to recognize them by appearance.  A more familiar condition you might make an analogy to is color-blindness.

You might then ask them to identify themselves by something that you will be able to recognize them by.  For example:

If it's a small class, you might make name tags to sit on students' desks in front of them during class.
In a large class, you might ask students to say their name when they ask a question.

You know your condition best, of course, and what things will work well for you.  You are, of course, admitting a weakness and some of the nastier undergraduates might attempt to use it to play pranks on you or to cheat in some way.  I suspect, though, that at that age in most cases it may be better to play it straight and people will respect you more for doing that than for attempting to hide it.


Wish to go against my supervisors in the half-yearly review report. Is it suicidal for my PhD?

Getting your PhD in good time is probably the most important for your career, so you should focus on that.  It would almost certainly delay you to change topics now, and adding extra subjects "on the side" may also endanger your timely completion of the core work.  And plus, as you are aware, you are highly dependent on the goodwill of your supervisors in this situation.

Assuming a change of topics would introduce a one-year delay in your studies, there are alternative ways you could use that year to build your CV:

Work in a postdoctoral research position on a more "practical" topic.
Work in industry for a year in a lower-level position.

Both of these would likely be more effective for your long-term goal than switching topics now.  And, in both cases you would be paid and wouldn't have to worry about your funding running out.  Of course, you would have to find such a job, but I still think it is lower risk than trying to change topics now against the will of your supervisors.

Also, your fears about not being able to get a job because the topic is too theoretical may be unwarranted. Generally, most of the specific things you do in a job are learned on the job.  Employers will look at your education for:

Evidence of your ability to learn and succeed.  Simply completing your PhD (and doing it well) demonstrates this.
A good theoretical background in the field.  Working even on an impractical "Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning problem" should show this.

In short, focus on doing an excellent job with your current PhD topic; there are still logical steps from there to your goal.


How to acknowledge copyright for figure reproduced from arXiv preprint?

The crucial points to remember here are that you have an

ethical duty to cite your source, and a
legal duty to comply with the terms of the license under which the article was uploaded to arXiv.

Those are your obligations, nothing less or (in my opinion) more. Considering this, after looking at the arXiv license information you linked to, it seems to me that the following language would be appropriate for at least one of the license options (I didn't look at all the options, the answer may vary slightly for the others):

  Figure 1. This is a very interesting figure. (Image source: [ABC15]; use permitted under the Creative Commons Attribution License CC BY 4.0.)

where "Creative Commons Attribution License CC BY 4.0" is hyperlinked to this page, and where [ABC15] refers to the bibliographic entry for the article in the references section of your paper.

Note that (as far as I'm aware) there is no need in this case to refer specifically to copyright. I also disagree with your assertion that "In general I assume it would be up to the authors to choose how they would like to be acknowledged." As I said, you have a duty to acknowledge the source of the work and its authors, and satisfy whatever legal requirements may exist pertaining to copyright or other licensing restrictions, but no other obligations that I'm aware of to use specific language that the authors or anyone else wants you to use. See here for a somewhat related discussion.


Generally, is it better to send recommendation letters or the referees' contacts when applying for a postdoc?

The request to contact by email (without specific requirements) suggests a less formal application process.

I would send a brief email (a few sentences to a couple of paragraphs) explaining your interest in working there and why you would make a good candidate.  The lab supervisor is probably very busy, so by keeping it brief you have the best chance that it will be read.

It would also make sense to attach your CV, so they have a sense of your skills and background.

However, I wouldn't include any other materials (such as a separate cover letter or letters of recommendation) at this stage.  Wait until they express interest in continuing the conversation (and then be led by them about the next steps).

Exception: if one of your referees knows someone at the lab.

In this case, I would ask the referee if they would be willing to make an introduction for you.  This is likely to make more of an impact than you contacting the lab "cold".

Even if the person the referee knows is not the same as the contact person for the job, having the referee contact the person they know is probably the best way to go.


What are the current standards for plagiarism?

If we look at Wikipedia, these seem to be relevant parts here:

  Plagiarism is considered academic dishonesty and a breach of journalistic ethics.

For political speeches of the kind we're discussing, there are near zero expectations regarding academic correctness, or journalistic integrity (not to mention honesty and ethics, which are also part of the quoted sentence).

Any standards are valid only in their respective context. Academic plagiarism and journalistic plagiarism have vastly different standards and consequences. As far as I am aware, there is no standard for plagiarism in the context of political speeches.

and

  Plagiarism is not in itself a crime, but can constitute copyright infringement

Copyright (usually) allows derivative works, which seems to be what we're dealing with here.

In other words: You can't plagiarize a political speech.


fix non-significant errors in a manuscript that is not accepted and currently under review after 1st round of revision?

I work in biomedical field so am not sure how vindictive psychology specialists are. The few I worked with are pretty nice, but n=3.

My opinion is definitely option 3. It's not just the p-value that matters, but also i) the statistics itself (e.g. the regression coefficient) could be different and ii) replicability could be threatened as well. If someone would like to follow your work they may be perplexed by your errors.

As for leaving a bad impression. I'd rather get rejected because I was being diligent than getting an acceptance with a flaw that I once convinced myself was trivial, but occasionally came up in the back of my mind. Just bad flavor.

I'd say no need to drum up what was corrected. Simply point out that in a final code review you spotted an error, and corrections to xxx variable was made. Overall associations/differences and conclusion remain unchanged. Give a short apology. And hope for the best.


Does a sponsored invited talk count for my cv?

Normally the sponsorship would be irrelevant to your CV, but in the unlikely case that you were invited by the company instead of the conference, you should specify that in your CV.
My expectation is that the organization of the conference presentations and the sponsorships are completely disconnected.  The sponsorship is simply an opportunity for a company to place their advertisement during the symposium.


The recent trend in non-legal English formal writing is to just use the English equivalent of the Latin abbreviation, so compare rather than cf. and for example rather than e.g. This also obviates the confusion about what cf. means and the distinction between e.g. and i.e.

On the other hand, using Latin abbreviations like et al. and ibid. for citations makes more sense.


Can online recording of work area at home be made a mandatory criterion for passing exams midway through a course?

Universities around the world are trying very hard right now to find ways to balance students’ rights to privacy and dignity with difficult practical questions concerning the transition to remote teaching and testing.

Regarding testing, the reality is that cheating is a common occurrence in many places even in normal times when testing is done in the physical presence of and under the supervision of the instructor. There is little doubt that many students will take advantage of a remote testing environment in order to cheat, making the problem potentially much worse. This hurts honest students, hurts the university’s reputation, and devalues grades as a signal containing meaningful information. So, to put it very mildly, it is to everyone’s benefit that cheating be prevented to the extent possible.

All those things considered, if the choice is between a small intrusion on your privacy and closing down the university or cancelling all tests and grades, I think it’s clear that these sorts of anti-cheating measures are simply the best we can do at this moment in time, and you just have to accept this indignity as a necessary (and hopefully temporary) evil.

You can complain, but unless your complaint is accompanied by some solution to the remote testing problem that is so ingenious and innovative that it will make photographing your room unnecessary and prevent cheating at the same time, I wouldn’t expect your complaint to particularly impress anyone. Sorry, I don’t mean to sound harsh but that’s just the way it is.

Anyway, you have my sympathy. Keep in mind your professors are also stressed out and are also called on to do things many of them are uncomfortable with during this difficult time.

Edit: after thinking some more about this issue, I think a much bigger problem with these testing restrictions is that they seem to prohibit students from using the bathroom during the exam. This strikes me as a much bigger deal than the privacy intrusion, as it conflicts with basic human physiological needs, and raises significant issues of fairness and equity (as certain populations of students will find it much harder to comply with such a constraint than others). So if you are thinking of complaining, I would recommend making this the focus of your complaint rather than the privacy intrusion. It wouldn’t necessarily lead to the cancellation of the 360 degree scan requirement, but I can see a decent chance that the professor and/or university might reconsider some of the other somewhat draconian restrictions, as well as their general approach to the whole remote testing issue.

As for who to complain to, you should go through the usual channels for complaints within your institution, whatever those are (the professor, department chair, college, ombudsperson, student union, etc).

Edit 2:

To address a few of the objections to what I wrote that were raised in the comments:

The privacy intrusion is not “small”: perhaps; it depends on your frame of reference, and in ordinary times I’d totally agree. But my point is that these aren’t ordinary times, and standards for what constitutes an acceptable level of privacy intrusion are changing out of necessity. So when I say “small” I really mean “as small as can practically be achieved while still allowing the professor to do their work at a level of effectiveness the professor considers acceptable.”
It’s not clear that the professor was required to use this method of testing. Other professors are doing things differently. I never said the professor is guided by university rules. It’s possible each professor only receives general guidance from their university and has to decide for themselves about specific rules for remote testing. As long as their decision is generally reasonable, the fact that other professors made different decisions is a very weak argument. Although a bit of consistency is a desirable thing, there is no rule that all professors must handle all situations in an identical manner.
Your argument is premised on the assumption that this method of testing can be proved to be the only effective solution to the assessment problem. Please provide proof that this is so. It’s not premised on that assumption at all. There isn’t a scientifically proven, ideal method of testing. Professors have to make real-life decisions about real-life situations and do the best they can based on their intuition and experience. They don’t all have to agree on the best way of doing something, and don’t need to have a rigorous scientific basis for any decision they make. Sometimes they even make wrong decisions. There is room to debate and question each decision, but just saying a decision is illegitimate because the person making it can’t scientifically prove that it’s the best decision is not a valid argument.
I am outraged! So am I. This situation sucks! But instead of complaining, offer workable solutions. Believe it or not, professors also do not want to see anyone’s bedroom, and would be happy to switch to an alternative system if you can simply show them one and convince them that it satisfies the need to maintain a minimum level of integrity and effectiveness in assessing students’ knowledge. Professors are not evil people trying to oppress students. They are just trying to get a job done to the best of their abilities under difficult circumstances.


Why are recommendation letters crucial for scholarships or graduate admissions?

Your question seems to present the use of letters of recommendation as being orthogonal to the goals of selecting hard-working and dedicated students. This is simply a false assumption.

The purpose of letters of recommendation is to ensure the person making the selections that they are choosing qualified candidates who will satisfy the needs of the program. Anybody can claim to be hard-working, but how do you know this is actually the case? If you have several people, well-versed in the needs of research or advanced study in a given topic, telling you that candidate X has all the prerequisites and character traits needed to ensure success, you're a lot more likely to believe it than just to take someone's word about himself or herself.


Applying for a PhD with two undergrad degrees in different subjects

The way I see it (but I am not in any admissions committee), the career choice that you did being 18 should have very little impact now. At that age, most people are immature.

For me, having those two degrees tells me:

You have had the persistence to finish the Philosophy degree, even knowing that that was not your cup of tea; and then pursue your real desire.
You have the flexibility to work on very different intellectual environments.
Your experience is broader than most people that start their Maths degree at 18. Also, you are in Mathematics after a concious decision, and it was revalidated when you pursued a MSc, and now applying for a PhD.

In any case, I think you should absolutely mention it, otherwise you would have a 3 years gap to explain. Having been studying is definitely better than doing nothing.


How does closing down a department affect a PhD student?

I will try to address some specific questions/concerns you pose. My comments are based on observations I made (and continue to make) as an MA and PhD student, and administrative staff member at a research center. I haven't seen this exact situation happen, but I've seen and contributed to many other restructuring events (advisor moving to another university, founding new department/lab/research center...).

In academia, the most important indicator of the value of your PhD is the quality and quantity of the research you do. While factors like your advisor, the team at your lab, the facilities available, etc. can affect this indicator, the name of the department you graduate from probably will not. In fact, it is not uncommon for researchers who have studied one field to be employed in a differently-named field. One example is Don Norman, who studied engineering and then psychology, and works in the field of design. The decision to close or merge departments most likely will have no bearing on the value of a PhD.

It is common for people doing work in a specific field (e.g. transportation) to have credentials or employment in a more general field (e.g. management, computational science), or vice versa. More generally, subject matter of your work and the discipline or methods you use to approach that subject can be different. It is normal for one's credentials or employment to relate to only one of these things. It is perfectly acceptable to be a researcher who deals with transportation (subject matter) using computational science (approach), while having credentials in management (general field).

In sum, the "person of interest" actually appears to have the right idea. While your concerns are valid, one's relationship with their advisor and lab/team is often a much more important factor, compared to the name of the deparment they belong to and the courses that are available.


Should titles in the references be in title case?

If the venue doesn't specify, then you should pick a style and stick with it. The venues I publish in tend to specify, so I just use the BiBTeX style associated with the venue (e.g., IEEE).


Doing upper division pre-requisites for a second master's degree - need advice

An anecdotal answer -

I am in an identical situation; I had done a bachelors in business admin and then an M.A. in economics.

My passion later turned out to be mathematics and I was unable to get admitted to an undergraduate program (or at least one where they would allow me to skip the electives).

What I did to overcome this was select some universities I wanted to attend and made appointments with the graduate program directors. I then went to see them in person and explained my situation and what I was hoping to accomplish. I then asked what options would be available to someone in my situation.

One of the graduate directors was very receptive to my case and admitted me into something called a "Qualifying year." I am technically a graduate student, but will be taking upper-level undergraduate courses for a year to get the background necessary for graduate level course-work. After this year, I have the option to apply to transfer into the full graduate program or apply to a different university.

A similar option may be available to you, though I imagine every university handles these things differently. Could be worth just going in and asking.


How does one determine priority, prominence, and impact with regard to books, rather than articles?

You can still check how widely the book is cited in academic literature (no matter, books, papers, reports, or conference papers) with the use of Google Scholar.

Warning. Google Scholar may be misleading sometimes because it indexes virtually anything that is claimed to be academic even if it doesn't belong there. Sometimes you may come across academic crooks. See for example this guy. More than a thousand citations. But if you check him in Scopus, you will find that he is only cited 5 (five!) times by papers in journals of some quality. So, be careful.


Is it rude to request a book chapter from the academic who wrote it if you don't want to buy the entire textbook?

Before writing to the author, you should try to find the chapter in other ways:

Is it available online?  You should make sure it's not in any obvious place (e.g., the author's home page or university web site) or findable by a web search.
Do you have library access?  Even if the library doesn't have the book, they can very likely get it through interlibrary loan.
Do you have friends, colleagues, or teachers who might have the book?

It's a little rude to bother the author to ask for a copy if you could reasonably get one another way.  However, if the book is unaffordable for you and you have no other options, then there's nothing wrong with asking the author.  I'd phrase it as a question, to avoid sounding too demanding.  The key thing to keep in mind is that you're asking for something unusual, just in case the author has an electronic copy they'd be willing to share (but haven't put on their web site).  It's also worth including a sentence about things like your lack of library access.  You may not get a copy, but it's worth a try.


There is no golden rule that I've heard of that since you're not funded that you would be automatically accepted. There are not-for-profit and for-profit institutions, and each may receive public and/or private funding to do x, y, and z.

Sounds to me you were going for a program where you'd receive a stipend, and are being coerced to apply to the program that you would have to pay out-of-pocket (not really clear from the way you wrote it above). In any case, there are some things to consider:

How competitive is the program?
What about your transcripts or personal profile can you improve?
How about applying to more than one school?
If you received an offer, should you take it and see if you can receive a stipend in the near future?

You haven't provided much information, yet it will be hard to tell you what to do because there's an absence of the representation of what it is you want to do, and how much you want it. If it's something you've already spent your entire adult life to work on and have the acceptance letter, maybe it's worth considering taking the opportunity. Conversely, if you're right out of school and would benefit from some work experience and improvements to your transcript then it may be worthwhile to take a step back and try again soon.


This isn't a question that can be properly answered here as it may have legal implications that are local to the actual case. Don't make assumptions that your old agreement is null, just because the data became public. No harm no foul might not hold up anywhere, especially if lawyers get involved.

You indicate that the director is a different person than the one who helped you. He/she can give you advice. The legal department of the institution can give you advice that should hold up. If your new work is truly independent of the old, make sure that they understand that. The other person may have no moral hold over you for co-authorship, but only an expert can speak about a legal hold.

The question is likely too old to be of help to the OP, but future visitors may have similar questions, hence this very late answer.


What should I do if I have specialized in a useless research area?

The specialised research area of your PhD topic probably has a wider range of related fields which are relevant to prospective employers.  I suggest identify those fields and use them to build your own resume, and also to identify prospective employers.  Search those terms in job sites and identify employers that way.

Unless committed to specifically continue research in a focused line of investigation, then in most cases, I believe that job seekers in your position are really looking for work which utilises the broader skills that they have generated through their post-graduate degree.  Try to take a step back to think of the skills you have gained.

The more generalised skills such as general subject knowledge, investigation, research community networking and research are more likely to be of value to your prospective employer than your expertise in your own specific topic.


The website has a button that says "IEEE proof", whatever that is supposed to mean, which seems like the equivalent of a folder on your computer named "definitely not porn". Understand: they're trying suspiciously hard to use their (alleged) IEEE affiliation as a marker of legitimacy and quality.

Follow that link and enjoy that delightful prose:

  "We believe education is our motherhood and research is our motto. Our intention is to collaborate innovative brains at one place. So, here we are with "International Conference on Current Trends in Computer, Electrical, Electronics and Communication" (ICCTCEEC) platform to share, learn and discuss. We guarantee your pleasure because our city itself mean you what are we."

Let's say the intentions of the people who committed that website are not fraudulent that's still incredibly sloppy and careless not to have it proofread. Seeing this, I would doubt that anything else about that conference can be worth your time and money.

By the way, IEEE affiliation, even if legit, doesn't mean the conference is good or not spam.

The usual advice in these cases: consult with your supervisor and colleagues. There is typically a rather small number (~5) of conferences worthy of attending per field and any half-serious researcher knows which these are.


Is reusing old code for a new assignment considered self plagiarism? How to protect yourself if you consider it to be, and a group partner does not?

What should you do?  You should ask the professor politely and without imposing your pre-judgement on whether this is or is not prohibited by the rules of the class.  You are not in a position to make this judgement.  The only person who can give a definitive ruling is the professor who set the rules.

I recommend an approach like:

  My teammate has previously created code that would be very applicable to this project.  Can we use that code, or does it count as an external library, and we should instead write it again as an exercise?

While you are waiting for a response, I would recommend proceeding in two ways in parallel:

You implement a new version of the library from scratch, while
Your partner builds upon the existing library.

That way, you get the educational value of building the library, rather than using the pre-existing library, and your partner can push on ahead without either of you being stalled while waiting for the result.


Should I learn the research methods first?

Learning styles differ, but most people find it easier to understand a method as they see it applied. In order to grasp a solution, you need to understand what problems it is trying to solve.

I would probably start with one or more applied papers in the field. Though it's fine to jump into more detail about the methods as soon as you have questions. Really this need not be two separate activities.


What is the role of a thesis supervisor at the MSc level

A huge role.  Masters is a time to contribute to an established research project while putting in your own experiences to a certain degree.  Usually it is not the Master's students job to come up with a project, understand its research utility/significance etc.  Rather, that project usually exists already and the supervisor asks the student to move it forward, perhaps even support a PhD student in their work.

In this sense, your supervisor should be working closely with you, at least at the beginning, to make sure you understand what needs to be done and how to contribute.  This isn't to say that you're doing exactly what the supervisor says.  Rather, it is understood that a masters student lacks the depth and breadth of understanding of the field required to make a truly impactful, original contribution (usually!  Some are exceptional.  Point is that this isn't the expectation).

By the end of the project you will be the expert in your own contribution.  Your supervisor will guide your thesis and make sure that things like the claims and background section are adequate and truthful.

You should use your masters studies to explore the field and gain some of the breadth/depth required to understand if it's really the field you'd want to pursue if you were to do PhD.  If that is your goal, you should also use it as an experience to learn the basics of what research is and is not, what a contribution is and is not, and how the life cycle of a research project evolves.  If that is not your goal, then you should also focus on gaining skills and knowledge that you feel will help you in your future career.  Your supervisor's job is to ensure that you are given the freedom to explore these things within the context of the overall project.

If, for example, you want to learn about linguistics but you are working on a project in international development, that is probably not a good use of you or your supervisor's time unless you can link it somehow.  On the other hand, if you're working on such a project and you decide to study some of the history of the country your project is based in, then that is probably a good use of your time, provided you don't lose track of your main project.  Your supervisor, with regular check-ins, can help you to better understand if you are on the right path with side interests and will also help to steer you back toward your project if you are going too far off track.


how to show I fit in with the department during faculty interview

The other answer has good advice. But for a job with a research component, I'd interpret it at least partly as "How does your research synergise with our own?".

Point out things that you could work together with existing staff on; areas in which you could help each other out, and things where the combination of your skills/knowledge and their skills/knowledge might combine to produce something bigger than the sum of its parts.

Similarly, but less clearly, on the teaching side you might be able to identify how you fill a gap in their existing areas of expertise.


How can our department solicit more (good) PhD applications?

You could kill two birds with one stone and target underrepresented groups.  Make connections with undergraduate student organizations of color.  Invite undergrads taking junior level classes in your department to meet with your committee at a barbecue to talk about what they have found most helpful in terms of supporting their academic success.  If you ask the question that way, you may get some helpful constructive feedback, without actually inviting them to kvetch.

Make sure your department has an effective community outreach program to K-12 students, and ask them to target underrepresented groups in your town or city.  Word will spread.

Co-sponsor, with the engineering department, and a student organization, a showing of the film "Underwater Dreams".  Better yet, invite the people involved in making the film to your showing, for a panel discussion after the movie.

Make sure your faculty members' webpages are clear and inviting.

Recruit some peer advisors and give them some online profiles.  Make sure the peer advisors have a quick way to get answers from the members of your committee in case there's something they can't answer.

I don't know if women are an underrepresented group in your field, but even if they aren't, make sure you have all the features that make a department women-friendly.

With respect to the GRE comment -- I don't have an opinion about this suggestion, but at least try to come up with an admissions policy that looks at the whole person, and make that policy clear to potential applicants.  A public statement along the lines of "we encourage returning students to apply" is a helpful clue to women who have taken a child rearing break.

Make sure you have an undergrad and grad student prize in your department, for example best poster, best thesis, and really celebrate the winners.  Feature different student bios on your department website on a rotating basis.

Get some funding for some upper level undergrads to go along to a conference.  Set up peer mentoring to make connections between students of different levels.

Make sure there are fun things for students to do together in free time, e.g. soccer or volleyball or Eurogames or whatever your department's students enjoy doing.

Really nice administrative support personnel can do a lot to make a department attractive to students.  (For example, "if you have any trouble getting registered for a class you need, let me know".)

Sorry if that was a bit disorganized -- hope these ideas get you thinking.


You seem to have answered it yourself, and I'm pretty sure I agree, though it is just opinion. But I'd suggest that you evaluate your options in terms of what will get you out the door fast and successfully rather than "liking" what you are doing right now. You will have the freedom to follow other paths if and when you successfully finish.

You like your advisor, she seems to be good for you. Too many students don't have those advantages. Working without an advisors advice works for some, but not everyone.

It might be worth having a chat with her, expressing your difficulties and asking for advice on how to quickly gain insight into what she does. Not everyone knows how to provide that, but if she does, it could help situate you quickly.


Disseminating math results in an interdisciplinary journal

There are journals in physics that encourage interdisciplinary work and also mathematical physics journals.  I have seen (and written) Physical Review Letters that have many pages of mathematics in a supplement.  See, for example:

Colbrook, Matthew J., Bogdan Roman, and Anders C. Hansen. "How to compute spectra with error control." Physical review letters 122.25 (2019): 250201.

You might do well adding an introduction that addresses the physics and then sending to a mathematical physics journal.

Do not be afraid of covering the same material twice, however.  Perhaps you write the paper as a math paper, and then a separate paper that covers in different words the same material from a physics viewpoint.  You can always call it a review or guide if that makes you feel more honest.  I recently employed that strategy and I hope Referee B feels this is alright.


What can I expect from a Skype interview for PhD admissions?

This doesn't sound like an overly formal process as you're already known to the interviewer. However, in my institution at least, the process is becoming much more formal (person specifications, training for interviewers, etc.) and so there are definite areas that the interviewer will be trying to explore:

Do your skills match up with what you claim on your application? Expect specific questions on your application, particularly on relevant projects, or reports, or dissertations.
Can you communicate? Particularly, why do you want to do a PhD, why in this area, with this person, etc. This also covers language skills, if you're not a native speaker. Expect more general questions probing your motivation.
Can you link together different areas of knowledge? Show that your earlier studies have gone in and you can see where they're relevant to the PhD topic. Expect detailed questions on key techniques for this project, maybe linking back to courses you've taken (if they don't make the link, it's a strength when you explicitly do).
Do you know what you don't know? There's a lot to learn in a PhD and the best candidates will (a) know that, and (b) want to fix that themselves. Communicating what areas you need to improve, and how you want the supervisor to help you improve, can be a strength (provided it isn't key background for the PhD!). This is where you should show you've read the research proposal, and also the papers referred to in it: you don't need a detailed understanding of it all, but you should clearly show what you've understood, and how you'd go about learning what you haven't.
Evidence of problem-solving skills. Talking about projects, reports written, group work done. Show that you understood what you did (even if strongly directed), that you can communicate it clearly, and how you generated ideas.
Can you connect with the potential supervisor? This can be purely personal, and is the hardest thing to do in a Skype call. If possible, try and make it a conversation instead of a question and answer session. Also, try and prepare some questions to ask them, particularly around the research proposal.

As I noted at the top, if you're already known to the interviewer, and if there's no formal university process mandated by central administration, this could well be an informal chat. Even then, I'd make sure you've read the research proposal, and researched its background, so that you can genuinely talk, and not get a huge information dump.


What are some tips for passing qualifying written exam (i.e., writing a lot in a week)?

Step one, plan your writing. The most efficient way to work is to write an outline before you start.  However, in this case, where you have five days, you might need to alternate activities -- researching, trying out ideas, outlining and writing up parts you feel pretty sure about.  So you might find that after a couple of days of this, you've written a large part of your submission, without having gone strictly step by step (outline, then write from the outline).  In this case, you may have to produce an outline from your written paragraphs.  You might need to do this more than once.  Definitely do work with an outline, though, even if it's a bit of a pain to analyze your existing paragraphs and then describe them with an outline.

Why?  Because this will help you find places where you're being repetitive, or where you make a leap of faith and omit to explain how you got from Point A to Point B, or where some reordering would make things hang together better.

If you need to consider a major restructuring, it can help to print it all out and cut it up into pieces according to sub-topic, and then try laying out the pieces in a few different orders on the floor or a large table.

Ideally, though, after having written an outline, you would then churn out reams of words and sentences and paragraphs, using your outline as your guide.

Revision: Let some time go by -- half a day, or overnight, before proceeding to the revision stage. Ideas for finding errors and places that aren't clear: Read it out loud. Display it in a different font or different size, or on a different screen. Print a hard copy. Have the computer read it to you out loud.  These things will make it easier for you to find problems.

If you're allowed to, ask a friend to read a draft and circle anything that seems unclear or possibly having a spelling, punctuation or grammar mistake.

(The best way of all to prepare for writing is to pre-write with an interested live human being, who asks you, "What is your essay going to be about?")

Get lots of exercise and sleep between now and then, of course.  Make sure you have a reliable set-up with all the resources and tools and groceries and peace and quiet you will need, including headphones or ear plugs if noise bothers you.  Alert friends and acquaintances that you will be on the dark side of the moon for five days.

Use version control.  Save a new, numbered version every couple of hours.  Make sure your computer does an autorecover save when it crashes.

Practice makes perfect, and this is especially true with writing -- and revising.  So, you may wish to warm up your writing and revising skills between now and then.

Remember that they won't be grading only on the quality of the writing, and that lots of students find writing challenging, but somehow many of them graduated.


Would uploading preliminary research results on Arxiv certify new discovery as mine?

In short: yes.

Of course, as Wrzlprmft suggested, you need to make it look decent enough so that arXiv won’t reject it, but once it’s there, it will have your name on it, be connected forever to your arXiv account etc. You can always claim that you were first. (I.e. if someone publishes exactly the same thing, or at least very similar, you can always write to the journal and say their research was not original, and point to your arXiv preprint. By the way, this might not mean stealing your ideas, but simply overlooking your work; still a bad thing, though.) And of course there is no problem in improving the manuscript and sending it to journal later.

On the other hand, however, others can use your idea in their own research, apply it to something else, or generalize it, and with proper citation, they will be able to publish their own results while conforming with academic ethics. So they might do some further research that you have in mind, and you can’t prevent it.


What is the ethical way of writing co-author names?

You might have to check with your journal guidelines. Here are some examples:
Elsevier

Four criteria must all be met to be credited
as an author:

Substantial contribution to the study
conception and design, data acquisition,
analysis, and interpretation.
Drafting or revising the article for
intellectual content.
Approval of the final version.
Agreement to be accountable for all
aspects of the work related to the
accuracy or integrity of any part of
the work.

[...]
Three types of authorship are considered
unacceptable:

‘Ghost’ authors, who contribute
substantially but are not acknowledged
(often paid by commercial sponsors);
‘Guest’ authors, who make no
discernible contributions, but are
listed to help increase the chances of
publication;
‘Gift’ authors, whose contribution is
based solely on a tenuous affiliation with
a study.

Springer
Has nearly the same principles.
Your university
Likely your university has a document where they spell out the guidelines. The ethics department, if it exists, shall answer all of your questions.
Your specific questions (my opinion)

If a person help you to collect some amount of data (not all), either giving you permission or participated himself to help you in data collection - Yes (although I'm not sure what you mean by the "giving you permission" part)
Proofread the paper once or twice - I'd say no. Correcting typos is not a major scientific contribution.
Supervised you or co-supervised you but did not work in paper writing nor reviewing because of time constraints - If supervised means giving guidance and participating in discussions, yes. If supervised means just overlooking the progress of the paper without substantial input, then no.
The head of departments or labs - Just being the head of lab does not suffice. The authors contribute to the project directly.
The one[s] who support you financially. - These are typically credited in the acknowledgment section, not by giving them authorship.

Acknowledgments, on the other hand, are less strict. So even minor contributions, conversations or comments on the draft might be sufficient for putting someone in the acknowledgments.

Note: In this answer I'm not saying anything about the order of the authors because it's field dependent and I have no experience about it (my field being one that adopts alphabetical order).


Asking an expert in your field that you have never met to review your manuscript

Ask your advisor at your own university, but the answer is 99.9% no. It's your advisor's job to look at your paper before you submit.

In some cases it's appropriate to share with outsiders when they aren't really outsiders but rather collaborators or colleagues known to you or your advisor. In other rare cases you might reach out to someone whose work is very similar or affected by yours, but again, this would be at your advisor's direction.

edits:

OP clarified in a comment that their advisor has reviewed their paper and found it suitable, but the paper is outside the advisor's best expertise. In this context, I do think it is worth getting an outside opinion if the advisor agrees, but I still would not suggest cold-contacting anyone.

Instead, I would recommend asking the advisor if someone in their network might have more expertise in the specific area, even if they aren't the very top person in the field. The point is to get an informed opinion from someone friendly but willing to be honest.

Another option is to do some networking at conferences, etc. In that way, you turn people you've never met into people you've met and it may become more appropriate to ask (and certainly more likely to get a positive response).


How do (STEM) professors keep up with the latest tech or development in order to publish research?

In short, your premises are wrong.

Professors read papers to learn.
Professors meet with their peers, both at conferences and informally, and learn from them.
Professors do learn from their research students.

These are slow methods of learning, but over many years they add up.
Further, in fast-moving fields of research, nobody "keeps up" in the sense of knowing everything that is going on.  It isn't necessary to know everything that is already known to create new knowledge.


What is the difference between a PhD degree and a DSc degree?

It depends on the university and the country.

In England, a PhD is typically awarded for a thesis and oral examination of the thesis, usually followed by implementation of corrections to the thesis, the requirements for which are specified during or just after the oral exam. It's often done soon after a Masters, which is done soon after a Bachelors, so a fairly large proportion of PhDs are awarded at the start of one's academic career. Whereas a DSc is awarded for a portfolio of work, (in some cases submitted together with an over-arching critique of that portfolio), and thus is more likely to be awarded later in an academic's career.

Nominally, a PhD is a doctorate in philosophy, but is typically awarded for pretty much any subject. There are some who argue that philosophy of knowledge always form part of these studies, regardless of the subject. I occasionally use this line to try to inspire students, myself. A DSc is a doctorate in science, and is not awarded for literature, law, divinity, or music, each of which has its own dedicated higher doctorate.

The DSc is a higher doctorate than a PhD, in England. In some other countries, they're equivalent.

Both get the honorific title doctor.


When transferring credits do I need permission from the "leaving" university?

You should not take the term "transferring credits" so literally -- nothing is taken away from the (at that time) previous university. Instead, you are convincing the new university that you already obtained some parts of the education they are offering (so that it would be a waste of your and their time to do that again), and have the credits to prove it. The new university then awards you the appropriate credits according to their regulations (which might be more or less than the corresponding ones at your old university) based on their trust that you could in principle pass the modules again. The credits at your old university remain (at least for some time), should you decide to switch back.


Is it poor grammar to replace normal phrases with mathematical symbols in sentences in a mathematical paper?

Are expressions such as "The matrix A has rank ≥ n" considered as acceptable in mathematical papers/theses/textbooks?

No, it's often considered poor style to incorporate fragments of equations like this into text.  I wouldn't go so far as to say it's ungrammatical, but many people consider it bad writing.  Some others don't care about this issue, which is why you sometimes see it done, but this is more common in informal or unedited writing.

The issue is that "rank ≥ n" is mixing together English and mathematics within the same construction.  If this doesn't bother you, imagine a more dramatic case like "n + five".  (By contrast, when someone writes "if x ≥ y", the inequality "x ≥ y" is a self-contained unit within the sentence.)  There's no logical reason why mathematical writing conventions couldn't allow this sort of mixing, but they don't.

Saying "The matrix A has rank at least n" is shorter and cleaner than "The rank of the matrix A is greater than or equal to n", but they are both acceptable.  I'd recommend avoiding "The matrix A has rank ≥ n" (I can't think of a good reason to prefer it, and avoiding looking bad is a reason not to use it).


A quick question about deadline extensions

Possible reasons for extensions:

Not enough applications have been received
The applications/applicants are not up to he expected standard (Almost the previous point in th esense that more applications is hoped to raise the standard)
Something has happened in the bureaucracy that means an extension is necessary

Sending in an application to meet a deadline is always necessary and being early may set your application apart from the others but there is no guarantee. Having an impeccable application is a better bet on getting noticed than sending it in early. By impeccable, I mean well written, clear and concise, including all the necessary materials in neat order. But early is certainly not a negative but may not really show to the persons responsible for evaluating the applications.


Are there formal studies analyzing available test time versus performance?

Several studies have examined the impact of extended test-taking time on performance at all academic grade levels. Many of these studies focus on individuals with learning disabilities, but generally include students without learning disabilities as a control group. I have summarized some studies here, and provided a list of additional studies which may be of interest. The studies indicate that other individual factors (academic ability and skills, perception of time, and method of test administration) may impact test performance in concert with or in addition with extended time.

One study of learning disabled (LD) and non-learning disabled (NLD) college students being given a reading test that assessed vocabulary and comprehension assessed outcomes for those who received an extended test period of time and a half compared to the normal period (Ofiesh, 2000). Individuals with LD saw significant improvements in the extended time period compared to NLD students. Some NLD students did show improved scores in the extended period, but the difference was not significant. Similarly, in a study assessing the performance of elementary, middle, and high school students on the Stanford 10 achievement tests who received either the recommended amount of time or extra time, the authors concluded that NLD students exhibited no benefit or detriment with extended testing time (Brooks, Case, & Young, 2003). This did not vary whether they received a few minutes up to double the recommended time.

Another study of 6th grade students taking a standardized test found that NLD students did not see a significant increase in scores in an extended-time condition, but LD students did (Huesman & Frisbie, 2000). However, NLD scores also varied based on instructions. When NLD students were given extra time, and told to take their time, their scores improved; when given extra time but told to work “quickly” but to still do their best work, they did not significantly improve, possibly because they were placed into a mindset of being timed. Another study examined the impact of extended time (1.5) on both multiple choice and problem solving tests in three university courses, but found no improvements in performance (Armitage, 1999). However, in a study of prospective graduate students who took the GRE writing test, participants who were given 60 minutes performed better than those given only 40 minutes (Powers & Fowles, 1996).

A study of SAT performance for nearly 2,000 LD/ADHD or NLD high school students was examined for groups allowed standard time or 1.5 or 2 times the allotted time for verbal and math sections (Mandibach, Bridgeman, Cahalan-Laitusis, & Trapani, 2005).  They found that NLD medium- and high-ability students performed best in the 1.5 time condition, but low-ability examinees saw no benefit. Extra time affected math more than verbal performance. Strong conclusions about LD student performance were non-significant in part due to small sample sizes. The authors note that low-ability students may not benefit from extra time because they lack needed problem-solving skills, while medium-ability students may benefit because they are able to check their work. Less benefit was seen for high ability students who may not have needed the extra time. The authors also noted that for longer tests, breaking the material into sections and setting time limits per section seemed to benefit all students, rather than asking them to pace themselves across all material.

One study found no direct effect of extended time on written essay quality for college students, but did find that student who were allowed to use a word processor wrote more than students who provided handwritten answers, and that typed (but not hand written) essays demonstrated a link between length and quality (Lovett, Lewandowski, Berger, & Gathje, 2010). The authors propose it was not time that led to these improvements, but the flexibility to edit their answers when typed.

A review of the evaluation of written exams cites several other studies regarding the impact of time on writing quality (Cho, 2003) and may be of interest. A report by Tindal and Fuchs (2000, pgs 26 – 35) provides a concise summary of the literature of test extensions or untimed tests from kindergarten through post-secondary education, including specific summaries of each study found in their review. This might be a good place to start in terms of additional literature.  Although most of the examples I described here found few effects for non-learning disabled students receiving extended time on tests, I’ve also listed additional literature which may provide alternative results.

Referenced studies:

Armitage, C. (1999). Extended time limits on university examinations (Master’s thesis). Retrieved from: http://dspace.ucalgary.ca/bitstream/1880/24993/1/47990Armitage.pdf
Brooks, T. E., Case, B. J., and Young, M. J. Pearson assessment report. (2003). Timed versus untimed testing conditions and student performance. Pearson Education, Inc. Retrieved from: http://images.pearsonassessments.com/images/tmrs/tmrs_rg/TimedUntimed.pdf
Cho, Y. (2003). Assessing writing: Are we bound by only one method?. Assessing Writing, 8(3), 165-191. doi:10.1016/S1075-2935(03)00018-7
Huesman, R. L., Jr., & Frisbie, D. A. (2000, April). The validity of the ITBS Reading Comprehension test scores for learning disabled and non learning disabled students under extended-time conditions (ED 442 210). Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Education Research Association, New Orleans LA. Retrieved from: http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED442210.pdf
Lovett, B. J., Lewandowski, L. J., Berger, C., & Gathje, R. A. (2010). Effects of response mode and time allotment on college students’ writing. Journal of College Reading and Learning, 40(2), 64-79. Retrieved from: http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ887306.pdf
Mandibach, E. B., Bridgeman, B., Cahalan-Laitusis, C., & Trapani, C. (2005). The impact of extended time on SAT test performance. College Board Research Report No. 2005-8 – 35 pages. The College Board; New York. ETS RR-05-20. Retrieved from: https://research.collegeboard.org/sites/default/files/publications/2012/7/researchreport-2005-8-impact-extended-time-sat-test-performance.pdf
Ofiesh, N. S. (2000). Using processing speed tests to predict the benefit of extended test time for university students with learning disabilities. Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability, 14(1), 39-56. Retrieved from: http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ649045.pdf
Powers, D. E., & Fowles, M. E. (1996). Effects of applying different time limits to a proposed GRE writing test. Journal of Educational Measurement, 33(4), 433-452. doi:10.1111/j.1745-3984.1996.tb00500.x
Tindal, G., &. Fuchs, L. (2000). A summary of research on test changes: An empirical basis for defining accommodations (ED 442 245). Lexington, KY: Mid-South Regional Resource Center. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED442245.pdf

Additional studies:

Alster, E. H. (1997). The effects of extended time on algebra test scores for college students with and without learning disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 30(2), 222-227. doi:10.1177/002221949703000210
Calahan-Laitusis, C. (2004). Accommodations on high-stakes writing tests for students with disabilities. Princeton, NJ: ETS. Retrieved from: http://144.81.87.152/Media/Research/pdf/RR-04-13.pdf
Cohen, A. S., Gregg, N., & Deng, M. (2005). The Role of Extended Time and Item Content on a High‐Stakes Mathematics Test. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 20(4), 225-233. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5826.2005.00138.x
Crawford, L., Helwig, R., & Tindal, G. (2004). Writing Performance Assessments How Important Is Extended Time?. Journal of learning disabilities, 37(2), 132-142. doi:10.1177/00222194040370020401
Knoch, U., & Elder, C. (2010). Validity and fairness implications of varying time conditions on a diagnostic test of academic English writing proficiency. System,38(1), 63-74. doi:10.1016/j.system.2009.12.006
Lewandowski, L. J., Lovett, B. J., Parolin, R., Gordon, M., & Codding, R. S. (2007). Extended time accommodations and the mathematics performance of students with and without ADHD. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment,25(1), 17-28. doi:10.1177/0734282906291961
Lewandowski, L. J., Lovett, B. J., & Rogers, C. L. (2008). Extended Time as a Testing Accommodation for Students With Reading Disabilities Does a Rising Tide Lift All Ships?. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 26(4), 315-324. doi:10.1177/0734282908315757
Munger, G. F., & Loyd, B. H. (1991). Effect of speededness on test performance of handicapped and nonhandicapped examinees. The Journal of Educational Research, 85(1), 53-57. doi:10.1080/00220671.1991.10702812
Runyan, M. K. (1991). The effect of extra time on reading comprehension scores for university students with and without learning disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 24(2), 104-108. doi:10.1177/002221949102400207


Should I cite a paper when a sentence is not a findings of a research work but mentioned in the paper?

If you take others work then you need to cite it. Otherwise it is called plagiarism.


Second phd in top rank university but online.

Eversince I was student I had a dream of being in MIT, Stanford,
  Caltech or UC berkley. However, since I was neither genius nor rich, I
  was not able to do this. I even had a phd admission from USC but since
  it was partially funded I was not able to attend.

I do not agree that you need to be genius or rich to attend the mentioned schools. The brain functions exactly like muscles; the more you use it, the better it gets in learning. Please never try to divide human beings into dump ones and smart ones. Those people made it to the top ranked school because they tried/studied very hard and never gave up. Let's admit that you did not try/study as hard as they did. Honestly, people who go to MIT, Stanford, ... are humans just like us; let's not try to say that they come from another world.

You said that you did your Phd at a good university and you also work at a good university. If I were you, I would not go to those schools for a second Phd but instead I would try very hard to succeed in my research/teaching so that I would be better than those who went to the top ranked schools. After all, once you are a successful researcher in your field, no one cares where you did your Phd and once you are in that position, then the top schools want you to work for them.


The advantages of Latin when studying mathematics and logic?

If you're interested in history of mathematics, then Latin would very likely be helpful; until the 18th century or so, most mathematics done in Europe was written in Latin.

For studying modern mathematics, Latin isn't so useful.  I'm a mathematician and have studied a little Latin, and it hasn't really been directly useful.  Sometimes it helps a little in understanding a word's roots, but not much beyond that.

On the other hand, I do fairly often need to read a paper in French; there's a signficant amount of current and recent mathematics research written in French.  However, this isn't too hard even though I've never formally studied French.  The vocabulary and language used in mathematical writing, while specialized, is quite limited.  And I know some Spanish, which is helpful in figuring out the grammar where needed.

So for mathematics, neither one is strictly needed, but given the choice I'd choose French.


Is it necessary to get permission if an article is to be summarized?

As you describe what you want to do, you wouldn't need permission. You need to avoid plagiarism by citing and you need to avoid copyright infringement by not over-quoting. But your description is probably safe.

In particular, for purposes of analysis and criticism the copyright laws (most places) are a bit more lenient than otherwise. These normally come under fair use rules. But only quote when necessary. But you can describe what the papers found and how they went about coming to their results.

But note that the law is variable.

But if you are using papers of living authors it might make your blog more interesting if you seek comment from the authors and incorporate those comments into the posts. That would need their permission, though.


Does the Americans With Disabilities Act require accommodations for students whose disability prevents them from behaving ethically?

Behaving unethically, at least as far as it requires or deserves sanctions, requires an element of choice. If the person had no choice, e.g. because of a disability, then sanctions are not called for.
It is probably my lack of imagination, but I cannot think of an disability that requires students to act unethically.
As to how the law views this: talk to a lawyer or the legal department, or equal opportunities department of your university.


Can I ask for a LOR from a teacher that didn't teach any of my classes?

The general rule when it comes to letters of recommendation is that you should not ask for a letter from someone who does not know you well.

In this particular case, it's not sufficient that the professor you want to ask knows you. It is more important that he knows your work well, and can comment on that to graduate schools regarding your potential as a future student in their program.


Nearly every school will have a different policy on buying out of teaching.

In the US, many universities have a breakdown of the position's time. For example, you may be hired to do 60% research, 20% teaching, 20% service. At some universities, this means the grants must cover the percentage of your salary that you are buying out of. At others, there is a flat buyout price (presumably the amount it costs to pay an instructor). Although, some also have requirements for a minimum number of courses you must teach per year (can't buy out).

You can also get a reduced teaching load through additional service (e.g, serving as graduate coordinator or department chair).


Is referencing a technical report in an improper format plagiarism?

No.  It's just poor citation writing.

[Assuming this is the only issue.  If I open the report and your paper and see bulk copying of prose, that is plagiarism.  But it still would be even if your endnote was properly written.]


What is the common dates to apply and then start a PhD in western Europe?

In most german institutions (and in Switzerland also I think) the PhD studies are completely independent of the semesters. New openings depend on when funding becomes available and you will mainly be an employee of the university, not a student.


Should I continue to work on a project I'm less interested in for publications?

Continue with your current focus, publish as much as possible for the next 1-2 years, and once you are more established with publications under your belt, pursue your passion subject full-time. It's best to view your current research focus as a "day-job", meanwhile developing your skills and reputation which will strengthen your ability to pursue the topics you find interesting.


How to find an editor
In the UK, there's the Society for Editing Professionals (SfEP) - get one of their members who meets the criteria for selecting an editor (below). This search for Advanced SfEP members in academic consultancy should give you a lead (disclosure: the editor I work with is on that list). If you're not in the UK, your country may have a similar organisation.
You could also try asking the journal publisher of your choice, as some now keep a list of recommended editors for pre-submission work.
Ask your peers for recommendations too.
If your employer has a department of Research Services or similar, they may be able to recommend someone.

How to select an editor
Here are some criteria for selecting an editor for pre-submission services, based on my own experiences of hiring technical editors over the last 7 years, and working with one as a publishing strategist too over the last year or two. These criteria are in no particular order - I recommend finding someone who meets all of them.

Someone with a good track record in technical editing / publishing. Everyone's got to learn some time, and so every new editor needs their first client. But you don't want to be that guinea pig, unless saving money or helping their career along is more important to you than getting the best result. Someone with a track record will already have thir editing-macros / tools and ready, and have streamlined their workflow.

A gamekeeper turned poacher. That is, someone who's been an editor on the post-submission side, working within journals. They'll know the rules and the etiquette from both sides. They may even have a helpful network at your target publisher.

Someone you can communicate clearly with: you'll only find this by actually doing it, at least via phone / skype / emails / tweets / whatever. Clear quick communication will save you money and give you a better result.

Someone who understands your speciality at least enough to get the gist of what's required. As a minimum, that means if you're in the humanities, you want someone from the humanities; if you're in sciences / tech / engineering / maths (STEM), you want someone with a STEM background.

Someone fluent in your writing medium. So if you write in LaTeX, you want someone fluent in that. Ditto for MS-Word, LibreOffice, whatever.

If you find might be using a good editor a lot, it's probably worth finding someone who you could develop a longer-term professional relationship with; in that case, pick someone who'd be able to help you develop your publishing strategy over time, too.


I am unable to reach one of my faculty member through email, phone call or even in person, what may I do?

Here are some ideas (from high to low priority / potential efficacy ):

Explain administrative stuff of the faculty your situation and ask for help. Maybe they know that he/she is abroad and will come soon. Or he/she is sick and will likely not be able to help you.
Find his/her students and explain your situation and ask for help.
Talk to some other faculty member asking whether he/she can help you to locate him.


Are there any examples of legal issues with academic fraud?

In the United States and many other countries, engineering and medicine have revocable licenses to practice with an exam as well as the degree requirement.  The same is true of other professions such as law and the CPA designation.  It is presumably difficult-to-impossible to pass the examinations without the knowledge required for the degree.

Practicing such a licensed profession without the requisite license is a criminal offense, at least usually, but it is the absence of the license rather than the academic fraud that's illegal.

Generally what happens to (unlicensed) people who claim degrees they do not have is they get fired for lying on resumes.  I suppose if one held oneself out to the public as having a certain degree and charged for practicing the skill implied by the degree, one could be charged with fraud.  In fact, what likely happens is a civil suit for non-performance.

On the other hand Frank Abagnale did get imprisoned for fraud, although I believe it was the bank fraud, financial fraud, and forgery that nailed him and not academic misconduct, even though he both claimed a non-existent Harvard degree and impersonated a physician.


How to obtain the files created by previous university researchers, both legally and physically?

Talk to an attorney or post your question here: https://law.stackexchange.com/
The files could still exist in a Univeristy network but you have not provided enough information to know for sure. Maybe someone here can help: https://security.stackexchange.com/
I would not keep sensitive personal information on a work computer and would have no grounds to compain if others later gained access to that data.
I see no ethical problem with recovering any and all files on the University netowork. Ethics regarding file recover the personal computer of the RA would depend on the ability to first obtain a court order to search it or demand the data in question is turned over in which case I see no ethical problem.


Second master's degree during doctoral program

To answer the first question asked: I can't think of a single pro to having two master's degrees in the same discipline. Even if the prestige of your second school is far greater than the first, this would be strange and I would imagine it would lead anyone reading your CV to wonder exactly what it was that you were doing with your time. Note: I think it would be generally considered unethical to leave one of your master's degrees off of an academic CV. Leaving it off of a resume of some other kind might be a bit different.

A con to getting the second master's is that, as you say, you would have to write a master's thesis. Presumably you have already done this (or something similar), so doing another one could be viewed as a waste of your time.

You may likely have to enter a complete list of your degrees on various applications in your life. The only reasonable [citation needed :)] interpretation of having two identical master's degrees from different schools is that you failed to finish a PhD at the second school (because the second institution would not have admitted you into a terminal master's program for a master's degree that you already had). Not finishing a PhD is not a particularly negative thing in and of itself, but you will probably be asked to talk about why you did not finish it.

On another note, your second university may not allow you to get a second master's in the same field. You do have to fill out paperwork for these things, and the paperwork may very well ask you to list your current degrees. It's possible your application for your second master's would be denied if they realize you already have the same degree.


What are characteristics of "high quality" graduate research as viewed by a hiring committee?

Ultimately quality is a judgement call that every reader gets to make.

For example, a paper in mathematics might be considered to be "high quality" to half a dozen people worldwide who happen to be interested in the main result of the paper (or other work). Especially if the question has been open for a while. But other mathematicians may just say "meh" because that result neither interests them specifically, nor advances their own studies.

Reviewers at journals and conferences need to be able to make such judgements and, generally, they do a good job and we respect those judgments when we find published papers. But not everything that is published is of high quality.

But, some of the criteria that reviewers and others will use are as follows.

Is the solution correct? And reproducible?

Is the problem long standing? Or does it break new ground?

Does it open new areas of research?

Is it novel in some sense? Or just an easy derivation from what is already known?

Could I have done this easily? Or does it surprise me in some way?

Is the result widely helpful to either researchers or society as a whole?

Note that all of the above are judgement calls and all imply some scale with, not interesting at one end and very interesting at the other.

But I think the real intent of what you have read, is that it is more important what you do in your research than the general reputation of the place in which you do it. Reputation is based on many things, not all of which are directly relevant to the quality of research. In particular some places that seem quiet generally may be hotbeds of ideas in some niche of some field.

And note that hiring committees may rely on the judgements of others, such as the work being published. They might also rely on just the judgements of writers of letters of recommendations if those writers themselves are in a position both to know and to be honest. But they might also, in some cases, rely on their own judgement. "Well, yes, this is interesting, but not interesting to us at this time."


How hard is to get a post-doc in the area of HEP-Theory?

Currently, yes, it is quite hard. Assuming you go on to get your PhD in some field of HEP theory, you'll graduate with a very specific skill set that qualifies you for maybe about 10 available postdoc positions in the entire world, of which perhaps 3 or 4 will be in the US. (Obviously these numbers vary by perhaps a factor of 2 year to year and from one specific subfield to another; take them only as rough estimates.) But there are typically hundreds of people applying to each of these positions, so in the absence of other information your chances of getting one are not good. If you do get a postdoc, then your chances of getting a tenure-track faculty job are lower by perhaps another order of magnitude.

That being said, high school is way too early to be planning your future based on the chances of getting a postdoc. In particular, the difficulty of getting a postdoc should not dissuade you from getting a PhD in high energy physics, if you decide that's what you want to do when you finish college. There are plenty of other things you can do with a PhD in physics, especially if you have supplementary skills like computer programming. And by the time you approach the end of graduate school, you'll have a better idea of whether you are more qualified for a postdoc than the average applicant.


Having sat (as a graduate student) on my department's admissions committee for two years, I can provide a few thoughts from my own personal experience.

First off, everyone has "good" references - it's very rare that a reference writer will say something negative or even something neutral. What sets apart the really good ones is that the writer can provide a specific, concrete anecdote that demonstrates an applicants skill set, attitude, previous successes, etc. So in that regard, knowing you the best probably trumps almost everything.

That said, having three letters from postdocs (none from professors), all of whom are in the same lab, is likely to make your letters somewhat redundant. If you worked with each of them on very different projects, or you know that they have very different things to say about you (in particular if they can speak to different aspects of your work or personality), this might make sense - but to have all three from the same place might be a bit much.

Not knowing anything else about your situation, it would seem that perhaps two letters from your current lab and one from a professor at your undergrad institution would be a reasonable balance.


Will my creating and hosting a popular online educational website improve my odds of admission to grad school?

First, I am neither Canadian nor a pharmacist, so take my advice for what it's worth.
From what I can tell, you website / seminar series is already well developed, has been used by many students, and is quite popular. I will not speculate what weight this will carry toward graduate admissions. But whatever this weight is, I suspect it will not change much if you put additional time/effort into further development. You already get credit for "having built an impressive educational website", so there is not much room for improvement in this area.
On the other hand, I would hesitate to say that any further work would be "a waste of money and time." It sounds like you are providing a great service to the community, learning a lot, and perhaps even having fun. It is unusual for "outreach" initiatives to be this successful, so I would not discourage you from continuing if you were inclined to do so.


How to negotiate multiple tenure-track offers

First and foremost, you need to become aware of your own preferences and requirements. Knowing that "both would be a good fit" is nice, but it isn't enough. You'll need to know what your preferred option is, and how much better the offer from the other institution needs to be to change your mind. As long as you don't have a pretty good idea about this, I am unsure what you are even negotiating for. This should also be informed by your initial offers. Don't forget that offers are not just salary, but also (and maybe more importantly) also include a startup package.

From then on, I suggest playing with open cards. Go to your second option and tell them that, while their place is great, you have an offer that you would prefer more. It probably does not hurt to tell them specifically which other offer you have, and why you prefer it (especially if the reason is something that can potentially be fixed, e.g., a better package). See if they make any motion to improve their offer. If they don't, go to your preferred option. If they improve their offer and it subsequently becomes preferable, you can also talk to the other offer to check whether they also agree to an upgrade of their offer.

After that, I would probably stop. One round of negotiation should not annoy anybody, but going back and forth between offers too much may leave a sour taste in the mouth of your future employer, and it seems unlikely that you will be able to increase your offer much more after the first round of negotiation anyway (at least that's what I have been told).

Some things to do:

Keep it professional. Negotiating your salary / package isn't dirty, but make sure that you are not getting greedy and/or ridiculous in your demands.
Don't let yourself be fooled by non-arguments. If, for instance, one institution justifies their weaker offer with internal arguments ("You would be making more than some Associate Professors here!"), you should be aware that this may or may not be true, but it is entirely irrelevant for your decision process. A weak offer does not magically get better for you because an institution cannot offer more for whatever reason.
For similar reasons, try to keep discussions on an objective level as far as possible. As soon as somebody starts to argue based on fuzzy factors ("Ok, we don't pay as much, but the research environment here is much better than over there."), negotiations tend to take a turn towards the personal. That is not to say that you should not take these factors into account (you most definitely should), but your actual negotiation arguments should be based on objective data (salary, package, travel grants, tenure conditions, etc.).
Never try to use an objectively worse offer to improve the already superior offer. That is, just having another offer is not enough to negotiate, you also need to be able to tell the people you are negotiating with (with a straight face) that the other offer is actually better for you. If you have one offer for 80.000 USD and one for 75.000 USD, the fact that you have another weaker offer helps you not at all to negotiate the 80.000 USD.


About multiple applications for graduate programs to the same school

This is a very good, but very difficult question. The problem is that there's no definitive answer here.

What we do know:

You turned down a previous offer. This is never helpful for future admissions at a given school.
You were not able to accept because you weren't qualified to start. So long as you clarified this with the school in question, this may be a mitigating factor.

What we don't know:

How the school evaluates candidates. Is it a "rolling" admissions process, in which candidates are considered year round, or is it done on an annual basis?

The last point is probably the most important. If it's a rolling admissions, and you were a high-quality candidate in the previous cycle, you'd probably have a good chance of getting admitted, provided you explain what happened and why you couldn't get in.

On the other hand, if the admissions process is done once a year, then you will have to compete against all of the other candidates in this year's pool. Then, it's not necessarily a given that you would get in having gotten in previously. If you were a "bubble" applicant last time, You may be below the "cutoff" given a different pool of candidates—or you could be a clear admit.


What does a plus sign mean in journal abbreviations?

Web of science doesn't explain it on the page you quote, but you can find it in another page with detailed explanation: "The plus sign on this last abbreviation indicates that cites to the original language journal are unified with cites to the translation title"

From here: http://wokinfo.com/essays/cited-title-unification/


Is it unethical for professional societies to offer conference discounts to members?

Typically the organizations that do this are professional societies. And, as you mentioned, they have many more activities than just running the conference, so having membership fees separate from conference attendance fees allow them greater flexibility to manage their accounts.

Some places allow membership fees to be paid out of institute funds (this depends on the country and the situation, of course). However, many countries also make such professional expenses tax-deductible (after a certain threshold). Obviously it doesn't recoup the full cost of the membership, but it's better than nothing.

However, one additional point to consider is that most such conferences require that at least one of the authors of a presentation to be a member of the society. (Sometimes, this requirement falls on the presenter herself.)


Check what's available to you as an alumnus of the university. Things available could include:

Alumni newsletters. This could include invitations to events in your local town.
An alumnus email address.
Subscriptions to certain software programs.

You will need to check to know what's available.


This is a well known problem - and depending on your personal situation you should consider getting professional help by a psychologist. It's not a shame and it might prevent further harm. They could assist as well in creating a step-by-step program.

If you are willing to handle the situation by yourself, you'll have to do "a few" things (which are a lot to do!):

Learn to say "no" to specific tasks. Do not accept any new assignments unless your papers are done.
Figure out, why you are procrastinating - your mind has a reason for it and you should figure out what it is.
If the overall workload is too high, cancel some things forever. Eg. decide not to submit one of the "old" papers. How does this thought feel? Better or worse then the actual situation?
Go on step-by-step. Focus on finishing one of the old papers. Submit it. Take a break! Choose the next step of work.
If needed, be disruptive.

Take a longer break (e.g. 4 weeks of vacation)
Move your whole inbox to a subfolder "old" and never ever look at it - important mails will be re-sent.
...

If you are having a good relation with your supervisor(s), involve them in the process.


Is it appropriate to follow up on a faculty application?

You should keep in mind that the people running searches are busy academics who are doing this as service to the department. Checking-in aggressively — following your intuition for how this would work in business — will annoy and will be very unlikely to help. At the moment (early/mid- February), it is still early enough in some job markets that interviews have not been scheduled so asking for updates might be seen as pushy. I think it's unlikely that your chances will go down if you ask, but it still might be nicer to wait.

That said, there are many situations where contacting in normal and you might to do it through one of those channels:

For example, if you have another offer from somewhere with a deadline, it is normal — and a good idea — to contact other departments to let them know that you will have to move forward without them. I've had friends who have had interviews offers within hours of telling a department this.
Also, if you have updated material on your CV (e.g., a paper accepted, positions changed, an award, whatever) go ahead and send your updated CV. You can mention in that email that you're excited to hear about any updates from their search.

Contacting search committees in this context is normal and can signal that you continue to be very interested in a job. I was told by a search committee that ended up making an offer that they thought I might be unlikely to accept an offer and that one of these update emails rovided a useful signal. Of course, if they're not interested, emailing will probably just be noise and extra work for them.

I think that emailing or not-emailing is unlikely to tip the scale either way. They're going to make a decision based on the intersection of the quality of your work and what they're interested in having in their department. But out of kindness for the work of the search committee and its chair, try to do it as little as possible.


Is ethical approval needed for online studies?

The answer to the question "do we need ethical approval for X study" is ALWAYS yes.  The format is irrelevant.  Your institution's ethics review committee will have a category for "minimal or no participant risk" which will often have fewer detailed requirements for submission in instances such as the one you describe.

Nevertheless, the issue is about /independent/ assessment of ethical research.  Even when you believe your study guarantees /zero/ risks, you must have an independent panel validate your method.


Should I use schema.org/CreativeWork to publish my list of talks/papers/publications?

Using machine-readable vocabulary like schema.org is generally a good way to allow people and non-humans to re-use the information you supply on the web. For example, this will make it easier to process your publication data and get a formatted, database-like normalized list out of it.

One might think that search engines use schema.org vocabulary to analyze your website and hence make it better visible on the web. However, what search engines do is somewhat a black box (in the sense that something is happening in there, generating output from user-driven input, but the algorithm inside is not known in detail).

If you would like to reach a better visibility on the web for your publications, you might also like to consider using ORCID which is based on linked-data principles, widely known and used in library and information services - and some research funding institutions are starting to require complete ORCID profiles to be submitted with proposals anyway.


How should one proceed when they receive no job offers after a considerable amount of applications?

It certainly does happen. And when it does happen, people tend to leave academia for a job in industry, commercial sector, retail, etc.

Unfortunately, the current culture of academia still tends to focus on success stories and turns a blind eye to unlucky candidates, almost treating them as they never existed. Your supervisor's response falls is this sad mainstream paradigm.


Strange experience in R&D / Research assistant post. Is this a red flag?

First of all, your supervisor should be principally responsible for accounting for funding. The brunt of reporting the results for funding purposes is not on your shoulders. (This does not mean that you will not be asked to help in the reporting process).

Because it is hard for us to know what the parameters of your position and funding are, it is relatively difficult to gauge what types of results you were supposed to get and/or report on. Surely you documented the work that you did on the project? Can your own/your professor's actual work not be reported on? Simply report what you did to the funding agency. Joint ventures can be messy and academia and industry focus on different work strategies and outcomes. Report to the funding agency what your end did on the project. That is what they will be looking for. You either produced results and work or you did not. That is what the funding agency will likely care about.

Based on my topical understanding of your situation, it sounds like you participated in a joint venture with an industry partner and they developed a solution independently from you. Are they contesting that you helped? Are they part of your funding? Not knowing these aspects of the arrangement and outcomes, it is difficult for me to provide specific guidance on any issues that may arise from such an arrangement.

As a piece of holistic advise for future research with industry partners, make sure that there are actual detailed contracts produced before engaging in any joint research. (This may not be your duty as a research assistant, of course). If you professor does not have any sort of contract, communications, or documentation of your joint work with the industry partner then he muffed pretty badly here. (Although, again, as an RA, this in not your job and you should not really be blamed for possible failures on the part of your supervisor).

Ultimately, this situation sounds like it may be your professor's job to lead the way in handling legal and reporting outcomes. No quality professor will throw the legalities and finances of a joint venture project at the feet of a research assistant.


Applying for post-doctoral fellowships whilst writing PhD thesis

I would like to start applying for post-doctoral fellowship but I am still writing my thesis, is that acceptable?

Yes, assuming you can plausibly start on time. Starting a bit late is also largely acceptable.


Career Paths for Mathematics and Physics

For grad school applications, after making it through GRE cuts, the biggest decider will be the research that you've done. You'll want to develop programming skills in multiple languages, even if they don't cover them in class. For math and physics, MATLAB, Mathematica, and R are the most commonly used languages. If you don't find any research opportunities at Toronto, look for REU programs in the summer elsewhere. A math/physics degree can get you into grad school for math, physics, all manner of engineering (I went from astrophysics to aerospace engineering), chemistry. There are probably others as well.

Outside of grad school, the options are pretty varied. Again, if you can program that will open many more doors. My friends from undergrad in physics went on into banking/economics, General Electric, CERN, Seagate, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, the air force, and NASA. The majority, however, went to grad school. That keeps all those former options open, but also opens up the academic track (becoming a professor or a research scientist at all kinds of places like NIST or NOAA, but there are hundreds).


How can I hire a professor to write a research paper?

Yes, some professors are available for consultancy work. Find one or two in your specialty, and approach them: some universities have directories of experts listed by subject, to help you identify suitable researchers. You'll find they're typically lower-priced than the equivalent grade of management consultant, as well as doing better work.

However.

Though you're paying the piper, you won't be calling the tune (with the exception of a handful of rogues).

Which means that they'll publish what they find. It is highly likely that there will be some of it you don't like, which will mean you won't want to publicise the final report. They will write one or more papers based on what they've found, and if the university's legal team has done its job properly, you'll have no say in the content of those papers, nor how the university promotes them, so it will be out of your control.

If you want to learn something about your industry from an academic angle, you will get your money's worth, subject to real data being available. Academics are sometimes able to get access to information that others could not, precisely because of the pressures on them to remain independent and treat data impartially. However, the fact that you're funding them may impair their access.

Do bear in mind that an academic will typically put a lot of work into describing the uncertainties: so on first skim, the impression you'll get from the report is that it mostly says "we don't know this, and we can't know that; there are indications of those. More research is required". The report may take some digesting, as a lot of academics are very experienced at writing, but surprisingly few write lucidly and accessibly.

If you're looking for promotional material, this really is the wrong tack.


How does the community decide whether to name a model/theorem after an author?

There is no concrete way that I know of to determine the name of a model or theorem. In the past the following methods seem to have applied:

The author calls it something to refer to it and then it gets famous and everyone else uses that name.
The author doesn't name it but just talks about the subject and the idea through multiple papers. The papers become famous, and people start referring to it as "The Auther's Blank."
The author comes up with an idea based on previous work, and in crediting the inspirational work, ends up calling it "Original Author's Special Idea" which then is how other people refer to it until said name becomes common.

While I personally believe that naming it after yourself is bordering extreme hubris a bit too much for my own comfort, I imagine that it's tough to refer to some nameless idea. My suggestion would be to give the specific model a name that doesn't use your name. This will emphasize the fact that it needs a name and that you're not some narcissist trying to name everything after yourself. Then, if the model proves useful, others also have a convenient name for it -- preferably something close to what you referred to it as in the original paper.

For example, if I were writing that, my reference to the model would be something like: "In the 2010 paper _______, Doe [and the other authors attributed fairly] put forth the model ____, termed  for brevity." Then I would describe the model and how it relates to the work.


What to do when another researcher used my results without credit in a science documentary?

I agree with your former advisor: let it slide...published information can be used by anyone in documentaries...[they] cannot cite everyone, perhaps even anyone, as this is not interesting, moreover, it's distracting. This applies not only to documentaries, but most manuscripts outside of academic publishing, e.g., textbooks, company reports, magazine articles, ... (That said, authors should ideally be able to produce sources.) Bask in the glory of having your work included, mention the media coverage on your CV, on your web page, in future research papers, etc.


What do all the numbers mean in a pubmed shorthand citation?

There are two parts to the citation that you gave.  The first part is an abbreviated citation:

  Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2008;1129:323-9

"Ann N Y Acad Sci." is an abbreviation for "Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences" which is a journal published by the New York Academy of Sciences.  2008 is the year of publication, 1129 is the volume number and 323-(32)9 are the pages of the volume containing this particular paper.

The second part

  doi: 10.1196/annals.1417.017

is a "Digital Object Identifier", which is a standardized unique number for the publisher's online version of the paper.  The DOI isn't supposed to have any particular meaning other than as a key that can be used to lookup a particular paper.  In this case the publisher has chosen to include "annals" (short hand for the journal title) as part of the DOI, but that's not really required.

The DOI system is maintained by an organization called CrossRef.  Publishers pay a fee for membership in the organization and are given a part of the DOI name space in which they can assign identifiers.

CrossRef maintains a central database which keys off of these DOI numbers.  The central database contains the metadata (journal title, article title, authors, etc.) for this paper, along with a link to the publisher's copy of the paper.  If this metadata changes for some reason (e.g. an authors name was misspelled) the metadata can be updated in the database.  More importantly, if the publisher rearranges its website at a later date and moves the online copy of the paper to a different URL, they can update this link while leaving the DOI unchanged.

You can go to

http://crossref.org/

and enter a DOI to find the metadata about the corresponding article.

You can also use a link like

http://dx.doi.org/10.1196/annals.1417.017

to refer to the article.  When a web browser accesses this link, it will be redirected to the current location of the paper based on the record in the crossref database.