Should edited, multi-author undergraduate textbooks have many in-text citations?

My view is that in-text citations to relevant, pedagogical references are very useful.  Introduction to Electrodynamics by David J. Griffiths is an excellent example.

  Are citations necessary in this case as for any other academic work?

Yes.  They are still an ethical obligation, but they might not be in-text.

  Or do citations interrupt the smooth reading of the text for undergraduates?

Obviously yes, but in my opinion that is unimportant.

  Or are they less necessary (or less numerous) because the authors are experts?

The identity of the author is irrelevant to the ethical obligation to cite prior work.


What you should expect, unfortunately, is a lot less attention and recognition than you expect.  Most journal papers don't result in invitations to speak at conferences, and most conference talks are given to fairly small audiences.
If and when you do speak, you'll probably get a lot of questions along the lines of:

"I'm sure you aren't getting as good a result as you think you are."
"Isn't this really the same idea that Dr. Neverheardofem published in 1995?"
"I've completely misunderstood what you said and would like to argue with you about it."
"This is a neat idea, but isn't it much less important than the things that I care about?"

Try not to take it too hard: this is just the inevitable process by which ideas get challenged, and the better that you are able to respond reasonably and constructively, the better your idea will actually be received.


Declining funded MA offer A (after accepting) and accepting funded MA offer B after April 15th?

To answer your questions:

1.

  [O]ne offer was made after April 15th, and both deadlines were after April 15th: does the CGS still apply?

Yes, as is made clear in the webpage you linked to:

  However, an acceptance given or left in force after April 15 commits the student not to accept another offer without first obtaining a written release from the institution to which a commitment has been made. Similarly, an offer by an institution after April 15 is conditional on presentation by the student of the written release from any previously accepted offer.

2.

  [I]t says I need a written release: how and who do I ask for this release?

You should ask whomever it was you've been corresponding with about graduate admissions.  In particular, when you accepted an offer you probably signed a document written by a faculty member (e.g. the director of graduate studies in the department).  This is the person you should contact as soon as possible.

As to the how: you should clearly and politely explain your situation, explain that you would like to get a written release to attend University B, and ask if that will be possible.  In particular you should explain the part about B's offer coming with a 66% tuition refund rather than a 30% tuition refund.  If that financial difference is significant or critical to you, say so, but don't exaggerate the financial hardship.

  [H]ow likely is it to get such a release?

Well, I have not directly experienced this situation.  But I am the Graduate Coordinator of my department (mathematics, UGA), so I can tell you what I would do: I would release the student from their commitment unless the student's reneging would damage the program and/or the department in a specific, serious way.  (For instance, maybe if we enroll N-1 students instead of N, then we cannot run any courses for first year students.  In my department this is a far-fetched scenario, but it gives you an idea of the amount of harm that could possibly be caused by a reneging student under exactly the wrong conditions.)  On the one hand, I would understand that you would rather attend a significantly better program and pay much less tuition: so would I, and so would anyone.  On the other hand, I would understand that your "commitment" to my program can't possibly be binding for more than one semester (indeed, more students drop out in their first semester than at any other one time), and that if you don't get a release you might be spending most of your time in my program planning your escape.  Neither of those things would be good for either of us.

  So far, I have not accepted B, but I really really want to.

As we established, you absolutely cannot accept B's offer while you have already committed to another offer.  That is wholly unethical and dishonest.  You should think a bit more and come to a state where you do not "really really want to" do something so unethical that it could jeopardize your future academic career.

The CGS resolution is not a legally binding document; it's a directive.  So even if you do not get a written release from University A, it would be possible to inform them unconditionally that you are declining their offer.  If you do that without informing B about it, then you risk making a bit of a mess later on when A and B each find out what happened (as is very likely; the academic world is not that large).  So the minimally ethical action that doesn't clearly shoot yourself in the foot is to inform B that you will decline A's offer to accept theirs conditional only on this being acceptable to B.  But as I said above, I strongly advise you to seek a written release from A.

  I know there is a serious ethical issue with accepting and later declining, thus taking another student's spot, but I saw no other way because of the university A reply deadline.

You need to understand that A gave you the deadline it did because it is trying to act honorably in its dealings with a large number of students.  So I deny the slight implication here that A did something wrong or put you in a particularly difficult position: it sounds like it played the game honorably.  So you should seek to do the same.  To be sure, getting a written release from A would be honorable behavior in this circumstance, so you shouldn't feel hesitant to ask for it.


First of all, I do not like the tone of your question (no offense). It seems like you are having a personal vendetta with those authors, which is a) silly b) unjustified (they did not anything to harm you personally) c) counterproductive for your purpose of publishing your work.

Let's summarize some facts:

  However they claim to be state-of-the-art

Either they are or they are not. If this paper is not the state-of-the-art, you should compare your work against the "true" state-of-the-art. If they are considered the state-of-the-art by the community, you should acknowledge that fact. In fact, if this paper has obvious disadvantages, this is even better for you, since it will be easier to show why your approach is better.

  they did some things which basically amounts to cheating their scores

You are probably exaggerating. Some kind of overselling results is normal, but you are implying malpractice, which is not that common. So, tone it down and try to express a cold, neutral and objective evaluation of the other paper, with lots of arguments and experiments that back your opinion in your paper. Also, when you are objective and not trying to trash the other paper, reviewers will buy more into your argumentation. Also, consider that the authors of this paper might also be: a) your future reviewers b) your future collaborators c) your future employers. So, treat your "opposition" with respect. This makes it easier for them to treat you with the same respect and more easily acknowledge and digest the fact that your method is better and their method is worst (they are after all a part of the same community), which makes future collaborations easier and improves your visibility.

  As part of the introduction of a paper I want to write some critique
  on previous research

Critique is not a motivation. You should first discuss the problem, why it is important, very briefly what previous methods have done on this problem and then you say very briefly and in a very neutral way the shortcomings of previous methods (not just this one paper but all that have come before) and why your work will be better. Then you slightly augment this argumentation in the related work section (about their shortcomings) again neutrally. It is your experiments section that needs to truly show why your method is better and how much better it performs, only after very thorough and exhaustive experiments that will overcome every reviewers' doubts.

TL;DR. Keep your critique short, neutral and objective. There is not need to be humble about the advantages of your method but that does not need to be by trashing previous works.


Can referees publish in the journals they are responsible in?

Your question is really two: reviewers and editorial board members.

Reviewers are peers reviewing other peers papers, or put differently and in very general terms, everyone reviews each other's manuscripts. Reviewers are not a professional occupation tied to a journal. This means that a reviewer is just as much welcome as an author as the author who was reviewed.

When it comes to editorial board members they are (of course with a few exceptions in a few, probably wealthy, journals) also scientists just like anyone submitting to the journal. They are as such not prohibited to submit manuscripts to the journal in which they serve. It is of course important that the editor's manuscript is edited by someone else. Even this may seem poor to many but if one takes an opposite stance and view it from the journal's side, having editors sneaking in papers at will will not reflect well on the journal so for no other reason, self preservation keeps most from doing so.

As an editor for a journal I would be very hesitant to submit to "my" journal but at the same time, if the field is narrow and possible publications venues are few then the choices may not be overwhelming and publishing in the "own" journal may be the only possibility. It is not fair to think of editors as pariah and person's who should be banned from communicating their science. It is just important that they can and that it is done in such a way that they receive the same treatment as any other submitting author.


How can one learn from poor teaching evaluations?

Ben Norris's answer is excellent but I would add one additional point to it. When you are asking for constructive feedback from the students, you must do so in a way that students feel completely comfortable that their honesty is not going to come back to bite them.

At the end of every semester, I email all of my students a web-based survey with some open and some closed questions specifically so I can get their honest opinion. Again, the key is that all responses are anonymous. I believe if I asked them to email me (not anonymous) I would get nothing but praise, which does not help me improve at all. While I do still get many positive comments, there are usually some small gems in there which help me improve.


Job prospects in case of an unwelcoming mentor

Having a strained relationship with his past mentors (both PhD and postdoc) is definitely going to put Jim at a disadvantage on the job market.  But that doesn't mean he has no chance at finding a decent faculty position.  Here's what I would recommend.  This is aimed at looking for faculty positions in the US, where recommendation letters are mandatory and crucial; hiring practices in other countries are different.

Ask directly.  Worrying that the supervisor won't send letters or won't write a strong letter is pointless.  Jim must ask his supervisor directly, in person, face to face, if they are willing to provide a strong letter of recommendation.  He should also make it clear that to simplify their work and preserve his sanity, he will provide a mechanism to track letter requests (see next).  If the supervisor agrees, Jim should immediately send email confirming the agreement.
Track letter requests.  Jim should provide an online spreadsheet (via Google Docs, for example) that lists all the positions Jim has applied to, one per row, with contact information and deadlines, and a column for each reference.  Then references can indicate in their column which letters they have sent and when.  Tracking not only relieves Jim's uncertainty; it also drastically simplifies the job of his references.  It also provides a public shaming mechanism, since Jim and all his references can see who has or hasn't sent which letters.  (This is not just a suggestions for Jim; everyone on the academic job market should do this.)
Use a letter service like https://www.interfolio.com/ or https://academicjobsonline.org/ , which allow applicants to track the status of letter requests, and provide interfaces for references to upload confidential (generic) letters and for departments to retrieve them directly.  Again, this both lowers stress for the applicant and simplifies the work of the references.  Not all departments trust these services—some people prefer to communicate directly with references—so this can't be the only tracking mechanism.  On the other hand, some departments actually require using these services, so Jim may as well use them anyway.
Double-check with departments. If Jim is really worried that his supervisor is lying when he says he's provided the letter, he should ask a few departments to confirm that they have received all their requested letters.  Not all will reply, and some departments may be vague (because they need to keep confidential whether they've requested letters at all, or which of your N references they've asked), but enough will reply that Jim can either rest easy or know for sure that his supervisor is a dishonest jerk.  (In that case, Jim should update the tracking spreadsheet to indicate which letters were "sent" but not actually received.)
Find good references from the research community.  Since Jim already has several years of postdoc experience and a nontrivial publication record ("one paper per year in a high-rank computer science conference or journal"), he is already known in his research community through his work.  At this point in his academic career, most of Jim's references should not be supervisors, coauthors, or other faculty at his previous institutions they should be arms-length experts in his field who can give an independent evaluation of his research record.  Jim should ask for letters from experts who have given him positive feedback in the past, either by citing and building on his work, or by offering supporting comments in person at conferences.  (Ideally, Jim started cultivating these outside experts as potential references when he was still a PhD student, but better late than never.)  Remember that a normal part of asking for references is asking for suggestions for where to apply.
Have more references than required.  Most US departments ask for three recommendation letters.  Under normal circumstances, I'd suggest finding at least four references, so if someone doesn't reply you have a backup.  If Jim is worried that some references won't actually send letters, he should find five.  (That said, some departments only allow applicants to specify three references, or only request letters from the first three of N the applicant provides, so it's important to prioritize.)
Apply broadly. The application process is random; crudely, the most lottery tickets you buy, the more likely you are to win.  Not having a letter from his most recent survey would be a red flag, but that just lowers the chances of any particular application panning out.  Jim can counter that effect by applying to more positions.

  What incentives could cause a previous mentor to actually send a reference letter rather than simply replying "done" or moving the request to the trash bin?

Professional embarrassment.  After all, your other references will know that he agreed to write letters for you.  Being known as a dishonest jerk will not be good for Jim's supervisor's career.

  Each proper job application for a tenure-track position takes Jim a couple of full working days, so he is not wishing to invest his time into something which is doomed to fail.

It really shouldn't take that long, at least for tenure-track positions at US research universities.  Most of the successful faculty applications I see (in 15+ years on my department's hiring committee) are at most minimally tailored to my department, except possibly for the cover letter (which almost nobody reads).  In particular, the CV should be a complete record, and therefore identical for every application except possibly for order: research first for research-focused positions, teaching first for teaching-focused positions.  The research and teaching statements should confidently focus on Jim's accomplishments and vision.  Uploading the documents should only take a few minutes.


How to cite "obvious" things or make them credible?

There are two claims here, one about increasing reliance on electrical energy, the other about the information age. You can operationalize both and look for data that supports the claim. The first claim can be operationalized  as electricity consumption (worldwide or in the OECD), over time. There's data published, for example, by the international energy agency. The second claim can be operationalized as growth in petaflops, available computers or smartphones per household, people having internet access, you name it.

Another, rhetorically nicer but less scientific, at least less scientific-sounding, approach to 'proving' the obvious is to use telling and vivid examples:

  When a large-scale electrical storm  went through northern Virginia on
  29 June, electrical load in one of more than 10 Amazon data centers in
  the region failed to successfully transfer to generator backup.
  Uninterruptible power supply (UPS) serving that particular circuit
  eventually ran out of battery power and servers began losing power
  around 8pm PDT. This caused service interruptions for many online
  businesses -- including popular ones like Netflix and Pinterest
  (liberally quoted from here).

Also, there is this IEEE paper on worldwide energy needs of information technology.


Do I have to tip the bartenders and hotel staff, when a U.S. University hosts an event for researchers?

It is typical for catering contracts to include some sort of 'service fee' that serves like a 'tip', and you can assume that the staff are paid a better base wage than tip-supported employees typically are. Even regular restaurants often have a non-optional 'tip' added on for larger parties (thresholds vary but "8 or more" seems common).

That said, employees in these businesses are not high-income earners, and probably make less total take-home pay per hour than their tipped equivalents (bartending, especially, can be a relatively lucrative position in the service industry at the right venue).

If you appreciate their service, if they do something above and beyond, if you're in a generous mood, or if the cost makes you feel less awkward, feel free to tip; it won't seem like you are throwing money around or anything negative like that.

If you don't have cash and especially if you aren't asking for anything special, you can have a clean conscience that you haven't committed a faux pas by not tipping in this circumstance.


Is seeking co-advising encouraged during Ph.D?

It is perfectly okay to have a co-adviser from another department. Econometrics and statistics are very close areas and often students pursuing PhD in Economics and Industrial Engineering (such as Reliability Analysis) have co-advisers from Statistics.

Often acceptance of an applicant in the program differs from department to department. However, you may mention an intention for collaborating with statistics department in the research statement. Also, if you do things appropriately you may have scope to get into the statistics department as a PhD student and pursue your research in light of economics. In other words, you may have greater chance of getting into the university as a PhD student. You may have to inquire about the possibility with the Statistics department. I guess you have good background in both statistics and economics so this seems to work out for you.


Subtle (and not-so-subtle) humor in scientific literature

I see humorous titles in scientific articles now and again, like the "Wizard of Odds" joke in a recent commentary in Epidemiology. One should however be somewhat cautious. The general use of "marketing gimmicks" like questions in the title have been suggested to increase downloads but not actual citations - which flawed or not flawed form the basis for how both the paper and you as the author are evaluated.

Consider this finding:

  The results of the current study indicate that in two prestigious scientific journals in psychology the use of exceptionally amusing titles (2 standard deviations above the average rated amusement) was associated with a substantiate ‘penalty’ of around 33% of the total number of citations. The present results were found in both of the examined journals and cannot be attributed to potential moderating effects of the title length and pleasantness, the number of authors, the year of publica- tion, and the article type (regular article vs comment).

While that might not be perfectly generalizable, I think it's pretty easy to say that being overly clever is hazardous.


Which e-mail address should I give for a recommender in an application?

I know some universities that prefer email addresses that demonstrate the university affiliations of your referees, so that they know the letters will actually come from the listed referees rather than the student pretending to be the referees with a free gmail account. If the referee has multiple university affiliations, then I would recommend the one associated with the university in which you and the referee became acquainted with each other. For example, if you did an internship with a professor at university B, even though the professor holds a tenure position at university A as well, it is better to use the email address of university B in such a situation.

Of course, some professors do not use the mail account provided by the universities, and thus you should consult with your referee first to make sure that you give the email address that the referee actually checks.


Authors' names and links while submitting for a double-blind review

I found the Elsevier Double-Blind Peer Review Guidelines helpful, however, this is somewhat journal/conference specific. Some of the not obvious points from that guideline include:

Besides the obvious need to remove names and affiliations under the title within the manuscript, there are other steps that need to be taken to ensure the manuscript is correctly prepared for double-blind peer review.  To assist with this process the key items that need to be observed are as follows:

Use the third person to refer to work the Authors have previously undertaken, e.g. replace any phrases like “as we have shown before” with “… has been shown before [Anonymous, 2007]” .

Make sure figures do not contain any affiliation related identifier

Do not eliminate essential self-references or other references but limit self-references only to papers that are relevant for those reviewing the submitted paper.

Cite papers published by the Author in the text as follows:  ‘[Anonymous, 2007]’.

For blinding in the reference list:  ‘[Anonymous 2007] Details omitted for double-blind reviewing.’

Remove references to funding sources

Do not include acknowledgments

Remove any identifying information, including author names, from file names and ensure document properties are also anonymized.

You might consider attaching a static copy of your code as an anonymous appendix directly to your submission.


How to search for upcoming conferences for Hardware Architecture?

WikiCFP does have an option to filter by subject: go to the "Categories" option and you will find a list of keywords such as "Computer Architecture" that will give you listings of all of the CFPs in that subject.


Why do universities take weeks to produce an official transcript?

The simple answer is that an official transcript is a legal document and hence the bureaucratic procedures that are implemented to get them to students favor making sure they are above suspicion rather than expediency. That underlying rationale can be the cause of such a variety of specific reasons for it to take so long that I don't think any more specificity would apply universally.


If you have broad interests, should you describe a narrow research topic in statement of purpose anyways?

Why not do both?
The value of a narrow statement is to show that you are capable of focus and thinking deeply about a subject.  In fact, if one makes it too narrow, then it can exclude you from projects you would like because people think you won't be interested.

So you might formulate your statement as follows:

Start by expressing your broad interests and the accomplishments that you have made in the past.  For a Masters, it's more important to illustrate that you were able to build complex things than that those thing were novel.  Your breadth will be good here.
Shift to looking toward the future.  Express your desire to be doing something novel and intellectually significant. Then say, "For example, one thought that I have considered ... " and give a narrow statement focused on something that you think would be new and significant.  Just make it clear that it is a possible direction rather than something that you are committed to.


Should I ask for a LOR from my future Master's Supervisor?

I would ask them now if they could imagine writing a letter, either now (outlining the reasons why they took you as a student), or close to Dec 1st.  But I would phrase it in a way where it is clear that you don't expect them to do it, since they don't know you well yet.  This way, your prospective supervisor can choose whatever they prefer - either they are happy to do it, or they will tell you that they can't judge you sufficiently well and that you should ask someone else (this is what I would do).
What I wouldn't do is to wait until close to the deadline and ask them then - first, if they say so you have to find someone else within a very short time (and most people don't like this, understandably), and second, this might come across as some kind of blackmailing ("I need your letter, since now it is to late to get someone else's").
In any case, good luck with your application.
(P.S.: As always, adding context about the country/region in which you are doing your master and in which you are applying can help you to get more tailored answers.)


Should I tell my advisor that I have an autism spectrum disorder?

As you propose, this has an obvious helpful component.

What's a possible down-side? Well, medical/personal issues are protected information (thinking about the U.S., at least), and in most situations anyone else in whom you've confided is not allowed to disclose anything about it to anyone else. We can see the sense in this. However, it does sometimes create a burden and/or awkwardness, insofar as the people in whom you've confided are prohibited from using what they know to explain any questionable actions on your part to anyone else...

The operational point, then, is to pay attention to any close interactions with people outside your immediate group, in whom you've confided, that might generate a need for explanation.


Should a postdoc talk about his depression with his mentor?

I'm a tenured faculty member with chronic depression. Even though one of the flareups was in my early twenties, I didn't tell anyone in graduate school. Because of the stigma involved, I'm  unsure even now whether I would advise telling your advisor about this unless you were absolute sure that he would be receptive. The worst case is that he could view you as less than capable and won't push you when he should. Even now (when I'm relatively open about this), I have  used the gloss of personal or family issues when going through particularly difficult times.

But you should also not struggle alone. Your school should have mental health services. There may also be an ombudsman for student affairs. You may also find many of your peers also have mental health concerns. Create a strong support network for yourself.

I also agree with one of the commenters that depression is a chronic condition. I've had several severe bouts through my 20 year career -- and moments when the sun came out and everything felt great. I no longer hold the illusion that any sunny period will last and that I'm free of depression forever. The OP should also plan on what they will do if their depression is chronic, pharma-resistant, or remitting.  That being said, I believe that some aspects of academia are good for people with depression (flexible schedules and being able to work from home for some of us) although there are obviously a lot of negatives as well (toxicity in some departments, incessant deadlines, stress before tenure, contingent employment etc.).


Are My Interests More Suited for PhD in CS or Mathematics?

After doing some research on the Web, it seems to be the case that my interests fall into the field of theoretical computer science and discrete mathematics.

Yes, I agree.  Moreover these fields have substantial overlap, and your interests lie safely in this intersecting region.  You could plausibly attend either program, and the post-PHD opportunities and career trajectories would be very similar.

One way to think about the decision is that the differences between a math program and a CS program will be more cultural and incidental.  In a US PhD program there are going to be a lot of required components besides your thesis work.  If you attend a math PhD program you will be required to take courses and pass qualifying exams in areas of mathematics somewhat removed from your stated research interests: e.g. I don't know any math PhD program in which you would not have to take graduate level analysis, including measure theory.  Similarly, in a CS program you're going to have to take coursework and pass exams on non-theoretical, non-cryptographic computer science.  Which of these sets of requirements sounds better to you?

If it's really a coin flip, then I would argue in favor of breadth and diversity of skills.  At a certain point you have to specialize, but all other things being equal, I find basic knowledge more useful: it is so much easier to learn more about something than to get a first, rudimentary clue.  Your undergraduate career gave you training in many theoretical areas of mathematics that are not directly related to your current research interests: great!  Now give yourself the advantage of getting some broad training in CS topics as well.

Anyway, it ought to be clear from this answer that I think there is no bad choice.  Good luck!


While mathematics is not my area of specialization, I think that in your question you are making a general and IMHO wrong assumption about the importance of the name, appearing in the "et al." construction. Essentially, this construction is used only for the purposes of convenience (brevity for readability) and not for implying the amount or importance of work, performed by any of authors.

When people see the "et al." citation, I am pretty sure that decent scientists immediately refer to the full citation in a reference list in order to obtain full information on all authors of a paper in question. Therefore, I believe that the "problem" that you have described in your question is really an artificial one, which exists only in your imagination (due to the incorrect assumption, mentioned above).


How to cite R packages when using Mendeley?

Each R package has a different way to be cited. Some were formally published as scientific articles in journals, some only as packages. The only way to know for sure is to check how the package maintainer want you to cite their package, with function citation.
Base R also comes with function toBibtex that help you export the correct citations as a bibtex file.

For instance:

> citation("Rcpp")

To cite Rcpp in publications use:

  Dirk Eddelbuettel and Romain Francois (2011). Rcpp: Seamless
  R and C++ Integration. Journal of Statistical Software,
  40(8), 1-18. URL http://www.jstatsoft.org/v40/i08/.

  Eddelbuettel, Dirk (2013) Seamless R and C++ Integration with
  Rcpp. Springer, New York. ISBN 978-1-4614-6867-7.

  Dirk Eddelbuettel and James Joseph Balamuta (2017). Extending
  R with C++: A Brief Introduction to Rcpp. PeerJ Preprints
  5:e3188v1. URL
  https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.3188v1.

To see these entries in BibTeX format, use 'print(<citation>,
bibtex=TRUE)', 'toBibtex(.)', or set
'options(citation.bibtex.max=999)'.

> toBibtex(citation("knitr"))
@Manual{,
  title = {knitr: A General-Purpose Package for Dynamic Report Generation in R},
  author = {Yihui Xie},
  year = {2018},
  note = {R package version 1.20},
  url = {https://yihui.name/knitr/},
}

@Book{,
  title = {Dynamic Documents with {R} and knitr},
  author = {Yihui Xie},
  publisher = {Chapman and Hall/CRC},
  address = {Boca Raton, Florida},
  year = {2015},
  edition = {2nd},
  note = {ISBN 978-1498716963},
  url = {https://yihui.name/knitr/},
}

@InCollection{,
  booktitle = {Implementing Reproducible Computational Research},
  editor = {Victoria Stodden and Friedrich Leisch and Roger D. Peng},
  title = {knitr: A Comprehensive Tool for Reproducible Research in {R}},
  author = {Yihui Xie},
  publisher = {Chapman and Hall/CRC},
  year = {2014},
  note = {ISBN 978-1466561595},
  url = {http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466561595},
}

As for importing bibtex files into Mendeley, I do not use Mendeley myself but this Q&A on TeX.se shows that one can simply use menu items "File > Import... > Bibtex (*.bib) " to do so.


What to do if assignment is against student's religion?

If you can make an accommodation that allows the student to participate

without violating his religious observance, and
without compromising the educational goals of the class, and
without requiring an extreme amount of effort on your part,

then it is reasonable to make the accommodation.

I regularly miss classes and exams due to religious observance. My school has a very clear policy on the matter:

If students have to miss a class session, exam, or are otherwise unable to participate in a course requirement due to religious observance, they must notify the professor and a certain dean in a timely manner (the definition of "a timely manner" is further specified in the policy)
If said student follows the above requirement, they cannot be penalized for their religious observance and the professor must offer a fair alternative (e.g., makeup exam or assignment)

If your university has no policy on the matter, feel free to adopt mine, and specify it in your syllabus at the beginning of the semester.

However, I would not take a class where I know the main requirement of a class would violate my religious observance. Indeed, I know people who have refrained from pursuing a career because a non-negotiable required class for that field would require something that violates their religious observance. *

So, if the course is Figure Drawing and someone registers knowing that he cannot draw the human figure... I don't think you are required to let him pass the class by doing still lives instead. If the course is Introduction to Art for Non-Majors, it may be possible to offer an alternative to the portrait assignment.

This applies more generally as well. If a student in good faith (i.e., not to get out of doing work) considers an assignment

illegal,
unethical,
compromising to his health/safety,
etc.

it seems reasonable to offer an alternative assignment if it does not compromise the educational goals of the course.

* See: Can a Kohen become a doctor?


Do my country and the standard of my supervisor affect the quality of my PhD?

The first point: working under the supervision of an effective researcher, is certainly one of the most important criteria, if not the most important criterion.

The second point, about the country where you work, is one that many people would like to discard. However, the following points need to be taken into consideration (especially since you have given the tag of "developing-countries"):

The quality of research facilities available. This is more important for some areas of research, like experimental sciences. There is no doubt that the developed world has, on average, much better facilties.
The quality of your co-students and general research atmosphere at the probable place of work in your country. This is actually quite important as you learn a lot from other young researchers, seniors and juniors. A good university will have a better atmosphere and such universities are most often in the developed world.
The extent to which your research will get global visibility. Some areas of research are not "global" as they tackle local problems. However, many scientific areas are "global". In such a case, it is unfortunate, but true, that the country of origin of your research does make a difference to the visibility it gets.

Having made all these points, there are plus points about carrying out research in your own country.

If you do well, it brings credit to the society which you are a part of and which had a big hand in making you who you are.
Research is difficult enough without adding the burden of finding your feet in a different culture and society.

Ultimately, you will have to weigh all these factors against the quality of research positions that you have available once the application process is complete. All the best.


Credit load for Grad courses vs Undergraduate courses for professors

AFAIK my faculty requires, over one academic year, two undergrad-level half courses, and one graduate-level half course ("half course" = one term, academic year has three terms). BUT, if one of the undergrad half courses is dual-listed as a graduate level half course, this counts for BOTH one of the undergrad-level half courses and the graduate-level half course. So, in theory, a professor could teach only two half courses and have it count for the three required.


Who should be first author? Theory person or Experiment person?

Shared first authors are listed alphabethically, at least that's what makes sense, otherwise they are not shared first authors!! I'd go with that no doubt.

From your comments I would say that your are the Experiment person, as you seem to be diminishing the role of the Theory person (he/she simply did so and so...).

From your description, the Theory person came up with the idea and guided the experiments, while the Experiment person simply run the experiments. As a general principle, I would tend to side with the Theory person (Peter's answer here seems to corroborate my view). I believe it also matters who is going to write most of the paper, which you do not mention.

However, as we are all a bunch of strangers on the internet, there's no actual way of knowing which is the case (the idea may be too simple or the experiment may be very complex, and so on...). The best thing to do would be to talk to your supervisor.

Most importantly, don't cling on unimportant details, as you already have a shared first-author status. Move on. This is the kind of meaningless thing that can ruin a scientific collaboration for good.


Should I explain a single bad grade in my personal statement?

There are really two parallel circumstances to consider here:

The grade is highly relevant to the program in question. In that case, you might need to address it, as someone will be focusing on that coursework in particular - partially because they will be relying on you knowing the content of that coursework, and with that grade it's hard to argue you do. Though in this case, it's also probably a good idea to strongly consider retaking the course. In this case, you might touch on the reasons, but that should be 1) Short and 2) Be a legitimate reason why this might not accurately reflect your abilities. "I didn't like the professor" is not that reason.
It's just a random class. 'Women in Medieval Art and Literature' and you're applying to a Microbiology program. 'Calculus 1' and you're applying to a Comparative Literature program. 'German 4' and you're applying for a Computer Science program. In this case, I wouldn't draw attention to it.


Examiner proof-reading master thesis before submission. Is this allowed?

Whether it is allowed depends on the specific regulations of your university, but your advisor proofreading your thesis and offering suggestions is quite common. I would consider not having a proofreading round to be lazy on the part of the advisor.
Keep in mind that the examiner can still have the initial reading influence the grade. Somebody who submits a perfect thesis that requires no corrections would usually get a higher grade than somebody who submits the same thesis after receiving detailed comments on how to improve it. The proofreading is part of the teaching process, and how well you implement the suggestions is part of the assessment.
What do you think is better from a didactical perspective?

Telling a student that they got a barely-passing grade because X and Y need to be improved

Telling a student that they could improve X and Y by doing Z, and having them do that before assigning a final grade

Clearly, the student will learn much more from option (2).


Germany PhD application: "Work Certificate"

German here.

I guess that's just a questionable translation of the standard German phrase Arbeitszeugnis (pl.: "-se"), Arbeit=work and Zeugnis=certificate, diploma.

In business, Arbeitszeugnisse would mean a collection of diplomae, plus (relevant) testimonials from your former employers, or qualification certificates.

In your case, it'll probably a small collection, maybe just the diploma. That's absolutely fine at this point of your career. But if you already happen to have some experience as a lab/teaching assistant, or have worked in a related industry branch during non-term, providing some evidence might be a bonus.


Can I use downloaded PDF English Language Course Books for teaching my students?

You'd have to check the license that should come with the files (assuming the distributor is on the right side of the law). Possibly you can, possibly you can't.

I'm assuming that there must be copyright laws prohibiting this, but then why would the books be available for free download?

Because there are pirates in the world.


Number of Papers for Doctor of Science (DSc)

Since not all papers are created equal, I don't think that there is any minimum number other than one. It might also depend a lot on your contributions to co-authored papers. It also depends on field and Physics isn't mine. Finally, it depends a lot on where you are. In the US it would likely be very different from UK or India, for example.

Note that some fields/places tend to award a doctorate over an accumulation of work over several years/papers/projects. Others, it is primarily awarded on a specific dissertation and little else but qualifying examinations.

But the way to know if you qualify or are able to move quickly to your goal, you will need to ask someone at a particular university in a particular place.


Should I mention future works in my SOP? (CS PhD Fall 2022 USA)

Yes. In fact, your SOP should be more forward-looking than backward-looking. Spend as much of it as you can discussing your future work, research ideas and how this department/professor in particular will belp you achieve those goals.


Should first introductory paragraph explicitly state the subject of the paper?

The purpose of the introduction is to focus in on the specific, and likely more narrow, topic of your research from a larger perspective. the "larger perspective" is the larger scientific problem to which your study is tied. Therefore you can start the introduction by briefly explaining the larger perspective followed by identifying the existing gaps in knowledge and gradually work towards your own question.

Many books on scientific writing compare the introduction to a funnel where the wider question is focused to the appropriate width of your research question. the main point is to set your study in a wider perspective so that you can tie your results into the gaps of the larger perspective. This helps readers to get a good perspective of your research and evaluate the results vis-à-vis existing knowledge.

Hence, your scenarios a and b look like a way to describe the writing strategy where in reality the two or three sentences usually requires one or a few paragraphs of text.


Stating a post doc research fellowship that I declined on my CV due to personal reasons?

I don't think there is a clear answer to this that would apply in all situations. There are both positive and negative aspects to it. Yes, you were awarded a nice position. Yes, you backed out. For some situations one or the other of these might be more important.

I'd suggest that for purposes of applying to a position you evaluate the situation and send a CV tailored to their needs. It may, in general, be safer to omit it if you think it might raise any questions. You can always bring it up in an interview later if you think it might be worth it.

But most employers will want some assurance that backing out isn't a habit. So, for a general CV visible to the masses, maybe a bit better to omit it.


My colleague *may* have forged data. Any advice?

Talk to your PI and/or colleague. It might be wise to start with something less confrontational than the "I think [Colleague] may have forged data", however. Maybe "hey, I still want to understand what was going on with that figure. Perhaps other figures might be affected too? What do you think?".

Best case scenario, there is a convincing answer that can calm your nerves. There are a whole slew of other worse possible scenarios that can follow from this discussion, but they're all better than finding out after publication that your suspicions were correct. As for the revision deadline, it can likely be extended if need be. It'd be up to the editor, but I imagine few prestigious journals would say no to a reasonable extension request to double check something important.


What are the arguments for "reviewers see each other's identities" conference reviews?

Historical reasons: Many conferences have switched to online PC discussions only recently, after having had physical PC meetings before. Since anonymity is not an option at physical PC meetings, a non-anonymous online discussion is closer to the experience of physical PC meetings.

Incentives for PC members. PC members do a lot of work without monetary compensation. There are some reputation-related incentives offered by a non-anonymous online discussion:

Junior PC members can "make themselves a name".
Senior PC members can prove that they are still good citizens of their community.
All PC members can get an impression of whom to invite and not to invite as reviewers for their own conferences and journals.


How to search for articles citing a certain combination of papers?

Do a search in proper websites, like Science direct. Also, have a look at the ranking of the journal the article was published in.


How do I get a citation dataset with full text articles in PDF format?

An alternative to arXiv mentioned in another response could be PubMed Central, specially if you are interested on text mining of papers in biomedical and life sciences research.


Are there any high profile cases of conflict of interest in research?

The manipulation of research and press coverage by the tobacco industry on the health effects of smoking would make an excellent case study (see e.g. Bero, 2005), not least as many leaked internal documents have come to light over the years which leave no doubt as to this having been a deliberate policy.

  One infamous internal memo from the Brown & Williamson tobacco
  company, typed up in the summer of 1969, sets out the thinking very
  clearly: “Doubt is our product.” Why? Because doubt “is the best means
  of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the mind of the
  general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy.”

-- The problem with facts, Tim Harford

Just one example would be the attempt to refute an influential Japanese study on the effects of passive smoking. The actual employees of the industry were left off the study to confer some distance ("ghost authors")

  The tobacco industry generated a study, the “Japanese spousal study,”
  in an attempt to refute the findings of a 1981 cohort study showing an
  association between secondhand exposure to tobacco smoke and lung
  cancer

  The parties involved in conducting the study
  included a tobacco industry scientist, a tobacco industry consultant,
  an industry law firm, and two Japanese investigators. The consultant
  was the sole author of the final publication

-- Hong and Bero (2002)

Interestingly, the picture is not completely negative, as Big Tobacco's policy of "distraction research" (funding unrelated research for good PR) led to some important high profile discoveries and Nobel Prizes.

  Prusiner is a neurologist. In 1972, he was a young researcher who’d
  just encountered a patient suffering from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
  It was a dreadful degenerative condition then thought to be caused by
  a slow-acting virus. After many years of study, Prusiner concluded
  that the disease was caused instead, unprecedentedly, by a kind of
  rogue protein. The idea seemed absurd to most experts at the time, and
  Prusiner’s career began to founder. Promotions and research grants
  dried up. But Prusiner received a source of private-sector funding
  that enabled him to continue his work. He was eventually vindicated in
  the most spectacular way possible: with a Nobel Prize in Medicine in
  1997. In his autobiographical essay on the Nobel Prize website, Prusiner thanked his private-sector benefactors for their “crucial”
  support: RJ Reynolds, maker of Camel cigarettes.

-- The problem with facts, Tim Harford

Bero L. A. (2005) Tobacco industry manipulation of research. Public Health Reports. 120(2):200-208.

Hong, M.-K., & Bero, L. A. (2002). How the tobacco industry responded to an influential study of the health effects of secondhand smoke. BMJ : British Medical Journal, 325(7377), 1413–1416.


Accepted by potential thesis supervisor while still waiting to hear back from two others. How to respond?

I think it's perfectly ok to let the professor who's accepted you know that you are waiting to hear back from another opportunity before deciding what to do. There's no need to be any more specific than that. Ask the professor if there's a deadline that you need to tell him your decision by. If it's soon, you could even let the other professors know that you have an offer in hand and need to decide soon. This may speed up their decision.

Don't worry that the professors will think negatively towards you for this. It's a very common situation to be in, and academics understand that students will have their own preferences for who they want to work with. Just make sure you are polite and not pushy in your communications with them.


What is the difference between DBLP and Microsoft Academic Search Graph Dataset?

I am not very familiar with both data sets. But it is pretty clear to me that the Microsoft Academic Graph (MAG) data set is much more comprehensive than the DBLP one in at least one aspect: field of study. As far as I know, DBLP data set covers only computer science subject domain, whereas MAG's coverage goes far beyond that. For more details, see this relevant MSR paper.


How do I ensure that a search committee won't contact my current colleagues (that are not references) to ask about me?

I used the following language, and I think it had the desired effect.

  Because I am hoping to keep this search confidential, I request that
  you contact my references rather than my current colleagues at this
  time. If I were to become a finalist, I would of course expect and
  invite you to speak to my current department.


What can I do about a lecturer who isn't clear enough to understand?

Here are some ideas for you to consider.

Seek out a more advanced student who has already made it through the course, for guidance.
If the class has a TA, visit the TA's office hours assiduously.
If the course has a textbook, read it carefully.  If it doesn't, ask the professor for a textbook that is reasonably well aligned with his approach.
Make sure you have a course syllabus.  See if a careful perusal of the syllabus helps.
If you have an advisor or mentor professor, let him or her know.  If you don't have one, try to find one, by talking to another professor in the department that you think may be knowledgeable about the course content.
Let a department administrator know about your difficulties.
Consider withdrawing from the class.


Your institution (and specifically at the school level if you are organized into schools) will have rules about who can submit applications as a PI.  It is generally accepted by NSF that if you have PI rights you can submit to their call as a PI, unless the solicitation requires you to hold a specific position or other qualifications.  You should check with the chair of your department to find out who gives those rights out and what the process is to obtain them.  You probably need a tenured-faculty sponsor (internally, not necessarily on the grant proposal).  I work at a prominent US research university, and the "exit strategy" is always a calculation in these conversations.  "What if you leave?" is always going to be a question.  If your answer is, "I will leave and will take this with me," the decision becomes murky for your Dean.  They have administrative costs to propose this grant, accept it, manage it, and transfer it.  What is in it for them?  If you aren't intending to leave, but must admit it could happen, be ready for an explanation as to what will happen to the grant and the people attached to it.  You should be prepared to submit a SOW (statement of work) along with the requisite form(s).
In terms of the process of transferring a grant; while the decision to transfer rests with the institution that receives the award (not the PI), it is generally considered good sportsmanship in academia to always transfer grants when PIs leave, unless the grant is highly collaborative or a large part of the research team/facilities remain.  At that point, a subcontract at no additional cost may be issued to the new institution (which will cost extra dollars in indirect costs).  In your case however, it may be that if you leave, your institution would look for a new PI rather than transfer with you.  You really will never know though until that day comes--it's on you to convince them to transfer it.
Your first step is to procure PI rights.  Do not delay on this.  If approved, find out immediately who will help you submit this grant.  You need to be connected to a research administrator ASAP to ensure all your documents are in order.  Do you have a Research.gov ID yet?  Have you read the NSF PAPPG to get documents together?  These things should be worked out sooner rather than later.
Be advised:  If you are submitting after 10/1, new forms will be required for the biosketch and current and pending, and I cannot stress enough the value in you checking in with an experienced administrator as soon as possible to find out the details of this process at your institution. It is very regulated and stressful when done last minute (within 10 days prior to the due date), even for very experienced folks. The staff will almost certainly have multiple submissions, and you want to grab their time when they are more free and less stressed out.  The new regulations are already causing people grief, and the fall is the busiest time of the year.


Leaving PhD in the 6th year and apply for a new PhD program

You don't give us much to go with. What you are proposing sounds pretty dramatic, and it potentially has a lot of factors going against you: Based on your description, it seems that 1) you are abandoning a Ph.D. very deeply into it; 2) you are parting ways with your adviser unamicably; 3) you are applying to a highly competitive program in the United States; 4) you may not have publications. The one thing potentially weighing in your favor is the fact that you've interned at that university: If your adviser-to-be is willing to commit to advising you and supporting you financially, it may override the other concerns in the eyes of the department.

Someone above suggests applying yourself to completing your Ph.D. and then seeking a postdoc in your dream area; that could well have better odds of success in the long term. Ultimately, of course, there's no way we can predict what the outcome will be. I'd suggest that you be sure you are being completely honest with yourself about the reasons for the situation you find yourself in, and what it is you are trying to accomplish by starting anew.


Writing the Absolute and Relative Average in an Application Form

O.P. says in comments that they solved their own problem:

  Problem solved: They were basically asking me to write the exact GPA as mentioned on the transcript of records (for example: 4.8 out of 5) and then also calculate the percentage of it: 4.8 out of 5 = 96% –


Are “DIY projects” valuable or publishable?

You are asking whether you will be able to publish these data and use it as an edge. It all depends, as user2768's answer mentions, on the value that your work has. Specifically, you have to come up with a valid and important research question that you work will answer. For example,

the 5-year or even 10-year array of data for a number of sensors staying in your basement are useless
the online tool to monitor the dust quantity in the air in your neighbourhood is useful as a community project, is likely to be useful to your neighbours / town administration, and can be commercialized, but is unlikely to turn into a scientific article. I know of such a service in my city, and you can take some inspiration from it: Tion CityAir.
monitoring gas release and dust particle concentration next to a nearby industry plant or landfill is useful. It can become particularly useful if the administration of the plant / landfill is about to introduce some environmental safety measures and is seeking to quantify their efficiency. In this case, your research will be answering a well-defined question: "Are enter new safety measures here improving the air quality?". This is valuable and publishable. In this case, 5-year arrays of data are not required; most important is to monitor the air quality some time before the planned safety upgrade and some time after; I'd suggest at least three months before and after.

Bottom line: starting a 5-year data flow is easy. Coming up with a valid design of experiment is harder.

Specific points to account when planning an air quality monitoring experiment:

Are your gas sensors able to monitor the exact gases you are interested in? If you are targeting plant monitoring, ammonia and sulfur oxides come to mind, but there might be so much more.
What particular dust particles you are able to quantify? For the environmental safety applications, PM2.5 particles are often the most risk-inducing.


I can't figure out what the formal relationship between you and this company is. Do you still have some contract with them, as well as with the University?
It seems to me that asking your advisor about the situation regarding say IPR or liability insurance may give you a lever you can use to get out of doing the company's work. E.g. "... requested me to finish the limited demo ..." so if that was done as part of a full-time PhD then is it you or the University that owns the code, and not the company at all?


For an undergrad, how long should a short-term volunteer position in a lab be?

I would refer to the way university offers undergrad research courses.

For example, at my university, students can work in lab in summer (12-16 weeks, full time, 40-45hrs/week).

Often, assuming both parties like the work, the student continues as a research course student for the next school term. In this arrangement, nothing changes except the compensation - in summer the work is paid, during the school year it is for credit.

Now, from what I have done and seen, people don't stick in the same lab longer than that ESPECIALLY if you are looking at grad school or medical school. This is because you need 2-3 PIs giving you a glowing reference.

That been said, I have taken a summer research project which I didn't continue (I.e. the length was 12 weeks). And I've done one research project which is 2 years (and still on-going). My third project was summer + school term in length.

In short, you should diversify your research experience in different labs. You can work as long as 12 months, and as short as 3 months in the same lab.

Though I don't know much about other universities, I expect this to be same or very similar at other universities. The time to learn basic skills will vary but 3 months should be a good start, of course as you do something longer you will get even better. But doing work in different setting will definitely help person get better with basic skills because different labs operate differently.


Do reviewers go over the calculations (i.e do the calculations themselves) when reviewing?

This depends on the field, the paper, and the reviewer. If the result of a calculation seems to be "expected" by an experienced reviewer they may feel no need to go over the calculation in detail. An exception would be when it is a core result on which other things depend. Another exception is if the result surprises them in any way.

And of course, some reviewers are much more meticulous than others and some fields require a lot of care because things can get subtle.

But the author should, on the one hand, assume that they do, so that they don't get caught in error during review, but also assume that they don't so that they don't get caught in error later. (Confusing, I know).

Ultimately it is the responsibility of the author to be correct and accurate and some errors do slip through review and don't get caught for a long time, if ever. People (authors and reviewers) do make mistakes, of course, but the combination of care from both tends to catch most errors.


How much weight do Math PhD programs place on the subject GRE?

I worked in the admissions office of the graduate school of arts and sciences at Harvard University.

While the GRE is important, there are a kaleidoscope of other factors that admissions takes into consideration.

You stated, quite eloquently, what happened, which was that you were so engaged in research that it hurt your study time for the GRE.

Admission officers value applicants who display intellectual curiosity but also honesty.

In your statement of purpose, explain what happened

If you were wanting to get into a top-five university, what about applying as a special student. The GRE is not required, but I must warn you, it is still as competitive as applying as a degree seeking student.

Just a thought, and wishing you all the best in your educational pursuits.


Copyright and ownership for rejected papers that are edited based on peer review

It seems clear to me that the answer is post what you call your second draft. The first "round" is a closed chapter because of the reject decision. You should consider your new round as the round of relevance for the final publication; it is a new paper, the old is "dead". The first round draft will be so different from the final that it cannot represent the final version. If you receive a major/minor revision, it means that the submission has intrinsic values that are clear to the reviewers and editor and in such cases the early drafts carry with them enough to mirror the final product. So from this perspective the reject decision is a clear line of separation.


Gap Year before Mathematics PhD Programs

As it turns out, some years ago I was the same situation you're in and took a gap year before enrolling in a PhD program in pure math. (Well, it wasn't exactly the same situation you're in. My gap year was because of military service rather than dabbling in quantitative finance.) Anyway, I decided on your second option and don't really have regrets about doing so. I was nervous of course, since I didn't have a guaranteed spot waiting for me, but I assume that had I applied in my senior year of college I would have been just as nervous anyway. And it was nice having the extra opportunity to retake the GRE math exam.

I can't tell you what to do, of course, but merely wanted to say that I find it unlikely that you're going to find too many math departments with information about guaranteed deferred admission posted to their website. (I'm by no means an authority on this. I'm a math professor at a small liberal arts college that does not offer graduate degrees in mathematics.) My rationale is that unlike undergraduate admissions where hundreds or thousands of students are admitted at once, the numbers in graduate math admissions are much smaller. For instance when I enrolled in Dartmouth's PhD program I was part of a class of only five students. Moreover, there are potential difficulties with funding in the event that some of the grad students are going to be supported primarily by grants.

This isn't to say that deferred admission will likely be impossible. Just that I think you should send a message to someone working in admissions at each department you're thinking of applying to (there will be contact info for someone -- be it a professor or a departmental staff member -- on each department's website) explaining your situation and seeing what their policy is. My assumption is that you won't have too many problems getting a department to let you defer if you're able to convince them that your gap year is for a "good" reason, that you're likely to ultimately attend if they admit you and let you defer and that you're not planning on applying again next year and using their offer of deferred admission as your back up option. But you'd have to ask them to make sure.


Can I legally omit the fact I hold a Ph.D. degree?

No. You cannot hide such a fact in US admissions processes. Lying about your previous academic record—whether by omission or by claiming false credentials—is sufficient reason to revoke an offer of admission if it is caught before the applicant matriculates, or grounds to expel a student if caught after enrollment. Depending on the magnitude of the fraud, you may even be asked to pay restitution for the funds spent.

As far as if it’s illegal, that’s a trickier issue. It basically comes down to money: if you received funding based on a misrepresentation or fraudulent application, then it’s far more likely that you’ll face civil or criminal penalties.


Getting a letter of recommendation from a new professor

An unestablished professor that knows you well, and writes a fantastic letter, is far better as a letter writer than a famous professor that will just write a generic "he was 3rd out of 38 students in my class" kind of letter.

There are two types of letters that will really help you in general. (1) A great letter from a professor who knows you well, regardless of their stature. This is likely someone you did research with, and (2) A famous professor that will write you a decent letter, saying you did well in his her/class and you show real potential, ideally you should have done a class project for them, so they can say something beyond basic things like class rank. Letters of type (1) are the most important (if the professor is famous that is a bonus). But you need 3 letters usually, so you are not likely going to have 3 professors that know you well (if you do you are in great shape). Type (2) is another good option for filling out 3 letters. If all your letters are of type (1) and (2) that is a really good sign. Most people will have at least one lackluster letter from an unestablished professor.

The next best bet is an unestablished professor that you did a good class project for or knows you well from a class. Generic letters really do not help your cause.


How to tell my advisor that I am quitting my PhD and what to say to an employer about why I am leaving

This is pretty common in my field (applied math). Students see the amount of money they can be making, and see the amount of work a PhD is, and leave. Be cordial about it, but the institution (and potential adviser) will likely be very unhappy. Make sure you are confident in your choice before even mentioning it to your adviser. Because of this being a common issue, I know that for plenty of professors the moment you start speaking about industry you have already burned the bridge.

As for what people in industry will think, I can't comment for them. Some will probably think you made a good conscious choice to not continue pursuing a PhD (just tell people about how the job market isn't that good). Others will think you dropped out.

This is just such a personal thing. People will see it how they want to see it no matter how you tell the story.


Teaching advanced courses in a specialized area of math

As a combinatorial algebraic geometer in a small, not highly ranked department who currently has a PhD advisee, I think I can say something about our experience.

We do not get to regularly schedule advanced courses.  With 14 grad students total, there aren't enough students to make teaching algebraic geometry viable.  We offer a 2 year sequence in general algebra, commutative algebra, and algebraic geometry on an alternate year basis, organizing the courses so that it is possible to start midway at the commutative algebra entry point.  When we have a relatively capable group of students, we just might be able to get to the definition of a scheme in the last 2 or 3 weeks of the last semester.

If we happen to have 2 or 3 graduate students at the same time who are interested in a particular topic (for example algebraic topology, or more advanced algebraic geometry, or algebraic number theory), we may organize a course for them, but faculty usually have to do this "for free" - in the sense that whomever is doing this teaching is teaching this as an extra course in addition to what he or she normally teaches.

My advisee has answered an algebraic geometry question well enough to write a dissertation.  He has not taken an algebraic geometry course.  How can he do this?  He has learned just enough of the specific bits of algebraic geometry (really just commutative algebra) he needs to tackle this specific question.  Fortunately my area attracts enough interest from combinatorialists and representation theorists that there are some reasonably accessible books and papers, but he has ended up learning what he needs to know mostly from me in our weekly meetings.  (Yes, I am disputing the claim that one needs a lot of background before starting research, even in a fairly esoteric field.)

Does he understand why the question he is working on is of interest to me and to other people I work with?  Not really.  Will he be able to find related questions and answer them in the future without my guidance?  I am skeptical he knows enough mathematics around his current problem to be able to do so, but maybe.  He is applying for teaching-oriented positions where the point of doing research is to provide research opportunities for (undergraduate) students rather than to advance knowledge, so maybe his research experience is sufficient.


Why are the final copies of thesis dissertations often required to be double spaced?

My understanding was that this is for the convenience of examiners, who may wish to annotate a printed copy while reading the thesis, for reference during the defence. In the UK, at least, where candidates may be expected to make corrections to their thesis after the defence, this is quite common. Annotation is much easier if there is plenty of whitespace on the page.


Ask about my undergraduate research internship

You should ask the professor you want to work with for instructions.  If he is open to supervising your work, then in addition to helping you apply for the internship, he can also contact the coordinator.  This will increase your chance of success.  If he says he does not want to supervise you, then you will save a lot of time applying for something that cannot work.


Monitoring employee's work habits - is it acceptable and how to express dissaproval appropriately?

A full answer is beyond the scope of this site as it involves questions of surveillance and governance generally. However, the question is really about how such data is used, how it is retained, and who gets to see it. If it were sent only to yourself and then discarded, it would be benign, in fact.
For legal questions you need to consult a lawyer. If you are unionized then the union likely has good representation.
If the data can be seen and used by others then there are some principles that should be adhered to, though they might be ignored. Here are some general principles that should apply everywhere.

Do you give explicit permission for any data gathered?
Is the the data collected used for a valid purpose?
Is the data collected minimal to achieve a valid purpose?
Does the data collected have a reasonable life span for the (valid) purpose?
Will the data be shared only with those having a valid reason to see it?
Others ...

Since this is an educational system the additional principles might involve such things as permitting individual flexibility so that an instructor can properly respond to situations that aren't common/universal. One of our long term principles as educators is that the professor has quite a lot of autonomy over how a course is delivered. How a Law course is delivered will be very different from how a CS course unfolds.
As a low level employee you probably have little personal influence over outcomes and can be easily silenced, especially if the principles are being ignored. But collective action can make a difference. I assume that many academics are uncomfortable, at least, with being surveilled. Join with them in discussion groups initially and see if you can formulate common positions and potential actions. You may not have much leverage, but a committee of your senior peers will.


When you're not sure is probably one situation. You're accusing someone of dishonesty so you'd better be able to prove it.


W2 positions at the universities of applied sciences in Germany

The definition is left intentionally vague, in my opinion, so as to not further reduce the pool of applicants unnecessarily.

The general idea, I believe, is to show that you have cooperation with (and possibly support from) industry. So a BMBF-funded project with an industrial partner is just as viable as a project whose funding comes directly from industry. I think even if neither of those holds, but you have an industrial partner on a project—perhaps seen through joint publications—you could make the case of industrial cooperation.


Uploading preprints of old Elsevier papers to arXiv, and updating arXiv preprints by newer versions

This is covered on the Elsevier website. Some key points:

  An accepted manuscript is the manuscript of an article that has been accepted for publication and which typically includes author-incorporated changes suggested during submission, peer review, and editor-author communications. They do not include other publisher value-added contributions such as copy-editing, formatting, technical enhancements and (if relevant) pagination.

and

  Authors can update their preprints on arXiv or RePEc with their accepted manuscript.

and

  Preprints should not be added to or enhanced in any way in order to appear more like, or to substitute for, the final versions of articles.


I was in a similar position a few years ago, only it was test equipment that I was trying to help them acquire. I managed to help them get a $500k piece of test equipment for free, but it required a lot of negotiations and navigation of department politics. You just have to reach out to the professors and develop a dialog with them if you haven't already.

I suggest you take it one step at a time and don't expect sudden, radical changes. Perhaps you contact a professor, tell them about your company and let them know you'd like to hire some students to work part time. Whether you call it a co-op, and internship or ,whatever I'd think most departments would be eager to present such opportunities to their students. If you don't get a good response from the professors you can always take it to the department or the school employment office.

As to guest lecturing, rather than expecting to come into a class, you could reach out to some of the department's student groups about coming to speak as a way to test the waters. You can always offer to come as a guest lecturer to a class, but devoting a class session to a guest (unless the class already has plans for guest lecturers) means that much material that the class won't get to cover.

Your success will largely depend on your attitude in approaching the people in control, how they remember you and how you present your ideas. You won't have much success if you charge in telling them that their program is "only good if you want to go to grad school, but crap for going out into industry" even if that's true. If you come back and start an honest dialog about wanting to help and sharing your ideas on how you'd like to help, that's more likely to be successful.


What happens if there are conflicting opinions on a specific paper under review?

I'm sure YMMV, but there is usually an Associate Editor (a member of the Board to whom the paper was assigned) that will make a recommendation to the Editor based on the reviews. The conversation you refer to usually takes place between the two of them. If an additional review is needed to decide, it can be requested. The rest of the Board is usually not involved (they have their own assignments to worry about). As an author you may or may not know who the Associate Editor assigned to your paper is.


Which review recommendation should I give to maximize the likelihood that a manuscript is rejected?

Is this sound and appropriate?

No. Your job as a reviewer is not to choose which manuscripts are accepted or rejected. Your job is to advise the editor as to the merits and the flaws of the manuscript, and then let the editor decide the fate of the manuscript.

Thus, you should give the manuscript the ratings that most accurately reflect your perception of it, not the ratings that you think will get it "killed".

  I think that there is an underlying misunderstanding

I don't think I misunderstood the first version of your question, and my answer still applies. It is not up to the reviewer to maximize the likelihood of any particular outcome; just tell the editor what you think of the manuscript, and leave the rest to the editor.

This means that if you are asked by the editor to recommend an overall decision, you should recommend an overall decision. If asked by the editor to recommend a decision based on quality and specifically excluding the priority, novelty, and usefulness of contribution, then you should do exactly that. (If you aren't clear on what factors should be included your quality recommendation, ask the editor.) If you believe that a manuscript should be rejected from a given journal because its contribution is incremental, you can indicate as much in the part of the review where you're asked to assess the manuscript's originality and/or in a separate comment to the editor.


Unethical policy of ETS's ScoreSelect option

I don't think there are any "solutions".  If the university wants to ask for all scores, even the ones you wanted to block, then they can ask that.  If you want to apply there, you don't have much choice but to answer honestly.  Omitting material facts from an application is a pretty serious academic offense; even if they don't notice it at first, it can still get you kicked out of the program if it's discovered years later.  Photoshopping the Score Report to erase the undesired scores would make that offense even more severe - now it's obvious fraud and falsification.

(It wouldn't really help even if ETS offered you the option to omit scores from your personal Score Report, since the university could demand that you submit the full version with nothing omitted.)

I agree that it seems a bit shady on ETS's part to suggest that this feature can really prevent universities from finding those scores, when in fact the university can still demand that you share them, and it's unfortunate that this led you to choose a less appropriate test-taking strategy.  But none of that really has any bearing on your applications at this point.  You could complain to ETS or sue them for false advertising or whatever, but that seems outside the scope of this site.

If it's any consolation, my impression is that universities are more likely to pay attention to recent scores, unless it's clear that you've taken the test a zillion times in hopes of randomly scoring well.  So the older, lower scores may not hurt your application very much.


First publication – author list better alone or with supervisor?

Unless there are more people despising your supervisor than respecting them, adding him to the publication will inevitably increase its visibility by some amount, even though this should not be the case in an ideal world. There is a positive chance that somebody will only read your paper because they know the author. How large this effect is depends on your particular subfields culture and the popularity of your supervisor. Moreover, note that your supervisor can also advertise your work to their peers irrespective of authorship and this effect may be more relevant to the impact than authorship.

That being said, for your imminent career, it is mostly irrelevant how many people actually read your paper, but only how relevant or good the paper is considered by those who decide upon your applications. However, those people will also know that you worked with your current supervisor and will also likely have a recommendation letter from them praising your work in the paper. So adding your supervisor as an author shouldn’t matter in this respect. On the contrary: It’s certainly more impressive that you single-authored a paper.

Now, for your later academic career, you have to weigh between the two effects, but since you will hopefully have written several papers then (otherwise you will probably not have a later academic career) and securing a good PhD position may help for this, my bets are on opting for being a single author.

A sidenote: Going from your description, I assume that it is borderline whether your supervisor qualifies for authorship and thus ethical considerations of authorship are inconclusive.


How to explain that I do not want to visit a country due to personal safety concern?

If I were you I'd have the same concerns. In fact, I'm not like you, and I have the same concerns.

But don't confuse the people of Israel with its government. Certainly there are bad actors there, but I also know many Israelis who are more than decent people and oppose the government actions and attitudes that you worry about.

That said, you may be wise to avoid such a trip. But don't assume, necessarily, that the professor would disagree with your true reasons. There is no way to predict, of course, since opinion about Israeli-Palestinian issues come in "all shades of grey" in Israel.

If it is a question of meeting, rather than visiting the professor's institute, you might suggest meeting elsewhere, say at an international meeting.

To flip it a bit, there are quite a lot of people in the world unwilling to visit the US because of recent trends and attitudes here - and some that are not so recent. And I won't visit Mexico, for example, though I love the place, not because the government is bad, but because of the danger of drug gangs and killings and an ineffective government.

Note that I answered the question based on its original form which was tagged israel. However, the same concerns would apply in other contexts and there might be serious issues for some people visiting some countries. But my general advice still holds. Don't conflate the government of a place with its individual citizens. Some of them would support government actions and others would not. The world currently has far too much of this. I've actually known people who won't visit Germany because of its Nazi past, though, til recently at least, it has seemed completely redeemed.


What are the most important factors to consider when deciding the time to teach a course?

Some students don't like to get up early in the morning, so attendance can suffer then.

Just after lunch (or supper) can be hard as people can get drowsy.

None of that is necessarily a problem if the course is interesting and you have a way to keep them active.


Effective use of a "learning narrative" assignment in a gen ed science course

When I TA'ed a survey neuroscience course, we had a similar type of assignment where we asked students to select a topic from the course that was challenging for them personally and put together a (short) PowerPoint presentation on that topic as if they were going to teach it to next year's class.

Overall, I thought the assignment was a good one, and the course reviews at the end of the semester generally indicated that the students felt the same way. Many of the reviews commented on the fact that the process of thinking about how to teach the topic to someone helped solidify or clarify things for themselves. Others mentioned that it helped them learn how to learn on their own by searching the web, looking things up at the library, et cetera. Establishing and building upon this skill is key no matter what you end up doing, so I consider this the biggest positive of the assignment.

The downside seemed to be that many students struggled with the "why they didn't understand it" part. It can be frustrating to not understand something, and especially when the student doesn't plan on pursuing further study in the area (which is probably the case in a class like "Relativity for Poets"), there can be a certain lack of motivation to break through conceptual or other barriers to understanding. You might need to offer some guidance in this particular area of the assignment.

Looking back, one possible improvement might have been to assign these "learning narratives" multiple times throughout the semester. I noticed that a lot of students chose the exact same topic, which might have been because it was truly the hardest topic or because it was the easiest to make a PowerPoint on. We might have gotten more diversity in responses if we split the assignment into two (or more) parts that were due at uniform points across the semester. Plus, we might have been able to reinforce the "learning to learn" aspect of it through repetition. Of course, that's just speculation on my part.


Thinking about grad school for computer science. How to talk to my old professors now?

If you are in a position to do so, go visit in person. Tell them what you've been doing and what you want to do. Give them a good picture of you as a success story. Catch up a bit on old times and what is going on with the newer students. Thank them for what they've already done for you.

All of that is worth doing even if you don't want letters, of course.

Doing it in person will help jog their memories of you as email won't. They've had quite a few students since you left and those are more likely to be remembered than someone from four years ago.

But you probably want to do most of that anyway even if you have to do it by mail/email. You might need to be a bit more complete about what you've been doing since graduation, describing projects and such.

But in general, professors like to hear from previous students, and, in general, like to help with their careers. They might even appreciate some guidance from you on what to stress in any letters.

They will also, likely, be full of advice about where to study and how to go about applying.

I would probably give the same advice no matter what the field of study.

Note that you will probably want recommendation letters from current or recent supervisors at work, as well.


Why do conferences keep deferring the deadlines?

There are basically two approaches for conference deadlines.  In my experience, top conferences have a "hard" deadline and do not slip it, and the rest frequently slip it once.  Usually the slippage is actually planned, and it's announced pretty far in advance: for instance, a conference might say 2 weeks before its announced deadline that there are actually 3 weeks to go.  Sometimes it's a panic because of low submissions, which is probably a bad sign.

Notifications are another story.  It's considered poor form to miss the announced deadline, though if the change takes place before submission (delaying both submissions and results) that seems ok: people can choose not to submit.  Simply missing and redefining the deadline isn't playing by the rules.

I wouldn't say that the changes to the deadlines are a reason to avoid a conference.  Many factors go into the decision about which conference you submit to.


Does the time spent doing a PhD count towards research experience for job applications?

Typically, time spent as a graduate student counts at least to some degree as research / professional experience.  For example, the IEEE counts education culminating in a Ph.D. as five years of "professional practice," no matter how many more years it may have actually taken you.  Those 2.5 years of postdoc most definitely count, though, so it seems quite reasonable for you to apply.


Using materials from a CC-BY-licensed poster with logos

In Addition to the citation, you should give the exact copyright information of your source below the figure and table you (remixed and) reused.

For your source you should give: CC-BY-SA, all logos excluded.

Please note that the license is CC-BY-SA and not CC-BY. Even so CC-BY is given on the web page, the poster says CC-BY-SA. The SA means:

  ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.

In other words, if you remix the figure and table, you have to publish under the same license, i.e. CC-BY-SA.


I've only encountered the term "research student" in Japan (研究生), most (all ?) graduate schools in Japan offer it (see for example the Graduate School of Information Sciences of Tohoku University). As I understand it

A student will apply as a research student if they wish to conduct research at the university under the supervision of a faculty member, but are not interested in taking classes or obtaining a degree. You could want to do this for example as a "gap year" between undergrad and Master's (or Master's and Ph.D.), this could be a way to get some research experience under your belt, and perhaps improve your application for Masters or Ph.D.
Anything goes, as long as it is agreed between the student and supervisor.
You are not required to present anything. Since there is no degree to be obtained, there are no requirements to be fulfilled.
is subjective.


What's the point in "the paper is structured as follows"?

Unlike Dave and Henry, I am going to argue against the style The paper is structured as follows..., though not against inclusion of content serving the same purpose.
Quite some time ago, I took to heart advice by Simon Peyton Jones on this, which can be found here (slide 19), also echoed by Sandro Etale in his advice on writing introductions. In essence it boils down to this:

Don't write The rest of this paper is structured as follows. Section 2 introduces the problem. Section 3 ... Finally, Section 8 concludes. That is most of the time only a waste of paper.
Instead, use forward references from the narrative in the introduction. The introduction (including the contributions) should survey the whole paper, and therefore forward reference every important part.

In a consequence, the position I take on this part of writing introduction is that while it is important to inform the reader about the structure of the paper so that he/she can take the path of few surprises and easily follow the discourse, it should be however done with style. Doing it in such a poor manner as "The paper is structured as follows ..." is simply bad literature. I would argue, that it is better to firstly, clearly state the contribution of the paper and then write up the paper's plot summary leading from the introduction to the culmination of the paper in supporting the claimed contributions and discussion. I mention the references to the individual sections, and sometimes even deeper structural parts, only in passing, or include them in parentheses.
On a similar note, regarding Conclusion section, I took to heart the advice of D. J. Bernstein on writing conclusions. Citing other authors, he suggest to simply drop the conclusions part from papers and put all the important conclusions into the introductory section. Well, unless there really is something important to say there. Since then, I conclude my papers either directly by a loose paragraph at the end of the Discussion section (renamed usually Discussion and final remarks), or if I feel like there is something important to say, by a standalone short section Final remarks. However, never re-iterating what was done in the paper. The reader is anyway free to "rewind/relist" in the paper (see the very last point by DJB).
P.S.
The links to homepages of the two guys include many more good tutorials on aspects of writing/research in computer science.


How can I provide a great external evaluaton of a faculty member's promotion and tenure case?

For context: I’m in math. Take this advice with a grain of salt if you’re in a discipline with different norms.

A good (meaning useful) letter is typically around 2-3 pages long, although I have seen letters as short as 1 page (not very useful) and as long as 5 pages (useful, but not in proportion to its length and tedious to read).

At least 85-90% of the letter’s length will be devoted to discussing the candidate’s research. It’s appropriate to comment briefly about other aspects of their work such as teaching, service, organizational work, outreach etc, to the extent that you feel such feedback would be helpful, or to the extent you were explicitly asked to discuss those things. Unless you were explicitly asked about them, it’s also appropriate not to discuss anything other than research.

For letters I have written, I would estimate that I spent around 4-8 hours in total doing the review. That time is spread out over several days, which I feel is important to make sure the review is thoughtful and I have time to weigh my words carefully and make sure I am willing to commit to the end result. I am usually familiar with only a part of the candidate’s work, so I spend a good amount of time getting up to speed on their full body of work and trying to estimate its significance. But I think it probably wouldn’t make sense for me to agree to do a review if I felt like I needed more than a day’s work to get to a point where I can meaningfully comment on the significance of their work.

In the letter I usually include both some general comments and at least a few paragraphs on each of 2-3 specific results and papers I am more intimately familiar with. My suggestion is to aim for a good balance between the general and the specific - the people reading the letter need a bit of both.

It’s okay to use some technical language, but don’t overdo it - many of the readers will not be experts in the specific area the candidate is working on. For the benefit of those non-experts, it’s helpful to include language that manages to convey how important and influential the candidate’s work has been without getting into a technical discussion. To some extent you can achieve this by relying on “sociological” data such as how prestigious and well-regarded the journals the candidate publishes in (or conferences they lecture at, etc) are, but try not to put too much emphasis on such things or you will risk coming across as a shallow person who only cares about prestige, and your feedback may be discounted. (Also, as JeffE said in a comment, such sociological indicators of prestige can often be estimated by non-experts directly, so your discussing them is potentially not as helpful as a more expert/technical commentary. But to a limited extent, I think it is appropriate and potentially helpful to comment on prestige.)

Good luck! Writing this sort of letter is a big responsibility, but also a very valuable service. It speaks well of your reputation that you were asked to do it.


How to reply to an unofficial offer from my second choice when I also have an unofficial offer from my first choice?

If you're interested in both, then email each of them and say so.

If you don't have the formal offer then you don't have the job and shouldn't make decisions without it.