What "Applicant Confidential Data Form" has to do with tenure-track positions?

I've received this form from hundreds of employers that later rejected me. I think schools that use it will send it to every applicant. So it doesn't mean anything except that your application was received.

I believe the reason for it being a separate form, rather than part of the application, is that it's meant to be for statistical purposes only, and should not affect the hiring procedure. The best way to achieve this is to ensure that the hiring committee never sees it. So they send a separate form, to be returned to a separate office within the institution, which holds it confidential.


Writing an article outside of Academia. Is it likely to get supported?

I agree with Wetenchaap's answer and just want to elaborate the picture from our (university) side. Occasionally people write me and suggest something along the lines you envision, so, in general, yes, it is possible. However, my personal experience with this type of collaboration is mostly negative so far, and thus now I'd think twice before venturing into such projects again.
So, what's the problem? Usually it boils down to expectations and work management. People outside academia often misjudge what is considered "interesting" or "publishable", and what kind of work is typically required to compose a paper. More often than not getting a full picture cools down their motivation. Next, since people typically have jobs and do research in their spare time, months of efforts can easily end up with a short "sorry, piled up at work" message. Thus, investing into someone else's idea requires trust that lies on some firm foundation.
Dealing with students and colleagues is much easier. Students need it for their graduation works and (possibly) for their future careers if they consider staying in academia. Colleagues do research with me as a part of their normal daily activities. Outside people are unpredictable: today they believe that publishing a joint paper is good for them, but tomorrow they can easily change their mind.


Are postdoctoral scholars considered students or researchers in other countries?

In general, if you are not enrolled in any course and also are not enrolled in a program in which you may eventually earn a degree, you are not a "student."


Benefits of taking postgraduate/PhD-level courses during Master's

While it might make a small difference, I doubt that you will get all that much benefit from the courses based on how they appear on your transcript, even if they are annotated with information about their level.  The simple reasons for this are that:

Courses cannot readily be compared from institution to institution, and
Even a high grade in a course doesn't really say anything about what you took away from it.

Instead, the main "resume" benefit you are likely to obtain from these courses is in their side-effects: higher-level graduate courses tend to give you opportunities that don't come in more stock courses, like doing significant projects (which sometimes even lead to publications!), giving class presentations, getting involved in research, getting to know faculty, etc.

Those are where I would recommend looking for benefit, and why it's often better to take less classes but invest more deeply in each at the graduate level.


Coursera and related readings to fill gaps when transitioning careers/studies/backgrounds

I suspect that the admissions office will look at your experience and the steps you are taking to fill gaps in your background and want to have you in the program. You might consider trying to find someone at Columbia to talk to before you apply formally.


Strength or Existence of letters of recommendation do depend on the intent right?

Your question seems to contain an assumption that there's some inherent ordering of programs from "easy" to "hard" (law and business being "easy" and math being "hard"), and that a letter for an "easier" program would automatically be stronger.  There's no such ordering.

Any reasonable professor would try to write a letter that addresses the strengths and weaknesses of the student in skills that are relevant to the program in question.  Different programs and areas of study require different skills, and the strength of the letter will depend on the student's strength in that specific area.

For example, suppose the professor has observed that a student excels in logical reasoning, but struggles with public speaking and analyzing real-world situations.  If the student were applying for a program in mathematics, in which logical reasoning is important, they'd likely get a strong recommendation.  If the student were applying to a business program, in which it is important to analyze real-world situations and speak convincingly about them, they'd likely get a weak recommendation, or the professor might decline to write one at all.


It depends on whether the software is private or not. If it is public, you can either:

add your name to the AUTHORS file (you have one, right?).
ship the manual with the code.
slap a technical report number onto it, so that people will find it easier to cite.
write up a detailed description of what the software does, and publish it in a journal that publishes algorithms --- there are many of them.

If the code is a well-kept secret of your research group, not available even for sale, I am afraid there is very little you can do. People won't be interested in documentation of some code they cannot run themselves. You can still do 1--3, but don't expect people to read and cite it.

Your only hope in that situation is that your co-authors are fair and acknowledge you appropriately whenever they use your code and documentation.


How to get good recommendations in online courses?

In order for me to want to write a student a good letter of recommendation, I typically want to see two things:

mastery of the material (at least enough to earn an A- or better in the course)
engagement with the material

Most often (2) comes through asking me good questions in office hours, although in one case that I recall, I was really impressed with the student's final paper.  Although she already had the top grade in the course, she went above and beyond on the final paper.  I wrote her a glowing letter of rec, and she ended up winning at least one scholarship.

Now to answer your question, I suggest that you approach a web-based course similarly.  Obviously, work hard to do well in the course.  But also make an effort to get to know the instructor a bit.  Many web-based courses have some type of office hours (perhaps a scheduled chat-room time).  Whatever format you have available, take advantage of it (possibly this could be only a forum; not ideal, but still workable).  Take time to think of good questions about the material, and ask them in office hours.  If you have the chance, let the instructor get to know you a bit, too.  It's much easier for your instructor to write a letter of rec for you if they know you well enough to have something to say.


What to do when emails to a potential advisor are not replied?

First things first: whenever you write again or otherwise contact your potential advisor, stay polite and respectful. Conduct yourself in the most professional manner you can. While you might feel your correspondent is acting unprofessionally in not responding at a rate that pleases you, asking again in anything that looks like a demanding tone is not going to reflect well on you.

There are many possible reasons why your correspondent hasn't replied to your first email yet, even 10 days down the line. You are probably already quite aware of the possibilities, but here are a few:

He/she is simply busy. Is it a busy time of year? Is it examination time? Is he/she likely to busy marking/providing feedback. providing lectures?
Is he/she on holiday? A quick check with the Department/School/Institute administration should answer this.
There could be personal reasons. You don't want to appear a demanding person when the academic is making preparations for a family member's funeral - for example! Extreme sitation, yes, but not impossible.

With these possibilities in mind, you could write again to your potential advisor, reminding him/her that you are very keen to work together. I do not advise simply re-sending your original email unless you have good reason to believe that the original didn't reach its target - e.g. you have received a mailhost error relating to an undelivered message. I suspect this is not the case. In your follow-up email, refer to your previous email. Resending an email is similar to saying to someone "I SAID....!!!".

In your follow-up email, I would acknowledge that the academic might well be very busy and that you would gratefully appreciate any time the academic could spend talking with you about research opportunities. Offer alternatives - you've hinted at this - such as arranging a meeting or a telephone call at a time convenient for the academic.

At this stage, be reasonably formal. Your spelling and grammar should be as good as you can make it. This indicates that you are taking this correspondence seriously, as should he/she.

It is very easy to appear demanding, annoying or otherwise negative in an email, even if that is not your intention. Turn up the politeness up a few notches, even if you think it's starting to be sickly and ingratiating. In emails, it is extremely easy to appear demanding or accusatory. You don't have the advantage of being present in a conversation to send all those little non-verbal clues which make up the vast majority of human communication.

I think that it is appropriate to mention that you have some expectations when you'd like to have this interaction. You could mention that you are meeting with other advisers (if true) and that you'd like to be in a position to make a decision in one/two month's time. For this reason, you'd like to have a meeting sometime in the next 1-2 weeks, if possible.

Summary:

You be unfailingly polite and professional,
You put effort into your next email - don't just resend a previous one,
You suggest as many alternatives for an interaction you can think of,
You provide some kind of time-scale for action.


Unpublished PhD work and unresponsive advisor

Unless he is truly a co-author and collaborator, beyond supervision, then you can publish it on your own. Advising doesn't automatically imply co-authorship in most fields. If he must be a co-author for ethical reasons, then prepare the paper with him as co-author and send a copy along to him stating that you intend to submit it to "xyzzy" unless you hear any objections. Of course this gives the advisor a sort of veto, but a co-author would have that in any case.

Within the paper, thank him for his help, as well, I think. Thank him when you send the paper to him as well, of course.


Referencing mistake in masters dissertation

I don't have enough reputation to comment but we are all human and we make mistakes, you could ask your advisor about submitting an erratum but it is generally done only for peer-reviewed publications.
Personally, I wouldn't worry too much about a typo in my citations. Unless the entire conclusions of a section really depended on the results from this particular reference.


FAFSA for US PhD (hard sciences — physics) students?

First off, while many PhD students in many degree programs in the U.S. receive TA and RA positions, these are hardly universal. Many students, especially those who are foreign-born or in the humanities, are responsible for paying their own way.

You need to complete the FAFSA if you want to be eligible for student loans, which could help bridge the cost of your living expenses if your TA/RA stipend isn't large enough. For some universities, it can also unlock the door for scholarships or other funding that may cover things your TA/RA does not. It's not uncommon for TAs/RAs to still have to pay several hundred or even thousand dollars per semester in fees.

If you're a first-year PhD student, I'd suggest completing the FAFSA and see if it yields anything beneficial. After the first year, you can decide if you want to keep filing or skip it.


Is it ethical to get suggestions/corrections about my PhD work from a consultant?

You need to do two things here:

You should ask your advisor in advance whether this is acceptable.  The answer may depend on the details of your situation (exactly what is involved in this CAD verification and how central it is to your research), and your advisor is one of the few people who can give you a definitive answer.  I'd bet that it will be OK as long as you do the design yourself, but my opinion is not so relevant: if you end up in a disagreement with your advisor, it won't help if you complain that people on the internet assured you it would be OK.
You must acknowledge this assistance in your dissertation and papers, the same as any other contribution to the work.  This is a matter of intellectual honesty.  However, acknowledging the assistance afterwards can't substitute for asking your advisor in advance.  (In particular, your advisor might say "There's no issue of honesty, since you described exactly what you did.  However, you hired someone to complete a substantial part of your thesis, so you have not done enough yourself to graduate.")


Why are authors not made anonymous during the review process?

Sometimes they are. That's called double blind refereeing. It is becoming more common.

From https://www.maa.org/press/periodicals/guide-for-referees

  The Board of Governors of the Mathematical Association of America has
  mandated that our journals use a double‐blind review system.

This blog post and comments discuss the history, pros and cons of double blind refereeing in  parts of mathematics and computer science.


Better to cite github project or web page of unpublished software?

As a reader, I would find a citation or mention of both resource types to be useful, especially in the all-too-common event of a link breaking or a github project going dormant. If you're concerned about formality then contacting the original authors to determine which citation they would prefer would be helpful. Otherwise, as long as your audience knows what you're referencing and where to find out more about it, you should be fine.


How is rude, unprofessional behavior by one student toward another student handled in graduate school?

For what it's worth working in higher education I can guarantee the professors have noted the unprofessional behavior from the student(s). In project settings it's fairly evident who is completing the work. Often universities or the specific schools within them do have conduct guidelines which if they were violated can result in removal from the program. Unfortunately, in the world you're likely to encounter these individuals as well and should learn how to address such issues as they may even be in a higher position in your organization.

It really depends on your institution on the specific outcome but be prepared as you will encounter this again and typically the actions they exhibit are systemic of lack of repercussion.


CS paper rejected for lack of technical contribution; what does this mean, and how can I fix it?

Since you ask those questions, I assume you are relatively new to CS research. I do not know if you have previous research experience in any other scientific area, but let's assume you are new to research all together. Correct me if I am wrong.

When your paper gets rejected, the feeling of rejection sucks. It sucks a lot. But in research you have to deal with this rejection and move-on. It does not matter if other people's works that you consider worse have been accepted. Maybe they are better than yours maybe not. But that is really irrelevant. Focus on your work and how to improve it.

The questions you should be asking:

Is this problem you are trying to solve interesting?
Is your solution substantially better than previous state-of-the-art?
Are you certain that you described related and recent literature thoroughly? Are you up-to-date on related literature?
Did you make clear the benefits on your approach?
Is your paper well presented  and written? Have you explained your approach thoroughly (with pseudocode, figures) and not just with words?
Were your experiments thorough? Did you use many datasets for your experiments? Have you used the datasets that the related papers use or at least similar if not bigger in size and scope? Have you compared your results with previous approaches? Have you many charts demonstrating the various aspects of your solution?
Have you advertised your work by finding many test-cases for your problem?

If any of those answer is NO, then you must turn them to YES, before resubmitting your work. You must understand that if your paper or the problem you try to solve is boring, then it gets rejected. It is as simple as that. In that cases, the most usual reason for rejection is "not enough contribution". So, probably it is also your presentation that needs to be fixed.

Also, it seems rather strange that although you are probably new to research, you have submitted two papers at the same time. Perhaps this is too ambitious and it would be better to focus on one of them, improve it and resubmit it. Perhaps, they should be sent to different venues that are more tailored for each one of them.

And last but not least. Do not worry. It gets better with time. Both the way you handle rejection and the way you write papers. So, improve what needs to be fixed and everything will work out.


Do "Online" CS/CSE masters programs add any value when applying for doctoral/PhD study?

No.

Online MS degrees are necessarily course-based "professional" master's degrees, otherwise known as terminal master's degrees.

If you want to apply to a PhD program, you need to provide strong evidence of research potential.  If you are applying with an MS, you will be competing with applicants in research MS programs, who almost certainly have more research experience than anyone with a professional MS.

It is nearly impossible to get that research experience without direct face-to-face contact with more experienced researchers.  Even if you somehow learn to do research on your own, you still need recommendation letters that describe your research potential in specific and personal detail, and such letters are impossible to get without direct face-to-face contact with their authors.  If you want to become a researcher, you have to do it in person.


What criteria are used to rank graduate programs?

Before enrolling in a PhD program, you should identify your personal goals and needs, and evaluate graduate programs yourself according to your own criteria.  When doing so, consider life both during and after your graduate studies.  Mathematical formulas for ranging graduate programs do exist, but they are inaccurate and measure something different from your personal needs.  An applicant to a graduate program should be sophisticated enough to perform their own evaluation based on a range of data sources.
In short:  Don't rank graduate programs in same way universities are ranked.
Further, your supervisor is usually more important than your program.

Also, will the quality of one's graduate education or future academic career opportunities be affected by the rank of the program?

This is a duplicate.  University rank/stature - How much does it affect one's career post-Ph.D?


How to cite a paper that has compiled many others

What you're describing is a meta-review, since the review is critiquing and analyzing a collection of existing papers. Because the results are newly derived based on the authors' original work, you do not need to cite all of the 150+ other articles the authors of the meta-review cited, but only the meta-review itself, as well as any of the 150+ papers you directly use elsewhere in your paper.


I would say it depends:

Some papers go from Abstract to Extended Abstract to Full Paper. In this case I see nothing makes it unacceptable. The same goes if you are extending your own results.
I often see the same material copied in the Background (and
sometimes in the literature review) section with the same authors for
different papers. That is in addition to Definitions and common
notations as @Suresh said.
I believe in this case it is ethical and valid since Background (or Definitions) is not the paper contribution.  This ,in turn, has a disadvantage (and I really suffered from this): if you were not able to understand some parts of the background in the first paper, you will stuck there. In other words, you will not find another wording of it.

Returning to the question:

  is it acceptable to borrow significant text from one conference paper
  to use in a second conference paper?

If the significant text is not significant part of the contribution then IMHO Yes. The word significant here is the key and it is ambiguous but let's say its 40% of the paper.

The bottom line is:
Removing the borrowing text, does your paper have a contribution by its own?

I have seen the opposite where some papers are very similar to others and I think this is a bad habit. At the end, you are trying to discover new things not to copy them.


On the qualification for teacher-researcher/enseignant-chercheur (MCF) positions in France and its recent abolition - what exactly does the law say?

Since there seems to be some uncertainty in the other answer / comment thread, I will offer my point of view. (I'm a MCF in a French university.) If you just want the answer, skip to the section that starts by It depends below.
You are misreading the information available. Qualification was removed for PR jobs. It remains mandatory in most cases to be a candidate for MCF jobs. The reply by Galaxie (which you should take as authoritative: Galaxie is managed by the HR department of the ministry of higher education and research, and they are the ones who are going to process your application) is pretty clear about that: if you are not already a titular MCF, then you need the qualification to be a candidate for MCF positions. This is also what is written in your links. I will provide translations in case you are not a French speaker:

(link1) Toujours est-il que la qualification aux fonctions de professeur des Universités est supprimée. => Nevertheless, the qualification for the assignment of professor was removed.

(link2) L’article 5 de la LPR supprime la qualification par le CNU pour les maîtres de conférences (MCF) qui veulent accéder au corps de professeur des universités (PR). => Article 5 of the LPR [Law of (budgetary) Programmation of Research] removes qualification by the CNU for MCFs who want to reach the ranks of professors.

And since nothing beats actually looking at the actual law, here it is on the French Republic's official legal website: https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/article_jo/JORFARTI000042738037

Article 5
Le code de l'éducation est ainsi modifié :
1° Au premier alinéa de l'article L. 952-6, après le mot : « particuliers », sont insérés les mots : «, et sauf lorsque le candidat est maître de conférences titulaire » ;

In short, persons who are already titular MCFs are not required to pass the qualification anymore. Moreover, if you read the rest of the article of law, some universities may ask to receive the permission to hire persons for any job (MCF or PR) without the qualification. But every university will have its own policy on this.
So to answer your question:

can a foreigner apply to the MCF positions now without having the qualification?

It depends:

If you are already a titular MCF, then yes;
If you are applying to a job in a university that has asked and has received the authorization to hire MCFs that have not received the qualification, then yes;
In other cases, that would be a no.

The nationality of the applicant is in principle irrelevant. French nationals and foreigners alike are bound by the same laws for French academic jobs.
Note that to my knowledge, since the law is very recent, no university has yet asked for an exemption from the qualification procedure (since this is a hot topic, I would have heard about it, at least if it were for jobs in my field).
Given the possible discrepancies that will appear between the universities' policies regarding the exemption, your best bet is to get the qualification. Note that the procedure starts very early, in October of the year preceding job applications, so be proactive about it! Don't wait at the last minute, if you miss the deadline you have to wait a whole year.
Finally, note that the law about the exemption (case 2 above) is marked as experimental and the experiment will end in 2025. At that time, there will again be a vote on the law and it will either be maintained or rescinded.
Welcome to French academia, where the rules change all the time, no one's really sure of what's forbidden or allowed, and an error can easily cost you opportunities. Enjoy your stay :)


Names in my language used in publications are inconsistant. Should I worry about it?

It's only part of the solution, but you could look at ORCID, which gives you a unique ID to link together all of your publications etc. regardless of the exact form of your name you use. Use isn't widespread yet, but more and more publishers are starting to adopt it, as are increasing numbers of research institutions (at least in the UK).


Recommendation letter from a research supervisor who was not satisfied with my work

Talk with your advisor about this. Depending on your relationship with your advisor, you may still be able to get a decent letter. Use the following formula:

  Decent letter > No letter > Bad letter

If your advisor cannot write you a decent letter you will have to find someone else who is. Do note that not having a letter from your advisor will be a huge red flag; you will have to come to any interview with a ready explanation as to why your advisor did not feel comfortable recommending you.


Can you jettison a project to work on another in the wake of a big discovery?

Can Alice ditch her project to work on the new discovery?

Alice has many responsibilities in her life, including satisfying her sponsor and producing her thesis. Whether she should ditch her project depends on those responsibilities. IMO, she perhaps doesn't have enough time to fulfil her obligations and ditch her project (PhDs are short), so she might need to delay working on the new discovery. There's perhaps an exception if Alice is in the early stages of her PhD.

  What if the new discovery is in an area that is not her supervisor's
  specialization?

That's not particularly relevant: Many students work under the supervision of advisors that aren't specialists in their research areas.

  if she's a professor (as opposed to PhD student).

Then, she isn't bound to the time constraints of a PhD, but still has other responsibilities.

  I'm also curious whether Alice can make this decision

Yes, she can. Who else would make it? Pressure may be applied by others, but, ultimately, the decision is Alice's. (That said, she may get sued for her decision, e.g., if she ditches her project without delivering upon contractual obligations, but that's perhaps unlikely in academia, even less-so for student-Alice, as opposed to professor-Alice.)

  I'm also curious whether Alice can [feasibly] make this switch if she's a professor (as opposed to PhD student).

If Alice truly wants to switch, then Alice can make it happen. There may be many barriers: personal, institutional, contractual (including funding obligations), ... But, they can be overcome. That said, should she switch? That's up to Alice. She perhaps has a relatively easy position right now, switching will be a massive upheaval.


How to calculate a rough 'chance of admission'?

I think your chances of admission to MIT are near zero. Nothing about you, just numbers. They, and similar places, attract many many many high high high quality applicants. What you need, instead of a prediction formula is a plan to optimize your chances to get into a suitable program - one in which you will be happy and can be reasonably assured of success.

To do this you need a list of reasonable schools that is a little broader than you think your CV and letters from professors will support. Choose some schools a bit more "elite" than you think you would be assured of entry, more in the "mid range" of your expectations, and a few that might not be quite so prestigious. Try not to over or underestimate your potential - get whatever feedback you can from your current professors on that. Perhaps they have a sense of what has happened to students similar to you from their past.

Since you have a year, yet, you can work with a smaller selection of your list, including your top choice. Apply to those first to see what happens. Whenever possible, try to get personal feedback on your application by speaking to people who can affect your acceptance. This might be professors, department heads, admissions officers. They probably won't give you all the information you want to have, but it might be enough to judge whether you are being seriously considered or not. Don't be passive in contacting people if they make that option available, but don't be a pest.

If your first batch seems to need supplementing, you have more for the second round. If it seems like people are taking too long to reply, send out a few more applications.

If you get an offer that is not a high choice for yourself, and if you have time yet, you could try a few more schools that you would find more desirable. Use any offer as a backup rather than immediately accepting it if that is possible. As you get any feedback, and if your situation allows, discuss the results with a faculty member at your current school.

But unless you are the reincarnation of Einstein, don't apply in top-down order from your list. And note that even Einstein got rejection letters. Nothing is certain. You have a lot of competition. Any formula is just probabilistic in any case. Follow a plan.


Doing PhD on computer vision with an engineering background

Firstly, I would definitely recommend taking an online course (a commenter mentioned one from Coursera, and EdX also has some good ones as well) associated with a reputable university. Taking some kind of structured course designed to build a fundamental understanding of the topics and math involved is a great way to jump in and get started.

Once you do that, you'll know where the biggest gaps in your preexisting knowledge are, and you can address those with books/resources covering the theory and math involved, and other resources involving the practical application of what you want to do.

Since you mentioned in interest in pedestrian tracking, a topical and interesting thesis question could concern pedestrian tracking by an autonomous car, and an algorithm for reading "clues" from pedestrian motion to detect what they are likely to do next so that the car can make a choice about whether to slow, stop, or keep going and monitoring the situation. (Just an idea, but there's tons of practical applications for being able to track things).

Once you gather some fundamental information, and know what direction you want to go in, you would probably be in a position to start talking to some professors. If you can demonstrate that you understand the concepts involved, that you have an idea about what you want to research, and that you're serious about doing what it takes to be successful, most professors would be willing to listen and advise you from that point forward. The idea you bring to the table at this point does not have to be your final research idea, but bringing something realistic that you're interested in allows you to both show that you're serious about the research, and also to have a starting point for coming up with a final research plan with input from an experienced researcher.


How do I motivate pursuing a PhD in Computer Science (CS) after a BSc in CS and MBA in Finance

You're an excellent candidate for a PhD in Computer Science: You have a BSc in the subject, you have six years of industry experience, and you've developed a strong urge to pursue CS again to deepen [your] understanding of specific fields of interest while contributing in high-tech and R&D industry. (A desire to deepen your knowledge isn't enough, you need to be truly passionate about contributing in high-tech and R&D industry. I presume you are.) Your MBA gives you business know-how that'll focus your attention towards research problems that'll have real impact on society.

From the research I've conducted most entry requirements prefer applicants to master computer science as it's most ideal but a 2nd master's degree (in CS) is rather deterrent from a time and financial perspective.

Entry requirements are tailored towards the average entrant, which, I'll speculate, is someone that's never left university. You aren't an average applicant. You can confirm my theory by calling some admission departments. Thereafter, identify supervisors that pursue research that impacts technology. Pitch yourself to them, explain how your skill set will advance them. Establish whether they can help you on your pursuit.


Changing supervisor before starting the PhD - not selected

Your wishes and concerns are valid, but your options are limited. You say you agreed, which was not your best choice. Of course you realize this, but maybe too late.

Unfortunately this is more of a personal relationship issue than one for rules. I know how bad it can be to have an inexperienced, ill-matched, advisor, especially if you aren't enthusiastic about the topic.

One option is to go elsewhere for your degree - an extreme solution that will cost you time and perhaps, money.

A possible solution, depending on personalities is to go back to the first professor, with whom you seem more comfortable, and lay out the situation, in essence begging to work under his/her direction instead. Don't open with the suggestion that you may need to withdraw if your request can't be granted and think about whether that is actually what you would want to do. But your possible withdrawal might be a last resort argument. It is a bit dangerous to use, however, if made in such a way that anyone, especially this professor, thinks less of you as a result.

One outcome of such a meeting might actually be that the professor can convince you of the correctness of the current situation (with the new advisor and problem), based on his/her reading of the state of the art. It is useful if you have a senior professor keeping a bit of a watch over you and a junior professor as the process unfolds, so maintaining a good working relationship is essential if you intend to continue.


How can I know if there is any journal interested in my proposed topic?

You should

Make a list of journals that might be relevant to your research.
Look at the scope of each of these journals.
Decide the extent to which your result can fall within the scope of these journals.
Tailor the story of your paper to the journal whose scope best fits your result.


What to do when a professor agrees to write a recommendation letter but doesn’t?

Ask someone else now.  Provide a specific date, e.g. June 10, by which you need the reference and explain why.  You can almost certainly add another referee to your application.  If, for whatever reason, you cannot add another referee, cancel the one that's outstanding as soon as another professor has agreed.

If you can add a referee without canceling one, write to the professor who has already agreed and give her a deadline, also explaining why.  (NB: Professors are necessarily pretty good about meeting deadlines, and often abysmal at those things that do not have deadlines.  This from extensive research on a sample of one, namely Yours Truly.)


Economic Reviews/Journals for High School students

This is possible. And any journal, in theory, will accept your work. However, I think you should seek out some feedback from an economist in the related area. Also, it is an unfortunate reality that econ journals are very 'clubby'.

As an aside -- i am a PhD student studying macroeconimics. If you want to try and provide some idea of what you're doing, I can try to give you advice about journals etc. And feel free to be however vauge you think you need to be to protect your idea.


Is publishing with SpringerBriefs vanity publication for a beginner researcher?

Think "short book", not "long paper". There's been several questions here about the value of publishing a book (e.g., Is there any value in self-publishing a book as an academic? or Pros and cons of (co-)authoring a reference book in early career?), and the answers apply here as well. In short, the fact of having published a book carries virtually no weight (at least in most fields), but a good book can have a long-term impact.

Original research should in general be published in a peer-reviewed journal (or conference), not a book. But if you've written a few papers on a topic that you think would benefit from a consistent notation, cleaned-up presentation, extended introduction and literature review; or if you have a set of lecture notes on a current hot topic you are particularly proud of and would like to see get wider attention (preferring to trust the power of Springers marketing department instead of the vagaries of Google), then publishing them as a SpringerBrief could make sense for you. Whether it'd be worth the effort to get them into shape (and it will cost effort) is something you have to decide for yourself.


Letter of reference without referee email and phone

People reviewing your application will want to be able to get in touch with your referee, one way or another (among other things, they may wish to request a copy of the recommendation directly from the referee rather than from you).

Normally, this is indeed included in the letter. If, as in your case, the letter of reference does not include this information (or the information is obsolete), there are two other simple places to include the correct information:

Some positions have a form for entering referee information.  In this case, you can enter all of the necessary contact information in that location, and possibly also a note on the change of location.
Your cover letter is the ultimate "exception handling" location; you can easily include a post-script with a note about the changed location and contact information.

Bottom line: while it's better to have the contact information correct in the letter, there are other simple ways to provide such information, and as long as it's easy to access and to understand what's going on, any reasonable hiring committee will not hold it against you.


How should I deal with students copying down the problem incorrectly?

My solution is rather boring and simple. What if, after writing the problems on the board, you read the problems outloud with and or to the students. Hearing the problems will reduce many mistakes due to mis-seeing what's on the board.

After reading with or to them you can then ask the students if anything is unclear on the board. They ask and you can clarify your handwriting.


The use of pseudocode examples in CS program--is it plagarism?

Plagiarism is when you claim somebody else's work as your own.  We most often hear about it with regards to words or images, but it can just as easily be applied to other types of intellectual work as well, including pseudocode.

The critical question, then, is whether what you have done can be reasonably understood to be claiming the work as your own.  This depends on the particular assignment, but the cases here fall into two general categories:

If the assignment is asking you to create a piece of code, then finding a piece of pseudocode that does the same thing and translating it would be plagiarism because you are pretending to have created the code yourself, when in fact you have not.
If, on the other hand, the assignment is asking you to create a complex system, one component of which happens to be implemented using a subroutine that you have translated from elsewhere, then it is essentially the same as finding an appropriate library call and entirely acceptable (unless there were rules clearly intended against such).  In this case, the creative work is the assemblage, and you are not representing that particular fragment code as your own --- though it is best practice to be explicit about your sources in comments, for copyright and license reasons.

Given that your professor was encouraging the use of outside resources as part of the project, it seems to me that what you describe is both ethical and normal practice.


Conflicted about whether to start preparing for grad school

A 3.1 undergraduate GPA is indeed low (even from a top school) among successful applicants to a PhD program.  But there are over 130 R1 universities in the US, so it seems likely someone will take you.

I can't advise whether you should get an MS and work for a while before thinking more seriously about a PhD.  What I can tell you is that very few people who start with that intention actually do it.  It's possible to get a master's part-time while you're working but realistically, a PhD requires a full-time commitment and therein lies the problem:  Once they begin working full-time, pulling in the typical $100K+ engineering salary, most people begin spending it.  Worse, they get committed to continuing to spend it.  They take on loans for cars and condos or houses and so on, and then they're handcuffed.  They can't easily leave.

In my own 40+ years in industry, I've known lots of engineers with PhDs.  But I can only recall one person who quit to go get one.  And he had only been working for a year and hadn't yet started spending.  Sure, there may have been others, but I can't remember any others.

So, if you are thinking about a PhD, the best time to do it is probably immediately after you finish your bachelor's.  When I advise engineering students here at Michigan, I point out that I wish I had done that.  I never got a PhD and I regret it.  (And at 68, I think that ship has sailed.)  YMMV.


I think this question is vague, but I think vague questions are the ones that provide the most general answers and thus the most useful. Thus, I'll try to answer.

Why is it vague?

Research is not "one thing", there is nothing like the "one true research". There are many different aspects of research that can influence this decision and the experience of doing research. Among others I can think off the top of my head about: The area, whether it is applied or theoretical, formal or empirical, the people in the lab, if you work alone or in a team, the supervisor(s), the project(s) or grants that provide the funding.

And then you have to consider that all that collides with your personality, assets and skills, or the lack of. Some people have natural skills for writing and communicating, some other people for rigor and analytic thinking, etc. So even if two people are doing the same "amount" of writing and analytic thinking, for the former writing may take 80% of the time and for the latter it may be the other way around.

If you think you like some research but you don't like your research it may simply be that you don't like that research.

This is why the answer cannot really be answered. But as I said, those are the best answers, what we should do in these cases is lifting up the level of abstraction and providing some guidelines so that anyone can find their own answers. I'll do my best.

First thing to do is find out what do you want. Do you want to do some research or not, even if it is some Utopian idea of research that does not really exist anywhere. Then try to find some place where this research is being done. Then try to see if you can access this place. Then you will have to find a compromise solution between what you want, what is available and what is available and accessible for you. If this compromise solution seems to be satisfying for you, then go for it, if it is not then leave it for some other life.

The hardest part is trying to know if a place that seems to fit your interests is really that way or that's only a delusion, the best approach is try to speak with the PhD students there, find out how do they feel about that, if they are similar or different from you, etc. You can also check the statistics like how long does it take for them to finish, number of publications, etc. that will give you expected values.

Remember the difference between expectations and reality, wishful thinking is a hazard. There are quite a few pictures with a skeptic/pessimistic meme about expectations and reality to help you.

Back to some specific details of your question, you should compare this Utopian place with your current place, and possible alternative PhD programs you could start. That way you have an additional option:

Not doing a PhD.
Doing a PhD in a place that suits you, even if it is a compromise solution (life's hard)
Doing a PhD where you are, it's again a compromise solution maybe less optimal than #2, but you save a year with this option, this may pay off or not, that's something for you to consider.

In the end nobody knows, life is about choices with partial information, choose wisely and work hard, no matter the path you choose, this train doesn't move without your effort. If you choose rationally, considering all the information that you have, you may make mistakes, but since they will be caused by information that you don't have, you should not regret them, that's life. Basically, if you do your best, you should not regret the consequences.

Good luck.


Your least important grades are those earliest in your college career; if you have shown improvement, that improvement will be considered by most admissions committee members, especially if you show improvement in related courses at higher difficulty level (for example, based on your majors, I expect you have had many mathematics courses and physics courses since your problem courses in those areas).

However, you should know that if you are applying to top universities in your field, you will need a strong application overall - not only grades count, and admissions might be tight even for great applications.

Although I would not stress these issues in your initial application, you can use this experience to show growth when you interview for jobs or graduate positions. The classic "what is your worst quality as an employee/student" sort of question is a great opportunity for you to discuss your struggle when beginning college and especially to discuss how you were able to turn things around. Congratulations for not being discouraged - nice work.


Can't attend conference due to canceled travel grant

It may be possible, actually, to do more. You might ask if a remote presentation can be arranged. This is possible for some conferences, but would require some setup on your end as well, perhaps in coordination with the university.

But for your actual question, yes, you can ask and explain the circumstances. Some conferences will say yes, some will say no, and some will have other suggestions. But it would be a mistake not to open a conversation with the conference committee.

Note also that not showing up without notice will probably result in the worst possible outcome.


Do journals allow me to modify contents of a paper?

If the reviewers feel that the paper generally has merit, but is in need of certain reasonable corrections or revisions, they will often write a list of specific changes or improvements that are needed, and recommend acceptance subject to those revisions.  This is what people mean when they talk about getting a "minor revisions" or "major revisions" decision on their paper.

Another possibility is "revise and resubmit", where the reviewers aren't convinced whether the paper has merit, or if the errors are fixable, but they explain their concerns and are willing to take another look if you're able to fix the paper to address them.

If they doubt that the paper can be salvaged, or if they don't think the results are interesting enough even if they were corrected, or the paper is generally not up to an appropriate level of rigor and clarity, it'll be rejected.  In this case they may not give you very detailed feedback.  After all, their goal is to help get good papers published, and if they don't think your paper is ever going to get there, why should they spend time on it?

Generally, it isn't the reviewer's job to help you write a good paper, and you can't use the peer review process as a substitute for your own learning.


How to format citations for proposals with a 5-page limit

As a writer of (and occasional reviewer of) applications following this format - UK BBSRC grants - the most common approach I see is 'glob everything together', although personally I prefer to use short-format Science-style references. It comes down to personal preference really. It is so common to use the 'glob' approach that you won't be explicitly penalised for it by a reviewer, but as a reviewer I might subliminally be 'happier' reviewing the more legible version. Admittedly you can't fit as many references in but I can't remember ever having seen any application which I was inclined to mark down because too few references were provided.

(Disclaimer: this is based entirely on experience with BBSRC, other RCUK councils may differ...)


Where does one draw the line to determine what is ethical to share and what isn't?

You can avoid plagiarism the same way you would in a research paper: by citing your sources! So long as you’re not just quoting the same sources over and over again, you can quote a short excerpt from a relevant source and cite it. It’s also worth noting that definitions of common terms, as well as equations, are not normally subject to copyright, because of the exact reason you mention: there are only so many legitimate ways to define a term or write an equation, which places a constraint on expressing them without using someone else’s definition.

As far as links go, there’s no reason you can’t cite what you want.


How many papers should a PhD student in math try to publish before graduating?

I agree entirely with the answers of Mark and Brian.  Since my name has been uttered three times and I've been summoned here already, let me add a few nuances.

1) Asking for a number is certainly the wrong question.  What you want to show as a graduating PhD student seeking an academic career is substantial results and the promise of more (and better) such results to come.  Multiplicity is not the point at this stage of the game.  Better one very good result than five pretty good ones.

2) Zero is a very interesting number nowadays.  It corresponds both to people who have not done any publishable work (note to academics in STEM fields other than mathematics: the standards for publication in a non-predatory math journal are quite high; the most common number of publications for a PhD in mathematics is certainly zero, and many PhDs are awarded for theses which could only be publishable with a significant amount of additional work which the PhD candidate is almost certainly not going to do) and future stars at elite places who do not need to show their partial work because their superstar advisors will tell the story for them.  So zero publications is very common...but it's most commonly bad.

3) Publication quotas have been rising dramatically in mathematics, even in the last dozen years.  I wrote elsewhere that I got my PhD in 2003, my first publication was in 2005, and I did well on the tenure-track job market in 2006 with five accepted papers.  Well, it's true....but that story is so 12 years ago.  Most postdocs we have hired at UGA in recent years have had some accepted papers or at least an arxiv preprint that the interested parties can look at and convince themselves is going to be accepted.  Also at UGA we have numerous, highly systematized opportunities for graduate research, which results in a substantial number of publications co/authored by graduate students.  We also give 2-3 graduate research awards per year, and these awards are usually given for preprints or publications, not just "promising thesis work".  All three of my graduated / soon to graduate students have had arxiv preprints or publications by the time they went on the job market; two out of the three had more than one.  In the limit, Princeton students will get five years of postdocs and be able to release their Annals paper while they're on the tenure track, and everyone else who's serious will have some tangible product upon graduation.  Well, obviously that's an exaggeration, but there's some truth to it.

4) It is true that numbers of publications are sensitive to the subfield.  They're sensitive to a lot of other things as well -- e.g. the length and quality of the publications -- but if we want to sling generalities: applied math people publish way more than pure math people (and they cite each other with enough frequency to make the stereotypical pure mathematician want to roll her eyes every time she hears "impact factor"); they may even publish some of their good papers in conferences, which is almost unheard of in pure math.  In pure math, combinatorics is one of the highest publishing fields, and the papers tend to be shorter (and often lighter, but even a weighty breakthrough paper is probably going to be short compared to other fields).  Algebra and number theory publish a bit more than average, generally.  Analysis is a broad field and seems roughly in the middle.  Geometry depends sensitively on the subfield: discrete geometers publish a lot; differential geometers less; algebraic geometers really less.  Topologists seem to publish very few papers.  Well, it was fun to play but I wouldn't take any of that very seriously (though argue if you want, that's part of the fun).


How much time do I have to spend for NSF panel?

Here's my typical calculation: It takes me ~4 hours to read a proposal (applied math/computational science, but I assume it's the same in other areas) and write a meaningful review. You'll get 8-10 proposals to review for a panel, so plan on a full week of work before you even travel to Alexandria. Then you'll spend 1.5 to 2 completely full days there. Expect to read more proposals on the evening of the first day.

If you have no prior experience, make sure you have a mentor in your department with whom you can talk about expectations for reviews. I see a lot of reviews, in particular from younger and less experienced reviewers, that are really just 3 or 4 short sentences for each of the 3 categories (intellectual merit, broader impact, summary), but these are really not very useful to either the program manager nor the applicant. Be the person you want your reviewers to be and write long, meaningful reviews. You're doing the right thing to your profession, and your program manager will like you too -- which is probably a thing worth striving for anyways. My reviews are typically 1-2 pages long. That takes time, but I think it's time well spent.


What questions could I ask students in an online questionnaire to improve my online teaching?

I'd go on about this in an informal manner. I'd probably ask general open questions like "What did you like about the course?", "What do you think could be improved about the course?", and then cover issues I am particularly interested in, like "What do you think of the way the exercise feedback was given?", "How do you think students could be stimulated better to participate actively in the online lessens?" or "how effective do you think was XXX that I tried to stimulate participation?" etc.
I do not think that questions need to be unbiased. In fact I'd like questions to encourage students to be positive and constructive (therefore I ask "what did you like" but not "what didn't you like"). Many feel more comfortable writing positive things and some will respond to "What do you think could be improved about the course?" rather than  "what didn't you like?" Also I think it will help me more and make myself more open to take criticism if it is presented in a constructive way, and I will more happily use ideas to improve if I get a generally positive message from the feedback. The students need to be encouraged to write things that can help you to improve, but I don't think it serves anybody to invite them to complain.
Obviously it is laudable that you'd also like to cover some aspects that are maybe not the first things you think of yourself. Some general aspects that can be covered are speed of delivery, quality of the provided material, do the students feel comfortable to ask questions and that your answers address them properly (the problem here is that students who for some reason don't feel comfortable to ask you questions may also not be comfortable to tell you this), what do the students think about the amount of work to be done, how this is organised, is the material challenging enough or even too challenging, do they think that you assessed their background knowledge well, i.e., neither spent too much time to explain things they already knew nor assumed material that they didn't know etc. Others will add more. You can of course also ask things like "Is there any comment you have that isn't covered by the questions up to now?" or "Do you believe that there is something about the situation of the students in these times that I should be aware of/take into account more?"
A word of caution though, somewhat in contrast to the number of suggestions before. Keep it short! Keep in mind filling in a questionnaire and then reading it takes time of your students and you. Time is precious. It is probably a bigger problem to cover all you can think of in a questionnaire that takes half an hour to fill in than to ask just five or seven questions and then realise that you forgot something you'd have liked to ask. With very open general questions, you give the students at least the chance to tell you whatever is not covered by other questions.


How to get a tutoring position in Melbourne, Australia?

Wait, and you'll be contacted.

Start your PhD first. Once you're officially a student, when they're looking for tutors, they'll send a mass email to all PhD students. That's when you can sign up. These are internal emails - the positions are not advertised online, and you won't be able to find them via Google.

If you're still concerned, you can ask your prospective supervisor or the department receptionist.


Background:
My similar situation
I did have a problem with my committee. I started a tenure-track job before I defended, and to my horror, one committee member resigned prematurely. I was a two-day drive from my alma mater, and had to find someone very quickly who was both qualified and willing. I proposed a tenured professor in a field closely related to mine, with similar research interests approached by the methods of his field. He had a good CV and was therefore acceptable to my advisor and the rest of the committee. He had a mild crush on me at the time, though not a serious one, mainly because I was the new kid on the block. That might be why he agreed to the thankless task, but I couldn't concern myself with his reasons. He came through, which was all that mattered, although there was a brief crisis after I had made it clear that I wasn't going to participate in any improper flirting with someone on my committee and found my unmarked dissertation shoved under my office door.

A cautionary tale
The committee member who quit had been extremely problematic while I was still in the department, to the degree that I went to the ombudsman for graduate students to discuss the matter and get advice. I was assured that the meeting was entirely confidential, but soon learned that it was reported to my department's chair and made its way to the reader. Therefore, I advise caution in going outside the department.

Answer:
The money issue
You have two questions. One concerns the possible financial cost of a delay caused by the recalcitrant reader. That can be taken up with the university's administration, starting at the lowest conceivably helpful level which would be somewhere above the cashiers. In asking about it outside your department, you should relate very little about the reason for the delay. It should be sufficient to say that it has to do with with the schedule of one of your readers. After a face-to-c=face conference with the appropriate authority, ask for leave to submit your case in writing. Lay it out in calm, practical and professsional language. If you're refused a waiver, write again and politely requested references to the written policy that governs. If there is none, you have some leeway to appeal the decision and assert the need for an accommodation in cases like yours. You might end up pretty high on the chain of command, so tread carefully. The higher you go, the more likely it will get back to the problematic reader, so each time you have to go over someone's head to have their decision overturned, you  should weigh the pros and cons of opening a can of worms. (I don't know what the tuition cost is; your decisions about pursuing a waiver will obviously be affected by the affordability of staying in school longer than you planned to.)

"Self-help"
If you want to go to the reader yourself and ask when they'll complete their review, it's essential that you have your advisor's permission to do so. To do otherwise might create the appearance of "going rogue." The risks your advisor mentioned, associated with involving the department chair, probably exist because your advisor sought help from an authority, which is about as popular as going rogue.

Are we there yet?
I interpret "it will take a while" to mean more than two weeks, with anything up to two months possible.

A practical proposal
If there's any chance to replace the problematic reader with someone as well qualified but not as slow and uncommunicative, that might be ideal. It would be polite, with your advisor's knowledge and permission, to ask the problematic reader if he or she minds being replaced.

Philosophizing
Fact is, a student shouldn't have to handle this alone. Your advisor should be capable of resolving it for you.

The other fact is, your advisor can't control a tenured professor, if that's what the problematic reader is. Neither can the department chair. Maybe a dean could, but this isn't a matter for a dean.

Giving up all hope and the rewards that can follow
If you end up having to pay for another term, make the best of it by keeping a toe in the research you're interested in. If you can help out in your advisor's lab, do so. You can also analyze and write up any worthwhile unpublished data you collected as a student, or work on a scholarly review of research in your narrowly defined area, addressing questions and problems that remain unresolved, if there hasn't been one recently.


Should results of a journal paper always be reproducible?

It is important to run multiple indepemdent replications and statistically analyze the results rather than simply running the simulation once and reporting that result.
It is also important to save the random number seeds that were used so that the simulation results can be replicated.


What does the "C" mean in "Mater. Sci. Eng. C"

The ISO code does not refer to the field, but to a journal. The C is not an abbreviation; rather there are 4 journals with this name, each with a different focus, indexed A, B, C, and R.

A focuses on Structural Materials: Properties, Microstructure and Processing
B focuses on Advanced Functional Solid-State Materials
C focuses on Materials for Biological Applications
R is for review articles

Such a nomenclature is generally used when a journal's scope has become too broad and it needs to be split into multiple journals. Physical Review uses a similar system, for example.


How do schools typically handle a request for short-term leave from a student?

Colleges do not prohibit such events because colleges can't prohibit such events.  On the contrary, colleges have policies explicitly permitting absences for certain specific reasons: travel on university business (including athletics), documented medical emergencies, deaths in the family.  There is typically a special grade of "Incomplete" awarded if the material missed is critical, such as a final exam; the student takes the final soon upon returning and the grade is adjusted accordingly.

As for what the professors will do, this is highly variable.  Some will be accommodating and will extend deadlines, others will mark missed work with zero, while a few might even kick the student out of the course.

Luckily, there is a simple solution for this student.  While enrolling for classes, at the very beginning of the term, he should speak to the professors involved and explain the situation.  If any professor is particularly hostile, then he should take a different course instead.  In extremely unlucky circumstances, a specific course will be essential to take that term (and no later), and the professor will be very hostile.  In this case it might end up that the student takes longer to graduate.


What quantitive metrics would reviewers in order to be presented as candidates for peer review?

If I had to find peer reviewer for a field I have no knowledge of, but a lot of data, I would first come up with a citation graph and look at all papers near to the paper that should be refereed.

If I had a list of reputable journals, I would filter that paper list by this list. The resulting paper list can be scanned for authors. Now you can compare key words of the important papers of the authors to the key words of the paper. This allows you to come up with a list of persons that may be "experts".


How is a PhD by publication valued in the US?

I think that you will find that such degrees are accepted at face value just as you would expect. They are different systems and different ways to guarantee quality, but don't represent any difference in quality as compared to the US model. In fact, having those publications reviewed by independent (journal) reviewers is an added guarantee of quality.

But if the faculty of a respected university has granted you a doctorate in Europe, you can expect it to be valued in US.


Will taking 4 courses in a semester affect my chances of getting into grad school?

I don't think it should be a problem, provided that you are taking some challenging Math/CS classes among your 4 classes.  If it looks like you're trying to skirt by with the bare minimum difficulty of classes, then taking a couple fewer classes could reinforce that negative narrative.  But as long as it looks like you're taking a challenging course load and doing well, I don't know that people will even notice the 4 vs. 5 issue (since there are schools where 4 courses is a normal load).


Finding papers that report results on a dataset

In principle, I think your approach is good, but I have a few suggestions to make your search hopefully more feasible:

Rather than using Google Scholar, I would use a more focused scholarly database that also tracks citations. In general, Web of Science is best for these purposes, but since this particular article is available on the ACM Digital Library, then that might possibly be a better choice. If you're interested in computer science and related literature, then ACM Digital Library is the way to go; if you want to be more broad in your range of disciplines, then I would go with Web of Science.
There are two advantages to using a more focused database rather than Google scholar:

Practically speaking, you have much fewer citations to deal with, and so the task is more feasible. Yet, these focused databases have fairly stringent quality standards, and so although most citations are not included, those that are are widely recognized as high quality. It is a compromise for the sake of feasibility, without meaningfully sacrificing quality. To me, this works for your particular purpose because surveying methods doesn't require an exhaustive search; a comprehensive search is sufficient.
These focused databases usually have much more fine-tuned search options than Google Scholar (e.g. abstract only, keywords, etc.). Thus, you can more precisely focus your search to exclude the articles that you consider irrelevant. (The reason that Google Scholar is not as fine-tuned obviously has nothing to do with their engineers' capabilities; I guess it's probably a matter of copyright licensing to archive and search the journal databases. Google Scholar is free, whereas the others have to pay the journals, so I guess they place a limit on what they consider "fair use" for Google. This is my speculation; I'm not certain.)


Is it possible to do part of my PhD remotely?

Let me give you a different perspective to your question.

  No good quality phd is available in my country

It is good that you aim high. But you must see things through the PHD admissions' perspective. Good universities and good PHD programs have a lot more candidates than PHD positions. Why should they choose you over the other candidates? Is your undergraduate research work that good? Are your grades excellent? Is your university reputable (probably not). If the answer to these questions is no, then the main issue is that you would not get accepted to these programs anyway, regardless of your plan to do it remotely or not.

Also do you have a MSc degree? In many countries in Europe you need a MSc degree before doing a PHD and in USA you need to pass some courses before conducting the actual PHD research. This simply (in either case) cannot be done remotely

Also from your comments I understand that you also want to have funding during your PHD (you would also agree to a reduced funding). In other words, you want someone to hire you (and pay you) to do research, coming from an unknown university, remotely, without actually having a first hand experience of how you can perform at this level, coming directly from an undergraduate university and with no industrial real-world work experience. This is too big a bet for any advisor and university to undertake, unless you have already proven yourself as an extremely talented individual. In that case, exceptions may be possible but still a remotely done PHD is still a major gamble for the advisor and the univesity. Without funding the stakes are smaller but as @xLeitix said remote PHDs do not always work that good. But I think expecting funding for a remote PHD is highly unrealistic.

The only solution I can think of, is for you to work a couple of years on site for a PHD (if you get accepted to a good PHD program) and after proving your
worth there (with some good publications) during the second-half / dissertation writing portion of your PHD you can ask / convince your advisor to work part-time / remotely from your home country.


Relation between subscription fees and adminstrative costs

This will vary wildly by journal, and may be extremely difficult to even meaningfully define, given that many journals are "bundled" together in confidential and institution-specific contracts.  What is clear, however, is that:

Large for-profit publishers are very concerned with keeping their de facto subscription costs difficult to determine, and have quite high profit margins, and
The potential profit from open access subscription fees has drawn large numbers of predatory publishers to the field, and
Society publishers are often able to sustain journal publications with quite minimal costs, especially online-only journals.

You may draw your own conclusions from this: my conclusion is that a lot of money is made from subscription fees.


The aspect of ageism and whether it plays a positive or negative role differs from one institution to another.

  I  worked many years in industry before PhD

The effect this would have on your application largely depends on what type of work are you associated with in the industry -- how well it attributes your tenure track position.

  Should I hide my B.Sc. degree date?

Frankly, I don't think this is a good idea. It is not professional and is not recommended for a CV. In fact, it might have the opposite effect of drawing attention to the information you wish to conceal.


I am wasting my time post PhD due to delay in immigration documents processing. What to do? Please advise

Get off the couch and go workout.
If you are not 100% proficient in English, study it to complete fluency.
Get in the lab (or whatever) and do some papers.  Use the Pomerado to motivate yourself.  Impossible to goof when that tomato is running.
Remember, you shouldn't need your advisor to push you.  Especially as a post-doc.  You are supposed to be a budding PI. But, since you are struggling, at least show up and talk to her (or Zoom or whatever).

As for your visa problems, this is irrelevant. You have your Ph.D. Getting an immigration document will not or not should not change your competence, work ethic, maturity, etc.


Is it unethical to take ideas from a pre-print to write your own research paper (though the author of the pre-print is acknowledged)?

He should just cite what he used or learned from the ArXiv paper and send it in. There's no real need to add an acknowledgement.


Is there a way to save a webpage page with Mendeley Webimporter?

When you click on the Mendeley plug-in icon in the browser while you are on the webpage you want to save, it gives you the option to save the webpage too

This example is from Google Chrome with Mendeley Web Importer.


Letter of recommendation from non-native speaker

USA Grad Schools Answer:

Spelling and grammatical errors are ignored - especially if we know the letter writer is not a native speaker. The letters are letters, not published, peer-reviewed journal articles.

What is usually more problematic with academics who didn't come out of American systems (or who haven't been here long) is that they don't fit the genre form of American letters of recommendation - which is excessively flourished praise over several pages with minutiae of biographic details and research insights.

I have read many letters from colleagues at foreign universities that are just three sentences long. This won't work. One of my American colleagues at my previous workplace regularly wrote letters that were 5-6 pages long. I think that's excessive. Somewhere in between is the sweet spot.

If your professor has been here long enough and gone through grad admissions at an American school, they will know what it takes to get in. I wouldn't worry about the grammar and spelling, though. As long as it comes in on letterhead and/or through the portal, we assume it's genuine. And if it's too opaque, we're known to actually phone letter writers to verify the authenticity or clarify the contents of a recommendation.


How to find out the first name of a professor whose home page lists only first initial?

If you are at a university that has access to MathSciNet, then you can look up any one of his publications (listed on the web page you linked to), and then click on his name to find out that his first name is Saminathan.


The message is vague, but check the text the referee has highlighted. Chances are you can see something wrong. The word "typeset" here could indicate a typesetting error - for example, perhaps you forgot to include a reference that the text cites (this makes LaTeX go [??]). Or it could just mean there's a spelling error, an ambiguous sentence, etc.

Either way, the reviewer pointed out which lines they're referring to, which should help you solve the issue.


Would it be ethical to hire a proofreader for theses and academic articles?

Short answer

Yes, it is ethical

Long answer

The three options are:

Proof-reading it yourself
Asking a co-author (for academic article) or a 3rd person (for theses) to proof-read it
Pay for a commercial proofreading service.

As I see it:

Option (1) is inefficient. You've written the text, read it many times over, and your brain will simply fool you in not seeing the typo's.
Option (2) is done quite often in practice. In my opinion, it's most suitable for journal articles; some articles have quite a lot of co-authors, and one could give a section to each co-author and distribute the work. That's what I usually do (my thesis will be quite small, because it's just a summary for a sandwich thesis).
As for option (3), I don't see any ethical problems with paying for a proofreading service. I know a number of people (they are not native speakers) who do this systematically for theses and academic articles. They buy commercial services who check and correct the quality of their English writing. This improves the quality of the text and therefore reduces the chance to annoy the reviewers.


When does the co-authorship line end for a PI's data

The German research foundation (DFG) has some guidelines on authorship for research publications (including an English translation towards the end) which put specific criteria for being named as an author. Among others, it says that those "who have made significant contributions to the conception of studies or experiments" should be listed as authors.

In my understanding, getting funding for a project requires describing the conception of the data collection in quite some detail, so anybody who contributed to that part of the proposal should be included as an author of the resulting publication. Importantly, the criterium is not having brought in the money, but having contributed (significantly) to the conception of the study.

The only exception to that rule would be if the paper under discussion does not "publish" the data, but "uses" it in some other way and can include a citation to the original publication of the data.


Need ideas for postdoc application re support of sponsoring institution

Here's some ideas about what you could ask for:

A course that is not generally available - such as a leadership program
Support to spend a few weeks at some other institution to build a relationship?
What do you need for your research? For example, funds for transcribing interviews, or a few months of a data analyst?

But it sounds to me like you are being asked not for a wish list, but for some thought about what is both relevant and unique about the university you are applying to. For example, is there a respected researcher in your field and you could spend some time working with that person.


How do I reference/cite a figure created specially for me by someone else?

There are the usual LaTex characters for registered trademark and copyright though I doubt if your friend will press for these. It would be unseemly I feel if you were to put ref numbers on each or any of these figures with a footnote on the page end; or even to make a reference comment at the end of the thesis. However I've seen trademark symbols in engineering theses where a branded material was being evaluated - in fact they were everywhere that material was mentioned !
In every research publication there is a space for Acknowledgements. Journal publications have it towards the end, theses have it before Chapter 1. In this section you pay tribute to many named and/or unnamed colleagues and friends for practical assistance and helpful discussions. Explicit mention of the party providing the set of figures in question would be best placed here. If the person normally provides such figures on a professional basis, e.g. a graphic content designer in private practice, you may mention the business name but not perhaps any web site address. If the person is a university employee, e.g. someone working in the university printing press, you may mention their bureau. For example,
Acknowledgements
" ... and a special thanks to John Smythe of Magraphix for design work on figures 3.m - 3.w . . ."
or
" ... and a special thanks to Soraya Helegloglu at Trinity College London Press for design work on figures 3.m - 3.w . . ."


How to apologize for declining an offer from a potential PhD advisor?

The best thing you can do is be honest and explain the situation. You thank the second professor for the offer, explain you accepted another offer and wish the second professor well with their future research.
This is a common situation and the second professor should be understanding.


How to withdraw ones name from an already published paper

The most effective and natural method would be to simply ask, possibly explain your situation if needed, to the editor or publisher of the paper.

If you have more issues with the publication, you are free to mention them, but this is mostly orthogonal to whether you want your name on the possible publication.

It would also be a good idea to inform your co-authors of this decision, as they may take it badly if they aren't notified.


Is it possible to get a research assistantship between undergraduate and masters degree, while not enrolled as a student?

Sure, it is normal to work for a university lab with only a bachelors or masters. However, none of the people I knew did this as a transition between undergrad and grad, rather they did it to transition out of research.

The job titles range widely though, especially across fields. I have seen job titles of "Research Programmer", "Research Engineer", "Software Engineer", "Systems Researcher", etc. This is in Computer Science so other fields may have something along the lines of "Lab Technician" or other domain specific titles.

If you want to do research, then apply to graduate programs that are relevant to you and attempt to contact potential advisors.


How to choose a generalist repository and what risks should I be aware of?

I haven't used any of these resources myself but hopefully the following points can help you in your decision:

This kind of repository and the open science trend in general are pretty recent. This is why it's a bit difficult to evaluate and compare the different options, there's not enough hindsight yet. This is also why, in my opinion, the main risk is that the platform you choose would become obsolete or disappear in the future. So to be safe you might want to choose a platform which allows you to export your stuff easily.

Another important point you should consider is the policy of your institution: the outcomes produced as part of your academic job can be subject to IP restrictions. So it might be a good idea to check with your local IP or legal office what kind of license they allow/recommend and whether there is any IP disclosure process in place.

It's also worth mentioning that there are a few more generic options for sharing outputs: for instance Github, Google Drive, and of course the good old personal webpage (most universities let you create one under their website).


How does one figure out how hard it would be to get tenure in a given department?

Let me mention some aspects not covered by the other question.
I think that for an individual case it is nearly impossible to make a prediction with any validity. Even if you can determine the historical record for a given department, things change. Things always change.
The decisions on tenure are based on both the needs of a given department, which evolve over time, and the actual record and performance of an individual candidate. Nothing in this is very predictable. You can do a "good" job that isn't "quite" good enough as measured by the evaluations of your peers. You might be a bit unlucky in your research production or your teaching evaluations. Or you might be especially lucky. It varies.
Worse than that is the question of changing economic and even political situations. A legislature may decide to reduce funding for a university or for a specialty just as it becomes a factor for you. Economic conditions might be especially good or bad for bringing new students into the university (or your department) at just the point at which decisions are made.
There have been situations in which a department recommends a person for tenure, but the university says no, due to decreased or even uncertain funding. After all, tenure is a long term commitment that may be difficult to make in uncertain times.
And, of course, a pandemic might hit.
While one can gather statistics about such things over time, such things are essentially meaningless as a predictive measure for an individual. You take a chance. You work hard. You hope for the best. But also, you keep flexible if you are wise and look at how your current trajectory is going with respect to the trends developing around you.
The one thing you can do is try to match the stated priorities of an institution to your own skills. If you are a better teacher than researcher, then a teaching college will almost certainly be a better "bet" than a research focused institution. But that, I assume, is obvious. But be realistic about your self evaluation.


Pros and cons of publishing in a journal not indexed in SCI but under ESCI?

I'm guessing that where you are in your career it matters very little. The important thing is to get published in a reputable journal. I also doubt that experienced scholars worry very little about such things.

Pick a journal that seems appropriate for your work. Send it off. Then write the next paper.

And if you are not yet in a doctoral program, then publishing is a big win, no matter where, as long as the journal is reputable.


How do industry funded theses differ from purely academic ones?

Your thesis must satisfy the requirements of your committee and university. In that sense the thesis coming out of an industry-sponsored project is no different than a thesis coming out of a government research grant. How you get there, and what happens along the way may differ compared to your peers.
Some differences to consider while working on an industry-sponsored project include:

(1) Additional oversight by your industry contact/group. They are sponsoring the research for some reason, and would like to keep it on track toward their goal. Often this includes meetings and reviews on-site at the company (see #3 below).

(2) Potential delays in publishing or releasing data to give their patent process time to run. Of course, more universities are looking at building a patent portfolio as well these days, but be sure to clear your conference and journal submissions with your industry contact. Up front find out how long this usually takes and factor it in to your submissions.

(3) Remember that you are auditioning for the company, particularly when visiting them. If you do well you might well get a job offer out of it (this is a prime reason for companies to sponsor research at a university by the way - a talent pipeline).

(4) It is entirely possible that you will be encouraged/asked to attend one or more industry meetings. While not as 'prestigious' as an academic conference, it would give you exposure to lots of companies that might want to hire you.

(5) You get to work on a problem that somebody else cares about. Taking something from research to development to product can be an exciting thing to do, and is not commonly a feature of university-based research projects. Either liking or hating the experience you have with the interaction can be a strong indicator of what you really want to do after your PhD.


If your advisor can't support you and your research, find another advisor as soon as possible. Your department/grad program should be able to help with this and talking to them should be your next step - it's also possible they can do something to get you funded in the immediate term. In fact, this should have been the advice your advisor gave you instead of suggesting you try to float around for a semester.

You might be able to keep your current advisor as a co-advisor or something, but frankly the way they handled this situation (waiting to tell you until now) is absolutely horrible and unprofessional (and selfish): they would have known long ago that funding was expiring and if they were waiting on some pending grant applications they needed to inform you then so you could line up other support.

I wouldn't be able to trust that person again.


Time to read student evals again (shudder)

Because, as every other desirable thing, Joy is a concave function:


Learn to write scientific papers in medicine

You are looking for something like this one? English for Writing Research Papers. There is a series of books by Adrian Walwork on English usage in science, or a book by Hilary Glasman-Deal. Anothers are A Scientific Approach to Scientific Writing or Introduction to Scientific Publishing. Just don't read them all.


Every such case is individual and depends on the rules set in place. Contact both universities, actually. Perhaps your current institution can assure the new one that the diploma is certain to be issued by some date. Perhaps the new institution will accept that. But it is up to them.

I doubt that they will be especially finicky about the rules, but no one can say but them. Keep all of your other options open until things are finalized.

Even a letter from a professor might assure them that all is well.


What do the Dutch academic titles "prof.dr.dr.h.c.ir." mean?

Here you go:

prof is short for professor.
dr is short for doctor, which signifies either MD or PhD.
dr. h. c. stands for doctoratus honoris causa, which is an honorary title.
ir stands for engineer (ingenieur).

In this case it means a professor (with a PhD) with an engineering background, who got an honorary title at some point.


How to cite from a paper using a different citation style?

Echoing the other good comments and answer, I'd encourage you to think in terms of "forthrightness", rather than compliance to semi-random formal criteria. Think of the function of your citations, and thinking of the idealized version of scholarship and such. The goal is not conformity to style guides, but useful contributions to human knowledge, blah-blah-blah, ;) But, yes, that should be the way to think about such questions.

To my taste, citations in-line should be sufficient so that the reader does not have to "flip to the end" to see what "[46]" is. The space spent on fuller references is a good investment!!!

That is, yet again, if one thinks that the function of one's writing is to help the reader, all in-line references would be optimally helpful, as opposed to "proper-and-possibly-unhelpful".


If I receive an "honorary doctorate" from a reputable university, would it be wrong to refer to myself as "doctor"?

This wikipedia article has a lot of good information about honorary degrees (especially, honorary doctorates).  The major takeaway is that a recipient of an honorary doctorate should not try to mislead people into thinking that he has an earned doctoral degree.  An honorary doctorate is really an award and not a degree, so it would be, well, honorable to take pains to describe it accurately.  Thus you should probably not describe yourself as "Dr. Horsehair" except in a context in which the honorary degree has already explicitly been discussed and is relevant (e.g. at a ceremony at the institution which awarded the doctorate).

Listing yourself as having a PhD when submitting an academic paper seems willfully misleading and thus unethical.  Moreover you should not at all neglect the possibility that an editor or referee will do some quick internet search and discover that your PhD is not a "real one": this would not reflect well on you.

A PhD has a very specific meaning within the academic community: it is an academic credential.  Academics take academic credentials very seriously, and the PhD is one of the most serious academic credentials, so you should expect academics to take that credential very seriously.  Appearing to flout -- or even worse, not understand the significance of -- academic credentials is one of the worst things that a would-be academic researcher could do.  On the other hand, a PhD is "just a credential": it is not a badge of honor, a sign of superior intelligence, greater worth or anything like that.  Most lifelong academics have met PhD holders whose academic skills are wholly unimpressive as well as non-PhD holders (of both the "not-yet" and the "never" varieties) who are brilliant and academically accomplished.  Portraying yourself as having a PhD is not going to elevate you within the academic community in any fundamental way (but, as I said above, a discovery that you do not have the earned PhD that you implied you did may well be held against you).  Just be honest and keep your head up.


How to Ask a Professor to be thesis referee

Hello Dr. Foo,

  My advisor, Dr. Bar, recommended that I should contact you to referee my thesis, "Underwater Basket Weaving." I was wondering if I could meet with you to provide you the thesis and answer any questions you may about it beforehand. Please let me know if you'd be interested and, if you are, the best time and location for me to meet you. Thank you for your time.

  Sincerely,

  Spongebob

Be polite, be clear, be accommodating. Your professor is unlikely to introduce you two because he probably doesn't want to appear as if he's using the potential referee as a resource rather than as a colleague. Furthermore, interacting with people you don't know through e-mail and real life is commonplace in academia, so it stands to reason your supervisor would want you to try it out.


Yes.

The purpose of student discounts is to encourage people with a limited income and limited funding to participate.  Recent graduates are in that category.

Most students presenting at conferences are PhD students.  Usually, PhD students are not sure when they will finish their degree.  It's perfectly normal for a PhD student to register for a conference as a student, and there's no reason to change their registration if they happen to graduate before the conference occurs.

I've never seen a conference verify any information I have sent to them.

(Conferences are not publications in my field.)


How to cite a reformulation of an older theorem?

I recommend restating the theorem in your own paper.  You can then say: "We now restate a theorem of X [citation], since in this context, it is more convenient to write it in different terms/notation. The version we give here is based on the book of Y [citation].

Theorem: ....."


What tools can compare all text of submitted assignments semantically after paraphrasing and detect plagiarism?

You can try using Sentence-Bert, original paper here: https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.10084
Github link here: https://github.com/UKPLab/sentence-transformers
It is very easy to use since I had used that before and it took me just several minutes learning how to use it.
The usage is fairly simple, you generate embedding for each assignment, and compare the cosine similarity between each pair of assignments embeddings.
Then you can manually look at the ones that have very high cosine similarity.
The Github repository descriptions said: This framework provides an easy method to compute dense vector representations for sentences, paragraphs, and images. The models are based on transformer networks like BERT / RoBERTa / XLM-RoBERTa etc. and achieve state-of-the-art performance in various task. Text is embedding in vector space such that similar text is close and can efficiently be found using cosine similarity.


Famous modern-era academics without academic degrees?

In regard to your question's topic, at least two relevant terms come to mind: lay scholar and autodidact. Once we establish the right terminology, it is not too difficult to find information that you're looking for. In particular, this Wikipedia list and this list seem to be rather comprehensive (you will have to filter the information to select the modern-era academics without degrees).


Is it viable to pay for MS if your future goal is a Ph.D

In principle, yes, that's a viable plan.  But there are a few stumbling blocks to be aware of.

First: There are two types of MS degrees in computer science in the US.  Research master's degrees have a significant research component, usually ending with a formal thesis.  Professional master's degrees require only taking classes; this is no expectation and little opportunity to get involved in research.  A successful research MS is good preparation for a PhD program, and many CS PhDs started by getting a master's degree first.  (I'm one of them.)  But a professional MS is generally considered a terminal degree, even with a 4.0 GPA.

Second: PhD applicants with MS degrees are held to higher standards than PhD applicants with only undergraduate degrees, because they have had an extra year to build up a research portfolio.  In my department, for example, strong applicants with master's degrees but no formal publications are usually rejected.  See the previous point.

Third: Strong graduate programs in the US also get too many applicants for too few positions.  Competition at the top departments is fierce.  Even getting a research MS is no guarantee of being admitted to a PhD program.

To address the first three points, I strongly recommend asking the following question of any MS program you apply to:

  What fraction of graduates from your program go on to get a PhD?

Fourth: If you don't have any research experience, how do you know that you want a PhD?  Getting a PhD is not like getting an undergraduate degree; doing research is not like taking classes — it is much more open-ended, much more self-directed, and much much riskier.  This is not a question to answer here, but definitely something to address in your application statement.


Recommendation Letters with Research Professors

You can and should ask, but you could first ask them if they know you and your work well enough to write you a good letter. If not, ask them for advice.

I assume that the prof will probably ask the RAs who know you best for advice on the letter, so make sure you have a solid reputation with them, as well.

It isn't especially important that they know you on a personal level, but they need to be able to speak positively about your work and your likelihood of success.


How to identify studies that should be replicated?

If I was going to look into replicating a study, I would look for one that satisfies some mixture of these two ideas:

Is there something to gain from the replication? Do I find the original study/results important? Would a replication add to the field? Have I ever wished someone would replicate this?
Is there reason to believe something would be different? Do I think their conclusions are wrong? Or could I generalize the original result by changing something?

For example, there is a paper that I heavily cite in my work but it is getting relatively old (software engineering does change with time, I think!) so I have wished someone would replicate it. It isn't possible for me to replicate it completely but regardless of the result, I think it would help the research community.

Note: This is coming my from perspective in a field that doesn't particularly value replications (unlike medicine and psychology).