Justifying the small size of a dataset due to collection difficulties

As has been said, a satistical analysis of your data set will clarify with how much confidence and accuracy you can  conclude your findings. This an essential part of the scentific process

In the natural sciences particularly, data collection can be problematic and limited by time and budget,  but the community are aware of this, as should be your reviewer.

All that is required is that you report your findings appropriately  even if you don't necessarily like the answer! In extreme circumstances you may have data sets that are so scant or varied you simply do need more work. It happens.

Science progresses with knowledge which includes less than optimal data,  as does helping those that come after you do better by explaining in your paper how you could improve your own approach.

I agree the reviewer is probably asking for this kind of analysis and not why you were unable to do as much work as you would have liked


What sources provide a list of all academic topics?

You need to define topic first. At the macro level, all topics fall under "knowledge", or some such nonsense, and at the micro level, every published paper and book is on a different topic.

You could use the different doctoral degrees as pretty broad topics. This would give you a list like philosophy (PhD), medicine (MD), science (ScD), etc. A less coarse division would be "schools/College". This would give you a list like School/College of Arts, School/College of Humanities, School/College of Medicine, School/College of Science, etc. A finer division would be departments and institutes within a School/College. A still finer would be research groups within departments. This of course leads to individuals within groups and finally publications by individuals.

University websites would provide all the information you need, although not in a format that is easy to search and retrieve.


I know of four approaches, and to my knowledge, all are commonly used. I'm coming from theoretical chemistry, so not quite theoretical physics, but not so different.

Often the data is made public, especially from large collaborations. For example: http://opendata.atlas.cern/ Otherwise, ask the original authors for their data. Often they'll share.
Recalculate the results -- especially the case with theoretical/computational approaches. Within a given field, many methods are usually quite similar to each other, so code written to do one can be easily modified to handle another. It just costs you some computer time.
Have a standard dataset that you compare to. If you're developing new methods, you test them against a standard that has been studied deeply. I've especially seen this in computational work, where a single massive brute-force simulation is used for years as a benchmark, and that data is shared with the community.
Graph digitizers, e.g., http://markummitchell.github.io/engauge-digitizer/. Scan and estimate where the data is. (Actually, this is the only approach I personally have not really used.)


What happens to equipment purchased using a startup package after an academic leaves the university?

What happens to your stuff depends on how your university classifies it. Inventoried material—more expensive items that a university keeps track of—will almost certainly need to be accounted for. So that probably includes laptops and tablets, unless they're so old they've been removed from inventory (as not having any significant value anymore). Major laboratory equipment and furniture also fall into this category. Such materials will probably be held as "surplus," and made available to other groups or departments.

In contrast, small-ticket items—such as stationery and miscellaneous office supplies—are not normally tracked. You won't be asked to reimburse the university for a missing stapler.


As a postdoc, should I expect my PhD adviser to fund my conference travel to present my PhD work?

One should always figure out the funding issues before submitting an abstract to a conference. Presenters withdrawing from a conference are a major headache to the conference organizers and it is unreasonable to expect them to reorganize the conference program because you did not figure out your travel plans (either timing or funding) in advanced. There are cases where there is nothing you can do (e.g., having a child), but in general when you submit an abstract you are committing yourself to presenting the work.

As to who should fund your travel, the best would have been to ask when you submitted to the conference. There really isn't a standard for who should pay. The first issue is to determine if your PhD advisor or Post Doc Advisor has money that could be used to pay for your travel. They would have to have money that could, if they desired, be used to fund your travel, and be willing to fund your travel.

I would ask both people and see what they say. No one is going to be offended by you asking. I wouldn't be surprised if both said no, but nor would I be surprised if both said yes.


Can we start a page with an equation on top left side, then an image and then other content

It depends on the type of document that you are preparing.

In (most) conference papers, you have a lot more freedom on the placement of images and equations so you can have your equation at the top of a page and images in the middle. Considering, however, that equations are part of the normal text, it is not best practice to do so. Also, if you are using LaTeX to typeset your document, the top of the page is better suited for images and text because of white space.

In (most) IEEE journal papers, it does not really matter, as the final document will be typeset for you and figures go at the top of the page.


What is the difference between research assistantship and teaching assistantship?

At my university, RAs are paid for 20 hours of nominal work a week, usually through grant funds, to work on a research proejct. TAs are paid for 10 hours per week per course with departmental or university funds to assist the professor of a course. Their duties may include: teaching so-called recitation sections of the course where the week's lecture materials might be reviewed or homework questions discussed or clarified, holding office hours where students can come to ask questions about material they do not understand or get guidance on homework, and marking homework problem sets. TAships generally do not involve doing research with a prof, though students with a TAship may transition to an RA with a professor if they sufficiently impress one during their TAship. The level of pay and benefits is the same (per hour) at my university. Both TAs and RAs are generally restricted to 20 hour per week of nominal work, and health insurance benefits don't kick in until they reach that level.


Is it obligatory to participate in conference if accepted?

As long as you haven't signed over any copyrights the paper is still yours. Yes, you can withdraw it. The organizers will grumble a bit, but you can ignore that. And even if you have already signed rights away you can ask to have them returned, which might happen or not.
But don't make a habit of this. The reviewers spent some effort on your paper that is now wasted.
The only other consequence is that your paper gets delayed. That could be a problem or not, depending on how many others are working in closely related areas.


How bad does it look if I asked the director of graduate studies if I can change my program of study from pure to applied math after admission?

Assuming your personal reasons are sound, a polite conversation cannot hurt you. Explain your reasons, and keep an open attitude. It is very common for people to change sub-fields (and fields) after their PhD, or even postdocs, so it will not strike as an big oddity.

Now, if it is possible or not, depends mainly on where does your funding come from; and if the university regulations allow it. This will be brought up in the conversation.

If your reasons for studying applied maths are your desire to clone green dogs, well, it will look bad.


See if your department keeps copies of past exams (most do).  If they do, then working the problems on the old exams is by far the best way to study.

You'll begin to notice the types of problems typically asked (there are some classic ones in each area that you should definitely know how to do), the average difficulty of problems, and most importantly help identify areas you need to brush up on.


How to state an unfinished PhD on a CV when applying for another PhD?

Just be honest. Don't make up titles for yourself that you haven't actually been granted. "Graduate student at University X" is honest enough. Note that before you are actually accepted your complete history is likely to be known in any case. There are plenty of good reasons for leaving one institution for another.

The new institution will want to know why you are leaving the old one. If your reasons seem valid then there shouldn't be any issues. A potential advisor will want some assurance that you will be a good person to work with. He/she may even want to learn something from your current advisor if you have one.

But you needn't put all of that on a CV.

You do need to account for your time spent in the current situation, of course.


Classmate shops my unpublished ideas around and contacts my advisors,

What you describe sounds very odd. It's hard to know exactly without being party to the conversations (and you don't know exactly what this person is saying to others about your work), but my initial impression is that this is more likely to hurt your friend than you. I also wonder if they're in a good space - it sounds less like someone trying to build a career and more like someone who might be a bit lost and confused about their own directions.
That said, it would absolutely be appropriate for you to ask that they stop talking about your work to third parties. It's one thing if it happens to come up in related conversation centered on their own work, it's another thing to shop it around actively, whether giving you credit or not. There are definitely kinder ways to phrase this and harsher ways. I'd probably start with kindness just because they are more likely to react positively. You can thank them for being excited about your research, but share that you'd like to spread your own work and ask that they not discuss it with people besides you.
You can also simply stop sharing such detail with them, without cutting them off completely unless you also choose to do that. If they are upset, I think it's reasonable to remind them that when you told them more they told other people, and that you'd rather talk about (any other topic). If they react aggressively, it may then make sense to get other people involved at your institution.
I'd also suggest having a conversation with your advisor(s). It doesn't need to be in any depth, and you don't need to set aside a separate meeting. Just mention that you've been talking about your research with a friend and you were surprised that they then conveyed it to third parties, and ask whether they think you should do anything about it. You don't have to accuse them or provide proof of plagiarism - you can just say what has happened and let others judge for themselves. They probably won't suggest there is much you can do, but now they'll be aware in the future.
Otherwise, keep moving forward and push towards publishing the things you have, like you would be doing anyways. If you have near-publishable work, consider discussing with your advisor whether it could be released as a pre-print. Whatever you have told this person about your progress so far, you have a huge head start on them, it's your research. Unless you think they'll actually be able to somehow beat you to publishing through their machinations, which doesn't seem likely from your description, they aren't too much of a threat.


How to get big-picture feedback from advisors, rather than just details, during fieldwork

You need multiple mentors for different purposes.  In my experience, some very experienced faculty cannot see the big picture of their research, but provide excellent advice about the details.  Some similarly experienced faculty can only give advice on the big picture and will pay no attention to details.  Seek mentors with a diversity of strength.

You can also try asking your mentors explicitly for broader advice.  I've had mixed results doing that.


Is there away to know who has published several high quality papers in a specific academic field/area during the last 5 years for example

THe easiest way I can think of is to access Elsevier's platform called http://www.scopus.com . There, you can do paper research based on author's name, field, date and nº of citations. Take the top citated works and research their impact factor on google scholar.


How to write an academic paper for the first time?

A book or paper on writing is a good introduction but can usually not solve everything. Reading a book does not mean you can reproduce what it teaches, particularly with writing since it is something that needs lots of practise. One problem is that writing is a question of both knowing how to structure the science but also a question of building and formulating the text, the latter being a language issue. So it is usually relatively easy to teach students how the technical side works and provide explanations for why. Teaching students how to be concise and precise is another question and without lots of practise it is quite difficult to get anywhere. During a thesis much of the language issues are ironed out by constant revisions sugested by the advisor. I also point out to all my students that writing is a life-long learning process and thatit is never to late to develop and change your writing.
However, I have some sources I fall back to:

Katz, M.J. From research to manuscript. A guide to scientific writing. Springer
Day, R.A. and Gastel, B., How to write and publish a scientific paper. Cambridge

The Purdue Online Writing Laboratory OWL is also very useful.
For language (English) I have (aside of Strunk & White) found

Glasman-Deal, H. Science research writing for non-native speakers of English

of use.
There are of course lots of books around but all are definitely not good.
A final gem is a short paper on abstracts

Landes, K., A scrutiny of the abstract. Bulletin Of The American Association Of Petroleum Geologists. 50 (9), 1992-1999.

Which provides an excellent description of the abstract.


Does doing more than one undergrad research affect my Phd admission?

If you want to get a PhD, your goal as an undergrad (in addition to learning as much as you can) should be to show your professors (who will eventually write your recommendation letters) that you have the qualities needed to succeed in graduate school.  These include, for example: curiosity, creativity, perseverance, a strong work ethic, and a solid grounding in the basics of the field (such as calculus, linear algebra, and differential equations, in mathematics).

What you don't want from a letter writer is something like: "Leth was in my class and got an A".  What you do want is for your letter writers to each share different anecdotes where you clearly display these qualities needed for success in graduate school.
One way to demonstrate these qualities is through a successful undergraduate research project.  But undergraduate research is neither necessary nor sufficient.  Two or three mediocre research projects is better than nothing, but not much.  One strong project is much better than three weak ones.
But there are other ways to impress your letter writers.  Maybe you do an independent study and really work your butt off, showing that you know how to learn on your own and that you have the passion and desire to make it happen.  Or maybe it's not even an independent study; maybe it's just a class project where you really deliver far more than what is required.  Your goal should be to make your letter writers more than happy to have you as a graduate student, if you were to apply to do graduate work with them.


No response from professor for letter of recommendation

If you are able to, you might consider attending office hours if your professor has them openly available before the deadline. In the event that your professor misses this first deadline, I would try to get them to submit the letter to the other schools as soon as possible. It is likely that all of the letters will be basically similar (meaning that all letters should be already written), so an early submission to the other schools should not be an issue.


Are letters of recommendation usually meant to be tailored to a specific programme?

When applying to a UK university nowadays, student normally fill out an online application where they will input their referees' email addresses/contact details.

The institution will then contact them automatically, usually via email, with some kind of form asking things like what percentile the students was in their class, give detail of their relationship with them, for how long etc. and sometimes a tick box 'would you recommend them for this course' question yes or no.

They would also be asked for qualitative data in the form of a letter of recommendation.  The could be free text or upload for a PDF or word doc (in my exp. it's always both).

However, in my experience, the prompt for the recommendation will have specific questions related to the course/area of research - eg comment on their ability to research such and such, do they have potential to research such and such.

So, your referees would likely be asked to provide some kind of course dependent information anyway.  Whether they copy and paste a reference from a previous letter, add a few lines to it or do a brand new one afresh is entirely up to them.

If you are applying for a PhD, I personally would expect you to have a fairly solid research topic and proposal in mind already.  Therefore, your references are likely to all need to support you in more or less the same capacity, and of course, you are the same person, so have similar references across different applications would be expected.

The only difference could be if you are applying for a specific project that is very different to PhD applications you have already made.  In which case, I would explain this to your referee and allow them to make up their mind as to whether they need to provide an extra bits to their ref doc for you.

Telling someone what to put in a reference is bad!  But explaining if there is a key difference would be helpful - perhaps make it clear when you request it at the outset.

Finally, remember that your profs can be trusted to give an accurate and appropriate reference for you - they after all receiving references for other students, so they know what is expected!

In sum:

Should my referees tailor their letters of recommendation to the specific programmes I'll be applying to, or is the convention usually for letters to be more destination-agnostic?

Leave it to your referee to decide, they will probably be asked context specific questions anyway, and the potential for variation is probably overstated.

Is it ok to ask a letter-writer to make the letter relevant to many degrees or asking for multiple separate letters is the usual practice?

If there is a genuine need, make it clear to the referee that there is a specific difference with or more applications that you are making.  Don't tell them what to say, but highlight the areas of difference.


Is it okay to ask a journal for review reports as they are available?

There is nothing wrong with writing them a polite letter asking what the status of the submission is and whether they have an estimate for when it will be done.

  The problem now is what if the reviewers ask for additional experiments to be performed, but the student who actually knows how to perform them has already left the lab?

This is really a separate question, but if that happens, typically your options are:

Convince the editor to let you skip those additional experiments
Try to get the student to come back and do them
Have someone else do them, hopefully with the benefit of the original student's notes and advice

  Would it be okay to ask the editor to release any referee reports already completed while they wait for a final decision?

I doubt they would agree to this. For one, it is uncommon to do this so most editors would refuse for the sake of being consistent with their policy. Also, sometimes the reviews can influence each other, for instance the editor might wish to investigate a disagreement between two reviewers, and the reviewer that finished early might want to change their review. Worse yet, it may be that when the late review comes back, the editor will decide to reject you outright. If you have already done some revision work at that point, it becomes an awkward situation. As an editor, I would never agree to this, simply to avoid weird situations like this.


Should I declare a minor if it is not required?

Why not? What's the disadvantage? An afternoon of paperwork? One extra class you have to take?

Compare that to the advantages: Let's say you are looking for work, can't find any in your chosen field (medicine), and so begin looking to work in a chem lab. Being a "medical lab science" major doesn't necessarily mean you know how to do a lot of chemistry, it may just mean you know things about handling biohazards like blood carefully. A hiring manager who doesn't know your school or that program doesn't know how much or little chem is required for such a major. You can't prove you know any chem unless they ask for a transcript or you have relevant work experience. But having "Minor in Chemistry" on your résumé would show that. So you could potentially land a low-level chem lab job easier that way.


Different research area in undergraduate and graduate

1) Bachelor's degrees in the US are generally less specialized than those in other countries (though this is less true in engineering).  It is quite common for people to enter graduate school without well-defined research interests at all and to make decisions only after a year or two of coursework and trying out different labs.

2) Any large department at a large major research university in the US (such as the University of Michigan) will have experience with graduate students from Australia and may very well have faculty who were undergraduates in Australia.  They will evaluate the University of Wollongong as comparable to similar caliber universities in the US.  It is true that, because some (but not all) funding streams and accounting mechanisms give priority to domestic students, that US citizens or permanent residents may have an advantage in admissions, but that has nothing to do with where you were an undergraduate.  (In particular, if you are a US citizen, having gone to the University of Wollongong wouldn't hurt you.)


How does one determine he has a learning disability?

From http://ldaamerica.org/adults-with-learning-disabilities-an-overview/ :

  Positive characteristics of adults with LD may include problem-solving skills, compensatory strategies, persistence, empathy, and outgoing personalities.  Areas of difficulty include: difficulty with reading, writing and/or math; poor memory; difficulty following directions; inability to discriminate between or among letters, numbers, and/or sounds; eye-hand coordination problems; difficulty putting things in the right sequence;
  disorganization; and/or difficulty adjusting to change.

Determining whether an adult has a Specific Learning Disability (SLD) depends on the type of disability (e.g. Auditory Processing Disorder, Dyscalculia, Dysgraphia, Dyslexia, Language Processing Disorder, Non-Verbal Learning Disabilities, or Visual Perceptual/Visual Motor Deficit).  Each disability will manifest itself differently, and the degree of influence will vary by individual.  In general, you will need a professional to determine whether you have said disability (see http://ldaamerica.org/adult-learning-disability-assessment-process/ ).


How seriously will "related" areas be considered?

The answer to your (real) question is: Apply anyway. A department's hiring strategy is many times not fully expressed by an ad, never mind the fact that it's something in constant motion.


How important is the language of the bachelor thesis?

It should have no effect, whatever on your future. You can fulfill all of the requirements of your university, but also, when you have the time, provide a translation of your thesis for others to peruse. You can, in theory, produce an English language publication based on the thesis in another language.

You need to demonstrate some English proficiency for study in some countries, but it needn't be through your official thesis. There are many other ways. In fact, a translation, done by yourself, might be an especially good way.

Yes, my doctorate is in mathematics, though I worked mostly in CS. Your mathematics will be much more important than whether the thesis is in one language or another.


Is there an American alternative to the PGCE?

There is no such certificate.

To teach at a public school in the US, you will need to be licensed by the state you wish to teach in. If you have a BA/MA in education from an accredited university, it is often trivial to get this -- you normally have to pay a fee, get fingerprinted, and provide your transcripts. But some states are worse than others -- you may have to take exams to prove you're qualified. I've heard stories about having to redo your BA/MA at an in-state school, but I have not been able to confirm such reports.  There is also such a thing as "emergency licensure" -- for example, if a school can't fill a key post, they can hire someone temporarily that normally wouldn't be eligible (e.g., a physicist without teacher training to be a physics teacher).
At a private school in the US, each school has their own rules. State licensure and/or a degree in teaching is a good first step, but each school sets their own rules.
To teach in an American school abroad, things are even less well-defined. To my knowledge, "American Schools abroad" do not have any oversight by the US Department of Education, so there are no uniform standards. Each school sets their own rules in accordance with local laws. Fluency in English and some previous teaching experience is often enough, though in some saturated markets (e.g., Geneva), and in some countries with stricter local policies, the requirements can be much higher.


Post-doc independent money/grant (astrophysics/computer science) in the US (travel expense/workshop)?

Due to their (traditionally) short terms, postdocs are usually limited in what they can apply for. There are NSF Postdoctoral Fellowhips in your area, as well as almost every other area NSF funds. The other funding agencies in the US (DoE, NIH, etc.) also have fellowships available for postdocs. You should search the Internet more carefully for other opportunities.

That being said, whatever grant is funding your work almost certainly has travel funding included in it. Have you talked with your supervisor or PI about the kind of travel you'd like to do? You should.


How can I find open physics postdoc positions in Europe?

Many jobs are only advertised on the website of the respective universities. Often professors post positions on their home pages or group pages, so it may be a good idea to keep an eye on them. Sometimes job openings are also mailed around to colleagues, so it is a good idea to let people know you're on the market, so they can forward these announcements.

Depending on your particular subfield there may be other relevant websites as well.


How should I react to seeing another student cheat on an exam?

You were right to inform the professor of cheating, and you shouldn't be penalized for that: your grade in the exam should depend only on what you wrote in your answers and nothing else.

However, I don't understand your motivation in writing the note. You should consider what you were trying to achieve by writing it. The way you describe it, the note sounds like it was lecturing the professor on how to do their job, rather than doing anything about cheating. You describe cheating as "unacceptable" but, by not naming the cheater, you show that you're more willing to accept cheating than the consequences of standing up to it. But, of course, it's your choice and your evaluation of the consequences is the most important.

You should perhaps consider other ways of dealing with the cheating. Other options include writing an anonymous note naming the cheater to the appropriate administrative staff. If you're worried that that would still leave you identifiable because the cheat knows you saw them, you could just start discussing the issue with other people in your class. If it becomes common knowledge that some unnamed person was cheating in the exam, peer pressure might stop that person cheating in the future.


Both scenarios are quite common, and commonality varies by discipline - but I can tell you for certain both happen enough that you should not be surprised by either case. There is also somewhat of a hybrid approach, where many researchers do their own statistics (or have a favorite collaborator who does it for them as part of their contribution) but they may consult with a statistician for some additional guidance or advice, formally or informally. If I were forced to guess, I'd say that in most social science fields I'm familiar with (many with connections to Psychology) I'd be somewhat surprised if less than 75% of statistical analysis was handled by non-statisticians.

In practice, it tends to vary by individual study as well, and will change over time with any given researcher or team. Some people do certain kinds of stats only (ANOVA for everything, yay!), and if they can't do that they won't do any - or they just do an ANOVA anyway. Some people do no stats of any kind, ever. Some people develop a quantitative focus and start doing their own stats, and then become known as "the stats person" and end up becoming involved as a collaborator for others with a focus on research design and analysis, even as they continue with non-stats tasks (coming up with their own research ideas, running their own studies, etc.). Some people end up running into problems they realize don't fit the stats they are comfortable with, and work together with an outside person (consultant, statistician, etc.) to guide them or handle the analysis, but only for that problem (ex: they realized they needed a survival analysis but hadn't done that before, so they wanted to be sure they were going about it reasonably but then did the actual analysis mostly themselves).

So, in a nutshell: researchers of all kinds do stats always, sometimes, and never, and the mix varies heavily by discipline, problem type, and weather.


If you want admission to the very best PhD programs in the US, prior formal research experience is very important, if not necessary.  Admissions committees are primarily looking for evidence of research potential.  The best possible evidence for "I'll be a good researcher someday" is "Look, I'm already a good researcher."  So having formal peer-reviewed publications is better than having publishable but unpublished results, which is better than having research experience but no publishable results, which is better than having no research experience.  If you're applying to the top PhD programs, you will be competing with applicants (yes, plural) who have peer-reviewed publications (yes, plural).


Impact of the Designation of the Recommender for a Workplace LOR for MS

While a letter from the manager is probably a bit better, I doubt that the marginal difference is what will put you over the line for acceptance or hold you back. I assume that you have plenty of other aspects to your background that makes you suitable for the new degree. So make sure that your letters and CV stress those positive aspects.

However, if you are committed to leaving, then the reaction of your manager probably means less, as long as he/she is honorable. "Sorry to see this employee go" is a fairly good thing to see in a letter. But you have to judge the overall effect as you know the person.

Just make sure that everything else is enough to make you acceptable as a candidate. Then the letter from the colleague should be fine, and, as you say, they have better knowledge of your contributions.


How to cite a paper which has been presented and included in proceedings but not yet published online?

Ask the conference chair or, preferably, the proceedings editor how to proceed. They may have already specified what the reference will be. Otherwise, cite the paper as you normally would, but without the date of publication, but naming the venue and "to appear" as part of the citation.

And it may be moot in any case as things may become finalized for the earlier conference before they need to be set in stone for the newer one. The deadline for final copy is normally later than the deadline for submission.


Best countries for PhD with good funding

Try one of the Nordic countries, Netherlands, or Switzerland. All PhD students are employed full-time as essentially research assistants, get a reasonable salary (close to national median salary), and all those countries have high quality research, good universities, and excellent employment prospects.


How to disseminate a methodology proposal to those who may be interested?

Submit to the closest journal and cross your fingers. This is something that applies to researchers even in established fields. You've written up something and think it's great, but when you submit it to a journal that you think might like it, they send it back with a desk reject, saying it doesn't fit the scope of the journal. It happens.

Figure out which journals the people you think would be most interested in the paper normally read, and submit there.

Don't get upset if the editor sends the paper back with an "out of scope" reason. (Although if the editor makes any comments about the quality of the paper, take those very seriously.) Sometimes you have to shop a paper around until you find a journal or an editor which is receptive. Sometimes your paper has better luck in journals which are ultra-focused on a particular sub-field. Sometimes it helps to go to a journal with a broad focus, one which publishes across a wide variety of loosely related fields. With the advent of online publishing and loss of page number restrictions, there's a number of journals who are much less focused on "scope".

Don't, however, be tempted to publish in vanity or pay-to-play journals. There's a large number of predatory journals out there, which will publish any old nonsense, as long as the bank transfer clears. Publishing in these journals are really no better than tacking it to your mother's refrigerator. The point of publishing is to get others to read your paper, and no one with any sense reads these predatory journals. (Because the papers there are junk.)

Don't just propose something, do something. It sounds like your paper may be just a proposal, without any conclusions attached. These are notoriously hard to get published, even when in scope, especially if you're not a luminary in the field. The way around this is to actually use your proposal to do something concrete. Your proposal makes things better? Show an example of where it does.

This means that instead of having a paper which is "How to do Y" you can refocus the paper as "Getting X done by using Y". There might not be any journals interested in Y, but the latter paper might be interesting to a journal where X is in scope, even if they're not all that interested in Y. -- I can't help you much with specifics here, but think of situations where your paper might be useful to others. Is there notable literature with non-linear narrative? Can you apply your techniques to Ulysses, Finnegans Wake, or Don Quixote? Is there anything interesting that comes out of it? If so, you might be able to publish in a journal which is interested in those stories, even if they're not focused on non-linear narrative itself.

If you can't come up with an application that's of interest to others - if your new approach doesn't come up with any new results - then that might be an indication that your methodology just isn't worth much as it stands now. You might want to sit on it, and refine it further. Wait to publish until you have something that other people will be interested in reading.

  I currently do not have an academic position, but am pursuing research
  on my own time.

This will make things harder for you. The problem is that there's a bunch of crackpots out there, who often come up with "new" and "innovate" ways of doing things. The problem is that, on the whole, they're 1) not actually new 2) not actually useful, and 3) have gaping holes in the implementation. The problem with "outsiders" is that they typically don't understand the field well enough to know where the current problems are, what solutions have already been tried and failed, and what the typical "gotchas" are.

That might not be the case with you (though no "crackpot" thinks they're a crackpot), but being an outsider means that the editor can't easily separate your submission from that of the many crackpots who are also sending them meaningless drivel.

You can certainly get around that by exuding competence and knowledge at every step of the submission process, but it may help to find an established collaborator to help ease your transition into publishing. (Note this can mesh well with the application suggestion. You can supply the methodology, and a collaborator can supply the example application.)


How can I write a research paper as 'original contribution'?

PS: I don't know anyone who would like to see the paper and provide suggestions for improvement.

I'm afriad this is your biggest problem, and somewhat of a red flag. Are you an undergraduate or graduate student? Do you have a research advisor who is active in your field? Why is there no one who can read it? It sounds like either:

This is independent work that you are doing as a student without a mentor, or
You are working in a very isolated program without feedback from professors and mentors.

Either way, this is a bad sign. If there is no one to read the paper and provide suggestions, it is very unlikely that you will be able publish successfully. It is just very difficult to produce a publication-worthy paper without mentorship, and more generally, feedback on what you are doing.

  I have been told by the editor that the paper does not have original contribution to literature development.

This sounds to me like a generic message that just avoids saying exactly what is wrong with your paper. For example, perhaps the editor desk-rejected your paper because they didn't feel it met the standard of quality for a good academic contribution. It is hard for us to tell without further context. Keep in mind that what counts as an "original contribution" does vary a lot by subfield, but your problem might be something else entirely.

  However the framework is derived from the past literature with complete citations and acknowledgements. There is no plagiarism.

This is necessary but not sufficient for your paper to be an original contribution.

  The context of study, place and framework is new.

It sounds like it is new in your judgment, but not in the editor's judgment.

  I am unable to understand how to write the literature convincingly that it's a original contribution.

It's not just writing the literature (related work), but structuring the entire paper, and perhaps doing the research itself. Ultimately, you will not be able to proceed without feedback from an established professor who can give you good advice.


Should I explain my "NP" grade in my statement of purpose?

This sort of thing is always a strategic decision. While some readers will appreciate the clarification, for others it may serve to highlight something that would otherwise not have attracted attention. I suggest seeking advice from professors at your current institution, who can comment on how your overall application looks.
If you do decide to address it, some options include:

Ask one of your letter-writers if they can deal with it in their letter;
Add a standalone note at the end of your Statement of Purpose. Don't work it into the prose of your SoP, just put something at the end such as

N.B. The 'NP' grade shown on my transcript for ... arose because I was unable to attend the final exam for personal reasons. I retook this course in .... and received an 'A'.

Include a cover note with the transcript.

Good luck!


If your country is a signatory to the Berne Convention, then you automatically own the copyright to anything you write, from the moment you write it, with some exceptions:

If you're being paid to write it, the work may qualify as "work for hire", in which case the copyright may be owned by whoever is paying you.  Ask a lawyer (but not your employer's lawyer).
Some universities (for example, MIT) claim ownership of "Intellectual Property" developed using university resources (for example, the campus wifi network).  Whether this claim applies to schoolwork is unclear.  Ask a lawyer (but not the university's lawyer).

In any case, unless you (and/or your employer and/or the university, if they claim ownership) release it into the public domain, it isn't in the public domain.


Here are the basic mechanisms that I know of, having only limited experience on an editorial board.
The first is a classic desk rejection.  This is where the editor who makes the initial assessment, just says no, without asking for referees.  This has to happen, or one gets flooded with AI generated nonsense as a joke.
Some journals insist that you list a few potential referees.  I believe that one of the reasons they do this is to see if you have interactions (even just closely reading their papers) with mathematicians.  If the author of a number theory paper list as potential referees three Fields medalists from three different areas of mathematics, probably they have no idea what they are doing.  Makes a desk reject easier.
The second is the editor asks for a quick opinion from a mathematician in vaguely the correct area, asking if the paper is worth refereeing.  You can tell if you get this type of rejection sometimes as the editor says after a few weeks something like "the feedback I have gotten are that this is out of scope for our journal." So I have heard.  From a friend.
Finally there is just sending it to one or more reviewers.  If the editor needs one referee, asks four in succession and they all say no, then the editor is likely to reject the paper.
There are problems with these methods.  Some innovative work is hard to classify, and a paper gets rejected because the editor asks all the wrong people.  I had a paper go to a topic editor, go out for review, then get assigned to another topic editor, out for several reviews.  It finally landed on the correct reviewer, but this could easily have gotten rejected.


Research paper feedback: "interesting idea but does not add scientific value"

In my experience this is a sign that you submitted to the wrong journal/conference. For every journal/conference there is a community of researchers that like to do research in a certain way. So if a reviewer likes your work but it does not match what he thinks valuable research should look like, that is the response you get.

For example, in my area of computer networks there are researchers who do more formal analysis and others who prefer a more practical approach. So some researchers think that if you can not provide a formal proof that your system works it has low value while for others the demonstration in a real-world scenario is essential.

Once I submitted a practical paper to a more theoretically oriented conference and it got rejected with very similar wording than what you wrote. It later got accepted at a reputable application-oriented journal. The same happened the other way around.

So try to find the community that is the best fit to your work. That can include - unfortunately - a lot of trial and error. The other option is to try to suit everybody, but that includes a lot of work and you will have a hard time sticking to page limits (been there...).


some questions regarding research plan for postdoc

You can cover several years with one research plan by putting the different projects on a fictive timeline.

You can mention multiple of them but they have to have a logical connection.
I don't have experience in mathematics (I did a PhD in Life Sciences), but one important point for postdoctoral application is to show that you can do research in an independent manner i.e. that you understand what topic of research is interesting/relevant, the hypothesis you develop regarding this topic, the approach you choose, and the key experiments which would lead to the results to answer your hypothesis.

An another point is that the research can be done during the timeline of the granted money, i.e. it is realistic and achievable. It is also hard at this stage because you might not know yet but you need to have an educated guess at it. That's why that in terms of number it is also up to you to decide if you should include all of them or not.
Regarding possible failure of the plans, try to include the ideas which are innovative and challenging enough but at the same time easy for you (because of your PhD experience) to do in realistic timeframe.

In your case, the hardest part of the grant proposal is to convince the reader that there is a logical approach between these different parts you want to study. If there are no connection at all then it will be difficult to do so and I would advise to not include all of them.


Prepared for 40 Hour Research Internship - Changed to 20

As in 50% of the questions on this forum, the answer to your question is: Talk to your professor. He may have a plan and can advise you on how to proceed. Or he hasn't thought the issue through and talking to you about it will make him articulate what his expectations are and match them with the ones you will have an opportunity to elaborate on this occasion. Or he doesn't have enough money to pay you for 40 hours and that's just the best he can do.

So many possibilities we all just can't know here but that a short conversation with the person in question can resolve!


When mentioning a source in my literature review, how much detail should I add?

The answer is that there is no universal answer to this question.

The first key is to have a clearly defined objective to your literature review. In some cases, you might not be interested in the methods used. In other cases, you might be.

Second, your references need to support the point you're making. Again, the level of details will vary.

Reporting every little details of the reference is less frequent, because you're synthesizing literature, not rewriting a mashup of everything you found.


How to use international experiences for a US faculty position?

I've had some experience in interviewing candidates from other countries, although my department has never hired a candidate who was not already working in the US.

The first thing to consider is what kind of position you're applying for.  It sounds as though you are not a relatively new PhD but rather that you have 10 or more years of experience as an academic in another country.

In practice, most academic positions in the US are openings at the assistant professor level, and most candidates for these positions will be recent PhDs (say within the last 5 years) with some post-doc experience but no experience in a tenure track faculty position.  It is not very usual for a more experienced faculty member from another university to be appointed to such a position.  Most universities would prefer to hire a new graduate from a top tier program with a couple of years of post-doc experience and then have that faculty member develop as an assistant professor at their institution.

Some positions are advertised at the "assistant or associate professor level", and you would be a better candidate for such a position.  In these searches, the committee is typically trying to hire the highest quality candidate that they can find, and a more experienced candidate with a good CV can be competitive.  On the research side you will need to demonstrate that you have been consistently productive throughout your academic career.   This means that you've been regularly publishing in good international journals and have published at a high rate.  A post-doc who has published 12 papers in two years in good journals will look better for this kind of position than someone who has published 80 papers over a 20 year career, particularly if not all of these publications were in top journals.  It is also important to have teaching experience in English (be sure to mention this in your CV and cover letter.)

At the full professor level the department is often looking for a distinguished researcher to fill a named professorship and/or lead a research group within the department.  Unless you're one of the top experts in your field, you're not likely to be competitive for such a position.  Often these kinds of positions are filled by recruiting a faculty member away from another university by offering them a higher salary, special facilities, and the opportunity to hire assistant professors in their area.

You might also consider applying for a department chair position.  These are typically part time (varying to essentially full time) administrative positions with some expectation of teaching and research.  The ways in which public and private universities in the US are funded are very different from other countries and their are many differences in university administration that might be challenging to someone coming in from another country.

There are of course immigration issues to consider as well.  Most of the more prestigious universities are generally willing to pay the costs associated with sponsoring a tenure track faculty member for a visa and ultimately permanent residency.  However, some lesser ranked institutions will balk at the cost.

In answer to your specific questions:

  How do search committees compare local and international candidates?

Your research accomplishments should include conference presentations and publications in international venues.  Publications in journals that are local to your country or continent will not receive much credit.

  Do they care about my unique experiences? for example possibility for
  building collaboration with my home country or attracting
  international students?

In my experience this is a relatively minor factor.

  Are my administrative experiences beneficial or it is a faculty
  position and nobody cares about administrative works?

Only if you're applying for an administrative position such as department chair.


I think it good to share. It shows you are thoughtful and got something out of the discussion. But keep it short.


Who should write a recommendation letter?

Your letters should come from experts in your field who are familiar with your work.  They should be written by professors who are substantially more senior than you are, and who will be known to the people reading your applications.

A typical situation for someone applying for a first job out of graduate school would be one letter from your advisor, one letter from someone else in your dept. who is also an expert in your field, and one letter from an expert at a different school who saw you speak in a seminar or at a conference and who has read your papers.  It is not necessary, at the new-graduate level, to have had more substantial interactions with outside letter writers than their having seen you talk and read your papers.  If you can get two good outside letter writers, then do that instead, but in my experience it's common to have only one outside letter writer at this stage.  At least two of these people should be at the associate or full professor level, and all should have excellent tenure-track jobs.  For someone a few years out of Ph.D. one would expect, in addition to the Ph.D. advisor and postdoc advisor, letters from well-known experts in the field who have interacted more substantially with the applicant.


Acknowledgements in an industry-sponsored dissertation

I would say generally there are no perfect settings for acknowledgements. It all depends to your university dissertation rules. If the thesis/dissertation booklet does not cover the way acknowledgement should be stated then its up to you.


Recommendation from institutional email or private?

You seem to have answered your own question. If you don't want the recommendation to be subjected to further review, you should ask her to use her institutional email address. Anyone can set up a Gmail account, whereas there is a level of authenticity implied by an institutional email address. It's not relevant that she isn't sending the letter in her capacity as a professor, since the main purpose of the email address is to authenticate who she is. The college are requesting that letters of recommendation are sent from institutional email addresses since it reduces the amount of extra work required of them and of the recommender.


Professor deviating from the syllabus mentioned apriori

Yes, you can speak with both of them, but in the spirit of enquiry, not condemnation. There may be good reasons for it and you have a right to know such things. You especially need to know how much the testing/evaluation framework will follow the original syllabus. And a bit more lead time than "the day of the lecture" is useful for the best students who might be inclined to study ahead of lecture.
Some adjustments may be necessary in the course and your enquiry might lead to them, but it might also lead to a deeper understanding on your part of what is more important in this subject.
There might be a lot of reasons for a deviation, including an inexperienced instructor - or a very experienced one.
And you are in a better position to make guesses about personalities and the effect of an enquiry than anyone here. A reasonable person shouldn't take questions about the syllabus and the expected learning as confrontation.
And, of course, there is also the question of how much scaffolding the professors provide for your learning.


Physician assistant school rescinded my acceptance

Your highest priority should be getting safe from abuse.  We're not experts on that, so please contact a local authority.
Here is a list.  You may be able to get help without using a phone.
Becoming a physician assistant is not the only way out of your difficulties.  So don't panic about your acceptance.  Higher education does exist to help people like you, but there are many ways to get education.
Contact the Director of Admissions for the Physician Assistant Program and explain your situation to them.  They will want to help you.  If you cannot find this person, try the Dean of Students.  If you cannot find them either, look for an Omsbudsperson.  Your admissions problem sounds like it is caused by disorganization.  If you contact the right person they will fix the problem.  Since we do not know which school you are talking about, we cannot tell you exactly who to contact.
Ask local doctors what they think about this program before you start it.  Not all medical training programs are good.


PhD: Switching Universities and Subjects After Three Months?

Although it wasn't my original interest, I was offered to have at least my fees covered so I took it.

You made a wrong move here, in my opinion.

A PhD is not an undertaking to be taken without strong motivation. It is certainly not something to do while what you really want to be doing is something else (whether that something else is another kind of research or a different activity).

Also, being a PhD candidate is work. They don't "cover fees", they pay you - because they need your research output; a university is (among other things) a research institute, and it hires researchers. The payment might be super-low, but that's because academic staff members are often non-unionized, or have extremely weak unions, to fight for decent recognition and pay.

So you're telling us that you took a job you weren't interested in taking because they pay a salary; as opposed to a job you are interested in (again, if I understand you correctly), but which doesn't pay at all.

I'd say the decision now depends on your economic predicament.

Option 1: You have some economic fall-back

If you have some money put aside - even not a large amount; or parents to support you; or can stay somewhere where you don't have to pay rent (dorm, friends' place etc.) - then I'd advise you switch to the university and department where you actually want to do research at.

As A Ph.D. candidate, you mentioned you might be able to "snag" some funding; but there's also the possibility you can be employed as a teacher or teaching assistant. And sometimes you might be eligible for a dorm assignment or other benefits. Try to look into this with your prospective PhD advisor or department administrator.

Caveats:

If you don't feel absolutely sure about the Psych department either - especially seeing how you don't have a specific intended research subject, even a tentative one, nor an intended supervisor - I would try to "flesh out" the alternative a little bit more before leaving.
Leaving is not entirely binary; you might want to read on even if this option sounds more like your case.

Option 2: You absolutely have to have your steady income

If simply have to have your monthly income, and have nothing to fall back on; and especially if you have dependents (spouse, children, parents with no income) - then life has been cruel to you, and you're stuck. You can't be a PhD candidate and live off air. Where you're at right now is certainly not the best of all possible worlds, but it seems you're not failing to do what you're expected - you're "just" dissatisfied and are worried about the expectations from you.

In this case, try to find some in-between arrangement, such as letting you spend half a day or a day a week at the other university - for grad-level courses, for meeting with potential collaborators etc. Since you're an inter-disciplinarian, and you're the "ranking Psychologist" around, it's quite likely they'll oblige. Maybe you'll even manage to arrange for inter-university collaboration on some project, and have a co-advisor from the other university? Who knows.

If that doesn't work out, well, I guess you'll have grit your teeth and try to do your job as best you can. Psychology won't disappear, not will the other university - nor, in fact, the possibility of doing academic research there in a few years when things change. You might consider devoting some of your time to forming a Graduate Researchers' Union - so that people who follow in your footsteps would be able to save up money more quickly, or alternatively, get paid as Psychology Ph.D.s from the get-go.


Studying strategies for a full-time working mathematician

If you study 1+3=4 hours per day I believe this is enough. Do not worry about anything. Just keep studying like this and you will reach your goal.
(Which I suppose is to become an independent researcher)


Uploading papers on sites such as Academia.edu - copyright issues/author copy

You can check here what you are allowed to do; http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/

Some springer journals are Romeo Green, and allow you to upload the author post review final draft to an open Access repository 12 months after publication.

With Open Access publications you can do that straight away


How to cite in two languages combined with acronym at the same time in Harvard style

English and German/Italian/etc. are not on the same footing in scientific writing: English is commonly accepted as the international language of science (most, if not all, top journals in all fields are published in English), so writing in English, one uses the appropriate English terms (but giving in addition names of companies in their original language, to make e.g. online searches easier, is totally acceptable). So in such a case (from my own experience), one should go with

  English translated name of company (name of company in the original language, original acronym)

When you write in German, Italian or any other language, the hidden assumption is that you adress the text mostly to the native users of that language, so should make it as easy for them to follow as possible. So in this case one could write

  German/Italian/etc. translated name of company (name of company in original language [e.g. English, but in case of French companies it should be the original French name], original acronym)

with the name and acronym in the original language again to facilitate online searches.


How to apply for a research internship at the master's level?

Networking is key--check out F'x's answer to this question. Find people in your university who are willing to recommend you to the other researchers in the field, whom you would like to work with. Take advantage of the connections your faculty members have developed.

Then write a killer cover letter. aeismail notes that a compelling 'cover letter' email was the only reason he even considered an individual for a research internship. Research the PI and tailor your letter to his/her interests and current project.


Determining the appropriate research design

In this instance, I respectfully disagree with @Wrzlprmft's comment. The core of this question is clearly focused on the research design / methodology and, thus, fits the scope of Academia.SE very well. Software development in this case simply represents the context of the applied research.

In regard to the essence of the question, I can offer the following insights and recommendations.

In my opinion, grounded theory (GT) is not a good fit for your study, as GT is typically used for designing general theories, rather than applied ones.
Design science seems like a pretty good fit, so you might read up and consider strategies for compressing research, performed, using this approach, to fit your time frame.
You might also consider other qualitative research designs and approaches, such as content analysis, narrative analysis and others (see more details, for example, at Qualitative Research Guidelines Project).
I would especially recommend you to pay attention to action research, as this research approach seems to fit quite well with your planned study. For more details on action research and other qualitative approaches, as well as likely the most popular qualitative research software ATLAS.ti, see this page.

Finally, I would urge you to pay attention to your terminology, as it might be very confusing not only to potential readers, but to the authors themselves. For example, your phrase "theoretical design of the software application" sounds... quite strange and reduces the clarity of your work and, thus, potentially, can hurt readers' impressions from it. I think that "conceptual design of a software application" sounds and reads much clearer. Hope this helps. Good luck with your thesis!


I am interested in researching two very different problems (Genetics + Computer Vision). Haven't started a PhD yet

Your approach sounds reasonable to me.
Both problems do share some elements in common:

both operate on a larger data set, so efficient algorithms are needed.
both may profit from novel approaches to identify patterns

Both could be based on AI. I know greedy algorithms from traditional computing for genetic research as well as for vision. Why not trying that way with you specific ideas?
As I did a PhD in high performance computing, I can recommend doing your way. You should have passion for your path; it may take a while.


For graduate admissions, focus on bachelor thesis or other research publication

Assuming both are closely related to your subject for graduate studies, either could be more important.  Even if you have a published paper, graduate admissions committees are not likely to truly read it, though many people may take a quick look at it, to get some sense of what level it is at.  (Though if this is a joint paper, just from looking at the paper, a committee will not know how much is due to you.)

Here committees will form an opinion largely based on your letters of recommendation, so if you impress someone in the research lab or your thesis advisor, you should definitely ask for a letter of recommendation.  If your thesis advisor is well known, a strong letter from that person can make a bigger impact that one from your research lab.  On the other hand, if you don't do a good job on your thesis, you may want to think twice about asking that advisor for a letter.

So, ideally, you should try to do a good job on both, and get letters from both.  Presumably you have some tacit agreement with both the lab and your thesis advisor for how much work they expect from you, and you should try to meet both of those.  If you can't, this means you are overcommitted, and you need to have a conversation with one or both of these parties.  (The same goes if you are unclear on how much work is expected of you and you are having trouble balancing these projects.)


Can I write to a (prestigious) conference that I am interested in chairing a session?

Yes, it's okay to volunteer to chair a session, but there is not a lot of benefit to it and you might be turned down.  People may see it as unusual, since it's not a prestigious job (certainly nothing to list on your CV).

It's important to have a chair who can keep the session running on time, provide appropriate introductions, and sometimes ask a question if there are no questions forthcoming from the audience.  These are fairly easy tasks, but if I was organizing the conference and I didn't know you, I probably wouldn't agree to let you chair since I don't know how capable you are in these regards.


Good first-time study pre-registration website/service

Looking around, it seems that there are a number of preregistration sites available, but they're not set up in the way you described.

A number of journals seem to have set up their own pre-registration processes, as described in the following two articles: [1] [2]
Some labs publish their own pre-registration papers (see these papers in the Harvard dataverse database).
Some fields are trying to set up pre-registration datasets specific to their field (e.g., political science), and they don't seem to be getting much traction
At least one other site seems to mirror AsPredicted.org in both scope and function: the Open Science Foundation Registered Reports site

All that said, though, it seems that pre-registration is still in its infancy. There are many articles discussing whether preregistration is a good idea at all ([3][4][5][6], as well as [1] and [2] from above), with some pointing out some very significant flaws with the concept. Additionally, while AsPredicted.org seems to be trying to do a good job, not all study paradigms can be encompassed within it's structure.

I fully recognize that your question is asking for a location where you can preregister, and that my answer is getting away from addressing that directly. That's intentional; given that (a) the concept is in its infancy, (b) the concept is nowhere near standard practice for any journal or field, and (c) it's unclear what role preregistration plays in peer-reviewed research anyways, my recommendation would be to simply follow your own lead and write down for yourself ahead of time the types of analysis you intend to perform, and use that as a guideline for yourself. Stated differently, even if you were able to put this sort of information in a centralized database (which doesn't currently exist), you would experience no more benefit than if you just wrote it down in a notebook and stored it in your office.


Accepting and then Declining Grad School Admissions Offer

Can I accept the offer now and then later decline it if I get into any of the other schools? Or should I ask for a date extension as to when I can accept or decline their offer?

Asking for an extension is better, since that doesn't mislead (whereas accepting and then declining does).


Unless you have in mind a second degree in a completely different field, I think you'd be spinning your wheels.  You can probably take those physics and math courses in post-baccalaureate status; check with the institution from which you got your degree.

If you are thinking of a second bachelor's degree in a field similar to your first, go for the master's degree in that field instead.  Your freshman year GPA will probably not keep you out of most programs since you have a solid record in your final years.  Presumably you'd get good recommendations from your upper division professors.


Right time to go for poster presentation and talks

If you show a poster or give a talk on unpublished work, there is always a risk of your ideas being poached. There is also the possible benefit of someone contributing questions/ideas that can enhance your research.

To mitigate the risk, if your research is ready to be shown in a paper/talk, maybe you should be able to post a preprint so that your authorship is established. Your supervisor should be able to clarify what the ethos of your research area is about this.

There is still some risk, though. I know a mathematician who posted very good results on the arxiv. At the same time, he submitted the article to a good journal. The article took about a year to referee, and came with a rejection (not because of anything wrong but because of the high standards of the journal). Meanwhile, during that year, a pair of mathematicians read his preprint, improved on his results, and got this generalization published (acknowledging the original contribution from the arxiv). So this guy ends up with his best paper unpublished and unpublishable. Needless to say that after this experience, he was very wary of preprints. But this is an exception, and most mathematicians post in the arxiv all the time without major issues.


Which is better for PhD application: research-based BS thesis somewhat related to interests, or extra courses + standard thesis in area of interest?

If your plans to pursue a PhD eventually are serious, I would definitely recommend the research-based option. You'll see this advice in many other places, but acquiring a PhD is very much the process of learning how to do research and proving that you can indeed do it. Even if the project is not directly in an area that you're very interested in, you'll have the opportunity to start practicing your research skills. The prospect of a publication is also something to keep in mind; an entering PhD student who has already published is viewed as already having proved to some degree that they're capable of quality research, and I've never met a faculty member anywhere who didn't appreciate that.

You're exactly right in that the research experience will be valuable to you even if you do not end up with a publication. Why? Primarily, if you do good work you've given your faculty collaborators some very good material to put in the reference letters you're going to want them to write when you apply to PhD programs. In fact, in your position I'd probably be thinking more about coming out of the experience with a strong reference than a publication.


I screwed up the final. What should I do?

As Nate Eldredge cautions in his comment above, it's probably up to you, not the instructor to submit a withdrawal request to the registrar.  Usually, the instructor's only involvement is to approve or disapprove your request.  But once you've taken the final and depending on your school's policies, it's probably too late to withdraw anyway.

That said, your life is almost certainly not ruined. If you wrote anything at all, you will likely get some partial credit.  And who knows how your instructor will curve the results.  If you had trouble even after doing your best to prepare, it's quite possible others did as well and that the curve will be much easier than either you or the instructor expected.  Sometimes instructors accidentally write a test that's too hard or has errors that make a problem impossible.  (I taught EE at Washington and now teach CS at Michigan, so think about how I would know this happens! :)

Finally, even if your final grade is low enough that you need to repeat, this is still not fatal.  Students are rarely aware of just how many of their peers have to repeat classes.  And guess what, they still get jobs.  Yes, of course I understand why you're upset.  But you're not dead yet.


What should you do if you find a few sentences of verbatim plagiarism in the literature review of published PhD thesis?

A few sentences copied out of the papers reviewed in the literature overview before the main text of the thesis? I'd be rather surprised if that doesn't happen all the time.


How to publish review of commercial software

There are popular magazines and some (semi) professional ones that might be appropriate for such things, but it is less likely that any scientific journal would be interested. For this reason, it is unlikely that such an article would do much for a scientific reputation. But for a person in industry, it might give them some visibility that might help in a job search.

Some people do such things on personal blogs, of course.


Can I ask a professor to do work for him/her during the summer as a form of an internship?

You can certainly send emails to faculty offering your unpaid services over the summer. This is common practice.

When you do, keep in mind that professors often receive numerous such offers and that, depending on the nature of the lab, the cost of getting a volunteer or intern up and going may exceed the benefit of having the volunteer around.  Moreover in some areas, particularly more mathematical and theoretical disciplines, an intern would need considerable background in math, programming, or similar to be of much service.

Therefore it is strongly in your interest to make your offer stand out from the others. One way to do this is to convey a decent understanding of the work being done in the lab to which you are applying, and to convey your interest and enthusiasm in being part of that work. When I receive internship requests where the writer has expressed no interest in my work and has simply pasted my name into a form letter, I invariably decline. (Even worse the ones that paste text directly from my web page into the part of the letter describing their research interests -- it happens more often than you'd think!).

Another important way to improve your chances is to use your understanding of what goes on in that lab to very explicitly describe some ways that you be might be able to provide valuable service to the lab. If they sound like they need programmers and you are a good coder, for example, make this very clear.


You do not need to state in your motivation letter that your MS research is not connected to the topic of your desired PhD project: your application contains your CV that already says what your MS research was about, so the information will be redundant. It most likely would be read as a sign of humbleness - that can be OK, but it's better to show humility putting an effort in learning, then in moaning about your ignorance.

In many countries students had no exposure to doing ANY kind of research at any level before starting their PhDs. So if anything, the fact that you have done some sort of research in any field gives you an advantage.

There is absolutely no reason why you should already be familiar with the PhD project: the reason why you choose a PhD is not because you already are an expert in that matter, but because you want to become such an expert. On this part of your question, please see this other Academia answer


Are translations valuable to Phd admission committees?

Unless you're in the humanities, where the ability to translate source materials may be a critical need, what you're doing would be considered an example of a "service activity." You can certainly list such an activity on your CV and applications, but its impact on an admissions committee decision will be minuscule. You're much better off, as your advisors suggested, producing original research results.

Moreover, if you're planning to study in an English-speaking country, you will want to spend time improving your written and oral communication skills, rather than translating materials into your native tongue.


Is there generally a high amount of variability in the number of hours grad students put to work each week?

I believe that most of the students are event-driven. That is, if they have an important deadline, meeting, exam, TA section (agghh...), then they spend more time to prepare and be ready for that event. Whereas after an important deadline, (or finals week, etc.) they allow themselves to be more relaxed and spend less time "working".

However it is quite strange to define how much time one spends on "research". Many people get very nice ideas just before the go to sleep, or while taking a shower... The mind is running 24/7..  Even though those people are not "in office" they do work on their research.

I agree also with the answer of Lars that it really depends on the student's personality and preferences. I've known students who really need their schedule to be well defined. They showed up to office daily at 9:00 and left at a fixed time (I guess that being married with kids kind of forces you to have a fixed schedule). So there are no fixed rules.


Hobby during PhD studies has taken its toll, how do I recover?

There's an obvious simple answer to this, that isn't going to even take two sentences:  your game development stint was research.  Research into whether gaming concepts and/or game-style interfaces were useful for certain kinds of activities, and also a "basic training" for you in core computing concepts that will never be irrelevant in your ongoing pursuit.

Professional coders have MOUNTAINS of code that are discarded, serve no useful ongoing purpose, are total feces, and/or seem to be in a content domain that bears no relevance to their work.

Myself personally:  I have about 10k lines of code growing mold in a drawer somewhere for a dartboard app. It isn't worth spit, but the javascript I write NOW for the biggest banks in the world is quite better because of it.

You also discovered that you like your profession more than you like gaming.  That's NOT AT ALL a trivial result.


It's absolutely not usual practice and a clear case of the editor in charge being asleep at the wheel. This should not be happening: An editor's job is to find impartial reviewers and asking an author (or even someone close to the author) is definitely failing at this job.

Just the same, it is unethical for you to accept such invitations. Politely point out that you are an author of the paper and that, therefore, it would clearly be a conflict of interest for you to review the paper.


Dullness vs. going overboard: Should I be calling people 'enfants terribles' in an academic paper?

If I understand correctly, you are supposed to be evaluating the work and/or ideas of some other academic or writer.  You are wondering whether it will be funny and/or more efficient to, in lieu of a more careful explanation of the limitations of that person's work, dismiss them by calling them a (standard, even cliched) name.

This is not a good use of humor in an academic paper.  I find it juvenile.  And many academics would find this to be a terrible personal swipe.


You certainly can apply early - the worst they can say is "No", which is functionally equivalent to what happens if you don't apply. It's also a perfectly fine time to start asking around.

The answers will depend very much on the postdoc. For example, right now I have a postdoc position in my lab where "A year from now" is 1/3rd of the way through funding, so it likely wouldn't be acceptable, as I needed a postdoc working right away. On the other hand, there are other positions where starting would be considerably more flexible.


Effect of Research in an Engineering group on Physics PhD application

This sort of undergraduate research project looks very good on a PhD application.  There is overlap between EE research and physics research.  Silicon photonics is within the area of overlap.


Someone else's grad student not interested in following up on a project

This is tricky for a couple of reasons. Adding a person as a co-author of a paper requires, at least, their agreement. Normally it also requires actual contribution to the work, but that idea is compromised in some fields, such as when a PI only contributes funds that make the research possible. Second, even giving an acknowledgement to a person normally requires their permission. This is more important in some fields than others. But if you attribute controversial statements to another you need their permission, generally.

However, there is nothing especially wrong about pushing someone a bit to elicit their permission or participation. This is especially true if you don't have a power (superior-inferior) relationship with them. Forcing subordinates is often done, though usually wrong. But that doesn't seem to be the relationship here.

I would send them each a note that you would like to pursue the topic and publish some results when done. Offer them co-authorship if they will participate effectively, but only acknowledgement of past contributions otherwise. Suggest that they talk it over with their own advisors. Then evaluate what you hear back.

I'm assuming above that all results so far are preliminary and tentative.

If there is nothing to do but the writing or minor clean-up this would be a different situation. In that case, write it up with all of you as co-authors and send it to them for approval or updating. Yes, you would be doing a large part of the work yourself, but that might be worth the effort.

The tricky thing here is that I don't know how much contribution each has made so far. Perhaps they are already due co-authorship of anything you produce. You will need to deal with that collectively.

If they have already contributed substantially, then a joint publication seems warranted (three co-authors). For that, all you need to do is get their permission. If they are unable to help work on the paper (no time, advisor objects, ...) then this might be your best option. Even a generous interpretation of substantially might be warranted.

I assume that, unless the topic is controversial, a publication is more valuable to them than to you, who already have a position.


Can my co-author remove my name from our paper because I am leaving my current institution

It's unlikely that the editors would do that on their own (how would they even know that you're leaving your current institution?)

If your professor asks the editors to remove your name, that would/should at least trigger some checks by the editors about whether you agree with the removal.

Additionally, some journals have policies against modifying the authors' list at various stages: some immediately after submission, some after acceptance.

Such a move by your professor should probably be considered unethical, but it is not what you asked.


Creating a book based on an article (copyright issues)

If you need to publish the book and you have found one publisher that allows it.

Why do you seek more?

Elaborate what is wrong about Elsevier that makes you not to pursue it with them?


Is it worthwhile writing about previous experience with courses, which will be taught in masters program, in motivation letter?

Anecdotally: I did this when I applied for CSE masters programs coming from a background in engineering. I highlighted the graduate level and elective courses I had taken in numerical methods, optimization etc. to demonstrate that I had interest in, and aptitude for, the courses on offer in the masters program. I also chose the professors from these courses for my references.

I think it can be worthwhile to do this if it fits the narrative of your motivation letter as it shows that you have considered why you want to study these particular courses and why you would be a good fit for the program.


Masters Dilemma: Does University Reputation Come First?

Only you can answer this question, because only you know what you want out of your Masters & what your risk appetite is. Superficially, the choice is fairly straightforward:

If you take the offer:

You're paid $15,000 for however long the Masters is, not to mention a tuition waiver. That's pretty substantial for a Masters student.
You are further guaranteed a long-term research position. This is a big deal since the post-graduation job search is a major headache for many students.
You are presumably in a familiar environment. You know the local city. If you have a significant other or children, you have less trouble accommodating them.
Your experience in the academic aspects of the Masters might be better simply because you know the supervisor personally.
Flip side: you could suffer from the "same university" drawback.

If you look abroad:

A more prestigious university is going to affect your job search, especially if you get a non-academic job. If you stay in academia, then the reputation of the department matters more.
If you get along well with your advisor, there's a good chance your experience is better at the more prestigious university, for reasons such as more good students to talk to, more seminars by leading academics to attend, etc.
Warning: you might not get admitted.
You have a lot more administrative hassle to deal with, e.g. you might have standardized tests to take, visa applications to worry about, housing to look for, etc.

Ultimately, is a bird in hand worth more than two in the bush for you? If you say yes, you presumably dislike risk, in which case it's better to take up the offer. If you say no, the reverse probably applies.

One thing worth pointing out is that you can still become an academic if you stay at the local, unknown university (in fact, the long-term job offer is effectively a guarantee of this). However, because of the Law of Descending Prestige, you probably won't end up at a well-known institution. It's still a bird in hand vs. two in the bush situation, and it's up to you to choose how much risk you're willing to take in pursuit of your dreams.


What tools make it easy to maintain (or avoid!) the N versions of your CV?

In addition to using LaTeX with a makefile, I find that using the LaTeX package splitbib is very useful. It allows you to format your publications with different subtitles for different category of publications, and you can pick and choose which entries from your publications (which I maintain as a BiBTeX file) should be included.

Since LaTeX allows you to include files, it's relatively easy to create separate files that contain the base material and then include them as needed in different formats.


Is it inappropriate for an author to copy and paste from his/her original paper in an extension paper?

The answer depends on the relationship between the papers, and I'm not sure which applies based on the information in your question.  In computer science, at least, there are two general cases:

The extension paper is the "extended journal version" of a previously published short-form work such as a conference paper, workshop paper, or extended abstract.  In this case, the rule of thumb is typically at least 30% new material.  The extended paper will often contain large chunks verbatim, as it is expected to supersede the original paper, rather than existing as a separate work.
The extension paper is a separate work: in this case, extensive reuse of material is self-plagiarism.  Two exceptions: first, related work, methods, and definitional material may often be reused as long as it is appropriate to do so---the material should be appropriately customized to fit the new environment.  If the author would just be paraphrasing for the sake of paraphrasing, though, it's not necessary.  Second, introductory material may be partially shared, though it should be more heavily customized for the new context.

In all cases except for minor reuse of related work material, the extension paper must declare a clear and explicit relationship with the prior paper.

Note that many other fields do not have the notion of a "journal version" and thus have much stricter standards.


You can use all this information in a public talk. You should tell your audience where it comes from, but the details don't need to be part of the ongoing presentation. Consider a handout so that they can go look for themselves if they are curious.

The fact that some of the information is behind a paywall does not prevent you from referring to it, as long as you obtained it legally and do not quote large parts of it.

You do not need any permissions. It might be nice to write the authors to tell them that you used their work in your talk.

+1 for sci-com.


How can US faculty verify medical absences?

Couldn't students abuse such a policy to postpone an assessment for
  which they feel unprepared?

Yes. My experience teaching the first semester at a community college is that granted an open-door absence policy, the majority of my students were skipping all the tests, circulating the real test among themselves, and then taking a makeup together on a later date. (Assuming I could get them all in one place.) This was more than double my scheduling/test-making/test-grading labor, and also delaying the assessment/feedback cycle by a week or more for each test.

In my second semester I ended that policy. The policy since has been: Nothing is excused for any reason. No excuses or notes need be given to me. One low test score is dropped (and likewise for any other assignments). This is an enormous time-saver (both in test-giving and excuse-verification), and allows me to immediately hand back corrections and feedback in the next class meeting.


How to cite a Linkedin Profile in IEEE format?

Print a copy of the document as a pdf, and host the document on your public Dropbox directory. Then cite it as a webpage, corresponding to the location of Dropbox directory.


Publication a prerequisite for PhD Programs

Publication is not a prerequisite for PhD programs. To be specific, the only requirements for a PhD program are those published by the particular university department in the official degree catalog.

But having your name on some published articles before applying for PhD programs, and including your publications as part of your "pitch," sure makes for a more competitive application.

To get started doing research, talk to your advisor, faculty members whose research areas are similar to yours, look at research assistant positions (anywhere, not just at your school), and so on. Most importantly, define some questions that you want to research, dig into the literature, and just get started on your own. Then let your rough investigation be a conversation starter with local and other faculty.


Switching to academia from industry in a world during/after COVID

Ok. The path into academia, and especially into a position that emphasizes research, goes through a research doctorate, usually a PhD. With only an undergraduate degree, expect about seven years to achieve it, in the best of times, which these are not. Here are some pros and cons to help you make an informed decision.

First, if you get accepted into a doctoral program in the US, you will probably get a stipend of some form, but usually in the form of a Teaching Assistantship which is something like a quarter to half time position. But it also normally comes with complete tuition forgiveness. People can live on this, but it is harder if you have a family and your spouse isn't employed. Possible.

But, with several years in industry, your expectations about life style might not be especially compatible with such a low income. So, you would probably need to give up something to get something. UTAustin is a pretty big level institution and you would probably find success by casting a wider net.

But, the times in education are very hard right now. Even before coronavirus started to spread, disrupting education everywhere at all levels, the job market in academia wasn't ideal, with people finding it difficult to get permanent (tenure track) positions. There have been more graduates, it seems, than there are jobs. But that can change, both quickly and dramatically.

The coronavirus has made things both difficult and tentative. It is harder to have the direct contact between students and professors that is very helpful to getting a doctorate. In the US, which normally requires quite a lot of advanced coursework past the bachelors degree, it will be difficult in the short term with online classes substituting for face to face instruction.

And, of course, whether you are able to get a position in academia depends quite a lot on yourself and on how you do in a degree program. It is helpful to have an advisor who has a good reputation who can give you a boost in your career, but those same super-star professors can be hard to work with also.

However, if you've stated your motives accurately, then you'd seem to be a good candidate. Don't go into academia for the money. At the end of my career I was well paid, but my friends with similar responsibility in large research organizations like IBM, earned just about twice what I did. For me, it was a good tradeoff since I got to set my own agenda. And, I went into academia in the first place because all other options seemed to be deadly unattractive.

If you want direct advice, I'd suggest you spend a year looking around at institutions and programs of interest and getting financial things in order. Hopefully that will take us past the current pandemic and make planning a bit more rational. If not for the pandemic, I'd suggest starting now. But the crystal ball is very cloudy at the moment.

Update: I doubt that you need to do anything other than apply to get in to a doctoral program in the US. You will need to find letters of recommendation, some from academics, but if your record was good I think you have a chance. Europe requires much more from entering students, of course.

What the world will be like after the pandemic, it is impossible to say, but there will be a strong incentive for academia to return to normal as quickly as possible. Political constraints may get in the way and the economy will take time to recover, but some things underlying research don't change, and likely won't. In many fields, labs are required and expensive. In most fields, face to face research seminars are considered to be superior to the alternative. Momentum has slowed, of course, but the system hasn't been destroyed. There was, for example, a huge growth in higher education at the end of WWII. The system is pretty resilient.

For state sponsored universities in the US, such as UTAustin, the strength of the institution adds to the strength of the economy of the state overall. Without good universities, students and businesses go elsewhere. UTAustin, in particular adds to the special nature of Austin itself.