Citing information from table in a review paper

Not clear.

To make life easiest on your readers, cite the review paper. Then they can find everything in one place.

You should try to track down the original sources just to check that the review paper is correct - particularly since you need that material "so much" and the review paper has no references. You may then want to cite those sources too, depending on what you find there that's not in the review paper. If you can't find an original source you should probably say so.


You've got it right.  Think of it like proper nouns vs. pronouns.  Compare:

  Mr. Jones told me about types of stars; then he explained how they burn hydrogen.

and

  Subsection 3 explains about types of stars; the next subsection explains how they burn hydrogen.


Should I decline unrelated work assigned by PhD advisor?

Very politely notify them your scholarship and RA position (or whatever it is called that requires you to do work in return for money) has ended, and offer a consulting rate to continue. Make sure there's an agreed-upon number of hours for each task, so they aren't thinking they can give you one hour of work at a time, when the emails alone take longer than that. Research in most fields doesn't happen unless there is a fountain of money behind it, so this is not as beyond the pale as it may seem from your perspective. Just be careful to make clear it is simply the economic situation of the real world (which apparently they forgot they live in) that is the issue, not that you are making these demands to be unhelpful and make them go away.

If they can't pay you, then you can offer to help someone else take over the work, for example by giving them a list of steps and answering their questions via email.

Or you can offer to help in exchange for co-authorship, but then make sure you get into the loop so it is clear to all that they are violating journal terms by not including you as a co-author. If they are dependent on your analysis for their paper at this point, they may put in a position where you are compelled by professionalism to help them finish, but of course this needs to be out in the open with a promise of at least co-authorship in return.

Everyone with valuable skills has to deal with this kind of thing. People will push until you push back. The overwhelming majority aren't necessarily as cutthroat as the occasional bad joke might imply; they just convinced themselves your time is near-worthless while theirs is precious. Clarify to them this is not the case anymore.


Are U.S. governmental reports a reliable source of information to cite?

There is no single such thing as "a US government report": the US government is a vast and complex organization with lots of different elements writing lots of different types of reports for lots of different reasons.  These reports range from absolutely standard peer-reviewed scientific papers to high-quality primary data to informational digests to purest propaganda.  As such, you really need to specifically attempt to understand the context of a particular report in order to know how to interpret it.

In the particular instance that you cite, for example, it appears that this is part of a yearly assessment prepared for Congress by the US State department as a digest of primary source material gathered by various US embassies.  Thus, I would recommend considering it as primary source material which attempts accuracy but not the results of a scientific study.  You will have to assess for yourself what credence to lend to particular elements thereof with respect to the use you wish to put it to.


Do (scientific) editors complain with the publishers about user experience?

Of course we do! I don't edit for any of the big commercial publishers, but I do for top open access publishers that use similar or even the same manuscript submission systems. I'm continually badgering them about this detail or that one.

Some get fixed, some don't. When they don't, I'm not really sure why not. Maybe the systems don't allow the flexibility. Maybe there are good reasons for the hassles they impose. Maybe the journal staff are so busy putting out bigger fires that this never makes it to the top of the list.


Is there any recognized online portal where anyone can publish articles without being associated with any university or organization?

Yes, http://www.arxiv.org is the place for you.

But you can of course also publish in regular journals without being affiliated with a university. Science does not require a formal affiliation, just good ideas and data. If you have the latter, you can publish as a private citizen, an employee of a company, an employee of a government, or with any other background.


Is it possible to defer graduate admission for one year?

You have no 'rights' in this matter.  You apply, they accept you or not, under their own terms.  So all you can do is ask again, maybe giving fuller details of your situation.


Good online resources for teaching students how to write a research paper

First-year undergraduates are rarely taught to write research papers; in my experience, the skill set you look for is taught to Master's students and PhD students. Look for self-help books intended for PhD students. To name a few,

Umberto Eco's How to Write a Thesis is a brilliant insight into the subject, dealing with questions such as "I am a student of some obscure subject in some distant town in the middle of nowhere, how do I start?".
How to write consistently boring literature by Kay Sand-Jensen is more of a style guide and a check list, but it's definitely a valuable extra reading.
The Unwritten Rules of PhD Research by Marian Petre and Gordon Rugg walks aspiring PhD students through every aspect of their new lives, from working with a supervisor to writing all sorts of articles to delivering a viva.

Please make use of resources in these answers: Learn to write scientific papers in medicine, Are there resources for learning how to write a scientific paper?


Can I mention the LinkedIn account of a suggested referee?

It won't harm if you include the web address of his/her current institution in addition to his LinkedIn profile address.  Depending on the scientific field, a publisher this huge as Elsevier has  boards of editors from many countries where English is not the primary mean of communication, too; so his site may be accessible for them.  (Even if written in an other script than latin like e.g., from Japan, Korea, China, Russia, Israel.)

To strengthen your suggestion he could serve as a referee, maybe earlier and current work is clearly attributed to him by an identifier like ORCID or ResearcherID/Publons.  It is unique in the sense that it won't change if he changes the workplace or (e.g., by marriage) changes the name; especially if his name is one of the more frequently seen ones (e.g., Smith, Li, etc.).  Because there are data bases allowing to search by this criterion both the publications, as well who cited these, the editor could see quickly the potential referee's connection to the relevant community, too; thus, if accessible, include it, too.


How does a departmental library decide what new books to order?

My department shares a "library representative" with several other departments in my university. If you want a book purchased, you tell the library representative. Occasionally, there will be an allocation of funds to purchase new resources, and the library representative will send all faculty a note to submit requests by such-and-such date.


Where do the references / sources for Definitions go in a thesis?

Ask your advisor. There may be conventions for your field.
One possibility: If they are references, tootnote them the way you do any other references in the body of the thesis. If they are brief explanations, consider an appendix.


Is a request to book a business flight ticket for a graduate student an unreasonable one?

In Canada it is illegal to get anything but economy fare (including trains) and charge this to any one of the national tri-Council grants (there are exceptions if there is no other availability but this is rarely the case.)

The best you can do is buy an upgradable economy fare and hope for the best, or pay for an exit-row seat.

Overall your request will be perceived not only unreasonable but also blatantly unreasonable, unless you have special conditions or a rich sponsor.

I can say more.  Some years ago a candidate for a position where I work insisted on getting a business-class ticket for the interview and he was just removed from the shortlist.

Edit: is this a direct flight?  This wiki list of long flights https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_flights does not include European-Asian city pairs.


In publications section of application, I'm asked what database the journal is indexed in. Where can I find that information?

It sounds like a poorly worded question.

However, if I were to guess their intentions, they might be interested in whether the journal appears in the "Science Citation Index - Expanded" or "Social Sciences Citation Index". Or another influential one is whether it is in the Proquest index.

The reason I say this, is that inclusion in these indices are sometimes used as a minimal criteria for legitimacy as a journal for inclusion in world rankings.

E.g., The Shanghai rankings use:

  ARWU uses six objective indicators to rank world universities,
  including the number of alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and
  Fields Medals, number of highly cited researchers selected by Thomson
  Reuters, number of articles published in journals of Nature and
  Science, number of articles indexed in Science Citation Index -
  Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index, and per capita
  performance of a university. More than 1200 universities are actually
  ranked by ARWU every year and the best 500 are published.

You can search for inclusion in Science and Social Science Citation Index here.


I have a paper in review. Can I send to to NIPS (Neural Information Processing Systems) conference as well?

NIPS does not allow for dual submissions.

  Dual submissions: Dual submissions will be identified via a combination of automated methods and human (reviewer, area chair, senior area chair, program chair) judgment. NIPS coordinates with other conferences to identify dual submissions. Submissions that are identical or substantially similar to papers that are in submission to, have been accepted to, or have been published in other archival conferences, journals, workshops, etc. will be deemed dual submissions. Submissions that are identical or substantially similar to other NIPS submissions will also be deemed dual submissions; submissions should be distinct and sufficiently substantial. Note that slicing contributions too thinly may result in submissions being deemed dual submissions. The program chairs reserve the right to reject all NIPS submissions by all authors of dual submissions, not just those deemed dual submissions. The NIPS policy on dual submissions applies for the entire duration of the reviewing process (i.e., from the submission deadline to the notification date). Authors should contact the program chairs if they need further clarification.

There is a good chance that the journal does not either.


Can I submit my paper somewhere else during rebuttal period?

If you want to submit elsewhere, the proper course is to formally withdraw your paper. Send a note to the editor. Then you are free to submit elsewhere. Don't make assumptions.


Paper was rejected for high similarity with parts of my own dissertation

Most publishers I know explicitly permit (pre)publication of papers as part of a thesis. For example the copyright policy of Elsevier (the publisher you used as a tag) states:

Authors can use their articles, in full or in part, for […] [i]nclusion in a thesis or dissertation (provided that this is not to be published commercially)

Going by this, everything is fine with your submission.
More generally, you did not attempt to sell a work previously published in another journal (or parts thereof) as a new publication, which would be the typical case of self-plagiarism.
For all of this, it does not matter whether you modified the respective chapter or included parts of the frame, as long as you stayed away from the already published chapters.
However, the rejection of your paper may not have taken this into account, either because it was automatic or somebody did not connect the dots.
I thus advise to consider the rejection to be an unintentional error or their side.
I would therefore simply write to the journal explaining that you suspect that your paper was mistakenly identified as plagiarism due to similarity with your thesis, which is fine as per the above rules.
In general, it is a good idea to mention upon submission that parts of your paper have been previously published, be it as a preprint or thesis to avoid exactly this as well as potential clashes with journal policy.
Finally, to address some of your concerns:

I feel like [writing to the editor] may be conceived as begging for permission to be allowed into a reviewing process

I would not worry about this.
First, what you are challenging is not a judgement call (e.g., a desk rejection due to lack of relevance).
The journal stated a very objective argument for rejection (plagiarism) and you have very objective arguments that this argument is erroneous.
It’s a simple mistake; it can happen; you are asking for it to be fixed.
Furthermore, even if this should be considered begging, you have little to lose: Right now the journal considers you a plagiarist (which you might want to set straight even if you decide to submit to another journal).

The copyrights of Elsevier allow me to use articles published under their flag in my thesis. My case, however, is the other way round: I want to publish something that has been part of my thesis in very similar form. The thesis is published, but it contains a part that is not peer-reviewed and has not been published as an article.

Copyright transfer to journal exists because the journal’s business model is selling your paper and they want to have some exclusivity on this.
For this, the order of events doesn’t matter.
My point with linking these policies is to demonstrate that Elsevier is generally fine with papers that are available as a thesis.


Is it normal for good PhD advisors to micromanage early PhD students?

Some PhD students need micromanagement.  Some are harmed by it.
Some supervisors know how to customise things to the needs of the student.  Some supervisors do not know how to micromanage.  Some some do not know how to not micromanage.
Tell your supervisor what you want.  Listen to your supervisor's feedback - what you want might not be possible.  If you have tried this several times and the relationship is failing spectacularly, get a new supervisor.
What you are experiencing is within the range of "normal."  There's no way for us to know if it is "good."


What's the reasoning behind GRE scoring scale?

Yes, there are several reasons for the change. Some of them are:

Since the new scale does not superposes with the old one, you are able to differentiate them.
The old scale increases by 10, which could overestimate the difference between two scores. The new scale increase by 1, which helps to decrease the bias when comparing scores.
Another feature that helps to decrease the bias when interpreting results is the not obvious extremes, but still with a comfortable number at the middle of the scale.

Source


Dress Code for Online MBA Bi-Annual Residency Requirement?

The good news: you don't need to wear a tie.

I doubt shorts will ever fly for this residency component; as to whether new-looking jeans will work -- you won't know until you have a chance to see what the Romans are wearing.  If you ever get to the point of experimenting by wearing jeans one day -- try it on a Friday the first time and see what happens.

If you get tired of wearing a tailored shirt, you can probably get away with a new-looking polo shirt (i.e. not stretched out, no grease spots).  In warm weather, I see nothing wrong with using short sleeves.  Shirts cut straight across and worn untucked are probably fine too.  But your T-shirts are temporarily going to have to be relegated to after-work and weekend wear.

I do recommend a tucked-in shirt and a jacket for at least the first couple of days.  Your goal is to start out the program with no personality -- without sticking out and looking like someone who has wandered into the wrong picnic or the wrong classroom.

In short, bite the bullet and enjoy the fact that you don't need to wear a tie.


When is the best time to reach out to potential advisers while applying to PhD programs?

1) In my experience, it’s never too early to reach out to someone you’d like to work with. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to send the professor an email indicating that you’re considering applying to their group and that you’d like to hear more about their research & determine if you’d be a good fit. This saves you both time if you find out it isn’t a good fit.

2) I don’t think you need to worry about getting “locked in.” The professors will understand that you’re exploring your options, and you can emphasize as much in your conversation. You’re just exploring a potential collaboration - you’re not committed until you accept the admission offer.

3) A personal relationship with a potential advisor is, in my experience, a great asset during the admission process. Again, they will understand that you’re exploring multiple options. Just conduct yourself respectfully and professionally and there should be no hard feelings. (Thank them for their time, be up front about your goals and intentions, etc.) And besides, this won’t be time wasted: even if you end up choosing another University, there is always the possibility of collaborating with or being co-advised by the other professor.

**Of course, this advice is subject to any professor’s expressed preferences. If they say “let’s talk after admission decisions” - that’s fine! If they say on their website “feel free to contact me if interested in joining my group” - great! If they don’t respond to your initial email (perhaps +1 reminder email) - no worries!


I am not sure what you are looking for is possible. When I was first getting into research, there were plenty of people I thought just had amazing things to say, and great perspectives on so many topics.  Even after school and being in research, there are people I truly respect that have a unique perspective on much of academia.  The issue is, these people are usually respected by more than just one person, and as such, are extremely busy.  They are also the people who are invited as speakers to conferences, TED events, etc.

My suggestion is, if you are really interested in hearing more of their perspective regardless of it being a topic of your class, you can ask if they hold other classes in which they lecture.  Additionally, you can easily look their name on google to see if there are conferences they have given talks on (which is highly likely if they are a top academic).  If you can not find anything online, you could still ask them if they have talks available online in a respectable way, such as:

  I really enjoyed your explanation of topic x, it was a way I had not
  heard it explained before, do you have any online resources in which I
  could hear more of your thoughts on this?

If you are not interested in watching recorded talks, and only interested in one-on-one communication, I think you need to think more about the comments to your question by seeking more specific questions, or your real issue with wanting to hear the person speak.


The 'overhead' generally refers to the funding that doesn't go directly to research expenses (salaries of researchers, cost of experiments/consumables, etc) but to the supporting expenses (salaries of administrative/support staff; cost of facilities and utilities, equipment depreciation) of services that are neccessary but not directly related to research.

It often is set by university administration to some fixed rate (50% sounds high to me, but it depends on country and research domain) that is taken from all grants and used to fund those 'common' expenses.


Interrogated for cheating based on discrimination a potential lawsuit?

As in the comments, there is important ambiguity in your question.
Granting your account of the situation, you were certainly treated prejudicially and unfairly. Even if you'd not been a recent-mom, doing a wonderful project does often trigger suspicion in any case, and, yes, all the worse if the people in charge have negative expectations of recent moms, or women in general, or...
As in the comments: what do you want out of this situation? Did the people in that interview concede that you did not cheat? And at that point did they apologize? Is this on-going?
For example, in my own experience, never in a million years will people in power who behave badly acknowledge this. Endless rationalizations about how it's either no one's fault, or society's fault, or maybe your own fault.
Still, yes, I agree, anger is justified. Such situations are grotesque, and have a big impact on people.
And, still, what would be the goal of a lawsuit? An apology? Monetary compensation? (The latter would probably cost more in lawyer fees than what you'd get...)
Again, as in the comments, think what you want out of this situation, apart from being justifiably angry with idiots. Taking idiots to court is an expensive and unrewarding hobby... even if sometimes historically necessary.


Citing a secondary (indirect) quotation in the epigraph

For something like this it is unlikely that you would be expected to cite the original source. Cite what you have found.

An exception would be in research directly related to studies of sourcing and such, but I doubt that is your need here.

Some things are lost in the mists of time, of course, and others are apocryphal.


Is it common to study mathematics without any computer programming? Why would this be considered acceptable?

Being able to do simple computer programming was much more important for engineers and scientists 45 years ago than it is now.
Doing statistics and other analysis on non-trivial amounts of data used to require programming. Spreadsheets, data visualization programs, and similar tools have become ubiquitous along with computers, greatly reducing the need for custom programming.


Is it necessarily an advantage of a mathematical work to find connection between two different fields?

It is clear that knowledge in other fields can be helpful, especially if one has an unusual combination of expertise such that one can see things others would miss even on well-studied problems. In fact, the variety of thoughts between colleagues of different background makes collaboration in math-related fields so much exciting.

It is hard to find examples where interdisciplinarity played a negative role in one's career, just for the same reason we don't learn about most of the useless approaches in mathematics (definitions that turned out to be useless, in particular not well-defined, propositions that turned out not to help for the problem they were thought for, etc.).

But from common sense I think that interdisciplinarity can never be negative unless you "cross paradigms", for example by mixing different contradicting systems of axioms to solve the same problem. Fortunately, in mathematics it's (today) quite clear what is not allowed.


Advisor going over and unhelpfully modifying my presentation structure and slides

There are simple technical solutions that allow you to avoid unpleasant discussions if you want. Prepare your presentations in LaTeX or export them to pdf format, but do not give your supervisor the source code or editable ppt version. Or simply print the handout for your supervisor and present the talk orally. Collect feedback in a form of comments written over the text. Then go through suggestions and decide, which to take on board and implement, and which not.


I would like to build a web scraper for a list of scientific papers libraries, what are the legal limits?

I am not a lawyer. This is a legal question. Get proper legal advice.
The legal framework is contract law, and intellectual property law. There may also be implications for other parts of the legal code if your scraping behaves like, or could be interpreted as, a denial-of-service attack or hacking.
Read each site's terms and conditions. Understand the contract of use for each site. Interpret each contract within the legal context of the contract's jurisdiction.
Take into account intellectual property law within your own country, and the publisher's country. You might also need to consider intellectual property law within the country where the web-server is located, too.
Do bear in mind that there have been recent attempts across several jurisdictions  to bring intellectual property within criminal, rather than civil law / contracts.
I am not a lawyer. This is a legal question. Get proper legal advice.


What's the meaning of Visiting Researcher / Ass. Professor?

For the European countries I've seen the answer would be similar:
Visiting researcher is not really a type of (funded) position, but a status. PhD students might do a research visit as part of their doctoral studies while still being paid by their home institution, sometimes supported by a travel grant to cover travel and housing costs. There are also post-doc grants providing 1- or 2-year funding that are implemented by having the involved institution host the postdoc as a visiting researcher. Finally, a professor on a sabbatical might visit another institution for a couple of months and in the course of that take on the visiting researcher status.
Fixed-term lecturer or teacher positions are created by the department as a regular type of position  (the term "visiting assistant professor" is usually not used). They usually have to be publicly announced and advertised, although the effort for advertisement is usually smaller than for a tenure-track or tenured position.


Choosing between MS Word, PDF, and latex formats when submitting a manuscript for publication when all are allowed?

That all depends on the journal you're submitting to. Quite some journals that accept Latex, also provide a template to use. With a template available and knowledge of Latex, it should be fairly easy to convert the GoogleDoc to Latex if you download as HTML and then use eg Pandoc to convert to Latex (explained here).

But people who are not comfortable with Latex, are likely better of using another option. Converting from GoogleDocs to .doc or .docx generally also requires an in-between step using PDF, and will generally give some layout issues, but when a paper is bound to be submitted it's not really the time to learn Latex.


Do teaching an advance course helps in evaluation and tenure?

Within my U.S. math department, teaching a successful, energetic, research-oriented graduate "topics" course is a plus inside the department. It is also essential, within the department, to have demonstrated "acceptable" capacity to teach bread-and-butter courses, such as ... calculus.

The engineering departments that determine the course of the "college of science and engineering" (due, I imagine, to the size of external grant funding... and the concommitant "overhead") view math, physics, and chemistry fundamentally as "service" departments, and, indeed, the size of these departments is hard to justify on any practical grounds except for the hordes of freshman and sophomores taking filtering/weeding/service courses. In any event, when tenure cases reach the "college" level, demonstrated success in teaching those lower-division courses is considered essential ... research success is taken for granted, and considered of mostly internal interest to the department, not to the college... and minimal involvement or non-involvement with lower-division teaching can ... upset... the engineering faculty.

So, at that level, it would be unwise to have exclusively done advanced teaching, even if "only" at an undergraduate level.

Within the department, it shows a certain kind of energy, I think, because it may well require more psychological effort to do the best job with higher-level material than to do an acceptable job with low-level material aided by a phalanx of teaching assistants. But there seems to be a watershed in preferences about teaching graduate courses, so new faculty preferences in that regard are mostly construed as a matter of taste or opinion, not essential.


Meaning of "Degree of approval" in a recommendation letter

I would presume that what they're asking for is a tl;dr-style summary of your letter into a single sentence:

I emphatically recommend this candidate. I believe they will be top-quality students and practitioners.

I conditionally recommend. The candidate shows a lot of promise but I have these specific concerns; if thus-and-such happens then I would have no hesitations at all, but if it doesn't you might want to think twice.

I recommend without concerns. The candidate shows a lot of promise; they aren't someone whom I'm sure will be at or near the top of the class, but I have no doubt that they will perform very respectably.


Are user surveys considered "human experiments" by the U.S. National Science Foundation?

In almost all circumstances you need IRB approval to carry out the "experiments" that you are contemplating. The reason isn't that taking surveys is, somehow, dangerous, but, rather, that the data you collect might be sensitive. Moreover the subjects of the survey might have privacy concerns and expectations.

So the issue is about the data collected. How will it be maintained? How will it be disseminated? Is it (even potentially) name linked? Etc. The treatment of the data implies some treatment of the subjects.

While there are a few exemptions to IRB approval, the best place to learn if your study falls under exemption is from the IRB itself. It is better to ask and be told that approval isn't needed than to make assumptions.

For your specific situation, the fact that you may be using human models as part of the materials introduces another aspect. An IRB will want to be assured that you have proper releases from everyone.

So, ask.

Since you are concerned about a grant writing process, rather than the experiment itself, it would be wise to run a version of your proposed experiment, not just the questionnaire, past your IRB so that you can assure the NSF that you have your processes in place.

The NSF policy


Do the disciplines of my PhD thesis and of my MA thesis have to be identical?

I think there is no such requirement to stay in the same field anywhere, unless you want to work with the same advisor who has narrow interests. In general, you can work on anything you like as long as you can find an advisor who will support and help you and you meet entry requirements for the doctorate. It is good to still be a bit of a generalist at the MS level, but doctoral studies will pretty much force you into a narrow field. There are some exceptions, of course.

Since you are staying in the humanities, there shouldn't be a lot of problems, provided you've studied in the US, at least. You probably have sufficient background in most of the required topics. You might need a course or two that a lit major might have taken as an undergrad, but I suspect it isn't extensive. Again, in the US, these are probably open to grad students.

Outside the US it might be a different story, and I can't speak to that. It would depend on the entry requirements and finding an advisor.


Vocational vs. Academic Emphasis in CS Curriculum

I can only speak for the US, and I'll limit my remarks to undergraduate education there. I've been a student or faculty member at a wide range of colleges and universities from tiny (few hundred students) to massive (tens of thousands). Also a wide range of college focus, including liberal arts colleges, specialized focus colleges, and comprehensive universities. Not everything I can say is current, of course, since the participation started in the early 1960s.

Undergraduate education in the US, is normally very broad, encompassing much of the knowledge of "Western" (now broader) thought. The goal is to "produce" an "educated person generally" and one who is well placed for a lifetime of productive activity. There isn't a focus on "training for the job market", but many of the skills are useful there - thinking, writing, analyzing, debating, etc. In addition to the general education requirements, students normally have a major (possibly two) in which they focus more deeply. Computer Science has been a potential major for only about fifty years and the education has changed as the field has changed. Of course, it is still changing at a rate faster than many other fields.

The "hot job market" for CS graduates is an incredibly transient thing. The market runs both cold and hot. Students are a bit fickle about what majors they want to study based on news reports and such. Sometimes it is CS and other times it is Finance, depending on general economic conditions. Other fields don't seem to have these extreme cycles. I can't remember a "hot" market for mathematics since the early Sputnik days. I have also lived through periods in which you couldn't find CS students anywhere.

But, I don't know of very many places in which the faculty that design curricula think of their job as vocational. While most of our students do wind up working in the field, the faculty really wants to position their students for a wider range of option, primarily advanced education. If we don't make it possible for our students to enter an advanced program, we have failed. That, at least, is the perception that I notice.

Vocational education does occur in "Junior Colleges" of course, some of which have that mission (though not all do).

Also, I wonder about a perception that companies simply want colleges to teach students the latest tools and languages. I actually doubt that is true. I think they want intelligent people who can fairly quickly be productive, but who have the depth to grow with the future needs of the company. They don't really want "just programmers", though when you pin down the people who do the hiring that is what they say - since that is their job. What the company really wants is someone who can think, write, analyze, .... More important, that is what they need.

An anecdote. I once had a class of technical wonders who did essentially everything you asked of them. Mixed in was a student with somewhat modest technical skills. My prediction for her was that she would eventually wind up being the boss/manager of the whiz kids since she was the one in the class that always asked "why are we doing this? why is it important?". I still think that perspective is what leads to success. Not just "how does this work?"


Can you self-plagiarize within the same document?

The short answer is: No, it is not (self-)plagiarism because it is the same book.

The longer answer is that a reader may want to know more about the subject when reading only the chapter on page 950. It would be highly beneficial for him/her to have a reference to the earlier section on page 50 where more information or more detail about the subject is given.

Finally, you should consider whether it is really necessary to literally repeat yourself within the same book (hint: probably not). This could be an indication of a sub-optimal structure of the book, or maybe providing a short summary and referring to the earlier section for more details is enough.


You should submit it once you finished. You should not wait or think about for new academic year. This is your misconception to have less chance to publish in summer. Because all the manuscripts goes under review process which takes usually 2-3 months and then it will be decided for next step.


How different should my Statement of Purpose be from school to school?

You may be making a mistake in writing about the past in your SoP. Your accomplishments are probably detailed elsewhere. Make the SoP forward looking, what you intend to do in the future, including beyond grad school. Mention your past work only so much as it directly supports your suitability for the degree and field you wish to pursue.

For a doctoral studies application, I don't think you need to tailor it too much unless there are specific working groups that you want to join. Then it is a good idea to mention them and also to mention professors that you (truly) know something about and might want to study with. And, of course, if you are applying to fundamentally different programs, such as in different fields, you need to tailor it to the specific case.

Later, for job applications, the SoP should be more closely tailored to the job as described in the call, but not so much for continuing studies.

Caveat. If there is nowhere else to mention your accomplishments then, of course, the SoP is the place for that. But don't just repeat what is easily available elsewhere.


Appropriate process for following up on university job posting

Note: I'm assuming this is for a regular staff or research staff (lab tech/manager but not post-doc) position. I'm also going to assume you're in the USA.

We just ran a search for a staff position in my program at my large research university. The union rules for my university specify that we can must first open the search for internal candidates before allowing externals to apply. If there is an internal candidate, they get priority before any externals can be considered.

Internal candidate: Someone already with a position in the university staffing pools looking to transfer jobs or someone in the university layoff pool
External candidate: Someone who does not have a job with the university and was not laid off from the university in the last 180 (or so, union rules are byzantine) days

Although we had some good external candidates, we essentially could not consider them as we also had good internal candidates. Contacting the lab manager or program head (in my case) about the search via non-HR approved means would not have been productive.

You might as well try (what are they going to do, fire you?) but be prepared to be turned down or have your e-mail ignored as university hiring tends to be done strictly by the books in most American universities.


Regarding PDF copy of a book downloaded from reputed universities

If a reputed university has uploaded the PDFs online, chances are they are legally allowed to. This could be, for example, if:

The book's copyright has expired.
The copyright allows for distribution (e.g. if the book is open access).
The copyright holder allowed the book to be distributed.
The university paid for the right to distribute the book.

So it should be OK for you to use it. If you're still worried, look at the license statements that come with the download.


Reaching out to senior faculty in your dept. will be of great help. Many schools have a proposal (or grant) development office that conducts seminars + talks for new faculty and new hires.


I am not sure how to label [a figure that appears in a footnote]

Presumably the figure is relevant only to the footnote, otherwise it wouldn't appear in the footnote: Include the figure without numbering and without a caption, explain the figure in the footnote.


what is the impact factor of "npj Precision Oncology"

For all such questions, go to Journal Citation Reports (JCR) and search for the impact factor. If you don't find the journal then it doesn't have one.

In the case of this journal though, you don't need to search JCR. It says on the website that the journal has been indexed by ESCI (Emerging Science Citation Index). This is a lower-ranking index, and if the journal has only just been indexed by ESCI, it certainly hasn't been indexed by SCI and SSCI (which are the indices that yields an impact factor). In other words, you can tell without searching that this journal does not have an impact factor.


Is there a research exchange program for postdocs between UK and worldwide universities?

Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships fund individuals with PhDs to go and do a postdoc research project at another university for a while. If you are interested in the US/China, then you would be looking at the Global Fellowships, which fund a period of study outside the EU (typically 2 years) followed by a year back in an EU country to transfer the knowledge learned back into Europe. The scheme is highly competitive. You would need to make arrangements with appropriate host institutions yourself.


Job application with contradicting/invalid student feedbacks as supportings

Everybody who evaluates student feedback expects a certain number of false positives / negatives. If a small-ish fraction of your students gave bad or just plain false feedback this is nothing to worry about.

  I could foresee the interviewer will ask me to comment on these review, what is the best way to address them?

If those are only a few, then I doubt that an interviewer will be overly concerned by them. If she is, you can truthfully explain that it is simply not possible to be everybody's perfect teacher. Student's expectations differ, so it is infeasible to be great for everybody.

  In particular those comments which were invalid. For instance, I worry the interviewer won't believe me when I say my course did not have homework.

Why do these specifically worry you? Frankly, "did not mark homework quickly" is not exactly a crushingly bad feedback even if correct.

  (My university uses electronic feedback system so all the comments were printed on 2 A4 sheets, so I cannot skip those invalid feedback)

Of course not :) what would be the point if you could just pick-and-choose which feedback you consider valid?


What papers can you ask someone to cite for using your software?

When I am using someone else's software and this software has been used in my paper, the least I can do is cite the related paper. In many cases when the tool is available online, authors typically include the citation along with the download (on the readMe or documentation file). In those kind of cases, I must admit I have never really checked the overlap between the paper and the software, because citing the author's paper seemed to me more a matter of professional courtesy and attribution of their contribution to my work than anything else. After all, if I trust the authors enough to assume their software gives correct results, not trusting them for which paper they tell me to cite seemed like an oxymoron.

On the other hand, if I was the software author I would be careful so that there is a significant overlap between the paper and the software (your cases 1-4). All of those cases seem to me like a reasonable reason to cite the related paper. There is also a case 6 when the tool was developed during the duration of a research project and there is a published paper that describes this project. In that case, citing this paper like this:

  We use the 'tool' that was developed during the 'myName' project
  [citationToMyNamePaper]"

when using this tool, would also seem like a reasonable choice.

I must say that I have never met your case 5 ("The paper has nothing in common with the software"), when I actually checked for overlap. Do you have any concrete examples of such a case yourself? Because although something like that is possible, I do not think it is common.


Will a paper in A help PhD application in B?

Yes.

Admissions committees are looking for evidence of research potential.  Having a research publication in any area is direct evidence of that potential.

(One of the first hurdles that I encourage my own PhD students to jump early is publish something.  Anything.  The point is for them to see the publication process — writing, editing, submitting, reading reviews, revising, resubmitting — and to kill off any doubts in their minds that they can do publishable research.)


How to properly cite a comment from reddit

I believe that your best guess is pretty close to the right answer. According to the APA Style (6th ed.), you should list as much information as possible for non-periodical publications, which you have done well. I think that your resource falls under category "Nonperiodical Web Document or Report", as described on this page of the Purdue OWL's APA Formatting and Style Guide.

However, on the second thought, it seems that a more correct option to use would be APA's electronic sources guidelines for "Online Forum or Discussion Board Posting". Not only Reddit better fits this category, but it also allows you to specify the author of the quote you are citing. Therefore, the optimal citation in question, in my opinion, should be as follows (note that I took liberty to remove date of retrieval as the link you provide is a permalink and, thus, pretty stable):

  Snowden, E. (2015). Just days left to kill mass surveillance under
  Section 215 of the Patriot Act. We are Edward Snowden and the ACLU's
  Jameel Jafer. AUA. Retrieved from
  https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/36ru89/just_days_left_to_kill_mass_surveillance_under/crglgh2


Reviewing experiences effects on applying process

It's a very weak positive signal.

Being invited to review in a field's top journal is a sign that somebody thought of your name when seeking people with deep expertise in a specific domain of study.  This is clearly a good thing when applying to a PhD program (but would definitely not be expected from an applicant).  That said, inappropriate reviewer selection happens all the time, so as I said, it's a very weak signal.


Applying for NSF math postdoc fellowship with a non-U.S. institution as sponsor

I'm curious if anyone here has experience with this situation and can give some perspective.

I served as a reviewer for NSF proposals in math, so have some insight into the process, although I don’t recall if this particular issue came up.

  I'm currently already doing a postdoc in Europe; does this have any bearing?

I don’t see how it would.

  Is it important to communicate, in some form, an intention to return to the U.S. after the postdoc?

I don’t see how that‘s relevant. The fellowship’s goal is to assist you in reaching certain objectives during be time you are receiving the fellowship, not afterwards. However, I suppose it’s possible that some reviewers of your proposal will have a different view and think that this is important.

  Or to emphasize that you will still be involved in the U.S. math community?

You should emphasize whatever you think are the best and most noteworthy aspects of your proposed project activities in the context of the broader impacts review. Certainly being involved in the US math community sounds like a good thing, but it’s by no means the unique thing you can propose to do that an NSF reviewer might think is worthy of funding. For example, since you are abroad, you can also do things that your competitors in the US are less able to do, such as build bridges for collaboration with researchers in other countries. Basically, my suggestion is that you try to think what would be the best way you can make a contribution given your unique setting, skills and interests, and propose (and emphasize) that.

Finally, it’s good to keep in mind that the people who would be reviewing your application are people with a fairly similar background to you and (by and large) care about the same things you do. Mostly they will want to see you propose to do something that is exciting and beneficial to society. So don’t overthink this - obviously if you can make the case that your project will further the US national interest or US society in some specific way that’ll be great, since it’s US government funding you’re applying for, but that effect doesn’t have to be a direct one, and there are many ways in which an overseas US researcher can still make a good contribution.

Good luck!


What are the benefits of being a convener/chair of a session in a conference?

The following answer is based on my understanding of what it means to organise a symposium in a conference (i.e., commonly a conference session of about 60 to 120 minutes with around 3 to 8 talks all with a common theme, where the chair is the one to invite and arrange the talks and often provides a more general introduction to the talks). Obviously, I'm not talking about the more mundane task of merely chairing a session, which can be as simple as you being the designated person that ensures that each talk keeps to time.

You can build relationships with the other presenters in your session. If you are organising a symposium, then you will be contacting other possible presenters who you think may be attending. This often provides an excuse to connect with people you may only know through their research. For people you already know well, it can provide an excuse to catch up at the conference, which in turn can flow into research collaborations or other opportunities.

You are likely to get more people to your session, and those that come may be more interested in your topic. If attendees see that your session is all about your topic, then people interested in your topic are more likely to attend. In contrast if you present an individual paper, it may get lost in a more general session.

Chairing a session can help people see you as a person active in the topic.

Chairing a session can be something you put down on your CV, performance review, promotion application, grant application, etc. It's generally not a huge thing. In many, but not all, fields, conferences are more a means to an end. In these cases journal articles and grants are more important. That said, chairing a symposium that you organised does show some academic leadership that would count for something.


Conversational tone of Statement of Purpose Essay

Don't do it.  A statement of purpose is an opportunity to demonstrate your formal writing abilities.  Jokes like this make it sound like you are not taking the application seriously.  (And I don't really think this one is funny, anyway.)

Also, be concise and to the point.  I don't see how the name of the town where you moved, nor the number of miles between it and your university, has any relevance to your application - people who are reading large numbers of such statements really don't want to spend time on unnecessary text.  Stick to information about what you have accomplished and how you believe it is relevant to your preparation for graduate study.

You can certainly highlight the fact that you graduated from this university, and perhaps mention any particular aspects of it that make it a good fit for you.  But you can do that in a serious and professional tone.


Is the salutation and/or the signature of an email indicative of the intended level of formality?

In my experience, the salutation often indicates something about the level of formality, while the signature typically conveys much less.
The signature is effectively meaningless because many people automate the signature on their emails, so it is literally not something that they are thinking about. Sometimes it will indeed convey a person's preferred level of formality, but since it's so often automated, that's not a safe assumption to make.
The salutation, on the other hand, is something that people definitely use to indicate their assumptions about the nature of a relationship. You don't really have a choice here, because pretty much every culture uses choice of salutation to indicate assumptions about level of formality, and even omitting the salutation has a meaning. Most readers will at least notice level of formality, even if the more cosmopolitan are unlikely to take offense.  Similar things apply in other choices as well for languages where relationship is strongly reflected in pronouns (e.g., usted vs. tu in Spanish) or other linguistic options.
If you are in doubt, it's usually better to assume a higher level of formality. People are generally appreciative of attempts to be polite, whether or not they are needed.
Thus, for example, in the particular case that you cite, Canada is a fairly informal culture, and the professor has almost certainly indicated that they  are comfortable with you using more informal language. If you are not comfortable with that and continue to say "Dr.", however, they will likely just take it to mean that you are from a more formal culture and trying to be polite.


Setting expectations regarding hourly pay and research work schedule when busy with coursework

If this is the U.S., then you wouldn't talk about number of hours or pay scale in the proposal.  (I don't know about other countries.)  I imagine that what he has in mind is a brief description of a topic, or some topics, that you are interested in working on.

In my experience, professors are very understanding about the ebb and flow of the student's time commitments.  It could be helpful, however, to let the professor know in advance which weeks are the ones where you know you'll be tied up with exams, etc.


Having students scribe lectures: can the instructor choose any license?

I'd ask the students to transfer any copyright to me, formally if need be. In any case, the scribe is writing down what you are writing on the board, so the contents is morally yours in any case.

Presumably the result will undergo wide edition by you, so this is mostly moot.

[A student did transcribe my scribblings a while back; some things  got misunderstood or I plainly messed up, a lot of cleanup was needed, and for the next version I added several examples and clarifications.]


Is my contribution enough to ask for co-authorship?

In my opinion, it does not deserve authorship credit. Some university have specific requirements about authorship. For example, one university where I was previously studying had this requirement: an author should at least have done two of the following three things : (1) participate in finding the main idea of the paper, (2) participate in designing and carrying the experiments, and (3) participate in writting the paper.  According to what you said, you would only qualify for (2), and it would be indirectly, since you just implemented something that was already published. Thus, in my opinion, they could put your name in the "acknowledgements" section instead of as a co-author but if they don't it may also be ok depending on the context. Moreover, if you got paid to do what you did, then perhaps that they don't even need to put your name at all.


Is it possible to obtain a Master's degree without Bachelor's degree?

I know people who have attended and graduated from master programs in Australia and the UK and I've seen people considering such programs in the US (though I don't remember the school in the US and it was about 10 years ago but I thought it was Carnegie Mellon). These schools were all reasonable, fully accredited schools.

The students in question all were missing their bachelor degree. One had no university at all while others had most of their undergraduate credits yet had not finished. They key is that, like you, they all had significant real-world experience which was seen as offsetting their lack of credentials.

So, the short version is, there are schools who will accept master-level students without an undergraduate degree and there are schools who will not accept them. You just need to do the leg work and see which schools will make that exception.

Good luck!


The Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) series (and its related sub-series) are rather odd publications.  The DBLP bibliography server marks them as a journal in one way, but categorizes them as a series in another way, and they are structured and reviewed more like conference proceedings or collections of book chapters.

I personally would not think of them as being the equivalent of a journal publication.  Whether they count as a journal publication for a particular organization's set of regulations, however, is something that only that organization can determine.


A year + for first review, one referee report in, want to withdraw paper

I actually had a similar situation some years ago. I don't think my experience is very useful, but I will briefly recap it in any case.

I submitted a paper to a journal in October 2009. In April 2010, after several requests, I was told that one referee had given a report, and the journal was still waiting on the second report. The journal then sent me the report at that time (in April), though I gather that was not standard procedure, and as far as I can see, I did not explicitly ask for it, though I had been repeatedly asking for feedback of any kind. The journal wrote:

  In fact, we got a report from the first referee. The referee's opinion
  is rather negative. As a rule, we do not send a negative report before
  we get a report from the second referee. Taking into account your
  will, we send the first referee report to you - please find it below.

  SInce we have not yet got the second referee report,
  there is no editorial decision concerning your paper.
  We hope to receive the second referee report in April.

I don't know exactly what was meant by "taking into account your will".

The second report never arrived, and I withdrew my paper in September 2010, slightly less than a year after submitting it.

I suggest that you ask your journal for the one report. You might want to wait on withdrawing it till you hear what the report says. You could say that you would like to use the first report to improve the paper while waiting for the second.

If they refuse, I guess you could then say that you are withdrawing the paper, and then ask for the report again. If you are going to withdraw the paper, this marks the end of the process from the journal's point of view, and I don't see why they would refuse feedback that might help you. Of course, they might refuse regardless. I imagine that individual journals would have different policies about such things.


How to use a summary of a paper that references to another paper?

To comment on the options you present (my comments in bold):

  Use the A summary of B and cite to A. (Don't do this)
  Use the A summary of B and cite to B. (This would generally be poor form; you want to verify the accuracy of the summary and ideally form your own understanding; in extreme cases it could be plagiarism; that said if you are merely using the summary to assist a little in your interpretation, this might be okay.)
  Write my own summary of B and cite B. (This is generally preferable)

When the particular interpretation of A is relevant, another option is to write something like:

  Alpha (2015) interprets the work of Beta (2013) to mean that ...

In general, the aim is to give credit to intellectual contribution. So if someone does a study or writes a paper, cite the primary source. If you want to summarise what it means cite the primary source.


(Potentially) Low GPA with No Reserach Experience, Am I Screwed for math PhD program?

I can't speak for math specifically but here is a general answer

First, don't worry about no research experience. some US undergraduates have research experience but not all. I had literally zero and I was admitted to very prestigious universities

As to GPA, there's nothing you can do about the past grades so just do the best you can on remaining classes. You can mention something about it in your cover letter if you want (ie some explanation like in your question). 3.5 is not the worst GPA in the world.

GRE scores matter more or less at different places. Just study the best you can.

You can also make sure your research statement is well written. Find universities where there are professors whose interests match yours very well

In short I don't think you're in a hopeless situation.


Minor editorial error during minor revision. Should I notify the editor or just correct it?

Take option #1, correct it now and notify the editor. The decision letter did say "do not make additional changes", but that is almost certainly referring to changes that will need to be peer reviewed. This kind of minor change that no reasonable person will disagree with is not a problem.

If you're still worried, you can also do #3.


Etiquettes and content of review text for replying to reviewer comments?

The more you write the more people need to read before they get to the stuff they need to know, so I would keep the formalities short. I typically start my response letter with a general thanks to all reviewers. If one has been especially useful I will mention that there.

If there was a comment that happend in all (or many) of the reviews I will discuss that at the begining as well.

After that the letter becomes very "tabular", For each reviewer I just discuss point for point how I dealt with that comment. Usually it is just a sentence and the page (and line) of where that change happened in the text. Occationally it may make sense to write a bit more, and I do so whenever required.


How to quickly get complete list of citations to all my papers?

You can use Scopus to do that, but only if you / your institute has access.

Search for an article that you (or someone else) has authored, click on the author name, then click on "citations".

Scopus screenshot, author page

If you click on the 13 link, you will see a full list of documents citing Gerrit Holl:

Scopus screenshot, author citation page

In my experience, Scopus doesn't have many false positives, although it might miss publications in new or unknown journals.

I'm not sure if Scopus deeplinking works, but try this for a direct link.


How big of a deal is it if I abbreviate a school name?

I can't imagine that anyone would object, as long as the abbreviation is widely used by people who work at the university.  (UCLA is fine, but I wouldn't call it UC Los Angeles, since I believe that's a much less common abbreviation.)

In fact, repeatedly writing out "University of California, Los Angeles" is more likely to stand out as strange than using the abbreviation UCLA is.


General education requirements across U.S. universities

My sense is that this would be a very slow and painful survey to undertake... but here are a few leads on where you might find people who have already done it.

There's a Journal of General Education published by Penn State University Press, and it probably has articles about recent thinking or trends in this regard. In particular, it published an article on how the University of California at Merced designed its general education curriculum, as a research university that first held classes in 2005. There's a lot there about different philosophies of designing general education.

Another possible source of a large-scale comparison of general education curriculum is cross-campus research undertaken for other purposes, such as using the National Survey of Student Engagement or the Collegiate Learning Assessment. Research focused on the first year of college may also mention this.

Writing programs seem to be especially well-studied, and in general there seem to be trends toward designing early coursework to improve skills (such as writing or data literacy) rather than to impart specific knowledge.

Finally, there's a trope that every (American) university always copies Harvard, so you if you do not find a ready-made list of general education classes across schools, you could make one based on your state schools, a few regional rivals, and Harvard. ;)


The goal of a research paper is to advance the knowledge of the field. There is no goal that every known fact be documented in scientific literature. So, you need to ask yourself whether your work truly contributes to the body of knowledge. If unsure, ask a supervisor, colleague or the editor of the journal you would consider submitting to.

Besides advancing the state of knowledge there is also the question of whether the contribution is significant. If others can arrive at the same conclusion with minimal work, journals (especially more reputed ones) may reject your paper because it is not significant enough.


What should the course leader do if some students were given less time for a quiz?

I believe there are a lot of circumstances that have to factor in to the decision, but to me, the most important initial detail is, do you have any way of reliably tracking whose time was cut short and who had the full time allotted? If not, it's going to be hard to analyze and correct the situation.

I'm assuming that, since it was a quiz, it's not a huge factor in their grade, so what I might do is either renormalize the grading or pro-rate it. Basically, if the quiz was supposed to take 60 minutes, and the most any students were shorted (by no fault of their own) was 10 minutes (still less than 20%), then the new baseline can be considered to be 50 minutes, or 83% of the original time.

To renormalize, multiply every student's grade by 1.2. For students over the new 100% mark, you could give extra credit or simply cap the score at 100%.

Or you can do a quick-and-dirty pro-rate by adding 17% to everybody's score, again, either up to a maximum of 100% or going over and giving extra credit.

I realize you have a huge class, which also implies you have a lot of early-undergrad students who might raise a bigger stink, but in my academic career, I've seen plenty of ex post facto shifting because of logistics, especially when a prof or the school is rolling out a new technological approach.


politely refusing authorship opportunity?

They’re an ex-PI and one that you’ve had negative experiences with. Still, networking and connections, even if faint, can come back and be helpful directly or indirectly. Diplomacy is key. Give your appreciation for their interest in collaborating, but decline, citing other obligations, time commitments, etc.


What more should I do to increase admission probability to a top math graduate program?

I have some very serious doubts about your first few sentences but ignoring those, I can say it seems like you're in really good shape. To add to your list (as a math graduate student myself) really focus on your GRE. A good GRE score will not help you that much but a bad or mediocre one can certainly hurt you. This is something you definitely can study for and you should aim for as high as possible since you have time to study.
Also, you might want to consider the area of research you're showing interest in. I have no idea if what I'm about to say is actually true but I think PhD positions are awarded based on funding availability and if you are interested in a "popular" area you might have an easier time getting in. In this case probably funding for applicable fields is more than funding for purely abstract fields.
If you can publish more papers as an undergrad that will definitely make you stand out because it shows you can do original research and are less likely to drop out of grad school. Getting involved with projects with your current professors is also a good way to get good letters. The vast majority of graduate students I know did not have any publications when they were undergrads. Having publications shows the school is not taking a big risk on you since many students with good grades are not very good researchers.
I also just want to say, that it seems like you're focusing a little too much on the ranking of the school. You should also consider what kind of math you want to do. I spent a semester as an exchange student at one of the top math programs in the world although my own program is not nearly as highly ranked. The students there were really stressed out, competitive rather than collaborative, and not very happy. Burnout is not uncommon there. This made me appreciate my department a lot. If you are interested in an academic career, you should focus on preparing for a long and fruitful publishing history which means doing deep, interesting, influential research that will land you good jobs in the future. That outcome has a lot to do with a) having an advisor who supports you, guides you, and opens career doors for you and b) having time to dedicate to research. In addition to the ranking of the school also consider whether there are professors you want to work with there and the teaching load you will be expected to cover. You may want to contact a professor's graduate students and ask what their experience has been. Most of the time we will be happy to give you honest insight. Also if you are spending all your time running calc workshops, you can't do much research.
Along those lines, go to as many seminars as you can in your undergraduate department. This will give you a better idea about modern research directions and you will be able to write a more coherent statement of purpose.
Consider applying to an NSF grant for early career grad students if you are a US citizen, or find similar grants in your country. https://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=6201
Lastly as for your comment about taking more time instead of graduating early: I don't see any reason you should rush getting out of your undergraduate institution if you didn't get into the perfect grad school so yeah, I think it's a good idea to take an extra year and improve your application while taking more classes.
Edit to address what you can get out of seminars as an undergrad: This obviously depends a lot on who you are and what you are studying. First of all, even experts often don't understand everything or even most things in a seminar talk because mathematicians are generally very specialized. Here are some methods I employed as an undergrad and still use during talks:

When you go to a talk, aim for an understanding of the point rather than the details.
During the talk, make a list of words you don't know and look them up after the talk.
I found it very enlightening to read the oldest papers in English I can find about the subject. For example, I just went to the Wikipedia page about the Eichler-Shimura isomorphism which I have never heard about before, and downloaded the earliest paper in English I could find on the internet. It was this one: https://www.ams.org/journals/tran/1961-100-01/S0002-9947-1961-0140126-3/S0002-9947-1961-0140126-3.pdf Even though this is nowhere close to my field, the paper actually did an okay job of describing the motivation of the field. Humans are social creatures and this is what makes math difficult for many. It really helps to know the history and the stories behind any topic before jumping in. If you can research some of that history then the problems in modern math will have a lot more pull. For example, the subject you mentioned seems to have something to do with isometries of the hyperbolic plane. This is a great place to start for an undergrad. If you try really hard to understand each talk I guarantee you will come away learning a few things and after a year of talks, you will have some idea of modern research problems. This will help you begin to develop your overall interests as a researcher.
Also don't expect yourself to understand too much. You want to know is this a classification problem? Is it a generalization of something? What are some applications? The goal is to just learn some new things each time. You're not going to be able to stuff all of algebraic geometry into your head before hand but you can learn the basic motivation and see what piques your interest.


No response from potential PhD supervisor after Skype meeting

Call him or his assistant. Or drop by during his duty hours or after his lectures.

No, you shouldn't be optimistic, you should continue applying for other positions.


I don't see why it wouldn't. If your professor was fortunate enough to have a career at a university where he could properly retire from, then he must have had an outstanding reputation at his university and in his field.


Unfinished prerequisite undergrad course in the last year in MS application as a final year undergrad student

Usually transcripts include registered courses as well as graded ones, and usually you'd be registered for those courses already when you apply. It's normal for anyone applying to graduate school as an undergrad has half of their senior yet to still complete. It's a totally normal situation completely familiar to admissions committees.
If for some reason your transcripts don't show future enrollment, sure, it's fine to mention somewhere, but no need to make a big deal about it (just a list of enrolled courses for spring would be sufficient). Your acceptance will be conditional on completing your degree, including any required courses you still have in progress.


What to do when you discover a mistake in the archived copy of your PhD thesis?

Though I am not in mathematics (I'm a philosopher), I would only add that generally speaking, the PhD dissertation should be one of the worst papers you ever publish. That doesn't mean it should be terrible...it only means that it's the start of your career, and your writing--and your research--will get better with experience.

You could still go ahead and submit a correction, but at the same time, don't stress yourself out over it. So many doctorandi today think the dissertation has to be flawless, and that they have to make some ground-breaking, Nobel-prize-worthy advancement in their field for the thesis to be any good. This is simply not true. Look--you have a postdoc, the results of which will no doubt be more influential on your future than your dissertation.

Again, I'm not saying to not submit the errata. Rather, I just don't want you to lose sleep over the mistake. Don't be too hard on yourself.


Can you do a PhD solely on repeating experiments of others?

I would say it depends:

a) If in medicine, you are the first one to replicate an effect in an independent study, then you actually did something original, namely confirming the effect

b) If in physics, you refine an experimental design to verify an uncertain outcome, or clean up a measurement to exclude artifacts, and make the effect more clear, it is also something original

The rest is in the shades of what passed in the journals as "original". But I guess as long as the experiment was set up freshly (i.e. not in the same group) and had any small improvement/change (analysis method, amount of data, statistical uncertainty, control experiments) over the original it would pass in many universities for a PhD (and I will not give my personal opinion on the level or originality required for a PhD in an average university here).


Are patents appropriate in taxpayer funded academic settings?

Yes it is ethical.

The patent will typically be owned by the institute and it will get most of the revenues (this is why they encourage it). The inventors usually get some form of compensation. Revenues from commercialization is partially how your salaries can be payed and could in fact save tax-payers money.

More importantly, developing a new diagnostic or therapy will in the end improve the lives of the general public (and even save lives in many cases). Currently, due to the immense costs involved, the only way to get a new therapy to the public is in a commercial setting.


Academic 'rehabilitation' after poor undergraduate results

I can't speak to Philosophy programs so this may not be terribly useful to you, but in general, if your grades/marks are not stellar, and you exams are not either, then you should probably rely more on the power of recommendations from people who know your good traits well.

There are probably several ways to do this, and though I'm not sure about philosophy, in the sciences for example, a couple of years of volunteering in laboratory with one or two different researchers and making yourself invaluable to them can garner you major points.

I didn't do wonderfully in my studies either, and my exams were not fabulous, but I spent three years after graduating my undergraduate university volunteering in two different labs, and enrolling in evening courses to (a) try and do better in essential courses pertinent to my area and (b) demonstrate that I was serious about graduate studies because of my initiative in taking all these courses.

I ended up with three great letters and job opportunities, and later grad school (PhD) through working with these professors.

However, a word of caution: If your weaknesses really include motivation and work ethic, then post graduate study is not going to be fun for you. It's completely different than undergrad as there is way less structure, and you have to be very self-motivated, make your own deadlines, work all the time without people asking you to, and complete projects on your own. It's really hard. If you do decide that you can do it though, I suggest finding an advisor who will be more hands on.

Hope this helps a little!


Short answer: Yes.

Slightly longer answer:
Some programs that aren't able to guarantee fully funding their students often ask this question just in case they run across some issues with securing funding from the school. Some programs ask this question during the interview but from my experience, most ask during the application process. For me personally, the question usually asked how much money I would be able to take out of my own pocket to pay for tuition (I always just wrote "0").

Since I'm not on the faculty of whatever program you applied to, I can't speak for your program, but they may take your answer into consideration for whether to accept you into the program or not.


How to develop experiment to justify construction of a prototype system?

What would be a good approach that justifies also the construction of my real system?

I don't have a crystal ball, so I can't say anything other than: in some fields, in addition to showing that your approach works well in a simulated environment, it is a really good idea to also show that your approach works well in practice.

If your peers value such "real world" results, then you don't need to justify it any further than that.


Practical strategies for increasing one's passion and excitement about research?

I find that a good way (for me) to get excited about my research is to work with some inexperienced research students - high school and undergraduate students.

Mentoring these students reminds me of the things that excited me about research when I first started: mainly, that we can come up with some problem that we think is interesting, that hasn't previously been solved, and then go ahead and solve it. I still think that is so cool, and seeing that reaction in my students reminds me all over again :) Also, I get to feel like an expert in this scenario, which helps makes me more excited about my work.

Generally, I find that spending time with others who are passionate and excited  encourages those feelings in me, too.


From a publication point of view:

In general, this is nothing else than peer review and totally fine.

As long as the other person only tells you "all good", or "this here doesn't look good, maybe rewrite it so that X is more clear", that is no problem at all. If the other person writes the whole new version for you, that is obviously not good. Either way, this wouldn't be plagiarism in this case. Plagiarism means copying from a different paper/book/source without properly mentioning it. What this would be is someone else writing (part of) your publication without getting mentioned. That is at least as bad as plagiarism, but it is something else.
Depending on the level of help you got, consider mentioning the other person in the acknowledgements.

From a university point of view:

A thesis isn't completely the same as a paper, so here, other rules might apply. At some universities, you have to sign that you didn't use any sources or help apart from the ones clearly mentioned and cited. Thus, rules might be stricter here. While I would not worry about, say, a math major getting feedback on their English grammar by someone who has no idea about math, as soon as the one reviewing your work is from the same field and/or also gives feedback regarding content, this is something that should be cleared with your advisor first.


Why do departments hire GTAs instead of more permanent faculty?

Yes, full time lecturers cost more than graduate teaching assistants.  In addition, if they are hired with permanent contracts, then it is a long term financial commitment, which is more risky financially than a short term contract.


As a tutor, how should I handle anxious/avoidant adult math student?

Let me make a suggestion that may or may not target the real reason. I don't have a way to evaluate its relevance.

I've almost never had to give up on a student, but it has happened. The reason wasn't them or me, but just time. I've had students in math who were really terrible at it and didn't really know why. Nothing seemed to work for them.

But in exploring things, I learned that somewhere in their background some teacher (or several) just failed to do their job and let them slide by. In order to help them learn (I think it was) statistics, I would have had to take them back through elementary school math from the beginning. They had never learned to add or multiply properly.

Even worse, no one ever gave them any incentive to learn math, nor any insight into why it might be important. They never had any experience with figuring out how to translate a problem into symbolic form, much less equations.

I had to give up, just because I didn't have the time to teach them ten or more years of things they'd missed.

It is possible, I suppose, that someone has figured out how to short-circuit that process and bring a student up to speed relatively quickly, but at the time, I had no real idea how to do it.

My action suggestion is to give your student a diagnostic test of some sort, even quite informal, to find out if they are just missing so many basics that the new material has no foundation on which to build.

I'll note that in my personal case, I was neglected by one teacher and didn't learn my multiplication tables. I managed to overcome the problem and finally forced myself to learn them - just after I completed my doctorate in mathematics. Now, I can faithfully recite seven times eight = .........


Self studied courses during my PhD. How to fill the relevant courses section in the CV?

I think that my lack of relevant coursework will be a huge negative in my applications.

I seriously doubt this. While I cannot speak to all cultures and fields, I find it hard to imagine that anyone will doubt your ability to understand and teach underwater basket weaving if you have published original research in underwater basket weaving.

So, I would not give this undue weight in your mind, and certainly not in your application. In particular, I really recommend against raising this issue in your application, and certainly not in a prominent place such as your introductory paragraph. Your application should focus almost entirely on your research. A rule of thumb is that successful post-docs act like faculty members while unsuccessful post-docs act like students -- and giving undue weight to coursework risks placing yourself in the latter group.


verbally accepted offer; got a second interview call

You're not under any contractual obligation (and don't have any legal recourse if the college were to withdraw the offer!) until you've gotten a written offer (which will normally have a deadline by which you must respond) and returned it with your signature.  It's in your interest to continue pursuing other opportunities until the first institution has come through with a complete written offer and you've accepted it.

I would contact the second campus, explain that you would prefer to work there if you got an offer, but that you've already got an offer in hand (and what the deadline on that offer is, if you've been given one.)  You need to know how rapidly the second campus will be able to conduct their interview and make an offer.  If they couldn't possibly make an offer to you before the deadline on the first offer, then I would decline to interview and just take the first position.  If it is possible for them to move quickly, then I'd suggest that you go ahead and interview.

There is a risk here- if the first institution finds out that you're interviewing elsewhere, they might decide to withdraw their offer.  The only way to avoid this risk entirely is to turn down the second interview.


Is it beneficial for a student to publish their research code and data?

The core of scientific research is that we are open on how we came to a certain conclusion. That way we can move beyond "I am wearing a white lab-coat, so you must believe me", to "this is how I got my results, you can replicate them and see if they are robust, or you can try different approaches and we can discuss and learn how that affected the outcome". So making sure others can understand in detail how you got to your results is central to doing good research. Releasing code is an important step in that, regardless of the university you belong to.

So don't think of this as a service to others (it is nice if that also happens, but that is not the goal). It is about doing good research by documenting how you got to your results, and making that documentation available.


How to convert an engineering project into a PhD research title?

What is the difference between the research behind the development of this product, and a PhD research which is able to earn a degree?

Products are typically developed from known results (including existing research), whereas research (during a PhD) produces new results.

  Does a 4-5 years' PhD research degree program allow developing a product like this?

Not typically: Research is time consuming and there typically isn't time to develop products.

  Does the student need to mask his product development as a PhD thesis by selecting a cryptic title which sounds "wise", or would he be allowed to use a plain title like "A desktop sweater knitter"?

I think you're (discretely) trying to ask: How can I develop a product during my PhD? Don't do that. If you do, the IP will (most) likely be owned by your university, not you. You'll need a less common approach: Work for a company (possibly your own) and enrol with a university under non-standard terms which ensure the company retains (all or most) IP rights.


Alternatives to big-name proprietary remote-lecturing tools

BigBlueButton is software designed for remote teaching. It makes it possible to teach using videos, share slides, annotate them, do breakout rooms, etc., and can be integrated with Moodle. It is open-source and can be self-hosted.

It is apparently not easy to set up, but can be done, and can scale to dozens of participants provided they don't all have their webcam set up (e.g., only the instructor and a few people asking questions share the webcam).


How do academics find time to write books?

I'm an associate professor in a humanistic social science (anthropology). Anthropology is different from pure humanities in that monographs are usually based on extended participant-observation fieldwork.

Before getting tenure, I wrote two books (monographs):

The first book was an extension of my original PhD dissertation. I revised and submitted it to academic presses in the first three years of my first tenure-track job. I used a portion of my third year leave to do the final editing of the ms.
I used the remaining half of my third-year leave to do some of the research for my second book. I also changed universities and used another year of leave provided by them for additional fieldwork. The second book was then written during summers and other leave periods.

So in the twelve years  or so years since my doctorate, I've finished two books. I'm currently working on my third using a portion of my triennial leave to focus on writing it. Each book has taken around 4-6 years to research and write -- which is on the fast side compared to some of my peers. I should note that one of my senior colleagues in history has written a book every two years -- he is considered exceptional by most.

To answer some of your specific questions:

  Is this something academics normally work on in their spare time, or do they get paid to actually do it?

Writing books (for faculty in the humanities / humanistic social sciences) is considered part of our research output -- the same as when natural scientists write journal articles. We try to do secondary research and write during the school year and do our primary field research in the summers and when we can get research leaves (sabbaticals, triennials, etc.).

  Are there grants or donations involved?

I used external grants to conduct the field research for the books. I also used internal grants for book completion (copyright clearances, indexing, production offsets, etc.).

It should be noted that the royalties for most academic books (except popular textbooks) are very modest.  At best, you might earn a few thousand (US) dollars on royalties on an academic book. Many don't make any money at all. Advances on books are also very rare.

  Is it a privilege that comes with tenure?

No. If you want tenure, you have to write. At most R1s, you have to have at least one monograph for a strong tenure bid (in humanities/humanistic social sciences).

  I'm mostly familiar with life science research, where people will constantly publish papers in journals and that's it - there seems to be no time nor funding to write anything beyond that, at least not as a part of the job.

In disciplines where monographs are important, journal articles are slightly deprecated in importance.

Note that monographs are also separate from edited volumes. In disciplines where "books" are prioritized, this almost always means a single-authored monograph from an academic press. Edited volumes count much less in value in terms of promotion and merit raises.


Course assessment for programming courses

As a background, I have a BSc in Applied Informatics in Physics, and I have followed many programming courses in C, C++, Java, UML & Design Patterns, Matlab & Simulink, Xilinx, etc. Usually at my institution the final grade is composed by the following sum: 40% final exam(which can be also practically some problems in 3 hours, or more theoretically on paper), 30% individual project, 30% group project. The individual homework have a deadline to be proposed, usually at the half of the corresponding semester. Concerning the group project, I have to say that this is the most problematic. Many times I had to do almost the core of the project of it by myself, since the other members were not so focused. Hence, the bigger the group, the bigger the problems within the group. But I have to say that there were some group projects which turned to be a very collaborative, and this highly depends on the group members and their motivation. Concerning the curricula, the best would be to adapt it on their background. For example, it would be easier for them to follow a course in Java if they have already a strong background in OOP(C++/C#). Either way, from my point of view the only weakness in our faculty programming courses is that the transition from academic usage to industry is not very well performed. In particular, we haven't had many courses where the basic frameworks in different programming languages were presented and studied practiacally. Of course, that would require a lot of time, but the knowledge gained by the students increase very much and helps them adapt immediately to industry.


How should a drop in GPA be presented positively in a Statement of Purpose?

Personally, I would avoid making excuses for a drop in grades. They are what they are.

Instead, you should highlight the independent research you did and published. That's a huge achievement for an undergraduate. If it's obvious to the reader that you put a significant amount of effort into that research and learned a lot, that should outweigh the fact that you didn't learn as much in class.

If the grad school programs you are interested in do still have a coursework component, then grades will matter more than they do for a research-only course. But if they're good enough, research experience will make up the rest. That, glowing letters of recommendation from supervisors, and a good interview are worth more than perfect grades.

  Don't waste words making excuses. Show you are emotionally invested in your research. Make promises.

Anecdotally, my GPA tanked from A- in my final undergraduate year to B (overall) in the first year of my Master's program. I had a tendon injury and couldn't write for nearly 3 months, so I only just scraped through that first semester with a C average. Way behind on my research project, I put that ahead of my second semester papers and did very well in the research but with average coursework. Those grades got me my dream PhD job, and I haven't even finished my Master's thesis yet. I never mentioned the injury because no-one ever asked about my grades.


Masters degree in business engineering or management engineering

Usually no, mostly because the undergraduate degree is validation that you've covered some baseline subject matter.  Even in more vocation-based undergraduate schools you usually need to take courses (writing, math, humanities) that might not be directly related to the subject matter.

That said, there are schools that may be willing to trade a certain amount of professional experience for a certain amount of credit towards an undergraduate degree, or schools that might let you pursue both degrees at the same time.  You'll have to shop around.


What am I doing to scare away prospective PhD students?

I am not a prospective PhD student but a current one, and I am not in the mind of every PhD applicant, but my best guess is that some are not really interested in your department, some don't know how to say "I actually accepted an offer at a different school" with good manners, some are not fully sure if the e-mails come from a human or from an automated system (especially those who come from countries with a strong culture of professors ignoring or being mean to students, especially undergraduate - I wouldn't have imagined I'd receive personalized e-mails either!), and some are just rude. Or maybe it's just generational: in the same way it's starting to be considered more polite to never reply a text again than to politely decline a second date, and that many prospective employers say "we'll call you" after a job interview and they never ever call, there might be some perception among some people that it's better to be silent than to reply negatively? I don't know. Do they get interviewed before receiving an admission offer? Are they aware of how many offers you make out of a larger applicant pool? Emphasizing that might entice some of them to continue the conversation, or at least it might dissipate the question on whether they were not aware of things or, instead, they were plainly impolite.


You need to have a discussion with your advisor about the situation, if it is as untenable as you claim.

Before you do, however, may I suggest that you consider rescheduling your day, if possible? You said your labmate does not show up until 5 pm in the afternoon, while you arrive at 8 am. That gives you from 8 am until 5 pm to work on your project without your labmate hanging around. I would plan my day to spend as much of the time between 8 am and 5 pm in the lab, and then conveniently "disappearing" to the library between 5 pm and whenever you want to leave. Use this time to catch up on journal reading, emails, and any other tasks that you otherwise wouldn't have to work on because you're busy in the lab. This may give you the time to be productive and get some results to show your value, if you think that's a concern you need to deal with before speaking to your advisor.

The other issue is dealing with your labmate deciding to be a co-author. That's actually the bigger issue here: unless your labmate makes substantial contributions to your paper, he shouldn't be a co-author. Moreover, he shouldn't be deciding unilaterally that he will be a co-author. It's your research, and you should have some say in who collaborates with you. Now it's possible that your advisor might want to get your colleague "out the door" and might ask you to collaborate on a paper or two. However, if that's the case, that should be something to determine via discussions with everybody involved. [Note that the question is "nominally" about undergraduates, but the advice there applies to any research situation.


How to order and divide up "Invited journal articles", "Journal articles", and "Conference articles" on a CV?

I'm not in computer science, so I'm not sure if these three headings would be a standard everyone adheres to. Still, generally speaking, you have some freedom in how to organize a CV. However, splitting a section into two doesn't look great if you don't have enough stuff to put under the new headings. Instead of making a new heading for a single invited journal article, I would suggest leaving it as one section, and marking articles to highlight noteworthy aspects (e.g. invited, won best paper award, featured on cover page, etc.).


How to give crtitical feeback without sounding obnoxious?

First: Cromwell's Rule applies. You're absolutely sure that you're right, and they're wrong. That sureness should be a huge warning sign for you. So, accept the possibility that you are wrong.

Second: ask, don't tell.
So not this:

  You say C causes D, but actually D causes C!

But rather, something along the lines of:

  Do I understand correctly that you've assumed A and B and that you've then shown that C is correlated with D, and conclude that C causes D? How did you exclude the possibilities that D causes C, or that C and D have a common cause E?