What is the advantage of being a Math/CS double major in graduate admissions for someone who wants to work in TCS?

Studying mathematics is great, and I agree that many theoretical computer science students would benefit from studying more mathematics.  However, double majoring is definitely not a must, and it will help only slightly with admission.  It could serve as a tie-breaker, but it is less important than getting good grades and much less important than doing research.  Ultimately, a double major is worthwhile if you would enjoy it or find it useful, but the learning will have to be its own reward.


This is not a universal truth, but my experience in researching Master's Programs is that the main difference between a 1year and 2 year Master's program is the research component.

1 year programs tend to be primarily course based, with a shorter project, if any. Very seldom will there be a 2 year program consisting entirely of classes. Instead, there is usually a thesis, project, essay, etc. that can last around a year.

No matter how skilled you are, research takes time. So a 1 year Master's program will necessary mean a more shallow project, whereas a two year program alloes for more depth, and is more likely to result in publishable research.

So when choosing a program, ask yourself what you're trying to get out of it. If your main interest is classes, 1 year is fine. If you want to be a researcher or tackle an ambitious project, 2 year will probably be better.


How to get others to understand that my first name consists of two words?

I would make a point of signing my emails Abcd Efghjkl. If they don't catch on after recieving your reply, add a friendly PS just as you have been doing. It's your name and you are completely justified in wanting it said properly.


Can I use open-source code for a simulation for my research?

Yes, open-source code can be used for research if it is cited everywhere you use results from it. You may first like to verify that the code is indeed open-source by verifying that the license is one of these: https://opensource.org/licenses

This should be listed clearly on the website/repository/license/readme file. If this is not available, try contacting the author to verify that it is indeed open source.

Certain licenses additionally allow you to freely modify the code for your specific purpose; the link above contains details about this.


What do you call a professor that is hired by two different departments?

It's usually called a joint, secondary or courtesy appointment.  The purpose is to allow faculty to teach or do research in cross-disciplinary topics.  Someone with a joint appointment is usually a full member of both departments and funded by both; secondary and courtesy appointments reflect a looser relationship.

Their formal title will be a list of their appointments, e.g., "Professor, Electrical Engineering; Professor (courtesy), Applied Physics".

To an audience, they might be introduced as "Professor of Electrical Engineering and, by courtesy, of Applied Physics", but beyond that, there's no special term for someone who holds this type of appointment.  They're still just called a professor, same as the rest.


In publications outside China, I would expect Chinese authors to publish in the same format as other authors, "given name family name". Of course it is possible that the authors made a mistake, but ultimately you cannot necessarily account for that and I would suggest that it is not particularly likely.

However for Chinese publications, even those Chinese journals published in English, the order of the names may well be written in the Chinese format of family name first. Another thing to remember is that the vast majority of Chinese family names are one character/syllable, while given names may have multiple characters/syllables. So if there are authors with multiple syllables in the name, there is a good chance (although not 100%) that this is not the family name.


How do I get to know/work with academics during my master's degree?

Since you appear to be in Italy – actually a fellow citizen! – I'll try to give an answer from an Italian perspective. As a master's student, you usually have three possibilities to work with professors:

start working on your master's thesis;
apply for a teaching assistant position for one of the classes;
do an internship.

For what concerns possibilities 2 and 3, these may be available or not depending on university, field, year etc. For instance, I have TAs from both bachelor's and master's levels and I'd be happy to provide recommendation letters for them, as I did for others in the past.

If none of the above work for you, you can try asking professors whose classes you attended, getting top grades. In this case, however, they might not be willing to provide a recommendation letter. In fact, up to a few years ago, I wasn't willing either, as I explained in this answer. Nowadays, I accept (even though I don't approve of this practice) that recommendation letters are required almost everywhere, and I'm more willing to provide recommendation letters to students who attended my classes and somehow positively caught my attention (at the exam, through in-class questions, during office hours).


Will minor mistakes in my bachelor's thesis harm my future career as a researcher?

I have a perception that academicians are perfectionists and might persecute mistakes like this even when done unintentionally.

I am pleased to report that your perception is wrong! Academics are human beings who tend to be rather understanding of other human beings who, like themselves, occasionally make mistakes.  In fact, if you browse other questions on this site that are tagged errors-erratum, you will find that mistakes happen quite often in academia, just as they do everywhere else.

One slightly ambiguous citation in a thesis is

not going to bar you from doing research,
not cause for taking away your degree, and
not even cause for anyone to think poorly of you, assuming the rest of your work is good.

If it bothers you, put a corrected version of your thesis (and/or an erratum) on your personal website, just to set the record straight. (And realistically, if anyone happens to read your thesis in the future, they are far more likely to read your easily accessible online version than a printed copy in the library.)


Getting to assist in the course of your choice during TAship

It's certainly reasonable to politely express an interest in TA'ing for a particular course or with a particular professor.  You should express that interest as soon as possible to both the professor teaching the course (or the course supervisor in the case of a multi-section course) as well as to whoever has overall responsibility for assigning teaching assistants (typically this is coordinated by some faculty member or an administrative assistant.)

Realize that the needs of the department and the preferences of the faculty will be prioritized over the desires of graduate students in making these assignments and that you may well be competing with other graduate students for a desirable assignment.  Don't count on anything...


Is a Double Degree equivalent to 2 single degrees?

I took a double degree in Electronic Engineering and IT (Computer Science) from QUT. It required more time than either of the single degrees, and the course load was considerably higher per semester. At graduation, I received two separate degree certificates from QUT — I have two Bachelor degrees. There were some restrictions in the number of elective subjects we could take, since the core course load was higher.

Of course you need to check the course content and course load (and duration — a Bachelors degree without honours in Australia is usually three years, not four), to be certain it's right for you.


How to respond to the trivialisation of one’s work and unjustified demands for a considerable extension of the research?

It is important to recognize that this is not happening to you because you are a junior researcher. At every point in your career, somebody will feel (and, distressingly often, openly state) that your work is not good enough, goes into the wrong direction, is not "real" science, tackles the wrong problems, uses the wrong tools, or is in some other way flawed. Learning how to react to criticism regarding your work, even and especially if said criticism is coming from more senior researchers, is a crucial skill that every PhD student needs to learn. I feel it is best to stop relying on your advisor to justify your contribution as soon as possible.

In that vein, I think you should see these situations at conferences and meetings as opportunities to learn rather than ugly situations that you need to weasle out of as fast as possible. I do not mean that you should get into nasty fights with the audience during the Q&A part of a presentation, but I am certain you do have good reasons why you did some things and did not do other things. Do not try to evade ("Let's discuss this in the break, ok?"), but try to explain calmly why you did what you did. Yes, maybe that person asking the question will disagree, but so what? The fact that your actual peer reviews are good shows that there are a non-trivial amount of researchers that actually agree with you. The person asking the question is not your supervisor, you don't need to agree with him/her specifically on your research agenda or approaches.

Let me go over your proposed blanket statements one by one:

  “Thanks for your suggestion. I have been thinking about this, but it requires too much work, and that is outside the scope of my project. Further, it would not significantly contribute to the value of the work.”

That's ok, but I would leave away the part about "not significantly contributing to the value of the work". That sounds a bit too confrontational to me. Better just leave it at "that's really interesting, but we currently do not have the resources to tackle this complex problem".

  “I have considered it, but I don’t find it of interest, so I have decided not to do it. If you are interested in this topic, I invite you to collaborate.”

Stay clear from passive-aggressiveness.

  “That seems to be an interesting point. We can discuss this at the break in further details.”

Ok, but can come across as too defensive. I use the "ok, let's discuss this one-on-one" phrase usually only when somebody is asking variations of the same question over and over again, and it seems likely to me that the rest of the audience is already zoomed out of the conversation. However, in that case, a good session chair has already stepped in anyway.

How you could react is the following:

"Thank you for your interesting suggestion. We have indeed discussed a variation of this before, but implementing it in practice would require us to first do [complex thing A] and [complex thing B], which have been shown to be non-trivial efforts in the first place in [optimally you have some reference why this is indeed hard]. This would certainly improve the quality of our solution, but we are currently more looking towards extending our work into [more feasible other direction]. Of course, if you are interested in this, I would be very happy to discuss potential collaborations over [hot beverage of your choice]."

(a variation of your first suggestion, but a bit more formal and respectful while still making it abundantly clear that you are not actually going to do the thing that has been asked for)


What are the pros and cons of submitting same paper to more than one open repository?

At first glance, I don't think it would be an ethical problem, but it could be a management one: if you need to update the pre-print, you could take the risk to have inconsistent versions available. It could also be confusing for those who are looking for your paper: if I see a paper with the same title on two different open repositories, I might wonder if there is a difference between the two versions, download the two versions, realize they are the same, and dislike the fact that I just wasted some time.

Moreover, it could also be interpreted as an attempt to artificially increase your citation count, and that could be frowned upon. For instance, in Computer Science, DBLP is often considered as a good publication indicator. If you publish a paper on arXiv, on ePrint and at a conference later, that's 3 references for a single paper. Someone realizing this might think that you're just trying to abuse the system.


Is there any real demonstrated benefit to the Dutch break out of the academic year?

I doubt that there is a demonstrated benefit, but I also doubt that it is a problem or an issue. The length of a term is basically arbitrary. The number of credits assigned to a "term length course" is just a number. What matters is that (a) there is a fair amount of consistence within a system and (b) that a translation to other systems is possible and rational.

Some national systems are historical and based on the country's past. In the US, terms were heavily influenced by the agricultural past. In some countries, say UK, terms are somewhat determined by religious holidays and conventions. But, if a student has some sense that the system behaves in a stable and predictable manner, then it isn't an issue.

Universities are good about knowing how to do the translations when students move from one system to another. Again, no real issue.

But, I'll guess that over, say a year, a student from The Netherlands and one from UK or US who applies him/herself equally to the study, will learn about the same.

Breaking up a total curriculum into more or fewer longer or shorter "chunks" with more or fewer credit numbers is not especially relevant as long as the student knows what to expect.

Trying to do it 36 contact course what other do in 45, would possibly be an issue, but even that can be "about the same" depending on what students are expected to do overall and what is expected of them when not face to face with a professor.

Local consistency and predictability is enough.


I am not a fan of the "1 page resume." If you have had a number of relevant educational experiences and work experiences (and relevant volunteer experiences), and it goes over two pages and is in an aesthetically pleasing form (e.g., 10-12-pt font, 1-in margins, etc.), don't worry about it.  I've seen some absolutely horrible resumes where the applicant has tried to cram everything onto a single page, and it is a detriment to that person's application. I haven't had a 1-page resume since just after undergraduate school.

Graduate schools are normally looking for a proper Curriculum Vitae (CV), which would include education, work experience (primarily academic), publications, awards, and possibly references. Now, this isn't to say that you must reformat your resume into a CV, especially if you don't have research/publications/awards/etc., but you do want this document to highlight your experiences to some degree.

Finally, your resume/CV is not as important as some of the other documents you will provide with your package: letters of recommendation, transcripts, and your research/personal statement. Your resume/CV should list the pertinent information from your past, but it will be amplified in your other documents.


In applying for fellowships, is it better for 'majority' students to select "Prefer not to respond" in racial identification?

Technically, I see nothing wrong with not reporting your race/gender. However, I suspect that if a fellowship gives preference to a specific group, putting "prefer not to respond" puts you outside of that group by default. Therefore, it would make no difference if you were a Caucasian or unidentified, you would still not gain the selection benefit for minorities. Hence the net benefit would be zero.


How to publish analysis work of an approach worse that state-of-the-art?

Perhaps it would result in a paper that is too long to publish, but you might consider, at least, putting the two results into the same paper and giving an analysis of each case.

Show how and why it works for one range, but, in a later section, show why it fails to work for the other.

The overall suggestion here is that the analysis of the result and the possible insight it might bring to the general case is more important than each result individually. That is the perspective of a mathematician, anyway. The insight of the analysis/proof is more important than the theorem itself.


Is physics (and engineering) at university more like high school physics or high school math?

When studying physics at a German university, you will take three kinds of core modules:

Experimental Physics
Theoretical Physics
Math

Of these, experimental physics is somewhat similar to physics in school. You have a discussion of concrete phenomena, how you can measure them, probably quite a bit of lab time, too.
Theoretical physics is similar to math in school. You learn some more overarching theories about how to model things mathematically (like Newtonian gravity, electromagnetism, thermodynamics, and so on). A lot of what you do is calculations (compute an integral, solve a differential equation). If you want to learn how to do complex calculations with pen and paper, theoretical physics is where you do it.
Math at university level is a very different beast from anything most pupils encounter at school (at least in Germany). You'll encounter some familiar concepts (differentation, vectors), but in a far more rigorous way. You will not just be told that stuff is true, but you'll see the proofs (and be asked to prove simple statements yourself [at least if your math courses are shared with mathematicians, if you have dedicated "math for physicists" courses this might not be the case]).


Preserving ownership of authorship in the period after leaving a position and before journal submission

In the world of patent, researchers establish priority in the following way. They keep a bound notebook (no loose-leaf) so that pages can't be added between other pages. Whenever they have a good idea for which they want to establish priority they make a dated complete note of the idea. They then get a colleague to date and sign their note. At some companies most employees always have this patent book with them so they can record ideas as they occur.

Then, if another person somewhere tries to patent the idea, they can present the patent book as evidence of prior art. The other person in this case may be completely unknown to you, but for patent, priority is pretty much the whole game.

You can do something like this yourself, if you are unsure. It needn't be confrontational to your co workers. Make a signed and dated (paper) copy of each version of the paper that you work on and have a non-involved but trusted colleague sign and date it. You can even leave them with a signed and dated copy so that you each have one.

The existence of these copies protects you a bit from being excluded. But in the absence of a problem, they are just private notes and so non-confrontational.

For your future, you are likely better off with cordial relations with your co-authors. It may even turn out that they are proud of their association with you.


Co-author wants to put their current funding source in the acknowledgements section because they edited the paper

In general, I would be pragmatic about this. If the contribution of the Assistant Professor is large enough to warrant co-authorship (which is a different story altogether, and not the question here), it should be large enough to mention their funding source. Presumably they have actually had to invest some amount of time into the manuscript to warrant co-authorship, and if they "used" their own university-funded research time or some external project time to contribute to the paper is really their own business.

Clearly this does not mean that you need to pretend like the entire work was funded by your co-authors grant, but a clause in the acknowledgements such as "Prof. X acknowledges the financial support provided by XYZ" is common and completely appropriate.

  I'm wondering if putting that acknowledgement would implicitly say that the co-author's current funding also funded the research in the paper.

Only if you word it poorly.

  Maybe "Co-author was funded by Blank to edit the manuscript" is a middle ground?

This sounds very uncommon to me. I would only write it like that if you also explicitly list who paid for all other parts of the study (which would be highly unusual in my field).

  In either case is it acceptable to "use" this money to edit manuscripts from previous work done and funded elsewhere?

That's a question between your co-author and their funding source, and shouldn't really be your concern.


I ended up getting it after all! And my current University is letting me take the fellowship (at another university) and I can come back to my faculty position after. Very happy with the deal even though it means half the pay.


should your CV include unfunded grant applications?

No.

Definitely list pending grant proposals.  But rejected grant proposals should fall into the memory hole.

Also, do not list your rejected journal submissions, the awards you applied for but did not win, or the graduate schools that did not admit you.


Affiliation for a student's internship project

A paper that I have recently read may be a good reference (or example). As can be seen, one of the co-authors, Xuemei Liu is under Baidu, Inc. Shanghai. The research work was done when she (gender inferred from the name) was done during her internship at HP Lab.

She wrote the affiliation as Baidu, and used a star mark as the footnote indicating the work was carried out during her HP Lab internship period.

Update: Another more relevant example:

This paper here is exactly the case. The first author is a student under Shanghai Jiaotong University (student and thus, unpaid). The work of the paper was performed when he was an internship under Microsoft Research Asia. They adopted the same way: affiliation is still the university and a star footnote indicates the internship connection.


Whom should I send the email to? The Principal Investigator or the postdoc who have done the work?

If the paper lists a corresponding author, then that is the person to try.
Otherwise, I would just email all the authors and let them decide which one will respond. I don't think it's impolite and I'd rather email too many than too few authors (and risk getting no response).


What visa to be employed by a company while completing a PhD as a foreign student in the US?

If you are going to be employed full-time (>20 hours week), you will not be able to use F-1 without CPT/OPT authorization.

Since you are still working on your degree, OPT will generally not allow you to work more than 20 hours per week (during school in season). CPT authorization can technically give you the full-time off-campus employment option; however, you are supposed to actually do work for the company, not finish your degree requirements per se. The International Student Office of your university will help you to determine if you are eligible for CPT and figure out if your plan works.

I would consider different options:

be employed by your company in your home country and consider the L-visa for intra-company transfers
get OPT while on F-1 but work part-time for double the salary if that is a viable option for your company

Changing to J-visa has its own consequences and I am not qualified enough to discuss them. In any case, you should consult a lawyer at your company (who are supposedly the ones doing all the heavy-lifting for you) or at least some external immigration lawyer.


Your first language needn't mean chronological. It can mean your primary language for everyday communication. There is no need to overthink it.
If you are fluent in two or more languages you can mention that somewhere.


When is the typical end of interview invitations for faculty positions?

I don't think there is a single answer here. Some schools start their interview process in late fall, and other schools don't even conduct preliminary interviews until the end of February. In addition, there's always the possibility that nobody accepts their initial offers, in which case they may want to start a new round of interviews. So basically, you can get an interview request until you get a rejection letter.

However, I would suspect that the bulk of interview requests go out by late February.


Writing a book: How do you use references?

Since it is a book, you need not cite in-text in the same way you would an academic article. Simply transitioning to endnotes (super-script 1,2,3) will make the text immediately more readable. I'm reminded of Steven Pinker's book 'The Blank Slate' that contains many hundreds of citations but the text is not cumbersome due to efficient endnote use.  In that work at least, Pinker puts the majority of 'main idea' endnotes at the end of a paragraph, reserving within-paragraph citations for very specific ideas. While this can at times lead to some ambiguity, it preserves readability.


Is there an advantage of branching in version-controlled paper writing?

I use HG, but it is essentially the same as GIT, in that branching is easy. I branch all the time when working with coauthors. The branches tend to be short lived and merged pretty quickly. Basically, I distribute a copy to my coauthors and each set of comments I get back form different branches. This lets me see each authors comments individually. I then work on merging the comments back into the main trunk. Sometimes the merge is easy and the branch is one commit long. Other times it might take longer if I need to work out something (e.g., math, model, or analysis) which might require a couple of revisions before it is ready to go into the main trunk.


First-year PhD student with weak CV/Resume; how to stand out in fellowship competitions?

Everyone starts out with no publications.  Never mind starting a PhD in that condition:  I finished my PhD at a top-three program for my field without any publications, and I still got a good postdoctoral position.  How did I do this?  Because of my advisor's recommendation.  (And it was a sound recommendation: eventually I did get some publications...)

For graduate students -- and especially, early career graduate students --  recommendation letters are all-important.  Do you have a thesis advisor yet?  If so, go directly to her and tell her what fellowships you are thinking of applying for and asking whether that sounds reasonable and whether your application will be competitive.  If you do not have a thesis advisor, try out the same conversation with several faculty members in your department that know you through your coursework, research or TAing.  Emphasize that because you are young and unpublished, you think you will need strong recommendations from them to get serious consideration for summer research fellowships.  Select from among these the ones who sound most enthusiastic.

In general, faculty in your department should be very supportive of your endeavor.  On the one hand, such fellowships generally provide funding, and faculty are always very happy when graduate students can find external funding of any kind whatsoever, since internal funding is so limited and hard to come up with in these straitened economic times.  On the other hand, if you get the fellowship you will be getting funded for doing exactly what you are supposed to be doing in the summer as a graduate student: research.  So if you feel like the faculty you've spoken to are not helping you enough with this, it could be worthwhile to discuss this with someone like the graduate coordinator or department head: not in a way which casts any blame on the faculty members, but just to emphasize that you want to do this very desirable thing and you haven't yet found the right person to help you out.

Good luck.


With editor status changes to Submitted to Journal After 5 weeks

Elsevier has a page where they explain the submission status [1]. I would assume that "submitted to journal" is equivalent to the status "with journal" on that page. My guess would be that this means that the editor handling your manuscript is being changed. More detailed information if and why this is happening can probably only come from the journal itself, so you would have to contact them directly.
[1] https://service.elsevier.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/12237/supporthub/publishing/~/what-does-the-status-of-my-submission-mean-in-evise%3F/


Any platform for building research collaboration?

My advice is to use personal, in person, (sorry that this had to be repeated but it did) outreach.  Network and find someone at your institution and talk to them.  If you are not at a strong enough institution to have anyone, then network outside the institution.  Forming collaborations is an important and valuable thing.  But doing it on a board is a bad, bad idea.


Impacts of "professional advisors" for undergraduates

I've been to schools with both systems, so I'll give my perspective as a student:

The Third pro you list (a professional advisor being more specialized) is HUGE. Students get very frustrated when their advisor doesn't have the answers that they want, and in my experience, most of the questions that students ask are for administrative stuff, like, "How do I sign up for classes" or "Can I skip this prerequisite?" that a qualified advisor would be able to easily take off of your plate, and would probably be able to handle more quickly, which would improve the student experience.

Addressing the cons: You should not be concerned about an advisor steering students away from your program. That would be horribly unprofessional for them to do, so that would be something I'd wait for it to actually happen before addressing it. As for the fact that they might not be as qualified to deal with certain problems, it would just be a common part of their job to come and find information that they aren't qualified to give. The lack of a long-term faculty relationship is a real concern though.

Additional thoughts:
Providing a single point of contact for students is a very valuable thing indeed. A person whose sole job it is to listen to students and address their problems has always been very helpful for me, because I never felt like I was bothering them when I went to ask them a question, which is how I felt any time I was talking to my normal faculty advisor. It also makes it easy to know who to go to with a question early on. You don't have to remember your specific advisor, you can ask anyone and everyone will know who the advisor is, and be able to point you to them.


How to proceed when the baseline (state-of-the-art) published results claim much better performance than I can reproduce?

There is absolutely no reason that you can't publish a paper that says "We compared our method to methods X and Y. Since code the original code was not available for X and Y, we reimplemented the methods to the best of our ability. The code for these reimplementations is available in supplementary files A and B. Our new method out performed the reimplementations of X and Y by z%. However, it should be noted that it was not possible to reproduce the reported results for X and Y. "

People who want to know will have to look at your re-implementations and decide themselves if they think you have correctly re-implemented.

Seniority has nothing to do with it - be transparent, and the world will judge if they believe you or the people that won't release their code.


Is it possible to support oneself as a lifelong graduate student?

Why would you want to get multiple PhD degrees when the first one is all you need to do research for life? Much of the point of the degree is a certification of your ability to do independent research. After you've done that, you can get a job where you do research all day long! Many people get a professor's job where there are other duties, but plenty of people get jobs doing just research at government labs or non-teaching academic departments (like me!).


Should I mention undergraduate research history when writing a resarch statement for a faculty position?

Do you feel that your undergrad research is a significant part of your research profile, or tied in with your current research interests?  If so, then yes.  If not, then I don't see it adding much value to your research statement.  For research schools, you want your research statement to be impressive, not watered down with minor results.  I was involved in 1-2 (unpublished---1 became a paper, which got accepted, but I decided not to publish) research projects as an undergrad, but I did not even think to mention them in my research statement.
Note any papers you published will appear on your CV, so the committee will already see these.

However, one place you might mention it is in connection with the prospect of supervising undergrad research.  You can say what a good experience it was for you, and how you would like to be involved in it on the other side now.  This could come up either your teaching statement and/or your research statement, depending on your application.  (I might put it in my research statement if the projects I was already discussing lead to good projects for undergrads.)  This could be a boon, depending on how much the departments you're applying to value undergrad research.


Attending lectures for a course I already passed?

At least I would not discourage anyone from sitting through a course again. The notion that one has permanent and total recall of almost anything is untenable: one must review and rethink (or use) periodically, or things fade away from disuse. For that matter, there are usually several layers of understanding/appreciation, and getting to the subtler ones takes time and (re-)thought.

Perhaps you'll be better off than others who got their grades and don't even realize that they'd benefit from re-thinking the material.


Is it common for higher education institutions to offer sabbatical periods for administrative / support staff?

Large Land-Grant University in the U.S.:

  Applications for professional leaves will be considered only from faculty members on permanent appointment (academic or annual) who have completed at least five years of active service for $UNIVERSITY at the time the leave is to be effective.

Another university in the state has a very similar policy. Beyond that, I have never heard of staff taking sabbatical leave. Occasionally going for professional development, etc. but not for that length of time.


Is it appropriate to put talks that are not related to research, but given at an academic institution, on a CV?

Absolutely!

There are a number of talks that I've given that aren't related to my own research that I consider to be some of my most influential talks. In particular, I think talks about academia in general, or about the publication system, or recently, a talk about open access and open science. Taking the time to speak to younger academics about things about which you are passionate (like for me, preprint servers like arxiv.org and biorxiv.org) is very important.

I have also had the opportunity to give a few talks not even at academic institutions that I consider to be worthy of 'academic credit'. Specifically, I spoke at TEDMED a few years ago, talking about the medical education system, which you can see here:

http://www.tedmed.com/talks/show?id=7331

and also at an event called Pint of Science (pintofscience - podcasts from me and many others here: https://pintofscience.us/podcasts/ ).

I've been asked more about these talks at interviews than any others! I think especially in a world where all academics applying for jobs/tenure have excellent CVs, having some 'non-academic' stuff on there can help you stand apart - and show another dimension of you that folks could be interested in.


How to introduce terminology in an academic paper?

In my perception and fields, quotation marks are reserved for lack-of-a-better-word descriptions and the rare verbatim quotation. Newly defined terms are italicised instead, e.g.:

  We convert these subsets into tokens, which capture only high-level features. Tokens can have a variety of properties...

Before blindly applying this, you should check other publications to see what is common and the guidelines of your publication venue as to whether they address this.

Even when italicising it is important to phrase defining sentences in such a way that facilitate recognising them as such, which does not necessarily require an explicit definition. To decide whether your example sentence meets this requirement, I would have to know more about the context (and probably your field).

That being said, there is nothing wrong with explicit definitions and there exist dozens of short phrases and similar that can be used for this, for example:

  We convert these subsets into entities called tokens that capture only high-level features.

  We convert these subsets into entities that capture only high-level features, which we denote as tokens in the following.

  We convert these subsets into entities that capture only high-level features. These tokens can have a variety of properties … [not really explicit]

(Replace entities with whatever is appropriate from the context.)


Is it unethical to edit grammatical errors in a letter of recommendation?

Speaking strictly as a matter of ethics, I would have to say no, it would not be unethical so long as you did not change any of the actual words (other than perhaps correcting their spelling) or change the meaning / intent of the letter. I would further add that you may even be saving the person some level of embarrassment.


I had an argument with my professor, and I feel like I was disrespected. Was I in the wrong?

Was I in the wrong? Was my professor in the wrong?

We are steering deep into the realm of Interpersonal.SE, but this is absolutely the wrong question to ask. There was clearly a misunderstanding. It happens. It does not matter whose "fault" it was (if anybody's, really - in most misunderstandings nobody is doing anything terribly unreasonable). They were displeased that their time was wasted, you apologized. Case closed, moving on. As you say yourself, there is no reason to escalate a tiny hiccup into an actual conflict.

One thing I suggest is to use this as a learning opportunity to improve your processes for future meetings. In your case, I strongly suggest that going forward you send a meeting invite to all participants after a date has been agreed upon (and also to check your scheduling software after sending out a scheduling link - at the very least a reasonable amount of time before the first slot you suggested).


Math / physics conference with one week review period - reasonable?

I see a few different aspects in your question:

Reputation of a journal / conference.
Conference paper review vs Journal paper review.
Acceptable behaviour when responding.

1. Reputation

A sure red flag is a single "international" conference that covers multiple large specialized fields of study. Each one of Physics, Mathematics and Statistics usually have enough size to warrant their own conferences, and in this case typically super specialized conferences. A conference that is so broad is not really valuable to any specialist that attends it. Another red flag is that the website has a date agnostic URL, which means you cannot go back and see past conference outcomes and attendance. Red flag number 3 is that this is the first run of that conference, so no reputation or track record has been established. You mention IOP but the two other's in that same list are both from china, that has to date not been at the forefront or quality reputable research.

2. Conference vs Journal review

You are correct, usually for journals one gets multiple months to review a paper, from my experience conference review cycles are much shorter, but still in the order of 3-6 weeks. This is heavily dependent on the conference and journal. A 1 week review time should raise another red flag with point (1) above.

3. How to respond when you want to say no

Always be polite, but clearly state why you said no. Snappish was maybe not the best way, but since this conference has a high probability of being fake, no harm done. Remember to also indicate if you can be considered for future reviews for that journal even if you said no this time (e.g. when your reason was that you don't have the time right now or that the time available is too short).


Is positive discrimination in faculty hiring really efficient at promoting diversity in an academic department?

The effects of affirmative action in academia and corporate environments is a matter that has been the subject of an immense amount of study and scholarly literature, so any detailed answer to this question is probably going to involve some engagement with that literature.  Nevertheless, at the outset, there are some aspects of your question that could be unpacked and clarified, so that you can focus your analysis more effectively on what exactly is of interest:

Define what you mean by "diversity": I suspect you are referring to the promotion of outcomes where the racial composition of the faculty is closer to the racial composition of the host society (e.g., increasing the proportion of people from "underrepresented" groups and decreasing the proportion of people from "overrepresented" groups).  Or do you mean something else?  Either way, you should take a moment to consider exactly what "diversity" would entail, so that you have some basis for assessing efficiency in its promotion.
Consider what you mean by "efficiency": What constitutes "efficiency" here?  Is it the speed with which a particular outcome is achieved?  The cost?  Some combination?  If it includes some consideration of cost, then what counts as a cost?  Does "efficiency" require the academic system to remain functionally efficient, or do you simply mean that the method used to promote diversity must itself be efficient?
Some results follow virtually by definition: If "diversity" is defined as above, then positive discrimination in favour of "underrepresented" groups is likely to increase diversity (at least in the short term) virtually by definition.  If efficiency refers to rapidness and simplicity of the processes then the simplest and most overt forms of positive discrimination are likely to be the most efficient, again virtually by definition.  In such a case, the consequences are so obvious that it is unclear why you would need empirical evidence at all.
Are you even asking the right question? If the sole goal of interest in your question is to be "efficient" at achieving "diversity" then clearly the most efficient way to achieve this is simply to impose immediate quotas in faculty composition without regard to any other considerations.  It could even be achieved simply by appointing all academic positions via random lottery among the entire population.  In other words, your question is rendered trivial.  This happens because you have not posed any trade-off with other considerations in your question.  Does the actual merit of candidates matter?  Does the quality of academic work matter?  Does fairness matter?  If so, then you now have a trade-off between multiple things, and you will have to adjust your question accordingly.


Was I wrong to rebutt unjustified rewiewer comments in the review?

It's fine to push back against reviewer comments, but it can be a bit of a delicate dance to do so.

First, I would suggest you take reviewer comments that are unjustified to mean that you didn't do a good enough job explaining what you did. Although it's possible the reviewer was simply sloppy in reading your paper, a lot of people are going to sloppily read your paper: give them as few ways to get it wrong as possible by being extremely clear. Communication is between the reader and the writer: it isn't only the reader's fault if the reader gets it wrong. You can apologize for your role in the miscommunication and do better in the revision.

Second, I would suggest whenever you plan to push back against large parts of an individual review, rather than just a modest misconception or two, have a less-involved person that you trust to give honest feedback review your remarks. Sometimes a coauthor with a smaller contribution is sufficient (i.e., not the primary or senior author, who may feel most personally involved in the work), other times it may be helpful to reach out to someone else outside the authorship group. Ask them explicitly whether they think your response is sufficiently polite. Ask them to play the role of that reviewer or the editor. Additionally, give yourself a bit of time to sleep on both the reviewer comments and your response, at least a day or two and maybe a week or two. Personally, I sometimes write my angry/snarky response in a private document for myself to "get it all out", spend a couple hours complaining to people close to me about how worthless peer review is, and then come back to the original comments later and start working on real responses to what turns out to be helpful criticism. You can skip the first two parts of that if you want, but the last part is crucial.

Third, make sure you aren't really missing something in the comments you think are unjustified. Your question here is vague, so I am only guessing, but you say:

  he/she stated that the "experimental treatments" weren't independent, while our study was purely observational and didn't include any experimental manipulation

If you responded to the first part of that comment and say "this comment doesn't apply because our study was purely observational" I would, as the editor, probably reject your paper. The real, important comment there is the lack of independence, which is often a critical weakness in an observational study. It may be that you interpreted your data in a way that implies an experiment has taken place, when it hasn't, and that makes the reviewer's comment very very relevant, even if they misused the word "experiment." Be careful that you haven't used causal language, that you have done field-appropriate comparisons between any groupings you made in your observations, etc.

Finally, it's quite possible for you to do everything "right" and still be rejected. For a more selective journal, especially, an editor may reject if there is insufficient support from the reviewers, even if you are able to refute some of the criticisms. They are looking for papers that the reviewers agree are excellent, and it's possible that observational work is simply not a good fit for this journal.


From computational mathematics to abstract mathematics

For application to a US doctoral program in pure math, I think you would be well situated, other things being equal. This would be especially the case if your chosen field is Analysis or something related. However, the path might take a bit longer than if you had studied a broader spectrum of math.

The program you would be entering would have two essential requirements (perhaps a few minor ones). The first is to pass a set of comprehensive examinations. These are intended to assure that you have breadth of knowledge. The second is to write an acceptable dissertation. This is to show you have the ability and insight to delve deeply into a narrow aspect of math. There might be a few other options at a few places, but this is the standard.

One comprehensive exam will probably be in abstract algebra or some sub field. Another might be in Topology. But there will likely be at least three such exams, and one or more of them might be orals. In fact, there might be two levels at some places: written exams and orals.

But a US doctoral program also normally comes with a fair amount of advanced coursework. This is intended primarily to get you through the qualifying exams. Many US students starting a doctoral program won't have a masters, so the coursework is intended to give them the necessary breadth.

You may be ready for the Analysis qualifying exams, but would probably need the coursework for any others. It would take some time. If you are ready for that, it might be worth applying.

Also note that most math doctoral students in US work as TAs. This provides funding for them and assistance in teaching undergraduates. This adds to the time required to earn the degree, of course.

Note also, that in some cases the pure and applied math departments are separate. In others, they are joined in a single department. It might be a consideration in your case.


A long gap between BSc and MSc when applying for PhD

You do what you can with what you have. You have a record with some pluses and some minuses. That won't change. What you need is an explanation for why your record is what it is but that also suggests that you will be successful in future studies as the obstacles are behind you.

In many universities there is an opportunity to personalize the application through interviews and other communication. Contact with a specific professor with whom you wish to work is often possible - and even preferred in some places. Having an idea about what it is that you want to study/research in a doctoral program is helpful.

But in general, the time between degrees isn't a big problem. The low GPA in early studies isn't a huge problem if it is overbalanced by better performance in recent work. Having goals and good work habits is a definite plus. Knowing enough about a field to begin research relatively soon is very positive. Do what you can with what you have. Focus on the positives, not the negatives.


Is it acceptable to include a figure I did not produce on an academic poster?

If there's something essential in the figure that you're including that you and your research group can't reproduce on your own, then it's justifiable to include a plot or other figure produced by someone else and already published in the literature. However, such usage should be restricted to only what is essential for your poster—you should never use others' work merely to "fill out" your poster.


Question regarding career in Mathematics

If you want to pursue a mathematics career, the first step is to apply to PhD programs. Once you have been accepted into a PhD program, your undergraduate grades no longer matter - no one will ever look at them again. People only care about your most recent activity.

As far as I can tell, you are asking two questions: (i) Are my grades good enough to get into a good PhD program? (ii) Based on my grades, will I be successful as a mathematician?

(i) The biggest factor in terms of getting into a good PhD program is your recommendation letters. Grades are not the deciding factor. It sounds like your grades are good enough that they won't count against you. So you should really ask your professors for career advice, as they have a better sense of your abilities and they will be writing letters for you. i.e. you should ask them for suggestions about where/how to apply for PhD programs.

(ii) It's very difficult to predict how well you will do based on what you did as an undergraduate. There are people who are amazing as undergraduates and then struggle as researchers and also people who are not exceptional as undergraduates and then become amazing researchers. Of course there is a strong correlation between how well you do as an undergraduate and how well you do as a researcher, but it is not perfect. There is no way to know for sure.

The only way to find out for sure is to try!


You cannot establish priority without circulating your paper widely.  Or, more precisely, you can prove that you had the idea first, but that won't help you much.  Academic credit is awarded for contributing to the research community.  If you have an idea and don't publicize it (so few people find out or learn from it), and someone else rediscovers the idea and tells everyone, then they will get most or all of the credit, because the community will have learned far more from them than from you.  Even if you can prove you made the discovery first, you may end up as a footnote or side comment in the background sections of future papers.

This is not always fair, but it's a pretty good system.  In particular, it avoids the nightmare scenario of researchers trying to establish priority while deliberately telling as few people as possible (to preserve their head start for follow-up work).

The fact that the arXiv has time stamps and keeps old versions available is potentially useful for resolving disputes, but the important aspect is that papers on the arXiv get noticed.  That's why the arXiv is a good way to establish priority: the community doesn't consider "Oh, I had no idea that paper was on the arXiv" to be a good excuse.  By contrast, if you post the paper somewhere much more obscure, then not noticing it would not be surprising or frowned upon.

How to handle this depends on the threat you are worried about.  If you are concerned that someone you ask to look over the paper might steal your ideas, then you could cc a trusted mentor who could vouch for you if there were a dispute.  On the other hand, I wouldn't worry about this too much: outright theft of ideas is rare, and why would you even want advice from someone you think might plausibly be a thief?  If you are concerned about staking out credit in case someone else is independently working on similar ideas, then there's nothing you can do except get your paper in good shape and then distribute it.

  If my paper is wrong and I put it on arXiv, I'll look like a crackpot. I want something a lot more obscure than arXiv while my paper is in its formative stages.

Of course it's hard to say without more information, but these comments suggest to me that worrying about credit may be premature.  I'd recommend revising/polishing the paper until it is no longer potentially embarrassing or in a state of flux, and then posting it to the arXiv.


I either believe this other paper is wrong, or that it is a trivial consequence of my own result

Let me be blunt, if it's wrong and a trivial consequence of your own result, then your result is wrong too. Make up your mind: which is it? Wrong and trivial are not synonymous. The answer differs depending on which applies.

If you believe that the result is wrong.

If you want to publicly humiliate the other researcher, then you can say during your talk that the other researcher's result is wrong. You will not make any friends and will not impress anyone by doing this.
Otherwise, your first course of action is to talk about it with the other researcher in private. Have you even considered that you misunderstood something? Most people are reasonable, and if the result is truly wrong, then you will know how to act based on your discussion. Otherwise, this is a whole can of worms, and the answer depends on a ton of factors.
If for some reason you have not had time to talk with the other researcher, then I would not mention the result at all, and elude the question if asked about it during the talk. If you really don't want to elude it, say that you are aware of a possible contradiction between your paper and the other one and that you are looking into it. (See, that's called tact.) I would also take the opportunity of having the other researcher in the same room to talk about it after the talk, in private.

If you believe the result is a "trivial" consequence of your work.

If you want to insult the other researcher in public, then say that the other word is a "trivial consequence" of your own work during your talk. You will not make any friends and will not impress anyone by doing this.
Or you can simply not mention it at all. If asked, you can say that it's nice to see other people being interested in your own work and finding applications.


Are academics more tolerant of biological and philosophical differences?

There is a recent study which generated quite a bit of noise and seems to indicate that racial and gender biases do indeed exist in academia (at least in the U.S.). The researchers sent e-mails to professors pretending to be a prospective graduate student, and response rates varied widely depending on the ethnic- and gender- markers in the purported student's name.


Is there a way to get rid of "enhanced pdf"s?

The userscript Publication Auto PDF seems to do the job.
It does not rewrite the pdf link, but downloads the pdf directly when one visits the abstract page, so it saves even one more click.
It works under a browser extension that runs userscripts (Greasemonkey / Tampermonkey / Violentmonkey / Firemonkey).


In general, taking longer to graduate is not a problem. However, your plan of retaking courses rather than taking new courses is a bit flawed. If you take more advanced courses and do well, then your earlier performance on more basic classes is less of a concern. It might not bring up your GPA as much, but taking new upper-level courses (and doing research as you have suggested) will give you more to talk about in a SOP, strengthen relationships with faculty, and better prepare you to do research at a graduate level.


What do recruiters think of candidates who left their PhD midway?

I assume the job does not require a PhD.

The recruiter will usually not know the difference between X and Y unless X tells them.

If X tells the recruiter that they quit their PhD and got a master's, the recruiter's main question would be: why is X telling me this unnecessary information?


"Full" versions versus "Preliminary" version of result/paper. Are they considered different?

I don't think this question has a universal or near-universal answer.  Different people, or even sometimes the same person in different contexts, will count differently if they need to count at all.

More generally, I don't think anyone actually makes decisions based on raw counts of papers, though plenty of people try to justify their decisions to others based on raw counts.

Two versions of the same paper count as two if the person doing the counting wants to make you look better and count as one if the person doing the counting wants to make you look worse.


What are risks or disadvantages in uploading to figshare or related services?

Well, some journals have a "no prior publication" rule in place. These rules often preclude publishing anything that has already appeared in online databases that are freely accessible, so publishing figures in advance of a publication in a medium like this could be construed as violating such a policy. Since anything publicly posted gets published under a CC-BY license, so this almost assuredly counts with those journals as "prior publication."

In addition, anything that could be considered "confidential" or "proprietary" information definitely should not be posted on such a site until you have secured the necessary permissions from project partners and affiliates. That would also apply to "private" hosting of the figures.

Your own university or research institution may have policies that have some bearing on the ability to use such sites, so check with them as well. Better safe than sorry.

(Note: Those cautions aside, I do think it's a clever idea, and I hope it can catch on!)


How can I not forget university mathematics?

In order to learn anything you need to cause physical changes in the brain. This requires repetition and reinforcement. The brain actually re-wires itself by forming new connections between neurons. Your initial reading is probably doing little for you as you just pass over the material. If you read, for example, The Iliad, it is a nice story, but you won't remember much of the detail of it after you finish. Only a few things will stand out. And mathematics is worse because it is the connections between things that are essential.

Your second pass, doing all the exercises is better, but apparently not enough.

Engage with the material.

As you study take notes as you go. Summarize each chapter of the book. Write down the three most important ideas in each chapter. Better yet, each time you have a "study session" write down what you think are the most important ideas (but not everything). When you finish, go over those notes again and write down the three most important ideas.

When you go back to study for another session. Try to remember what the important ideas were from the previous session. If you can't go back and review your notes.

Periodically, review your notes. You don't have anyone to give you an exam, which is the trick professors use to get you to review, so you will have to make that part of your regular process.

If you take notes on index cards you can carry your summary cards with you for review. If you have to wait for anything for a few minutes, you can pull out your cards and shuffle through them. You can also rearrange them and create mini-decks of important ideas.

But the idea is to force the important concepts from short term memory into long term. Memorization isn't the goal, however. It is making the remembered ideas useful. Connecting one idea to another. A math problem seldom depends on only a single idea for solution. You need to combine them. Memorization alone won't do that for you, but solving lots of problems will. There used to be (and may still be) books you could buy that had nothing in them but exercises. I once used those books to help solidify my knowledge.

You can also make up problems for yourself. If you want to know what, for example, derivatives can tell you about the shape of a curve/function of a certain kind, graph a lot of such functions by hand, on paper. If you graph, say, 100 rational functions by hand using the first and second derivatives, you will get a feel both for rational functions and for derivatives.

It is that sort of reinforcement that leads to learning.


How to make sure graduate admissions committees are able to recognize/verify the material a student has self studied

Letters of recommendation which attest to this, and also perhaps the math GRE. You can't believe how much garbage I see in personal statements about how much students have "mastered" a particular mathematical topic studying on their own, only to find out later they had "forgotten" what they had learned months ago after I meet them in the autumn and they're banging on my door asking me to take them on as their potential advisor. So this is why I trust letters of recommendation over the word of the student by and large these days. Please get one of your letter writers to attest to your self-study. Generally, the more senior and influential the letter writer who says this, the more likely I will believe you've self-studied what you say you've self-studied.


Finding number of publications in a subject

First, I would argue that a precise number would be virtually impossible to obtain. This is because there is a large grey-zone between work published in established journals and work "published" in more "questionable" sources. Obviously the way to obtain a number would be to use search services such as Web of Science, Scopus etc. or reference data bases. But, for example, Web of Science only covers works published in ISI listed journals or papers referenced by ISI listed papers and on top of that only back in time for as long as journals have submitted reference information. This means such searches will be incomplete. Hence to arrive at a number may require quite a bit of work unless one would state the limitations imposed on a search sich as limting it to Web of science.

The choice of key word(s) will also be important and it is not certain keywords are systematically applied between sources or over time.

A claim to have found "all" literature is very questionable and I would argue that when one makes such a claim one must provide a picture of the limitations of the search because there will certainly always be such limitations.


How to find the number of citations for each version of an arXiv article?

A simple procedure would be to search for the arxiv identifier including the version number within articles citing the preprint in question. The arxiv identifier is explained here: Understanding the arXiv identifier.

Roughly as follows:

Find the article in a Google Scholar result list.
The entry usually has a link "Cited by: x". Follow this links to see the papers that cite the preprint in question.
It is now possible to limit further searches to the current result list. Do that and search for the arxiv identifier with version number added.

A quick example:

The paper arXiv:1207.1158 is cited roughly 609 times as of today: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=4690497069002627251&as_sdt=2005&sciodt=0,5&hl=de.

Searching for "arXiv:1207.1158v1" within the citing articles yields 4 results: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=arXiv%3A1207.1158v1&btnG=&hl=de&as_sdt=2005&sciodt=0%2C5&cites=4690497069002627251&scipsc=1, while searching for "arXiv:1207.1158v1" yields 6 results: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=arXiv%3A1207.1158v2&btnG=&hl=de&as_sdt=2005&sciodt=0%2C5&cites=4690497069002627251&scipsc=1.

As could be expected, the difficulty is that most papers don't include the arxiv identifier with the version number when citing an arxiv preprint.


What are the best ways to organize one's research workflow when using multiple Operating Systems?

Here's what I do, to manage everything between a Mac laptop and a Linux desktop. I usually write code and do heavy lifting on the Linux machine, but when at home or reading / writing documents I use OS X.

All files of a manageable size are synchronized with BitTorrent Sync. You could also use Dropbox, but that costs money for >2 GB. BTSync is free, unlimited, cross-platform, and peer-to-peer.
If I'm writing code or TeX using TextMate on my Mac, but executing it on Linux, I just run rmate on a document on my Linux machine and the file pops up in TextMate on my Mac. It's wizardry, I tell you. It beats waiting 5-10 seconds for cloud synchronization to catch up.
I use Papers3 for my paper library, which synchronizes with my iPad. All the PDFs are kept in my small, free Dropbox account - the file organization is a bit obtuse so Papers3 is in practice Mac/iOS only. Papers3 does have a Windows app, but not Linux. Mendeley will sync with its Linux and Windows apps, so that might be your best multi-platform option for document storage and annotation.
I have not used Evernote recently, but it runs using Wine in Linux. That's another option for syncing notes and documents.

I'm not aware of a tool for Linux which comes anywhere close to Spotlight for Mac. If there is a program that will synchronize file tags and such across operating systems, I'd like to know about it! Otherwise, for advanced "metadata" and such you're usually restricted to the ecosystem of a particular application.


Is there a list of all online creative commons based journals?

The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is "a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals."


What to do with negative research outcomes (results) of PhD research experiment?

Your friend might not want to hear this, but there's nothing you can do except for start over - with a different experiment. Research fails - and should  ! If there isn't a risk of failure, you're not out on the cutting edge doing research.

But in most failures, there's a grain of something to build on ("from the ashes of disaster come the roses of success"). Maybe the student is too demoralized right now to see it, but almost always there's some clue in the failure that leads to a different research question worth asking.


You don't get a "certificate" for publishing something. The fact that it is available online at the journal's website (which can take a while, depending on their publishing speeds) and has a doi (which you should receive soon after acceptance), is sufficient proof.
Most societies don't have a membership card either. They might send you a welcome letter, which you could use as proof of membership.

Most places accept different forms of proof of claim when a formal one doesn't exist. In your cases, the following should be just as valid:

An email from the editor, accepting your paper for publication (you should have this)
An email from the society, thanking you for your interest and membership
A screenshot of your member page, showing validity
A screenshot of the web copy of your paper (some journals throw a rough version on the web which serves till the final version is typeset).


How to become competitive for PhD in data science?

The PhD committee in top universities looks for a number of things which includes your publication record, the quality of your references, your work experience, etc. If you wish to do a PhD in a top university you should strive to have a publication in top conferences.
Your publication record in a local journal would be of little help if you wish to be selected for top universities. So you have some work to do before getting acceptance-ready.
Firstly, start by implementing papers from top conferences like ICML and reproduce their results. While you do that understand thoroughly the concepts in those papers. This might require you to revisit your foundations in mathematics. Make sure you maintain your code in Github.
Make a list of top research groups you would like to work with and follow their work. As you follow the step above you will gain more confidence and you would be in a position to comment on their work. Start engaging with them on social networks.
As you start engaging with them you would understand the research direction in which these groups are working. Start reading more of their work and try to identify gaps in their work, which they would also mention in their conclusions and future work sections of their papers.
Try to formulate research ideas which address these gaps and try to write proposals. This would be a bit difficult without guidance, especially if you are from the non-English speaking country. You could use paid service to proofread your proposal.
If it is possible to find a good academician in your country, touch base with them and offer to collaborate with them. Look for someone who already has a decent publication record. By collaborating with them not only could you publish more and gain experience in writing, but also get good reference letter.
There are only a handful of 'good' universities in this world and it is not easy to get into them. But if you work hard you sure will succeed. Best of luck!


What to do when people in a research group use different programming languages for computation (e.g., Mathematica, Python, Matlab)?

This is very familiar to me - people come into my field from a number of different places, and each has not only their own preferred software, but the software they think "everyone" uses - which invariably isn't true.

At the moment for example, I have implementations of various bits of my work in MATLAB, Mathematica, C++, Python, Maple, R, SAS...

  Have you been in a similar Situation (either as Student or Supervisor) ?

I've been in groups that successfully united everyone under the same language banner, and some groups that did not (intentionally or otherwise).

  And if so, did you tried to get everyone using the same language ?

I have definitely tried, and occasionally failed. You've mentioned some of the benefits, but beyond merely code sharing, everyone using different languages makes it extremely hard to learn from others, share solutions, or collaborate really in any way. If you have a problem, and it's written in another language than what other folks are using, that problem is entirely your own to deal with - even if folks want to help, they may not be able to.

  Did situations occur, at which it was good that not everyone is using the same tool ?

The only time is when the "usual tool" is somehow terrible at what's needed for someone's work. For example, a few years ago, when Python's statistics ecosystem was much worse, it was good to have people who knew R. But assuming they can all achieve roughly the same thing, I've never gone "Oh thank god we're all writing in different languages!"

The one exception is I did encounter someone whose ability to parse whitespace-based code is...less than stellar, which made me glad I could run things in MATLAB as well as Python.


Export Google Scholar search for fine-grained analysis

There is no API for google scholar data. They do that on purpose ...
 Here are links to some possible workarounds

https://pypi.org/project/scholarly/
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04190-5
https://serpapi.com/google-scholar-api


After how many years since its first issue, does a journal get its impact factor

Getting an impact factor is not something that depends on the duration the journal has been published. To get an impact factor the hard part is getting indexed by Web of Science. After you are indexed, then getting an impact factor is something that will happen automatically. But getting indexed is not trivial; in fact it's one of the biggest challenges facing a new journal. Simply publishing issues will not do it; you need to do other things like publish in English, have peer review policies, and most importantly, generate citations from articles that are published in already-indexed journals. See the criteria here.


Is it common to ask professors for an editable copy of their lecture notes (so I can improve them)?

No, in my experience this is not common.
But that shouldn't stop you from asking. Your suggestion is certainly within the reasonable parameters in which simply offering your help wouldn't be offensive. (Provided of course you do so tactfully, i.e. following the usual etiquette when pointing out that someone else's work could be improved upon.)
I have friends who would be very happy to receive such an offer as they would finally turn their messy notes into something of high quality! But bear in mind that while accepting your offer may seem like a "no brainer" to you, there might be perfectly reasonable reasons why your professor might turn you down. For example, even though your offer seems like a way to improve the lecture notes at no cost to the professor that is not the case. Improving the notes will require co-operation and further editing by your professor as your professor will have to make sure that you did not introduce significant mistakes or misinterpretations. And they simply might not have the time for that!


How can I make my master's thesis more widely accessible online?

arXiv is the de facto way of publishing papers online. Considering that arXiv allows publishing theses as well (see Is it advisable to upload theses to the arXiv?), I would consider arXiv a good option for long-term public storage of your thesis.

However, you have to be aware of certain things.

Firstly, things posted to arXiv are public forever. This means you cannot remove your thesis from there once it is published. I would consider this to be the case for all information posted to the Internet (it is theoretically possible someone has a copy), but it may be the case that nobody is interested enough in your thesis to have a copy.

Secondly, your must be aware of your university policy. Some universities may not allow posting your thesis online. However, I wouldn't choose to attend such a university if I had a choice.

Thirdly, arXiv requires you to post the full LaTeX source code if your thesis is made in LaTeX. This means all of your university's LaTeX style files that may be copyrighted by your university need to be posted too.

Fourthly, arXiv covers only some fields. I was lucky to have my thesis in the field that arXiv covers. If your thesis isn't within arXiv's scope, you have to find a suitable repository from elsewhere.

I'm not sure if the LaTeX source requirement is valid anymore, but it was valid when I posted my thesis in 2014. I actually just was lazy and didn't check with the university if posting the university's .sty files is permitted. I don't expect to be sued because of this. With some amount of work, you could eliminate the use of your university's .sty files, but then the thesis wouldn't look like a thesis made in your university.


How to submit a manuscript in two parts?

The answer to this is "it depends." Some journals do not approve of "series" of papers, expecting that each submission stands on its own. Others will publish extended series of articles (one such series had at least ten entries). So the question of what to do depends on how appropriate the journal in which you want to publish is for the content you're writing about.

If the journal you're publishing in allows it, then there's no problem submitting two manuscripts at the same time, and that's probably the best way to do it, because the related nature of the two manuscripts is much easier to assess. Waiting to send in the second one doesn't help.

As far as the appropriateness is concerned, my first four papers were published as two pairs of manuscripts, so there's nothing wrong with doing so to keep the length of the individual manuscripts reasonable.


Advice for getting professor to submit letter of recommendation

Call or better visit in person if you can.  We all get a lot of email these days, maybe too much and it is too easy to overlook an email.  If you phone and the person recognizes the number he/she might ignore the call.


Do people still have to write thesis after finishing their master/phd?

No, people don't have to write theses after the Masters/PhD. The thesis is a formal requirement for those degrees, but after that, it's just not necessary anymore.

Actual research papers, though ... those are effectively "compulsory".


Is it considered plagiarism if I use my OWN answers twice

This is a grey area and depends on both the nature of the questions and the specific academic misconduct policy of your university/department/instructor. If you wish to reuse your answers, I would ask the instructor in person if it is okay. If they say yes, I would suggest getting an email confirmation that it is acceptable. That said, while there are many reasons for failing a module, it is probably in your best interest to rework the initial assignments from scratch. If you failed because you were unable to grasp the later material, having a better foundation will help. If you failed because you did not put the effort into the module that it required, this is probably a good test to determine if you are now ready.


How to get the most out of an internship (in industry)?

Let me add two important items to eykanal's great answer:

Do awesome research.  If you want an academic career, you can't ever not do this.  A good internship is not a vacation from research; it's an opportunity to broaden your research portfolio.
Cultivate references for your future job search.  Find, work with, and impress people whose interests overlap yours and whose opinions are valued in the academic research community.  These people may work at the company, or they may be visitors.

When it comes time to look for an academic job, your application will be significantly stronger if you have recommendation letters from and publications with people who don't work at your home institution.  In fact, if your CV lists an internship, but you don't have a letter from or paper with someone at your hosting company, that gap will raise a (small) red flag with recruiting committees.


In addition to the grammerly software, are there other better tools in English writing?

Your best bet is to get someone to look over it for you. While leaps and bounds have been made in CS related to looking over papers (or just sentences), not one catches everything.

Your university may have a "homework help" department that students(usually undergrads) can use to get their material looked over (mine had services to help with writing and mathematics specifically). While I think it would be a little out of the ordinary I think it would be worth a shot to see if they would check over your paper for comprehension.


Contribution of gifts and hospital services to university revenue

Gifts are donations, typically from former students but they could come from anyone.  That's just how higher education works in the US, and the tradition of making these donations is a big factor in how some US universities have become very wealthy (some of the donations are spent each year, but many are added to the endowment).  The donations qualify for a tax deduction, so there's an element of government subsidy as well.

Hospitals and clinical services can loom large because university teaching hospitals are huge and medical services are very expensive.  (You can have thousands of employees, some of them very well paid, and elaborate equipment.)  However, this is really not relevant.  The medical revenue is typically paying for the hospital activities and medical education, but not used to subsidize the rest of the university.  Many universities do not have hospitals or medical schools.


How to find a high quality PhD advisor in another country?

It depends on your credentials and references. But having good record enables you to apply to many good schools (e.g., Princeton, MIT etc.) in the US/Europe, via dedicated online application sites. So you do not need to personally contact anyone.

The other option is to use Findaphd.com, and other dedicated mailing lists who solicit PhD applications.

Of course, sending emails to professors, without knowing in advance whether they have the money to support a PhD student, is possible but has quite a low chance of success.

You might also use your existing professional connections within your local academia to seek potential PhD opportunities.


I have strong urge to respond to user9590's comment: No one who quit a PhD ever felt bad for quitting a PhD. Well, I do. I always feel bad after I quit PhD. Although I had good personal reasons to do so, I always regret my decision. I missed everything in academia: the professors, the classroom, the research, the teaching, even the campus. After I retired from industry, I had to choose a place to live. Do you know the street name of my current address? Academia Road !

The reasons you're thinking about leaving academia:

I hate the politics - Do you believe there is no politics in industry?

I hate the way I'm treated by my supervisors, the university staff and colleges - Do you believe your managers, the human resources and the company in industry will treat you very well?

I hate the academic culture here where I'm expected to let my research take over life, - Would you love the industry culture to let making money take over life?

I feel I deserve more respect than what I get as a grad student.. - Do you feel you deserve more respect than what you'll get as an employee of an industry company?

If your answers to the above questions are all positive, industry is your place. In particular, please run to industry if you love to make money. Otherwise, please reconsider quitting PhD. Good Luck!


Can I do Part III of the Mathematics tripos as a part of my PhD in Cambridge University?

Part III of the natural sciences tripos is essentially a Master's degree: you take courses and exams and write an extended essay. The application process is completely separate to that for DAMPT PhDs (or PhDs in any other of the Cambridge physics departments).

The simplest option is to do Part III and then apply for PhDs while you are doing it. It's highly unlikely you will have time (and I'm not sure it's even allowed) for you to take Part III courses while registered for a PhD. You could contact someone in Part III admissions to ask them whether you can take courses alongside a PhD, but I suspect the answer would be no.

Personally, I wouldn't place too much weight on the importance of Part III. It has its fearsome reputation for a reason and many people I know who did it, hated it. If you go straight into a PhD, you will learn the relevant knowledge as you go along -- it's unlikely you'll need an in-depth grasp of every part of QFT, general relativity, group theory etc.  Anecdotally, of the other PhDs in my year group (not Cambridge but a similarly reputable cosmology institute), only one out of seven of us has Part III. You easily can succeed in a theoretical physics PhD without it.


The first teaching job: prior knowledge or do people get trained?

Some do teaching as part of their Masters or PhD studies.

Others do a teacher training course before, or after, Masters or PhD.

Some do teacher training without wanting to do a Masters or PhD and teacher training courses can be short (about 1 year) or longer.


I'd send a CV and a motivational letter - it might be a good idea to call as well if you are unsure exactly where to send it.

Penelope's answer is good, but recruiters can spot a 'template' motivation letter a mile away - I'd try and do it from the heart as much as possible.

Also, make sure you include contact details on both your CV and covering letter!


Asking for details of an algorithm developed in an article in review

In a similar situation, I have sent an email to the editor asking to pass on a message and giving permission to reveal my name and contact details to the authors if they wish to respond.

Alternatively, but more problematic, you state that you may be able to replicate it. You could go ahead and do that and by the time your work is complete, the original article is likely to be available to be cited. If you were to go down this path, though, you should still be discussing this with the editor as part of your agreement as a reviewer is that you don't do this.


Is it fair to punish the student for not knowing what's in the course?

I hesitate to answer this, as my views might be taken as just a rant, but I have a lot of experience - doctorate in mathematics and 40 years teaching mostly CS. Moreover, I've thought and written a lot about student learning.

My most basic question about exams is whether they tell us what we think they tell us and I think the answer is no. It depends on the exam, of course, but too many exam questions can be misleading and it is difficult to come up with good ones unless you revise and refine old ones, taking into account an analysis of old results. In one of the other questions cited by the OP, it took several suggestions by other academics to come up with a "fair" version of a question that didn't seem to be a minefield when first written, but turned out to be.

Other issues with exams (in fields like mine), is that too often an exam is simply too simple a vehicle to determine what a student has deeply learned at an operational level. Too many exams only test what a student has managed to remember from yesterday's cram session, as the high-risk nature of the process pushed them to actual destructive behavior. Can you make an exam for which cramming isn't going to be of any use. Yes, you can, but it is very difficult. It is even harder to convince them not to cram, forcing certain things into short term memory and perhaps obscuring more fundamental things.

Another issue, especially with the predecessor questions, is that when a student taking the exam (maths) gets an idea into their head it is very difficult to get it out, even when they realize that it is the wrong solution and isn't going anywhere. The first idea dominates the thought. Given enough time (not available in most exams) they might get it right, but the pressure itself is a mind-killer. This advantages some kinds of students, but not necessarily the most able or the ones with the best grasp. It is very complicated.

I have two suggestions, the first of which doesn't scale. That is oral exams in place of written ones. Now the questioner has a chance to interject if the student has made a wrong turn and can evaluate the depth of learning directly. The student has a chance to inquire about things unstated. But (personal experience here) the student also has a chance to explain why a first attempt is wrong, which may reveal a lot more about their learning than even a correct answer would.

But, that doesn't scale well. My major advisor also occasionally taught elementary courses (say Calculus) to moderately large groups and gave only oral exams (about 5 minutes each) and announced to the students at the end of the five minutes what their grade was. But even in a few minutes he could ascertain in broad terms how well the student knew the material just from their approach.

The other means, which scales better, is to rely less on exams altogether. Toward the end of my teaching I let exams count for no more than 30% of the grade. The rest being written work of various kinds, including group work. This lowered the pressure. Students could demonstrate what they had learned by demonstrating what they could do not what they could remember from yesterday. There was little need to cram and they were all promised a question that they would find very hard and that required interpretation, not memory.

Heavy reliance on exams scales well as exams are easier to grade than projects are to evaluate and comment on. But they also advantage a certain kind of person and disadvantage others. This is especially true, and I think unavoidable, if the exam is timed and important to the grade. People freeze. People prepare ineffectively. People have other commitments that get in the way of effective exam study.

However, there is one potentially positive aspect to an exam. Students do need to review what they have learned. That is an important aspect of changing the brain to solidify learning and turn it from simple rote learning into something that can be actively used. Lots of reinforcement of the learning. So, an exam that asks them to review what they have learned isn't a bad thing as long as it isn't so high pressure that it forces bad and unproductive behavior before or during the exam. In particular, essay questions, that ask for interpretations and consequences of things learned can be useful. I wouldn't want my courses to use only exams to help with this review and refinement, but it can be one aspect. I also sometimes used take-home exams with few rules forbidding things other than actual collaboration.

Most things, especially mathematics and CS, aren't actually produced in an exam-like atmosphere. I hope you will think about that.


How to check whether a student faced disciplinary action

No, you probably cannot find out what the outcome was.  Here in the US (and perhaps elsewhere) disciplinary actions are confidential.


Is there a biological age drawback for comparable academic experience in order to get permanent position?

Four years isn't very long, actually, so I doubt that there would be much of any effect. However, you can't rule out implicit bias of individuals independent of policies (or the lack) concerning age.
However, you will be judged on what you have done with your time. Changing fields is perfectly acceptable and people recognize that takes time. But the quality of your work and the recommendations of your professors will far outweigh any issues about age for most people. There is no accounting for jerks, of course.
But if people who have worked with you can honestly predict your future success, then you should be fine.


Do professors care about their rating on websites such as RateMyProfessor or Koofers?

I occasionally check RateMyProfessor, and I do care (a little) about what students say: my feelings are hurt by negative comments, and I am encouraged by positive ones. I know some people who do the same; others never check the site at all.

However, these ratings are never taken seriously as an evaluation of effective teaching. I have never heard them seriously discussed in any hiring, tenure, or promotion meetings. Anyone who brought them up would likely provoke a very negative reaction from their colleagues.

Why is the site not taken seriously? My negative reviews include the following:

"The amount of homework was unreal. I spent on average, 5 hours a week on this homework, which is also graded on correctness."
"Only take this class if... you like learning on your own."
"He is a really tough grader and will take off points for little things (i.e. forgetting an equals sign)."
"He... marks off on tests if he doesn't know how you got an answer."
"Also, the homework is graded on accuracy not completion..."

If my colleagues cared at all, they would see these reviews as positive.


Receiving gift from student before grading MSc thesis. Is it ethical?

In my opinion you are asking yourself the wrong question. The important problem is not if it feels like a bribe to you, but if it could look like a bribe to others.

Let's say you have another student whose thesis you are grading at the same time and he ends up with a worse grade. This might have been an objective decision, but still, if this other student now hears about the gift you got, he will start to wonder if maybe giving you a nice gift would have gotten him the same grade.

Since the gift is quite small, you are most likely legally in the clear, however in my opinion, ethically it wasn't the right thing to do. It is probably to late to return the gift right now, but for similar future situations, it is probably better to decline gifts until the grade is set in stone. Not only from an ethical point of view but also since it will give you an aura of fairness and incorruptibility at the low cost of a few cheap beers.


What kind of information are expected in the "Additional comments" section of a letter of recommendation?

Note: this is just my opinion, not necessarily the "correct" or "necessary" way to do this. I also agree with @aparente001 that you could highlight some other accomplishments of the student outside their academic work, or reflect on a particular struggle the student had and overcame if appropriate. Another alternative is an anecdote about the student that highlights one of the other characteristics you discussed or something else in their application.

That said, Sections 1 and 2 relate to the characteristics of the student, and you could write these sections without necessarily knowing anything about the university or program the student is applying to. Section 3 is an opportunity for you to say "this student would be a great fit for your university because _____." That reason might not be particularly about their academic performance or personal demeanor but rather something that ties the student to where they want to attend. If you don't know what the student's particular ambitions are, it would be completely appropriate to ask them.

Essentially you are corroborating the student's statement of purpose or similar essay they might be including in their application (you could ask them for this, as well). Along the lines of diversity, I'd be a bit wary of saying "because this student checks categories A, B, and C they'd be great for your school's statistics!" (I know you wouldn't really say that, but I'm just pointing out that the school will already have whatever diversity-related information they need to make those decisions) However, there might be related issues you can highlight. Maybe the student has aspired to be the first generation in their family to attend an institution of higher learning. Maybe they want to go to University X because of their excellent program in the agricultural sciences. Maybe their parents are both physicians and the student wants to go to University Z because their broad liberal arts education will allow them to seek what really drives them. It all depends on the student and their goals. Anecdotes are great too. This is your opportunity to talk about the time your student gave a talk in class on a particular topic, or produced a particular project, or took on a role in the school play, etc, and showed a particular passion or aptitude.

I'd avoid leaving it blank if you want to submit a solid recommendation.


Alternatives to rushing to start with a bachelor thesis before my favourite advisor leaves the university?

There may be another alternative.

Faculty change positions, sometimes even in the middle of an academic year, so there are often situations where students might get caught in the middle. The university is not likely to “punish” students because the advisor had to leave and usually make exceptions whereby the old advisor can finish the supervision of the student after their departure. I know I have done this for PhD students even after I made a similar move, so a bachelor’s or master’s thesis should be comparatively easy. The key would be to make sure the Betreuung (supervision agreement) is in place before the faculty member departs.

You should check with the office in charge of registering theses in your program before making a decision, as they will have more specific information relative to your school’s requirements and what is allowed.


What is the weight of GRE analytical-writing scores on math graduate-program admissions?

I think the entire GRE General carries very little weight overall in admissions nowadays, except for the caveat that extremely poor scores might hurt you, because it betrays a fundamental weakness in the application (usually that language skills aren’t up to par). But language abilities if you’re an international student are usually judged using the IELTS or TOEFL, so it wouldn’t likely matter unless the school imposes a floor on the Analytical Writing score.

In STEM fields in general, including math, I can’t really think of a scenario where a strong writing score will bump a candidate from rejection to acceptance in isolation.


Should I get informal with a professor if they didn't explicitly invite me to do so but the situation seems to suggest it's appropriate?

I would suggest that you handle interactions more on the informal side when you are just around the professors and your former fellow students.

But when around the professors and your current fellow students I would stay on the formal side because otherwise you imply to the other students that every student can adress the professors like that (which the professors may not want).