Can I use the sealed TOEFL score report I receive from ETS as an official score report

Some schools will accept a copy of your test score report as an unofficial report of test scores. However, if this is the case, this will usually be explicitly stated in the admissions documentation from the university. If they do not specify that this is allowed, then normally only the report submitted directly by ETS is acceptable.


Is a Research paper possible for proposing of a Methodology?

is a journal publication possible for...a methodology?

Yes, assuming the ability to add functionality to a tool - from data generated by the tool - is useful to others, and assuming outcomes can be (relatively easily) manually derived from the aforementioned data. Added functionality is presumably useful, so the former assumption can be dropped. (Some justification should be added to the paper.) As to whether outcomes can be relatively easily derived, that isn't obvious and requires justification. If you can justify, then the latter assumption can be dropped too, giving-way to my answer to the above question: Yes.


Is it okay to mention we're citing an article only because a reviewer told us to?

As it turns out, not every comment or suggestion forwarded by a reviewer needs to be necessarily accommodated in your manuscript. Hence, as you seem to have a convincing argument against citing the suggested paper in your manuscript, in your rebuttal letter state that you have considered the suggested comment but you didn't find that paper to merit citation. (However, compose your argument politely, thanking the reviewer for the suggestion.)


How to prepare a ten-minute presentation for a PhD interview?

Ten minutes is like "no time at all". You can do very little. However, it is likely that the hiring committee is much more interested in what you will do in the future, related to their general concerns, than what you have done in the past.

So, I'd suggest you mention, briefly, the past results but stress the work in progress and the possible benefits if it pays off. The committee can explore your past work in publications, of course, but the work in progress and contemplated, needs to come from you. Look to the future, not the past.


What is my salary expectation in Germany with Remuneration group 11 TV-H, if I have master degree?

The "stage of remuneration" (Stufe, table column) increases after having worked N years in your current Stufe, i.e., you go to Stufe 2 after working 1 year in Stufe 1, then you go to Stufe 3 after two additional years in Stufe 2, and so on.

This only counts paid work done in public service (öffentlicher Dienst). It is not there to reward "having experience in the field" but to reward "staying for a long time in the job". Unless you had a full-time TV-H11 job for more than a year during your Master studies (which is not allowed), experience as a student will not count towards starting at a higher Stufe.


How are non-academic (eg. industrial) reports cited in publications?

It is common in Economics to cite reports from institutions/lobby groups/banks, e.g. to motivate one's research. These reports may be more or less academic in nature and they are typically not peer-reviewed (they likely underwent some type of internal review process, but I would not compare that to peer review).

I typically cite them as (pseudo bibtex syntax below):

author = {[name of institution]}
title = {title}
journal = {[type of report]}

If possible it is also nice to add a link or available at if the report is not easily found. You will likely be able to find a similar solution.

As an example, this article is published in Journal of Finance, a top journal in its field, and includes at least 4 such citations:

Source: preprint version of the article linked above. The blue text are clickable links in the original document.


Is it good to only read the high-rated journals as a starting PhD student?

I've never been one to sit down and read a journal edition cover to cover. I think you're better off skimming titles and abstracts for articles that pique your interest. You should do this for conference proceedings too. You can't attend every talk at a conference, nor should you really expect yourself to read every article.

At some point you will need to narrow your interest to something pretty specific in order to develop a dissertation. You will also need to develop depth and historical perspective on your chosen topic. You should probably spend as much, if not more, time reading interesting individual articles and all their important references (and so on!) as you should trying to read whole journal editions or entire conference proceedings. There's value in a depth-oriented approach to reading articles.

I find that there's a pruning strategy of sorts that keeps you out of stuff that's not interesting. Sometimes randomly selected articles can be worthwhile, but there's lots of stuff out there that will be boring to you. Using a good article as a guide and reading some of its references can be much more productive.


Is it possibly considered weakness in my statement of purpose if I mention that I would like specific people to advise my PhD programme?

I would include which certain aspects of the faculty would support your intentions and why, especially if you can include meaningful references to their previously published work.

For example

"I believe that University X would be a great place to undertake my research into topic Y because it has a great reputation in this field. For example books A and B published by person C are well known texts in the field and I believe the research of person D in the area of E would compliment mine."


Searching for specific characters in publication titles

For Google Scholar I believe it depends on which character you're after - regular letters are fine, but certain special characters (like $, @, and punctuation marks) are stripped from the submitted search query, and won't work. That is, that's the case for the regular Google, and while I haven't found official documentation stating this, as far as I can tell, Google Scholar has the same behavior.

PubMed replaces certain special characters (such as $) with spaces. See this help section.

For more reading, see these related questions on StackOverflow:

How can I use a search engine to search for special characters?
Looking for special characters in Google


"Awaiting Editors Decision" what could it mean?

Once you submit your revised manuscript the editor handling your manuscript will look through your revisions to assess if they are satisfactory. Since revisions were in response to a minor revisions verdict, it seems likely that the next step would be accept unless the revisions were not satisfactory, in which case additional revisions might be necessary. In any case, the editor is now assessing your manuscript.

You write that the paper has been in this mode for a week. For any normal journal and thereby workload of their editors, you should not expect any change in status within such a short period. In "my" journal editors have three weeks to reach a decision on how the process should proceed. If the status remains for longer than, say, 3-4 weeks, you can start to consider contacting the journal and ask about its faith. But, please check if the journal has any specific time limits for their processes. Some do, some don't. The bottom line is that you are premature to worry at this stage.

EDIT: As Strongbad points out in a comment the term "Awaiting Editors Decision" strictly indicates that the paper has passed reviewers. this is indeed the general case,  also in "my" journal. So in your case, the signal is, as I was, albeit not as clear as I intended, aiming at above, that no additional review is necessary and the editor is assessing the paper for submitting the final verdict.


Discovering mistakes in thesis after submission and printing

The examination regulations specify what needs to happen so that a "re-evaluation" of an accepted thesis becomes due. Generally, such re-evaluations only take place in case of severe academic misconduct, like plagiarism or faking data. In the case of minor presentation issues, there is nothing to worry about.


You should let your PI know what resources you need to carry out your work, and discuss how such resources can be provided.  You should not be footing the bill in the first place, so there  should be no need to monetize to recover.


Should I start writing a paper early or after all research is finished?

The concept of "finished" is problematic when it comes to research.  I think that the same quote applies as for art: research is never finished, it is only abandoned.

Less poetically and more pragmatically, it is often only in the process of writing that certain critical aspects of the work become apparent.  When a person is in the midst of working on a project, they tend to get very close to the material and begin to take as clear and obvious things that are very much not so for others who are not so deeply involved.  Writing one's work up in a scientific paper forces one to step back and build those gone-implicit arguments from the ground up (or at least it does if you are writing well).

This often leads to discovering unexpected problems, which lead to new literature searches, new theorems, new experiments, and even whole new perspectives.  I have had nearly the entirety of a paper change out from under me as we wrote it and revised it, and the work became much better as a result.

So, to return to your question, of when to begin writing up a paper.  My advice and experience is this: begin writing when you think you have achieved the key results that you want to build the paper around.  As you begin to do so, you will likely discover gaps that need to be filled in, which will shift how you write the paper, etc.  When the process converges, you know you've got a good paper on your hands, and it is ready to submit into the tender mercies of your dreaded peers.

Don't let yourself move forward with the research, though, to try to achieve the next key result.  It's fun and exciting to do new things, but you must also have the discipline to cross the Is, dot the Ts, and observe the little things that need to be corrected and might otherwise escape your notice.


What does renunciation of scholarship mean?

It will depend upon the specific rules of the funding agency and at what point you are renouncing the scholarship.

For example, I renounced a Ph.D grant from one agency before starting any further commitment because at the time of the results I already had received funding from another agency. In this case there was no drawback.

In Portugal you are able to renounce a Ph.D grant at latest 1 year after the start without penalties. However, after the first year if you renounce the grant and are not intending to finish the Ph.D the funding agency will demand the reimbursement of their investment on you.

For a more specific answer you should look at the rules of the particular scholarship that you have interest.


Do I have "the right" as a grad student to take a class just for fun?

Just turn up for the class. Don't register; just sit-in. Afterwards, explain to the instructor that you're studying a PhD in computational biology and that you have a personal interest in the course. You won't get credit, but you're fulfilling a personal interest, not an academic requirement.


How do you keep focused on a long-term academic goal while working?

You're right: it is easy to get sidetracked by the immediate responsibilities of work and other parts of life.  The first question that I would recommend you ask yourself is: why is that a bad thing?

A higher degree ambition is a great thing, and can lead to a very fulfilling life.  But you can also have a very fulfilling life in a lot of other ways as well.  What would happen if you just let go of the ambition and abandoned the plan?  Would that be so bad?

If it would be so bad, then there must be a reason why.  Now, that's the driver for your long-term goal.  The problem is, how do you get from where you are to that long-term goal, when all of these distractions are around you?  Some of the best advice that I have heard on this subject comes from writing podcast that I enjoy listening to: in one episode the podcasters, who are all well-established fiction writers, were talking about the shifts they had made on their path from aspiring writer to well-paid professionals.  One big shift that they all identified was that they had had to start thinking of writing as their job even while they were not yet being paid for it, which meant setting aside significant amounts of time per day to work on writing.

I would recommend the same thing for you in terms of making sure that you keep your focus.  Set aside a weekly schedule of time to work on the things that you need to do in order to be able to gain admission to the program you are aiming at and to prepare yourself academically for it.  With that time, you can both organize yourself, planning the short term goals that will move you toward your long-term goal, and also you can work on those steps.

Then, keep records of how much time you are actually devoting toward your academic goals.  If it's much less than you intend, then you need to reassess your priorities and ask again: do you really want this degree if you are not setting aside time to prepare for it?  And if you do really want it, what are you going to de-prioritize in order to make the time you need?

Preparing for higher education while working a full-time job can be hard, but it's also very possible, and I know many people who have done it.


In American universities, why are academics placed in managerial and administrative functions?

I'm not sure this is limited to the US as it is a fairly traditional view of what a Faculty should be. Traditionally a group of scholars shared administration as needed. When things were small, not much was needed. Some universities today, though probably mostly small ones, take this idea of Shared Governance very seriously.

In some highly regarded colleges. department heads, and possibly even deans, are elected by the faculty from among their members and likely serve for fixed terms, possibly renewable or not.

Such administration duties usually come with a reduced teaching load.

Some older professors may find that the teaching and research responsibilities are becoming burdensome and want to participate in a different way. Sometimes an especially active researcher with a national or international reputation is imposed upon to take on such duties to add to the "stature" of the institution. It can be questioned, of course, whether that is a good plan. If there is sufficient clerical and professional staff this can work, but as you note it can also break down.

In general, though, such places are willing to accept lower perceived efficiency for hoped increased collegiality.

Some such places, but I don't have wide enough experience to say all, are also more "professor oriented" with rules and regulations more favorable to professors - teaching and advising loads, for example. This can be a good thing (or not). It can also be a good thing for students as it may also mean fewer regulations to have to deal with and a more personal relationship with the faculty. If you apply to a professor, rather than to the institution, you have the beginning, possibly of a long lived relationship.


do references count towards page limit of journal paper

It depends entirely on the journal, as well as the purpose of the length restrictions.  Some journals do not count the references toward the length total.  However, many others do count the references, especially when the printed version of the journal is still deemed important, since in that case the issue may be related to the physical length of the issue.


Writing referee report: found major error, now what?

If there's a "major mistake in their method which invalidates their results more or less entirely" it seems pretty clear that you should explain this in your review, and not bother writing much else. (This seems so obvious, I wonder if I'm misunderstanding your question.) Why on earth would you "write the rest of the referee report assuming that they haven't made this mistake," if you're quite sure that the mistake exists, and that it invalidates most of the paper? What purpose would it serve, for the authors or future readers?


Is a Master's thesis considered 'published'?

To what extent are these 'available online' Master's theses considered to be published?

In academia, published typically means included in conference proceedings or a journal by a publisher in some format (typically a printed book) that has an ISBN. A thesis is not published, under that definition. Nonetheless, an unpublished thesis needn't be private, e.g., it may appear online and it may be available in university library.

  what is to prevent another academic taking [someone's Master's thesis] and publishing them as their own? Is that considered 'fair game' in academia?

Such behaviour isn't prevented, but it would destroy a career, so it is uncommon.

  to what extent a Master's thesis posted online is considered to be 'published' and how it is perceived in Academia if someone was to 'plagiarize' a Master's thesis.

Such a thesis isn't published, but that's not the main issue: Academic fraud is intolerable and fraudsters will suffer severe consequences.

  how much of this (if any) should I mention in my applications for PhD programs?

I don't see any reason to mention any of it. Do you? (Perhaps add a comment if you do.)


Are PhDs from former Warsaw-pact countries recognized in North America?

Yes, of course. Go into any American mathematics department's webpage and odds are that you will find an academic with a PhD from the USSR.
Edit: with regards to "status", it really depends what do you mean by it. Do they have same legal status? Yes. Are they valued the same? Most likely not depending on who makes the evaluation. American public (and surprisingly good portion of academics) seem to value "university rankings" a lot more than other people do. Non-American schools seem to fair much worse on these metrics compared with the American schools. As an example, current times higher education world ranking ranks.

104th University of Arizona
105th University of Bonn
125th University of Göttingen
189th Lomonosov Moscow State University

Now, I have seen much stronger mathematicians with PhDs from the last three compared to the first. I personally would value higher either one of the last three than the first.
P.S: Indian IITs don't make it to first 300. However, they seem to have incredible students. Perhaps because they admit incredible ones. Even than why would, say Harvard, be any different.


Could an inexperienced advisor hurt my career?

An inexperienced advisor can hurt your career by being relatively unknown. This means they may not have access to the same network and that their recommendation letters do not carry the same weight. Inexperience in supervision may, for example, lead to unrealistic expectations. Or an inexperienced advisor can be very good for your career, by quickly rising to fame with the awesome publications the two of you will write together and being fresh in everybody's memory when writing recommendation letters. They may spend plenty of time on working with you.

An experienced advisor can hurt your career by being never there. They may already have made their name, have extremely high expectations from PhD students, to the level of cause them to be overly stressed and quit. Or they may be very good for your career, as dedicated as can be to PhD students, prioritising them above most other duties, having realistic expectations from PhD students, and having great influence when writing recommendation letters.

Bottom line: an experienced advisor may be better for you than an inexperienced one, but that certainly does not have to be the case.  And keep in mind: a very good/famous scientist is not always a very good PhD advisor.


How to cite raw data shared by a client?

In a similar situation (supercomputer benchmarks that never appeared in a complete form in print), I cited the guy who was so kind to share them to me as:

  Yon Tihiy, in a private communication. 2018

Obviously, you guess that above was not his real name.


Including article unrelated to my area in CV

It’s your work, and you’ve published it, so on ethical and completeness grounds, you should include this publication on your CV.

If you wish to indicate that it’s not an active area of interest, you could always list it separately in your CV as “Other Publications,” “Publications from Master’s Degree Studies,” or something to similar effect.


is keeping a portfolio of personal projects compatible with publishing papers about these projects?

Yes, it's certainly compatible with publishing. It would roughly fall under the concept of Open Science.

  Which steps should I follow in order to avoid others to take advantage of my ideas, and in order to avoid problems during the eventual blind peer review process?

Use websites with some amount of academic reputation in your field to make your material accessible. Examples are preprint servers such as arxiv.org for scientific reports of (preliminary) results, or common code hosting sites such as Sourceforge or github for code, if available together with appropriate documentation on the project websites.
Publish anything under your real name to avoid being accused of plagiarism later on. Publishing such things on potential multi-author sites such as Wikipedia or StackExchange is not a good idea at all in this case.
When making something you intend for later scholarly publication online available, make sure that it get's a credible date stamp. The sites mentioned in point 1 would work fine with that.


Can I use the slides published in the course websites to teach in my own courses?

You need a license (from the copyright holder, here most likely Stanford University) to directly use their slides/parts of their slides or to make derivative use.

If the slides are publish under a license that allows you to reuse them, you're fine.
Examples would be CC0, CC BY, CC BY-SA, CC BY-ND (careful with -NC variants, they may not be sufficient for your purpose, e.g. in my country already putting ads on a web site with a blog so it earns the server costs makes that blog commercial)

You can ask Stanford whether they allow you to use the slides (i.e., grant you a licence)

You can always use the ideas behind the slides as inspiration to create your own slides.

Be careful since derivative works of their slides/images/diagrams need a license, see above.
Your slides need to constitute a new work of your own.
Example of inspiration: "It'a really good idea to point out the 'sample focus' change from LDA/QDA over LR to SVM" - then make your own slide on that topic.


Use of external collaboration in masters

Yes! Such collaborations will generally help you apply for doctoral programs.

Here are a few reasons why it will help you get into a grad program:

You will get more research experience which grad programs look for.
You will have more opportunities to network with important people.

These people will be able to write letters of recommendation for your grad school applications.
You never know when these kinds of connections will help you....

You will have a better idea of what kinds of research or work you want to do, so you'll have a better idea of which programs fit you better. (Don't underestimate this.)
You'll build your curriculum vitae (CV), which looks good.

Other Comments

If it's not a research position doing something related to what you want to be doing, that's okay: it's temporary.
Don't take advantage of too many unrelated opportunities. If you bounce from project to project, without a unifying theme or good reason, it can make you look like you have commitment issues, and admissions committees may worry that you won't stay to finish your PhD with them. (This isn't meant so much for you, since you're just finishing, but for others who may be in a slightly different position.)
Having a research experience at a national lab is a great way to find out how you like research in a non-university setting. In my experience, national lab work can feel like something between an industry job and a grad student job.


Applying for Masters Degree with academic integrity violation on record

Although it is perhaps possible that a school has a policy where they will not accept people with past issues involving academic integrity, I feel like this will mostly depend on the person or committee reviewing the applications. If you did well overall, I would think they would overlook something that happened years ago.

However, if it were my decision, I would apply to the school you're currently attending (since you said you know a lot of the faculty and it sounds like you're fairly confident that you would be accepted there; this would be your backup plan) and whatever other school you are thinking about applying to. Is there really any harm in applying to see if you will get in?


impending deadline for tenure-track offer, with other applications in progress

There are numerous other questions on this forum that ask the same question. In the end, it comes down to your risk tolerance. You can also accept A's offer, and if you should get one from B, talk to them to see whether you can defer the start of your work by a year and quit your job at A after the first year.


It sounds to me as if you definitely have a chance, though the GPA is somewhat low.

The fact that you became better over time with regard to GPA is a very good sign. You may want to calculate your GPA by year so you can cite some figures if asked. Be prepared to explain why your GPA was low, or at least what you did to improve it. While interviewing, do not be late for an interview with faculty - study the campus maps and be sure to let any prior meetings to end soon enough to give you ample time to get to your next meeting! Being late may give professors time to look at your transcript and possibly ask some awkward questions that you otherwise likely need not worry much about if you have already gotten to this stage in the application process. Not to mention being late is not a good thing in general.

Make sure you can secure some good letters of recommendation from your research projects. This is absolutely critical.

Hopefully, the job you get over the next year is also somewhat research related. If it is not too late, I would try to find such a job. Also, I don't know if it will suit you, but if you can find such a job, then you may even want to keep it longer than a year depending on how things go. If you can finish a good project, that will boost your chances even more.

Finally, I think your plan for the subject GREs may be alright, if it does not interfere too much with my suggestions above. Taking tests is not a big part of most PhD programs, and even those where it is, only a few of the most selective programs require the subject GREs last I checked (which was a while ago).


Academic Progression via Promotion vs via Recruitment

In many universities in Germany you are not allowed to get a professorship at the same university as the one you are currently in. So from that perspective, the fact that there are promotion rounds at all seems luxurious... (If all involved really want it, then there are ways around it, but the hurdle is very large; a single person at any stage in the process can block it.)

As I understand it, such policies are there to avoid a situation where a department mainly hires "its own" people. After a couple of generations, such a department becomes completely sealed off from the outside world. I think it is plausible that such a process could occur (without bad intent of any of the participants), and apparently there are historical examples of that actually happening. Having rules in place to avoid that is a good thing. You could argue that that should not apply to moves across departments, but apparently they did not think of that when writing those rules or they thought that that would invite to many loopholes. Anyhow you can't change the rules once the hiring process is set in motion. So you just had bad luck.


Should I ask my co-author before I upload an article (that he already told me is okay to publish) to arXiv?

Yes, you should check with any co-authors before publicly posting a preprint of work that is not yet published.

They may prefer that you not post it at this time (e.g. if they have a particular timeline in mind for when they want to publicly share the work, given other related things they are working on). Even if they have no reason to object, you should check with them as a courtesy.


What license to choose for preprint on OSF (Open Science Framework) when the preprint has been published in a journal?

In most cases, as long as you post your version of the paper (not the typeset version that your publisher agreement is likely owned by the published), then you choose the license that you want for your work.


Is it better to go for a postdoc in the US or Europe?

The answer to this question will come down to your personal circumstances and goals. There will be advantages and disadvantages to both options (both professionally and personally) that only you can know and weigh up. And, of course, it matters more how good the postdoc will be for your development than what continent it is in.

However, it sounds like your goal is to eventually end up in the US. In that case, my suggestion would be that there is no time like the present to make the move. Getting a position in the US is tough and it helps to have as many local contacts as possible, so you should start building them up as soon as possible.


How to leave a postdoc prematurely without burning bridges?

Speaking as someone who has seen how disruptive unexpected departures can be to a project, earlier notice is almost always better for your advisor, and I think you are less likely to burn bridges if you 1) let them know as soon as possible, and 2) try to finish things up / leave them in a state where someone else can take over.  All this is probably similar to industry, except that the lead time is probably much longer (since it takes longer to be hired, usually).

The caveat here is that you have to make a call about your advisor's temper. If you think your advisor is a bitter or petty person who will dislike you for leaving under any circumstances, waiting until later might be your only option, because you will burn bridges either way, and you do not want to be abused for several months. This is a rare circumstance, and it doesn't sound like your case.

Here's the other big point: unless you think there is something you can do to improve the environment which would make you stay (doesn't sound like there is), being too detailed about why you are leaving is only going to make people angrier. Saying "I don’t find the department to be a nice environment and I am doing menial work from which I don’t benefit" - whether or not it is true that your tasks are menial - will aggravate people, as you guessed. Saying, "I haven't found this line of research as exciting as I hoped" is probably enough, and (if you know) saying "I want to move more in the direction X" might be good.


Math journal question - long publishing delay

Do not send a mail to the journal; send it to the editor that handled the paper. They are an academic, so they are going to be more sympathetic and understanding of your deadlines and external constraints. In addition, they have at least some limited power to insist with the production team, and they have a direct interest in their journal's reputation.
And if there is someone that should feel pathetic, I believe, it's whoever receives your e-mail. Two years is really unacceptable even for fields with slow publication times; at least the paper should have appeared as published online (with the word "published" attached to it clearly).


Should a TA point out a professor's mistake while attending their lecture?

It depends on the type of mistake. All mistakes must get fixed to make sure the students don't learn anything wrong. However, how to best fix the mistake depends on the situation.

If it is a small mistake that can be fixed easily (e.g. a missing minus sign) I would recommend bringing it up on the spot. The 'cost' to the teacher and impact on the lecture is minimal but the benefit is potentially significant.

For more serious problems in a derivation/ argument like the one you described I think the cost benefit analysis often comes down in favor of waiting until the end of the lecture and informing the professor then. Then the professor can prepar a correction lecture explaining clearly what the mistake was and what the fix is. Trying to fix a mistake like the one you described on the fly can easily end up in a very chaotic lecture in which nothing is clear anymore and the students get very confused.

In general, don't worry too much about politeness and etiquette but more about what's best for the students. Your job is to be the best teacher!


How can I know if I am able to pursue a PhD?

Talk to your professors. They've been through PhDs themselves, and they know your capabilities much better than anyone else to boot.

Having said that, if you have both a very high GPA and research experience (which you did not dislike), you should be more than qualified to do PhD studies. If you aren't qualified then nobody else in your cohort is qualified, which is not believable. Besides, if you want to become a professor, you'll need to get a PhD - since it's something you must do, you might as well attempt it (or change career goals).


Unsatisfactory Instructor Evaluations: balancing of expectations of engineering students

The professor that taught me statistics dealt with this basic problem, which is that students would come into the course thinking it was like any other "narrative" style of course (like a history class), but the truth is it was a math class that was not listed as MATH 3XX.

Part of the job of a student is to pick courses, ordering them and balancing them into a semester that allows them to handle all of their classes. If they do not have the information they need to balance their schedule (as some classes are naturally heavy loads and others are light), they cannot do their job. So here's how I learned to help them do their job so that they would feel that you were doing your job.

Reset Student Expectations

On week 1 or 2, assign a special test. Include absolutely the most challenging math you expect them to do for the entire semester (not hard for the sake of being hard). Make it  absolutely clear that this course does in fact require previous knowledge and ability, and that this test is designed to do just that - test their readiness for this class. You can make it an in-lab assignment and just give credit for doing it - you can give them the answer key and let them grade themselves.

Clearly explain to students that if they cannot complete this test satisfactorily, that is information for them to decide if they are ready for this class. When I ran this lab session I personally explained to students that if they weren't willing to spend at least X hours per assignment per week, they would be unlikely to do well and should reconsider their plans now while they can still re-arrange their schedule. I had a few students drop by the next week, but then everyone who stayed stuck with it all semester.

Don't Make Students Feel Dumb

One of the great dangers of being an expert and a teacher is that you become very distant from that point in time when the material was truly difficult for you, and you lose some of your understanding of what it was like to not know. You are also likely to have an IQ far beyond the average, as well, so you might not ever have experienced this material as difficult - which makes it even harder to avoid this mistake.

I personally remind myself of the time where I had scrawled out about 8 pages of hand-written calculations and equations to solve a factorial analysis of variance by hand, because my professor said it was important. If someone at that moment had looked at what I was doing and even vaguely implied "oh, that's mostly just basic algebra, that's not so hard" I would have stabbed them in the neck with my pencil right then and there. (The pencil was dull and my wrist was tired, so they would have probably escaped serious injury. But still!) Maybe it wouldn't have been hard for them, but it was a challenge to me.

With your advanced understanding of mathematics, you might unintentionally be sending your students a message along the lines of, "oh, this math is pretty basic first year stuff, you shouldn't have any trouble with it". Math is often hard and time consuming and mind-bending and forgotten quickly, even if it is important, and to imply otherwise is insult your students intelligence and character. This will likely result in them not liking you, and worse - they may not learn as much from you as they could have.

Be honest, but take care to honor their struggle with fundamentally non-trivial material. Students appreciate "I know this may seem hard, but you can work through it" more than "this is easy, work harder".

...and make sure the material Is Really Relevant

Yes, math is important and sometimes being able to do it by hand is even important. But I've had teachers include complex material based on the idea that it would be on X industry test that was 3+ years away and that I would not ever be taking, and could otherwise be looked up in < 10 seconds if I really needed it. Sure, now if I get stranded on a desert island I'll be able to calculate proper binary subnet masks so I can build a complex routed network for all my coconuts, but otherwise I'm still a little annoyed I spent hours on that mess when I could have spent it on my research projects.

Motivating the material with a calculation the computer can't solve but they can do it by hand, if such an example exists, can help. It may also be helpful to really drive home the point that if you don't understand the underlying math you'll click stuff that is laughable and makes no damn sense, but the software didn't know any better so it did what you asked anyway.

Still, make sure you really aren't including tough material (according to the students) just because you really think its cool and is technically somehow applicable, but not really necessary or very valuable to the student. Those topics might be a perfect fit in another course - just not this one.

I think you'll find that if students are made to understand what will be expected and necessary upfront, you empathize and honor the challenges your students deal with, and you pair down the material to what truly best serves students, you'll find that not only will students like you more and rate you more highly - but they'll also learn more and the class will be more fun to teach, too.


What do researchers mean by the "priority" of an idea?

The way I use this term, "priority" means "who had this idea first". Of course, everyone can come up and say "hey, I totally had this idea to determine graph isomorphism in quasipolynomial time in 1990", so it is difficult to validate a priority claim unless there is some written material to back it up. But intellectual priority is the former concept; publication dates are just an imperfect way to measure it.

In fields where research is routinely disseminated before formal publication (using arXiv, preprints, or conferences), such as mathematics, there are (in my opinion) fewer possibilities for issues such as "X had the idea one year before Y, but Y's paper was published earlier" or "Y was a peer reviewer and scooped X's idea".


Emailing two professors who've co-authored papers I'm interested on working on

From what you've said, it sounds like they're of equal status and you've given no indication that the work you may want to do is likely to be of more obvious relevance to one than the other.

As long as this is the case I would suggest contacting them both in an initial email. If you're looking to arrange a meeting with them then you could mention that you're happy to meet with them individually or as a pair.

Contacting them both at once gives you the benefit of increasing the chance that you'll get a response, while it provides them the opportunity to decide for themselves which of them (if not both) maintains contact with you. Furthermore, even if you only get into a dialogue with one of them, because you've copied in both from the beginning the other should  be able to track what's been discussed.

If my initial assumption is incorrect and it's obvious that one of them may be more relevant to your interests (e.g., if one is the "theory-person" and the other is the "methodology-person") then you may want to consider contacting that one individually, but even still I would suggest there are advantages to approaching both at once.


Hiring Committee preference of academic CV structure

I have never seen an academic CV in the US that has anything other than Education at the very top. The rest of your order seems correct. I would also consider adding Service (journal reviews, committee service, etc.), Skills (technical skills, coding languages, etc.) and Professional Membership, but this may differ by field.


On agreeing on length of PhD program in advance and three year studies

Almost certainly not.

Even in programs where the PhD research phase is supposed to have a defined length (for instance, when students receive a fellowship to cover their work for a certain period of time), it is not possible to guarantee that the PhD program will actually be completed in a certain period of time.

It can be possible to finish; however, without knowing how well a student will perform in advance, advisors can only estimate how long a PhD program will take. There is simply no way to guarantee in advance how long your student will need to finish her program. The main issue that we have is that research is inherently unpredictable, and if things don't work out right, it's difficult to say people can finish.

We can try to work with a student to plan to finish in a certain period of time, but we wouldn't try to guarantee that until the middle of the student's PhD progress.


Is it a bad idea to ask professors questions weeks before the class starts?

Would it be a bad idea to send an email with questions about the material before the class actually starts?

First of all, I don’t mean to sound harsh, but generally it’s a bad idea to be a person who asks disingenuous questions not because they want to know the answers to those questions but “to show [someone] that they are motivated” and because they “would like to develop a bit of a relationship” with the other person. It’s dishonest, and the thing about this type of dishonesty is, the people the dishonesty is directed at are almost always better at detecting it than the dishonest person thinks. So this approach tends to not produce the desired outcome, and can sometimes backfire in unpleasant ways. And more specifically, most professors have had the experience of having a student try to impress them in various ways that come across as insincere. It leaves a bad taste, which does not help a while later when the student conveniently shows up asking for a letter of recommendation.
Setting this aside, if you have questions you genuinely want to know the answers to, there’s nothing inappropriate about emailing the professor. Professors often enjoy discussing course topics with students and answering their questions. If your questions sound sincere and not like something you contrived just to show that you have something to ask, I’m sure the professor won’t be offended by your email, and there’s a good chance that she’ll answer it. Whether she will like you more as a result or not, I don’t think anyone here can predict, so again, if that’s your true motivation then yes, it’s probably a bad idea to send the email.


How can I (masters in mathematics) prepare for an admission for PhD in economics?

I'd consider mathematics as an excellent footing for economics, perhaps top graduate schools and their professors will agree, ask them.

I don't see that delaying your application to teach mathematics for two years will help, and I don't think that delaying to "[get] involved in a research project in economics with a local economist" or "working at a local research institute" will provide a significant advantage. But, top graduate schools and their professors may disagree. Again, ask them.

It seems you don't know whether executing your plan (or aspects of your plan) will help make your application more competitive. This makes your question rather personal (indeed, you've gotten at least one close vote - not mine - on this basis). I strongly recommend asking the institutes involved, the relevant professors, or a combination of both, they can guide you, the broader Internet cannot.


Posting solutions to textbook problems online

If you don't have the solutions book, and are thinking of putting your own solutions online, then there is no copyright concern because it is your own work. You probably shouldn't put the questions online with the answers, though.
(disclaimer: IANAL.)


How can someone get access to German education system with poor grades?

In general, this is not correct.

There is no direct equivalent high school in the German school system. The closest to high-school graduation is an abitur.
This is called Hochschulreife¹ (suitability for academic education) for a reason.

Common interpretation of §12 of the German constitution is:
If you have an abitur, you may only be excluded from studying due to place restrictions, in which case the restriction is primarily based on your abitur grade (numerus clausus), but can be bypassed by waiting and other qualifications.
The latter primarily applies to some subjects like medicine.
There is a plethora of bachelor’s programmes that have no restriction at all (besides requiring an abitur).
Admission to a master’s programme also is not grade-based in general. You will probably always have a restriction on the content of your bachelor’s degree though.
With a quick search, I found a programme that automatically admits all graduates from the respective bachelor’s programme at the same university and has no grade-based restrictions for others.

That being said, you will probably find more grade restrictions for master’s than for bachelor’s programmes for the following reason:

On the one hand, bachelor’s programmes are subject-specific in Germany and occur in a similar setting than master’s programmes².
Thus your degree in a bachelor’s programme is a good predictor of your success in a master’s programme of the same subject.
Moreover, most grade thresholds are comparably lenient in light of the common grade inflation.
If your bachelor’s grade does not suffice for admission to a master’s programme, this usually means that you barely made it through your bachelor’s.
In that case it is reasonable to assume that a respective master’s programme is not the right place for you.

On the other hand, since the abitur is not subject-specific, it is not a good predictor of your capability of studying certain fields.
For example, I have seen students with an excellent abitur (particularly the math section) giving up studying math, because they were bad at proofs and this hardly played a role for them before university.
By contrast, somebody with a bad abitur may excel at studying math.

You may also want to read the Wikipedia article on academic admission procedures in Germany.

¹ Hochschule: university or other institution of academic education. There are no equivalents to colleges in the US/UK. Reife: maturity, suitability. Combining these two, Hochschulreife translates to suitability for academic education.
² The separation of bachelor’s and master’s is only around twenty years old in Germany. Most current bachelor’s and master’s programmes originate from a single big programme (Diplom) being split.


Why are many funded PhD programmes in the UK not open for non-EU applicants?

Most PhD funding in the UK comes from Government run research councils, for instance the ESRC, who allocate funds to groups of Universities known as Doctoral Training Centres. Given the restricted level of funding available applications are only open to students who are citizens of an EU member state. Funding may also be available directly from individual University departments but this is so limited in availability that they tend to prefer their own graduates or current students. In either case a requirement for funding is to have a Master's level degree from a recognised University, which is often interpreted as being a UK institution. Basically it's a very small pot of money that's available so applications have to be restricted.

To answer your edit: to get research funding in the UK (certainly for Psychology, and I assume for other subjects as well) you must demonstrate that your research falls into the national research plan. In other words, the UK government is only interested in certain areas of research which will be of long term benefit to the UK economy. While I accept that opening up funding to everyone irrespective of nationality would attract the best of the best, from the Government's point of view there would seem to be little point to spend money helping non-nationals get PhDs if, ultimately, the knowledge and skill sets which they have paid for are then lost from the country due to people returning home once the degree has been completed.


Should I include a paper presented at a conference of which only the abstract was published under publications in my CV?

Mention it under "conference presentations".
A printed title and abstract are not enough to convey a paper publication in a CV.


Does your supervisor have to be able to understand your thesis?

YES most definitely. Obviously, if you supervisor cannot comprehend your project, they cannot supervise it.

This should only very rarely occur. I can only think of a situation in which the student has, from prior qualifications, superior knowledge about certain aspects of the project than their supervisor. In this case, perhaps supervision in the traditional sense is not really necessary, but merely some guidance and feedback.

In any case, if you want to publish your research in the field of your supervisor, then you should speak a language and use conventions that people like your supervisor can comprehend. If you cannot express your project in such a way, then how can you hope that anybody relevant can understand it?


The process is very similar to becoming an editor for a journal.
I was a moderator for the arXiv categories cs.DM and cs.CG for a little over a decade.
At least in computer science, moderators don't have fixed terms of service.  New moderators come on board only when new subject categories are created or when an existing moderators steps down.  In principle, the advisory board can fire moderators, but I've never seen that happen.
Formally, moderators are chosen by arXiv's scientific advisory board, on the advice of the advisory committee for the category in question.  The advisory committee solicits nominations from existing moderators and other experts in the relevant research community.  As a general rule, the board looks for active arXiv users who have broad expertise in the topic and strong reputations in the relevant research community, at least at the level of a tenured faculty member in a strong department.
I was nominated (in both categories) by my predecessor (in both categories).  My predecessor and the chair of the CS advisory committee asked if I would be willing to serve, I said yes, and that was it.
When I decided to step down, I came up with a short list of candidates in consultation with the steering committees of the most relevant conferences (SODA for cs.DM, SOCG for cs.CG) and a couple of other moderators in nearby areas.  I emailed the people at the top of each list, explaining the job and asking if they might be interested.  Once I had one willing candidate on each list, I passed the complete lists to the CS advisory committee.  They very quickly approved the two willing candidates, they said yes, and that was it.


How are scientific papers uniquely identified?

Research publications predate the digital age, so only a fraction has a digital identifier. The unique identifier traditionally used is the full citation, of which various formats exist to suit discipline-specific needs. It is very likely for a full citation to be unique.

(However, automatic data analysis may not be able to recognize the identity of diffently formated citations of the same publication. That's DOI's strong suit.)


Search if a term already exists in an older research

So far as I can understand what you are looking for, it seems that Google Scholar is likely to provide what you need.  As with most search engines, you can request literal terms and can constrain your search in various ways. Moreover, Google Scholar has fairly comprehensive reach across scientific documents (including much "grey literature"), while still being restricted to the scientific and technical realms.


Can a PhD student co-supervise master students in Germany?

By and large, yes.

The conditions for master thesis supervision are specified in the examination regulations of the considered department. Generally, there is a big variety between the regulations of different departments, so it's always worth having a look at them.

In all cases I'm aware of, PhD students can act as co-supervisors of master theses. Usually it's required that a professor is formally specified as the main advisor, both in the formal proposal and on the title page of the thesis document. The PhD student can be specified as an co-advisor on the title page.


A potential collaborator and PhD student took a commanding tone with me (faculty) – how should I react?

While your, I hope preliminary, assessment of the student as having a superiority complex may be correct, I think you might want to consider another option.

It may be that the student was told to try to impress you that he isn't the dumbest rock in the pile and so laid it on thicker than normal. It might be hard for a normal student to find an appropriate balance if he is new to this.

Since you indicate that there would be advantages from an association with his advisor, you might want to withhold judgement until you know and observe more. One think you might want to pursue is a talk with the advisor and work in the question "Is he always like that?". You might get some insight on how the student normally behaves that might make you more or less willing to take on the task. Of course, you might also learn that the student has, indeed, thought hard and deeply about the issues before approaching you. It isn't always easy to work with a truly brilliant student, but there is something to be learned from it.

If you have won a Fields Medal (mathematics) but come up against a student who makes you feel small it can be quite a shock. (Movie Reference: Good Will Hunting)

True enough that some people play dominance games, of course.


Can you ever get funded while you are in a different country?

Postdoctoral positions usually (always?)  come with a salary. So yes, for all academic disciplines, postdoctoral researchers are funded. The funds can come from your PI grant (in which case getting funds is not your problem), or from a university directly, or from a funding agency. The rules and regulations of providers vary widely: many large agencies make no restrictions based on nationality, but there are also many national agencies offering funding for candidates from EU or from a particular country only. Some funding streams are reserved for women or under-represented groups.

Distant work is not very usual in academia. Most universities will have strict rules saying that all full-time staff, postdocs included, must relocate to where the University is. Exceptions are possible in case of fieldwork or project work with partners overseas. However, if you want to get a postdoctoral position in country X and continue to live in your home in country Y, it may often become a dealbreaker.


Year abroad in a country with low coursework standards: Am I sabotaging my future career?

I'm an assistant professor data mining in another EU country.

Suppose that you choose to do this exchange semester at Keio University, and then apply for a PhD position in my lab. What your resume would tell me, is not that you elected to go to a university with relatively simple courses*. Instead, what it would tell me, is that you elected to acquire a double degree, with exchange semesters in two countries on this planet that are both vastly different from your home country and vastly different from each other. That is far from taking the easy road. Instead, you show me that you are willing to go the extra mile, in order to develop your skills more broadly.

This broad development is very important for a prospective PhD student. During your PhD, technical mastery of statistics and data analysis is only part of the required skills: you will need to collaborate with others in the group, clearly communicate your results in written papers and oral presentations, and manage your own professional and personal responsibilities. Going on exchange semesters gives you an advantage on your application. My data mining group encompasses about 50 people, from 18 distinct nationalities; an interest in and experience with a rich variety of cultures is worth much more to me than a perceived relative difficulty of the exact courses that you follow.

Good candidates for PhD positions are scarce. A broad development sets you apart from other candidates, if you choose to apply for a PhD position.  If I were you, I would take the experience of going to Japan for a semester. That this aligns well with your personal life is a nice bonus.

*assuming that this simplicity is actually the case, of which I have no knowledge.


What should a PhD in physics put in a CV?

This is why it's a good idea to think about these things during, or preferably before, your PhD. You're picking up skills, but how useful those skills are and how you're going to use them is a big question. Fortunately, you're not out of options, and you've probably learned more than you think. Some thoughts:

You should absolutely list Keras. With the amount of hype machine learning has been getting having experience with neural networks is a big deal. I'd go much more than that: list everything you know about data analysis. It doesn't matter if it's something as simple as linear regression. List it all, give details.
You should absolutely list Python as well. In fact, list all the programming languages you know. You don't have to be an expert in all of them because you can learn the others quickly. Are you able to read C/C++ code? Java? R? You can also list Mathematica.
You should absolutely list all the languages you can speak. These skills aren't easy to pick up. If you can speak Japanese for example, that might make you the only viable candidate for a company that's looking to send a consultant to a Japanese client.
What else did you learn in your research? Did you learn any algorithms that might have wider applications? For example, did you learn how to parallelize code? Did you learn how to use a Linux terminal? Git and Github?
Did you engage in science communication and / or teaching? If so definitely list this as well, since it indicates you can mentor others.

You should also visit your university's career center. They'll have experts who can help you.

EDIT: One more thing, take a look at the advertisements you're responding to before sending in a CV. Do you know any of the things they request? For example looking at one such advertisement, there's this:

  Ability to query a SQL and/or NoSQL database efficiently

If you know how to do this, you should absolutely list it on your CV as well.


The canonical reference for this subject is Debrett's (via the Wayback Machine). They recommend that a letter to a knight should begin "Dear Sir [given name]," regardless of whether they have other titles such as "professor".

In fact, they advise against mixing titles granted by the sovereign (such as knighthoods and ranks in the armed forces) with titles not granted by the sovereign (such as professor) but, as others have observed, "Professor Sir [Given name] [Surname]" is common usage.

In an academic context, your alternative option  for a salutation is "Dear Professor [Surname]". However, as I noted in a comment to the question, it's unlikely that somebody who's the CEO of a multinational company would, in fact, be a professor.


Find papers authored by a specific number of authors

PubMed has an interface which you can call from a script. The intend to develop it is exactly your class of problem, which cannot be solved from the provided user interface.

This is the main page of NCBI Entrez API:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK25501/

What you need to do is to query PubMed by keyword(s), for example this is a search by "concrete":

https://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/esearch.fcgi?db=pubmed&retmode=json&retmax=100&sort=relevance&term=concrete

Do multiple queries, to cover your field, for example you can also consider "brick" or "cement".

It returns a list of publications. For each publication, you would have to check the number of authors and keep ones with a single author. For each publication, you shall call:

https://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/esummary.fcgi?db=pubmed&id=29510510&retmode=json

Determine the size of the vector "authors", and only keep the ones of size one.


Output of these analysis are more than 10 tables with 2000 rows each. We cannot add these in the printed version of the thesis ...

Even if you could (say for instance you hate trees and you don't pay for your thesis), do you think anybody would want to have that kind of data in physical format?

Both alternatives are valid, but as you said optical media is becoming more and more obsolete. If you really want to provide the data in a physical form, you can distribute it as a usb-stick. As the capacity of sticks increase, smaller drives become dirt cheap. You should be able to get 1GB, 2GB or even 4GB for relatively small price in hundreds.

The other option, online availability, is the better alternative in general. However the maintenance of data is important as others have mentioned. Both in terms of availability and proper cataloging try to use well known and established repositories.

What I don't understand however, is why you feel the need to "republish" findings, if you have already deposited this data together with a prior publication. Just refer to the data as "Table/Supplementary Info X from Paper Y"


How do I handle inaccessible DOIs when citing papers?

I'm from Crossref. The DOI should always resolve to some location, even if the content has moved location on the web or has changed publisher. Can you share the example so we can get it reported? It's possible it's not a Crossref DOI of course (there are several other DOI agencies) but I can find out from the DOI. The prefix does often denote a particular publisher but journals change hands frequently as societies negotiate different publishing agreements so that's not necessarily a failsafe way to solve the problem (which I agree should not be your problem!). Happy to help if you share the example(s) :-)


Applying for a postdoctoral fellowship in the UK, how can I find a host institution

In general, you should reach out to the person you'd like to collaborate with and go from there. Email professors you're interested in - they can help deal with the bureaucracy of their institution (approval to host etc). Bear in mind that some universities set stringent internal deadlines on applying to certain fellowship schemes.
Whether you'll be PI depends on the individual grant scheme. You'll have a line manager (most likely the professor you apply with) but not necessarily a supervisor-supervisee relationship.


Asked editor for review prolongation to do further experiments, can't meet deadline. What do?

Based on the reviews and the willingness of the editor to provide an extension, your paper clearly is worth it for the journal. You should definitely contact the editor, briefly explain the problems (don't focus on excuses but on what remains to be done) you have had to meet the deadline and ask what can be done. It will be advantageous to provide a solid plan for the remaining work so that this is clear from the beginning to the editor. So assess the remaining work, make up a realistic plan for what is required and provide this to the editor. If all this requires the assistance of your advisor then plan it together. In the end, it will be up to the editor to provide an extension and a clear plan is necessary.

In my own experience as editor, I much more appreciate realistic plans than optimistic ones that fail. In your case it seems as a case of force majeur and such things happen. I am, however, always suspicious of long excusing accompanying letters since I really do not care about the reasons but need to focus on the timing of revisions for planning issues and the like.


When did citation counts emerge as indicators of academic impact?

Science Citations Index (SCI) was the first reference source that provided a way to find the publications in which a scientific paper was cited. SCI began in 1964. SCI existed only in paper form until it went online as the Web of Science in 1997. Statistics like citation counts and the H-index really weren't practical until the turn of the 21st century


Mention of open problems in statement of purpose

It is a GREAT idea to list some specific problem.  I got a national scholarship and one reason was I wrote about a specific problem I wanted to work on (even with a couple citations to literature).

A little real meat on the bone content helps differentiate from hordes of people who just say how great they are.

I would maybe just give yourself a little flexibility to say that you will look at other topics of interest when accepted into school and choosing a lab group.


Is someone with a masters in CS eligible to apply to a CS masters program in another country?

The issues you mentioned in your question should be covered in your Statement of Purpose. That is, you should be willing and able (as you did), to explain why you want to "repeat" the degree (you're not really repeating the courses).

Hopefully, your schools of choice would consider you "superprepared," having completed many courses, but not the ones you plan to take. The danger is if there are weaknesses in your test scores or your grades, it could work the other way by showing that you are a "less good" student who needs to repeat courses.


Applied clinical research clinical trials and regulatory affairs

This journal is not indexed in any reputable database, or at least i couldn't find it. It has no Impact factor according to the updated listed shared by thomson and reuter.

Before submitting my manuscript i will alyways check if the journal i am targeting is indexed in a reputable database like scopus, web of sciences and etc.

And you should also check the publishing house/company that journal belongs to, check other journals belong to that publishing house.


In a formal paper, should I censor "brainf**k", the name of a programming language?

These are the Registered names of sanctioned programs in your industry.  Their developers chose those names not for their prurient value but for their impact value.  "Brainfuck" sends an INSTANT message that something like "Cerebral Challenge"  could never pull off.  You show your professionalism when you structure the "Brainfuck" section of your paper with the same care you show in other sections, mentioning the singularity of its name only if it's relevant to the paper. Let 'them' come to you, if they feel they must (and I doubt it).  Your responsibility is to the quality--which includes the Integrity-- of your paper.


How are TT candidates measured with different number of postdoc years?

In evaluating tenure track candidates in mathematics, everyone is paying very close attention to the year of the PhD.  This is because you are hiring candidates not primarily based on their current position but on their perceived trajectory: you want to hire the gal or guy who will be a research star five or ten years down the line.  (At Harvard, Princeton and a few other places, they want to hire the person who's a research superduperstar right now.  But they would only hire someone young if they truly thought that their present accomplishments were tops on a worldwide scale.  Anyway, this is quite an exceptional case...)

Beyond that, it's all arguable, and the arguments have a strange way of favoring the candidate in one's field, who one knows / wants to work with anyway....In all seriousness, it's really not clear.  When I evaluate tenure-track candidates I look at their productivity both in an absolute sense -- i.e., total output -- and in a relative sense -- i.e., rate of production.  The person who is two years out and has eight papers of course looks better to me than the person who is four years out and has eight papers.  They also look better to me than the person who is four years out and has ten papers (assuming that the papers and the fields are comparable, which they may not be).  But the person who is two years out, has three papers, two of which are amazing and joint with their PhD advisor and the other one is really strong too but seems roughly similar?  Ideally you'd like to see a few more data points, but if you really think you could grab them right now....At a certain point it becomes openly game-theoretic.

One thing I'll say is that a greater percentage of top candidates are slightly older than the "standard efficient route" would predict.  A lot of people get their PhD in math in their late 20's, and if you're especially sharp, went to the right places, and didn't mess around you could certainly get your PhD by 25 or so.  You might think that the belles of the ball are the candidates who got their PhDs at 25.  And some of them are, but for each of those there are a couple more who are really strong but somehow managed to get their PhD past the age of 30, either by transferring from a foreign country, doing military service, or simply spending six-seven years in grad school (and writing a very strong thesis).

Moreover, there are a very small number of postdoc (often called "X Assistant Professor") positions at very prestigious places that last for longer than three years.  If you can spend more than three years in one top postdoc, then you have received the advantage of an essentially ideal environment for maximizing your research productivity, and thus it should not be too surprising that a lot of these people go on to very good jobs.  But if instead of spending five years in one postdoc you spend five years in three postdocs, that's much less auspicious: though there are exceptions, most people can only spin the wheel so many times before they cash out with whatever they can get (and we hirers know that, having in many cases been there).


What is the consenus of IntechOpen, open access books, are they predatory?

Yes, IntechOpen is a disreputable publisher.  Do not send them your work or pay them money.


Is it appropriate for an undergrad to friend grad students / postdocs on social media?

I don't think there is a general social media rule about this. I have had many undergraduate friends on social media during my Ph.D. and postdoc. My rule is to send friend requests to whoever you like. It is just a request, they don't have to accept it. If someone sends me a friend request and I don't care to be their friend, I just ignore it.

But if you're worried that it could get awkward, you can just ask them if it is okay with them before sending a request.


I recently found Citation Gecko which takes in articles as seeds and shows papers they are connected to by citations (past and future) in an interactive network with a very clean design. Can import seed papers from Medeley, Zotoro, etc. too!
It's open source, the code is available here: https://github.com/CitationGecko


Neglected many aspects of knowledge during my PhD research. What's the best strategy to learn and be comfortable in it?

Actually, your experience is probably (nearly) universal. Doing research requires a deep dive not a broad view. But it also gives you skills. Employ those skills to things that seem "interesting" to you and you will fairly naturally expand the horizon.

In many fields it is impossible to know everything, as there is too much. Math passed that boundary sometime in the early 20th century.

Take a long view, assuming that you have suitable employment. Pick a topic that you think would be worth a look, for whatever reason and study it as intensively as you can for some period of time. When you are comfortable with what you have learned or you become bored with it, move on to another.

Earning a doctorate doesn't mean you have learned everything you will ever learn. Many people even radically change fields after earning a PhD. Many people in one field invent another field. Computer science, for example, grew out of math and engineering.


How likely is it for an international student to be supported financially during their internship in Austria?

When it comes to funded research-related stays in Austria, the go-to-place is the officially curated database https://grants.at (of the OeAD, or the Austrian Exchange Agency).
It even offers granular search options. Here is an example of a search form (perhaps the option "Practical trainings" may be the right one for your case):


Should I be concerned when an editor tells me that I have the final say about the paper he sent me to referee?

What you could do is locate a second reviewer, say a colleague, yourself. Explain the situation and the paper (in general terms) and ask if they could give a review. Then write to the editor

  I found that the authors addressed most of my concerns. However, there are still a few points I am unsure of and would like a second opinion on. I have spoken to Researcher B (without disclosing the paper) and he/she is willing to give me some input. May I share the paper with him/her?

Even for mid-tier journals, a single reviewer isn't unheard of, especially when the topic is specialized and as you have said you are an authority on the topic. What usually happens is that the editor doesn't tell you about their plans.


How are grad.applicants selected after program qualifications are met?

Mor Harchol-Balter has written a fantastic detailed description of the graduate admissions process in selective computer science PhD programs in the US, based on her experience at Berkeley, MIT, and CMU.  her description is also consistent with my experience at Illinois.
Short version: There are far far too many highly qualified candidates to admit them all.  The graduate admissions committee is looking first and foremost for concrete evidence of research potential.  Grades and GRE scores are used primarily as filters and only if they are low.  You need supportive recommendation letters from reliable sources (preferably expert researchers in your target area, who have a reputation for identifying strong PhD students) that describe your research experience and interests, in technical, personal, and credible detail.  Your statement must describe your own research interests, experience, and goals, in technical, personal, and credible detail, and in the idiomatic language of a researcher rather than a student.  Your research interests must match those of someone on the faculty who has advising capacity, and you must look more attractive to that faculty member than the dozens of other applicants who want to work with them.
And then you must get lucky.


If a journal publishing an article about a software tool requires the software to be freely available, must the article be open access?

The two are entirely independent.

The journal does not require you to make the software open source. It merely requires you to make it free for non-commercial use for at least two full years from the day of submission of the article.
It however recommends that you make the source available, preferably via an open source license. But it states that it is even acceptable to simply provide the compiled binary to the editors. (Presumably to verify that the software does what you report it to do.)

The requirement is only applied to a software if you wish to publish a paper describing a new software tool or a new implementation or algorithm. (Which seems to be your case as you want to write about a new bioinformatics software.)

The OA publishing option is something else entirely. The default publishing format in the journal is subscriber pays. With payment of additional fees you can purchase the option to make your paper open access, but that is not a requirement.

I note that the condition described in point 1 would be evaluated at the time of submission by the editorial board, whereas the possibility of publishing the article open access will not generally be discussed at all until after the paper is accepted.


Letter of recommendation from a senior lecturer

A clarification for what you need a letter would help. But, any letter that highlight academic skills should be useful. It will show your capacity to plan and carry out work so regardless of whether it is research or teaching you should get a leter. And, in each case the person most qualified to provide the letter should write it.

Providing letters that describe traits that are not sought after in an application will of course not be optimal (probably not detreimental, however). You therefore need to chose your authors of letters to match the skills requested for your application purpose.


How to contact a PI when I have been out of the system for a while?

The german system is rather diverse; every PI can do their own thing.

For structured PhD programs (i.e. international Max Planck Research Schools; IMPRS) you will need: one or more publications; and good letters from two or more of your formers PIs. Max Planck is very competitive.

For individual PIs you'll be better off with a personal recommendation by your former supervisor.

Your age will factor in as the time between your last contact with academia and now, not as ``age'' in itself. To be honest, this will make things complicated, especially without strong support from a Prof. on your side.


How is the "special aptitude for in-depth independent scientific work" proven if the professor candidate does not have a doctorate?

With your PhD thesis close to handing in, and in particular a cumulative PhD thesis together with "list of publications is comparatively extensive for a doctoral candidate" they may say that you have already shown the qualification, and that they expect you to finish before starting the professorship.
I don't know about FHs (universities of applied science), but at universities the procedure will usually take many months, so I'd say this expectation can be quite realistic.
More generally speaking, FHs (and technical/applied departments at universities) want to have professors with industry experience. In that context, experience of e.g. many years as a group leader in industrial R&D that did not end up in a formal thesis can easily be at least equivalent to the amount of research required for a PhD thesis or a habilitation.
Again, in these fields it is maybe more common than in more theoretical fields that the decision of doing a PhD thesis is not made directly afer Diplom/Master but after a professional career is well established and the candidate finds themselve doing & liking research.
Last and hopefully least, there is the rather unpleasant possibility that the application procedure is rigged up to comply with formal procedural requirements but make sure an already known favorite candidate gets the call: in that case, "clearly impossible" candidates may be encouraged to apply rather than telling them that their application is hopeless and they shouldn't waste their time.

That being said, I don't see particular red flags in the described situation: as OP does not yet fulfil the criterion that would automatically put a check-mark to the aptitude for independent scientific work (doctorate) saying they need to show it in some other manner is probably the normal formal way of HR burocracy.

Recommendation: talk to the committee/HR, saying that as you have not yet finished your PhD (but are close to handing in) and seeing that whether you should list your publications? Should say that the PhD certificate will be handed in once you have it? Or something else?

I don't know for sure, but I almost expect that the committee will have to certify that you have the required aptitude rather than you declaring anything.


There are two cases here. From the question it is unclear.

The article has directly been sent to production team after the peer review
The authors have been asked to correct the minor revisions after the peer review

In the case 1, it is somewhat difficult. Because production manager would be in contact with you. A title change has to be approved by Chief-Editor of the journal prior to production in this case. So, you may wish to contact the chief editor asking is it okay, with giving a suitable reason for the change.

In case 2, you can edit the online title in the journal submission system (e.g. EES, Evise, ScholarOne, EditorialManager .. ). But, again it is wise to mention this in a cover letter to the Chief Editor accompanied with the revised submission.


Are Systematic Reviews Efficient To Familiarize Yourself With The State-of-the-Art?

Performing a systematic review is very time consuming. Also, it may result in a "high dispersive work", if a very specific research question is not set "a priori".
Also, SR is not only "indexing" evidence, but also effectively aggregating them in a readable and useful summary. If you are not an expert in that field, you may not be able to do that, and the quality of the overall work may be low.
If your goal is to improve your knowledge in a specific field, performing a systematic review may not be the most suitable option in the first place. You'd rather read existing reviews and summary (if any) - this would be extremely more time-effective.
To answer to the other two questions:

Yes, it is possible to do in a matter of weeks, but not entirely on your own (the process of screening requires at least two independent reviewers, according to the PRISMA guidelines).
Yes, if you are not able to reach those literature that meets the inclusion criteria of your SR (and this is quite probable).


Am I taking the Right steps at Switching from Geoinformatics Bsc to Information Technology Msc?

This heavily depends on the program you are applying for. Usually (in Germany) they require you to have an equivalent Bachelor to what they offer as Bachelor in the field, i.e., Information Technology in your case. Whether a Bachelor is equivalent is typically decided case by case. The whole procedure and detailed requirements are described in the Zugangsordnung of the faculty.

Since you are a student from a non-EU country there are most likely more requirements you need to fulfill, e.g., assessment of the German university entrance qualification, language requirements, visa, etc. You should get in contact with the international office of the university as soon as possible.


What should I do if I'm trying to go into academic from a mostly non-academic background?

Generally, I do not believe that it will be problem that you do not have an extensive Master thesis. Most universities are likely to pay more attention to your grades and other documents such as letters of recommendation, motivation letters, etc.
So, the letters of recommendation could be a problem. I would advise reaching out to your old professors and tutors. Focus on those from whom you received good grades, briefly explain your reasons for reaching out now (in 1 or 2 sentences), and mention that you got a good grade in their course. At least in my experience, most professors/tutors will be willing to help. If it puts you in an uneasy position in your current job, then you should not ask your manager a letter of recommendation. This can easily backfire. However, it does not have to be your manager writing the letter. If possible try a more senior colleague whom you can trust.
If you apply for a Ph.D. position that is associated with a specific project, then make sure that you do your homework on the topic and show it in any application letter or motivation letter. The same holds for any position that associated a specific advisor from the beginning. In this make sure you know the advisor's work and research agenda.
If you feel not ready for a Ph.D. you could also consider programs that include coursework in the first year. Overall, do not overthink it, and do not forget that a Ph.D. program is there to teach you how to do research. In your application focus on conveying that you are able and willing to learn how to do that. Your professional experience could be a plus and more important than the perceived quality of your Master Thesis.


How to do on-site institute evaluation as a member of the evaluation panel?

I have been on two such panels, both for departments in my field,
one at a 'sister' university within the same system as my own, and
another at an unrelated institution in another state.

My first observation is that you need to understand who will receive,
evaluate, and perhaps act upon findings and recommendations of your
panel, and what criteria they will use. If you are not personally in substantial
agreement with stated institutional goals, you should probably decline the
opportunity to serve on the panel. You might be able to 'score a few
points' for an alternative institutional policy in the panel report, but typically
these reports are not made public and it is unlikely a lone voice will have
much effect changing goals. Also, there may be an element of unfairness
in judging a program by goals at odds with stated institutional goals.

Before your visit you will probably get a huge packet of information about
faculty achievements, student and researcher outcomes, enrollment and employment trends, and budgets.
Beware that the most important information may not be highlighted, and
look for obvious gaps in this information. Omissions and inconsistencies
can be a guide as to what questions to ask when you get to campus. Of course,
the institute, school, or department under review has a right to present
its best case, but you will do your best job if you look beyond the PR gloss.

Focus on what is actually going on, as well as historical information and
stated goals for the future. It is easy for a faculty member or researcher to claim
a passionate interest in various trendy fields, but you should look at what she/he
has actually published in the past few years and evidence of current activity.
It is easy for a department to claim increased student and staff diversity as a goal,
but you should look around to see what is actually happening. You should
have as many one-on-one meetings with faculty, staff, and students as possible.
Ideally, some of these meetings will not be pre-arranged. On your own,
have a slice of pizza at a local hangout; sometimes that can give you more
information (or clues to search for information) than prepared binders of documents and fancy receptions with carefully chosen people.


What niche is PRResearch supposed to fill that the other APS journals don’t already cover?

APS clearly intends for Physical Review Research to be less selective than PRL/PRX, as they elucidated in two volume 1 editorials:
M. Thoennessen: "Editorial: Introducing Physical Review Research"

We are launching Physical Review Research to achieve three main objectives: (1) to cover the entire range of topics in physics and related fields, including interdisciplinary and newly emerging areas of research, (2) to offer an attractive option for all authors who prefer or are required to publish in fully open access journals, and (3) to align its quality standards and selection criteria with those of the other long-established topical journals in the family, such as Physical Review A–E, Physical Review Applied, Physical Review Fluids, and Physical Review Materials.

R. D'Souza, J.-W. Pan, N. Spaldin, and J. J. Liétor-Santos: "Editorial: Our vision for Physical Review Research" in volume 1:

Within the Physical Review family, Physical Review X provides an open access journal showcasing the most selective papers in pure, applied and interdisciplinary physics. Now, Physical Review Research will complement this title by providing a fully open access title with rigorous peer-review standards and with the same acceptance criteria as Physical Review A through E, Physical Review Applied, Physical Review Fluids, and Physical Review Materials. Our goal is to establish a publication that offers the same experience and quality that we value and trust, while increasing authors’ choice within the Physical Review portfolio. As such, we welcome authors of quality manuscripts not accepted by Physical Review X or Physical Review Letters to seamlessly transfer their work to be considered for publication in Physical Review Research.

Hence I would expect its initial impact factor (expected to arrive in June 2021) to be more aligned with the specialized journals, than with the flagships. But as you've already heard it is hard to tell exactly where it will end up.


Letter of Recommendation from English Teacher for Math Ph.D. program?

Knowledge of the English language is often a hit-or-miss requirement, i.e., either you have a recognized English qualification (TOEFL, IELTS...) and you can study there, or you do not have it and you cannot study there. In many institutions, this is checked by administrative personnel, independently of the selection committee.

Having better English knowledge than other applicants who also have the qualification will in most cases not give you any advantage over them. The selection committee (or the prospective PhD professor, depending on the location) will almost exclusively consider your qualifications in your research field when deciding whether to admit you.

I would recommend trying to obtain recommendation letters from people that can say good things about your skills in your field.


In my experience, it is common and acceptable for papers in mathematics to rely on arxiv preprints.  While there may be something in the idea that if you have a choice, it is better to rely on peer-reviewed publication, if the choice is to use an arxiv preprint or delay the publication of your paper, almost certainly you should use the preprint.

To go a little deeper: the imprimatur carried by a peer reviewed publication is partially real but mostly cultural.  Most veteran mathematicians can point to any number of published papers with (sometimes serious) mistakes and also can point to papers of theirs that were accepted by reputable (or strong, or top) journals with so little commentary that they cannot have any confidence that the referee checked the results for correctness in any serious sense.  (Note to academics in other fields: I said "referee," not "referees."  In pure mathematics the most common number of referees for a paper is one.)

Whenever your work uses others' results, you have to perform some process of evaluating those results.  Ideally that would include a careful checking of the proof, but to be honest that is not always practical or possible.  (Sometimes you need a result whose proof uses ideas and techniques that would take you months or years of work to understand.)  To be honest, the evaluation process is often cultural as well as intellectual, and this is why it can indeed be a little better to rely on a published work: whether someone read the proof carefully or not, at least it is likely that expert eyes evaluated the work for plausibility.

There are ways to evaluate an arxiv preprint for plausibility without reading it line by line:

Look up the authors.  Have they published similar results before?  Have their prior results been used by others?
Does the paper look professional?  Is it clearly written?
Is it reasonable that one could attain the given results with the given techniques?
Do the results used appear to be a major breakthrough?  In that case, you should probably talk to others about the preprint quickly: if it's correct, then likely many other mathematicians are making use of it, possibly the same way you are, and by waiting for publication you could be losing everything.  But also it's more likely to to be wrong.  (Sorry to say: all other things being equal, the better result is more likely to be wrong.)  You don't want to waste your time building on a foundation that evaporates later.

Finally, yes it is possible that if you submit your paper for publication, the referee could say "Well, I don't know about this arxiv preprint, and I don't care to referee it too.  You'll have to wait until the preprint is published."  Well, referees say the darnedest things.  It is still better to have tried.


Does PhD subject area matter if one will research in multiple areas later?

In my handful of interdisciplinary forays (all within social science), I've actually been struck by how different the fields can be, particularly in regards to the assumptions that are easily digested.  In one example I found economists and sociologists were accomplishing the exact same thing using a completely different method, and no one in either field seems to have any idea why anyone in the other field does it that way.

There is also the issue of learning the specific research skills used in a given field.  The skills I've learned as an economist are not the same skills learned by someone studying education.  Even within the field of economics there are divisions with stark differences in skills, micro vs macro, empirical vs theoretical, and so on, that would make it very difficult to move between them as a researcher.  That would likely be greatly compounded going to entirely different fields, even though all of the fields rely on "general research skills".

There's also a huge signaling aspect.  You mentioned finance; this is a competitive area, and jobs will always have more applicants than openings.  Someone with a finance degree has a leg up on someone with, say, an economics degree, while someone with an economics degree may have a leg up on someone with a business or statistics degree, while those researchers would be ahead of someone with a degree in education.  I'm sure you can extend that chain if desired.

So in short, yes, it absolutely matters what your PhD is in.  That doesn't mean you can't be an interdisciplinary researcher, particularly once you're tenured somewhere, or that it's impossible to switch to related but different fields, but your degree should be in your primary interest.


I recently started my machine learning PhD and I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing

Talk to your supervisor.  Your supervisor accepted you, and therefore she must think that you had something to offer her research group.  Don't phrase it like you did here.  Instead, come to her with solutions and not problems.  For instance, you need to learn to ask good questions.  That's great.  So why don't you ask her to recommend a good dataset that is common to use so that you can start exploring different methods?

Ultimately, you are in a PhD program and one of the biggest things you need to learn is how to read the literature to discover the open problems.  This requires you to read far and wide.  A big thing that will probably help you is to try to replicate results. You aren't doing this for publications, but to better understand what was done and why, and what the limitations were.  Take a recent paper and try to recreate it.  If you can't, go to a less recent paper that that one cites and so on.  Build your way up.

For what it's worth, I think that a lot of PhD students come in with a general understanding of the field but not much of a deep understanding. As an anecdote, in the beginning of my PhD I'd find a paper that was written years before I started and think "Oh no! They've solved all of the problems I thought were important!" I'd rush to my supervisor to show him the brilliant research, and he'd show me the limitations and how they were being addressed.  It seemed to me at the time that these papers solved their problems, but by spending time speaking to him I realized that that was not true - perhaps the data set was particularly simple, perhaps the researchers didn't try to expand their results too far, perhaps the domain in which the algorithm worked was so restricted that it was of no practical use.

Eventually, I learned how to do that on my own, first by looking for common obvious problems, then by thinking more subtly as I got better - and as I started doing my own research and making my own mistakes.


Where to upload/publish gigabytes of experiment data

You could also use Zenodo, which I personally prefer over Figshare since it is an open platform run by a scientific institution (the CERN) instead of a for-profit (compare the privacy policies of zenodo and figshare to get an idea on why this matters). They also guarantee that, should they ever shut down, they will migrate your data to another platform (and until then, your data is on the same infrastructure as the data created by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)).

Their size limit is 2 GB per file, and you can add multiple files to a single dataset upload (which means you may not even need to pack your data, if it can be sensibly split into multiple files of <2 GB - and if you need more space, you can contact them). Finally, you also get a DOI for your data (which will be updated to point to the new home of your data if they ever shut down). Right now, it can be used free of charge while they develop a sustainability plan (later, they may charge you for uploading larger datasets, but there will always be a free tier with reasonable sizes).