How to best start offering consulting services as a Ph.D. student?

I experienced working as a consultant during a year in a PhD program.

On the upside, I earned more than my cohort was in our fully funded program.

On the downside, stepping out of a lecture to take a client's phone call was one of my experiences. Having to handle the fallout of another client's death during finals was another, when one client suddenly became several smaller ones.

I found I was losing the support of the head of the department, and I didn't like my grades.

I had confounding issues: one was that my clients and wife were in a town a 3 hour drive away from my program and another was that I was scrambling to catch up with the math required, as I underestimated the preparation required. I found the workload to be unsustainable and withdrew, enrolling in a local Masters program instead.

I'm now likely earning more than the majority of my former cohort, while not facing the stress of the publish or perish monster or dealing with undergraduates trying to understand why you gave them an F for lazy slapdash work. However, I would consider mine a cautionary tale.

I assume you want to complete your degree. To do so, you'll want the support of your department. You may underestimate their desire to see you become a hugely successful academic eventually rising to tenure at an Ivy. They may become dismayed by your desire to work in consulting.

On the other hand, there are hugely successful academics who are also very entrepreneurial consultants.

That said, you don't want your advisor or department chair to think of you as a consultant, unless that's already expected of you. Ideally, you want them to think of you first and foremost as a successful academic. I would avoid loudly publicizing your services until you finish your dissertation (which you should probably finish sooner rather than better, in alignment with this strategy).

Instead, you might profile your ideal client-type and ask your current clients that best fit that profile for introductions to similar ones, or at least to identify them for you. Then, like any sales pitch, you should do your homework on the potential clients, and go put yourself in front of them.

I wouldn't rule out the assistantship either. It likely means high quality time with a great scholar. That should align with your values, considering your current efforts at education. Don't be dishonest about your intentions, but do be discrete. I hope my advice helps.


You should always be applying.  Postdocs are short term positions.  It is understood.
Give notice after you get AND have accepted a firm written job offer.

You really don't owe any more than that.


Would denouncing cheaters from an exam make me less likely to receive penalties?

Talk to someone you can trust.

The rules in your place seem to be very severe. Therefore, I advice you not only to listen to people in this forum, but to consult someone who knows the rules in your country. In my other answer, I recommended ombudswomen/ombudsmen or the student union. As in your country, you can be banned from higher education for 5 years, I would advise you to talk to a lawyer. Let them advise you.

In most places, the best way would be to "confess". However, if in your place it is possible to get punished for five years for what you did (which is in my eyes no misdeed at all, as you did not know you helped cheaters) there may be more messed up rules/strange things going on. So please, for your own sake, consult a lawyer (or similar), good luck!

(And yes, of course consult the institution rules and try to find out if similar cases happend before.)


Should I take an S/NS grade during COVID19 if I want to go to grad school?

No one can predict how it will play out as the world of academia, as elsewhere, is in a bit of chaos now. I expect, however, that most people will be understanding of such things. They will need to be, in general, since a few universities are only "grading" students on that basis for now.

But, I doubt that it matters very much which way you jump. Your description of the course indicates it would not be a major determinant of anything in your future. If you take the grade and are asked in the future, I think your description here would be fine, especially if you are doing well in other, more important, courses.

That said, cum laude will be nice to think on thirty years from now.


Be sure you read the relevant articles you can find so that you know what has already been done. Then go to the relevant conferences and see if you can talk one of the senior people into giving you 15 minutes for a discussion of your ideas over a cup of coffee -- and if that turns out to be productive, see if they are interested in collaborating in a paper. You will likely do the majority of the work for the paper, but the senior co-author will make sure you stay on the right track, and point you at other papers that you may have missed by yourself. He or she may also introduce you to other researchers in the field who have thought about connections between fields such as the one you have in mind.


Withdraw manuscript from peer review after finding a major error

There are two parts to your question:

  How to broach the matter with your colleagues.
  How to withdraw your paper from review.

The trickier issue is how to broach the subject with your colleagues. If you feel there is absolutely no way for you to finish the revisions on schedule, then you owe it to your co-authors to tell them of the problem. However, this should be a dialogue, not a unilateral decision. They may see the issue as being less onerous timewise, and that it may be possible to finish the work within a reasonable period of time. Or they may agree with you that withdrawal is the best option. In either case, it should be a team decision, and once that's made, you can proceed with notifying the journal.

Notifying the journal is the simpler issue to handle. Most journals usually set a timeline for submitting major revisions. Just send the journal a note stating exactly what you wrote above. There is nothing wrong with independently withdrawing a paper because of significant errors. (Better that you do so now than need to retract it because of errors later on!)


Working unofficially and unpaid after internship got cancelled, should one give full commitment if not intending to continue as a researcher?

Should you exchange your time for very minimal supervision (and no pay)?

That depends on whether you perceive the value of very minimal supervision to outweigh the value of your time.

You should consider whether alternative uses of your time (e.g., paid work, vacation, personal study, ...) are more valuable.


Can a routine in R be published in academic journals?

Depending on the extent of your work, you may be able to get a paper describing your package and methods in PLoS One or a similar journal, or the Journal of Statistical Software.

Alternately, The R Journal is a peer-reviewed journal covering R software, which may be an appropriate venue if you don't have enough methodological material to build out a full paper for another journal

Finally, many journals accept code supplements for papers describing the use of your method, so you may be able to publish your routine's in a paper about the actual work you are doing.


I wish to try out a technique which my supervisor does not want me to, because its not his expertise

This is a question you can only answer yourself, because it's about the balance between working on stuff your group is experienced in and trying out new stuff. But let's list some arguments why you should not go off doing something just because it's interesting:

You probably have a Phd topic yourself, and every month spent on something not directly relevant means you're defending a month later. Will this fit in another publication you're planning to write?
Your supervisor is not an expert in this subject, which will definitely cause you to make some avoidable mistakes that will take time or make the project weaker. If your supervisor cannot help you, do you have someone else that can guide and teach you?
Even if it's a new and fancy technique, new and fancy doesn't do anything for you if you're not an expert already. You'll probably figure out stuff that has been figured out already. Will it bring direct results that you need for your other projects?
You'd not be doing this project in magical extra time, it's something you'll be doing instead of something else. Is it really that much more interesting than something closer to your expertise / project?

Your Phd is about doing research. Bringing projects from start to finish and publishing. Not about learning for the sake of learning. You probably did enough of that, now it's time to push the boundaries of knowledge.


How to deal with unruly, unengaged students who complain about me?

From the beginning, the majority of the class was ill-mannered. They would make noise by opening microphones, opening cameras, removing other students, muting my mic.

This seems like a technical problem; I really can't believe any modern software wouldn't have a way to disallow this behavior. I would start by investigating this.

When I threatened to involve the chairman, they said "he is our
buddy."

This seems like a bit of an illogical response on your part. Classroom control is your responsibility. What do you expect the chairman to do?

So I made some rules, threatening to mark students absent if this continued. The whole class then requested a meeting and asked me to discard these rules. I agreed.  Since then, the students have largely stopped their shenanigans with
the microphone and camera. But only a few are engaging with the
material and answering or asking questions during lecture.

In general, setting draconian rules and then repealing them entirely will make you seem erratic. In this case, it is true that students muting your microphone and expelling each other during lecture is a serious problem that you have to solve "at any cost." Still, it seems like there had to have been a better option. Do your colleagues have this problem? How have they dealt with it?

I try calling on them one by one, to ask if there is any confusion, and they always say they don't understand anything.

So, this is the crux of the matter: I suspect your lectures are completely incomprehensible. Reasons I suspect this:

Your students are outright telling you "I don't understand anything."
It would explain your students' antics with the microphone.
You had extreme difficulty in formulating your question here -- both language-agnostic skills (filtering the important information, organizing it, even breaking into paragraphs) and English-specific syntax.

Now I could be wrong, so I suggest you start by getting a colleague to sit in on your lecture and give you some honest feedback. If I am right, I can't tell you how to improve your teaching, but I think you need to take drastic action -- anything from getting better teaching mentorship to signing up for education classes could be worth trying.

This hurt my feelings. So I said them that tell me that will they be responsive in my class or I will talk to chairman. No one replied except one student, who said "as you wish."
I called chairman I was about to start my point but before that he told me: be soft with your class, they have issues with you, they have complained to me and sent me a recording. He said that he didn't watch the recording, but I should be careful.

Yeah, two issues here:

You can't force student engagement. Chastising them will only make matters worse. You could try making participation part of their grade; however, I would first make sure your lectures are good, otherwise students will be rightfully angry that you are forcing them to participate in incomprehensible lectures. You may be better off just working with the students who do engage and allowing the others to sit in silence (which is what the chairman suggested).
Threatening to go to the chairman clearly has no effect -- the students don't seem to care and the chairman does not seem to be on your side.

I asked one student (the one who instigated the discussion about the rules) whether they still have an issue with me, and she said no. I said asked why she complained about me when issues were resolved among us. She denied making the complaint. But clearly someone has a grudge against me.

Major mistake -- this will give the impression that you are angry with the students for going to the chairman. Further, due to the power imbalance, it is inappropriate to single out a student in the way that you did. While it would be nice if students resolved their complaints with you rather than going to the chairman, students do have the right to complain about you, and the optics of chastising students for doing so are horrible.

I am really hurt by these allegations. The situation is getting worse day by day.
Did I do something wrong? What should I do differently? Should I be worried about losing my job?

A good rule of thumb is that it's normal for a few students to be unhappy with you (maybe even more than a few, under certain circumstances), but a serious problem if the majority of the students are unhappy with you. Since the class seems to be pretty unanimously against you, I think you need to make some changes.
My recommendations:

Solve your technical problems with the online system.
Get a colleague to give you some honest feedback about the quality of your lectures. If they are bad, take drastic action to improve them (note, this could take years).
Stop trying to control the students' behavior. Focus your energies on giving good lectures and assessing their learning fairly.


Why use 'advisor' or 'supervisor' instead of just 'collaborator'?

I think you're correct that the supervisor role can be equivalent to normal collaboration in that the student will bring their own unique ideas, knowledge, and experience to build on a mutual project collaboratively. However, where I think there is an unavoidable difference (at least, in every student I have met including myself) is the conception of viable projects. In my field I've never heard of a student (masters or PhD) conceiving from the ground-up their entire project. They're always built from a project advertised to prospective students, or developed with the supervisor (often from previous work) where a research relationship already exists.
As a student, you're learning to become an independent researcher. This means learning what is and isn't scientifically interesting and viable, how to search the literature and theory for relevant information, etc.. This is what a supervisor is teaching, and this is a very specific relationship that isn't properly conveyed with "collaborator".
This distinction is most important when there are multiple co-authors on a paper, including co-authors that are not the supervisor. The non-supervisor co-authors fit the description of collaborators and still should be described as such, no matter their academic "rank".


I have fewer relevant publications than I can highlight in my application

I’d only add the four relevant ones, unless you have one that particularly speaks to your narrative about your research, etc.

The search committee can read your CV already. What they want is something they can grab onto and think about deeply, and generally I’ve found that “The applicant is a co-author in the middle of the paper” just gets it discounted.


To what extent do PhD students in computer science collaborate equally with other PhD students when working on a research project?

The PhD is generally awarded to students for their individual contributions to science. That's the whole point. It's not only about advancing science, but advancing science yourself. Otherwise, we would grant a new PhD to each member of a research team every time they had significant new results. Everyone is aware that it's possible to be more productive in teams, but the degree itself is really only about what you can add. So the encouragement to work on your own is there to make it easier to demonstrate what you have personally added to the body of knowledge in your area. Distinguishing your work from another student's could be very hard if you do everything together. This is the traditional view at the very least.

All this being said, discussions, brainstorming, help diagnosing problems should all be a part of students working with others (students, postdocs, researcher professionals, the supervisor, and other faculty). You just have to keep your work separate enough that you can make an easy case for yourself when it comes time to defend your dissertation.


How much time should I allow for math postdoc candidates to accept or decline my offer?

Supposing this question is not hypothetical, and you are at one of these U.S. departments (assuming you need respect the agreement), you do not have too much choice in the matter. The departments at that page have agreed not to require responses to postdoctoral job offers before Monday, February 3, 2020.

Otherwise you could place it before January 24th (the deadline for decisions on the NSF postdoc), in hopes of snagging someone who might get a more attractive offer later, or afterwards, to avoid having someone else renege on your offer.

This all depends on where you are located, and what the status is of your potential candidates (the agreement above applies only to candidates within two years of their Ph. D.).


How can an author get assurance that his work will not be stolen by journal staff or reviewers?

It is unlikely that a reviewer or other participant in the peer review process will outright steal the work he/she is reviewing and publish it as original work, because it is easy to get caught.

If the "real" author of the work accuses the thief of plagiarism, the editor of the journal can verify that the work was originally submitted by the "real" author before it was published by the rogue reviewer.  (Also see: What to do if a referee plagiarises the result after rejecting a paper?)

If the rogue reviewer is caught, the paper will be retracted (which is damaging to his professional reputation) and there may also be other consequences for the reviewer. See e.g. this recent example.


How to deal with particles in a last name in a reference list

One thing to keep in mind is that there is a substantial difference in several continental languages between uppercase and lowercase versions of a last name: it is wrong to write "de Martino" if the person's last name is normally written "De Martino." This is a historical artifact, where the use of the capital letter indicates nobility, while the lowercase letter denotes a more traditional relationship. Similar rules apply to "von" in German and "van" in Dutch, but not to "de" in French or Spanish.
Therefore, when capitalized, the particle should always be treated as part of the last name. If lowercase, you can treat it as a suffix that goes after the first name. The exception are names like "de Gaulle" where "de" is followed by a one-syllable name.
So, it's:

Beethoven, Ludwig van
Clausewitz, Carl von
de Gaulle, Charles
Di Martino, Emilia
Martino, Emilia di
Maupassant, Guy de
Van Allen, James

My source is the MLA Handbook.


Can I get an admission for a mathematics masters program with only an acceptable GRE subject score and an unrelated bachelors degree?

I'm going to guess that it will be difficult, depending on what you mean by a "top university". Your CE background has some math, it is true, but you are probably missing quite a few of the courses that math graduates will have had.

The math subject test itself is very difficult and tries to cover many topics. Even a math graduate will have had no courses at all that cover many of those topics and even they won't be able to answer them. I did quite well on the test (with a very strong math major) but still felt terrible on finishing the exam.

The only way to be certain, of course, is to make application to a few places. But I think you might need more math background than would be typical in any engineering degree. An applied math program might be within reach, though.

There is a lot of competition and most of it coming from people with a full math curriculum behind them.

I'd suggest, however, that you find a way to talk to (or even visit) a potential institution and discuss it with an admissions person. They might have specific advice about what you need and how you could get it. A pretty steep climb overall, I'd think, unless your background is unusual.


PhD in Cryptography after Master's in Pure Mathematics

My advice would be to find a way of getting some research experience associated with cryptography before committing to the idea of doing a Ph.D. in it. Several advantages to this:

a) you'll know that you'll like working on open problems in cryptography, as opposed to just liking learning about the field in the classroom;

b) it'll give you a sense of the types of research you might want to pursue, which would pave the way for a well-developed statement of purpose in your grad school applications;

c) it could help you make additional useful connections. A Ph.D. application supported by letters from cryptography professors attesting to your research potential in the field would make a lot of sense if you do indeed end up wanting to aim to do a Ph.D. in it.


Failed PhD qualifying exam, must it be mentioned it in SOP? can I ask my advisor not to mentions in recommendation letter?

The issue is that schools know about other programs in their field. If you are applying to another school while you are still enrolled, the obvious assumption is that something has gone wrong at your current school. This will act as a potentially big problem—particularly if the other school is known not to have a separate master's program, but instead admits directly to a PhD program.

I would recommend not hiding this from schools to which you apply; doing so would be sufficient grounds to revoke your admission, if it were to come to light, since you are lying by omission in your application.

Moreover, if you have done good research, and your advisor is willing to testify to that, and your only significant issue is that you struggled with the qualifying exam, then you should be able to find a new department. (Perhaps you should look for departments where you won't have to take a qualifying exam—there may be some in your discipline, and more and more schools are dropping them.)


Most decent PhD programs in biology will guarantee 5 years of funding (tuition plus stipend on the order of 22K-30K / year) , with the provision that you may have to work as a teaching assistant 20 hours/week for some or all of that time.

The challenge will be getting into one of these programs with a 2.7 GPA. Many graduate schools require a minimum GPA, often around 3.0, for admission. Departments can and do petition to admit students with lower GPAs, but it certainly makes things harder. Being an underrepresented minority can be helpful if there are other strong aspects to your application that compensate in part for the low GPA.

As you've indicated, doing research is one possibility. Publishing a result would be great; simply being a lab for an extended period of time working alongside a PI is already a good thing. Why? It shows that you know what research is about, and it enables you to get a letter of recommendation from someone who knows you well in a research capacity.

What else can you do? Letters of recommendation are very important; do you know faculty from who you could get strong letters? If not, start making those connections now. A good GRE score will go a long way toward compensating for poor grades. It's worth preparing thoroughly for the GRE before you take it. Contacting possible advisors at the schools to which you are applying is extremely important. You can find lots of advice about how to go about doing that here on this site.

Good luck. While you're not in an optimal position, we've taken students with GPAs in your range at our top-20 PhD program, so certainly there is hope.


Pursue master's in Cybersecurity if I am not a US Citizen?

Most research is sponsored by DARPA or the government (I suppose requires security clearance)

Some specific research projects in cybersecurity may require security clearance, or are restricted to US citizens. The vast majority are not restricted in this way. You can see this for yourself by looking at the author lists of papers published in conferences like S&P. Specifically look at those papers coming from US institutions and note the many papers with at least one author who is an international student.

US graduate programs in cybersecurity routinely admit large numbers of international students, who for the most part have access to the same research opportunities as students that are US citizens. If you want to be sure that the program you are applying to conducts research in which non-citizens may participate, check the authors of publications coming out of that lab - look up the authors online, and see if there are many international students among them. Some labs might also have a web page where they list current graduate students involved in their research.

(You obviously can't determine citizenship of an author accurately with a Google search, but if there are a large number of international students involved, it's almost certain that there are also non-citizens involved.)

One difference is that you will not be eligible for certain federal fellowships specifically for US citizen students involved in cybersecurity research, such as the Scholarship for Service program.


How do I tell thesis advisor I want to withdraw from research? (mental health)

First, I hope you are working with a mental health expert; I always hate to see people lose good opportunities due to issues like this. As Buffy says, you should definitely see if there is anyway you can make this work (though, a clean break is better than performing so poorly he has to fire you. A mental health expert can help you weigh these decisions).
At any rate, to your actual question:

how can I tell this Professor I want to withdraw?

Clearly and concisely. In person if possible, but if you cannot face that, an e-mail will do the trick:

Dear Professor,
Unfortunately, I am going to have to withdraw from research. I really enjoy working with you, the research has been very interesting, but due to some mental health issues, working in a group is not really feasible for me. It's nothing against [the other student], and I understand that research is often done in groups, but I'm not currently at a place where I can support group work. I am sorry to have to withdraw; thank you again for your efforts.
Name


Seeking PhD students on traditional job sites

Sorry, but that thought makes me a bit itchy. Maybe I'm just old.

Building up your reputation and visibility is a good thing, though. You might be able to do it with a university sponsored web site on which you have at least some control. Showcase your work and interests there. Publish links to papers if appropriate.

It is also a place to say that you are "accepting PhD candidates". If you have funding available be sure to say that as well as what topics you would be interested in supervising.

Another way to potentially find students is to attend conferences at which you are likely to find a good number of undergraduate (or MS level) instructors. Use the social contacts there to spread the word. You might possibly even get to meet a student or two. If you can get on the program, you also spread your reputation. These may be educational focused conferences, such as the SIGCSE conference of ACM in Computer Science. Most of the attendees there are educators and many are also supervising graduate students.

But, maybe you are just a bit bored. If you have the possibility (and are at a large enough place) you can associate yourself with working groups of other professors on topics of mutual interest. It may be that the group itself attracts potential students and you might benefit from that as well as the synergy of joint work.

I'm still thinking about your question and may add more as it occurs to me. I'd warn you, however, that with an advertisement you will likely draw a lot of responses that you will find entirely inappropriate and yet have to deal with. I'm thinking mostly of the ill-prepared who have little idea about what is required.


Where can I look for announcements of tenure-track positions?

A quick Google Search of

  X faculty position ads

turns up a rather lengthy list of position ads, but they also include the websites which those ads are posted on. You can then "fan out" from there. (It defaults to jobs within 200 miles of your location, so you'll want to change that setting to "any" to see all the jobs it can find.)

Additionally, the professional society for your discipline or another similar organization probably has some sort of "clearinghouse" site where such announcements are collected. For example, in my discipline (Chemical Engineering), an organization called CACHE offers a central posting site for such positions. In other countries, there may be regulations requiring the positions be advertised in specific locations as well.

And, of course, it's possible to ask your friends, mentors, and colleagues where to look for positions! Independence doesn't mean you have to go it completely alone!


Is it acceptable to cite a textbook for basic background in a master's thesis?

You are right that listing a textbook is generally not seen as 'academic' enough. But I think it would make sense to cite it in a literature review with a note like, 'For a good basic overview of this subject, see…'. This I think is acceptable, given that the rest of your thesis shows awareness of more technical pieces as well.


Can a person who once supported pseudoscience or conspiracy theories ever be considered a credible source again?

Let me answer this by turning it around: just because somebody hasn't supported obvious bunk doesn't mean they are even vaguely right.

One of the beauties of science is that, at the end of the day, the people don't matter to the validity of the material.  As long as a document presents a clear argument, you can evaluate it for yourself, no matter whether it was presented by a known crackpot or  a heroically revered elder.

That means that somebody can be ridiculously wrong in one area---even to the degree of crazy conspiracy theories---and still well respected in another, through the magic of mental compartmentalization and cognitive dissonance.

I had a direct experience of this as a young graduate student: one of the early conferences that I attended was a complex systems meeting with a very loose policy for acceptance: you basically had to be sane to give a talk, but even crazies could join the poster session. I was all charged up from earlier listening to keynotes from seriously famous luminaries, when I walked into the poster session and met a respected mathematician with a poster explaining the connection between fractals and peace, supported by poems pleading for one to use the hypotenuse and not the legs of the triangle for the sake of peace. Complete gibberish.  This person, however, is apparently a well-respected researcher in their own field---they just go off and let their crazy flag fly in certain other places.

That said, if you know that somebody has gone to crazy-town, you certainly would be well advised to examine their arguments and citations quite carefully.  Still, at the end of the day, the only truly unrecoverable stain is falsification, because then people can no longer evaluate your arguments without wondering whether the data is simply fictional.


How can teachers reduce student suspicions in discrepancies and irregularities of grading?

Something I used to do (I no longer teach) was to grade in such a way that there should not be an issue if any student compared his/her graded test with any other student in the class. And this certainly happened in my classes (indeed, I sometimes did this myself when I was a student), from the first classes I taught in 1983 to the last classes I taught in 2005. By the way, I taught math. I suspect the methods I describe are much easier to carry out in math than in some other fields, such as literary criticism or philosophy.

Something I started doing after a few years of teaching was to photocopy my solutions/rubric sheet and handing a copy of it back with each student's test. Before this, I often handed out solutions to save class time (and office hour time), and at some point I realized I could save even more of my personal time by simply handing back what I had already hand-written for grading purposes, without bothering to rewrite (or type) it again in a neater form. The solutions I used for grading purposes were often brief, but for rubric purposes I would always include steps that I expected some students to miss, so it actually worked fine with most students when they consulted it to see what they did wrong or how to correctly work the problem. And for those places where I was too brief for a particular student, they tended to consult with their neighbors sitting next to them and together they almost always managed to figure things out, so I tended to only get the less trivial types of questions. As for the rubric, what worked best for me was to treat the rubric as a "work in progress" in the sense that I made grading decisions whenever a certain type of error showed up, rather than trying to anticipate them in advance.

One policy I had and which I often reminded students about was that they should never be afraid of asking me about a question for fear that their grade could decrease. If they saw anything that seemed to be an inconsistency in grading (and this only happened on very rare occasions because I tended to document for myself almost every kind of mistake made as I graded tests), then I wanted them to let me know. If in fact I did make a mistake, then my mistake would never lower their grade, but it could increase other students' grades if my mistake was an inconsistency in how many points were counted off for a certain type of mistake on their part. Also, if I saw on a student's paper brought to me where I made an oversight by not counting off for something incorrect, then I would mark in ink a correction (so the student wouldn't at some later time think what was incorrect was actually correct) and include a comment that this was found after the tests were graded.

One issue I used to often see students and teachers arguing about was points taken off for correct answers that were obtained by not entirely complete work. I learned early on that this can cause trouble when trying to justify your grading to students. The most straightforward way I found to handle this was to simply design problems whose solution requires all the things you feel are important, and of course often reminding students when working problems in class prior to a test what type of work is acceptable and what type of work is not acceptable. For example, the standard elementary calculus method for determining the global maximum and global minimum of a continuous function on a closed and bounded interval involves finding the values of the function at the critical points (where the derivative is zero or undefined) in the interior of the interval and the values of the function at the endpoints of the interval. So if you give a problem where both extrema occur at the endpoints, or both extrema occur in the interior of the interval, then the student could get the correct answer using correct (but not entirely complete) mathematical reasoning by only considering the critical points or by only considering the endpoints. The way to fix this is to design the problem so that one of the extrema is in the interior and the other extrema is at an endpoint. Better still is to arrange it so that there are at least two critical points, with at least one critical point lying outside the interval and at which the function's value is greater than the global maximum on the interval or less than the global minimum on the interval.


Can we use online video lectures to free university professors from lecturing for lower-division courses in mathematics?

Yes, you absolutely can!
The win-win is very unlikely though. Students won't see lower tuition or anything, and will have no opportunity to interact with anyone at the faculty level (so no letters of recommendation, no research jobs, etc). Professor lines will be closed on retirement (or through layoffs) because who needs them, we've got McGraw-Hill eLectures.


My research was plagiarised and won best paper of a conference. How to proceed?

Talk to your advisor. If you have compelling evidence they may be willing to stake their reputation and research collaboration with this group in order to get them to at least acknowledge your contribution after the fact. Again, you need to be prepared to hear that your advisor will be very limited in what they can do apart from trying to straighten things out informally. Given that papers usually take several months to write, I’m curious to know why no one knew about this happening.

Ownership of the idea is going to be hard to argue at this point given that the paper has already been published (and has won an award!). It won’t be withdrawn, it probably can’t be withdrawn since it’s already been published, not a reversible action in most cases. The authors could say that you misunderstood, that they independently came up with the idea, or any number of plausible sounding defenses.

Your best plan forward is perhaps to be involved in follow up work, and be more careful with this group who’s acted in an unethical and mean way.

Finally, if you really feel like you would like to escalate it further, reach out to your university's ombudsperson, vice-dean for research matters, or department head (depending on your university's structure the point of contact differs). Again, since you say you don't have public evidence of precedence, I doubt there's much they could do, but at the very least that would be the correct order of doing things.

In particular, I would most definitely not go to the conference chairs, publicly post something online, or escalate this further before consulting with the appropriate people. You would be burning serious bridges by doing something like that, and chairs/editors are very much averse to getting involved in such things if they don't have to. You may end up looking like some bitter person who sees a colleague's best paper and wants in on the action after the fact.


What should PhD students do if they submit a paper to two journals and a reviewer notices concurrent submission?

If you are a seasoned reviewer you should know the rules, so falling back on being an inexperienced graduate student probably won't hold water. So clearly this was less a 'mistake' and more of a 'gamble'.  You should pull the article from both venues and state -unequivocally- that your advisor had no knowledge.

You didn't mention if your advisor was a co-author on the submission, but if he/she was, the infraction is even worse, because not only have you submitted without consent, you risked damaging their reputation with the journals as well.

The best path forward is to own your mistake wholly and apologize. On the positive side, it's not like you committed the mortal sin of fabricating data or plagiarizing - you violated a rule (and likely the terms and conditions of the journal). Probably not grounds for dismissal but you might be on a leash for a while.

Don't do it again!  The rule is in place for several reasons, not the least of which is respecting reviewers' time and effort (reviewers' time is precious and usually pro-bono. We can't have every journal reviewing the same work).


Well, just typing "motivation letter" or "cover letter" into Google seems to spew up links to loads of hints, tips, and how-to-s, so I guess it's not so hard to find materials outside of here.
So, instead, I'll focus on the advice that was given to me last year when I had to write one, since it worked for me :)
An important thing to realize is that a cover letter is supposed to complement your resume, not duplicate the same information. Thus, your qualifications and achievements should mostly stay in the CV.
Also, you should focus mostly on the position you are applying for, what makes you want it and what makes you think you would be good for it, which means that "how I see this technical world" probably does not deserve much elaboration (one sentence should be okay in my opinion). You are trying to convince them that you are the One and show them what makes you different from the bulk of people applying. What makes you more suited, more likely to succeed, or a better fit than other applications they're considering. (I would guess it's easier for a Master studies application since they will be admitting more than one/a handful of students).
Finally, the structure that I used, and will probably use the next time I will have to write something like that, is dividing the letter in to three parts:

you: here's where you'll put information on you. While you're not supposed to list all your achievements here, you should emphasize or elaborate on specific achievements, skills and motivations that make you especially suited for the position you're applying for

them: it is important to "prove" that you're not sending out generic application letters. You demonstrate that you're familiar with the work done in the university/lab/research group you are applying for.
If you're applying as a PhD student to a lab/professor, you might want to mention a specific paper or project and write an intelligible sentence or two about that. If you're applying for a University, you might want to pick some specific of their programme that especially caught your eye.

you and them together: first section is about how awesome you are. The second, how awesome they are. Now (to conclude), you have to show why you thing you would be awesome with them. Why do you think you're a good fit, right there? This section is not only about what they can do for you, you also have to try and convince then of how they can benefit from you.

Finally, the letter should not be longer than one page. Somewhere, you can even find this as a hard limit on an application. In my experience, you should also not have more than 3 sections. I managed to put an introductory sentence and an finishing sentence just fine in the "sections" I mentioned. Also, your writing should be impeccable. If you can, get a native English speaker to check your language. Use a spell checker. Pay attention to details. Getting an address wrong, or a letter in a name, shows sloppiness. Maybe it does not consciously affect the decision, but it might on some level.
And the last advice I got, which I did follow, but you don't have to take it as a hard rule: avoid negative statements. It's supposed to give a better tone to your letter. So, instead of saying, e.g. "Unfortunately, I couldn't find and internship during my last summer", you should write something like "Having a free summer before my last year, it allowed me to spend more time reading upon the areas of my choosing". The positive statements should help you present the facts in a more positive light.


Is it advisable to continue with a research project if I'm not learning much from it?

You don't need to understand everything that's going on.

But if you don't know enough to interpret what you're doing and why it's important, then you're right: there's no point in doing it.

Having said that, this doesn't necessarily mean you should quit right now. Ask your advisor to suggest some papers, textbooks, or other resources that can help you understand the background necessary for your experiment. There is no such thing as a topic that undergrads are not capable of understanding. There may be topics that would require a great deal of work for an undergrad to understand, but if you're willing to put in the work your advisor should be willing to point you in the right direction.

However, if your advisor is not willing to help you learn (or at least suggest ways for you to learn independently), then you're better off volunteering your efforts to someone you can learn from; it's time to leave.

(If your work does not represent a meaningful intellectual contribution to the research (as per your description), then your advisor will not be able to write a compelling letter of recommendation that speaks of your research ability for admissions to graduate school.)


How do you prepare for a meeting with a potential masters thesis advisor?

When I meet with potential students, I am trying to find out whether we have mutual interests and compatible working habits. Sometimes I have a specific project in mind that I'd like to staff, and I am looking for a student with specific skills or background. Hopefully, the student is trying to find out whether he/she wants to work with me. There are a few things you can think about in advance to have a more productive meeting.

Look at some of his recent publications, and recent publications of students he is supervising. You don't have to read every word, but you should get a sense of what the advisor works on. If you happen to think of an intelligent question or potential extension to his work, great, you may bring it up in the meeting if it seems appropriate, but if nothing comes to you, don't force it.
Expect that he may ask questions to find out more about your interests, strengths, and goals, so be prepared to talk about these. I often ask potential students questions like,

What kind of work do you like to do?
What specific areas of research are most interesting to you?
Are there any classes that you especially enjoyed?
What do you want to do next (e.g. after the MS)?

Think about what questions you might want to ask him. For example, depending on your own working habits and goals you might want to know:

Where do his students end up? Do most go on to industry jobs, or PhD programs?
How does his group operate? Does he have regular one-on-one meetings and/or group meetings with students he supervises? Is his group very collaborative or do most students work individually? Does he have specific expectations about when his students will be their offices, or is he OK with students who work unusual hours or from other locations?

If you have specific technical skills that you believe will be helpful in your MS research, be prepared to bring them to his attention. (For example, if you have taken a course with a lab component that involves techniques relevant to your research interests.)

And yes, it might be helpful for you to bring your CV and transcripts to the meeting, and also email them to him a day or two before. I usually like to look at these before a meeting so that I can see if there's anything specific in them that I want to ask more about. ("I see you're taking [some course] this semester, how are you finding it? ")


What to write in journal cover letter when research was conducted several years ago

Delays in publishing results are normal for several reasons. Seven years might be a long time, but as long as your results are still relevant and writing a new publication on them has not become obsolete, it is irrelevant when they were generated. So do not mention it in the cover letter at all.


Disgruntled with my supervisor - be truthful about this in my semi-annual PhD report?

First and most important suggestion: Seriously consider changing supervisors, and if you can't, give serious thought to finding another university/institute at which to do your Ph.D., contacting relevant researchers and if you find someone who's willing to advise you, making the switch.

But about your actual question:

  A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.

― Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist

Only be honest and forthcoming in your report if you want to have an out-and-out fight with your advisor. You might want to do that for various reasons, but assuming you aren't, don't write what you've told us.

Instead, bury it into nuance and insinuation. i.e. without denigrating what you've actually written and where you've published, put it in the context of the hope of writing something deeper or more meaningful, or publishing someplace more central. Also, mention things you would have liked to have done these past 6 months, and explain how the efforts gone towards preparing publications have not allowed you to invest as much time as you would have liked in the other pursuits. That sounds super-polite and respectful while giving off enough hints.


What computations of the Lotka function exist for publications in humanities meta-disciplines?

There have been a few papers published in this space by bibliometricians/scientometricians already. Having said this, why would you need pre-configured values of lotka's law for certain sub-disciplines in the humanities?

I would collect data (perhaps using Web of Science/Google Scholar/Wiley/Elsevier etc.) ; then do empirical testing with the generalized Lotka's law on particular sub-disciplines and then control against your cultural assumptions and other variables. This is because every discipline changes over time and a paper published on this in the 1970's may yield different results now with the same methodology. Most of my references cited below point this (or some variation of this) out as limitations of temporally specific computations of these laws.

Having said this, there are a few papers which might help you in this task if you haven't found them already:

This paper specifically looks at generalizing Lotka's Law in the humanities and formulates the same queries that I laid out earlier about it being spatio-temporal specific.

This paper is the Pao's modification to Lotka's law for humanities and has some empirical evaluations from certain humanities literature.

This paper is an empirical modification of Pao's variation (see above) to Lotka's Law in certain humanities disciplines.

This is an editorial response to Lotka's law applicability in the humanities.

This is a general paper which looks at quantifying author productivity and impact specifically in the humanities. It is a very good read for approaches.

In other words, do some up-to-date empirical evaluation and then perhaps, run your study. The first could actually make for a fine empirical paper by itself in the scientometrics world. Pre-configured function values are like using empirical regression estimates ; they are fine and specific to that study but may not be generalizable across all studies.


can my paper be excluded from the conference proceedings after attending and presenting?

I find your arguments very compelling and persuasive (except the one about “generating money losses”, which I think is not really the point, and isn’t something I’d advise you to focus on, although it’s understandable that having incurred great expense to attend the conference would add to your sense of outrage). If the conference website, correspondence with the organizers, and other official conference materials led you, and would lead a reasonable person, to believe that your paper will be published in the conference proceedings, then it seems pretty clear-cut that the organizers are guilty of a serious misrepresentation, and, under normal, circumstances, their behavior would be completely unacceptable.

The only explanation I can think of that would make for a legitimate reason to exclude your paper from the proceedings would be if they discovered that your paper is outright fraudulent or involved some serious unethical behavior on your part. Just saying your paper “does not reflect the society ideas and methods” isn’t nearly enough of a justification to make such a drastic move sound acceptable. (But I assume there are additional details that would shed more light on what’s going on here, although they may not change my conclusion.)

As for what you can do, it’s hard to say without more background details about your field, the people involved, what they find wrong with your paper, your professional status, etc. But certainly I think it would be quite reasonable on your part to raise a fuss and complain about this seemingly unfair treatment, and ask for the decision to be changed.  Some people you might want to involve could be your department chair, other colleagues you are on friendly terms with, your advisor (if you have one), people you know who attended the conference, the chair of the organizing committee, and the publisher in charge of the proceedings volume. I think it’s quite possible that once this decision is scrutinized by enough reasonable people with some sway, you will see justice done.

Good luck! Hope you get this sorted out.


As an inexperienced/unknown recommendation letter writer, what should I do to make my letter stand out?

My advice is to start your letter by explaining who you are and your background.  For example, you could mention where you went to graduate school and that you think the student could succeed in that graduate program.  This will give the reader a sense that you have some idea of what will be expected of the student in graduate school.

Beyond that, you should focus on the same things that more experienced letter writers do.

You need to explain how you know the applicant and give the reader some sense that you've had enough interaction with the student to be able to judge their chances of success.  Simply having had a student in a large class isn't really enough here.  On the other hand, "I was Johnny's instructor in a senior level topology class with 12 students.  Johnny frequently met with me during office hours to ask questions about aspects of the subject that we were not able to cover in class." tells me that you have had many discussions with the student and really know the student well.

You should comment on both the applicant's intellectual ability and their work habits.  Ideally, we want applicants who are smart and work hard.  An applicant who isn't very smart but smart enough and who works very hard might be a good candidate for admission to a master's program but might be a very poor choice for a PhD program.  An applicant who is brilliant but lazy might start to work harder in graduate school and could turn out to be really successful.  Some faculty are willing to take a chance on brilliant but lazy students.

You should talk about the applicant's personality and how they get along with other students and faculty members.  No one wants to work with a student who is not fun to be around because they're argumentative or depressed all the time.

You should talk about the applicant's communication skills (both writing and oral presentations) and in mathematics you should comment specifically about their ability to write mathematical proofs.

If it's relevant (and it would be for any area of applied mathematics) you should comment on the applicant's computing skills.  What languages and specialized packages have they used in their work with you?  Have they been able to produce programs of any substantial size?

You should check that what you've written matches up with the student's transcript and their statement of purpose.  For example, don't say that they're one of your top 5% students if their GPA is 3.0.  Don't say that Johnny would be a great master's student if he's applying to a PhD program.  If the "story" told by the applicant's application file isn't consistent, then I'll be much less likely to admit a student.


How to keep track of current physics after graduating?

I am in this same situation. Here are some thoughts I have:

In order to retain the skills we learned as undergraduates, we have to practice them much like we had to 'practice' problem sets for assignments. I think that the MIT open courseware is an excellent tool for reminding and practicing.

Physicists don't write papers about stuff other physicists know. Most (or all) of what's in a paper could be new and unfamiliar to the majority. A BS does not bring you up to speed with the physics community (my degree barely got me into the 20th century) so there is still a good deal of study before you could pick a paper and read it with ease. Continuing with your own studies by advancing your knowledge of physics will do a lot to help you understand what is in these papers. Reading the titles of recent Arxiv papers is a fun pass time; you can sit down and read any that perk your interest.


Is it good to have slides that may be skipped during a presentation?

Put the slides that contain the proofs after the last slide and have links on the relevant slides so you can jump to the proof slide and back to the next one.

That way no-one will know if you skip the proofs, but they could see you click the link to jump to a proof if you have the time.


Funding opportunities for Computer Scientist Faculty in Canada

The organization you're looking for is called NSERC, and has many opportunities available. I don't know all of them (I'm a PhD student, not a professor), but here are some highlights:

Discovery Grants for researchers
Post-doctoral fellowships
Doctoral Scholarships
The Vanier Doctoral award
Master's Scholarships


I failed to respond to a potential advisor

If it is a coursework masters, then you would have minimal or no interaction with the previous professor, unless the professor is teaching a subject in the Masters.
If it is a research masters and you are in the same department, then you would be working or at least bumping into the prof at departmental meetings and events.

Seems unlikely that there would be great animosity. Your circumstances seems very reasonable and most people would not react adversely or take it too personally. I am sure if you are in the professor's department, then you can have a casual chat and smooth over any frustrations. The prof might be able to collaborate or support you in some way as they were previously interested.


Pure mathematics graduate scholarships in Europe for international students with a bachelor degree only in engineering?

In the nordic countries the funding is provided by the PI, and the hard criteria are very relaxed. From a random PhD offer in one Swedish university:

Entry requirements
To meet the general entry requirements for
third-cycle studies, an applicant must have

taken a second-cycle qualification
completed course requirements for at least 240 higher education credits, including at least 60 second-cycle higher education credits,
or
otherwise acquired essentially the same knowledge in or outside Sweden.

(As Dave Clark points out, second cycle qualification is a masters degree.)
Other universities I have checked require the equivalent of four years of course work, with a project of at least 15 credits ECTS or equivalent. And I remember some just require three years (but good luck proving you are ready for a PhD with that!).
This is only the hard requirements imposed by the university. Then, you just need to show your future supervisor that you have the necessary knowledge, and convince him you are the best candidate.
The best thing? Application is free, you just need to spend a few hours composing good letters.


As a Ph.D. advisor, how do you feel about taking on students with diagnosed depression or bipolar disorder?

Speaking both as a PhD advisor and as someone with a diagnosed and controlled bipolar disorder, I would definitely consider a student with mental health issues. I would, much like awsoci discusses in their response, insist the student not treat the advisory relationship as a therapeutic outlet, and that the student lean on the available resources inside and outside campus.

My own PhD advisor (back in the day) knew about my issues, and the same holds true for all the PhD students with mental health problems I know right now.

All that said, there are risks with disclosing, and definitely with disclosing widely. There is no guarantee that any given PhD advisor would be fine with the situation, and even if there are anti-discrimination clauses available, the relationship might not work out well in the end if it starts out on a shaky basis.

To summarize: In principle and in theory, advisors should take on qualified students with disabilities. In practice, your mileage most likely will vary, but I personally would not let the disability be a deciding factor in taking on a student.


How important is the writing sample for PhD application in Political Economy

Of course this can vary from one department to the next, but in the humanities, the writing sample is generally considered very important.

According to the Department of Politics at Virginia Tech,

  Your writing sample is the most important part of your application.

Political science types are likely to weigh the writing sample more heavily than economics types, at least according to this political economist.

If you do not have a thesis, you should at least have a relevant term paper or similar paper from your coursework that you can use as a starting point. Your writing sample should demonstrate critical and analytical writing (not merely descriptive).


Is it ethical to accept masters admission from two different countries?

It does not matter whether the universities are in different countries, continents, cities, states, provinces or buildings. In accepting an offer of admission from one university, you have promised them something in return for that offer -- that you will go there and pursue a course of study. Since it is not possible for you to accept a second offer while still satisfying your promise to the first university, you are ethically bound to the first university, regardless of there being a second university that is also interested in you.

Consider the situation had the tables been turned -- a university seems to want you, and offers you admission and financial aid, which you accept. Then the university finds another candidate which it wants even more, and withdraws its promise. Would that be ethical? I have a hard time imagining that anyone would say that it is.

This does not mean that you have to silently accept the consequences of your decision to accept. You can very honestly inform them that you have a better competing offer which you would prefer, but you recognize that you have accepted the earlier offer which creates an obligation for you to perform. Still, you hope that the university / department would be willing to release you from the obligation, though you will make good on your promise if they will not do so.

EDIT: The below-mentioned CGS resolution is potentially relevant, in that the first university may have made an offer accompanied by such an "escape clause" (assuming it was an American university). But I assume that you have no knowledge of there being such a condition extended by the offering university, otherwise you would have mentioned it. The fundamental moral question that you need to resolve is whether you believe that your promise becomes null and void if you discover that the university had an limitation on the normal understanding on "acceptance". Unless at least one of the involved universities is a CGS institution, this resolution wouldn't really affect my ethical point.


Affiliation on a paper - moving to a place where I actually did the work

The way this is usually handled is that you list University Y as your affiliation, and in the acknowledgements of the paper, include a sentence that says something like:

  Much of this paper was written while the second author was visiting University X; he would like to thank the X Department of Mathematics for their hospitality and support.

If you end up doing significant further work on the paper after you start your job at X (e.g. major revisions in response to peer review), then you could list both universities as your affiliation.


How to address students who do not attend, yet want to keep up with the course?

I'll look at these two points:

1) Your course is structured in a way that there is no any alternative way to acquire the materials you cover in class; attending the lecture is the only way. AND

2) You have never expressed, either written in syllabus or spoken to the full class, that it's the student's sole responsibility to coordinate with other students/TAs to catch up with the materials they missed when they were absent.

If either of this is yes, I'd at least help the student once, and then make sure the whole class will know of point 2 as soon as possible.

If there are a lot of them waiting for you, try:

Name the chapters/sections in the assigned texts that will cover a majority of what you talked about in class.
Have them work in group to come up with a strategy on those "what to do," and meet with them as a group to go over their questions.
Group them and give a blanket tutorial. You can also make this a challenging task by asking each of the absentees responsible for sorting and summarizing the texts, or have them work on a problem set together.
Invest in either a cheap recorder or screen/voice capturing software to archive your lecture, so that you can prevent other situations like this from happening again.

It's hard to give a "should" or "shouldn't." Analyzing the situation case by case and contrasting with our teaching philosophy along the way should be sufficient to hint what to do.


Is a corrigendum required for this error?

Whether or not a corrigendum is issued is usually decided by the editor(s).  You should talk about this matter with your coauthor(s) to make sure everyone is on the same page.  If they agree an error has been made, you can contact the editor and detail the nature of the error, it's impact on the results or lack thereof, and provide the corrections.  If the error significantly altered the results and conclusions of the paper you'd be more in the territory of a retraction, but if as you say the paper remains essentially intact then this shouldn't be a worry.

If the editor rejects the need for a corrigendum, there's not much you can do about that, but you could include a page on your professional site detailing the corrections you felt necessary, or possibly even upload to the arxiv if appropriate.

Making sure coauthors know what you're doing here is important. They will be understandably upset if they are caught unawares by this.  Things get complicated if your coauthor(s) disagree with your assessment, however, or otherwise don't want you to pursue the matter.  That's a different sort of minefield needing a different question and answer.  The short of the matter usually ends up being "is this a hill you're willing to die on or not?"


Is it ethical to require students to participate in an ongoing research study in order to graduate?

If this is a school located in the United States, then no it would not be ethical or legal for this to be a requirement in your program. You quoted from the federal rules quite accurately. Your school is breaking two rules regarding compulsion and anonymity.

Informed Consent

  The HHS regulations state that “An investigator shall seek such consent only under circumstances that provide the prospective subject or the representative sufficient opportunity to consider whether or not to participate and that minimize the possibility of coercion or undue influence” (45 CFR 46.116).

Subjects cannot be compelled or feel undue influence to take a psychological test as part of their educational program:

Unless it served a clear educational reason such as a placement exam (such a placement exam would not be considered to fall within the purview of human subjects testing).
Or, an alternative given. For example, at most universities, first year psychology students are often required to be in the "testing pool" -- however, they need to be given opt out options such as doing library research or other tasks in lieu of the examination. Furthermore, as with all test participants, they can show up for a test and leave at any time without penalty - including before the test begins.

Further reading: https://www.msudenver.edu/irb/guidance/informedconsent/coercionandinfluence/

Privacy and Confidentiality

  "(7) When appropriate, there are adequate provisions to protect the privacy of subjects and to maintain the confidentiality of data." (45 CFR 46.111)

Furthermore,   human subjects must be assured of the privacy and confidentiality of their data. Everyone has the right to have their psych eval score remain private and confidential. This may be a violation of not just the federal rules for IRB but HIPAA as well, since whether you took a medical test or not is in itself protected medical information.

What to do

If I were at your school, I would make a complaint (either individually or banding together with other students) to the IRB, to the ombudsperson, or to risk management / compliance.   You could also complain to your state or federal Office of Civil Rights, Department of Education,  or Health and Human Services.

And finally, because you are being to compelled against your will to take the exam and the results are not anonymous, I do not think you have any duty to answer the questions truthfully if you feel that doing so will negatively impact your career.

The issue of compulsion and corresponding bad data is one reason why psychology is currently having problems with study replication as well as being able to broaden its findings beyond their limited sample populations.


How to write/represent the state-of-the-art analysis in a research paper?

State of the art means the best known methodology. This should have turned up in your literature review and if it didn't  you have a gap. The gap would likely be in finding results in very recent papers.

The first reviewer comment could mean that you haven't actually found and discussed the current best available method to compare with, or that you are somehow misrepresenting it in your paper.

But it isn't enough to discuss in in the lit review section. You need to explicitly show how your results compare with the results of the best available.  Very possibly it would be a long section of a thesis, though page limits in papers provide a constraint. If your results are superior, you need to show how and discuss why.

As to number 3 on your list, the methodology you use is up to you to design and should be consistent with practice in your field, unless it introduces, also, a new comparison metric, in which case that needs to be discussed in detail as well.

For data mining, probably something along the lines of applying the "best known" algorithms along with your own to the same set of data is likely appropriate.

But you need to assure the reviewers that you compare apples to apples so that the results are directly compared.

Sorry, I don't have any examples.


I think that nearly every university would require your grade as represented in your transcript - your overall grade. If you hide that, then you could be accused of misconduct.
However, you can, in other materials, point out that your physics grades are higher and report it. There is no problem with that. Perhaps a simple phrase in a sentence in the SoP would serve.
Being "selective" permits all sorts of potential abuse.


When writing the paper about completed experiments, should you cite work you hadn't read before?

An important realization I had while writing the first few papers of my career is that a paper/thesis/any kind of publication should not be a recollection of your path through this research. You will have made many experiments as part of the research that need not actually appear in the paper because they're not important for what you're trying to show.

Instead, a publication is a way for you to explain insights you have gained during this research. In which order you came to these insights, in which you read other papers, or in which you did experiments is -- generally -- not important for the telling of the story.

So, regarding the original question whether one should cite a paper one hadn't read before the research started: it can't be answered with yes/no. Whether a paper should be cited (as asked in the title) has nothing to do with when one read the paper. It has everything to do with whether you think it's a useful reference for readers to have. In the body of the question, there is a variant: whether it's "legitimate", and there the answer clearly is "yes". In particular, we add references to papers all the time that were pointed out by reviewers -- long after the research was concluded for the most part.


Are foreign language requirements beneficial for Physics, Math and Chemistry PhD students in North America?

Readers, who learned foreign languages for their PhD, do you remember
  any case where you benefitted from reading a foreign language
  paper/book/...

I'm a (pure) mathematician in the US, and I've literally benefited hundreds of times from being able to read mathematical French. Not only are there great papers in my area that are being published in French today, but a huge proportion of my field's seminal papers were written in French during the twentieth century. (I know that for people working in other areas of pure math, German plays a similar role.) In fact, I find it very hard to believe that someone would be able to have a successful research career in various areas of pure math without being able to read papers in a language other than English. Certainly such a person would be at a huge disadvantage.


In single-blind peer-review, can you reveal your identity without the editor's consent?

I would think that it's a bad idea to open the possibility of referees communicating with authors, since this opens the possibility of authors' influencing referees, compromising the process. Of course, this is not to say that there aren't some positive possibilities, but the conflict-of-interest criterion seems to me in this case to be clearly manifest.

That is, it should be understood, implicitly or explicitly, that referees will remain anonymous "in perpetuity", so that there is no hint or possibility that authors could communicate with them or influence them. E.g., either overt or subtle invitations from authors to a referee to communicate (and get some credit for the paper, maybe co-authorship, etc., as discussed around here some time back...) would be understood in advance to fail absolutely.

Thus, editors who discover referees willing to engage in such would probably regretfully stop asking them to referee, since if such activity became known it would seriously damage the reputation of the journal... if only in principle, but "principle" would seem to be the point...


Given reviewer comments, shall I resubmit after the rejection?

There's a high chance resubmission will not work. That's because the review says there are two issues with the paper:

The proofs are straightforward, and
The proofs are not written out well, taking many more lines than necessary.

#2 is a purely presentation issue. #1 can be interpreted in a few ways (see the linked question) but I would guess at the second interpretation in the linked question: the results are gotten in straightforward fashion. This is still not a good comment to receive since it implies the proof isn't interesting even if the result can potentially be.
Note neither of these two review comments critique the scientific merit of your results. In other words, they don't imply your work is wrong. That means the most probable reason your paper was rejected is because it's not interesting enough for publication, which cannot be fixed by improving the presentation.
If you do resubmit the paper, you should do more than fix #2, you should also argue why the result is interesting even though the proofs are straightforward.


How to deal with poorly written and formatted papers (as a reviewer)?

If you cannot understand the discussion, you may just point out that the manuscript is poorly readable and suggest "reject, invite to resubmit". Some journals allow that option. "Major revisions" will work essentially in the same way.
I would not do proof-reading for the authors, it is not the reviewer's job.


Graduate admission for mature Computer Science school teacher

I would guess that in the US, if she is willing to start a program that will take 5 to 7 years, she would have a chance for admission. It is an unusual case, but she has learned much, I think, of what a CS undergrad learns here. There will probably be a few missing pieces, such as theory, but that might be made up with the required coursework that is normally done. I'll have to guess that the IT masters won't be of a lot of use, unless it is quite different from what happens here. And things have changed a lot in IT in 25 years. So the length of a doctoral program would depend a lot on what knowledge she can demonstrate.

Age shouldn't be an issue. Funding might be, but she is also probably a great candidate to be a TA for the beginning courses. The biggest problem might be visa and coronavirus issues, of course.

But she can only know if she makes some applications and, perhaps, explores her options with a professor or two.


Is getting a GPA 7/10 worth asking a recommendation letter?

You might increase your chances if you find another recommender that can say better things about you. Ideally, someone with whom you already did an internship or project, who would better know how you do research.

If you have not worked on any internship/project yet, it might still be better to ask a professor from a course in which you got a better grade. Maybe there are some basic/fundamental courses you took during your first year and whose topic is relevant for the internship.

If you still think that this professor is your best option, the argument "because most probably he will reject it" is not a reason to refrain from asking. Just go ahead and ask: the professor might agree or not, but you have nothing else to lose.


Refereeing papers on behalf of a professor: should it be listed on a CV?

Yes. It is the very prototype of service to the professional community that you want to show that you are willing to perform.

The question that Scrooge linked to has good advice for how to do so.


How would you rate the UK Open University's math BSc programme relative to prestigious ones?

The question is too specific about one particular programme at one particular university to be useful to other readers in this Q&A format and is likely to be closed.
However, despite saying that, it touches on an area worthy of answer.

However: tl;dr Yes, it is considered equivalent to all other UK Honours degrees in Mathematics by other universities and would be acceptable for any postgraduate studies.

Now to the detail.
Some might consider it less worthy because it has no specific entry requirements. This is because it is designed to provide a route for a university education for those who may find themselves unable to attend a regular university programme. In particular the university was created to educate the late returned to higher education and permit them to traverse any glass ceiling or financial burden that previously might have held them back. This is a false premise. Students have to undertake rigorous studies and complete the same assessments at the same levels as students elsewhere, and in addition they often do this whilst still in employment or in a caring role. Many consider an OU achievement as more worthy because of this.
Some might consider it  less worthy because it is based on distance learning withe most of the delivery being done by the medium of the internet, videos and downloaded material. Very much like a MOOC.
This also is a false premise. The OU was very early in the development of remote online teaching and is considered the forerunner and exemplar of this mode of delivery which has been honed by them over the last 50 years. It delivers results and has developed techniques in educational technology that are the envy of other institutions. In this era of lockdowns and isolations many universities are having to rapidly catch up with what the OU has been doing for decades.

So I am tempted to say: What pre-conceptions did you have about their style of education that made you think their qualifications were in any way lesser in value?


Are there studies testing whether academia rewards researchers based on number of publications?

There's quite a bit of this sort of thing in economics. One early and now classic study, Katz 1973, performs a regression of salary on the number of books, articles, "excellent articles", and other variables associated with a faculty member, and finds what seems to me to be very low impact of publication on annual salary even in 1973 dollars: an article is worth $18 and an excellent article worth $102 in annual salary.

A later study Diamond 1986, estimates the marginal value of a citation on lifetime salary: somewhere in the $50 to $1300 range (!!).  Note that is in economics where citations are somewhat stingy, back before people started gaming citation rates as much as they do today.

Since there has been a huge volume of publications on the determinants of faculty salary within the economics literature. For some reason, this particular labor market has been of exceptional interest to academic economists.


Where do I find full citations for articles cited by author(s) and date/year only?

Question answered by this comment:

Most of the times books that do this have a bibliography at the end where you can locate the cited papers.


Can I keep items purchased out of my startup funds?

In general, equipment purchased with university-provided funds belong to the university, rather than the individual faculty member who ordered the items. On the other hand, items procured through individual grants (where the university did not directly provide funding), can often be transferred from one institution to another.

However, it is also true that such property is not normally something that you can normally keep for yourself! The primary exception to this might be if the property has been in service long enough to be declared "obsolete," and no longer needs to be inventoried. Then, the university will typically have some sort of policy on the disposition of such equipment, and that is what you should follow.


Am I supposed to know Machine Learning before I start my PhD in Machine Learning in Materials Science

Short Answer: No.
Long Answer: PhD in multidisciplinary topic expect that you know at least one discipline well. Then you get training in second discipline before applying the knowledge and ideas from both disciplines in order to fulfill PhD requirements.
My personal experience PhD. in biomedical informatics - I graduated in informatics, but nobody expects I have previous knowledge of medicine. (Of course - interest is expected or some courses is a plus). I did  some courses to gain the missing knowledge about medicine after (not full medical curicullum, but some physiology, patophysiology, basic anatomy, biochemistry ...). Thus, I think the same applies to your intention to pursue ML in Material Science - you can get courses of what you miss, supervisor may help you to direct what you need.


What is a source for Richard Riley's famous quote about preparing students for the future?

Generation Jobless by Peter Vogel has this quote at the beginning of Chapter 3, and attributes it to "Gunderson et al, 2004"

Checking this book's bibliography, we can find that "Gunderson et al, 2004" refers to

Gunderson, S., Jones, R. & Scanland, K. 2004. The Jobs Revolution: Changing How
America Works. Copywriters Inc

I would suggest you check there.


Is it pragmatically beneficial to pursue a master degree before applying for a math PhD in the U.S.?

The short answer to the title is yes, it can help for less competitive (foreign or domestic) students, as has been mentioned on this site several times (e.g. https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/42268/19607; see also How does the admissions process work for Ph.D. programs in the US, particularly for weak or borderline students?) but I can't find all the relevant issues in a single post.

For foreign students, there are a few different reasons why one might have trouble getting into a decent PhD program in the US:

you are coming from a very competitive location (e.g., east Asia) so by comparison you look weaker to many similar applicants; also, schools don't usually want to admit too many people from a single region
you have a horrible TOEFL score; unless your application is absolutely stellar, this will hurt you, as most PhD programs will need you to teach/TA undergrads
you come from a school that is not so well known in the US, so grad programs have difficulty assessing the value of your grades, coursework and letters of recommendation.  letters of recommendation are very important in this case, but unfortunately many faculty at these schools don't know how to write appropriate letters of recommendation--I've often found all the letters for a candidate to be completely useless.

On the other hand, master's programs are easier to get into, so if you're having trouble getting into PhD programs, yes, it's a good idea to apply to Master's programs.  Of course, before you apply, you probably won't know your chances, so my suggestion is if you are unsure, apply to some of both.

As for the benefit, assuming you go to a Master's program that is more reputable/well known, then coursework and letters there will count for more than at your undergrad for various reasons:

First, your study of more advanced material counts more.
(if you're comparing the value of work after you've done a master's program) How you have done most recently generally counts more than the more distant past.
The people reviewing your application are more likely to be familiar with the quality of education and the standards at this school.  (At the least, you are coming from within the US system.)
Last and not least, your letters of recommendation are likely to be more meaningful, because the faculty at the Master's program know how to write letters for US PhD programs, and the faculty evaluating your letters are more likely to know the letter writers and how to interpret what they say.  (Also, they'll be evaluating you on more advanced material, which is more meaningful.)


How to include an unpublished work other than a preprint site (i.e.arXiv) in CS PhD Application

The graduate school applications I'm familiar with typically have an option to include papers or other supplementary materials.  I don't think you need to worry about people stealing your application materials, but if you are worried then formally including the paper as part of your application seems particularly safe, since the university will have a record of what was submitted, at least in the short term.

Including a link in your CV would be almost as good, and better than a separate e-mail since it ensures that everyone reviewing the CV will have access, whereas many people will ignore an email and then forget they ever received it.  (Of course you could do both.  I don't see either one as being too risky.)

Visiting professors in person and showing them a hard copy is not a feasible option.  I assume you'd be taking the hard copy away with you (otherwise you could simplify things by mailing it, and in any case even a hard copy could enable theft of ideas), which is a major problem since looking over a paper quickly and without further access is not very useful.  Furthermore, there's no good way to explain why you are doing this.  If someone showed me a paper while meeting in person, I'd suggest that they e-mail me a copy to look at later.  It would come across as very strange if they declined to do so without explanation, or if they explained that they were reluctant to give me a copy out of fear that I would steal it.


Is it legal to add your publications to ResearchGate?

Is it legal to upload published journal articles on public servers, where everyone can download it for free?

It depends on the publishing agreement you signed, which should specify which rights the authors and the publisher hold.  The allocation of rights depends on the journal (and the field you are working in), and sometimes there are modifications or addenda for a specific paper.

You should keep copies of the publishing agreements for your papers, precisely so you can refer to them at times like this.  If you don't have them, you can get an approximation by looking on the journal's website to see what their current policies are.  The policies could have changed over time (and in principle the publisher could still enforce a stricter policy you agreed to in the past), but it's probably safe to post a paper online if the publisher allows it as part of the current publishing agreement.  If you're feeling nervous, you could always ask the publisher whether you could follow the terms of the current publishing agreement for your paper that was published long ago.


Having trouble responding to professors' emails due to anxiety,

You are doing the right thing seeking some medical advice. But the way to become more comfortable in this, as in most things, is:

Practice. Practice. Practice.

The first steps are painful and you may fall. Eventually you learn to walk and probably to run.

My doctoral program took a few years longer than it might have because I was too afraid to speak up on my own behalf at a certain point and got stuck (really stuck) with an unhelpful advisor.

Later, I took on the issue head on and taught myself to look people in the eye and to speak up. It was very difficult at first. Now I do it without thought or worry.

It is just a skill. Learn to apply it. Haltingly at first, but it is extremely unlikely that bad things will happen if you speak up. If people don't know your needs they will not be able to assist your academic growth. Just. Do. It. Grow into the person you want to be.

Sometimes you need to just pretend to be the person you want to be.


Ask for reference letter for applying graduate school, professor agreed, but no more follow up

I suspect that he knows of your concern and will come through, though at the last minute. But "repeatedly sending reminders" is also "being a bit of a pest". Most people will forgive you for that, but not all.
But, he has other things to do and needs to think about what to write on your behalf.
Phoning him will just make it worse, interrupting his schedule.
So long as he knows of the deadline you should be fine. A message a few days before the deadline wouldn't hurt, mentioning your eagerness to know.
But replying to constant reminders just slows down the process, so they are often ignored. It is a mistake to make him less efficient than he could be. Relax for a bit. There is little incentive for him to rush it unless the deadline is immanent.


How does supervisor contribute to students' papers

This depends enormously on the field. In mine, mathematics, I never, ever claim co-authorship on my students' published papers arising from their PhD theses, nor from papers immediately afterward. I do expect to use my expertise, such as it may be, to help students identify feasible-yet-worthwhile projects, and to help them understand both the feasibility and worthwhile-ness, and this can continue beyond the PhD.

(My model for this behavior, which many people disagree with, or find "unethical", or find "degrading-to-students", is that the advisor's responsibility is well described by master-to-apprentice in an archaic sense. Or, similarly, parent-to-child in a more modern sense (since in antiquity children were not quite as valued as nowadays, apparently). I do understand that many people enjoy the idea that students are junior peers, etc., but, in fact, I claim that this possibly-seemingly-respectful attitude is almost always used as a rationalization for abrogation of responsibility... rather than the positive senses one might hope for.)

I do understand that in some fields advisors are invariably co-authors, even if their contribution is no more than funding.

The point is that, given this range of actualities, one can only look at the conventions within one's specialty, because it is simply not possible to predict that expectation from an abstract quasi-academic notion of "who should be a co-author".


College / University level IT (instructor/professor) education requirements

The undeniable fact about the impeccable territory of programming is that some famous and very successful programmers on the planet have no official degree in either IT or CS, at all... So, one might claim that the interest would be the necessary condition for being a good programmer. Actually, official education would open your mind to integrate various but interconnected stuffs within the IT and CS realm to be a better programmer.

The case will be, considerably, different when one is eager to teach programming. Transferring the ideas to the novice people is tough enough, such that the trainer must be rather proficient and experienced in the target subject. Actually, an officially-trained programming teacher would access to more professional opportunities, because (s)he had been, probably, confronted with different aspects of the programming, such as fundamentals of the software engineering, web-based development, embedded programming, object-oriented programming, aspect-oriented programming, agent-oriented programming and the other paradigms, in a coherent manner. Whereas, above stuffs might be acquired by a self-learning programmer after spending a lot of money and time. Furthermore, people often tend to consign the training positions to officially-trained experts, because their degree could act as a convincing proof for their capabilities.

All in all, I think you better pursue an official degree (a B.A.Sc. or M.A.Sc.) to pave your professional way at the future.


What are the ethical considerations when publishing a cheating technique?

I can’t really tell you what to do with that vague level of detail, but I can give you an example.

There seems to be a team at the Ben-Gurion University in Israel that regularly comes up with obscure ways to transmit data to devices not connected via any network connection.

Stuff like:

DiskFiltration: Data Exfiltration from Speakerless Air-Gapped Computers via Covert Hard Drive Noise,
SPEAKE(a)R: Turn Speakers to Microphones for Fun and Profit,
and many many more.

The only uses I see for that stuff is to either help malware authors and intelligence agencies or make people aware of this communication channels to increase security.

If your findings are anything like this, I don’t see a problem.

Update
After you clarified it's about a method to remotely stream answers of a test directly into the retina without anyone else noticing:

There are a lot of uses for such a technique which are not related to cheating. Pick some of them as motivation, and then later in your paper describe how this could also be used for cheating. Maybe give hints what some mitigation measures could be.


How to ask to review for a specific conference or journal?

In a word: networking.

Most conferences and journals don't have any formal process for people to offer themselves in this manner.  I'm not exactly sure why not, because most publication venues are also always wishing they had more trustworthy reviewing capacity.  I think it's the "trustworthy" part that's the issue: there is a notion that the people in charge of selecting reviewers should have some reason to believe the review you turn in will be a meaningful evaluation of the work under consideration.  Still, in practice I often identify possible reviewers by looking at their online presence, so having a person submit themselves as a possible reviewer seems like it would be no less reliable — it's just that in my experience it's just not done.

Instead, the most frequent ways that I see people getting asked to be reviewers are

by having people get to know them and think of them when they're looking for people to review, and
by having other people who are declining to review point the editor to them as an alternative.

If you put the word out into your professional network that you are looking to review papers, then reviews will likely start coming your way.  Furthermore, once you've reviewed for somebody, you'll be in their database: provide a high-quality and timely review and fill out the reviewer account with keywords and such, and you'll be more likely to be tapped again to review for the same venues, because reliable reviewers are like gold.


CV for a PhD application in applied mathematics

Firstly, the Career Objective section is a thing of past and should not be present in a CV or resume. Not only it is old-fashioned, it actually makes one change their CV or resume every time one applies to different organization and position. It is much better to place relevant position-focused information in a cover letter, which should be adjusted to a particular position anyway.
Secondly, do not put personal details, like mailing and physical address, on CV or resume. An e-mail address and, maybe, a phone number is more than enough. You don't expect potential employers to send you postal mail, do you? Plus, the physical address would jeopardize the security of one's identity.
Thirdly, the section Research Interests should be higher in the list - I would say, even prior to the section Education (or, at least, right after it).
Fourthly, I suggest you to create two versions of your CV (the following is not applicable to resume) - one with references, for organizations that require them as part of initial application, and another without ones, for those that require them later or using different communication channel (say, Interfolio).
Fifthly, go ahead and search Internet for examples of academic cover letters (there are plenty of them - stick with the ones from reputable universities). Hope this helps. Good luck!

P.S. I would reword section titles, as follows: Conference Presentations => Talks & Presentations; Research Interest => Research Interests; Co-curricular Activities => not sure it makes sense to extract them in a separate section - why not list them below relevant educational info; Extra-curricular Activities => Extracurricular Activities.


Should I e-mail my professor after completely blanking on my final exam?

Sending an email to your professor is fine. It also sounds as if you are doing your best, understand the course well enough to at least pass, and are not making excuses or asking for undue favors. Your professor will know this as well and will be much more willing to help you out because of that.

As @DreamConspiracy points out, I'd state more clearly what you hope to achieve by sending this email to your professor. This might be something like: "Is there any way for me to retake the exam in case I get a failing grade?"

If you are worried about losing financial aid, maybe you want to also contact the financial aid office. How are your ADHD, Anxiety and OCD implemented in your aid package?