Is the question really as you are asking if this is possible? Well, more improbable things are possible, so clearly yes. The specifics of your situation, and the type of consulting are both important. Are you already in a PhD and have a concrete oportunity? (asking the question conditional on PhD and opportunity) Are you already in a PhD and consider looking for opportunities but do not have something concrete? (asking the question conditional on PhD only) Are you considering a PhD and want to see what your prospects for a stipend on the side would be? Do you have the opportunity but consider the PhD? Why do you want to get the PhD / what do you think you ll do after (your profile is not suggesting you want to continue in academia after the PhD, am I wrong?)

In any case, keep in mind that the most important factors are:

-If you are already in a PhD and have one: your advisor. What does he think? Can he help you find something relevant to your thesis/ help you get exerience / connections? Talk to him and make sure he is ok. He might also be able to provide good alternatives

-A think you learn with experience: A PhD should not be a lengthy affair. Every year counts and you want to finish as soon as possible. Especially in a field like yours (ours ;)) you can have a lot of opportunities to get paid for doing the PhD... Do you really need the extra stipend if it will delay you? Unless you get something other than money back, that you can use for your thesis or after the phd.

-What you want to do after the PhD. The PhD is a lousy end goal, it can only serve as the means to an end. What is your optimization function? What do you want to get out of your PhD? How is the extra activity going to help you?

-If you have not yet started the PhD yet, and you really care about that stipend, it might be worth noting that there are many situations where the converse might be more productive and easier, especially given your profile: getting a PhD while working in industry, You would have to find a company (more difficult part, they pay...) and an advisor (easier part: they do not have to support financially, and they get money and a PhD student) willing to support you while doing the phd... You (and secondary the advisor) will want to make sure that the company commits in paper for at least a number of years though(i would suggest minimum 3): otherwise its possible a year in the future the company's scope will change /money will run out


Nice vs. ugly numbers in homework and tests

I think I'm going to be fundamentally disagreeing with a lot of the answers here.
Nice numbers definitely make problems easier, and I make a habit of using them when first introducing a concept; they make the students more comfortable, and let them focus on the key idea that I'm trying to teach. But I never rely on nice numbers for tests or assignments. There's three major reasons here:

I have had many students over the years who genuinely stop understanding a concept when presented with "ugly" numbers. For example, I've had students who can easily find the average of 2 and 6 but when asked to find the average of 2.3 and 6.7 don't even know how to start. This isn't an issue of getting confused by the calculations; it's that they think about "nice" numbers differently than they think about "ugly" ones. In the case of the average, the issue was probably that the student in question thought of the average as "the number in the middle", not "the sum divided by two", which makes sense when working with integers but not otherwise. The problem is that you can't capture failures of comprehension like this without using ugly numbers at least occasionally.
Not a grad student and Per Alexandersson pointed out that many students use the "nice number" test to tell whether their answer is right - they tend to trust the answer if they get "2", not so much if they get "2.134". So from the perspective of "be nice to your students", you should use nice numbers; but the thing is that, in literally any application they will have for this material later in life, they won't be working with problems that were carefully curated to produce nice numbers. If you're teaching them something you expect them to use later, it's a disservice to allow them to continue to use the "nice number" test.
Loosely speaking, there are far fewer "nice" numbers than "ugly" ones. I've had students "solve" problems by assuming the answer will be a whole number and then guess-and-checking their way to success.

That said, if you're using ugly numbers, you do need to make some concessions to make that work. Here's what I do:

I allow scientific (not graphing) calculators on every assignment and test.
I allow unsimplified answers, except when the problem is about simplification; so, they're welcome to leave their answer as a complicated mess of radicals if they want to.
I warn them specifically that the numbers involved in some problems may be messy, and I go through "messy" problems in class.
I take some class time to teach techniques for judging whether your answer is correct that don't rely on niceness of number; my preferred one is "ballparking", where you use the context of the question to estimate the general size of the answer (is it positive or negative? Bigger than a thousand? Etc.).
Problems that involve ugly numbers tend to take longer than ones that involve nice numbers - even I find that I go slower when a problem involves weird fractions or decimals. Take that into account when writing tests.
Problems that involve ugly numbers are more prone to minor error than ones that involve nice numbers; for example, you probably don't want to be counting an answer in a calculus class as "completely wrong" because they typed "2.146" instead of "2.156" into their calculator. I always offer extensive partial credit based on work shown, and do not generally mark off for errors that don't show a lack of comprehension or change the difficulty of the problem. For online tests, to make this work, I allow students to submit their work alongside their answers.


Funding for writing a computer science dissertation

There exists funding for PhD, yes.

As always with such questions, it is better to ask locally instead of asking random people on the Internet.
Ask your advisor (if you already have one in mind), ask the student office at the university, ask other PhD students, ask the student counselor (if you have one; take the one for administrative and study questions, not the mental health one^^).


Can a paper be rejected because another paper (by someone else) based on its arXiv preprint extends the result?

On the one hand, referees can reject your paper for all sorts of foolish reasons. I would not if I were refereeing, but that means nothing for some random person with an axe to grind.
I wouldn't worry about this scenario too much though, because it would require some relatively extreme timing to happen.

On the other hand, even if it did happen, if people are citing you and you are having an impact, is it really that much of a problem if the paper is "just" in arXiv? Only the most blind and foolish Impact Factor junkies would hold the lack of brand name against you. Also, you will write many papers in your career, and I would be startled if such a situation happened more than once.


Is it okay to ask a coworker/supervisor to give a talk?

Yes, I think it's perfectly acceptable that you invite colleagues to give a talk at an event or conference.

There are many advantages for them if they give such a talk, for example:

disseminating their work
practising speaking to a non-expert audience
networking
free coffee/ lunch/ biscuits

If they don't want to do it, they'll decline your invitation and you can ask someone else-- a good choice might be PhD students who will actively want or need to practice outreach and public engagement.

Anyway, whoever you decide to invite, I don't think you've got anything to lose by asking.


PHD: Same core idea but in context of different country?

The scientific significance of the work really depends on what the nature of the subject is and how much value is added by doing the additional research.  For two extremes, consider:

A study on the effect of GMO feed on pigs in Freedonia, using the same methodlogy as a just-completed study of the effect of GMO feed on pigs in the Duchy of Grand Fenwick: low value, because there is no reason to think pigs will react to the same food differently in two different places.
A study quantifying the size of difference economic sectors in Freedonia (which has not been previously/recently studied), using the same methodology as a just-completed study of the Duchy of Grand Fenwick: high value, because countries typically have different economies, and understanding a country's economy is very valuable for planning policy.

You can evaluate the value of your proposed contribution similarly, by asking how much there is expected to be a difference, and how much knowledge your study will add.  Your advisor can then help you further tune the scope for their expectation of an appropriate amount of work for your dissertation.


6 months is all I have, what would be your method to finish your dissertation?

If you already have a first draft, then I think you need to have an honest conversation with Prof. X. The primary question needs to be "given what I have right now, is it actually possible to finish in 6 months? If so what are the crucial things that have to get done in order to pass the defense?"

The best case scenario here is for Prof. X to respond to you with a list of specific, targeted issues that need to be fixed and a rough idea of which are the most important.

If you can get that list of items to fix, then it comes down to prioritizing. If you can fix everything that simply must be fixed in 6 months, then I'd say maybe it's worth going for it. If you can fix all that in 4 months, and then fix medium to minor stuff for a month and revise for a month, all the better.

On the other hand, if Prof X comes back and says, "Well I think you need more experiments," or "the results don't look significant enough yet" or "it isn't clear yet what all the issues might be" or something like that, then you're project probably simply isn't well enough defined yet to be able to be defensible in 6 months.

That said, don't underestimate how much can be accomplished in 6 months, if you're focused, well-prepared and willing to work long hours. You just need an expert opinion from somebody familiar with your work that obviously we're not going to be able to give you here.

Best luck!


Paper has been rejected for being published in conference proceedings, but accepted for oral presentation. What does this mean?

If your paper isn't in the proceedings it will be difficult for people to cite your work, or even to know the details unless they happen to be among the few that attend your presentation. As to your questions:

What it means should be explored with the conference committee. Probably it means that only the title will appear.

Yes you can put it in your CV as long as you list it properly as one that was "presented at ..."

Yes, it won't hurt you in grad school applications and will probably help, though a paper that is formally published would be better. People will be looking for evidence that you will be successful in academia and this is a positive thing, even if it doesn't appear.

Maybe it would be better to try another venue, but there is risk in that. It might not be accepted and even if it is, it might not be accepted in time to show up in your grad school applications.

You might ask a trusted advisor for advice, and should certainly explore it a bit with the conference committee. Perhaps you can present it here and publish a complete version elsewhere. It would be very odd if they expect you to give up rights under these circumstances. If they do ask for copyright it would seem to me to be a red flag.
Also, at the point you are in your career the effect will be small overall. Any research line in your CV is a good line when you are an undergraduate.


If wanting to read non-English references, then are there translators that work well for science papers?

Based on getting things like google translate to translate technical terms, I have to go with NO.
Works fine for simple language but technical language is a different game.
Even people who claim to be bi-lingual cannot translate technical information. I had this argument once and gave a lady who claimed she could translate anything a paper on stresses and buckling in 3 dimensions which proved she could not. :)
I have done some work translating a paper or two between 2 languages and it is challenging even for an engineer who understands the concepts to make sure what is stated is what is meant.


How common is it to outsource tedious research tasks to undergrads?

I am a graduate student, and I often hire undergraduate research assistants.

My primary motivation in hiring undergraduate research assistants is to create opportunities for these students to get a sense of what research is about, gain some experience that can help them get a job or admission to graduate school, and help them figure out what they want to do next.

Sometimes my undergraduate students do work that is tedious, because research can sometimes be tedious. This is especially true when they are inexperienced, because it can be hard to see the bigger picture behind what you're doing. (They may not even have the necessary background to understand the bigger picture, at least not until they've taken some more advanced coursework and read a few dozen research articles.) A good supervisor tries to help students see the big picture, but it's hard.

Supervising undergraduate students is a lot of work for me. I don't do it because it somehow helps me progress in my research by offloading tasks that I really need to get done (if anything, it slows down my research). Usually the work I give to undergrads is work that isn't on the critical path for my own personal research, because I can't trust that it will get done quickly/correctly. And in most cases, by the time my undergrads have learned enough to really be useful to me, they're graduating.

I hire these students because I remember how meaningful my undergraduate research experience was to me, and I want to pay it forward.

To directly answer your question,

  How ethical or common is it for grad students to actively hire undergrads into their lab for the sole purpose of outsourcing tedious labour?

It's probably much less common than you think, for the reasons described above. It can happen sometimes in the context of a research effort in which someone has to collect a lot of data, and it doesn't require any knowledge or skill to do so. But even then, it's often quicker for the graduate student to do it himself.

When it does happen, I see no ethical problem as long as the nature of the work is disclosed to the undergrad before he/she accepts the job. Compared to many other student jobs (working the phones and calling alumni for donations, for example), being a pipette monkey is actually probably one of the better jobs.


First year PhD without advisor, or experience, or a clue about research

Have a careful think: what makes you think that you will make a success of the PhD? I don't mean that in a harsh way, but as a genuine question. Your potential advisors seem to be recommending that you don't pursue the PhD, presumably based on their assessment of your performance over the first year. But perhaps you have abilities that they haven't really seen yet, or perhaps there were mitigating circumstances that led to poor performance, but you believe you will be able to turn it around. Once you have made this honest assessment, you can then make your case to your potential advisors to try and persuade them that you will be able to make a success of the PhD.

Of course, you also need to consider the possibility that these academics are right, and that you don't have what it takes to succeed in a PhD at this point in time. While it's not easy to face if this is something that you have set your heart on, they may have your best interests in mind. PhDs are hard, and are not for everyone. It might be the wrong thing to do to start off on a tough course, struggle through for a year or two more, and then discover that it really is not working out. Or you might stick it all the way, scrape through, but emerge exhausted and disillusioned. This may be what your potential advisors are trying to avoid, they have probably been through similar things in the past. I'm not saying they are right - they might not be. But equally, they might be. And perhaps your strengths are elsewhere, and they would be doing you a huge favour in directing you towards a more productive route.

You mention that you found it a big step up from your undergraduate studies, and that you lack research experience. Perhaps one option is to consider a research-based Masters course? This would provide you with something of an intermediate step, helping to clarify whether you are "cut out" for research, and giving you that vital experience. If successful, it would be a great way to provide clear evidence that you have some of the skills necessary for a PhD.

Again, please don't take any of this as a personal judgement. I don't know you, and I have no idea of your strengths and abilities. I just think it will be important for you to take a step back and make an honest appraisal rather than pressing forward with a single plan no matter what.


Professor does not care about cheating, what should TA do?

I realize that the following advice may be very unsatisfying. But you may need to hear it, just to save yourself from grief. I hope it helps.

It may be that you have done all that you can do without harming your own future. You need to judge that, of course, but getting between a new professor and the administration can be uncomfortable at best and career ending at worst.

But you can, of course, vow to be a better actor than this professor when it comes your turn to be in the driver's seat.

There are a lot of possible "reasons" for the situation you are in, none of them especially valid, but still possibly determinant.

Perhaps the department doesn't care a lot about these students or this course, as it doesn't sound like they are in the major.

Perhaps the professor is so tied up in research that he just doesn't care about (or have time for) teaching. This is true, in fact, for some untenured professors.

Perhaps the professor is seen as a future superstar who is immune from all criticism.

If you weren't alone, and had other TAs with similar concerns then you would be in a better position to bring the situation to the attention of higher-ups. If you are friendly with another professor who sees the problem and also objects to it, you could work through him/her.

If your duties included more than grading, such as leading small breakout sections, you could, perhaps, work with your smaller group to get some local change. But, if it is the professor's job to teach them and he refuses to do it effectively then there isn't a lot you can do.

But as a sole TA with only grading responsibilities you don't have a lot of options that won't come back to your own disadvantage.

Certainly you can bring it to the attention of the undergrad coordinator, with evidence. Whether to do it without the knowledge of the prof or not is a (risky) judgement call. But if a solution is to be found, you probably won't be part of creating it. It would be a faculty committee that would have authority and be able to effect change. But you would likely be in the center of any controversy that was generated. As a doctoral student, it feels pretty unsafe to me.

Look to the future, and learn from the past. Do your best but don't put yourself at risk unnecessarily.


How often academic inventions have already been invented in private companies?

I expect that such a study cannot, in fact, be effectively done.

The reason is that academic re-invention of a closely held secret will be virtually impossible to reliably document except in particular anecdotal high-profile cases, such as RSA.

Most secret information probably does not become public at all: I suspect that most obsolete trade secrets in companies eventually simply end up in the trash or shredder, because why would anybody bother doing anything else?
For any secret that does become publicly available, there generally will be a long delay before that occurs.  At that point, the relationship between two independently invented decades-old technologies will be difficult to detect by anybody not specifically motivated, since they likely would have very different terminology and specifics.

As such, I would expect that it is impossible to do any general study on the frequency with which academic research is a re-invention of secret work elsewhere.


Is it a good idea to protest for a paper rejection?

Before you protest, you should decide what, if anything, you want to accomplish. If you improve the paper and resubmit it your protest won't have counted for much, and you need to improve it anyway because of the reviewer comments. But the editor has questioned the underlying model, so this may be the wrong venue for publishing this work.

I suggest you think about the editors comments, improve the paper with the reviewer comments in mind and either resubmit or submit elsewhere. The last option may be best.


What does a kick-off conference really mean?

It's the first conference in a series, or the conference that launches a project, or some other kind of start to something.

Definition from Google:

  noun: kick-off

  a start of an event or activity.

  synonyms: beginning, start, commencement, launch, outset, opening
  "breakfast on the boat was a great kickoff to the weekend"

Example of usage in the context of a conference (emphasis mine):

  On September 2-4 2015, the FIRES project was officially launched with the kick off meeting and conference organized in Berlin, in the Science and Technology Park in Adlershof.


Which factors in PostDoc opportunities choice?

Actually, I think the frame of this question isn't quite right. I would argue that these are criteria that I would use if I were choosing between multiple postdoc offers, but these are not necessarily appropriate when deciding where to apply.

What I would do is decide what my "deal-breakers" are: that is, what are the criteria that would prevent me from accepting an offer, regardless of how good it is? For instance, if you need to take care of an ill family member that lives in a specific location, then you're probably not going to want to consider international programs. Similarly, if you're determined to go into industry, you're not going to be inclined to take a purely theoretical postdoc project.

However, once you've decided upon those deal-breakers, if you then see a project for which those criteria do not apply, then you should go ahead and submit an application. You don't have much to lose by doing so.

Once you have the offers, the challenge is tougher. All of the criteria you've listed are valid, and it's hard to say which of those might be the most important—it all depends on your own personal circumstances. One hopes that research concerns are the most important of all, but as I've mentioned above, there are valid reasons why that might not be the case. The only thing that I would make sure of is that whatever option you decide for in the end, it helps you in moving on with your career beyond your postdoc. There's nothing worse than getting stuck in "PD purgatory," where you can't really stay as a postdoc any longer, but are having problems moving to a permanent position afterward.


How do people changing fields after PhD overcome competition with "locals"?

Some of my best hires have had virtually no direct or recent experience in HPC, but have demonstrated a number of other extremely desirable features including:

A passion for learning and doing
A clear track record of success in their related area (including publishing, mentoring, grant-writing, etc.).
An strong awareness of their own limitations in the field and a plan for dealing with them
A strong understanding of our needs based on researching our mission, goals, website, etc. and a plan for how they fit into that.

Based on this, I've taken a flyer on a researcher or two who wasn't a perfect fit but was too passionate, engaging, and obviously successful to pass up. A ridiculously strong reference is also helpful.


If your adviser is supportive enough to agree to fly out just to meet you - that's extraordinary -, I would steer any future decision through them, and not only to make sure that future fly-outs are to places they can, and want to reasonably visit.

A professor taking you in, say, in Canada needs to be aware that your candidacy is essentially token. The question of funding arises, as does a possible limit they have or impose on themselves on their number of PhD students, as well as tricky issues upon graduating, and supporting you as their student on the job market. Ideally, you need to find someone who could be interested in truly co-advising, not only serving as a placeholder.

All things considered, someone willing to do this would likely be a close friend or collaborator of your current adviser, in an acceptable location for them. So before anything else, I'd discuss in great detail with your current adviser who might come to their mind, while you are still in the US. Hopefully, they can initiate contact for you and do some or all of the necessary explaining, which you chip in to, and follow up on in a promising situation.


How to ask for reference from a non-academic acquaintance?

How can I approach my acquaintance about this without giving 'him' the feeling that I want his favor or that I want to use his name?

You do want his favor and name, but that's fine: If he helps, then he is doing so because he wants to.


Is it okay to file administrative complaints about problems with the facilities and services in an academic settings?

Your best bet is to use safety in numbers: a single complaint won't lead to much of a response and may cause some friction for you in the future.

If you can organize a large number of students to complain, though, it may be possible to achieve much stronger results. Moreover, it is unlikely that the administration will be able to retaliate against a large group at the individual level. (You might not want to be perceived as the "ringleader" if you are worried about possible repercussions.)


What's the etiquette for following up on academic contacts?

As far as I see, these phrases mean what they say (which is not that much, but more than nothing). I also hear them a lot and say them from time to time. However, they do not promise anything else than some interest in your work or field.

When I say these phrases to people I just met it means that I found their work interesting and can imagine to spend more time thinking about it (but probably will not think about it on my own).

Another view is: Many people collaborate with many other people and enjoy it. See this phrase is a very low level entrance to something that may be a collaboration in the future.

More on the practical side: You may always send an email as a follow up, either with a question or something like "I enjoyed our conversation; here are links to some of my papers/other interesting stuff on the topic. Looking forward to seeing you again."


As a TA, how should I address the professor's difficult curriculum?

Begin with the assumption that there are good reasons for the change: professors rarely make a large change in a course without thinking about why (it's just too much work to bother).  Rather than beginning with your judgement (which might or might not be justified), open with an observation and a question, something like:

  I was looking at my old notes, and I've noticed that the examples have changed a lot and gotten significantly more complex.  I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit more about how you've changed the course and why?

Maybe the professor actually wants the class to be harder; maybe they just wanted it to be more current and don't realize it became harder as well; maybe you are overlooking something... all of these are possible, and until you understand how the professor is thinking about it, you don't have enough information to figure out how to proceed.


I am interested in retracting my old journal articles. Would it have any negative effects on my academic career?

The way to "retract" old work is to publish better work that references the old work and its errors. There should be nothing embarrassing about having found earlier errors and correcting them.

You have grown in the interim. Every active academic will likely have such an experience at least once in their career. The earliest work was done when you were, relative to now, somewhat inexperienced.

It is unlikely that they will retract the article for the reasons you give, but it is also possible that someone else will publish a better work based on your article. Your best course, I believe, is to publish it yourself.


What goes in a student success statement for a faculty application?

I would recommend e-mailing a contact in the department and asking them. I expect that the answer would be "It's just a teaching statement", although it could be different.

Another thing you might do is search the university's website for "Student Success" and try to get a sense of what particularly the university means by this buzzword. Keep in mind that this requirement was possibly imposed by higher administration, and the people reading and evaluating your application might or might not have high regard for the intent behind it.

Edit: (too late for OP, but perhaps still of interest) From what I can tell, when universities talk about "student success" they are usually talking about efforts to make sure that students don't fall through the cracks. So in a "student success statement" you might talk about how you've gone out of your way to help students who are struggling.


Advice on adding user stories to Masters thesis

I don't like including large amounts of "raw" data in a thesis, paper, or any other printed medium, because it does not contribute to the main text, and if you've already summarized the essential data in the thesis, then you don't need to explicitly include the data.

That said, you do want to make the data available in some medium. Perhaps you can make it available as an online repository (perhaps your school allows for "attachments" or "supporting information" to be included with your thesis. You could then scan the surveys (or bundle them up into a single file if they were generated electronically, etc.) and post them somewhere that readers can access.


What should advisors do if one of their PhD students has to withdraw?

Without additional details, it will be impossible to provide very detailed answers so from a general point, each case has its own solutions. The first question I would ask is, what is my part in this and how can I best help out (best may be = nothing). In general I would try to help out as much as I can unless the problem lies in the realm of a conflict or personal problems. Then there is not much you can do except suggest professional help. If the candidate is a good student then I would certainly support with any letter of recommendation I could. Since you mention morale issues in the group, it suggests some form of non-trivial problem. In some cases too much help makes people fall into a false sense of security so to be shaken can be useful as long as the reasons are very clear.

So without trying to read too much into what is between the lines, I think the degree of help depends on to what extent help can or should be given (seen from an objective point).

Probably not the most satisfactory answer but being responsible for the research education at my dept., I have seen how difficult these matters can be. In our case, I would also be a resource to help out, if nothing else just to discuss the matter. (This does not mean I run a research group completely without problems myself!)


Is it right to ignore publications coming from non-top publishers?

There are a lot of good publications in the world that are not published by mega-publishers.  Some of them you've never heard of because they are regional or specific to certain subfields, but are still very good.  It's also often difficult for people from certain countries to publish in mainstream conference venues due to visa issues. For example, IEEE and ACM usually require at least one author to be present in person, and that may simply be impossible for, say, a group of Iranian authors and a conference being held in the U.S.  Likewise, the cost of travel is often prohibitive for authors from the developing world.

That said, there's also a lot of junk publications in junk venues, and even something like the IEEE stamp doesn't mean you're reading a real paper.

So how should you evaluate a paper in a dubious venue?  Just like you would any other paper:

Is it on target with what you are looking for?
Are the results significant?
Is the data credible?
Is it part of a network of related papers building toward the presented result?

Publications in dubious venues are just much more likely to fail these tests.


I made it past the first round and I'm a Fulbright semi-finalist — should I tell the graduate programs I applied to?

I doubt that it would have much effect, actually. If you have been, as you say, found to be of a high calibre in one committee, it is likely that you are so viewed elsewhere as well. So I don't think either the pros or the cons carry much weight.

Of course, if there was one program that you were especially interested in and would decline a Fulbright to accept it, then it might be worth trying to "goose" the committee. Otherwise, just congratulate yourself and celebrate with an appropriate beverage.


PhD supervisor is extremely "hands-off": How can I get better feedback for my research projects and cope with this situation?

Its never too late to switch labs/advisors if your current trajectory isn't going towards where you want to see yourself in the future. Every advisor has their own way to guide students, be it "Hands-on" or "Hands-off". From my experience, I believe early career researchers who are just tenured or people who are in the process of putting together their tenure package could have a lot of things on their plate. That being said, here are a couple of things you could think of doing, but this is just an opinion and it is up to you to figure out what works best in your situation.

Talk to Senior students/Alumni from your research group

Talking to people who have had the experience to work your advisor could inform you a lot about how and why your advisors respond to you. If there is a certain work ethic/pattern that is preferred, you would have to adapt to it given that you want to continue in this field of research. Most theory/experimental labs that are larger force the advisors to adopt a "hands-off" style. But, in most of these cases, there would be a support system in the form of smaller sub-groups where Senior students and post-docs work with junior students mentoring them on their projects. In such a scenario, advisors usually are concerned about broader questions about the research direction and mostly rely on senior students to train you.

Have a frank conversation with your advisor

Its never too late to communicate your needs to your advisor. There would always be some room to accommodate genuine requests. Manier times its just the communication gap between advisors and students that leads to problems. Coming out clear about each others' expectations could help you build a healthy relationship with your advisor. Because, if you plan to be around in academia for a while then you should know that student-advisor relationships go far beyond the regular 5-6 years Ph.D. time. In some cases, this could also lead to some amicable solution with your advisor where you could possibly move to another lab.

Changing Research Advisors

Being a 3rd-year student, I believe you would have already taken your qualifiers(become a PhD candidate). This would also mean that you already have your research-committee that would have been set up to monitor your progress. In some cases, you could benefit a lot more by talking to members of your committee or senior professors in your department to get feedback about your work. But, you should definitely reach out to your advisor about your needs.  If you don't get a positive response from your advisor, you should be reaching out to the research committee and then the Graduate studies committee. It is their responsibility to intervene in case the mentor/mentee relationship begins to go south.


What can a person who hasn't enough time do about the unpredictable nature of the publication process?

Since you are in CS, the solution is easy: Submit your results to a conference first (at least as an extended abstract, if the full paper is too long for the conference). For conferences, there are fixed deadlines for the review process, so you are guaranteed to get a decision within two or three months (even though it need not be the desired decision). After the first version has appeared in some conference proceedings, you can still submit an extended version to some journal. Then: be patient. There is no guaranteed way to speed up the reviewing process. Live with it.


Would it be OK to ask a professor who recommended me to take a specific PhD program to write recommendation letter for another PhD program?

Yes.
And any sane person would not hold this against you. It is also reality that people often have to apply to multiple places.
 (Also note that if you apply within Europe, you probably might upload the refeence letter yourself and can still decide to find another reference if the professor is insane.)

It could be different if the professor explicitly tells you not to apply to program B (but this does not seem to be the case from your question).


Stackoverflow reputation - worth mentioning in personal statement?

If you find value in participating in an activity, then you should feel free to put it in your personal statement. It's no better or worse, say, than including your participation in hosting a neighbourhood PHP class, just that your "neighbourhood" is on the web. Just note the following:

Assessors may not understand what Stackoverflow is, so you may need to spend valuable space informing them about it. You need to describe not only what you do, but why you do it.
You may have many other activities in which you find value that you would like to feature. This means that the space you use to describe Stackoverflow will compete with space that you could use to describe other things. At its heart, isn't this an economic decision?
Understand that some assessors may look you up on Stackoverflow and assess your work differently. These sites are public, after all. Are you prepared for this to happen?

Good luck!


A major revision is similar to a resubmit. So, the editor has made a reasonable decision.
To answer your question: Yes, but my imagination only requires the possible existence of such an editor, so that answer isn't interesting.


Do I stand a chance in US universities? How can I ask for so many recommendation letters?

Also, seeing that I did bad in plenty of my courses, would it be okay to ask for a recommendation letter from a professor whom I did bad in his course?

It is generally not a good idea! What do you expect the professor to write if he only knows you through a course that you failed? Best case scenario: he tells you honestly that he can not write a strong letter for you. But he may also write a bad letter, which would seriously compromise your application.

  keep in mind that I might apply to about 15 or 20 universities, that's a total of 60 letters ! How can I pull this off?

You would of course send the same set of 2-3 recommendation letters for all your applications.


What the group leader should have said is that s/he has no money, but you can join the lab if you have your own funding (i.e., a fellowship). For them to dangle papers in exchange for free work is unethical and potentially illegal, depending on where they are.

Edit: What follows is entirely my personal opinion. I am no lawyer so no idea about legality; feel free to let me know if you think my opinion is too harsh/wrong.

Any kind of free labour in a lab is unfair and discriminatory. It locks out those in society who aren't lucky enough to be able to give their time away for free. This includes undergraduate internships. If you're working for someone, then you should be paid for your time. Even if you are receiving training.


Does publishing in journals known as "predatory" hurt one's reputation?

Yes, your reputation is diminished, because people will think you couldn't get published any other way.  It will actively harm your chances at pretty much any interaction with reputable organizations, including grant proposals.  Don't do it.


Interviewing in July - would start date necessarily be September?

This may depend to some extent on hiring norms in your field/country.

I would assume that if they are interviewing people in July, it is because they really need someone to start teaching in the fall.  (Otherwise they would wait another year and hire for next fall, when there would be more candidates available; I would assume that by this time of year, many people are off the market.)  As such, I wouldn't think they'd be likely to go for a deferred start date, or a complete release from fall teaching.  A modest teaching reduction is conceivable; you may be able to tell during the interview whether this would seem to be in line with their needs (e.g. if there is one particular class that they really need someone to teach).

The size of the department may also give some indication - a large department is more likely to have some flexibility than a small one.

You might be able to negotiate for classes that require less advance preparation (e.g. introductory courses instead of advanced).  You might also be able to get more money for relocation, on the grounds that you're moving on short notice.

But my gut feeling is that you should be prepared to show up and start teaching in September.


Oral Defense for Hearing Impaired Student

Almost all universities in Canada have a disability support services office.  You should contact them.  They will discuss the situation with the student and the examining committee and recommend a solution - probably something similar to what you have suggested in the comments.


Whether to share at thesis defense where I have submitted pertaining papers to

No, when defending your thesis there is no reason to give the names of the journals to which you have submitted papers based on it. It would not benefit you in any way (since they have not been accepted) and you will be embarrassed if the papers are rejected.


Some advices regarding the first research paper

Ask your professor to introduce you to a suitable expert.

If some of your professors think that your work is of substantial quality and probably novel, then they are surely fine with introducing you to some suitable researchers in the field. Note that, for example, a postdoc in the respective field may suffice. They should be willing to give your work the "badge" that in their oppinion, your work seems to have potential by writing that to the suitable researcher themselves. This should get rid of the problem that you describe in your second-last sentence:

"But unfortunately I don't know anyone such and I see no point in assuming that even if my work is significant, they would give time to read it without dismissing it beforehand as a work of some crank."

Note that an experienced academic in the respective field can add a lot of value to your paper, including improving the accessibility and providing a more comprehensive literature survey.


How frequently should PhD students update their advisor?

It depends on your situation. I meet with each of my students once a week via Zoom. When I was a student, I met with my advisor rarely. I only gave him finished results.


Professor moving group project member in the middle of the quarter. What to do?

The professor went behind the group's back by speaking to that individual privately and then announcing the move. This looses the moral high ground from the start...

The "best" manner to have approached this would have been for the professor to have met with the whole group and say "One group is now short and you are plus 1, so could you agree on one person to move". I have had to do this with many groups for projects and, if you show the position and let them work it out, it goes much easier.

Perhaps the professor is "new" to dealing with groups, but IMHO this was handled incorrectly and is difficult to sort now.

Meeting her with the whole group may be best, but whatever the final result (ie who gets moved) she may "target" you for showing her up... As an adult and teacher she should recognize her own fault though... But good luck with that -  it does come with experience... I have been dealing with 30+ plus groups of 5 for 20 odd semesters...


Should I hide the fact that I did a group assignment completely by myself?

Personally I would dodge the issue using

  Most of the work is done, but we need to...

I don't think it will really matter which option you go with, but that way you don't have to worry about it.

Anyone setting a group project knows that it is fairly likely someone will end up doing all the work. If they don't take any action to avoid that (and it sound's like they haven't in this case), then presumably they don't really care.

I understand that you want to get the credit for doing the work. But I agree it might come across as tactless to point out the situation in your email. It might be more productive to separately have a conversation with the lecturer about why they haven't taken steps to avoid the situation occurring.


Design of "Members Page" for Academic Lab Website?

All I know is what I want to see when I visit an academic's member page:

Their name and a picture (to confirm it's them)
Contact details
Their rank and position
How long they have been working in the group
A full list of publications with links to full-texts and a good .bib entry
A short bio / summary of work, including service and awards
Some teaching information (if applicable)
Supervision details (if applicable: whom they're supervising or they've supervised)
Project information (which projects are they funded from/P.I. of, etc.)

Keep it professional, clean and brief.

You may want to list details like publications on a separate linked page if they are too long/cumbersome.


Want to get MS in Computer Science but in a predicament due to low GPA and lack of references

I think your experience in industry will appeal to master's degree admission committees. Your application/cv should describe your technical skills. Get letters from your coworkers that speak to your competence with them and your ability to learn.
.
Your cover letter can talk briefly about your health problems as an undergraduate.

I don't know whether the absence of letters from your direct managers will matter. If I were interviewing you for a job it would matter to me, but for a master's degree I might well want to take a chance.


Is it rude to visit a professors office during the summer if they have not responded to my email?

It's not rude.  It quite probably is futile.

Many faculty are not in their offices very often normally.
Many faculty are in their offices less in the summer - in particular, they are unlikely to have scheduled office hours.
During a pandemic, you might not be able to go into the building anyway.

If the professor does not feel safe meeting in person during a pandemic, they'll just tell you to contact them some other way when you show up.
Do not go to a professor's office if you are sick.  Also, do not go anywhere, except for medical care.


Where in academia are HEA fellowships valued?

(Nearly) all UK universities want to signal that they take teaching seriously, both for student recruitment and for the TEF, for the obvious financial reasons.

For this reason new faculty are typically required to undergo training to reach a qualification that either leads to an HEA fellowship or is equivalent to it. Thus HEA fellowships are the national standard for teaching. Typically new faculty are exempt from these training courses if they have an HEA fellowship.

Anecdotally various people within my own institution have said that the push to get more faculty accredited with HEA fellowships was important for an improvement in our TEF ranking. There continues to be a big push to get more existing faculty to do the paperwork for HEA fellowship, although I do not believe it is a requirement (or even mentioned as desirable) for job applications for the majority of posts.


Which one of these is more appropriate for academic email

In the US, everthing said in the comments applies (in short: everything goes, it's up to you).

In Europe (and especially in German speaking countries), it is very unsusual to call other people by ther first name, therefore serim@ would be considered inappropriate and people might be confused and think of it as your last name.

Therefore, if you think international, I'd propose s.doe@... or, serim.doe@... . Most companies and universities in Germany use the last version since it helps in avoiding name collisions (of course it's no guarantee).


In US universities, how much academic information does a professor have about graduate students enrolled in his classes?

At my R1 state university in the U.S., I do have info on whether students in my classes are undergrads or grads or non-degree, which are auditing and which taking it for a grade.

I have no information on their transcripts, nor thesis work nor status, nor academic or research advisors.

For students that are my advisees, yes, I have such information. In fact, for PhD students or MS students whose committees I'm or have been on (that are still active...), I do also have such information. But not for any other students.


If you’re going to send such an email, I suggest you make it short and direct it to either someone you know or someone in your research area. (Hence this advice is mainly for research universities.)

You can introduce yourself, say you’re applying, and mention that you’re excited about this job.  Taking the extra effort might show that you’re serious, but I honestly find that it rarely helps and can even hurt in the case of a lengthy letter to a busy department chair.

I think if you know someone in the department, that’s when it’s probably most effective; e.g. an email can alert them to your application so they can mention you to the hiring committee, even if they’re not on it this year.


Summary:

Real research life with real world data is messy*, and there will hardly ever be sufficient samples (my very personal prediction).
There are huge opportunities (and needs) in working about small and messy data. Maybe that could become your area of research?
Good data analysis work requires close collaboration. Actually already when planning the experiments, but for sure during data analysis.
Close collaboration will allow you to make them aware of your needs and that data analysis cannot work miracles. It is also necessary for your because otherwise you may be employing inadequate analysis methods.

* When I say messy I don't mean bad curation (although I do see opportunities here as well - though maybe more business than research) but reality sneaking in with lots of influencing factors creating structure in your data where many (most?) data analysis approaches assume nicely independent data. I think this is a field that not only deserves more research but also that this has high practical importance.

I feel your pain. Been (almost) there as well. Actually, I still am (just my PhD is long done): so far with ≈ 15 years of professional experience in chemometrics, all the real world data I've encountered so far has one thing in common: too small sample size (even if it may look nice at first glance).

One consequence I drew for me is that I started to do research on such less-than-ideal situations I encounter in practice, e.g.

small sample size situations: knowing that I have far too few cases (some orders of magnitude below rule of thumb recommendations), how to diagnose when things break down, how to stabilize models, what will break down, are there hard limits, etc.
in terms of messy data in the sense above (with lots of influencing factors):
I had situations where it turned out that biology doesn't really obey the disease classification medical doctors use (that was developed for totally different purposes, as I learnt later on) how to adapt data analysis methodology to these situations (that were somewhere in between classification and regression)
how to adapt validation/verification procedures in such situations
(I work very much along the lines that you can to whatever you think may work for modeling as long as you do a honest verification and validation of that model)
I see tons of similarly important questions that are unanswered.
To the extent that if you need such research ideas, I'd happily supply you with questions ;-)

In my field, I think, it is going to stay like this: well-characterized samples are expensive.
In some respect you may even say that basic restearch isn't meant to have comfortable sample sizes. It's meant to find basic knowledge and point out promising possibility but the leg work of obtaining (and paying for) large sample sizes to make a method robust for routine use is something applied research/industry is supposed to do (and pay for). That point of view would say that taxpayer money should not wasted on work that industry could and should do.
On the other hand, I often see unnecessarily too small sample sizes in academic research: too small here meaning that given the sample size even without any experimental data it is (or would have been if one had bothered to check) clear that no knowledge is gained because the study is too underpowered. This is clearly just bad science, and a total waste of experimental and data analysis effort.
If that's what you refer to in your question, it's going to be hard work to improve this - but don't give up! Science needs people like you pointing this out.

My experience with that is that as PhD student or fresh postdoc how much you can actually do to improve the data may depend very much on how much weight what you say has with your supervisor (or even top level director).
What you can (and should) always do is to clearly discuss the limitations in terms of possible interpretation of the results of your study - including in the manuscripts you write.
To be fair, there are practical limitations. If we study a rare disease where the big university hospital gets maybe one sample per year, I tend to think that working with very few cases is necessary (but again: spell out the limitations). After all, one has to start somewhere.
Whereas, if we're talking easily accessible measurements of no particular ethical concern of a disease where the hospital sees 10s of cases per week then of course a thesis on 5 cases looks somehow lazy (not necessarily on the PhD student's side, though: The PhD student may not have been able to change pre-existing sample plans)
One consequence for my PhD thesis was: as I did not only data analysis but also sample preparation and measurements for my thesis, I put in substantial effort to have more samples (fortunately I had access to a comparatively large data bank, but in the end also that approach was limited by availability of the more rare conditions).
I'd recommend to at least take a decided interest how the data are generated (get a lab tour, get the collaboration partners explain how things work and what the data mean).

   If the input is random/to few features to be statistically relevant there is nothing I can do, though.

Yes. Again, this needs to be clearly communicated: I do have the experience that applied groups may expect miracles from data analysis (and you may even have a particularly uphill fight here if this group in the past got data analyses that were badly overfit and thus looking overoptimistic and noone realized this).
In addition, you'll have to document that it isn't your "fault" that no nice results come out of this data. It's doable though (and again in my experience something that is needed in everyday data analysis work as well: I'm just having such a situation on my desk right now again).

  [...] "groups" only are represented by two authors, the text is sometimes just one sentence long and quite a  few of the posts looking like they are produced by a random letter generator, not having any actual words in them. While I was promised at least 5 authors per group, minimum 5000 words per text and of course the post actually written by the author assigned to it.

A few thoughts about this. I "smell" some communication/collaboration issues here. Again, they are typical everyday issues in my research and data analysis work:

I've met similar things due to fundamental communication issues (e.g. between statisticians talking about necessary sample sizes in the 1000s to answer a particular question and experimental scientists "translating" this to "many" ≈ 7.
"quite a  few of the posts looking like they are produced by a random letter generator"
Your experimental collaboration partners may have no clue what you don't know about their techiques (again communication issue): unless you have a background in these techniques you have no chance to recognize what is going in those noisy measurements and how to deal with them.
They could be anything from artifacts that should be deleted because the underlying mechanism that causes them is well known and can be disregarded over "the signal is hidden under this noise and you data analyst surely have some magic to get it of there" (not going to work, but typical expectation) to "your outlier is my most interesting case" - without the help of the experimental/data supplying folks you won't be able to adequately deal with this.
Seeing all this makes me think whether you do have sufficient information about the background of the study to even decide which data analysis approach is suitable?


Is it acceptable to point out job offers in my graduate school application?

It's acceptable, but it probably won't help and could even easily hurt your application. It might be taken as a threat to the department, i.e. it's like saying, "I could take this fabulous industry job I've been offered if you don't admit me!" I might find this off-putting if I read it in an application. Departments aren't usually short of applicants, so a reviewer might just put your application aside thinking, "OK, you just go ahead and take that position. I have 50 more applications in this pile over here to go through."

Determination to do research isn't the most important factor in demonstrating your ability to complete a Master's or PhD program. The internship by itself helps show your passion for research, and maybe helps show that you're capable of it, but the idea that you're highlighting your willingness to bail on the internship in order to pursue a higher degree might say to some committee members that you're also willing to bail on the graduate degree program if something better comes along (like a nice offer from Google or Microsoft in you're in Computer Science).

I think you're better off using the current internship to show that you are able to make progress in research, and leave the idea that you've been offered a job extending that research aside, lest you come off as pretentious or threatening. There are lots of suitable graduate school candidates with internships or prior research experience who might also be suitable to the same program. Use yours to show that there's something different about you.


Manuscript status changed from "Reviews completed" to "Editor assigned"

I think @ShakeBaby might have nailed it in the "whatever" comment.  Best guess: reviews came in after all this time but were inconclusive, and "editor assigned" is the default state when needing to get more reviews and no reviewer has actually been assigned.  In ScholarOne this would be like having it set to require 2 reviews, then when the 2 reviews come in, changing it to require 3.

Certainly not a very informative status.


Barring any specific restrictions in your country or institution, a gift is fine in this circumstance. I'd suggest something small, fairly inexpensive, but thoughtful. I've got chocolates from a master's student sitting on my desk right now and I appreciated them. If you are from another country or region, some treat from your place of origin would be appropriate. Really, just a thoughtful card in which you've written how much they helped you is enough (and greatly appreciated).

I'd not give the hardbound copy unless they specifically ask for it. We supervisors only have so much shelf space and most of us don't have room for all the physical master's dissertations we supervise. I'd personally not want one. Digital copy, sure, but I don't have a use for a physical copy and your supervisor likely doesn't either.


How does doing a PhD with a pre-determined project vs. formulating your own affect your later career?

By selecting route one you are taking advantage of the potential that as your supervisor is more knowledgable of the field and so will know:

What the important/fundable/publishable problems in the field are.
Be able to judge if a project is likely to be successful
If a problem presents the correct amount of challenge to a graduate student.

Thus if you choose option one, your project could be more likely to be successful and produce publications and lead to fundable options in the future. This does of course rely on the supervisor actaully being better at these things than you. While not all supervisors will be (or will care enough to think about them), on average this will be true.

On the other hand, if you choose route 2, then you will be able to demonstrate independence and initiative, which are highly valued attributes in the postdoc job market. A stock postdoc interview question, at least for me, is: "Name a situation where you had an idea independently of your supervisor and followed this idea through to its conclusion".


Performing minor corrections in a paper after camera-ready deadline

First, make the changes in any case.  That way, you'll have the updated version that makes you most happy ready to instantly go, whichever route it might take.

As for which route it might take, there's no way to tell for certain except for the particulars of the conference.  However, I would recommend the following:

Sometimes a camera-ready deadline is "soft," and an automated online system will still be open for updates.  Try updating your camera-ready version and see if it takes it.
Whether or not the automated system allows you to update your camera-ready, email the contact point for the camera-ready (this might be the organizers or it might be the publishing society, e.g., IEEE has you send the camera-ready through their system rather than the organizers); if you uploaded an updated version, tell them; if not, email them the updated version.  There is a good chance that it will simply be able to be added to the pipeline at this point.
If that fails, then send the corrections at the "final check" stage: it is better to do it before this, though, because "shortly before the printing" makes me thing this is more supposed to be just about "Did we accidentally totally corrupt your embedded vector graphics?"
Finally, if all of that fails, you can always request a correction to the archival proceedings, though for minor changes this might not be granted.


What to do after accidentally submitting to a "fake" conference?

First of all, it seems like a good thing you moved on. That does sound like a rather toxic research environment. Especially that:

  The abstract was accepted, the paper for the post conference publication submitted; but on the day of the conference I was told that my presense was not needed, and that the protocol of the conference was already being written, and my presentation was "discussed" and that I have answered all the questions. (...) I no longer work there. But, low and behold, on their site, where the publication must have appeared, in that conference there's not even a section to which I have submitted. My questions about the situation are unanswered.

That does sound quite shady. However, I am not even sure why they would do this. You do not mention having to pay something (and, honestly, if they asked for a registration payment or somesuch when submitting to an internal conference, you really should have turned and fled immediately), and I am not sure what other gains they would have from accepting and then silently discarding a paper. Maybe this was after all an ill-handled organisational issue - for instance, maybe they indeed planned to have this "special section" but did not receive enough submissions to hold it, so they decided to just never speak about the "special section" again. I am in no way saying that this is the proper way to handle such an issue, but I could see this happening in some places.

  Do I consider that particular paper published as a part of this conference? Can I reference it as published, since I was clearly told that it would be?

As I understand it, your paper did not appear anywhere. It is quite officially unpublished. You can not reference it (at least without putting it up on a preprint server or something like that), and I would definitely not list it on my CV.

  If I consider it to be unpublished, can I resubmit it somewhere else? Do I explain the whole situation during the submission?

Yes, you can (and should) certainly submit somewhere else. I see no reason to explain the situation during submission.

Let me re-iterate my main point. Your ethical concerns seem to stem from your understanding that this paper is "kind of" already published, and that submitting it again would be a double submission / self-plagiarism. In my understanding, this is absolutely not the case. Your paper was under consideration at another venue, but for one reason or another (does not even really matter why) it never appeared there. Hence, the paper is unpublished and you are completely free to do whatever you see fit with it. Essentially, the situation is the same as if your paper was rejected at the earlier conference. That they sent you an acceptance is not the important part, the important part is that your paper is nowhere published.


Is it possible to publish a deceased relative's unpublished work with them as the author?

It is possible for you to submit things to arXiv, even without your name on them, but do note that you need to be "endorsed" to submit to the site. That basically means that someone with a good submission history in the same subject category has to vouch for you by filling out a short form on the site.

Any professor or (probably) senior postdoc in the field that includes your relative's research should be able to serve as your endorser, if they are willing to put in the time to verify that the research is legit. Usually these people don't have spare time to spend on reviewing research from unknown sources, but maybe if you have a personal connection with one of them, you could ask. Or I guess you could try emailing someone at a local university, but honestly you're unlikely to get a response.

If you can't get an endorsement for arXiv, you can still submit the work to a journal that covers the appropriate research area. There's no endorsement requirement, affiliation requirement, or such to submit something to a journal. Figuring out which journal to submit to can be a little tricky, though, especially if you're not in the field. Again, in this case, it would be really useful to have a bit of help from someone who is.

Finally, if you find it too troublesome to submit to either arXiv or a journal, posting the work online in any form (on your personal website, in a document repository, etc.) is a perfectly decent way to expose it to anyone who wants to read it. Of course if you care about getting people to read it, that's again going to be quite difficult without having someone to vouch for you.

Something you could do is pop into the Physics SE chat room and see if anyone is willing to look over the paper. There's no guarantee that anyone will, and I certainly wouldn't expect that anyone there would be willing to endorse you to submit to arXiv, but you might get some initial pointers in the right direction, e.g. people could probably tell you what subfield of physics it's in. (Full disclosure: I'm a moderator on Physics SE, not that I think it really matters here.)


Can a journal withhold referee reports from the authors of a rejected paper?

I consider that not giving authors the ground on which the decision was taken to be both unethical and bad for science. How should the authors improve the paper if they don't even know why they have been rejected? How can they get a sense of what the community expects from them?

I am not alone in this: the International Mathematical Union issued ethical guidelines for journals, including that the default policy should be that referee's reports are forwarded to author. However many journals give the referees the opportunity to give comments solely for the editors, and some editors prefer not to forward some reports to avoid pissing off the authors. I never heard of a journal with a policy of never forwarding reports of rejected papers before; this sounds absurd or really cowardly.


Applying for both assistant and associate professor position at the same university

First of all, are you sure you have a clear idea on the distinction between an assistant professor and an associate professor at a US institution, and in particular at this US institution?

The majority of associate professorships come with tenure, so that's the first thing to find out.  To go from a postdoc position to a tenured position on arrival is possible but really rare -- this is something that happens to someone because they're a superstar, not because they went the extra mile in applying for more positions.  To apply for both a tenured position and an untenured position sounds a bit weird to me: are you qualified for and desiring of tenure on arrival or not?  If the associate professor position does not come with tenure, it is not completely clear what the advantage to you in taking it is.  At all US institutions I know, the responsibilities and rights of all tenure track faculty are essentially identical (exceptions include certain faculty votes).  Moreover, in my department the average salary for assistant professors is sometimes higher than that for associate professors, because the annual raises do not keep up with market value.  At most institutions I know of you get a fixed, automatic raise upon promotion from assistant to associate and from associate to full, so arriving as an assistant professor with a short tenure clock might be more lucrative than arriving as an associate professor.

I would recommend against doing this "just to economize."  To address your specific questions:

  Is it normal to apply for two positions simultaneously?

It is not so abnormal, anyway.  I have often seen people apply for both postdoc and tenure track assistant professor positions.  Actually though this makes more sense to me, because these are both natural continuations of a PhD or postdoc position.  But I can't think of anyone who has applied for two positions and been awarded the higher position.  (I applied to my present institution for a postdoc the year before I applied as a tenure track assistant professor.  I didn't get the postdoc position, but I did get the tenure track one the next year!)

I think most people's reaction to that will just be to consider you for whichever of the two positions seems most appropriate to them.  Conversely, if multiple positions are available and you apply to one position, if those who read your application think you are better suited for another position, they may invite you to apply for it or even just carry over your application.

  Is there anything particular to be paid attention to in the application documents (cover letter, research statement, teaching statement, reference list, publication list)?

Presumably the documents would all be identical except for the cover letter.  If you actually have a good rationale to apply for both, the cover letter is a good place to explain this.

  What are the typical pitfalls of job seekers in such a case?

The main risk is along the lines I outlined above: it makes you look a bit naive and unfamiliar with the nuts and bolts of academic jobs.  But most young academics are this way to some extent, so I don't think it's a terrible risk.  On the other hand, I don't see much reward either.

All of this is a great thing to talk to your advisors / mentors about, by the way.  If you're really a good fit to go straight to an associate professor job, they'll know and be happy to tell you.


How to indicate when quotation marks are not used to quote someone in APA?

APA does not provide a distinction. It is assumed that all thinks enclosed in quotation makes are either quotes, and therefore attributed, or something "special". The hope is that your text clarifies the reason for the quotation mark. In most well written papers, the reason for the quotation marks is pretty obvious. Therefore APA style does not mandate a difference in usage.

As to why your instructor is flagging them up, it is possible your instructor is using some sort of automated system to find the missing citations or that your usage of quotation marks is excessive or improper. It is probably best to talk to the instructor to figure out what is going on.


I see you are having a few completely normal issues that many people in academia face.

Strict routines are good, and for some people they work wonders. But in my experience, the vast majority of people use more dynamic routines, where it doesn't matter, for example, if you've decided to go to bed at 01:00 instead of 21:00 in a particular day, as long as you are getting enough sleep.

As a researcher, get used to the fact that there will always be something to think about or to do. And since you are (unfortunately) not a robot, and your body needs rest to perform well, you have to set up some ground rules, the most important of which should be to make sure you get at least 7-7.5 (preferably 8) hours of sleep every day.
And there are different strategies how to "shut off" your brain in order to fall asleep: ambient music, alcohol, reading, a winding-down routine, etc. I've found that, for me, a good way to fall asleep is to think about floating in nothingness. Gets me snoring in a jiffy.

To help you record ideas, there is a very simple, but very effective, strategy: make sure you always have something near you to write on. Get a notepad (or notebook, or even simple printer paper) for your bedside table, you should have at least one notepad for all of your desks, get a pocket notebook to carry with you (and put it on a reel, so that you don't lose it).
So now, when you get an idea, but can't work on it at the moment, simply write it down in a concise way, and pick it up whenever you have time.
In fact, for ideas you know you won't have time in the foreseeable future to work on, or you are not sure how they fit in with the rest of your work, it may be desirable to keep an electronic list (or list of lists) of ideas, where you can elaborate ideas in greater detail, have references, associate ideas with keywords, sort them by importance, etc.


What constitutes "excellent" undergraduate research

Ok I did my studies and teaching in CS, so the following is my opinion from excellent to normal.

Excellent: The excellent case would be achieving a research contribution, and a publication; with a help of a supervisor (and/or his/her PhD students). Also know what you want to do with your PhD (if you decided to do so).

Good: The good case would be for you to do a research, learn how to approach reading and writing research to some extend, and now what you want to do for your PhD (if you decided to do so).

Normal: The normal case would be the supervisor's students help you to start thinking research. In this case you will get some idea about the research and surrounding activities.


Disclosing hidden disability to employer

In most European countries, it is usually against the law to fire people because of disabilities. So long as you're capable of performing your assigned work with reasonable accommodations, you should not be afraid of being terminated. However, you will probably need to have documentation of your disorder to provide as evidence to support your claim.


I notice that the sign:

Doesn't quite match the other signs for scale or style
Isn't obvious in what it's communicating (unlike normal warning signs)
Looks like a monster (apparently "We Must All Stop ManBearPig" from South Park):        .

I conclude that it's a joke by the museum staff, much like this "velociraptor-free workplace" sign at the Field Museum in Chicago.


My PhD situation is giving me anxiety attacks. Is quitting (and losing 2 years) my only option?

1- First, you would not be losing 2 years. In those 2 years, you learned things and developed your skills. In your current mental health state, it is probably hard to view this experience as positive, but I suggest you give it a try. Maybe make a list of the skills and experience you gained with your PhD.

2- Get professional help, as stated in the comments. Once you feel a bit better, you'll be ready to take a decision.

3- I get the feeling that most of your reasons to stay are linked with advisor-related guilt (funding, no publication, no reference for future work). You would be surprised, but most advisors are human, and did a PhD. He/She can probably understand your problems and help you reach a decision. Maybe he/she could even suggest some ideas to reduce your guilt (quit the program, but write an article on the side or help another person to pick up where you left).

If your advisor is not human (which, seems to happen sometimes), there's probably a department head that could mediate discussion between you and your advisor about quitting the program. But you need to discuss with your advisor.

Good luck and take care.


The first time the acronym is used, it should be fully written out*. For example:

  The Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion (SPECTRE) organization features in a number of the James Bond films.

After that, it's perfectly acceptable to use it as the first word in a sentence:

  SPECTRE is led by the notorious supervillian, Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

As for whether or not it's acceptable in journal papers -- I'm currently in the middle of reading a paper from a top-tier computer science journal that frequently uses acronyms as the first word of the sentence:

  "...for code isolation. CERE finds and extracts the hotspots of an application..." (1)

It's perfectly acceptable (at least in English) and encouraged, especially if it makes the paper easier to follow.

*As pointed out by NateEldredge and aeismail, there's an element of subtlety in this rule. If something is common knowledge in your field -- for example, most computer engineers know that "CPU" refers to "Central Processing Unit" -- you can choose to skip the acronym if you want. The same goes for well-known/standardized unit abbreviations (as your audience in a journal paper would likely know what those abbreviations mean).


I am uncomfortable about students taking pictures of the blackboard, because I don't like appearing in them

Perhaps you could make an announcement that just before erasing the board, you will pause for a moment to allow pictures to be taken, while you stand out of the way so as not to obstruct the shot.  You can ask photographers to wait until that time, and to please compose their shots to exclude you if necessary.


Working with two different set of colleagues on the same problem

Actually, you should let A know that you and the others have been working on the problem and propose that you merge into one group. If B and C haven't been productive on it, then you might want to discuss it with them first. It might be that one or both of them isn't ready for a more intensive collaboration.
You can, jointly, be honest with A that your progress has been slow.
But it would be a mistake to arbitrarily exclude anyone.


Documentation or evaluation instruments used for accreditation of CS programs under The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET)?

In my experience (Aerospace Engineering), the documentation provided to ABET during the accreditation process was stored in large binders, copies of which ended up on bookshelves in various conference rooms around the department. If you are able to visit an accredited department, you might be able to see them in person there. The CS department at my university is/was not ABET accredited, though the ECE department is. I don't know how either of those department treats their accreditation materials, but the ASE department left them lying all over for anyone off the street to see (more or less).


Can research papers be mentioned as projects in a cv?

It cannot be a research paper without a project. Research papers are for describing the results of the projects. Even review articles represent projects to collect the information about the current status in the particular branch of the science.

Once you are a co-author, you have been involved into that project. Co-authorship always assumes significant enough involvement. Hope this answers your question.


Web of Science advanced search returns papers not matching the search criteria

Right, so there are three elements here (let's call them #1, energy, #2, plants, #3, animals)

TS=(Digestibility OR “energy content” OR “Nutritive value” OR “forage quality” OR “nutritional value“ OR “energy intake”)
AND
TS=(flower* OR leaf OR leaves OR litter OR branch OR branches OR twigs OR stem OR stems OR seeds OR seed OR fruit OR fruits)
AND
TS=(“herbivor*” OR “ungulate*” OR “mammals” OR “grazer*” OR “browser*” OR "mix-feeder*” OR “livestock” OR “domestic animals” OR “captive animals”)

With no filters, in WoS Core Collection, I get 107k results for #1, 3023k results for #2, 270k results for #3. (Yours may differ depending on exactly which bits of the Core Collection your institution subscribes to).
Combined - #1 AND #2 AND #3 - I only get 1245, which is much more reasonable. But not the same as you were getting - why? You mentioned in the comments that you were searching All Databases rather than Core Collection.
Trying again in All Databases, I get 265k results for #1, 8490k for #2, 19019k(!!) for #3. And combined, 22532 results. So, we can see the problem here is driven by using All Databases. But why?
Normally, when you search a single database like Core Collection, you are only searching the Core Collection metadata for each article. This is not always as useful as you will find in other databases - eg MEDLINE might have really rich and detailed subject headings, but Core Collection will just have a few keywords.
An "all databases" search will search the metadata in all of them - MEDLINE, BIOSIS, Core Collection, and so on. It thus leverages metadata that only exists in one database even if the paper is found in several different ones - which can be really powerful, or can be really treacherous.
In this case, it's treacherous. You'll note that we get 2.5x as many for "energy", 2.5x as many for "plants", but 70x as many for "animals". So what's up with "animals"?
Web of Science "all databases" includes BIOSIS (if you have a subscription to it). If you open up a paper's record in BIOSIS, you'll see that it includes extensive keyword/subject heading data. This is from the first paper I picked out which matches the "animal" part of your query - it's about congestion charging in China.

Because BIOSIS is structured in a very logical taxonomic way, this paper - and millions like it - will be returned by any search for animals, primates, vertebrates, mammals, etc. And your search includes the keyword "mammals". Bingo. That keyword is massively inflating the results for your third section, and as a result a lot of papers that match parts #1 and #2 but you would not expect to match #3 are showing up as valid matches for all sections.
Drop out "mammals" and we go down to 473k results for that part in all databases, final results 3395 - much more reasonable and in line with the other results. The Core Collection search gives us 145k results for the animals search without "mammals", 1139 overall.


Are two undergraduate degrees better than one master degree?

Disclaimer: the following is my practical experience on research. I have no idea about the opinions of admissions committees and the like, but it probably depends greatly on the country and the relative quality of master's and undergrad education.

I am a theoretical physicist by formation (5 years degree). Then I did my master's thesis (I had taken enough courses) in Bioinformatics, and I am doing a PhD in Biophysics.

When I start a new project (or tackle the next sub-project), there are a bunch of things about Biology and Chemistry that I don't know, but most of them are actually quite easy. I am sometimes lacking "the bigger picture", being able to my questions into a broader meaning, but that is not so important. For example, my master's project was to improve the number of identified peptides in an experiment using computational techniques, and that is a very clear goal. What to do with this improved results? Obviously, we can improve the things we already do. But, are there biological questions it can help answer? I am not sure, but there are experts on that.

For the middle picture range, I rely on my advisors. They are also physicists, but they have learned along the way pretty much what they need. And after just a few months, I was surprised of how much I was able to help the new members of the lab.

Actually, I believe taking another undergrad degree would not help so much. Of course, I would be faster at the beginning, because I would know what things like "the $C_\alpha$ residuals" mean, but the actual meat of the project, where we spend months, is probably not covered (or not covered in enough detail) in most undergrad degrees. And the main reason is that these details are known only to those who have actually worked hands on with it.

Let me give you an example: in Physics we talk about spectra all the time, and all the information you can extract from it, with perhaps, the only limitation is the noise of your instrument. The truth is, unless you have a VERY expensive camera, you are going to find very funny stuff, like two spectra taken right after the other, with exactly the same experimental set up, will not have, on camera, the same intensity; and even the profile of the line. To compensate for this you need to get clever, and it very much depends on the details, so it is very difficult to teach unless your lecturer is an expert in spectra analysis and can tell you how they do it. And still, most people can just rely on the spectra pre-processed by the experts, so they don't need to know this. Unless, of course, you want to work with raw spectra yourself (been there).

Lastly, a master's or a PhD has some courses. They are usually quite specialised, targeted for your level and background, and can bring you up to speed in the things you need to know about your field quite nicely.

And to add some peace of mind, my former lab hired a postdoc coming from computer vision. His biological knowledge had quite big holes, but nevertheless, in a couple of weeks he was already doing amazing stuff with very good ideas.

Bottomline, go for the advanced studies. You can always take Biology or Economy on the side (for example Open University or unofficially at Coursera).


What position should a young researcher moving to a UK university apply for?

I don't think it is feasible to make a sure-fire estimation of what "level" you would be considered to be on without knowing many details (and then the question would likely become too localized for SE anyway).

Further, job titles and positions are not standardized between universities or, in some cases, even between different labs within the same university. What's called a Research Fellow in one place could be a Research Associate in another, and simply a Postdoc in the third. However, there are (typically) some "groups" of jobs:

PhD students (which you clearly don't fall into, given that you already have a PhD)
Non-professoral, non-student researchers (postdocs, various soft-money research positions)
Junior Professors and Professors (I'll lump into this everything from lecturers, senior lecturers, and actual professors)

You will likely fall into the second group, maybe you could also hunt for a lecturer position (i.e., the entry-level position of the third group). If you want to stay in research, you should aim to sooner or later get into the third group. However, typically, these jobs are significantly more competitive to get than postdoc jobs.

  And how could I improve my CV towards this?

Papers, papers, papers. I think your background in an R&D lab can be sold as a boon ("I have industrial experience, while still not being out of touch with research!"), but at the end of the day, papers are what people really look at.


How can I ask a lecturer not to disclose (my) grades publicly?

My experience from European universities is that even there, the grades should not be posted by name, but instead by a student ID number. However, in most cases, the university requires the public posting of the grades in such a manner (for exactly the reasons you suggest—to allow for petitioning of changes in grade).

Moreover, because of the large number of students who may be taking a course, it can be highly impractical for the teaching staff to respond to individual requests for reporting grades by email. (Imagine having to send out 1800 emails for a single course!)

Consequently, while you might ask for anonymizing of the grade reports by student ID instead of name, I think it would be unfair to ask the professors to report individual grades by email, unless you have an exceptional and demonstrated need for such an email (for instance, you are unable to get your grade because of extended absence without Internet access).


This reaction was discovered at the dawn of the modern chemical age (by Joseph Black, in the late 18th century), and is frequently documented in basic chemistry textbooks. This puts it into the realm of general knowledge; you don't need to cite it.


Short reference on writing numbers and units

I guess these recommendations by the American Physical Society might be just what you are looking for. In particular, Style and Notation Guide for Physical Review/Physical Review Letters deals with scientific numbers, units, figures/tables, and use of roman/italic fonts. (For some strange reasons, it requires a secured connection to see the file; in case you couldn't see it, there is an excerpt here).


Academic Job Interviews for Asst Prof Positions in Ireland

I am a USA academic who interviewed unsuccessfully in Ireland (but successfully in Scotland). I was partially unsuccessful as I realized a few hours in that I did not want to work there but as they had flown me over I did not want to be unpolite and leave the interview.
Biggest Three Differences

I got to meet all the other applicants. We were in the same room and
called one-by-one to do our presentations. I ended up really wanting
another candidate to get the job.
Only one person on the panel was a faculty member (chair) in the department.
No dinner with faculty, not a tour of the town, no real contact with the department
at all aside from the odd quick hello as we passed their offices.


How are GPAs from different universities evaluated for admissions to MS programs in the USA?

We have the same phenomenon in America, of course. All other things being equal, a 3.5 GPA from Princeton is much more impressive than a 4.0 from some random state university. The whole idea of GRE scores is to provide a metric that isn't confounded by the difficulty of different programs at different colleges in these ways. An additional difficulty you face is that  your American evaluators won't know how good or bad your university is. This makes your GRE score doubly important.


eInk eBook reader for reading scientific PDF papers (as of 2018)

I love my Kindle and was looking for a solution that would allow me to read scientific papers on epaper display. Generally, that boils down to finding a reader that has a screen big enough so that it can acomodate single PDF page, with margins possibly removed.

I don't annotate printed papers much, so option of having a stylus is not deciding for me. You'd have to think how much marking does your workflow involve. For me, the speed and software quality of a reader are first priority for me, as you have to be able to read comfortably before you can start thinking about annotation.The screen has to be also big enough to read PDFs comfortably.

That said, recently I have been contemplating two readers: reMarkable and soon-to-be released Onyx Boox Note, both sporting a little more than 10" display. Both adverise as supporting marking of documents. The reviews for the former unfortunately point out that it's reading experience is sub-par, the latter has not yet been reviewed, as far as I know. I've also emailed manufacturers of those solutions and asked for a precise dimensions of active part of the screen (to know whether PDFs fit well). Nobody answered, what is not very reassuring.
EDIT: reMarkable manufacturer has replied stating that the screen dimensions are 210x162 mm.


Usefulness of graduate school extracurriculars

Those volunteer positions may help boost your chances of getting a major award.  For example, one of the most prestigious graduate scholarships you can get in Canada is the Vanier Scholarship and the selection board uses your leadership experience as criteria for the award.

In addition to scholarships, it's always nice to have additional things to add to your CV to make you stand out.  These skills can show a number of traits that employers may look for.


What would be the correct response if a teacher gives you their own answer without explaining or giving any indication that you are wrong?

There are various reasons why teachers (and people more broadly) do this. In most cases, they think your answer sounds wrong, and want to give you the textbook answer, but in addition:

They may not feel confident pinning down precisely what's wrong with your answer.

They may be feeling lazy and not want to engage with your answer.

They may not be feeling particularly lazy, but your answer may be so confusing/confused/oddly worded that they can't face trying to engage with it.

They may not want to get bogged down in dissecting your answer, for time reasons.

Basically, if they'd wanted to engage with your answer, they probably would have done. You ask whether you should try to cajole them into answering you anyway. I would argue that it depends on why you think they haven't engaged with your answer, and what result you're after.

If they haven't engaged with your answer because they don't understand it, then trying to cajole them may force them to admit that, which they may not like (depending on their personality).

If they haven't engaged with it because they're feeling lazy, they might engage with it if cajoled, perhaps.

If they haven't engaged with it because they think it's confused, they might attack the answer, if you irritate them.

If they haven't engaged with it because there's no time, they might tell you that and possibly ask you to talk to them at the end.

So it depends on what you want to achieve, ultimately. Arguably they should have engaged with your answer, if it was understandable. But if they didn't, and you force the issue, you run the risk of annoying them (whether that's fair or not). It's up to you to judge the situation at the time, I think.
For what it's worth, I've been on both sides of this, as a student and as a teacher. From a student's perspective, it's very annoying if a teacher isn't perfect. From a teacher's perspective, it's easy to feel bad for not being perfect (which is impossible actually), and to wish students could empathise a bit more. The reality is that most students wish their teachers could be some kind of all-knowing Yoda figure, and that sadly most teachers aren't, and can't be. The older you get, the more empathy you develop for your former teachers, I find.


What does status "Undisclosed" means for a conference paper

"Undisclosed" means that the conference chair (or the in-charge of decisions) has already made a decision based on the comments received from the reviewers, but the decision is not yet made visible to the authors.

Wait for the decision notification date. You can see it on that date.


If you're displaying the screenshot as part of a paper on user interface, the use of the screenshot will almost certainly fall under "fair use."  Make sure you cite the software properly, and you should be all set.


Is publishing papers with many co-authors detrimental to one's academic career?

As mentioned in comments, the normal number of authors on a paper depends heavily on the field.

The issue with getting a postdoc is that you need to demonstrate your ability to do research. That doesn't necessarily mean you need to be the PI, as in some fields as a postdoc you would still be working on projects driven by someone else.

Having one or more individual papers would be one method of doing that. Being lead author on a paper in a field where order denotes role would be another. But for a PhD student applying for postdoc positions, their references will still play a big part in whether they are hired. Their supervisor should be able to include in the reference what part the student contributed to the paper.