Do journal editors check self-citations?

You have to expect or assume that journal editors read or at least scan any paper that comes across their desk. So they may also see what's being cited and what is not.
Now, it seems to me that you're worried about citing your own papers. There is, in itself, nothing wrong with citing your own papers: Oftentimes you're building on previous work you reported on previously, and citing your own previous papers allows others to follow your path of exploration. So these citations are ok.
On the other hand, it is problematic if you cite your previous papers because you want to rack up your citation count of H index. This would generally mean that you cite your own papers even though they have nothing to do with the current paper. Don't do that -- it's academically dishonest to do that, generally frowned upon, and may lead to your papers being rejected.
So the question for you to answer is this: If you want to add a citation to one of your previous papers, are you adding it because (1) you think it is a useful reference for your readers, or because (2) you want to increase your citation count? If the honest answer to the question is (1), then you should be on the safe side.


Is it possible to complete the last year of a German Diplom in another university if ineligible in original university?

Your friend seems to be very lucky, as the the civil-engineering diplom programme in Dresden is one of the very few in Germany that did not switch to bachelor/master yet (source). So if he did not automatically fail his studies due to some rule, he is likely to be able continue almost where he left them. For details, you would really have to check the university’s guidelines.
If this is not possible for some reason, there are a few universities where the diplom programmes have not fully ended yet, but I would judge it unlikely that any of them allows for new students to enrol, even if they only need to write a thesis.

More generally, there is a general German law (Hochschulrahmengesetz § 15 (3)), that allows students to transfer accomplished achievements:

Zum Nachweis von Studien- und Prüfungsleistungen soll ein Leistungspunktsystem geschaffen werden, das auch die Übertragung erbrachter Leistungen auf andere Studiengänge derselben oder einer anderen Hochschule ermöglicht.
(For certifying studying or examination accomplishments, a point-based system system shall be created that allows to transfer accomplishments to other degree programmes of the same or another university.)


Is it rude to ask for accommodations due to a learning disability?

It would not consider the request rude, as long as you have a reasonable justification for needing to wear headphones during class (which you do). How you might approach your professor and whether he'll accommodate your request may depend on where you're located and whether your jurisdiction provides protections for individuals with disabilities.

In the United States, for example, individuals with disabilities are protected though the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which require colleges and universities (amongst other organizations) to provide reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities—in your case, needing to wear headphones in class would be considered a reasonable accommodation (although this might depend on the subject of the course—in a woodworking course where headphones would pose a threat to safety, for example, it would likely not be a reasonable accommodation).

There are also proper channels a student needs to go through to request medical accommodations—initial requests should not go directly to the professor. Universities and colleges will have a centralized student disabilities office that handles requests for disability accommodations and it is this office that will require documentation of a disability and determine what accommodations a professor will be required to provide. They will then send a form to your professors indicating what accommodations they need to give you. Because of ADA and health privacy laws, the disability office will not tell your professor what your disability is and your professor is not allowed to ask you what your disability is.

Although this answer is very much local to the United States, similar protections may exist in other countries as well. Rather than approaching your professors directly, consider asking your university's student advising office, student life office or health clinic whether professors will provide accommodations for disability (you shouldn't need to tell them what your disability is). They will then be able to point you to resources that will work with you to find solutions.


How to prepare a Journal Club (or Methods) presentation?

(this is rather long: I wrote it for one of my students, who had a similar question)

BASIC UNDERSTANDING
When you're processing a paper, ask yourself:

what is their precise problem formulation
what is their solution
what larger issue are they trying to address with their paper
Do (1) and (2) actually fix (3)
(for experimental papers) do the experiments tell a convincing story to bolster their claims. Be suspicious of what they claim unless the line of reasoning is clear.

SYNTHESIS
Once you've done this for a set of papers, you should start trying to connect them together:

is there a linear progression of ideas ?
How do the tools connect up
Is there some way to simplify and explain what groups of papers are doing under a common theme ?

CRITIQUE
Once you have the above, then you can ask

what are the gaps in what people are doing
Are these gaps important or minor ?
Does some union of the papers essentially solve the problem ? if so, why and if not, why not ?
Are these papers even solving the right problem ? (this last point is both tricky and critical - it is very easy for a line of research to be internally consistent but get totally derailed from the original motivation for the problem)

DIRECTIONS

Now you're ready to suggest new directions and new ideas.

note that critique comes AFTER basics and synthesis - you must understand very well before you can judge.


How do I tell a professor who tells me he'll send in a recommendation but doesn't that I don't need his letter anymore?

If you don't feel angry at your professor, you could drop them a note once the firm deadline has passed, so that they avoid wasting time on writing a letter that's not needed anymore, or they don't feel bad about never having gotten around to doing it. I could imagine doing this with some colleagues whom I know are very busy.

In this case you could write something like "Dear professor, I'm writing back about the letter of recommendation that I originally requested from you on [date]. You had agreed to write this letter, but I have not received it. I just wanted to let you know that the deadline for submitting letters has passed, so it doesn't make sense for you to work on this anymore. Instead, I have asked [other prof] to write a letter explaining the situation."

If you will be working with this professor again and would like to set a boundary, you could add something like "It felt stressful for me to make this alternate arrangement without having a response from you about the original letter. In the future, it would be really helpful if you could respond more quickly to email about this kind of matters." Or something like this, although that's hard to word.

On the other hand, if you feel indignation at your professor, as seems to be the case, then I don't understand the purpose of sending a further email at all. What good would it achieve? If the letter of recommendation arrives at some later time, you can simply explain that the deadline has passed so you can't use it, but thanks nevertheless.


Citing sources and the "Right to Publicity" (USA)

I don't think I've ever seen any such clause in an academic publishing agreement.

As an example, I and some coauthors recently published a paper in a journal run by the American Mathematical Society (a US organization).  The publishing agreement contained no such stipulation; the closest thing is a clause requiring us to certify that our paper "does not libel anyone, infringe anyone’s copyright, or otherwise violate anyone’s statutory or common law rights."

Indeed our paper mentioned the names of lots of individuals, both living and dead (though none fictional, as far as I know), in the context of citing their work.  We never asked their consent and it was never suggested that we should.  It is conceivable that this might violate the "statutory or common law rights" of those individuals, if there really are laws such as you suggest, but I've never heard a suggestion that merely mentioning people by name was likely to pose actual legal problems.

If I did see a clause like the one you mention, I'd probably do one of the following:

If I were feeling lazy, I'd just sign it even though it's not actually true, and assume that no real trouble will result.
If I were feeling conscientious, I'd tell the publisher that I can't sign the agreement as it stands because my paper does mention people by name, and it's not feasible to ask their consent.  (I could add something about this being an undue restriction on academic freedom, etc.)  If they insisted, I'd withdraw my paper and look for a publisher with more reasonable lawyers.


Misleading statement on duration of review process and withdrawal of under-review article

You may withdraw your paper at any point (unless copyright has been transfered). Is this case this even seems like a good option. Although the numbers on review time on the homepage are averages, I find it highly disturbing that the editor gives such a large estimate that early. How can he know the he will need more than 10 month from now to form his decision? If he has some reason to believe so, shouldn't he try to keep review times short if his journal advertises short review times? Many reputed journals I know work hard, publisher and editorial board together, to keep their review times as small as possible, and here seems to be one editor who doesn't care.

To answer the questions: Yes you can withdraw at any time of the review process. Such an estimate of the review time is a valid reason. To withdraw your paper you just write an email to the handling editor stating that you withdraw the paper. You do not have to give specific reasons and you may resubmit the paper somewhere else right away. The editor can not refuse the request as (usually) nothing has been signed which prohibits withdrawal.


How to select dates and times of office hours for the benefit of students and instructors?

If I had a two day a week class, I would have it before class on Tuesday, and after class on Thursday.  And also by arrangement, if someone couldn't come because of their class or work schedule.

At my school, the rule was two hours for each class.  There's no recommended amount of time where you are?


Supervisor not satisfied and only willing to see me every two weeks, what should I do?

"Once every two weeks" is actually "quite frequently" for an individual research project. Your supervisor, probably, just noticed that more often than not you could not tell him much after just one week of work (very few students can, actually) and decided to listen to your "progress report" once in two weeks. If you are really doing your work and aren't just dragged by him through it, this shouldn't slow you down in any way and I bet 10 against 1 that if you get something interesting to tell him tomorrow, he will listen to you the day after tomorrow no matter how far the scheduled meeting date is.

The idea of operating from a "submission deadline" in an unfinished research project looks totally ridiculous to me. The whole difference between a research project and house cleaning is that you never know how much time you'll need for the former and whether you'll be able to pull it through at all. In my own work, the failure to success ratio is 9 to 1 and that is generally considered quite good. You have to learn that things take time and that you may fail completely when doing research. It is normal and there is no reason to freak out about that. Even in the case when you see the general way to do things and are certain that it must work, the "little details" may take forever.

You can request direct help now and then but the request should be not in the form "I just don't know what to do next..." but in the form "I've done this. Now, for the next step I would need something like this. Unfortunately there is this particular obstacle in the approach I am currently pursuing. Do you have an idea of how I can overcome it or I should try a different route altogether?". You supervisor may share the "bird's view" of the road with you (and it is sort of his duty) but to go around trees, to jump over brooks and to climb hills is your job unless you really face an impenetrable thicket, a fast deep river, or a steep mountain on your way). Telling you how to do every little thing every time is no fun for him and takes the most important part of the research experience away from you. Passing the routine work (like programming of a known algorithm) to others is a no-no at your current level. You may "outsource" your own work only when you can do it faster and better yourself, but there is yet another task at hand that nobody else can do at all. You may (and should) seek general information, but not ready solutions to your particular problems even if the latter are as trite as "Why does this stupid while loop stop one step earlier than it should?".

So, my general advice is to relax, to forget about all deadlines, and to proceed on your own and at your own pace however slow it may seem to you. Just don't stop altogether and give up unless you are ready to declare an official failure and quit completely.


A wiki is a platform, which you can use in whatever way you see fit. Personally, I've used them academically for the following purposes:

Lab notebook

I was running cognitive psychology experiments on subjects. I would make a top-level page that contained links to a separate page for all of my research projects. On each research project page, I had links to separate pages for each of the following:

Study protocols (behavioral testing, brain scanning, data cleaning, data analysis) - separate pages for each
Change log to the paradigm itself
Troubleshooting notes... as I encountered problems, write them down here
Subjects (one page per subject

Each subject page contained notes on each session, results, general info ("subject performed poorly today, possibly due to stress from midterms"), as well as the results of their data analysis.

Publication repository

This wiki was basically a place for me to store papers. Many wikis allow embedding of pdfs, and I would store pages as follows. The top-level page segmented topics. Each topic page contained links to pages about individual papers, as well as links to ongoing summaries of my reading. This was where I would write down my thoughts and conclusions after reading papers, and made it easier for me to combine my thoughts on multiple papers... after reading a new article, I would review what I had written there and try to somehow incorporate the new article in my ideas (if relevant, more often than not it wasn't).

These are just two ideas, and they were just used by me, not my whole lab. I'm sure you can think of more (managing lab meetings, managing collaborations, managing lab-wide protocols, etc).


Is it rude to send a self-correction followup email to professor?

Different cultures have different standards of politeness. Educated people tend to understand that. By UK standards you were more polite than you needed to be, but by Japanese standards, perhaps, just right.

Don't think of it as a mistake. There should be no issue at all. In fact, I'll guess you've made a good impression.

The opposite problem, in which a person isn't polite enough in the local culture is a bit more of a problem, of course. I hope that if I were to meet you in Japan, you would forgive me for my seeming lack of politeness in some situations imagining (correctly, I hope) that it isn't intended.


Several different templates are available on the net, it depends only on your taste!
I would like only one thing: write it in LaTeX. If you are not familiar with LaTeX or you don't feel comfortable with it, Theoretical Physics is not for you. Obviously I'm joking, but not completely...
Anyway, without too much efforts, on the net I found in particular this template that is really suitable for many purposes (actually, with some modifications, is the one I use for my letters):

As you can see this is very sober but direct and clear.
If otherwise you fell very comfortable with typing in TeX, I suggest you to try to emulate some template in LibreOffice downloadable on the net. In particular I recommend this one, in particular the one at page 23, but many others are really nice.
Therefore, I would like to quote also this answer from SE Academia that partially answer your question. In particular I stress the importance of these sentences:

What is unavoidable to write
Make your cover letter personal, remarkable (i.e., stands out from other cover letters), specific to you and specific to the position at hand. Be enthusiastic. Be specific. Show that you've put thought into the position and why you are applying.
Relate your specific skill sets and previous experience to the programme you are applying for. Relate the content of specific aspects of your CV to the programme:
"During my masters, I enjoyed working on the topic of A, which relates to your programme [in this way]"
"I worked three summers at company B, where I gained experience in topic C ..."
"I visited your university in March last year and was impressed by ..."
"I read paper entitled 'D' published by your group at 'E' and was interested in ..."
"I recently published a paper 'F', which I believe compliments work by 'G' in your department on 'H' ..."

Good luck for your application!


Should CV include special note about published 'cover articles'?

A cover article is noteworthy, but not all noteworthy material goes on all CVs. I include a note about cover articles on my CV iff I am also including citation counts. I only include this extra information if the CV is for something that is trying to evaluate the "impact" of my research.


The easiest way to resolve this question is to e-mail the person and ask whether they anticipate taking new graduate students in the near future.  This is worth asking even for non-adjunct faculty (since they may have all the students they can handle already, they may be retiring soon or moving to another university or an administrative position, etc.), so nobody will be surprised or take offense at the question.

As for what sort of answer to expect, it depends on what sort of adjunct professor it is.  Sometimes researchers from other institutions (government or industrial research labs, museums, etc.) hold adjunct positions at universities.  They may or may not be allowed to supervise graduate students, depending on the terms of their appointment, but it's common to allow this; often it's part of the point of the position.  On the other hand, there's another sort of position sometimes called adjunct faculty, namely low-paid temporary workers hired to teach introductory courses, and these jobs are not likely to involve graduate supervision.  You should be able to tell pretty easily which case applies to any particular person by looking on the web, and in any case e-mailing them (as described above) will give a definitive answer.


How long should I wait before following up after being wait-listed?

makes me worried that they might guess that I have other offers and won't wait for them, if I don't contact them and express that I am still very interested in their program.

I wouldn't worry about that.  The fact that he called you on the phone to me indicates that he really would like to make an offer to you, but he can't guarantee it now (hence the "so we understand if you prefer to take them").  Unless you told him something to indicate that you wouldn't be interested in an offer later, they will not pass over you as the move down the waitlist (of course, there's no guarantee they will move down the waitlist, but it sounds promising).

Since he said people will probably start declining offers in March, he probably won't have any updates on your application status until sometime in March, so it seems pointless to contact him before March, particularly if you do not have another offer you need to decide upon yet.  I understand being anxious, but take a deep breath, and try to be patient.  There's no need to contact him again until you have some decision to make (or if take another offer, so you can withdraw your application), certainly not before mid-late March.


mentioning MOOC's I took in my scholarship application

FWIW, I put the MOOCs I've completed in my tenure portfolio as a professor and it actually went over really well. So yeah, go for it.


Value of placement services for non-members

For industry jobs recruiters are very important for a first time employee seeking contract work.  However for academic jobs I doubt they're of any use.  Like you said there are academic job sites like Higher Ed.  Each discipline also usually has a career website.

If you're looking for postdoc positions your advisor is the best resource because many are given out by word of mouth alone.  Finally each institution is usually required to place job announcements and applications on their HR's web page.  So spend some time going to each University's website.


PhD research results in postdoc talk presentation

Probably nobody's research is ever complete: it is always work in progress to some extent.Your audience are not there to hear your final conclusions. What they want to know is whether you, your skills, your research experience, your research attitudes are in line with their own organisation.

So, talk about 2 with examples from your own research.


Hot and timely research problem with a slow student

If you have taken on the responsibility of shepherding this student to her doctorate then you have an ethical constraint that overwhelms most other considerations. The only exception to that, that I can see, is if the research is actually life saving in some way.

I a lot of supervisor-supervisee relationships the advisor can do the work on her/his own without the student. But that doesn't ever imply that the student should be left behind. The supervisor has more experience in field and in research in nearly all cases, so the student requiring a (possibly long) learning curve is pretty typical.

The "hotness" of the research topic doesn't change your ethical responsibilities. If you don't want to honor that you shouldn't take on advisor roles.

However as aeismail suggests, the student needs a suitable problem, not necessarily this problem. If she is at the beginning of the process it might be reasonable to morph her participation into a different problem.

But, your assessment of her overall ability may also be wrong. She may, in fact, have a breakthrough moment in which things fall into place. And if the problem is that she lacks key background elements for some reason, you could make it go faster by finding ways for her to quickly come up to speed on those.

Finally, it isn't uncommon in many fields, including mathematics, for an advisor to give some hints to the student, pointing out the direction to be explored, if not more.


Publishing previous results from a previous lab

I think that so long as the principal investigator is actively involved in the planning, performance, or analysis of the research being funded, it is the duty of any researcher working in that group to determine the PI's status as a co-author. However, only if there is no active intellectual activity taking place—in other words, it's an entirely self-driven initiative, then it might be possible to say that the PI doesn't merit co-author status. (Even then, though, the provision of financial support should be clearly recognized.)


When a PhD program asks for academic transcripts, are they referring to university-level transcripts only or also earlier transcripts?


What does it mean when a manuscript submission systems lists the status of a paper as "Archived"?

This will depend on what system the journal is using, what processes the editors are following, what that editor in question was thinking that day, and maybe other factors.

Point being that there is no way for you -- or in fact, anyone -- to know for sure. You have two choices:

Ask the editor.
Have patience.

I would suggest the second. You will get a notification in due time when someone has made a decision. You can also look up what turn-around time the journal strives for (say, 3 months) and then round about that time email the editor if you haven't heard back until then. But after just a single day, the only reasonable answer is: Have patience!


How do I cite a paper that is not yet submitted for publication?

You can call it a "preprint" if it is ready to circulate, or say that it is "in preparation" if you are working on it but it's not done yet.  (The difference is whether you would be willing to give interested people a copy now, or whether you would ask them to wait until it's done.)

Don't call it "submitted" if that's not actually true, even if you think it will be submitted by the time anyone sees the reference.  Getting caught in even a minor lie can hurt your reputation for honesty, and there are any number of ways something could go wrong in the process of finishing and submitting the paper.


Should I list on my CV research assistantship positions under grants&awards?

Although merit is certainly a factor in the hiring of research assistants,   most people don't consider assistantships as "grants or awards". They are jobs. List them under "Positions Held" or "Academic Appointments" or the equivalent heading on your CV. Do not list your salary or the amount of your stipend - that's not anybody's business except you and your department.

Some fellowships might be considered awards. They would usually be explicitly competitive in nature, and given by outside agencies. "Named" fellowships from endowed funds might also count, even if awarded by your department. But a research assistantship is not a fellowship.


How can I convince my supervisor that I have enough data to support my findings?

I don't think that anybody can possibly provide an answer without having access to many more details. The precise field matters, how well established the prevailing theories in your field are, how the quality of your data compares to previous work, how the rigor of your arguments compares to other work, etc.
Generally, making these sorts of judgements is what your advisor is for, because he/she has many years of experience in the field.
Now it can happen that your interests and those of your advisor are not perfectly aligned. Your advisor may be too conservative, because he/she does not want to make a mistake. You may be overly aggressive, because you want to get your thesis done.
The question is how to proceed. You could ask your advisor to let you finish a draft, and show it to a third person, an expert in the field (possibly a member of your thesis committee) with no direct interest in the outcome, and who you can trust to keep a confidence.


Does the order of citation ([Kir10, HZK09] or vice versa) matter?

Some styles require multiple citations to be in alphabetical or numerical order.  For example, APA style requires that citations be in the same order as they appear in the references list (that would be alphabetical order.)  Other styles (e.g. the Council of Science Editors) require that they be given in chronological order.

You need to check with the style guide for the style that you're following to see what is expected. If you're writing a journal or conference proceedings article, the instructions to authors should tell you what is required.  If you're writing a thesis or dissertation, there are likely to be institutional policies that specify a particular style.

In LaTeX there is a package called "citesort" that will sort your citations.  There is also a "sort" option for the natbib package that does this job.


Is there deliberate gender preferential treatment in hiring or admission in STEM fields?

It's rather subtle trying to decide what counts as gender preferential treatment.  For example, suppose the hiring committee decides to interview Bob, Carl, and Dave.  As a sanity check, someone goes through the applications from women to see whether anyone was overlooked, and they are impressed by Alice's application.  There's some debate about whether she looks quite as strong on paper as the other three, but the department decides to interview her as well.  Alice is extraordinarily impressive in person, and once all the interviews are complete and the department has learned more about her work, she is the unanimous first choice.  Does this count as preferential treatment?  A male applicant might not have been rescued from being overlooked the way Alice was, but he might have been less likely to be overlooked in the first place, so it's difficult to give an objective answer (it depends on which counterfactual scenario you imagine).  Gender was not relevant for the decision once all the information was gathered, but deliberate steps were taken based on gender to minimize the potential for bias in the process.

In my experience with mathematics in the U.S., these sorts of steps are pretty common.  In the committees I've served on (for both admissions and hiring), people have often gone out of their way to try to identify diverse sorts of candidates and make sure they are not overlooked or disadvantaged.  Not everyone participates eagerly in this, but some do it out of conviction that it's intrinsically worthwhile, while others play along to keep the administration from complaining.  On the other hand, I've never seen this process extend to advantages in the final decision.  In particular, I haven't seen a case in which Alice was hired or admitted instead of Bob just because she was female, although the committee was more impressed by Bob than Alice otherwise.

Tie breakers are the closest I've seen to an explicit preference.  In graduate admissions many decisions are easy, but there's always a (small) group of comparable candidates right near the borderline for admission, where nobody can give a compelling argument for why one is superior to another.  Within that group, being female could prove an advantage: if Alice and Bob are equally strong candidates in other ways, but Alice would help bring gender balance to the department and Bob would not, then that's a good reason to admit Alice.  This doesn't generally arise in hiring, since few enough people are hired that there are many strong opinions and the hiring committee is unlikely to decide two candidates are truly tied.  However, it can happen in admissions, which is a lower-stakes process carried out on a larger scale and with less information.  I'm mainly mentioning it for completeness, since few applicants are actually close enough to the cut-off for this to matter.


Why is demographic information asked during college applications?

In the United States, colleges are required to (try to) collect demographic information about their applicants and attendees, as a condition for various types of federal funding and aid.  The government uses this information to track the success of various underrepresented groups in higher education.  For the government, it is the aggregated information that is primarily important; individual students are not tracked.

However, in many cases, the schools themselves make use of the information for operating their own affirmative action programs as well.  Information about the racial and ethnic background of applicants may be used to target certain individuals, to try to draw a diverse student population to campus.  Moreover, when the new students arrive, the information can be used to connect the students to appropriate campus resources (minority student organizations, etc.).


Is it suitable to discuss with several professors which of them would be best to supervise me?

Yes, you can do that. You are taking their advice, actually, and giving them information they might want. But don't neglect to also say that you are (very) interested in either working with them or keeping contact.
But it is also essential that you have a conversation with each of them about how it will play out if you become their student. You want to know if they have good research ideas (in case you aren't yet committed) and that they will be able to spend sufficient effort on your behalf.
It is also useful to speak with  one or more of their current students to get feedback on such things.


At the age of 27 is it worth shifting PhD. from strings to computer science?

Will your degree actually say 'String Theory' rather than 'Physics'? If so, this is unfortunately narrow, and given the uncertain future of string theory as a field I'd rectify it as soon as possible. How close are you to finishing? I wouldn't dump a Physics doctorate a year from completion to start over in CS. If I wanted to change fields, I'd just do a master's afterwards.


Reviews are in but incomplete. Is it preferable to send manuscript for revision, or wait till complete?

The author might well like to get on with it, but it might not be fair to them. I'm depending on your analysis that the reviews you have are poor as the deciding factor. Revising based on poor advice seems to be counterproductive for the author, but s/he has no information about how much you trust the advice they have been given.

If your reviews to date were reliable, I'd probably suggest going ahead, but under all of these conditions, it is probably better to wait.

I once went through a series of revisions with an editor who didn't know me or trust me (I was new). After several rounds of revision, with different reviewers, the issue in question wound up back where I'd started. It was very frustrating.

It is best for the author if you give them a task based on information that you can trust.

Added after the question was changed.

Suppose you get the author started on revisions, but when the last review finally arrives it changes things fundamentally? Now what? I think the author will have a valid complaint. I think you editor rules are there for a reason. It is probably a mistake to subvert them in the name of "efficiency" that may be misplaced.


How to create a hypothesis for a historical research?

This sounds like trying to force a restricted view of the scientific method to research in history. One learns during many years of studying history how research in history is performed, what is expected, what constitutes verification and evidence, just as one learns during many years of studying mathematics how research in mathematics is performed, what constitutes proof, the accepted standards of rigor, etc. And similar things can be said about Physics, Computer Engineering, Linguistics, Philosophy, Comparative Literature, Botany, Aerospace Engineering, Archaeology, etc.

Here's one way to at least superficially research your question without going through years of study in history. First, search for "Battle of Waterloo" (without quotes) in the title field at the ProQuest search page. Then google the titles of some of the (over 40) results to see whether freely available copies can be found. Then, for the theses you are able to get copies of, look over the abstract and/or introduction and/or summary, using the table of contents to locate these if you can't immediately find them.

When I did this, the 7th listed item was Waterloo in Myth and Memory: The Battles of Waterloo 1815-1915 (2013), and its abstract begins with the following:

  This work examines memory of the Battle of Waterloo. There have been hundreds of works on the Battle of Waterloo but what this work does is to examine how works in several genres change over time. The memory of Waterloo was not static but changed several times over and over again. The myth of Waterloo was created, challenged and renegotiated several times.


How to deal with graduate school rejection and overall academic failure?

I also did my undergrad in the most prestigious university in my country (a developing country) albeit in engineering and started graduate school in the U.S. I have some suggestions for you.

First of all, you need to apply for about 10-20 schools to have a chance. Do not focus on the most prestigious universities (Harvard, MIT, etc.). This was something I had issues with, I didn't want to settle for less than the best because I was in the best university in my country. The truth is, at least in the U.S., there are many many good universities.

Do your research and find schools which you would think would be a good match for you. To get a start you can look at a ranking for your major. If you are looking at the U.S. there will be graduate school rankings for your major published by U.S. news. They can give you a good idea of which schools you may have a better chance of getting into. Once you find the programs you are interested in look up professors and research groups in those universities and even try to get in touch with them and let them know you are interested in their work. Don't just blindly email them, familiarize yourself with their research, read their publications, and try to discuss their work in your emails. Be specific about what you like and what you are interested in and they may help you out and give you suggestions to steer you in the right direction. Take note that professors receive tons of emails from prospective students on a daily basis and often won't read them, so don't get discouraged if they don't respond.

Finally, something I did not see you mention was standardized exams. If your undergrad classes were not taught in English you would have to take the TOEFL. Most U.S. universities also require taking the GRE general exam. For biology, you may also have to take the subject test as well. Focus on getting good scores in all of these tests. Even in the sections not related to your major such as the verbal section of the GRE general test. Often grad schools will be reluctant to offer admission to students from foreign countries who do not have good verbal scores even if for majors like biology.

If this is really your dream, don't give up. Good luck :)


Peer-reviewing for a prestigious journal as a Master's student

I don't think your status should play any role here. You've published a few papers yourself, and have a reputation of your own based on your work. It is off of that reputation that you've been asked to peer review, the same as most other peer reviewers. So, I wouldn't even mention it unless asked, in which case be truthful but don't show doubt. Editors are also usually pretty aware that you are junior, and often they select a mixture of reviewers, eg. one junior and one senior.

If the situation makes you feel a little insecure as to whether you're able to deliver as good a review as someone more senior, then you can also ask others for input, but this mustn't reveal the paper you are reviewing to outside parties. For instance you could ask your advisor "I'm reviewing a paper for journal X, the author wrote that ...., do you think it is appropriate for me to say that they should do this and that?" (it can be delicate to try not to reveal too much here, but it depends a little on how much trust there is between your advisor and you). It's also perfectly fine to query the editor in charge: when I reviewed my first paper I was unsure whether it was OK to bring up a specific issue and how to bring it up without sounding like I'm overly negative, so I emailed the editor and he gave me some good advice. Good thing is in that case you don't have to try and keep the paper under review a mystery. You can also ask the editor to have a look over your final draft of the review before handing it in, maybe mentioning that it was one of the first reviews you've done and if he thinks it could be improved before handing in the final thing.

In your PhD application this should go on your CV, under the Service heading. This can be task oriented, eg a sub point like this :

  Service

  Peer review: Journal X, Journal Y, JZ

  Committees: ...
  ...

Or it could be chronological:

  Service

  2017 - Reviewer for Journal X

  2016 - YZ Committee member
  ...

The point of these kinds of entries is twofold: they work as esteem indicators (they show that other people respect you enough to ask you to do certain things that require trust/ability), and they show that you're willing to pull your weight in the academic machine (something commonly known as "collecting cookie points" or "brownie points").


Can one compensate for poor funding performance elsewhere in determining academic promotion?

Like your other recent questions, this depends on many things, but most especially on the mission of a given institution. In some places good research would vastly outweigh good funding. In others, just the opposite. In teaching institutions, as opposed to primarily research universities, teach might outweigh everything else by a large margin.

But there are certainly institutions where the only viable path to tenure goes through the funding institutions and a successful and continuing record of attracting money. I some of these, the research is actually primarily carried out by the students, not the PI, though under the direction of the PI who is able to fund the lab and its student researchers.

So, first look to the stated mission of the place before making any assumptions. Then make sure that the actual mission is consistent with the stated mission. Sometimes they are at odds for various reasons.


Conditions for uploading IEEE publications to ArXiv

You just need to add appropriate header/footer information about the copyright. If you have used the IEEEtran LaTeX package to prepare your paper, then there is a standard means of doing so detailed in this TeX.SE answer.


Does still it matter to be the "first author" nowadays

In fields that don't do alphabetical order being "first author" still matters most in early career stages.

As you correctly say the senior author is usually a professor (= group leader) while the first author is the person that did most of the work. In an early career stage (until you become group leader or assistant professor) first authorships are the most important thing. As soon as you start your own research group the senior authorships become more important (in rare cases some very senior postdocs might have one or the other senior authorship as well).

In many application guidelines you would find instructions like "attach separate lists of (a) all publications, (b) first authorships and (c) senior authorships". If you don't have a sufficient number of first authorships they will not even look at your application in more detail.


How can I find out when an Editor intends to publish my paper?

Typically, a publisher uses an online system that allows authors to track the status of their paper. Double-check your inbox (particularly Spam folder) for a automatic email from such system (search the journal name for example).

If you are sure that you did not hear from the publisher and the journal editor within 6 months, I would say, it becomes worrying. The academic publishing was never a particularly fast process, but this situation probably oversteps the limits. Consider writing to the support team of your publisher and to Editor-in-Chief of your journal with inquiry. Also, consider sharing the name of the journal with your peers to prevent future misuse of anyone's precious time.


Is it right to be put as the last author although I have done the bulk of the work?

The order of authors is often problematic and thus I guess this question will be closed as duplicate soon.

Anyway, you should discuss this with your coordinator and ask him why he prefers this order. My colleague is working in a similar area than yours and he is usually the first author, but there might be other reasons in your situation.

Even if you are not able (or not willing to) insist on your preferred order, there are other options to emphasize your contribution. For example you could add an "Authors Contribution" section where you can explain in detail who did which part of the work. Footnotes at the author names are a common alternative (e.g. "* These authors contributed equally as main authors" or "¹ AB developed the model ² CD wrote the manuscript").

This is not only a question of fairness, but there might also be a formal requirement for your PhD or later research positions like "You have to publish two papers as main author." If that is the case, you should ask your supervisor how to address this issue.


How should a "brief synopses of each paper" look like?

This is a fairly simple assignment. To answer your questions:

Obviously your name and class information should appear at the top of the assignment (unless otherwise instructed by the professor).
The "title and authors" referred to by the professor are in reference to the paper that you are discussing, not you!
You are told to write in complete paragraphs. That means no bullet lists, so write everything as complete, well-structured sentences.
Spacing and font are up to you, but in general, I'd use at least 1.5 times normal spacing and 11 pt or larger font (unless you're working with LaTeX, in which case the formatting is handled for you).


Is it appropriate (as an undergraduate) to email an academic with a question on their publication?

It is definitely appropriate. Further, I wouldn't even tell the author that you are an undergraduate. Just tell them you read their paper as part of a research project and had a few questions. Should be as simple as that.


Should I take class time to explain software?

"Modern Approach": I would suggest creating a video demonstrating how to use the software. Free software like CamStudio makes this easy to do. There might even be a video already online.

The video would allow students that need the assistance to view the video outside of class or follow along in class. This puts the freedom in the students hands and would also free up your time to focus on the subject matter. This could save time for future classes as you integrate it into your class structure.


Is ethical to rewrite tutor work and submit it?

First: That you take into account a "similarity report" sounds worrying. Of course it is possible to commit plagiarism which a similarity report cannot detect (reformulation of ideas or translations, for example). You might want to read up or ask around what plagiarism is.
Next: What you did sounds very much like cheating (if the expectation was to do this task on your own): You got the idea from somewhere else and rewrote it. It seems to me that rewriting was not the idea of the task. "Rewriting" sounds to me like "changing variable names, restructuring, exchanging loops, some functions" but not like thinking again etc.
Finally: Whether this is considered cheating (and if the assignment was "important enough" to consider some action "cheating") is up.to the prof and your university. You might want to ask them. If you don't want to, this most likely either means your prof is unreasonable or you yourself consider your action to be wrong.


Computer Science Original Position Paper Questions

This depends on your discipline and on the conference in a fundamental way. If your advisor (or anyone you know) has submitted this kind of manuscript to this particular conference before, you should absolutely ask him/her for tips and suggestions.

You should also go to the conference's web site and look for their requirements for submission. Nearly all such organizations have a page or document that lists their requirements for submission. In the unlikely event that there is no such information at all, or in the more likely event that you still have questions after reading it carefully, look on that document or on the website for a submission contact person who will be able to answer your question(s).

Good luck!


The American Mathematical Monthly (which is I think what you call the MAA Monthly; often abbreviated AMM) is an expository journal at a level slightly above undergraduate -- i.e., it is a journal for mathematical papers (and problems!) that most mathematicians can understand (as opposed to specialized papers written for experts in a specific topic).
The Bulletin of the AMS (short BAMS) is a graduate-level and research-level expository journal.
In theory, there can be overlap between the scope of the two: An exposition that is sufficiently elementary to be understood by undergraduates, yet sufficiently novel that it is of interest to researchers, could be published in either journal. (For example, various parts of combinatorics come to mind.) Also, both journals publish papers on the history of mathematics sometimes.
The American Mathematical Society also has another expository journal, called Notices of the AMS, but it does not directly compete with the AMM either; it is more focused on brief (proof-less) surveys for researchers than on anything suited to undergrads. It also focuses on contemporary issues of the mathematics community.


Correct in-text citation, according to Harvard's referencing style

There can be disagreement on how to reference correctly within a style. I have referenced in both ways that you cite, with no complaints from my tutors. I have also had papers published using both methods of citation with no corrections from the copy editors.

However, I think what we are experiencing here is your tutor's preference. He clearly wants you to do things in method B rather than method A, for whatever reason. I am sure he has read through multitudinous publications, some of which use method A, though his own preference is B.

When I wrote my first essay for my master's I used footnotes for referencing. My tutor wrote on the paper that in-text citations were much better: neither was wrong, but my tutor was specifying a preference and recommending a better habit to get into. Similarly, seeing as yours is the one marking your papers, I would just go with it.


Does living in university housing mean that they will own intellectual property you create there?

University IP policies generally have a separate category for intellectual property created using resources "usually and customarily provided" by the university. In every policy I've ever seen, even if the university generally retains ownership of IP created using university facilities, this excludes the above category (which would certainly include standard university housing).

For example, at the University of Illinois:

  Traditional academic copyrightable works created using university resources usually and customarily provided are owned by the creators. Such works need not be licensed to the University.

  When determining ownership and license rights in copyrightable works, "University resources usually and customarily provided" includes office space, library facilities, ordinary access to computers and networks, or salary.

At the University of Arkansas:

  Creator is entitled to copyright ownership and right to revenues subject to compliance with conflict of interest and commitment policies.

  This category applies when the faculty or staff member constructs the materials using nothing more than university resources usually and customarily provided. These include but may not be limited to office space, library facilities, ordinary access to computers and networks, faculty development workshops, or salary.

  The author owns the copyright and is entitled to receive all revenues for commercialization, subject to the conflict of interest and commitment policies.

An alternative terminology for the same concept is to distinguish between "substantial" and non-substantial use of resources. For example, at Minnesota State:

  Substantial Use of Resources. Substantial use exists when resources are provided beyond the normal professional, technology, and technical support supplied by the college, university, and/or system office to an individual or individuals for development of a project or program.

Or at CMU:

  Substantial use of university facilities means extensive unreimbursed use of major university laboratory, studio or computational facilities, or human resources. The use of these facilities must be important to the creation of the intellectual property; merely incidental use of a facility does not constitute substantial use, nor does extensive use of a facility commonly available to all faculty or professional staff (such as libraries and offices), nor does extensive use of a specialized facility for routine tasks.


Not being a first author diminishes the contribution of co-authors?

It depends on the subfield of computer science. For example, if the paper is in theoretical computer science, then author order is alphabetical, and the equal work put in by the authors is not negated by the author ordering. If in a discipline where author order is meaningful, then it's standard practice to (say) order the authors alphabetically and add a footnote saying that all authors contributed equally to the work.


Is citing a blog post allowed in a research project?

This is fine. Citing someone's opinion is different from reusing someone's results as long as the former is clearly separated from the latter. Find a way to distinguish both kinds of citations in your essay. The former is the data on which you operate, after all.

If your advisor insists of such a separation, consider using footnotes, endnotes, or an extra list (in addition to the bibliography).


Is being featured on the front cover of a scientific journal an academic milestone?

Yes, it is a plus, and yes, you can add it to your CV. But it is (and should be) just one thing among many. It, alone, won't get you a job or a promotion, but it adds to the list of things that are positive about your contributions. The academic value will be positive, but small.

The paper is more important, of course. The image might induce a few more people to read your paper; a good thing.

Congratulations.

But your sense that you want to be known for the quality of your papers is the right attitude.


Is it true that almost everyone who starts a PhD and sticks around long enough can get one?

From what I have seen, this is pretty much the case for PhD programs in Europe. PhD programs in Europe tend to work a bit differently than in the US. It is typically expected that you have already completed a Master's degree before starting a PhD. The PhD program itself tends to have little or no coursework requirements, and no examinations other than the thesis defense at the end.

A lot of filtering that is done in US programs through exams during the program, is instead done at the selection stage. Consequently, landing a PhD position in Europe can be more difficult than in the US. But once you got the position, it is very rare for people not to get their PhD in the end. People on occasion may drop out of the program. Much more rarely, a program may decide to drop a candidate if things are really not working out. If that happens, it typical happens in the first year. But overall in the various locations I have been, at least 80% of people who start PhDs in Europe end up with a PhD.

Some actual data:

According to this article in the Times Higher Education, PhD completions rates in the UK are about 73% after 7 years, grow up to just over 80% eventually.
This post by the Dutch association of Universities shows similar numbers.


You are risking drawing attention to a mistake that could otherwise go unnoticed.

Is resume the main part of the application? Or are there other parts, like an essay, recommendation letter, some all-important exam (like GRE for graduate study)?

Also, if there is time till deadline, consider waiting few days and then updating the resume with some new bit of information, like more detailed description of an experience that they might find relevant. An update to content is a lot more acceptable than fixing typos.


When I should submit previous published version(s)?

While I'm not too familiar with the IEEE publication process, in particular, the common sense tells me the following. Since your manuscript in its present form is "significantly different" from the previous versions, it very well makes sense to simply submit the current version as an original publication. However, it would be nice (and right - in order to prevent self-plagiarism accusations) to mention somewhere in the paper (preferably, in the introduction section) that the present paper is based on previous work by such authors, which has been published in such journals / outlets.

The "previous published version(s)" option that you have mentioned seems to be directed toward more closely related versions of the same paper, which seems to be not the case in your situation.


How to cite webpages in author-year citations?

The ACM's guidelines give the following examples of how to format a bibliography entry for a website:

Website year can be found at the bottom of the website page or by viewing page properties/source to see when the page was last modified.
[1] Harry Thornburg. 2001. Introduction to Bayesian Statistics. (March 2001). Retrieved March 2, 2005 from http://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/bayes/bayes.html
[2] ACM. Association for Computing Machinery: Advancing Computing as a Science & Profession. Retrieved from http://www.acm.org/.
[3] Wikipedia. 2017. Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://www.wikipedia.org/.

I'm not sure why [2] doesn't have a date. Although that page only covers numerical citations, I think it's reasonable to infer that author-year citations for [1] and [3] would be (Thornburg, 2001) and (Wikipedia, 2017).
APA says to use  "n.d." for "no date"; I'd be tempted to either use "undated" or use the date you accessed the page (but make it clear that's what you're doing, in that case). I've also seen papers that cite websites using footnotes and only put fully citable things like papers, books and theses in the bibliography.


Contact professors whom are not listed on application

If you really think your application needs a boost you could do this, of course. But you could also contact the professor simply to express interest in the area.

"I am applying to your program and am interested in your area...". But you need to express it so that he knows that you know something about the area.

I wouldn't try to flood the person with information, but you could ask for him to comment on your application and suitability as a student. If he asks for more information, you could send it, but just sending a CV blind is likely to be ignored.

Since the reaction is a matter of personality, there is no way to predict the outcome, of course, but it might be a mistake to appear to be pleading.


What are some of the issues one should keep in mind while choosing between a fully funded offer and another with no funding?

There are four outcomes to your master's program:

You don't complete the program.
You complete the program and can't find a job dependent upon the degree.
You complete the program and get a job dependent upon the degree.
You complete the program and continue in academia.

If you take the position with support, you will be better off in case (1) and (2).  Case (4) is a tie -- you can shift research groups for your Ph.D., and you will be better off financially, but you have to spend 2 years doing things you don't entirely like.  Case (3) is the only case that's a clear win for the no-support degree; you'll have 2 years of chasing your joy, and a fairly small debt that you'll pay off soon in a high-paying field.

What's left is to evaluate the relative probabilities of the four cases.  You need to be objective here, and use the evidence you have: the expert judgement of the graduate programs to which you've applied.  Admittedly two data points is quite few; it would be helpful to know if you applied to other programs, and what those results were.  However, in the opinion of the more prestigious program, you are not one of their best candidates (or else they would offer you support).

In summary, choosing the no-support program is a large gamble.  You should take it if you're confident that the program made a mistake in not offering you funding -- you have tremendous talent that for some reason has not been revealed in your record.  Absent such a situation you should take the support.  You might change your mind and decide you like that sort of work.


Is it appropriate to have assignments due during spring break for an online course?

The student is correct, spring break is, as its name suggests, a break. The fact that no students had complained previously does not say much - students can be timid and may not complain about any mild abuse by an instructor (as I discovered recently when I accidentally kept my class going 10 minutes past its end time; no one said a word...).

Also, your own rationale that “The students have the option to get ahead [...] by a couple of weeks, so if they have a trip planned, they can do the work in advance”, seems flawed to me, as it is premised oh the assumption that students have extra time in which they are sitting around doing nothing and can redirect towards “getting ahead”. You should assume that in the normal course of things students are as busy as they can get and don’t have spare studying capacity. The option to get ahead is nice, and may be used by some especially studious/efficient students or those that want to undertake a trip during time not officially sanctioned as break time and are willing to make an extra effort and sacrifice their normal free time to catch up. But this cannot be used as justification for requiring students to study during official break time.


Can I withdraw a paper from IEEE conference after signing the copyright form?

Email the programme chair and ask them how they would like you to proceed.  It is possible that they will still allow you to make changes to the paper, even at a late stage (provided it doesn't substantially affect the content).  If nothing else, they can ask the IEEE for advice, this is unlikely to be the first time this has happened, so there may be a standard answer already.


Being artist and scientist at the same time

There are many people in academia with hobbies. Some very famous scientists like Heisenberg and Weyl are prime examples. I know a professor who paints for a hobby and keeps pictures of his paintings somewhere on the personal web page. It's tough to juggle work and hobbies, but you are already doing that.

However, you are now under a contract from the publisher. Will you have time to do your research? If I were you, I'd take a vacation from my research job, and focus on the contract work. If it takes you many more hours than your hobby took, you need to make a choice. Or you'll end up burnt out.


What is the maximum age to get into academia, as a recent PhD / recent post-doc, in the US?

This is strictly speaking not an answer, since OP was asking about the US, but I felt sharing a European perspective may be of interest here as well. Flag if you feel I am straying off topic too much, and I will happily delete the answer.

ETH Zurich, presumably the premiere technical university in Europe (and one that often follows US procedure pretty closely), actually has an official policy on this.

  The academic age of assistant professors (e.g. without the time period of maternity leave, industry experience, military service, etc.) should be 35 years or under at the time of appointment.

Source

Note that they explicitly speak about "academic age", not biological age. Time spent as a postdoc counts against you, but time in industry or in maternity leave does not. Given that, there is (in theory) no biological limit to become assistant professsor if you have been doing "something else" before in your life, but I suspect in practice there is: at Swiss universities, there is mandatory retirement at age 65, and ETH presumably is not overly interested in investing into young professors that don't have too long until retirement anymore.

In Germany, a rule that I sometimes hear is that you need to become professor before the age of 40 or get out (where "professor" usually means W2 or W3 professor according to the German system). However, this is more of a guideline than a formal rule - I have certainly seen cases of people who got appointed with their first professorship after 40.


There is a huge difference between saying that you will do a given research effort, and saying that you will obtain a particular result. If you have guaranteed the latter, you made a mistake, it's research, there is no guarantee on a result !

So, if you give a work planning to your adviser, you have to stick to it. Of course, you can have (once, not twice) a real problem that ruins your effort (house on fire, a relative at the hospital, etc.).

To summarize, you can promise that you will work, but not that it will work ;) If you always fail on your commitments, you will never be seen as reliable, and people won't work with you, it's that simple.


What are suggestions for effective mixed-mode teaching? (i.e., teaching both online and face-to-face students simultaneously)

Have you considered using a Swivl, we have used them on our ITE programme to support teacher observations. The camera follows your movement around the classroom while you wear a mic on a lanyard which is connected via Bluetooth. This would support the online learners you have in feeling more engaged? You could also prepare some flipped resources on a pallet or something similar so the group f2f and online could collaborate.


How do I know that an educational institute is accredited?

Googling  'The Chicago School accreditation' leads to their accreditation page. There it is stated that

  The Chicago School of Professional Psychology has been accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) Senior College and University Commission (WSCUC) since 2011. To learn more about WSCUC, please see their contact information below. Click here  to view our Statement of Accreditation Status

You can then go to the WASC list of institutions and find The Chicago School listed there.

Having tried several other semi-random institutions, googling '[name] accreditation' usually results in a page on their site listing who accredits them. A second google search will get to that accreditation agency's list of schools that it accredits if you want to double check.

A further complication is that there may be multiple accreditation organizations involved, some for specific departments or schools within a university. For example, Princeton University is, according their Office of Institutional Research, accredited through the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. In addition, the Engineering School is accredited through the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET, Inc. So, you may need to dig deeper to discover if a particular major, program, or department is accredited appropriately for what you need.

Although, one should be aware of just what accreditation means. Fortunately, what was horrendously prescriptive in the 1980s (particularly in engineering) has become more holistic in approach and focused on outcomes, not specific courses with a specific syllabus.


How to define a project/thesis for the Master level?

Not much of a definitive answer, but here are some prep works you should start doing:

If you did not obtain the Master program from this institute, gather their program information and understand it first. Key information include course offered (with syllabi if possible), degree audit (to figure out what is required and what is elective). This will give you a general idea of the students' level and capability.
Most theses are submitted to the school's own libraries or at least to their committee members. Check out a handful that are related to your field for an approximated scope.
If Master's defense presentations are open to public, go to a couple and learn about them.
Download the Master's degree program handbook and, if any, a list of instructions and obligations for committee members and skim them for useful information. These documents usually detail the length and specification of the project and thesis, as well as general procedure such as meeting frequency and responsibilities of all parties, etc. Be informed about these details helps a lot on budgeting time and effort.
You mentioned you're co-supervising, and I do hope each student also has at least one faculty member in the committee. Schedule an informal meeting with the faculty chair and ask for guidance. Unlike your supervisor, they have the obligation to care.

As for topics, by the time you have done the above you should have a good idea on the length, size, and depth. But some other tips here may be useful:

Dig out other Master or PhD topics that you might have given up.
Cast a look at your work, look for possible branches that you do not have time to explore. Try not to be overly possessive about these ideas, as you may not have time to actually explore them anyway.
One way is to think about your own thesis's Introduction. Are there any particular matters for which you wish there is a piece of evidence?
Start the habit of jotting down random ideas on handheld devices or a paper note pad.
Be extremely clear and open about the ownership of the ideas and deliveries before the student starts working on it.

Ideally (and I'm speaking from biomedical), the student should be technically capable to carry out 2/3 to 3/4 of the work. Try not to make them learn everything new or they can have integration anxiety and tremendous amount of self-doubt which leads to unrelenting reliance on you or worse, withdrawal.

Do know that (and I am sorry to be blunt) this supervising task is i) not a major determinant of your PhD graduation and ii) is but a small piece of evidence on mentoring that can get you hired. So don't invest excessive amount of time in it. And to achieve so, you need to first establish a  sense of non-possessive attitude (the student is working on his/her Master, not your PhD). Second, the topic needs to be able to help you move along your study, but in the same time it should not be so crucial that if it failed your study will be held up. Third, the student should be able to do a good amount of it technically, and your job is to move them along by i) encouraging them to think and act critically and independently, ii) conducting meeting and communication regularly, iii) providing feedback and reasoned suggestions, and iv) demonstrating all the above three consistently.


How to deal with an uncommunicative advisor?

If the advisor is well respected externally in her field and active (what is her publication/conference record in the last 5 years?) and relatively supportive in other ways (interesting conversations about research topics, is available in person when students drop, has funding) and if she has a group of supported students/postdocs in her group; then my advice is to decide whether your personality allows you (cheerfully or pretend-cheerfully) to take on some leadership roles in self-mentoring.

start a weekly or bi-weekly group meeting, journal club, or similar where also people in the group talk about what they are doing. (try to arrange that it is convenient time (check his class schedule/university meetings) but do the meetings even the weeks he cannot show.
schedule a 20-30 minute meeting with him once every week or two regularly to discuss progress, don't count on him to set it up. Make sure to prepare something (at the beginning) that isn't asking for help so much as showing off things you find interesting or have accomplished that week.

The point is to avoid appearing as if you need hand-holding, but to get some interactions going which are positive and useful for yourself to succeed. (And show of how much of a self-starter you are).

The delay in publishing papers - if there are senior co-authors, also look to them.

On the other hand -  choose another advisor
Sometimes email gets buried, but a consistent 'never replying or acknowledging an email from student(colleagues,department admin)'  gives me the heebie-jeebies. We have had several faculty in my department over the years who had that trait and in their particular cases it never made any sense except as some stupid passive-agressive issue. So, on the basis of that trait alone, I'd suggest finding someone else who is more excited about their work and respectful of other's time and energy.


Can I slightly change the title of my conference presentation?

Given that, officially at least, the title of your talk will still be the old misleading one, I'm not sure how much there really is to be gained by changing the wording of your first slide, which seems to be effectively what you're thinking of doing. In fact, having a title for your talk that doesn't match what's in the programme could be potentially misleading anyway (for example, if the chair reads your title from the programme, rather than the slide, or if the title on the screen isn't what your audience had expected).

If you feel that your title is misleading then what I think I would do would be to begin the talk by making it clear that the title is potentially misleading, and then clarifying what the talk is actually about. You could even, before the audience's eyes, swap your old title for a new title.

As long as the programme has the old title then to a certain extent the damage is done. I think the best approach to take is simply to make clear from the outset that the title is misleading, and explain what you're really going to talk about.


I think most would probably agree that there are cases where someone is a poor student but has the potential to be a good scientists -- because what defines a good/poor student is mostly the ability to be effective in exams (i.e., most importantly to be able to learn and reproduce known material) whereas the skills necessary to be a good scientist are different.

That said, it is clearly the case that the two skill sets are highly correlated. There is a perception in the public eye that the best scientists are mavericks who are able to think outside the box and swim against the scientific consensus to find the things that nobody else sees. But in reality, that is probably a glorification and even those rare insights like quantum theory or the theory of relativity can only be found by those with profound and deep understanding of the existing knowledge, and the ability to synthesize knowledge into something new that those who have not paid the same level of attention to the details of the field can not.

As a consequence, what I read from your description in the question is that you may have the skills to be a good scientist, but that you lack the knowledge and maybe diligence to compete with your peers. That's not your fault, of course, but it's an insight that you may want to keep in mind when thinking about your future. Knowledge is, after all, something that you can catch up with if, for example,you are willing to take some time off from other responsibilities and focus on learning the basics at a more profound level than you had the opportunity to do in the past.


Best-practice models for "research" code?

I think the key to understanding research code for industrial software engineers is to accept that you are typically not building a product. You do not have customers as such. You are building software to prove a point.

As such, the majority of code that you write as a researcher is more akin to the throw-away prototypes and mockups that you (in industry) often write in the early phases of a project. As you are certainly aware, even in industry these mockups have quite different properties than the final software. They primarily need to:

Have exactly the features that you want to show to the customer. Not more, not less. Typically, all the boring standard features for the domain are omitted.
Need to get done quickly. Both you and the customer know that the prototype will be thrown away anyway, so it does not matter whether the code is maintainable.
Need to be easy to extend and adapt, optimally live during the demo.

Essentially the same properties are also useful for most throwaway research code. You do not want to build features that you do not need. You do not want to waste time writing e.g., maintainable code if you know that it will not be maintained. You want to use an environment that reduces the amount of boilerplate code and setup, and which maybe auto-generates a lot of code for you that is "good enough" for your demonstrator (Ruby on Rails and its scaffolding features come to mind).

  My career progression is dependent on me writing "bad" code!?

No, it depends on you writing code fit for purpose. Just like in industry. In industry and academia nobody applauds you for software qualities that are not needed. Try to reconsider what the point of the code is that you are writing. If you plan to release your code as open source software and you expect it to be picked up by other people across the world, then go nuts - use all the engineering techniques you have also used in industry to build the best product you can. If your goal is to evaluate this one algorithm or principle for your conference, and then throw away the code, then you can also live happily without writing a single unit test without feeling like a fraud at all.

EDIT: of course this does not mean that it is acceptable to write code where you are unsure whether you have implemented said algorithm correctly. Ensuring that what you have indeed shown what you claim to have shown is mandatory, especially in research code.


Is it common to have peer teaching evaluation for tenured/tenure-track faculty every year?

I can't say exactly how common it is, but it happens. But it is most likely in the first couple of years of a probationary (tenure track assistant professor) contract and less likely for tenured professors. It might even be required each once in each year of the contract. And if problems with teaching have arisen, then it is more likely that it will be needed.

It can be nerve wracking, of course, but if well done it can be a valuable assist to an inexperienced teacher. Ideally the person visiting is willing to become a teaching mentor to the newcomer. Ideally the person visiting has a superior record of teaching and knows many of the tricks that help the professor avoid pitfalls and respond appropriately to student needs.

But like any other skill, teaching effectively needs to be learned. In a situation in which people come to the task with little background it is good to provide some help in becoming both comfortable and effective in the classroom.

Sometimes the visitor needs to make a written report for the junior faculty member's file. Other times a meeting afterwards is enough.

It is possible that it should happen more than it does, but it shouldn't be haphazard. Thought needs to be given to who does the visiting and the consequences of the visit.


Am I allowed to republish / distribute abstracts?

Am I allowed to distribute this document for free online?

I'm not a lawyer, but I doubt it.  Copyright certainly applies, but you might be able to argue that this falls under fair use, depending on what you are doing with the abstracts.  As I understand it, some things are definitively covered by fair use, while others may fall in a grey area.  If this matters to you, then you should consult a lawyer, because no one else can give you a definitive answer.

  If not, has anyone being sued for doing so?

In the U.S., I doubt you'd have to worry about being sued or facing criminal charges for this sort of copyright violation in practice (although I repeat that I am not a lawyer).  The most likely scenario is a DMCA takedown notice.  If your university or ISP receives such a notice from a publisher, they will remove the file from your web site.  You could try to convince your university to take a stand based on fair use, but it's not at all clear that you would succeed.  Even aside from whether it really is fair use, universities can be risk averse and may well decide it's not worth the effort to contest the issue.

Perhaps you could restrict your attention to papers with a suitable Creative Commons License.  For example, PLOS journals use the CC BY license, which allows this sort of reuse (with attribution).  If you just need some collection of abstracts, for example as a test case for text processing or data mining algorithms, then this might work fine.

On the other hand, you may want to use very specific abstracts.  For example, you might want to compile the abstracts of all the papers you can find in your subfield.  This seems riskier, since big commercial publishers typically don't want competition for their search tools.  You could always try asking the publisher for permission (I have no idea how likely they would be to grant it).


The American Maths Society has been caught:

A plagiarised book on maths history.

Another notorious case concerned an Eastern European academician in the bad old days. He began with a bit of self-plagiarism, re-publishing his own works in English language journals. But then he moved on to translating and publishing as his own papers from Russian journals. He was exposed when a Russian mathematician, on moving/escaping to Paris, discovered that his best theorems had been stolen. I think the AMS published an analysis of the whole sad affair.


By what main criteria does the mathematical community judge whether an open problem is important?

An open problem is important if its resolution affects many, diverse areas (indeed, the farther flung the impact, the more significant the problem).
In the case of the Riemann hypothesis, there are many theorems that are conditional on it (see Consequences of Riemann hypothesis), though they are largely in the broader realm of number theory.
Other problems, like the P vs NP problem could have consequences beyond automata theory that include cryptography (and, by extension, our entire
e-commerce industry), computational biology, manufacturing and optimization, etc.


Interested in research, not in coursework

You would certainly be an exceptional case. Some would interpret that as a difficult case. When you don't fit the expected mold it is harder to evaluate you. That doesn't mean that you are at a disadvantage, necessarily, but you would be at some places that aren't very flexible.

I think that a research focus at the MS level is more typical in Europe than in the US, however, so you might consider location as you look for a position. In some fields in the US research is also dominant, of course.

But even in the US, if you can make contact with a professor or two at the graduate level who might be willing to give you a close look, you might be fine. However, many programs have fairly strict rules about things. You might, be able to do independent study to cover many of them, but that can be intensive for the faculty, so don't expect too many concessions unless you are exceptional in the positive sense as well.

Your real problem, however, is that if you don't follow the "accepted" course of study you are liable to miss some things that it is valuable to know. The advantage of coursework is that someone has seen the bigger picture and has selected topics that are useful and given thought to how you can develop skill in those areas. Missing that can be a long term disadvantage, so tread carefully and seek advice on your personal academic journey.


Is it possible to get an assistant professor position that does not require doing research?

The US, at least, is chock full of smaller colleges and a few universities that are devoted almost entirely to teaching. The phrase you are looking for is "teaching college" (or occasionally "teaching university"). The expectations for "scholarly activity" from the faculty at these institutions are much lower than at major research universities.

The downsides include:

Generally a higher teaching load. Count on at least twelve credit-hours per term.
A lack of money, space, time, equipment and assistance if you do want to do a little research.
No graduate students---these places generally only offer bachelor's degrees---and perhaps a less prepared or motivated undergraduate population from which to draw perspective research students.
Generally lower pay. Sometimes quite a bit lower.

Departments are sometimes smaller in size which means a good opportunity to develop a relationship with the major students and to mentor more than a few of them. To the degree that incoming students are less prepared but just as able you'll have a chance to really help them grow.

There have been some comments about the preparation of the student body: my "perhaps" above is a bit of a weasel word. Teaching colleges span a wide range of prestige and competitiveness, and their intake varies accordingly.

Some that are highly competitive and prestigious and are able to select a very able student body.  I'll offer the opinion that the expectations at the most competitive teaching schools looks more like those of research universities than like those of a generic "teaching college", though you should pay close attention to these questions on a case by case basis. The breadths of expectations described by the people I met at a recent teaching workshop was staggering.

The incoming student body at my school are an interesting bunch. The range of preparation and ability is very broad, and we do have some students with real potential but in most cases there is a reason they didn't get into a more competitive school nearby.

Some breezed through secondary school never learning how to work at their schooling. Many are non-traditional students with heavy family commitments. Some have never been in an environment where learning was valued and have never found out what they are capable of in that realm. A few are determined slackers. Some are just not academically gifted and won't be going on to further schooling after they get the credential they are here for.

As I indicated above, I'm finding this a very rewarding environment but choices in students with the ability and motivation to engage in research are limited and the institutional support is limited.


Is it customary for a student to reply to professor's email within 24 hours?

There isn't really anything special about academia in this regard.  If someone sends you an email that needs a response, it is always courteous to respond as quickly as you are able.  It doesn't matter if it's to a professor or a student or a friend.

Anyone might get annoyed with you if you take a long time to respond to an email to which they need a quick response - not just professors!  But there's no magic number - you can't say that 71 hours is fine but 73 hours is excessive.  Some messages are urgent and need a quick response, others are not.  If someone is expecting a quick response but you need more time to make a decision, you can certainly contact them to let them know you are considering it, and ask when they need your answer.

As a general note: several of your recent questions seem to be written from the assumption that academia has its own special unwritten laws for everything, and if you can only find out what they are and obey them, everything will be fine.  For better or for worse, that's not generally the case - there are no such objective standards.  The key to successful interactions, in academia or any other job, is "act like a decent and professional human being".


Asking for an extension for decision for PhD offer. And masters vs PhD?

You're stuck in a conundrum you'll encounter all through your life: You have a girl/boy friend and you wonder whether it's worth committing and getting married -- but you keep wondering whether anyone better might come along eventually. You have a job offer from a well-paying company, but you still have that application pending with Google. You have a grad school offer from University B but you're still hoping for one from University A.

The point is that sometimes you just have to commit. Your tentative second choice isn't going to wait for you forever while you're trying to figure out whether sometime (or someone) better might come through: Universities, employers, and partners make offers that are only valid for a certain amount of time because they, too, eventually want clarity and the ability to plan going forward. That's just a fact of life.

In your current position, you can of course ask for an extension, but you should be prepared to not get one. You'll then (i) have to make a decision that takes into account how much worse you think option B is compared to option A, and how likely it is that option A comes through, and (ii) find a way to make your peace with your decision. In fact, finding ways to be at peace with your decisions is what I think is the key piece to a happy life in general.


what does "Reject (revise and resubmit)" mean?

Revise and resubmit means exactly what it says: if you revise the manuscript and resubmit it, we will look at it again (hopefully with the same editor and reviewers, but not necessarily). Typically this means the required revisions are substantial enough that it will go to reviewers again.

Reject means we do not want to see the manuscript again.

More recently reject and resubmit has become a thing. It is like a revise and resubmit, but the journal is going to count the manuscript as a new submission so their rejection rates go up and the time to final decision goes down. Sometimes they try and use the same editor and reviewers and ask for a rebuttal letter, just like a revise and resubmit. Other times it is on you and they treat it like a new submission.

This is clearly a revise and resubmit. If you wish to not revise and resubmit you can just submit it to another journal without telling them anything, but it would be polite to tell them that you are not going to resubmit the manuscript. That way they can close out the paperwork on their end. As for concerns about double submission, once a decision, apart from acceptance, is made, you can do whatever you want.


Should I sound needy in my Statement of Purpose?

Short answer: No.
Long answer: This is from the perspective of a hiring PI. These days I am flooded with applications of candidates that seem very motivated, but give me little confidence that they are the right person for the job. This is mostly for two reasons: 1. lack of relevant background for the position; 2. poor self-presentation (for example, not reading the job description thoroughly). To address this, you need to have the right background (if necessary, you might take some additional courses), and make a convincing statement why you are the right person for the job.


Transition from Finance to Applied mathematics

As with any application, you need to make your case. But if you have studied those three math subjects and have a good understanding of them, I think you have a basis. It might be especially possible if your future studies apply math to the financial realm, of course.

It would be harder to get into a program with admissions systems that mostly check boxes of requirements rather than looking at individuals. If the admissions process gives you access to professors and potential advisors it would be easier, provided that you can convince someone that you can manage the early courses that might be required.


You should contact ETS to ask about that https://www.ets.org/gre/contact#general_inquiries

Generally I'd say that processing and sending times should be somewhat the same. But I think that mail delivery would depend on how far the institute is from ETS.


Am I being a "mean" instructor, denying an extension on a take home exam

You give a lot more information about the student than seems relevant to the question.  That the student is applying to MIT for instance is neither here nor there.

That your student is in high school may be slightly relevant.  It feels awkward to have a high school student in a college/university course when they are not doing well, because usually students (especially in mathematics) take such courses because they are too advanced or gifted for their high school programs, but that does not automatically make them prepared for college/university standards.  If you are an inexperienced instructor (and I think you are: more on that later) then it is a good idea to talk to colleagues to get some perspective on how high school students are typically dealt with.  This may well be different at a community college than at a research university, by the way.  I will say that my attitude in dealing with high school students in (research) university math courses is: if there are any special rules or dispensations that apply to them, these should be made clear at the time of their enrollment in the course.  In the absence of such rules, I try to treat high school students identically to all other students (keeping in mind that "all other students" is a large and inhomogeneous group).  I would certainly avoid talking to them in a way that would not be appropriate or respectful for an adult university student.  E.g. you write

  I think he lacks maturity and I told him if he wants to go to MIT that he should act like an MIT student and quit complaining and get his work done.

This sounds rather condescending to me.  As I said above, that the student wants to go to MIT is really not relevant to your course, and dragging that into the conversation is unhelpful.  By the way: telling someone to "act like an MIT student" presumes some involvement / affiliation with MIT on your part.  If you don't have that, what you say can come off as obnoxious.  I have taken classes at MIT (as a Harvard PhD student) and have some colleagues on the faculty there (for instance, I spoke there last month).  But I would not tell anyone to "act like an MIT student": while MIT students are in the aggregate very impressive, they are people, not stereotypes, and in my experience evince a wide range of behavior, including complaining.

Coming back to the matter at hand: honestly, what strikes me most is the way you are teaching your course.  Giving an exam which is too hard -- even much too hard -- is something that instructors do often, and it is not necessarily a problem but needs to be dealt with very carefully.  Turning an in-class exam into a take-home exam after it has been taken in class seems like a prohibitively poor idea to me.  If you are not sure about why, you may want to ask that as a separate question, since it would be helpful to get a range of responses about this.  By the way, I also find

  "give thanks, the exam is take-home now and due Wednesday".

to be a bit obnoxious.  A week after an exam was given, a student is expecting to receive their graded exam back again.  Coming into class on a Monday and learning that they are getting a "pop take-home exam" is something that a wide range of college/university students would not be thankful for.  Most students are very busy with a range of activities (academic, extracurricular, work, health, family...), and very busy people plan their schedules in advance.  Giving the exam back without a grade, asking the students to do it by the next class, and then forgetting to communicate that to students who missed that one class, is not great behavior on your part: honestly, it looks a bit lazy to me.
You say that you want to post the solutions in time to have the students study for the final.  That's good.  However, remember that you were the one who created the time crunch in the first place by making an exam you were so unhappy with so as to mess with it later.

Okay, what do I recommend?

You won't want to hear this, but: giving a take-home exam in an undergraduate math class in 2016 is probably a bad idea full-stop.  As a participant on math.stackexchange, you know well that your students can get solutions to even a way-too-difficult undergraduate differential equations class rapidly without leaving home.  I have colleagues at SLACs who feel confident that the majority of the students take the honor code seriously enough not to do this and feel that the cheating by a small minority of students is more than offset by the gain in learning from students who work through a carefully crafted take home exam.  When I was a postdoc, I had the experience of students cheating on a take-home exam (at a research university) and saw the poisonous effect their higher grades had on the morale of the other students, so for me even a small minority of cheaters is a high price to pay.  But this is not a carefully crafted take home exam: it's a too-hard in class exam.  And moreover it's a take home exam that was already given as an in-class exam.  Don't you think that many of the students spoke to each other about the exam afterwards?  And that a few of the students may have been interested enough to look up the answers online and/or talk to outsiders (e.g. more advanced students, tutors, instructors) about it?  I see no way to guarantee academic integrity in this situation.
You could make a different exam for your student and all other students who want to take it / can't solve the take home according to the deadline(s) that you rather precipitously announced.  Alternately, you could admit that the assessment coming from this midterm is not the greatest and just offer to drop everyone's lowest midterm grade.  In fact I usually drop the lowest midterm grade in my undergraduate classes conditionally on satisfactory performance on the final.  (And in fact I often don't announce it until near the end of the course, because I want all the students to take all the midterms.) I find that students are very happy with this, and since I too often give exams that are a bit more difficult than I had wanted, this ends up with course grades in the range that I want.