What path should I take to make my vision a reality?

As a rule of thumb, you cannot possibly know what has and has not been done in a scientific area if you are not part of this scientific area. @xLeitix offered his suggestion about linguistics and his suggestion is good. So, search there, ask specific people about this, read the accompanying textbooks first and then focus on recent papers. It is very hard for an amateur researcher to think of something that has not been done before. It might happen occasionally but it is not that common.

Also you need to consider, that if there is not a scientific area about what you want to research, it might mean (again it is not 100% sure) that what you are suggesting is not that interesting after all. Why e.g., focus on a specific book for example and not on all books written by the same author? What are you hoping to achieve and why does it matter? These are questions that need to be answered before starting the actual research.

So, initially I would try to identify and align my research agenda according to the greater scientific area most close to my scientific interests. Once, you get a good grasp and knowledge of this specific area, you could then try to form your individual research and find what differentiates your work from the rest of the bunch. Identifying the area is a very major step, because otherwise even if your work is seminal you still need to find a journal that would publish your work. And without knowing where to publish it would be very hard to disseminate any scientific work.


Applying to top CS PhD programs with a great record but bad GRE scores

Many PhD programs in computer science (like my own) don't require GREs; read the application instructions carefully.  If it's not a requirement, just don't submit your GRE scores.

Even when you are required to submit your scores, do not mention your GRE scores in your statement.  You want the admissions committee to focus on your potential for research, where you seem to have a very strong case, not your ability to take standardized tests.


Is there a website for academic physics jobs in the US like mathjobs.org?

In particle/nuclear physics there is http://inspirehep.net/collection/Jobs
More generally, many (but definitely not all) physics jobs are announced on http://academicjobsonline.org.


Is it okay to include a very long appendix (for MS thesis)?

This does not sound unusual to me. Just ask yourself, is there a possibility that the reader would need this?

I have seen theses and dissertations with no appendices and some with over 50 pages of appendices. In my field, these are often filled with user study materials, source code, or raw data which can easily eat up many pages.

I don't see any harm done with being conservative and including everything. In this case, I have seen people list two versions of their thesis online, one with and one without the appendices.


Best way to poll students during a class by web

Poll Everywhere is a good, easy one. It's free for 25 responses per question. Students can respond on their smartphones, laptops, or even old-school cell phones via texting.

Plickers is another good one. For this one you print out the possible responses and hand them out. Then students hold up the card corresponding to their answer. You use your smart phone camera to scan the room and the app calculates the responses.


A textbook is produced as “here is a tool to teach students or a class”, while a paper is produced as “this is the state of play of our work”.
The author of the textbook expects lecturers and students to use the material but if they quote it in lecture notes or an essay they then expect it to be correctly referenced.


What is the difference between preparing a research proposal and writing the actual thesis in the case of theoretical research?

In general a research proposal (separate from the literature review) is a description of the questions that you wish to answer in the research and a description, perhaps preliminary, about how you intend to answer those questions. it doesn't include the results, which, we assume, aren't available yet.
The literature review asked for will probably be less complete than the one that later appears in the dissertation, since all that is needed here is the papers, etc, that you have read that lead you to ask the question and support the idea that they are important questions that haven't yet been answered. You will possibly need to do more in a formal literature review once the research begins.
You seem to imply in the question that all research questions have already been answered before you make the proposal. That is normally not the case. In the example you state, your proposal should also include how you intend to support the conclusions you reach. This might include additional library research or interviews with knowledgeable people, etc.


Is it valid to pad an axis slightly in order to enhance point visibility?

The point of a figure is to convey meaning and to do so in as easily understandable a way as possible. So, if you have a case where you think that the result is clearer if you offset the x-axis slightly, then do it. The guiding line should be: Does it help the reader understand better what you think the important point is than any other way of presenting the data?


How does a PhD student go about doing a meta analysis of a research question?

Good luck to you. I'm trying to do something similar and found that few HCI papers publish enough summary statistics to conduct a proper meta-analysis. Indeed, a lot of the time, their stats seem quite sloppy.

I've styled my analysis similar to two review papers I found. One from the HCI area as well (Dehn & Van Mulken, 2000) and one from a bit more outfield (Jones & Gosling, 2005).

Neither is a true meta-analysis, but they get as close to formal as I think it's reasonable to get when an actual meta-analysis is simply not an option.

Dehn & Van Mulken (2000) The impact of animated interface agents: a review of empirical research
Jones & Gosling (2005) Temperament and personality in dogs (Canis familiaris): A review and evaluation of past research


How do "scientific couples" (from different fields) find positions?

Many universities (like the one where my wife and I work) have dual-career hiring programs explicitly to address this issue.  It's definitely worth asking—carefully—whether the universities you are considering have such a program.

Here's how our system works.  Suppose Department X offers a faculty position to Partner A, and later department Y offers a faculty position to Partner B.  Then Partner B's salary is paid 1/3 by department Y, 1/3 by department X, and 1/3 from a general campus fund.*  (Note that X and Y may be the same department.)

So Department Y has a significant financial incentive to hire Partner B.  On the other hand, Department X must be willing to pay extra for Partner A; in practice, however, once an faculty offer to A is actually on the table, most department chairs find it hard to refuse to help hire B.

This is why you have to be careful how and when you ask.  It's illegal in the US to discriminate against a job candidate because they're married—we're not even allowed to ask—but it is completely legal to hire a cheaper candidate over a more expensive one.  If department X already knows that you have a two-body problem, they also know that hiring you will be more expensive.  The safest strategy is not to mention that your partner needs a position (or even that your partner is another academic) until an offer is on the table.

*When I originally posted this answer in 2012, this financial arrangement was de-facto permanent, but my university has recently refined its policies.  As of June 2018, the joint funding arrangement is permanent (“recurring”) if Partner B has a tenure-track faculty position, and limited to three years otherwise.


How long does it take from the application for a professorship to the invitation to a lecture?

I can offer a few data points here: being somewhat OCD, I've kept a log of all applications I've sent out over the years. Keep in mind that this mostly refers to computer science departments at German universities, but I guess it won't be wildly different for other departments.

So between 2015 and 2020, I've sent out 37 applications for W2/W3 (and some W1 tenure-track) professorships. Of these, I've only ever gotten an official response of any kind for 22 applications, which is a bit sad IMHO.

Anyway, the median time for these responses was 90.5 days, with a minimum of 25 days (for a "sorry, not interested" response) and a whopping maximum of 247 days (for a "sorry, we've hired someone else" response).

Last but not least, I was invited for an interview in 9 out of these 22 cases. Here, the median response time was 41 days, with a minimum of 33 days.

Based on this data, my rule of thumb is that if you haven't gotten any response to an application after two months, then you can assume they are not interested.

P.S. I didn't keep a record of how long I had until the interview after the invitation, but it was never less than three weeks, usually rather 4-6 weeks.


If one got good feedback from a double-blind review, is it ever possible/ justifiable to find out who the reviewer was?

As @SE318 explains (+1), it is unethical to try and find out who a reviewer is.  However it is not unethical for a reviewer to identify themselves if the so choose (some journals specifically give this option in their review form).  I can't see much problem with sending the journal a polite request for the editor to pass on a message explaining what you had in mind so that if the reviewer was interested in collaborating they could contact you.


Computational Physics or Engineering Physics, which deal with new technologies related to energy?

If you want a hands-on approach then Engineering Physics seems like the logical option, if, however, you want to think about the problems on a more abstract level, Computational Physics seems like the right choice.

Since you are doing Computer Science, you probably love, as many of us do, the power of coding languages, and might feel more comfortable using these to solve problems, once again that would mean computational physics might be more your thing.

The real question is how you want to deal with these new technologies. If you want to really work with these new technologies, I'd opt for engineering physics. You might want to take a look at some of the courses in these master programs and see which suit you more, or you could engage with master students of these courses to get a better insight in the course.


Are there good reasons to avoid using color in research papers?

Hail to Colorbrewer
I use Cynthia Brewer's website Colorbrewer to pick color schemes. It's also embedded in ggplot2 which is a common choice of graphing package in R. It allows users to specify colorblind-safe and photocopy-able color schemes. It's meant to be for map making, but the idea works for visualization all across the broad.

Other color specialists
For graphs that are used in more eye-catching media such as reports, posters or infographics, you may consider taking some advice from fashion and interior designers (See the graph below proposed by Japanese Shigenobu Kobayashi). Each combination can conjure a certain type of feeling, color schemes that seem absurd may work in other settings.

Works on data visualizations
You mention there is research backing up the use of color, which I do believe there must be. Though for that, I'd just like to share another point of view. Bill Cleveland, whom I consider the guru of visualization in science, advises that color should actually be avoided. In his book, he lays out this hierarchy:

I may not go thus far to suggest color is worse than area and volume, but I do agree that positioning along non-aligned scales is much better than color. In other words, if I have two curves to show, I'd opt for paneling them onto to their own coordinate then put the graphs side by side, or plotting them together using line with different styles or grey scales over using colored lines.
The baseline for me is, the added colors should have their dimension (aka variable) to represent. If there is anything that does the same job, remove the colors because now the colors are "non-informative ink," as described by Tufte.
Human eyes are prone to visual tricks
I do agree that colors catch attention, but just because it gets attention does not mean people can distinguish them well and can isolate the information well. Particularly, colors interact; just by pairing with some different colors, the same color can look different. For instance, here is an example borrowed elsewhere. The brown and the orange tiles pointed by an white arrow are actually of the same color.

Why care about black and white?
And you asked "how many people actually read print articles anymore?" I would think that there are a lot. Schools in developing countries may not have color printer, and not every student has access to computer and the Internet. Their only way to learn about a journal article may just be through photocopies. Even in the US, with the rapid adoption of tablets, I still see a lot of journal clubs and meetings relying on B&W photocopies.
Now when I go to deliver any workshops in other countries, I always photocopy a few sample pages of my handout to make sure they are still legible. And Brewer's work has been a lifesaver for me.
Closing remark
In a nutshell, I embrace data visualization and the increasing acceptance of colors thrills me. Though in the process I believe we should remind ourselves to be humble and do not create works that very disproportionally benefit people who are riding high at the technology tide. John Tukey laid the groundwork of some graphical exploratory data analysis, Charles Minard made a visual with rich amount of variables like 150 years ago and yet still considered to be pretty bad-ass by today's standard. How many colors did they use? Just one.
At the end of the day, I would probably argue that design trumps all. It's not about color or non-color, it's about if they are used efficiently to maximize information transfer and minimize noises. At this moment, for me, lines, dots, shades along grey scale, and empty spaces are my staples; colors are my spices.


Master thesis advisor gave me an ill-defined question. I worked on it for a year!

You (and some of the commenters) have a misconception about mathematics, and even research in general. You need to dispel that and present what you have done and learned in a way that satisfies your advisor so that you can finish your degree.
Comments about research in general
If your advisor knew the answer before giving you the problem, then it wouldn't be research. Research is an exploration of the unknown. All research questions are "ill formed" at the start. People notice an anomaly or a missing piece of theory and ask "What in the world is going on here?". There are not immediate answers. Einstein said “If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?”.
Since you are exploring the unknown the results could come out to be anything at all. You start with an idea that "might be true". If you set out to "prove that it is true" then you are doing propaganda and not research. You want to take the attitude that "How do I show whether this is true or not?". Starting with preconceptions can easily lead you astray into scientific misconduct. Reality is brutal.
And no, in doctoral research you don't need "positive" results. You need to discover the truth. Learning and establishing that some hypothesis is false is just as valuable as knowledge as knowing that it is true.
Comments about mathematics in particular
Mathematical research shares a lot with research in general. It is a search into the unknown to find truth. But establishing that, for example, Fermat's Last Theorem was false would be precisely as valuable as showing that it is true. Possibly even more so, if it led to new insights. But it is what it is, not what you want it to be.
And, again, if your advisor knew the answer to the question posed to you, then you wouldn't be doing research but only, perhaps, confirming something already known.
What to do
You actually have written your solution within your question. You say "I worked on the problem he assigned me for a year now but now the numerical results affirms that I was right". That is a result. It is precisely what mathematics is about. Write that up. You have been successful at doing mathematics. You haven't failed. You have succeeded. You have insight into a problem. Perhaps you have insight that no one else in the world has at the moment.


Is this a favorable response from the professor?

There is no hidden information in the message.


Strategy for revealing pregnancy to new department/department chair

I don't think that when and how you reveal your pregnancy (as long as its professional) will have much impact on your career, especially compared to the fact of being pregnant and having another child.

I would advise meeting with the department head as soon as possible and reiterating your long-term commitment to the department. You two have the same long-term goal: your being a successful assistant professor and earning tenure. It is in your department head's interest to be helpful to you.

Before going into the meeting, I would decide what I wanted. You mention wanting to stop your tenure clock for a year. Do you want an unpaid leave if possible? While it is good to be flexible, it is also good to know and communicate what your best outcome would be, in case they can accommodate you.

One outside-the-box solution might be if you could defer the start of your assistant professorship for a year and teach your fall course(s) as an adjunct.

If you have started thinking about grant applications or other things of interest to the department head, it would be fine to also talk about those at the meeting.

Good luck!


What sets "top" universities apart from "mediocre" universities in continental europe?

To be honest, I don't much like the idea that some people suggest there are "mediocre" universities. Good research can be done just about anywhere in many fields. Caveat: Some fields require funding beyond what is available at other than the biggest, richest, universities.

But there are several things that go into the rankings. I suspect that most of them are cumulative in some way. A lot of great research gets done at Oxbridge because of its size and history and attractiveness to scholars (and funders). Other schools don't have the same features. But the ranking is due as much to the quantity of good research as to the quality, as the quality can be good anywhere, but the resources available don't support as much of it.

A larger university has an advantage since it can more easily support working groups that can collectively produce great research. A smaller place leaves its faculty more isolated (less true today than historically - but history is part of this) with less opportunity for sharing and synergy.

Some of it is just luck over time. Good faculty attract good faculty. Researchers attract researchers. An older university, if well managed, has an advantage over a newer one. It takes time to build reputation. The magnetic attraction of a good place increases over time. Harvard University, like most others, had a modest beginning. Its founders would be unlikely to recognize what it has become. Certainly its mission is quite different than it was originally.

A good reputation attracts students. Often it attracts far too many students. This lets such a place choose really good students who wind up having really good careers, adding to that reputation. And for some of those graduates it means wealth and for some of those, contributions back to their university. Harvard graduates tend to be pretty smart. But they were already judged to be pretty smart before they went to Harvard. Ubiquitous? Maybe.

Resources matter a lot. Especially today, with a more mobile pool of researchers than was possible in the past. For example, Europe is largely without borders and the links between Europe and the Americas are strong. So people can go where there are other compatible people (and good funding). So reputation tends to build on reputation.

But not every brilliant researcher or teacher wants to put up with the constant pressure of a "top" university, so it is possible to find that brilliance spread out. Just because you happen to be at an R2 or a teaching college doesn't make you mediocre. It can make you sane, actually. Hence my objection to the "mediocre" characterization.


Does an updated chapter in a book count as a new publication?

As a non-answer, but perhaps worthwhile, we could note that literal publication, revised publication, and so on, literally serves scholarly purposes. The potential objection is that this might score status or impact points unfairly. The error here is thinking in terms of status or impact points, especially as a back-forming regulator of permissible behavior.

That is, the real goal is not status/jobs/tenure – although those are serious things – but advancement of human understanding. In particular, rules of the game of status/jobs/tenure are not at all necessarily connected to issues about advancement of human understanding.

In particular, there’s nothing to treat. If some for-profit publisher’s self-promoting “impact factor” somehow counts this twice, this is no serious human being’s problem. The possibility that a corporation’s software misunderstands a new edition is in no conceivable way an ethical failure of people who write parts of something useful enough to be republished in a new edition.


Choosing between letter of recommendation writers for grad school

I would recommend the strong letter of recommendation, if he/she is able to give specific facts about what you did, or comment on your motivation, interest, and relationship. You might want to also let him/her know what you have been up to recently, so the reader doesn't think "well he/she used to be interested in math, but I don't know if they still are".

The main issue with "average" letters is that they are probably things that apply to everyone, so it's not really a benefit.

You might also want to make sure to "diversify" if you can -- so you don't end up with two letters that look the same. So if your other letters are coming from the community college, you might still want one from your stronger school (as long as they can write you a good letter of recommendation)


what is the hyphotesis in computer science research(especifically AI research)?

AI is a very applied domain, so from a big picture point of view the problem is often defined by a real world application. For example, machine translation fills a need for low cost translation (so this particular need is the problem). In this general setting, an hypothesis is for instance: "the machine can produce good quality translation", and researchers try to prove it.

However it's more common for a paper to motivate the work at a more fine-grained level using the existing body of literature. For example many approaches have been studied for machine translation, with varying levels of performance and flaws. A researcher in this field might want to study a specific question, e.g. "how to improve translation of multiword expressions from language A to language B" and formulate an hypothesis such as: "recent approach X can improve translation of multiword expressions from language A to language B". Here the problem is formulated as the need to improve over the current state of the art, implicitly assuming that the underlying problem (machine translation in general) is sufficiently established.


Education sections in an Job Application Form

It's been a while since you asked this question so I assume it's no longer needed, but in case others come across this hoping for an answer...

In the UK, further education typically refers to any education completed after finishing GCSEs - which are typically taken at age 16 - and beginning a university degree - which typically starts at 18/19. The most common form of further education here between ages 16-18 are A levels, taken at a sixth form college or school. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Further_education

In your case, I would enter your college course in further education, and your subsequent education in the education/training and academic qualifications section.

But, ultimately, I agree - this is quite a confusing example of an application form.


I proved a theorem I heard from another researcher. Can I publish my results?

If the proof is yours then of course you can publish it. And it is your duty to do it, because the literature is incomplete without it.

Basically you say (but in more formal language):

at the Holcombe Colloquium (August 2015), R.J. Blenkinsop asserted the following, without giving a proof: insert theorem here.
no proof was given at Holcombe and there appears to be none in the literature.
this theorem is interesting and useful, for instance in the context of… insert description of & reference to your paper
here is a proof

You have thus acknowledged Blenkinsop as the source of the idea and asserted the originality of your own contribution. Both halves of this action are true and ethically sound.

Of course a referee may contact Blenkinsop who, now that fame and glory are involved, may take the trouble to look up his own proof. But unless it's already published ("see my Simple Sums for Simple Minds, page 2"), you still have priority.


Is it a good idea being involved in your advisor's consulting activities as an exploratory activity during your PhD? For how long?

This could be a good thing or a bad thing. If you are being included to advance your education and it doesn't interfere with your degree progress then it is a good thing.

If you are being exploited to the sole benefit of the advisor - slave labor - then it is a bad thing - very very bad.

Are you free to decline? If not, then beware. Can you set your own conditions? If not, then beware.

But, yes, these sorts of things can go on a CV: that you participated in consulting activities.

In the US, as an early student, you are most likely involved in coursework where such activities might be less intrusive. Elsewhere, or later in the program, you need to focus on your comps and on your research. Then these things become much less likely to have value outweighing their cost to you.

Keep your eyes open. Don't be led into traps.


What happens if you use the wrong reference?

It's a mistake in good faith. You are a student, so you're supposed to learn. It's great that you found it yourself. Just send the lecturer an email explaining what happened. He probably won't really mind, but if the bibliography is included in the grade (e.g. if this is an Academic Writing course or so) he might deduct some point.


Unless they gave you a specific time frame, then yes, it is fine to ask them about the current state of your application.

If you have other options, then keep them open until things are definite, but don't bring them up when asking for an update.

Don't become a pest, but a couple of weeks is a pretty good interval.


How do I ask a faculty member if I can work with him?

The first thing to do is probably send the academic you're interested in working with an e-mail. In that e-mail, you can say how interested in their work you are, a bit about your background and round off with asking for a meeting to discuss a possible post-doc position?

Hopefully, they'll respond to the e-mail favourably and you'll be on your way. If they don't reply, then perhaps, after a week send a polite reminder or even go chap on their door.

Be bold. The worst they can say is no and that's not that bad anyway, as you'll have the confidence to go on and ask others.


How to increase the reach of my bachelor thesis with little effort?

In the following, I will assume your thesis is indeed of excellent quality, and brings interesting new insight into the field.

First, your goals: you say you are primarily interested in reach, with potential for (I am assuming financial) rewards being a nice-to-have. The options you have proposed were:

StackExchange and Academia

Not the right place. More or less by definition, Stack Exchange sites do not want to have original research. Your research would also definitely be out of scope here.

Scribd

No personal experience. Maybe somebody can edit this in?

ResearchGate

As I and others here have experienced, ResearchGate is a terrible place to communicate ideas. Honestly, this one is probably just a waste of time.

LinkedIn

In my experience this is similar to ResearchGate, but, for academic topics, even worse. I do not know anybody who uses LinkedIn to discover interesting content. Probably also a waste of time,

reddit

This could be an idea, but not to write the content on, but as a means to advertise the content you have hosted elsewhere.

What I think you should try is make a blog. First, start off by summarising your main theses and results in a poignant way (and linking to your full thesis for those interested in details). Keep the blog up-to-date by following recent events (in your topic, there are new events almost daily at the moment). If you get questions, address them.

Advertise your blog heavily, on Reddit, on Twitter, on Facebook, and on other suitable platforms. In terms of monetization, you can either get your own server going, host the blog yourself, and make some modest money via ads, or use a free Wordpress (or similar) account. In the latter case, all ad money will go to Wordpress, but you will have very low setup effort and do not need any upfront investment.

To wrap this up, one word of warning - having a blog, or really any widely known published material, on such a sensitive topic may well be actually, physically dangerous to you. People have certainly been threatened and harassed for less than publishing unpopular opinions about Russia.


How to deal with a postdoc supervisor who blocks all attempts to do reasonable research?

I'm not sure how did you get to work with him, and if you can simply leave whenever you have a better offer. But, if you are to continue with him, he will bury your career. He wants from you to publish low quality papers, he doesn't provide you the minimal resources and cuts your ties with collaborators. Going like that, it should not surprise you that in two more years you're not employable anymore as a postdoc. So, the first advise is to run as soon as you can.

Where I live there are quite a few of this kind of "supervisors". They only need to publish a little every year to meet the requirements of the institution. They are also very good at isolating their students and postdocs from the rest of the community. That way they make sure they have enough people to supervise (needed to keep their research team leader status). People working with them slowly lose trust in their ability as scientists and cannot leave anymore to other labs. Worse even, many of these people are on temporary positions, so the supervisor uses this for their own gain.

It is unlikely that this person will change. If you cannot leave the university, it would be a good idea to try moving to a different supervisor at the same place. That will most likely make your current supervisor your enemy, but you aren't much better off with him as your friend. One of my colleagues did this because her supervisor would not assign her any work. The supervisor hates her now, but, at this moment, she's doing good research, so it seems to have been a good decision. In any case, it would be a bad idea to let your supervisor know of your intentions before having a new position.


Must one find references to fit knowledge already known from education or experience?

Here is the general principle for citations: anything that is not considered "elementary knowledge" to the community reading the paper must have a citation.
This means that different communities need citations for different things.
For example, when I write for a biology community, I often end up including citations to basic computer science textbooks, to give a grounding for things that are simple undergraduate information in my background, but that would be highly unintuitive to an experimental biologist.  The reverse applies as well, for a biologist writing to a computer science audience.

Something that you know through experience definitely needs to be backed up with citation.  One of the critical values of the scientific method is that it lets us separate statements supportable by facts from myths based on cognitive biases.  We humans are very, very bad at learning from experience, in the sense that we draw many conclusions that are simply not true.  Folklore is full of these types of experience-grounded myths, some of which turn out to be true (willow bark does help with pain: that's the basis for aspirin), and some of which turn out to be false (mercury turns out to be terrible as a medicine).

If you can find things backing up your experience in reliable literature, you can cite them.  If not, perhaps you have a good subject for study, if you can figure out how to design an appropriate experiment...


Study design for best teaching methods - how to avoid overly specific results?

No study in only a single class will be able to definitively answer such a question. The answer can only come from either a very large study or an accumulation of results over several small similar studies.

If it is an attempt to get at the truth it will tell you very little. If it is an attempt to learn/teach something about experimentation it can have value.

In the US, you would need to run this by your IRB. I don't know if Canada has similar regulations. But you are treating two parts of a class (human beings) differently and need to assure that neither group is disadvantaged in any way. It is unethical to do certain things when you strongly suspect that they are not effective, though I don't think that is a particular issue given your description.

On the other hand, there is already a lot of research on learning that addresses just this question. If you haven't already explored it, you really should.


Our paper was not published as part of the conference proceedings in IEEE Xplore, what should we do?

If you were reviewed and accepted, signed the appropriate forms, paid to attend the conference, and presented in an IEEE conference, then you should expect to be included in the proceedings.

If you aren't, then most likely it is a result of a mistake, and can be corrected by contacting the conference publications chair.  The publications chair of the conference should have an IEEE publications contact, who has the right combination of authority and connections to help get it sorted out.  If they agree that you should be in the proceedings, then you can treat your paper as being published at the conference even if before the fix propagates to IEEE Xplore (which can sometimes take many months).  Importantly, this includes posting copies on your own site, where they can be easily accessed, per the standard IEEE copyright agreement.

On the other hand, if there is some reason that you actually did get dropped such that they are not willing to officially include your paper in the proceedings, then they are effectively relinquishing any claim on the paper and you may do with it as you wish, just as though it had been rejected in the first place.


Can you sign more than 1 Master Promissory Note Concurrently?

As far as I know, the way this is done normally goes something like this:

You apply to as many schools as you want.
You hear back from them in a couple of months.
You are told that you have until a specific date to accept the offer,
which may be slightly different for all the schools you got accepted to.

This gives people a chance to evaluate (ideally) all their options before they agree to commit to a particular school. These deadlines are usually included in the acceptance documents you get in the mail, if they aren't listed online already in their admission timelines.

Best of luck!


Addressing a poor student-advisor relationship in job interview

Try to focus on the positive in interviews (well, and life :-). Explain why you recommended whoever you did recommend. Say that you thought the people you recommended could give the best assessment of what you would be like on this particular job, and why you thought they would be good at that. Point out (if pressed) that your supervisors are listed on your CV and could of course be contacted, it just wouldn't be your own first choice.


Does the International Math Olympiad help research mathematics?

I think of Olympiad problems more as "parlour tricks". They're really difficult, and it's super-impressive if someone's good at them, but the skills are very different to the skills you need in research. As a big example of a difference: the Olympiad rewards quick accurate leaps of reasoning, because you're under such time pressure. Research rewards long-term grit and persistence through blind alleys and repeated failure.


Difference between tenure-track/tenured positions in universities and research scientist positions in national labs

My experience is purely through my work at NASA, so take that with a grain of salt.

There are (roughly) two levels of employment at NASA Research Centers (not labs like JPL): civil servants and contractors. If you're looking to become a research scientist at NASA, you want to become a civil servant, though there are plenty of scientists on contract.

Contractors are just that, they work on a specific research project that has allocated in its budget a certain amount of money for a project. Usually these contracts are administered under huge omnibus corporations like Millennium Enterprise Integration, who take something like 200k in overhead, per contractor.

What this means is contractors can be extremely expensive to a project, and that, as a result, contractors usually split their time (and cost) on two or three projects. If you're a contractor at a NASA center, you'll need to maintain a decent porfolio of projects that cover your salary. It can be stressful, but also less regulated than civil servantship

Civil Servantship is a pretty sweet gig if being a tenured professor was your reason to enter academia. If you get hired as a civil servant, it's virtually impossible to fire you unless you commit the equivalent of a felony (which is easier than tenured professorship, see below). Basically when you're hired congress agrees to pay your salary for the rest of your working life.

You can apply for money to do projects, including internal funding that academics won't have access to. With that you can hire contractors or buy equipment, but not pay yourself. Instead you have this new unit of labor called Full Time Equivalent (FTE), which is can also be part of a grant award, and represents your salary being paid for a full year. FTE vary depending on the center you're at, Alabama FTE is going to be cheaper than Bay Area FTE, but at some centers there's a significant surplus of FTE going around (no idea why). All not having FTE means as a civil servant is you might have to go ask someone for FTE, which means you're effectively working for them.

I said before it's easier to commit a felony when you're a civil servant, and that's because you're effectively a representative of the U.S. government. That means you can't take money from companies (gifts are limited to $20), and a whole host of other rules that have been put in place because essentially every form of graft and corruption that you can possibly imagine has already been done by someone in the government. It's actually pretty amazing.

Also the pay for a civil servant isn't that great (still better than grad school!), and because of the rules you can't really supplement your income. That's why it's not unheard of for civil servants to actually switch to contractors sometimes- the caps for compensation are much higher for contractors, and can be influenced by a competing offer.

oh and also you don't have to teach, but that's one of the few places where civil servants can make extra money (lecturing at local universities).

But in terms of an environment where 1) you can pitch research and it will get funded and 2) you'll have job security that tenure used to match, there is no better place, as far as I can tell, than NASA.


What I would expect here is a (short) document where you describe how you plan to build up your lab in the next three years. Which personal grants to you plan to target? Do you have multiple options, or will you be all-in on one specific grant? Are there specific project calls or larger consortia where you could apply, and what makes you a good person to apply for them (i.e., this is a good place to brag about your network for participating in larger collaborations)? Are there other types of grants (for infrastructure, etc.) that are required or useful for the kind of work that you do? How will the different types of grants connect to form a larger research agenda?

All in all, I expect that the committee really wants to see (a) that  there are funding sources available that you can realistically apply to - ideally, these will be a combination of high-risk/high-reward calls (e.g., highly prestigious personal grants) and more conservative projects, and (b) that you are aware of the different funding sources and have a plan in mind how you will use them to build up  your group. Everybody understands that this is, at best, a declaration of intent - grants get rejected, new opportunities arise, and your research interests shift, so nobody will fault you if you, 3 years from now, have deviated greatly from this plan.


Definitely not the whole code.
It is a conference-specific and depends on the conference area. If the
paper is more data related (which is the case in Data Mining field
for instance) you are required at least to comment on the data usage
and from where you get it. If your paper is about a new web
system usually referring to it in the text will be
helpful.
It is not required but highly recommended since they will be able to
provide a constructive criticism for your work. You do not need to know them very well and usually they will be happy to help students.

Generally, students (specially undergraduates) publish papers with the help of a faculty member in the school. This said, there is nothing limit them to publish by their own. It is just more helpful to you to be attached to one of the faculty members and do research under his/her guidance.


So there is Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, the from the National Center for Education Statistics. One of the many variables you can ran institutions on is in fact percent of budget spent on research expenses. That was just the first one I looked for. I don't know how deeply this will go into anything about campus life beyond how much money is spent on housing and student services. But this seems to be the place to go for raw data.


For graduate school admissions, the goal of the reference letter is to recommend a candidate who you think will make an excellent future researcher. So you need to explain what the candidate has done for you, and why you think that gives the candidate the preparation she needs to succeed as a graduate student.

That means you should talk about:

The skill set the student has developed under your supervision.
Any noteworthy accomplishments (papers, awards, etc.)
Anything else you believe highlights the candidate's independence as a researcher, leadership skills, potential as a teacher and researcher, and so on.

Since your audience is fellow researchers in your field, effusive praise for someone who doesn't merit it is not helpful. I've known professional working relationships that soured because one PI tried to "sneak" a less-than-meritorious candidate through into a colleague's group as a postdoc.


Any clues what I should expect and how I should prepare? How much can
  they rip me apart in 30 mins?

My number one tip: don't go into it expecting to be ripped apart, they're academics, not leopards! :)

Seriously, though, every PhD interview I had (UK, cosmology, three years ago) was very friendly and relatively informal. Some were more informal than others, and I think it's no coincidence that I accepted the offer from the place where I had the most relaxed interview experience. Remember that not only are the interviewers looking to see if you're a good fit, you need to find out if the department is a good fit for you. I highly recommend talking to their current PhD students if you get a chance!

Since they say in their email that they will ask about relevant courses, think about which of the courses you've taken are most in line with the PhD project(s) you're applying for. The technical questions I was asked were all closely related to cosmology, even though I'd taken courses on solid state physics, electromagnetic theory, a whole bunch of solar physics courses... you get the picture. At the time I didn't have a strong cosmology background so I didn't know the answers to quite a lot of things, but I used my general physics knowledge to try and reason things through, explained what I was thinking and was honest when I didn't know the answer. They're not expecting you to know everything about your topic of interest already, they're far more interested in seeing how you think and communicate.

However, the majority of all the interviews I had focused on the research I was doing for my Master's dissertation. I talked about my work in detail, as well as the relevant literature. I think my ability to discuss the basic ideas in a very recent paper that was relevant to my project (and also why I didn't completely agree with it) left a good impression with the panel. If you've done any kind of research project or dissertation before, expect to spend a lot of the interview talking about it, so make sure you know it inside out.

In summary:

Look forward to the interview as a chance to discuss your subject with experts, and to look around a new department.
Be prepared to stand at the whiteboard and explain your work and thinking (practice doing this with a friend if you haven't done it before, good communication is key).
Know your subject well and have a good idea of the relevant literature to the projects you're applying for.

Good luck!


Consequences for not attending an academic conference/forum in which your paper was already accepted?

It is unlikely there would be any consequences for failing to present at a conference.  It would be impolite and disappoint your former adviser.  You should notify the conference if you decide not to attend.


Going from co-advisors to just one advisor

I think the optimal answer depends mostly on your situation and university. However, I try to give you some general advice. From what I have seen in your question, you might already be one step to far into the decision. I would rather start an open discussion with your first advisor and express your concern. All further steps, such as switching advisors, can be the outcome of your discussion, but there might be different and better solutions.

It is quite normal that research interests shift after some time into your PhD. Since you are making progress, you see which ideas are working out and which don't. You will get to know new topics and new questions will arise. This will have an influence on your research, of course.

Your advisor seems to see that, too:

  But he recently mentioned he's no longer sure how to advise me anymore, so I think he might be thinking the same thing.

By expressing his concern, he already shows some awareness of this issue. You should try to talk to him and find a solution together. I would not approach him like "I want to replace you with advisor Y". This can come across as very rude since this is on a personal level. Start a discussion that focuses on your research. Talk about your concerns that your interest have drifted apart and try to come up with possible solutions. When you are further into discussion you could also include the co-advisor. As already mentioned, switching advisors might be one solution but it might not be the best one.

The more you integrate your advisors into the discussion, the less conflicts I would expect. Do not push your decisions onto them as this could really affect your current position. Talk to them and find a solution together.


Can I include just a folder from Zotero into Overleaf instead of my entire library?

My approach is to select my folder and then manually select the items that I want to export to Overleaf. That might be the entire folder, in which case I can press Ctrl + A to select all items; or it might be most of them. I then select "Export Items" and upload the resulting .bib file to Overleaf.

You can see an example here (selected all but one item I didn't want to cite):


I wrote the whole paper, but did only a very small part of the research. PhD student wants to be first author, but didn't write. Is this okay?

Unfortunately, the time to decide these kinds of issues is well in advance of publication, and preferably in advance of doing the work and writing the paper!

The answer to your question is "it depends". Authorship on academic papers isn't so much about writing text, but about scholarship. Writing text is a part of that, but scholarship is much bigger than simply writing up results. In the guidelines I link below, scholarship is defined as:

Scholarship: Contributes significantly to the conception, design, execution, and/or analysis and interpretation of data.

If your primary contribution is mainly writing the paper, then I would tend to think that you would not be the primary author. If you have substantial contributions above and beyond writing the text of the paper, for example if you were primarily responsible for designing the investigation, or primarily responsible executing the investigation, these put you on much stronger ground to claim primary authorship.

Beyond that, there are special considerations for lead authorship. Though all authors are responsible for verifying the accuracy and integrity of the work, the lead author is the person who is primarily responsible for this. They are the one responsible for obtaining publication approval from all co-authors for publication, and then responsible for certifying the accuracy and integrity to the publisher / journal / conference / etc. Practically, the lead author is the corresponding author who interacts with journal / conference editors and reviewers. They are also typically the person who is responsible for defending the work publicly if it is to be presented at a conference.

The person primarily responsible for conducting investigations and experiments is typically the lead author for these reasons. They are the person who is most able to certify the accuracy and integrity of the work. They're also the person most familiar with the actual investigation that is being written up, and most able to discuss the details.

I have a few practical suggestions for you:

1) Most schools have specific authorship guidelines that can help with these kinds of decisions, for example:

http://research.wustl.edu/PoliciesGuidelines/Pages/AuthorshipPolicy.aspx

2) Relevant publishers, professional organizations, journals, conferences, etc. may have their own authorship policies.

Again, if your primary contribution has been writing the paper, that would not seem to indicate to me that you would be the lead author. Unfortunately, in your situation, it sounds like this graduate student has been somewhat exploitative. It makes sense to involve undergraduates in the writing process for many reasons, but it's unreasonable for you to write the entire thing. The primary scholar on a project (the lead author) should be the one responsible for drafting most of the text.


How to recognize motivated applicants in PhD interview?

I really don't think there is a tried and true solution to this problem, but in the end it boils down to asking:

Why does the student want to do a PhD?

Most students that apply with us don't have a very good sense of what a PhD is, so there really is no "wrong" answer here. However, I consider it a red flag if I get the impression that the student really arrived at the decision to do a PhD via exclusion (don't want to do or is scared of "real" work, need some money to pay rent). I also am very sceptical of students that do a PhD because they hope for better career opportunities afterwards - my experience is that those students too often end up putting in the minimal hours needed to get the degree.

Is the student interested in staying in research, or do they know right from the start that they will go back to industry after finishing?

Similar to before, students that foresee at least the possibility of staying in research tend to be more motivated to go beyond what they perceive as the minimum requirements for getting a PhD. What you don't want is a student that constantly talks about that one guy many years back that graduated with two weak conference papers, and asks why (s)he should be investing all this weekend work into A+ papers if that's apparently not strictly required to graduate.

What do they expect from doing research?

Again, most applicants have no very clear idea about research at this point, but the answer to this question can tell you something about what the student values in a job / career. This will allow you to judge how likely it is that they find what they want in your lab, and hence be motivated. For instance, I have found that "I really like to travel to exotic places" is a surprisingly good motivator for students to put in work for this paper to a conference in Hawaii. "I like flexibility" or "I like to work on my own ideas and projects" is also a good motivator for academia, up to a point. However, I tend to remind people that present-day academia, at least in science and engineering, is no ivory tower where people are completely protected from outside pressure and forces. What's not great is if the student apparently values job security or high salary, because both is typically not available in academia for a long time from the moment you start your PhD.

A tricky but important point is also judging how well the student will "fit in" with the current team. It is important here to not end up discriminating based on nationality, age, gender, or marital status, but there is no arguing that being the "odd person out" in an otherwise tightly knitted team will not be great for the motivation of the student. Of course it is your task to manage your team in a way that they will integrate whoever you end up hiring, but at the end of the day you cannot force your team to like somebody and/or invite them to private outings etc.


What should I do with requests to be my PhD student?

If your department or institution has an established centralized procedure for admitting graduate students, I would prepare a template that says:

  All interested students must apply through (insert method here). I do not respond to direct unsolicited requests for PhD positions.


Two things:

If you are structuring your royalties through a foreign bank in a way to avoid paying American taxes, then from the USCIS/IRS perspective, that would of course be a big big no-no.
As to whether you are permitted or not to receive royalties under your visa, you should ask your international student/scholar's office. It may depend on the degree to which your royalty payment is considered a passive or active activity, or whether it is related to your work as a scholar. You shouldn't do this without consulting the international student's office or an immigration lawyer.


You should apply all at once. Everyone else will be, and professors and labs know that you will apply to multiple jobs at the same time. Once you accept a postdoc somewhere, you should immediately withdraw your other applications that are still pending. You may find yourself needing to get an extension of time from one organization that has made you an offer while you wait on your pending offers. Hopefully, you will be able have several offers to consider at once in order to make the best choice, but you may have to decline an offer if better ones are probably coming down the line and an extension of time isn't available.


Coordination of a class taught by different professors: how to be fair to the students?

The more common problem across multiple sections of large courses taught by several different instructors is content drift, not grade drift. At my institution we have three General Chemistry I sections, and the distributions of A's, B's, and C's among the students does not change significantly depending on which of 6 people teach the course. The distribution of D's and F's does vary, however. What is more troublesome to us is that some instructors will cover 8 chapters, some will cover 9, some 10, and so on.

However, if you really want to minimize grade drift, then do the following, which will also eliminate content drift:

Coordinate the class - same textbook, same syllabus, identical assignments, exams, everything.
Agree ahead of time on a common grading policy, including cutoffs, curves, grade disputes, etc., and enforce it uniformly.
Teach from a common outline so that all sections get the same material in the same week.
Meet frequently, including at least one meeting before the class starts.
Grade equitably, which may seem difficult, unless you do the following: Professor A grades all of Assignment 1 across all 4 sections. Professor B grades all of assignment 2, etc. Better yet, hire one person (a grad student maybe) to do all of the grading for all 4 sections.


First things first: what did your syllabus say, and what did you say when you assigned the project?  If the assignment was a part of the final grade, and getting a zero on the project means that all the students will fail, and they knew this when the class began and when the project was assigned, and the project was assigned with enough time for them to produce an adequate result, then no one should complain when you fail them (or at least no one should have a legitimate reason to complain).  I have a feeling that if this is not a hypothetical case, there is more to the story.

I have been guilty of deviating from the syllabus in various ways over the years, but the students knew the ramifications of that deviation, and I was always fair in my grading because of it.  I find it hard to believe that an entire class skipped an assignment that guaranteed they will fail, unless of course it guaranteed they all receive an A.

I think you need to provide more information for a better answer, but the bottom line is that if the students failed the class legitimately, then fail them.  Just make sure you've got the means to back up your reasoning for those failures if it is indeed the entire class.


Resubmitting manuscript somewhere else after rejection: Should I change who I list as my preferred reviewers?

Unpacking your question a bit, I think that the key issue that you are worrying about is whether one or two of your preferred reviewers a) got your paper rejected, and b) might do it the second time around.

Now, if you were not going to substantively improve your paper, just submit again and hope the randomness comes up in your favor, I think that would be a serious worry. There are other questions on this site where people talk about the frustration of getting the same crappy paper twice, and you really don't want to be that crappy paper.

If you're addressing all of the key issues that caused the first decision, however, then I think that you are unlikely to need to worry.  Let's break this down by the different cases that could occur:

At least one the journals might use none of your preferred reviewers: This sometimes happens, for a number of different reasons (e.g., the journal has particularly strict COI rules, or none of them might be available).  In this case, your concern is moot.
The journals select different preferred reviewers: Journals generally want most of your reviewers to be non-preferred, to reduce the impact of bias and groupthink, so if you supplied several names, there's a good chance that the journals will pick differently from them, and again, your concern is moot.
Your preferred reviewers like the paper: Presumably you chose your preferred reviewers because they are likely to view the problem in a similar way to yourself, and so if you got some good reviews and some bad reviews, there's a good chance that your preferred reviewers gave a good review once, and will do so again.
Your preferred reviewers rejected you the first time, but find your improved manuscript much better: If you successfully addressed reviewer criticisms, then getting the same reviewer is likely to help you.  This is because every reviewer is likely to have a different perspective, which may lead to focusing on a different set of concerns and issues.  Thus, you may actually do better being reviewed by somebody who previously rejected your paper, but whose issues you have addressed, than by an new person who may reject the paper for their own entirely unrelated reasons.
Your preferred reviewers still hate the paper:  Maybe they are prejudiced, maybe their issues simply cannot be reasonable addressed, or (more likely) you just didn't do as good a job as you thought in addressing their issues.  This is the only real failure case amongst the scenarios.

On balance, then, I would recommend first thinking carefully whether any of your preferred reviewers might actually have a previously unexpected reason to be prejudiced against your paper.  If so, exclude that person from the set.  Otherwise, just pick the best preferred reviewers, and if they're the same as before, they're the same as before: most likely the concern is moot in any case, and if you've actually done real solid improvements in the paper that address the former issues, then even if you get one of the same reviewers again, it seems to me that it will be more likely to help than to hurt your paper's chances.


publishing on arxiv a journal paper that is under revision

The ACM's open access policy can be found here:
https://www.acm.org/publications/openaccess

As you can read, in principle, you have the right to "self-archive" you manuscript on the ArXiv. However, do check with the journal in question. (I can for example, imagine issues occuring when there is a double blind peer review.)


Are there many journals that do not accept TeX/LaTeX?

The answer is that in some fields (La)TeX dominate whereas in other fields (La)TeX is largely unknown. Obviously any field where equations are required is more likely to be using (La)TeX for writing and publishing. However, it is not uncommon that journals, or rather, type-setters of journals, use LaTeX for final production regardless of submitted format. The same applies to book publishers. But, the fact is that the use varies and one needs to check with the journal to which you wish to submit.

The fact that you are not "allowed" to write your thesis with (la)TeX is perhaps because your advisor does not use it. I am an avid LaTeX user and am struggling to convince both colleagues and students in my department to at least try using it so I know how difficult it can be. In the end, I need to use both to be able to communicate with my colleagues and peers. So although I do not see why you should not set the thesis in (La)TeX in the end, you probably need to use word for the manuscript so that your advisor can provide input on files you supply. But, check how many journals actually use LaTeX in your field and strike up a discussion with your fellow students and your advisor. I think it is worthwhile to be fairly fluent in using many tools.

Edit: I will just add that I was convinced by a friend to use TeX (not LaTeX, it was a long time ago) when I wrote my thesis (a monograph at a US university) while almost no-one in the department used TeX; but then my advisor always provided feedback from double-spaced printouts which were platform independent. Those were the days.


There's only one thing to do here, and it is having a talk with your thesis director. He's most likely the best qualified to :

answer your worries with A being not valuable enough and if it's worth pursuing
assess the scope of the grant and the leeway you have with this

Doing a thesis on a subject is a commitment. Don't give up because you 'feel' it's going no where, prove it's not going there first. Also, finding similar results in different initial conditions, while not exciting regarding finding the next innovative thing, is not necessarily worthless. It's good to have results doubled checked/confirmed, found by other methods, or  if another result is expected, the work also serves as excluding things that don't give this expected result. Which is a result by itself.


What does it mean when one month after submitting a paper we receive a request for clarification?

One of the reviewers is unclear about one of the claims you are making. You could (for example) be making Claim A which you seem to have the data for, or you could be making Claim A' which is related but the fit isn't as strong.

While the reviewer could give you the benefit of the doubt (and ask you to clarify in revisions), they felt it was safer to ask ahead of time. If it was indeed Claim A', then your paper could have more serious flaws and would need more substantive revision.

I would reply as quickly as possible with the clarification and not try to over think it.


Are Nature Letters still considered primary articles?

I was not previously familiar with the distinction between "primary articles" and "secondary articles", but the distinction is explored in this very helpful link.  After comparing the paper with this document, it seems clear (even) to me that it is a "primary article": they describe results of a rather massive experiment which has not previously been published, and they contribute their own statistical analysis. I didn't see any evidence of a literature review or anything like that.

Also see how Nature describes its own Letters here: they are short reports of original research.

Forgive my naivete, but: why does it matter?


Is it advisable to do a postdoc in statistical genetics after a statistics PhD in machine learning/deep learning?

A big part of the PhD degree is that you have learned to learn.  If you have a PhD in statistics/machine learning then I see no reason that you could not rapidly learn the material required for statistical applications in medicine/genetics.  So long as you are doing statistical things (e.g., statistical genetics as opposed to the biology/medical aspects) then this falls very close to your existing expertise, and the additional learning is likely to consist primarily of learning new statistical distributions/models, which will be something you are well trained to do.
To the extent you need to learn genetics to understand the statistical models applying to genetics (which is much less than you might think), you ought to be able to learn the basics rapidly enough to communicate with geneticists in your projects.  Most of your work is likely to be interdisciplinary, where you do the statistical work and geneticists do the genetics work.  Likewise, if you publish in this field then the geneticists will write up all the parts of the paper pertaining to their subject and you will write up the parts of the paper pertaining to your subject.
One of the great things about statistics is that you can enter a field and assist with data analysis with surprisingly little background in the subject.  You often need to learn the basics, and interrogate the problem to learn how the data is being sampled, etc., but the burden is smaller than you might imagine.  Moreover, other applied statisticians have written books in these fields that introduce the statistical models of interest, with the relevant scientific background for the field, so you can pick it up quickly.  Statistical genetics requires you to know just enough about genetics to understand why the statistical models are formulated the way they are (which is very little) and then the rest is standard math/stats work that is squarely within your training.  Take heed of the immortal words of the great John Tukey: "The best thing about being a statistician is that you get to play in everyone's backyard."


Changing links in Google Scholar Profile

The answer would be both Yes and No.

Yes -- If your university repository articles are (also) indexed in Google Scholar, then these are absolutely citable. Now, when viewers click a particular article from your page--say "An article on the behavior of rat after cutting its tail"--they should be able to see two versions of the same article like the following:

[v1] An article on the behavior of rat after cutting its tail [publisher page]

[v2] An article on the behavior of rat after cutting its tail [pdf-univ. link]

No -- If your university repository is not indexed by Google Scholar.

You can check this by searching an article from your univ. repository in Google Scholar.


Can an advisor use student's data for journal publishing without prior consent?

A paper should not be published without the consent of all the authors.
Collecting and processing data may or may not make someone an author; it depends on the details and the discipline.  We cannot evaluate this for you.
If you live in a jurisdiction where data is not protected by copyright law, then technically anybody who gets a copy of your data can publish that data wherever they please.
https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/11359/can-you-copyright-data


My Google Scholar profile is public but it does not appear in Google's search result. How can I fix this problem?

Read about the page rank algorithm of Google.
The same problem was happening to me. Then I linked my google scholar's page to my homepage (institute one). Now it appears at the top in the google search results.


How should a researcher manage the fact that Impact factors change over time?

Related to your last comment:

  boards that considered only the papers published in journal above a certain impact factor when assessing the quality of a candidate

I think that such borders are not doing well. As you said, the IF (Impact Factor) varies in time (regardless if we consider it as a relevant measure).

According to me, there are 2 points of view by which the IF which should be considered in your question:

The point that you tried (and succeeded) to publish a paper in a journal with high IF. What  would that fact say to me (if I would be in a committee)? That you were confident about your results and you trusted your work to be published in a good journal. (BUT(!) it does not meat that the journal or the paper is good, it just reflects you, the candidate). In this case relevant is the IF by the time your article was accepted.
The point that the IF of the journal you published rises in the next 2-3 years after the time your paper was accepted. Why? Lets take a look how the IF is calculated:

A = the number of times articles published in 2006 and 2007 were cited by indexed journals during 2008.

B = the total number of "citable items" published by that journal in 2006 and 2007.

2008 impact factor = A/B.

However, can we say that articles published in 2006 and 2007 will be cited in 2008? Just very small amount of them. Someone reads your article (month 1), then does the part of research related to your article (2-3 months?), approved by co-authors (another month) and goes through the acceptance procedure (12-14 months). It takes about a year and a half to print the citation of your article. So, if the editors decide that they will accept just good articles the resulting rising of IF will be visible in 2-3 years in the future. So if I would be a committee member I would like to know how was the IF 2-3 years after the article of the candidate was printed. That can tell me that by the time the article was printed, also a considerable amount of good articles were printed as well. But keep in mind that IF consider citation just within 2 years back, and that is just too short. I think it should be 3 years at least.

So, to answer your questions:

add 1.: YES, for the next 2-3 years as it is effectiveness time of IF.

add 2.: YES, because it reflect the actual state of the author by the time he decided to publish.

But please, all this can help as a indicator but is should be taking into account with caution. I should also say that IF is very tricky and it can be easily misinterpreted (self-citation, how many review articles the Journal publishes,...). If you want to take a look at other evaluating tools, you can visit:

Eigenfactor or
Journal Ranking

and:
What really matters is how much your article is cited(!)


Is it appropriate to suggest to a professor how to communicate more clearly?

For now, I would suggest with responding to statements such as "We will do X" or "It is important to do X" with something along the lines of "Agreed. Shall I start working on that now?" Perhaps she'll take the hint and start communicating more clearly, in which case the problem is solved. In any case, over time, you'll probably get better at understanding which of these statements are general statements about the future and which are implicit requests for action.

If asking for more clarity doesn't work, have a chat with her and explain that you find it hard to tell when she's asking you to do something and when she isn't and asking her to be a bit clearer. I'm sure she won't be offended and, if she is, that's a huge sign that you need to find another advisor!


Project websites - Increasing visibility or wasting time?

This answer is from computer science rather than the social sciences. However, I am not sure whether the difference matters much in this context.

Generally, project web sites are done for the following reasons:

Provide a central entry point for a given research endeavour that one can point interested people to (e.g., at conferences). Many projects lead to dozens and dozens of small and large publications distributed over many project partners, so the website of the project collects and often summarizes the main outcomes in a way that is easier to digest.
Advertise the project. It is hard for a project to be successful if nobody knows that the project exists. A website is an easy means to give a "face" to an otherwise pretty amorphous construct.
In some cases, websites have an internal, password-protected area, which the project partners use to exchange documents, discuss in forums, etc. So the website if also a sort of collaboration tool for project partners.
Last but unfortunately not least, project website are often simply a deliverable that the funding agencies expect / require, so they need to be done no matter if it having one serves any concrete goal outside of its mere existence.

That being said, there are of course plenty of websites that are simply useless. The thing is, it is hard to say in advance whether a website will actually be useful for a specific project or not. You may often think in the beginning of the project that you will need a website e.g., as a discussion and dissemination platform, but then nobody ends up using it and it slides into general uselessness.

To answer your questions:

  Are they an effective means to increase visibility of projects?

Maybe, but only if they are very well done and linked in a highly visible way. I would say most websites are not particularly effective in terms of visibility, even though this is typically one of the main goals.

  Under which circumstances does it make sense to set up such a website?

I will always set up at least a rudimentary website. Doing a simple website is close to no effort, and having one (even a simple one) is usually better than having none at all.

  What makes such a website a good website?

This is hard to answer without knowing what specifically the website should do for a project. I assume you mean primarily as a dissemination tool - in that context, what you really need is high-quality content (which is targeted at whatever your audience is), fresh content (try to have a regular schedule, e.g., a monthly research blog), personal touch (photos from meetings, opinion pieces, ...), highly visible linking (the way how Google and other search engines work is that they assume that website linked from important websites are also important, so you need to get your website linked from other highly ranked sites, so as to improve your page rank), and pleasing visuals (make sure that your website is technically up to date).


How to get the most out of a period in another university during PhD?

I would like to answer this question by asking one myself: would you go to a three-star Michelin restaurant, with a respectable but established clientele, with posh and smart diners, who do not need to meet their cooks or maitre's but just enjoy the glamour of the settings? Or would you prefer to visit a 1-star, striving to get a second star, where you have the occasional tourist and the owner is more keen on explaining to you the philosophy of their recipes?

I have been visiting both types (restaurants and universities!) and I prefer the second one, but it's probably due to age. In the latter you have more flexibility and contact with the main person you're interested in. Also, the first period acts as a "showcase", and it's very likely that more will be possible in the future.

My main advice would be to be a good networker. That implies "work hard" but also being prepared to "party hard", if you see what I mean. You should not be afraid to "ask people out" as much as in asking to share some research: you're likely to be in touch more often with the "second tier" (the first being the professor and her peers), and they will be the next generation of professors, so it's good to have a number of relationships with the post-docs and researchers of any institutions, at your stage of career. So don't close yourself in a shell of hard work for six months: I have seen that happening, and it does not make a good impression (to me)


Topology vs. Complex Analysis for Math Grad School

Complex variables is useful in both pure and applied mathematics, to a roughly equal extent.  With a few significant exceptions (e.g. persistent homology) topology is used very little in applied mathematics.

For instance, in the graduate program in mathematics at the University of Georgia, most students concentrating in pure mathematics take a qualifying exam in topology, and most students concentrating in applied mathematics take numerical analysis or probability instead.  All students are currently required to take a qualifying exam in complex analysis.

I have much less experience with statistics, but I am almost certain that complex analysis is more useful there than topology.  (What I don't know is much complex analysis is actually used!)

In my experience (I am the chair of graduate admissions of the mathematics department at UGA) complex analysis and topology look equally good on transcripts.  (Both would look better, of course -- it sounds like you knew that already.)

So if it's really a tossup, taking complex analysis holds more doors open for you.  However, both of these are courses that beginning graduate students (at least in the US) quite often take, so it's not exactly a life-changing decision.  In fact, I would advise you to take whichever one sounds more interesting to you.  Good luck.


Is it advisable to get a recommendation letter from industry for a Masters program in Computer Science in the US?

There is no definite answer to this question because it may depend on the judgement of the person reading the letters, and on what is actually in the letters.

But with that being said: professional experience is very different from coursework so it will most probably be beneficial to show that you can do both.


Purposeful fail - effect on Master's admission

Explore all other options first. Seriously. Talk to professors whom you think to possess some common sense (especially your adviser and the department head if they are among them) explaining clearly what your situation is and what your objectives are and ask for the advice on how to proceed. Resort to the F option only if you see that there is no other way.

As to "masters admission", it depends. If you want to master in math., say, and your F is in "underwater basketweaving" or something else like that, I personally would not even notice, but if you fail algebra, that will be quite a red flag and your explanations that "it was intentional", etc. won't fly with me (also, are you going to include these explanations into your application letter or what?). So, if you follow this line, at the very least be sure to choose a subject people in the field you want to specialize in view with contempt.


Will advanced knowledge help my undergraduate research?

I can't think of a single situation where having more knowledge than expected or required was ever a bad thing...

You will have to "suffer the system" here and there, that's a sad but simple fact (just because you say you know something, does not mean the schooling system will believe you. Nor should they--truth be told, most of the time you actually do learn something from courses you thought you mastered).

Anyway, always talk to your teaching assistants/professors about this. Work them a bit, see how flexible they can be. Often, you'll find that some could not care less if you come to class or not, as long as you pass the exams and do all the practical work required to pass the course. Others, unfortunately, will have mandatory attention and the likes, that they consider holy. Going against them and their reules at all costs is pointless and will cost way too much time and effort. Just sit out the classes.

In time, and when your approach is indeed successful, it will get easier and easier to pull off.

Whether it's a good idea or not, that depends entirely on how fast you can learn. No matter how good it might make you feel to know so much more than your peers and to be able to skip so many classes, and get into such high-profile research, the time you spend studying should never cost you your social/networking/extracurricular life. In time, the stuff you'll have to master will also become harder and harder to learn. Before you know it, sticking to this approach blindly will cause you to you spend all day and all night, all year round, in some dark corner of some smelly attic. And that, is never a good idea.


Working further on idea from patent for student project and publishing

Writing a paper solo is hard. Not only do you need to do all the experimental work yourself (in this case, simulating aerodynamics), but you also need to be on top of the relevant existing literature.

You need the latter, so that when you come to write up, you know what gets written up, how it gets written up, and when and where it gets written up.

Without that, you won't be able to write a paper that would get accepted by any reputable journal.

To find precedents in the literature for a particular patent, take the names of the holders of the patent, and then search for them as author names in the usual literature databases for your subject.

There are specific literature databases that will give you false negatives, but few false positives: that is, they will find much but not all of the good relevant literature, with relatively little junk literature, e.g. sciencedirect. Then there are general literature databases, that are much more inclusive, which means you're less likely to miss important papers, but they'll be buried amid a lot of junk results - e.g. google scholar.

As to your specific question: filing a patent is usually (depending on the country) time-consuming and expensive. Which means that patent-filers will either have done their due diligence on novelty and validity, including experimental and numerical analysis; or they've got sufficient money (or are so unaverse to risk) that they can file the patent application first (perhaps to establish precedence, or just out of vanity), and then do the work later.


May I ask why you chose an MSc instead of a PhD? What is your career goal? I don't mean to imply one is better than the other. If you are going to spend a lot of money and time, it should be well-spent.

In some places, like the UK, not much more time is needed to get a PhD beyond an MSc. In the U.S., PhD's in the sciences are usually completely funded.  Per badp this seems not to be the case in Italy.

For either an MSc or PHD I suggest looking at the career paths of former graduates of that lab. This is something I wish someone had told me when I entered my lab. The charisma of the lab boss or excellence of the equipment are meaningless if, after 2-3 years, you can't move on as you hoped. Trace the career path of the last few graduates - from MSc all the way to how many wanted to and got faculty positions and how long it took them. In my experience what you do is much less important that who you know, which comes from getting into the right environment.


Stress and anxiety while waiting for PhD viva

Unfortunately, there isn't all that much you can do except to have the people responsible for ensuring reviews are turned in contact the examiners and get them to turn in their reviews of the thesis.

Complaining to the examiners directly will do little good, and your thesis supervisor may or may not have the clout to get your examiners to turn in their reviews.

However, you should be applying for Ph.D.-appropriate jobs right now, so that you're able to move into something once the oral examination is finished. Supervisors of jobs normally taken by Ph.D. recipients will typically recognize that there might be some delays in getting the degree, but will still hire people close to finishing their degree.


Is it right to have students bring cake and cold drinks for classes?

Many hundreds of years ago I had a class on "theory of computation"* that met at a wretchedly inconvenient time: 8:00 AM on Sunday mornings, for four hours.**  Someone always brought coffee and someone else always brought donuts.  However, there was no list, only volunteers.  Arrangements were informal and made at the end of each class meeting.

Conclusion: List, bad; volunteers, good.

*With the polished and appropriately hideous book by Derick Wood.

**This was in the United States.  The class meeting time was an experiment, never again repeated.


Is UK QTS a global status or is it per-subject?

This is what the Target Jobs website (first result on Google, I'm sure there are other sources) has to say:

  Once you have achieved QTS, it's legal for you to teach any age range, although it's not easy to move from one to another.

They also say that if you specialise in primary school teaching (ages 5-11) you would be expected to teach every part of the National Curriculum (i.e. everything from Maths to Modern Languages, Physical Education and Art).

If you specialise in secondary school teaching (ages 11 upwards), here what Target Jobs says:

  Initial teacher training in secondary teaching entails a specialist subject, but once you've gained QTS, you're legally qualified to teach any subject. It's common to find teachers in schools teaching subjects other than those they specialised in during their teacher training.

So it seems that if you qualify as a maths teacher in secondary teaching you can easily change subjects. However, it's much harder to change age ranges once you have specialised.


Section name for class project reports, theses, short essays

Sometimes people call such a collection "Other Writings" or "Other Works".

If they haven't been published, they're not publications.  And most academics think of "paper" as synonymous with "published paper", so that term is likely to be misleading as well.


How to put website links in "Used literature" slide of the presentation?

No. Websites change. You should include information such as time, date, version, etc.

For Wikipedia in particular, you can read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_Wikipedia#Examples_of_how_to_cite_Wikipedia

For general websites, similar ideas apply. Remember to appropiately cite dates, author names, and possibly also titles for the website content (e.g., if it's a blog article, the blog title should be included). Never just post a link, that's horrible style.


Difficulties with behaviour of other PhD students in group

In my experience it is not uncommon for people in your situation to not "gel" perfectly with the rest of their cohort. You are used to an industrial way of working, which is, or at least should be, quite professional and focused on a common goal (e.g., shipping some product). You are also used to fairly clear management structures, as indicated by your usage of "reprimand" and "misconduct procedure". Academia typically does not work like that. As user2768 aptly observes, a PhD study is an individual project - you are not all together shipping some common product, but you are all working on your individual research (or, in the worst case, you are directly competing for papers, grants, and future positions). That does not mean that you can't or shouldn't be friends with the people in your cohort, but it certainly gives the interactions a different dynamic.

I have found the following to be a good mental model for working in a research lab: envision yourself as a one-person (or two-person, you and your supervisor) early-stage start-up company working in an incubator or shared office space with other start-ups in a similar position. Sure, you want to have a nice relationship with these other "start-ups", and often it will help to collaborate on this and that, but ultimately you don't need to work with any of them. If you feel it is more productive to do things on your own, do so - and, conversely, don't feel that they are obligated to help you with anything specific you need.

As for how to deal with the specific behaviors you mention: essentially, my tip for all of them is to tell the respective students (more or less friendly, depending on your personality and whether you would like to build up or retain a friendly personal relationship) to bugger off and annoy somebody else. You don't need to listen to them giving you unwanted feedback, you don't need to convince them of your opinions, and they don't need to explain how they arrived at a specific solution. If a specific student annoys you or is categorically unhelpful, stop interacting with them.

With all that said, I feel there is also a good chance that parts of the conflict are also related to your own mindset. I think it would help you to stop seeing yourself as mature and them as immature and in need of correction. While I am (based on your descriptions) convinced that some of your colleagues are indeed not the nicest of people, you won't be able to change them. It is more productive for you to take a hard look at your own behaviors, and whether you are potentially not as adapted to being back at university as you would like. Maybe letting go of a notion of superiority and maturity, and making some corrections in how you deal with your colleaguesm will also help normalize your relationships.

Edit:
Some specific advise on dealing with defeatist people. Yes, those are a problem. Avoid very negative students at all costs. Nothing kills your motivation to do challenging research quicker than a friend who talks about nothing else than how pointless their research, your research, and a PhD in general is. Make very clear that you are not interested in that kind of conversation, and if they persist stop interacting with them.


Graduate math student migrating to engineering?

The only problem with switching to a particular field of engineering is that you'll be missing a core set of knowledge particular to that discipline that will hinder your progress for a while.  For instance, you would probably do great in many electrical engineering sub-diciplines, but if you've never taken a circuits or signals course, you're going to be lost for a while before you can learn that material.

If you already have research experience, that will count for a lot, but I would suggest finding an engineering program that would allow you to take a few undergraduate courses during your first year or two in order to get up to speed.  If you find a professor that is looking for a mathematics-savvy graduate student to fill in the gaps in his/her lab, that might be the best way to get your foot in the door.  You've got skills that could be very valuable to the right lab, and if you use those as leverage to join a particular lab/research team, you'll be able to fill in the missing pieces to your new field and move forward with your own degree.


How to give feedback on a course when no evaluation was offered?

Typically, the dean of each department is the person who has the ability and the know-how of each professor to actually effect some change. That changes by school and by department, but you can't go wrong by finding your dean's office and dropping in or sending an email. I've done it before and action was taken very quickly, but I happened to be a part of a very well-structured department with passionate staff.


In short, tenure means that you cannot be fired (you have a very permanent position).  For more details, look at this question:
In practice, how secure is a tenured position in the US?  In particular, look at the first link in the first answer to that question, which is an article in Science that talks about the role of tenure.


I've reviewed more than 50 papers, and my preparation to review them has varied widely.  At least a few of them have drawn heavily on papers I've written.  Generally, these are extending my results.  Typically, I ask myself: What does this paper add? Is it something I would have thought of easily or not?  If yes, why didn't I include it in my paper?

In contrast, I've also reviewed some papers that I was not well prepared for.  They were in my general field, but in a subarea that I hadn't worked in.  These papers took a lot more work. (Up to 10x as long for me to review as a paper in an area where I'm very familiar.)  For papers in an area that's new to me, I often have to look up (and skim) at least a few of the references from the introduction to judge whether the paper is original.  Originality has at least two very different levels.  The easier one to achieve is: (1) this result is new, and doesn't follow simply from anything previous.  The much harder one is, (2) this technique is fundamentally new and produces interesting results.  If the results are interesting, most journals are happy to publish articles of type (1).  Articles of type (2) are much rarer, and can potentially open entire new fields.

tl;dnr:

Preparation: you need to either know the subarea well or be willing to read a lot to learn about it.
Originality: What papers does it draw on? How likely is it that a reader of those would be able to write this paper?  Answering this question may require you to read a lot of background.


GPA vs Undergrad prestige and difficulty

Admissions don't come down to a single number or any single factor. Knowing no more it is impossible to say which of these two is a better candidate.

While it is true that some universities are considered "better" than others, it is an ephemeral thing. Some marvelous teachers work at some quite "modest" places. Moreover, the universities that have a really great reputation, often do so because they are able to offer more learning support to undergraduates, though that isn't always the case. They can often attract top faculty, of course, for financial reasons, but that doesn't necessarily translate to better undergraduate learning. Certainly not for every student.

Someone with a low GP from a top university, might have been somewhat disconnected from the learning process and had little contact with those top professors. Someone from a lower ranked place might have that higher GPA because he/she worked closely with the faculty and has a much better grasp overall. This, too isn't necessarily true, but it can happen.

Another factor, of course, is that not all of the "top" students go to the "top" schools. Money plays too big a part of who gets to go to, say, Harvard. Some people just go to a local State University of modest reputation due to family or other reasons. But they can get an excellent education there, and have done.

And don't assume that John had an easier path or that his university had a "significantly easier curriculum". There is no basis for saying that. Some graduates of highly ranked places are also quite weak in skills.

However, I suspect that there is a general feeling among academics that a student who has done well locally (high GPA) has taken advantage of the offerings and is well prepared, while one who has not done so well in the local environment may not be as well qualified to continue. But that "general feeling" needs additional evidence, so isn't considered definitive.

Admissions is a game of balancing. Many factors are looked at, grade point and college reputation among them. But those alone won't tell a useful story about a candidate.


What will replace math exams in 2020/21 given covid-19?

Here are some examples of how it is done at the University of Copenhagen for the two courses that I have exams in next week.

One course has a written exam: We are given a problem sheet that we write up a solution to and submit to an online portal after a time limit of four hours. We are allowed to use the internet and any other aids we wish, except that we are not allowed to communicate with other people.

Another course has a verbal exam: A verbal exam is performed using Zoom. There is no preparation time.

Both courses were intended to be verbal exams pre-covid-19.


Can you upload an appendix externally for referencing?

I routinely use the Open Science platform (see https://osf.io/) for things like model code, simulation results, data dictionaries, supplementary figures and all the other extraneous materials that are needed for reproducing results. I haven't submitted to IEEE but I have had no problem with any of the journals I do submit to.

The way it works is that you upload the material and create a registration (a snapshot or archive) which is public and cannot be changed. I typically leave the project open until the final draft and then create the registration. That registration will have a URL which I then include in the edits.

There are many such repositories, some field specific. Nature has a list of places for archiving data at https://www.nature.com/sdata/policies/repositories with comments about what can be stored there.