How to avoid student favoritism in the classroom?

[Since there will be very different views on this matter, I've kept my answer in first-person to indicate that this is my viewpoint and not a guideline of a sort.]

Whilst I agree with the comments that to an extent, it is perfectly natural to respond differently to different levels of engagement, I think a good strategy is to consider the world outside of the classroom and remember that behaviour in the classroom is a product of many causes.

I do this when I teach and I notice that I start disliking students for not turning up, lack of engagement etc. I then recall my first year at Undergrad level. I was severely depressed, attended barely 20% of my classes, just about managed to pass the year. I am sure I must have appeared absent, disinterested, the sort of student that my lecturers would ask "why would they be here in the first place if they don't attend anything?" - but my classroom behaviour (or rather, the absence of it) had absolutely nothing to do with the classroom itself, nor the teaching, not even the material.

My personal background helps me to consider such a scenario- but I think there are plenty of other things, such as:

undisclosed/not-diagnosed disabilities and/or illnesses affecting students
international students having to find their way in a very foreign world
related to 2., oftentimes young students and their first experience abroad, on their own
family background: crises at home, responsibilities for parents/grandparents/siblings that would not normally be considered
Perhaps just the natural way of things: students realise that what they thought they would love to study turns out to have been an illusion. They are not at the stage of dropping out (possibly due to parental/financial pressures) but are clearly not willing to

Whatever they do, I try to refrain from judgements on their character as much as I can. When a student is not responsive to my teaching, it does not necessarily imply a judgement on me, either.


Can one 'wear out' an editor with bad papers?

Funny question - should the fact that a journal's editor is 'human' be a factor in submitting manuscripts?

You don't have to take into account the journal editor as human being -- e.g. there is nothing wrong with submitting to an editor you have never heard of or met but whose credentials look relevant -- but in my experience (I am in mathematics) I get better service from editors with whom I have a prior acquaintance and a prior (positive!) professional relationship.  So my answer to this would be If possible, yes, try to make this work in your favor.

  Example - say I'm writing 4 manuscripts. The first three are 'bad' and the fourth is good. Then I submit them to the journal, one every 6 months or so. The first three will be rejected. But will they affect the ruling of my 4th submitted manuscript, even it is much better?

Like @Davidmh, I am wondering why you are submitting three manuscripts that you describe as 'bad'.  (Admittedly you call them "'bad'", not "bad", but still...) I am also wondering why you are submitting manuscripts that you know will be rejected, but I gather here you are setting up the premise of a hypothetical.  Finally, I wonder whether you have a good reason for submitting four manuscripts in such rapid succession to the same journal, whether they are accepted or not.

But let me answer your question first: yes, having three manuscripts rejected from the same journal can conceivably affect the way your fourth manuscript is received, even though in theory it should not, and you have already identified the reason: editorial boards consist of human beings.  Three 'bad' manuscripts is enough to establish a pattern that you don't understand the value of your own work.  People who are involved in processing your fourth paper will find it very difficult not to view it with that lens.  Of course this does not at all mean that your paper will be rejected: if it's sufficiently good it will almost certainly be accepted by that journal or by some other journal of similar quality.  (But that would happen no matter what...)

So I do not recommend the practice you propose.  Just to address a few side issues:

1) Unless you have a clear reason to do so, publishing too often in the same journal also looks (moderately) bad.

2) Some journals turn out to have quotas on papers from the same author.  Once I resubmitted to the same editor of the Proceedings of the AMS within a year after getting a paper accepted there, and he told me that he couldn't consider the paper.  Another time I had a paper accepted at a leading combinatorics journal with a large backlog, and within a year of acceptance I submitted a followup paper (with a different set of authors) which went deeper on the same topic.  The editorial board discussed the matter, decided that with their large backlog they didn't want to publish two papers on the same topic in such rapid succession...and then asked me whether I would be willing to combine the newly submitted paper with the already accepted paper!  (Needless to say, the answer was no.)  These stories show that editors of journals certainly do have memory of authors of past submissions, and even past successful submissions can be a reason to want to submit elsewhere in the short term.

3) Gian-Carlo Rota quipped that the mathematical community calculates the worth of a mathematician by taking their best paper and dividing by the total number of papers they've written.  This is deliciously cruel and obviously not to be taken literally -- in fact one needs to show a certain level of research activity in many hiring and promotion decisions at most research universities -- but there is more than a grain of truth to it.  At this point in my career I write about 3-4 papers per year.  If I were (quite counterfactually, obviously) in a negotiation to trade X past publications for one publication in a journal which is one level higher than the best journal I've published in so far, then my starting offer for X would be more than 10.  Rota is right that it could actually help to increase my research profile in certain elite circles by removing most of my publications that do not contain major breakthroughs.  This is something to think about with regard to your "three 'bad', then one good" proposal.

Added: When I left this answer, I thought the OP was in the field of mathematics, based on his SE activity.  Then I found a comment which says he is in computer science.  So it would be useful to him to have an answer located in CS, as well.  Some of what I say should carry over, but maybe not all.

Further Added: In the first version of this answer, I wrote "better service and also better results from editors with whom I have a prior acquaintance."  After having thought about the italicized passage, it is not clear to me that it is true (so I took it out).  For instance I can think of two journals that have rejected at least two and accepted none of my papers in recent years, and in each case I had previously met the editor and had positive professional relations with them.  In fact when I get even one rejection from an editor I don't really know, all else being equal I will probably not resubmit to them: maybe they're not biased against me at all, but if I don't know them at all, why not just take my chances elsewhere?  What I think is true is that an editor who knows me is much more likely to know where I am coming from professionally and (i) find me a competent and fair referee and (ii) expend some effort to make sure that the referee process is done in a reasonable amount of time.  Also, when I talk about "knowing editors," of course I mean professionally: I'm not talking about spending time on their yacht.  Someone whom I have met and talked to at a conference, whom I have done a good refereeing job and gotten thanked for makes a good choice for an editor to submit to.  I am not a journal editor, but I do a lot of service-related academic tasks, and I will say: I never set out to do a bad job, but knowing that an especially good job would help out someone who has helped me out in the past can make me want to work a bit harder than otherwise.  I imagine that many if not most people are similar: this is a positive form of social reinforcement.


Already in grad school, but is grad school for me?

On the other hand, I'm somehow having a hard time even figuring out who I report to, or if I have a me-project, or how to answer my questions about things like reporting and project ownership.

This seems like the real problem. If you don't have a well-defined goal, it's natural that you would feel like you're floundering. Advisors are busy; if you don't tell them you need guidance, they will assume everything is working out (until they realize that it isn't, at which point they'll blame you). So, I would recommend asking for a meeting with your advisor (or whoever is in charge of your lab) and try to better define your research goals.

I think everything else you describe comes from this. Once you have a good project and are getting interesting results, you will feel more like a part of the lab and some of the other angst will disappear. Your lab might never be a perfect match for you, but I suspect it will suffice in terms of giving you a PhD and a chance to figure out what's important to you when you choose your next position.

  Maybe it's as simple as "you're fine; this is normal. Get some sleep and go join a club to find friends. Then you'll get less unhappy, and your work situation will improve." I just don't know.

Pretty much. I would be aggressive in terms of finding a tractable project as described above. But I suspect the lack of sleep and friends are exaggerating the issue, and this is indeed very normal (as you say, there are dozens of posts here about it).

  On top of it all, I'm no longer very sure that I believe in my subfield. It's not what I want to think about anymore when I go home.

This is perhaps the secondary problem -- after you get into a rhythm in your current lab/subfield, you may be able to pivot your projects towards areas you are more interested in.


Very Short Papers in Mathematical Journals

New proofs of old theorems are not always very short papers. In the 1960s Norman Levinson published a proof of the prime number theorem that was only six pages long, in contrast to earlier papers that were 50 or 100 pages.

The American Mathematical Monthly does publish some short papers of less than one page.


What should I ask my potential Ph.D advisor in advance, before actually signing a contract?

I would add:

What the average time-to-PhD is, and how many percent roughly drop out (although this is a question that is much better asked to other PhD students, as you may easily hear somewhat "tuned" numbers here)
Paper authorship policy (via mhwombat's comment) - however, note that theory and practice may diverge quite strongly in this topic. This is again something better asked the colleagues.
Grant / project duties - if you are e.g., paid by an FP7 or H2020 project, your project work may cost you much more time than teaching duties
Administrative duties
How free you will be in choosing whom to collaborate with, and what topics to collaborate on
Whether you will be required to work on other projects on the side (e.g., consulting work, paid research, etc.)
Whether you will be expected to help with writing grant proposals (time sink number one if yes)
Whether there is a culture for working from home
What office / lab space you will get, how many other students you share it with
Whether it will be possible for you to do an internship, e.g., over the summer.

There may be more. I will extend the list once I remember more important things.


Does a conference poster count as a publication for PhD application?

It's definitely a good idea to include such a poster in your CV or mention it elsewhere in your application (e.g. discuss it and the work in the personal statement). However, I would refrain from listing anything under "publications" unless it has been peer reviewed and published in a reputable journal.

I think in this particular case, the application is asking for references to papers rather than posters, but it may be worthwhile emailing the admissions people at the department to ask where you should include the poster.


Why mention town and country of equipment manufacturer?

I think this is especially common in the medical literature. The objective, as you said, is to make sure readers can find the exact same product you used to get the full picture and for the purpose of evaluating or reproducing your work.

Even in the "Internet age", there are many reasons why one might need the physical location of a manufacturer in order to access their products. Here are a few that come to my mind:

Many companies are not easy to locate with a google search and I know several that don't have a public website or any sort of web presence at all. It might feel silly to write "we used Gmail (Google, Mountain View, California)" but there are many businesses that are not as publicly known. If you're looking in an online phone book you still need to know where to look for.
Companies might have many subsidiaries and divisions that could be developing products and prototypes without the other ones necessarily knowing about it, especially prototypes. Contacting the wrong one might lead to a dead end.
Due to different regulations (and that is especially true for drugs and medical equipment) it can be that the same company is selling different products depending on the location. The exact composition of a drug or the firmware might differ depending on where the products were sold.
It actually sometimes happens that two completely unrelated companies providing the same type of services or goods that are active in separate countries have the exact same name. Confusing, I know.
Companies disappear, get bought, change name, etc. Knowing the location at time t might help locate the new entity that could deliver the product.

This being said "the journal wants it" is a valid argument, if it's effectively the case and "everybody does it this way" is not that bad of a reason when it comes to article structure and writing practices. Be creative on the content, not on the form. I personally don't feel brackets with (Nvidia Corporation) "break the flow" less than (Nvidia Corporation, Santa Clara, California).

Plus it brings back good memories of time spent in California.


Europe: Central Academic CS Job Market Service like CRA?

Is there any similar service for Europe?

Unfortunately the answer to this question is no. The closest equivalent, at least in the German-speaking area, is Academics.com. I am not aware of a similarly complete portal for the rest of Europe.

Additionally, the most complete list for the German-speaking area is definitely the newsletter sent out monthly by the "deutschen Hochschulverband" (essentially the union of German university teachers). This list has rather official character and is pretty much complete for the area. However, you need to be a member to receive this newsletter, and one can only become a member by having been employed in an academic post at a German university.

(or you know a member and ask him to forward you the newsletter each month)


What should be the order of references in a research text?

The order is determined by the standard applied by each journal to their publication. In some cases, references are listed alphabetically in the reference list. In this case, the order of appearance of the numbers in the text may seem random (this is equivalent to your cases 2 and 3). In some cases, references are listed in the order they appear in the text. This yields the first example you provide.

So there is no right or wrong, there are different standards and which you need to follow is given by the journal in which you aim to publish.If you are concerned with which system to use in a report or your thesis, you should simply check with your department or organization to see which they follow. If there are no guidelines, I would suggest the system you find most commonly used in journals that lie close to your subject but you could essentially select whichever one you want as long as it is consistent and logical.


Can one earn money from a product developed during research?

The answer - at least in the US - is pretty well always "yes", it just depends on who has to sign off on the legal agreements and what they want in exchange for doing so.

The most common path is that institutions will have some equivalent of an intellectual property office, which handles legal agreements, licenses, royalties, etc. Most big institutions now have a requirement that staff must report any potentially valuable IP to them so they can protect and/or sell it and/or disavow it as it pleases them.

In R1 institutions, this isn't a rare thing - it's big business, with many regularly bringing in tens of millions or more in yearly revenue agreements.

However, in general Universities won't directly sell products. Instead, they will license out the tech to whoever wants to do business. It is common even for institutions to offer exclusive licenses to their own students/faculty to develop companies, provide seed funding grants, offer placement in incubators, and provide the licenses in such a way that there are no up-front costs and money is only owed back to the institute once revenue has gone beyond some threshold (often a few hundred thousand USD, but YMMV).

The big complexity is generally in how the project was funded and what the IP agreements everyone almost inevitably signed somehow indicates. Contracts where the government was involved in granting can get a bit more complicated, but generally the whole system has grown to be very accommodating in favor of people finding a way to bring more money into the system. Go figure.

Of course, a University rarely if ever sell the products in any kind of direct relationship. Instead there is a system of licensing and so on that moves that over to private companies, with the institution getting a piece of the action.

Some systems are more generous than others (and others more aggressive in claiming ownership over as much as possible), so you'll need to check with your local intellectual property office if you are interested in knowing more precisely how things work in your neck of the woods.


Asking University for quick admissions decison

Asking for a definite quick decision might, in some cases, result in a rejection. This would be the case if the university has strict rules about admissions and about treating all applicants fairly. There is no guarantee of that, of course, but it seems more likely than a quick decision to admit. But different places have different rules and procedures. In the US, for example, every university is unique.

But you can certainly ask for the status of your admission and what is the earliest you can know. You can say that you have other decisions pending, but I wouldn't be precise about them. On the other hand, I think you can be more forthcoming with a prospective advisor. They might be able to at least get access to information that you can use to make a decision.

You can also ask for a small delay from the place that has accepted you, saying that you need some additional time to consider the offer. The likelihood of refusal of the request is probably high, but not absolute.


What are the ways I can demonstrate to the PhD admission committee that I am a highly motivated applicant?

(I'm a computer science professor; I regularly evaluate applications for my department's graduate programs.)
You are asking the wrong question.  You don't want to show your motivation; you want to show your research potential.
It really really really Does Not Matter how much you want to do a PhD in computer science.  Sure, all else being equal, we prefer to admit students who are excited about joining the program, but at a fundamental level, we assume that if you aren't motivated, you wouldn't have applied.
What we do want to see is concrete evidence of your future potential for computer science research.  Make no mistake: Your "statement of purpose" or "statement of motivation" is actually a research statement.  What are your research interests?  What is your research experience?  What are your research goals?  What specific expertise can you apply to your research?  What open problems do you think are cool?  How do you want to attack them?  We are looking for both personal and technical detail, written in the idiomatic language of researchers.  (Even if you're not a researcher yet, even if you don't know what your specific research interests are yet, that's the voice you should strive for.)
We do not want to read about how inspired you were by your first smart phone, or who many programming languages you know, or how you've been programming since you were in the womb.  Yeah, yeah, we've all been programming since we were in the womb.  What have you actually done?  And what do you want to do that nobody else has ever done?
Part of that concrete evidence is your scholastic record: In short, grades.  Normally these only matter if they're low, but yours are low.  So in addition to the discussion of your research, your application also needs to address the elephant in the room: You need to give at least a brief explanation of what went wrong in your MSc program, and you need to provide evidence that the same issues won't arise again.
All of this evidence needs to be visible not only in your statement, but in your letters of recommendation as well.
I strongly recommend reading Mor Harchol-Balter's advice on applying the graduate school in computer science, which is based on her experience at Berkeley, MIT, and CMU.  Her advice is also consistent with my experience at Illinois.


Is it feasible to take an unsure PhD topic?

This is exactly how most of the really great PhD students I've seen have all started.  Working on a problem with unknowns is a process called "research."

Clearly, you are going to have to find some collaborators with more experience in the field than your advisor, but that's part of the process as well.  Hopefully, your advisor can assist with networking / introductions / etc.  The support of your advisor will be critical (as it is for all PhD students).

The trick is to make sure you have a backup plan and a way to convert to it if necessary.  Don't spend three years mucking around if you're not making progress.  But, spending 6 months investigating if there is something there -- that's well worth it.


It's a pretty big topic and here are some cluttered and clustered thoughts:

  How should I approach my department chair and say that I would like to
  beef up my Curriculum Vitae, with the school's help?

First, I would not advise going in bare hand. For i) most deans don't really know how to manage adjunct, ii) you may get advice that is not exactly up your alley but feel politically you should say yes. Instead, go with a plan.

It's hard to develop without a goal. So, think what do you want to achieve as a faculty member. And there are many things, just to name a few:

Teaching-related: pedagogical training (from general enhancement to how to deal with special students), use of new teaching technology or platform, (re)design of curriculum, organizing of local/foreign workshop.

Research-related: grantsmanship, training in new technology or skills, management, writing and publication.

More general: professional conferences, network building, public relationship/press.

If you're absolutely clueless, download their promotion package template and see what criteria are considered during promotion. While you are unlikely not in the promotion track, the contents will be helpful.

Pick 1-3 for next year. Then, before your next annual review (if you don't have one, schedule a meeting), frame them as:

  In the next (6 months/ 12 months), I would like to achieve _______ (a goal). This would bring the benefits of _______ (at least one win-win benefit). In order to do that I'd like to know if I can _______ (your ask).

For example: "In the next 12 months I'd like to implement flipped classroom format in the course XY111. This would be a timely response to our university 2030 Teaching Goals announced last month. In order to do that I'd like to attend this 3-day workshop in DC. I'd like to see if the department can allocate some stipend for this development activity."

Simply put, just follow the SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time specific.

For routine development, make sure to familiarize yourself with faculty benefit: tuition remission, access to library services, discount to other academic activities, etc. Milk that affiliation.

Think win-win or who would benefit other than you when justifying your arguments. For instance:

  Is reading the Wall Street Journal something that I can claim as a
  professional development activity?

to that I would say no because staying on top of the field is more of a routine. But I would say yes to:

  Developed 2 teaching cases using op-ed from Wall Street Journal and
  successfully applied them in course XY111. (See class reflection and
  evaluation in appendix.)

because in this case we used what we know to actively improve the quality or variety of teaching methods, while we get to experience using case teaching as a teaching development.

If these seem all very large and confusing I'd suggest talking to some other faculty members who has not vested interest in this matter.


Should I post a response to reviewers online?

You are free to post your response as you see fit, If you know who the reviewer(s) is/are then you may need to think twice about mentioning their name(s) since. I am not sure how you may be thinking of posting such comments but I assume you will rewrite them into some form of self-contained text. As such it would not be very different from a blog entry and so one suggestion would be to use a blog type web to add comments around your publications. You may also provide means for commenting on your papers and associated posts.

But, in short, no problem posting your own thoughts but stay clear of adding the thoughts of others that may be given in a context other than open posts.


Scientific poster by an industry researcher: What do I put as contact information?

If your work was supported by your employer, then you should use your company address to acknowledge the affiliation. If it's work done in your spare time that is not sponsored by your employer, use your personal details.

Don't bother with the phone number – in academia, it's generally considered bad etiquette to call someone unexpectedly (unless it's an emergency).

Use whichever email address you wish – if it's a "professional" address like firstname.lastname@domain.com, it doesn't matter. You might lose access to your email address if you change employer, so it's also important that you use an address you'll have access to for the foreseeable future.


Getting the results of an arXiv keyword search in my email

You can set up a Google Scholar alert. Google Scholar indexes, among other things, arXiv preprints (they typically take 2-3 days to show up), so you will get these in the email alerts.

Be warned that it also indexes journals, other repositories... And while it is possible to restrict advanced searches to arXiv, I haven't been able to set up an alert that only looks at arXiv. So if you are only interested in what shows up on the arXiv, you will have to weigh the pros and cons of also having alerts about papers you might already have seen elsewhere.


What are my obligations as an MSc holder?

Some insight can be gained from considering the Oxford degree day ceremony, which is still conducted in Latin and uses fairly traditional formulae in admitting graduands to degrees. The descriptions used indicate various rights and responsibilities (all translations from here):

Candidates for the DD, DCL, DM and MCh (all higher doctorates) swear to the following:

  Doctors (Masters or ladies/gentlemen), you shall swear
  to observe the statutes, privileges, customs and liberties
  of this University. Also when you shall have been
  admitted to the House of Congregation and to the House
  of Convocation you shall bear yourselves in them well
  and faithfully to the honour and profit of the University.
  And especially in those matters which concern Graces
  and Degrees you shall not impede the worthy or put
  forward the unworthy. Also at elections you shall record
  and nominate one only at one time and no more in each
  scrutiny, and nominate no one unless you know certainly
  or believe firmly that s/he is fit and proper.

For other higher degrees:

  You shall swear to observe the statutes, privileges, customs
  and liberties of the University, as far as they concern you.

They are then admitted to the degree by the Vice-Chancellor, with the wording (for the DD, DCL, DM and MCh):

  To the honour of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and for the profit
  of our Holy Mother Church, and of learning, I, by my
  own authority and that of the whole University, give you
  licence to incept [begin to teach] in the Faculty of Arts (or
  Faculty of Surgery, Medicine, Law or Theology) to lecture,
  to dispute and to do all the other things that pertain to
  the rank of Master (or Doctor) in the same Faculty, when
  those things have been completed which the Statutes
  require, in the name of the Lord – Father, and Son, and
  Holy Ghost.

(A non-Christian formula is available if graduands request).

Other higher degrees have a formula either conferring permission to incept (begin to teach) in the faculty, or just admitting them to the degree.

For the MA, graduands swear an oath "binding them to
be loyal, obedient and faithful to the University and its
interests, and to comport themselves circumspectly at
elections to University offices" before being admitted by the Vice-Chancellor.

Finally, BA graduands are admitted with the following formula:

  Ladies/gentlemen, I admit you to the degree of Bachelor
  of Arts: furthermore by my own authority and that of the
  whole University, I give you the power of lecturing, and of
  doing all the other things which concern the said degree.

To summarize, traditionally degrees were about membership in a Faculty of the university, and came with responsibilities to uphold the rules of the university, and participate fairly in elections. (These aren't empty words at Oxford, where they still confer 'MA status' on faculty members who do not have an Oxford MA so that they can participate in the governing bodies, and which still allows all graduates to vote on the Chancellorship and Professorship of Poetry). It may be that something similar is indicated in the University of Waterloo's ceremony or statutes, although it's also possible it's just traditional phrasing without anything formal behind it nowadays.


Given three reference letters in a postdoc application, how to decide which to list as the second letter and which to list as the third?

In my experience I have never encountered a situation in which the ordering of reference letters mattered.
Usually the only distinction between the different letters is when you are required to have letters from your PhD/postdoc supervisor. These letters may carry more weight because they are from the people which can best assess you.

However my experience is from life sciences, not physics.


If I am willing to repeat major courses, that I passed with a D grade, will they look bad on my transcript while applying for graduate school?

Yes, they will look bad unless the university replaces the old grade with the new one as some do. And if you continue to get poor grades in important courses it will look worse. But there are a number of other factors that people might consider, provided you can get them to look at an application.

First, starting out on the wrong foot isn't uncommon. Nor is it a sure indicator of future failure. But, you need to turn it around.

Next, people evaluating your record are more likely to put emphasis on what you've done recently than on what you did earlier. So, re-taking the courses, not for the grades but for the knowledge can help. And not having the knowledge will be a sure block to your future. Audits are less valuable, of course, as there is no record of your performance.

Those evaluating applications for further study or for a job are looking for indicators of success. If you can show that, then you have a chance. A record of doing better recently will help, but it will also be important to have letters of recommendation from people who can honestly say that the past is past and you have a high likelihood of success in the graduate program and beyond.

On the other hand, you will be faced with stiff competition from people who haven't had a once-deficient background. It is easier for evaluators to pick people who have always seemed to be a success than someone who has struggled. The decision has less risk when you choose an all "top marks" student. But, people know, also, that such "top" students don't always succeed and some people with special motivation will, especially if they have learned to overcome a weak background.

So, the bottom line is that it isn't impossible, but it will be hard. If you can turn it around and convince your current professors that you truly have put yourself on a better path, then you have a chance.

I'd also suggest that you don't "make excuses" for the past, but face it honestly. But get on the path to success and convince others that you have.


Explaining switch of research interests in Statement of Purpose

You don't have to convince the admission committee about the switch.

You do have to convince the admission committee that you are able to complete a PhD in Computer Vision.

Work out what skills will be needed, and present your evidence that you have those skills.

Work out what knowledge will be needed as a prerequisite, and present your evidence that you have that knowledge.

Work out what the other pre-requisities are (funding, contributing to the internal life of the department, whatever), and present the evidence for that too.


Can a dean expel a doctoral student without a trial?

Universities do not in my experience hold "trials" in order to reach their decisions, however weighty.  So the answer to the literal question asked is probably "yes".

I guess what you mean to ask is whether the dean has the unilateral power to do this.  I'm not entirely clear on what "this" is: what does "preventing him from completing his PhD" or "effectively expelling" mean, precisely?  But even if I did, I would have to know the rules of your friend's university rather intimately in order to answer.  (Someone in your university has the power to do this.  As @Paul comments, probably more than one person was involved in the decision.  Just because the action looks single-handed to your friend does not mean that other university officials were not involved.)

One tip: if your friend's adviser doesn't know, get your friend to tell her!! (i) Could it make things any worse?  (ii) Won't she find or sooner or later?  Sooner may be soon enough to at least try to do something about it; later, maybe not.

Added "It seems the dean is harassing him, pure and simple." Well then he should report it to....oh.  Seriously, if by this you mean that you think the dean has some kind of vendetta against your friend which caused him to simply fabricate these charges: though obviously I don't and can't know the situation, I find that very unlikely.  Though there may be no "trial" system in the university, there will be some kind of clear guidelines and procedures for expelling students.  If the harassment is simply made up then the expelling couldn't possibly have followed these procedures, which would open the university up to a trial, possibly an embarrassing and costly one.  I think I understand this clearly, but a dean understands it like I can't even imagine.


What are some efficient ways to keep a note of results of a research article in mathematics?

I'm a big believer in using simple index cards for this sort of thing. But there are modern alternatives also.

For the traditional approach, make a card for each paper. It contains title and author as well as publisher/source. It also contains a one or two sentence summary of the paper. What is the reason that this paper is important/interesting?

Cards are kept in a file box, perhaps in author order.

The advantage of this approach is that your card deck will still be available to you in fifty years after multiple operating systems and software systems have become extinct. Paper lasts. Another advantage of index cards is that they are small so you can only write essential things.

As a supplement, you can keep a notebook with a page or two for each paper. The index cards contain a page reference into your notebook system.

But the disadvantage is that such a paper-only system is hard to search. So you might consider an alternative. There is software for "digital index cards" that let you do the above on a computer and provide the opportunity for both searching and for updating the formats and organization of your notes. This might be a better solution for you in general, but don't overlook the permanence of paper. If you are really serious, use such a software system but also use a printer that conveniently and efficiently prints real index cards. Now you have your bomb-proof backup that you will be able to refer to in your 70's in the post-computer era.

Personal note: I have, in fact saved such things as my college course notes from deep into the previous century and have, very occasionally, gone back to refer to them. Later, I kept things on floppy disks that I can no longer access, even though I have the equipment to do so. They degrade as paper does not. Provided you use fairly good paper, of course. I found my first "paper" done back in secondary school (on paper, obviously, created when computers were made of vacuum tubes) and found it "interesting". Since it was typed (on a typewriter), I can scan it for more modern use.


Why conference chair asks for accepted papers sources?

While we obviously do not know the Chair's intent (unless she happens to be a stack exchange poster), the most likely situation to me is that there's some sort of formatting related issue (or possibly some typos, etc. that need correcting) in your submitted version that they are incapable of fixing given your PDF file.

This does not necessarily imply it's your fault - typesetting systems are sometimes fussy, but asking for both a Word version and the source indicates, to me, that they want "A version they can edit".

On a practical level, yes, it's your problem. You could refuse of course, with unknown results.


How to refer to a source with typos in the title?

This would be an excellent time to use the Latin sic:

  ("thus"; in full: sic erat scriptum, "thus was it written") inserted after a quoted word or passage, indicates that the quoted matter has been transcribed exactly as found in the source text, complete with any erroneous or archaic spelling, surprising assertion, faulty reasoning, or other matter that might otherwise be taken as an error of transcription. source

It is commonly used as a suffix in bracketed form after a citation e.g.

  Charmley, John (2006). “The Princess and the Politicians” [sic]

or used after an erroneous word or passage

  She wrote, “They made there [sic] beds.”


Will professors get dismissed for not actively doing research?

What is the binding power of research requirements upon professors and associate professors?

Without some specific agreement to the contrary, tenure means you can't be fired for doing insufficiently good research.  Some tenured positions involve post-tenure review, which can weaken the notion of tenure by expanding the cases in which you could be disciplined or even fired, but this is not the default.

On the other hand, there are tons of other ways to enforce requirements.  If a professor is not doing good research, they may be asked to take on extra teaching or service (which is reasonable: if they aren't spending time productively on research, then they should spend it on something else).  In more extreme cases, they might never get a raise again, in which case their salary is gradually eaten away by inflation if they aren't near retirement.  If the chair specifically wants to punish someone, they can assign them the classes or committees nobody else wants, give them the least desirable office, etc.  In short, there are lots of ways a tenured position can become unpleasant, which gives the administration more leverage than one might guess from the definition of tenure.


Is it acceptable if I write a title of a thesis of the same as the title of the co-advisor paper?

No, I do not think it is generally a good idea to use a title for your work that has already been used before. Main reason would be that it makes it both publications harder to search for, and allows for mistakes. Just come up with a slightly different title of your own.
The only exception I see is for two publications that are in some sense the same work, such as the conference publication,  journal publication, and possible arxiv preprint of one and the same paper. Some discussion can be had here about when it is still "the same paper", since generally these 3 versions will differ somewhat, but that is not relevant to your case.


Is it possible (practically, in real life) to pursue two very distinct research interests (e.g. in AI and theoretical physics)?

It is possible (even “practically, in real life”) to do all sorts of things that are very difficult to do, like: publish five bestselling novels; climb the highest mountain in every continent; win a gold medal in the Olympics; become a successful movie actor; etc etc.
The point is that questions like yours (which seem to get asked here regularly) are very difficult to give a meaningful answer to. We don’t know you and what you’re capable of. Some people can do the thing you’re asking about, others can’t. So just asking “can it be done” is a question that, if interpreted literally, has an easy answer that’s not very interesting or helpful (“yes, it can be done”), and if re-interpreted to mean what I think you really want to know (“can I , the specific person asking this question, do this thing?”), isn’t a question that I or anyone else here have the information to answer.
Perhaps the most helpful way of addressing the question is to look at the number of people who can do the thing you’re asking about. Well, I’ll be honest, that number is extremely small. Most people who want a career in academia already find it challenging enough to do one PhD in one discipline and then pursue a position as researchers in that one discipline. And even from among those super talented people who find it a bit easier than the rest and are smart and hardworking enough that they can realistically contemplate specializing in two very distant disciplines, one of which being as notoriously difficult as theoretical physics and being acquired purely through self-study, only a vanishingly small fraction of that already small group will care to invest the time and energy that it would take to broaden their reach in such a way. For those people it’s not really about a lack of ability - more about the fact that it’s an inefficient strategy for becoming successful and maximally realizing one’s potential; but it kind of amounts to the same thing in the end.
Summary: can it be done? Yes. Is it something that I’d recommend to anyone to have as their career plan? No.


I think figshare might be what you are looking for.

About figshare:

  figshare is a repository where users can make  all of their research
  outputs available in a citable, shareable and discoverable manner

From their FAQ, What are the file size limits?

  Up to 5gb single file uploads 20gb of private space

  If these options do not meet your data needs do get in touch with us
  and we'll see what we can do.

Also, they offer unlimited public space, so I think they can cater your needs.


Is there a Plain English dictionary/glossary for education terminology

In relation to Educational Terms, Kathlyn Griffith and Helen Kowalski have published a Dictionary of education terms.

While not the most ideal source Wikipedia have a Glossary of education related terms that may be of some help as well.

You can also view a copy of the Oxford Mathematics Dictionary at the link. While it's the concise edition (coming in at just under 900 pages!), it covers a lot of terms that you friend would encounter and has biographical information on famous Mathematicians as well.
It appears that many of its explanations give short examples as well. The English is clear and as plain as can be expected from such a publication.

This Glossary link also has Maths terms searchable in alphabetical order.


What Problems Are Applied Mathematicians Concerned With?

I am mostly going by your title question and your clarification from the comment. Because as it turns out, the only field most applied mathematicians add knowledge to is applied mathematics itself, only then someone else to apply this knowledge to something later, so there is a lot of internal stuff going on. But more about that later. First let me tackle the part of applied mathematics that is "exposed" to the sciences. (By which I choose to mean everything except maths for sake of simplicity)
What do applied mathematicians do with respect to sciences?
If you want to apply mathematics to something, there are essentially two (oversimplified) steps:

Write down a model of your problem. (e.g. differential equations, graphs, minimization problems, etc.)
Extract useful information from your model using maths. (e.g. find solutions, universal properties, minimizers, numerical approximations etc.)

People from the sciences¹ are certainly good at the first step, and they are taught a bit about the second step during their education or pick something up in practice. But that is generally restricted to some standard methods. In contrast think of applied mathematicians as kind of the opposite of this. The model a mathematician writes down might be a bit rudimentary and not be most realistic one, but he'll certainly know some more advanced mathematical trickeries to extract some additional predictions from it. And of course as lifetimes are limited, it is basically impossible for someone to get into the full depths of both sides.
Now one would think that this would lead to a clear division of labour. But what muddies the waters is that there are many models and not all of them are created equal. There are many models that may look reasonable but that are mathematically ill-posed, rendering their predictions useless.² There are also many models that look simple and are of interest to scientists, but where extracting mathematical information is impossibly difficult, while a less straightforward looking model might be easier to solve. (And for the converse, there are many mathematical toy-models with interesting theorems but no real applications).
People who focus on this would generally fall under the heading of mathematical modelling. But that is only a small part of applied mathematics.
What problems are applied mathematicians concerned with?
Contrary to your question, a lot people in applied mathematics don't deal with specific real world problems at all. Rather than that they work on improving the methods used for problems. These can be ways to prove certain classes of theorems and make predictions or they can be algorithms to numerically solve problems. Both are completely different but kind of have the same function for the sake of this discussion.
The important point is that the good methods are application agnostic. I don't want to prove a new theorem for each new application and I don't want my numerical algorithm to only work for a specific equation (there are some exceptions but those are by necessity, not by choice). So while many may look to some application as an inspiration or put it in the paper as an example, that is not their focus.
Notes:
¹As a sidenote, you called them "domain specialists", but that isn't a good distinction, as this is true for both sides. Applied mathematics splits in many domains and each mathematician will only be a specialist in one or two of them (e.g. statistics, or partial differential equations or, certain numerical methods etc.). They just might feel like "jacks of all trades" to you, because each of those domains will have some applications in almost all sciences, but they are still rather specific and fundamentally useless if the problem needs a different subfield of methods. Think of the two as orthogonal to each other.
²If a model M has no solutions, the sentence "Every solution to the model M fulfills property X" is true for any X.


How to find out if a paper is diamond/gold/green access?

if the paper is listed in a journal but a pre-print is available on the authors' webpage/repository then it is Green access. Is that correct?

Not exactly. The paper may be published under a green OA agreement even if the author did not publish it on their webpage, or the author may have shared it illegally. For a more authoritative answer, you should instead look up the journal on Sherpa/Romeo and see if it allows publishing pre/postprints.

Next how do I find out whether a paper appearing on the journal's website is gold access or diamond access? (Basically did the authors pay to make their paper open)

The journal's webpage will usually tell you if there are publication charges, and how much they are. Even if they advertise charges, these may be waived under certain conditions (for instance: agreement with the author's institution; author comes from a developing country). Ultimately, there is no way to pay if two third parties reached an agreement and waived that fee; that is a private contract between them and none of your business. :)
(Anyway, why do you care exactly? Is this to know if you will be charged to publish your future paper in the same venue? Or for a research/statistic?)


Can a honours supervisors be called a Project Leader?

Yes, this is a fairly standard description of a supervisors role in undergraduate research projects. Typically supervisor, despite potentially limited input, are responsible for the research conduct of their students. This might include booking of resources (e.g., labs or super computer time) and ethical approval for research that involves human and animal testing.


In the UK, a personal tutor is assigned to you when you start your degree and the same person will generally maintain that role for the whole of your course. They are usually a lecturer or more senior-- never a student, PhD or otherwise. There are often a mandated number of meetings that a student must have with their tutor: once a term is common.

The role of a personal tutor is mostly non-academic. While you could discuss academic problems with them, they are really there to help with pastoral matters, such as wellbeing, or helping you to decide what courses to take or how best to manage your time. Personal tutors are a common choice of reference letter writers for their students' applications for postgraduate degrees, as they likely know the student and their grades very well.


What are the perks of being a tenured professor at U.S. universities, besides having academic freedom?

Universities offer all sort of "benefits" to its employees. Some of these "benefits" do  not have a monetary value (e.g., flexible work schedule). The benefits available to faculty are often different from the cleaning staff. Further there are differences in benefits between tenured/tenure track and adjunct faculty. I can only think of three benefits, that have a monetary value, for which there are differences between tenure track and tenured faculty

Sabbatical: Some universities do not permit pretenure sabbaticals. It is often hard to differentiate if sabbatical eligibility is tied to tenure or time in service. Brown University provides different sabbatical benefits pre and post tenure.

Housing Assistance: Some universities provide housing assistance (discounted homes, mortgage assistance, loans, etc). Portions of the housing assistance program at Columbia requires tenure.

Parking: Some universities provide parking passes. Carroll College provides reserved spaces for tenured faculty while other faculty and staff simply get a parking pass.

In terms of perks that do not have a monetary value, this varies widely by department. Tenured faculty often get to be chair of the department (which may or may not be a perk). Departments may also give tenured faculty priority in terms of teaching schedule, departmental and university service requirements, office space, and lab space. The sabbatical system, internal funding, and administrative support may be skewed in their favor also.


Is it better to go to class, or watch the recorded lectures?

A combination may be best. Go to the lectures. During the lecture, if you miss something, or have trouble understanding, make a note of the time. Afterwards, before attempting the coursework, bring up the recorded lecture and view the places you missed during the live lecture.

That way, you get the keep-on-track benefit of the live lectures. You spend your viewing time in a very focused mode, looking only at the difficult parts of the lecture, which may reduce the tendency to get distracted.


Existing hypothesis, same country, but different years and setting – is it plagiarism?

Plagiarism is selling somebody else’s idea as your own. Therefore as long as you properly cite the other paper, you are in no danger of committing plagiarism. The worst that can happen is that you are reproducing an existing study¹ instead of doing something novel. Whether this is a problem, is for you and your supervisor to decide, as you know the differences in detail.

On top, suppose you hadn’t found out about the other study: In this case you would not have committed plagiarism since you cannot possibly use the ideas of others without knowing them. Had you published your paper in this case, you would perhaps² be guilty of sloppy literature research, but not of plagiarism. However, the evidence may (incorrectly) point to you being a plagiarist and thus you still want to avoid this situation.

¹ which scientists almost universally agree on being done too rarely.
² if the other paper is sufficiently easy to find


How to find out who funded a study / research?

Reputable journals might require authors to disclose funding sources, but as noted, this practice, reputable journals notwithstanding, is inconsistent.  Beyond this, there are no standards for determining what is a reputable journal.

As to the comment that two citations do not prove the point, the literature is replete with studies demonstrating funding bias; a few examples: Pharmaceutical industry sponsorship and research outcome and quality, Lexchen, Bern et al; Avoiding biasing the conduct and reporting…, Hillman, Eisenberg, et al; Systematic review of empirical evidence of study publication bias, Dwan, Altman et al.


Is it okay to leave a conference paper as a pre-print?

While @cheersmate's answer explains the difference between pre-prints and papers published in conference proceedings (however please note that none of this is necessarily true outside of Computer Science as conference culture is different between disciplines), I think it is important to mention some etiquette about publishing.
It is considered very bad form to send a paper to review, and then retract it post-acceptance. There are some exceptions to the rule (e.g. sudden illness, non-trivial errors in the results or data), such a retraction (or simply not paying the conference fees) can reflect very bad on you, as it points to:

Lack of foresight if the reason is lack of funds.
Conferences typically have publication and attendance fees. As historical fees are usually known, this is an expense that could have easily been foreseen. This is even more true during the current pandemic situation, as many conference fees are reduced to a fraction of their typical price and the conferences shifted to online events.

Lack of respect for reviewers time (if the reason is lack of funds; or lack of time to do the required revisions).
In order for a paper to get accepted to a conference, it will get assigned to an editor / session chair. That person will then need to read at least the abstract and the keywords, and attempt to solicit 2 or 3 reviewers for your paper.  They will contact more than that, and many will refuse. Finally, the editor/chair will read the reviews, and will have the responsibility of making the final decision about acceptance or rejection (it's not as simple as a ranking list where top-X get in). Indicating that you never had the intention of publishing shows a disregard for this process and the time of all the people involved.

Problems in academic conduct (if the reason is e.g. a dispute between co-authors).
It does not reflect well on anybody if you can't keep it civil with your co-authors for the period of time between submission and publication.

Problems with research rigour (if the reason is non-trivial errors in the results).
Infinitely better post-acceptance than post-publication, but... well.

If you do not give a reason, nothing good will be assumed.

My point not to make you feel bad, but that a paper that was peer-reviewed and accepted for publication, but not published (due to not paying conference fees/not presenting) does not give you any bragging rights on your CV. And while your plans to publish it in a journal certainly sound nice, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
To address your current situation: the one thing worse than retracting the paper by quietly not paying the conference fees is paying the conference fees and then quietly not showing up to present your paper. That might even land you on some blacklists on larger conferences, e.g. IEEE organised. If you truly can not find funding, I would suggest informing the conference as soon as possible for your reasons for retraction, and offering your apologies for your lack of foresight, rather than just quietly not paying.
I second @cheersmate's suggestions to look if the conference can waver the fees, or has any "student support" mini-grants, or if something might be available through your University (or even through a lab/team/professor if you are associated to one through an internship or TAing) or your co-authors. While it would have been better to do all this before submission, I hope you still find an avenue that allows you to publish your paper.


How common is reference/citation padding?

Not in my experience, but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. This might require a genuine literature search using various keywords to give a quantified estimate for particular fields. I read citations quite closely in my field and I have only rarely seen this practice (<1%). Much more common is slightly misrepresenting what the other authors said, or referencing something a reviewer might suspect the author hasn't read, like a tangentially related book used for a brief aside. And, of course, quasi-related self-citations.


Is it cheating on lab report homework if a peer points out calculation error that you then fix before submission?

I don't think this is cheating at all, unless you specifically asked peers of their results.

The important thing is the understanding of the material. Your peer may well have been wrong in their answer and led you down the wrong path, but the important thing here is that you've double-checked your own work and recognised a mistake.


Do editors know how many papers I am refereeing on the same platform?

I think there are two aspects to your question:

1) Do editors see how many other papers you are currently reviewing?

Yes, in fact this feature is supported by at least some submission systems. I am not sure about Elsevier, but below is a screenshot from Manuscript Central (also known as ScholarOne):

The second and third column list how many open reviews the person has, and when (s)he last submitted a review.

2) Do editors care? Are you more likely to get new reviews when you have submitted your current ones?

In general, they will likely not care too much. At least in CS there are myriads of different systems in use, and knowing that a person has currently no open reviews in any given one of them tells me close to nothing about what her or his total review backlog looks like. Further, it is not my place as an editor to decide whether the person can take on another review - I can invite her or him, and they will just decide for themselves. That's what the Accept / Refuse buttons are for, after all.


While the translation is clearly suspect, the only time this is likely to come up is if you are trying to meet a prerequisite at another institution. In that case, what is of interest is whether you've already passed studies of the same material. If you have the related degree, that should be clear. If it comes down to a course-by-course analysis of your record, the title of a course anyway doesn't suffice to answer this question: the two syllabi are compared by some rubric.

You needn't do anything unless you are asked to demonstate a course equivalency.


How does being in academia help researchers

Beyond the obvious benefits of financial stability, one must also consider the possibility that not all researchers are solitary creatures. This is especially true in the non-mathematics parts of STEM fields, which frequently require collaboration to achieve meaningful results.

Moreover, there is the additional issue of the amount of work that one person can get done relative to the number of ideas and projects that they want to explore. For instance, right now, there are about a half-dozen different project ideas that I'd like to work on, and I could probably come up with a dozen more if I had the time and space to do so. But I only have a finite number of hours that I can work, which means that I have a few options:

find people who are willing to work on those ideas by getting a grant and hiring graduate students or postdocs,
do it myself, or
leave the work undone.

The last option is unappealing, and the second is basically impossible without burning myself out after a few months. So that leaves the first option, which is difficult to do if you're not affiliated with some sort of research institution.


Does "submitted to Thomson Reuters" mean that a publication will actually be indexed?

It does sound like rather tentative wording.

Thomson Reuters cannot, would not, and should not accept all and any submissions of anything for indexing - it would swamp the system with spam.

So to me, it sounds like the conference has applied to be indexed, but it is certainly not absolutely guaranteed that they will be included in the Thomson Reuters Conference Proceedings Citation Index.


How to tell if a Journal is peer reviewed and/or legitimate?

ISSN numbers are cheap and don't mean anything.

There's no algorithmic way to tell if a journal is legitimate, but some indications:

If it's not open access, chances are it's legitimate. Non-OA journals actually have to publish good articles or nobody will subscribe. OA journals can get away with publishing junk since the author pays for it.
Check their website. It's likely to say if the journal is peer-reviewed.
Who's on the editorial board? Are they established researchers in the field the journal covers?
Who has published in the journal? Are they established researchers in the field the journal covers? Are the articles of poor quality?

If you're unwilling to do the research yourself, you can also check out Cabell's International which maintains whitelists and blacklists (this, however, is not a free service).


Chances of landing a post doc (Banach Space Theory) and tenure track position?

Statistics won't help you here. Getting a job isn't a random selection process. Every candidate is different. Every position is different. The selection process is designed to match skills with requirements, even if it does so rather poorly. But on a purely statistical basis, assume that your chances are zero.

If you want a job as a math prof, independent of sub-field, write a lot of good papers. Learn to be a good instructor. Get some experience in advising others, etc. Then look for jobs that seem to match your skills and background. Become known in your sub-field and in the larger world of mathematicians (attend conferences, say). Use your advisor(s) to meet people elsewhere through introductions. Do some collaborative work with people elsewhere. Assure that your advisors are extremely happy with you and with your work so that you get marvelous letters of recommendation.

Expect that the process will be very competitive. You need to find a way to stand out from the crowd. When 200 applications arrive for any position you want to have yours wind up in the short (explore further) pile rather than the tall (no interest) pile.


Someone plagiarised my entire paper. What should I do now?

I am a high school student who has worked on multiple (well, 4 to be
  exact) pure math and CS papers. All of them deal with fairly
  significant problems, so some of them have been published by now too.

Wow. That's awesome!

  Today, I saw a paper which looked quite similar to a paper that I
  published back in May. I was shocked to notice that the author of that
  paper had plagiarised my entire paper verbatim. [...] I am worried because [...] these papers
  mean a lot to me as I have worked so hard on them.

Yes, of course. Trust me, there is no one who has ever written a serious paper who isn't just as emotionally invested in it as you are in your own papers, so we understand. I personally discovered only a few weeks ago that some loser plagiarized some of my work and submitted it as his own (not to a journal but as a final project for a university class, fortunately), so I know quite what an annoying and hurtful feeling it is, even though in my particular case this action does not threaten me in any way.

  I have already notified the journal but I doubt that I will get a
  reply. Could you please let me know the further steps to be taken too?

I agree with your assessment. Junk journals, like the people who publish in them, have no ethics, they are predatory entities usually based in corrupt and lawless countries. The "editor" is most likely a nephew of someone at the criminal or semi-legal enterprise that set up this journal.

As for what you should do, there aren't that many options that do not involve legal action of some sort. Basically, you should try to discredit the journal and the plagiarist (who are both complicit in this misconduct), and shame them into removing the plagiarized paper from the web, by contacting:

The department chair and other administrators (dean, ethics committee, ombudsperson) at the plagiarist's institution. Note that chances are this institution may itself be a very low-quality, poorly ranked and possibly corrupt institution in a less-than-developed country, so it is just as uncertain that your complaint will lead somewhere as in the case of complaining to the journal; but regardless, it certainly won't hurt to try.
Any journal indexing service or other similar entity that gives credibility to academic journals by including them on lists it compiles, and may not be aware of the scamminess of the journal in question. Here is an example of such a service that I found through Google (which also has a list of excluded journals that apparently it considers disreputable). I do not use such services myself so do not know which ones are important/credible and which ones aren't; perhaps others can comment on this.
Any news media in the country where the journal and/or plagiarist are based who may be interested in this story of academic fraud.
Western bloggers or journalists who are interested in dishonesty and fraud in academia. Again, I'm far from an expert on this so don't have too many specific suggestions, but Retraction Watch is a name that gets thrown around a lot.

At the end of the day, if all of those methods fail, your last resort would be legal action, since the journal and plagiarist author are committing an infringement of your copyright. Even if they are in far away countries, they are probably within the reach of the law, but it would likely be a long and costly battle, and I think you are right to want to avoid taking that route. Good luck, and keep up the good work! I'm sorry you are getting to experience the nasty part of academia at such an early stage before getting a chance to see all the good parts. I am sure this experience will not be representative and will be followed by many more positive ones.


Is there a lack of oversight of how professors interact with students?

Much abuse in the academic world is directed against students. They are in an ambiguous position. They are often not considered working professionals, though in practice they are. I.e. they often teach and/or conduct research. They are usually not rewarded financially in line with their training and skills. They cannot easily move to another place till they have completed their degree. Also, they are more dependent on their mentor/supervisor than a working professional would typically be. And they are not accorded the rights that working persons normally are. Students are also less likely to complain because they need to have good relations with the faculty for their future careers. Often they are working with faculty members on projects. While similar situations/circumstances can arise outside academia, this combination is relatively unusual. The closest analogy I can think of is the institution of interns, who probably also endure abuse, though their stays are usually much shorter.
Anyway, this is fertile ground for abuse.

While this is not directly relevant, it's symptomatic that there is often much controversy/difficulty when students try to start Unions to protect their rights. This has been an issue for a good many years, at least in the United States. There was a famous case at Yale some years ago, for example.

Additionally, the institution of tenure is quite rare outside academia, though it exists. For example, judges have tenure. Tenured professors are hard to fire, and therefore are more likely to get away with abuse without consequences.

There is another issue, which is more speculative. But I'll mention it, anyway. This may also be country dependent. Foreigners entering Western countries, at least, are subject to employment restrictions. There is one notable exception to this restriction - namely educational institutions, which means universities in practice. This may not be universally true, but for example in the US, being a student is probably the easiest way to enter the country, and the main exception to the H1B work visa cap, the last I heard, were educational and non-profit institutions.

Anyway, in practice this means there are many foreigners in Western universities, both at a student and post-doc level, and of course at faculty level. Here I am only concerned about junior temporary employees like students and post-docs. In the US, at least, there is much institutional discrimination against such persons. They can't easily move to another job or university because of employment restrictions. Getting a non-university job is often very difficult. Getting employed involves an additional burden of paperwork. So, such people are, again, targets for abuse. This is not theoretical - I've seen and heard much to support this. Of course, foreigners get employment outside academia too, but for the reasons I have discussed, I believe the density of foreigners employed is particularly high in Western universities.


Is it significantly inappropriate to wear clothes bearing the name of University X, when working as an official employee at University Y?

There are definitely cases in which it would stand out as strange or inappropriate.  You should be careful in cases of a rivalry, since that may be viewed as a significant statement even if you meant nothing by it.  (I'm thinking of Harvard vs. Yale or Illinois vs. Iowa.  Athletic rivalries are particularly troublesome, since students may consider the clothing a sign of active support for the rival university.  No reasonable person could take offense, but not everyone is reasonable.)

It's also risky spending too much time wearing clothing emblazoned with a much more prestigious name than the university you are currently at.  You don't want to look like you are ostentatiously reminding everyone that you graduated from Harvard, unlike the riffraff around you.

I don't think either of these will be an issue for wearing a Dalhousie University hoodie at Nankai University.  If this were in the U.S. or Canada, I don't think it would be a problem at all: the worst case scenario is occasional good-natured teasing, and even that's far from certain.  However, I have no experience with how it might be viewed in China, so it's worth looking into that specifically if you have reason to fear the reactions might be different.


10 minute presentation for a PhD interview

They want to see one element of your research accomplishments rather than a full explanation of everything you've ever done. If you have extensive, varied research experience (or, perhaps, if you just like to ponder the details of each project) then this can seem daunting. It's unlikely that you can present every detail of every method and its applications in ten minutes, though, so you'll need to choose one project or result and keep the details to a minimum.

The skills needed to complete a PhD aren't limited to those learned in the course of doing the research, but also planning projects, adapting methods to your own purposes, interpreting your findings, presenting them, and even general skills like working on a team or knowing when a project has become too complicated. Even the presentation itself is a demonstration of your communication skills. Choose an element of your previous experience with the best examples of these skills and how you've developed them.


How to draft a recommendation letter for myself after professor asked me to do so

Professors often do not have time to write a recommendation letter. Sometimes, they do not know the student well so they ask the students to write a recommendation letter for them. However, universities are aware of this form of "Ghost writing" and they can recognize ghost writing pretty easily. I would suggest to read some recommendation letter online and then try to write one for yourself.

If you are working with your professor for some time, try to write about the project in the recommendation letter. Try to write what you are doing in the project and what is your contribution in the project. Also, try to discuss your differences with other project members (if you have any). If you have taken any course with the professor, then try to discuss the course's interaction from the professor's perspective. If you won any awards, you can also discuss that from the professor's prospective. I guess the best idea is to read about some recommendation letter and then try to write your own.


In my experience, you are more likely to be noticed by a professor if you actually show up in person. Busy people tend to overlook/ignore/forget emails, and asking in person makes more of an impression. Since you mentioned attending his office hours, your face might seem familiar, while your name might not (you did not mention mailing him explicitely).

Before asking, think about what skills you can bring to the table (he might ask you about programming languages etc).

Do not, however, overstay your welcome: it is likely he will not hand you a contract right on the spot, but maybe wants to ask around his department/think of a task to give you first.

In any case, make sure to tell him your full name and/or email address, he might want to write it down ;)


How can you get paid to do research when you are retired in the UK?

Establish yourself as a freelance expert consultant (plenty of online advice to do this), and find the right clients interested in funding your research.


Conference paper rejected after positive review and TPC comments

3 reviewers recommended "weak accept," as did the chair, but the paper was rejected.

This is a common situation. Other papers probably got better reviews or your paper was perceived negatively during the discussion phase or ...

  I asked the chair why and he said "your paper didn't make the conference capacity line. Please resubmit to another venue."

Conferences have upper-bounds on the number of papers they can accept due to time constraints.


How and when do departments decide who is teaching which course?

The department head/chair is the go-to person for such requests. Sometimes there is a curriculum committee that may or may not have some responsibility for seeing that courses are covered.

When you ask, it would be useful if you go with a plan and some evidence that you are or will be prepared for it.

You might also talk to someone who has taught it recently.

Don't wait to make your request. It may take a while if it is unusual for grad students to teach at that level where you are.

If the faculty is unionized you might run in to a problem. I've been places where the union for adjunct professors might want to complain even though the regular faculty wasn't unionized.


Writing a paper from Master thesis, but not sure how to organize the paper or what to include in it

You could structure your material as follows. To my perception (at least in computer science) this is more or less standard structure.

Introduction: The bigger picture in which your approach fits in: the problem you are trying to solve. A short description that guides the reader from the more general to the more specific issue.
You could have an extra section regarding some preliminary concepts that are crucial to understanding your work. The nice thing with journals is that you do not have the space restrictions that you have in conferences, and thus you can expand a little.
Related work: Attempts that already exist in the literature, and how you compare with them. Why your solution would be an advance in the state-of-the-art, and under which conditions.
Description of your work: as detailed and as formal you can be regarding e.g. a system architecture, an algorithm, the core idea of the paper.
Performance measurements. A comparison to "competing" approaches in terms of performance.
Optionally, a discussion section, where you discuss about your experiments. This could be merged in the previous section.
Conclusions and future work. A section where you provide your most important findings and give directions towards which your work can be expanded.

Of course, the above are merely indicative and do not apply to all cases. Personally, this is how would start drafting a new journal publication.

  My feeling at the moment is that the paper does not worth the effort.

It is certainly worth the effort. Why not? Even if the idea is not new, your paper would be a study on how your approach performs in certain conditions.

Funny as it may be, this presentation gives some quality advice: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/simonpj/papers/giving-a-talk/writing-a-paper-slides.pdf


My new advisor didn't reply to my email, is it a sign that she doesn't care?

Flippant version: It is normal AND it is a sign that the advisor doesn't care at all.

Less flippant version: I would wait a couple more days. Then, if still no response, I would ask around to see if the professor is sick/having a major life crisis/etc. If not, then I would conclude that they do not meet a reasonable standard of availability, and I would choose to work with someone else. There are few things more depressing in academia than colleagues who drop the ball and ignore you, especially when they are senior to you and you rely on them to make progress on your work. Life is too short to be working with someone who is not interested in working with you.


No reply from potential supervisor of my dreams: is it OK to try meeting them in person?

Some important things to know:

1) Many professors receive dozens of unsolicited emails a day from potential graduate students, and essentially ignore them because they can't keep up (although having a form letter "no more students!" response is, perhaps, a nicer thing to do).

2) Many (most) faculty don't admit students without having some idea of how they will fund them, so it's not unlikely that this specific researcher can't really offer you a spot in the department.

3) In my experience, most of the unsolicited emails are also way off the mark in terms of research topics, so the most important part of your communication with this researcher is conveying that you a) actually know what they do, b) have something useful to offer, and c) that you are applying to the department and would like to work with them. And it's fine to ask to speak with them briefly (by email or phone) about whether you would fit in with their research plans.  They might ignore you.

If you are actually in the area and want to set up a meeting (by email), that's one thing, but I don't think you should fly to their country and ambush them.

Not to be a downer, but just because you think this person is the perfect advisor doesn't mean that you are their perfect student (or that they want another student right now).  That said, you can still send a nice follow-up email and apply.  You might want to apply to some other places too, however.


The rules for submitting an article to Arxiv are fairly clear and do not exclude you on the basis of not being affiliated to a research institution. You have to be registered, but that's about it.

I feel that a change of terminology is in order - you don't "post" to Arxiv - it's a preprint server, not discussion forum or a message board. You "submit" work to Arxiv. Among the functions that a preprint server provides is a record of intellectual ownership. If you submit it to a preprint server, you could claim later on that this work is your own and was published on a certain date. A second function is that of peer review, which you are asking about here. If indeed your work was plagiarized, this would likely be discovered by peer reviewers if you submitted it to the Arxiv (or for that matter, to any journal with a reasonable editorial process).

Note that Arxiv does not have a peer-review process - it's a preprint server that exists specifically to speed up publication of non peer-reviewed research. However, it does have a moderation process. So while submitting your research to a preprint server makes it more likely to have it peer reviewed, it does not guarantee it.

So, to answer your question

  Can i post my article in arxiv for comments from other mathematicians?

the answer is undoubtedly "yes". Nothing prevents you from doing this.

However, the corollary which is implied in your question:

  If I submit my article to Arxiv, will it be peer-reviewed by mathematicians?

is more difficult to answer. Almost all peer review is a volunteer activity, irrespective of where you submit, so someone needs to volunteer their time and intellect to reviewing your contribution.

Ask yourself what your motivations are. Do you want a publication, or do you want your contribution to objectively evaluated? Either way, submit it to the Arxiv to state that the work is yours.


How to avoid crossing my advisor if I write a paper as a sole author?

If you don't know whether your advisor expects to be a co-author or not, just ask him.

If you feel that the advisor shouldn't be a co-author, you can present that as the "default":

  I am planning to write up my work with X, to submit to conference Y. You haven't really been involved in this work so far, so I guess you won't co-author this paper with me. Is that right?

If based on the specifics of the situation you don't have any strong feelings against co-authoring this paper with him, but you just aren't sure what he wants, you can just ask him:

  I am planning to write up my work with X, to submit to conference Y. Are you interested in co-authoring this paper with me?

As you have said, you can't read minds. The only way to know what's in his, is to communicate.

And it's really important that you have this discussion as soon as possible; authorship disputes are much trickier to resolve after publication (when they can potentially lead to retraction) than before submission.


How to resolve: Reviewer #1 says remove section X vs. Reviewer #2 says expand section X

What this means to me is that Section X needs to be revised.

Reviewer #1 is pointing out that section X is not well-motivated as it stands -- because they can't figure out it's relation

Reviewer #2 is pointing out that section X is not good enough as it stands -- because it doesn't address relevant issues about X.

Thus, the two are not necessarily opposite. Reviewer #1 is telling you that you need to better explain why X is as state if you want to include it. Reviewer #2 is saying you need to better address what is at stake in X but recognizes X is significant.

When I get this sort of review, I rewrite that section to make very clear why discussing X matters to the paper (thus addressing Reviewer #1) and try to improve and focus my arguments so that it really answers the objections raised related to X (thus addressing Reviewer #2).

I'm in philosophy, so maybe this advice doesn't apply to your field.


What does recommended for acceptance mean?

Not always. At some universities (such as the one where I presently work, the official decision to admit a student is made at the dean's level, rather than the departmental level. In such cases, the department recommends admission; such recommendations are almost always accepted, unless something irregular has happened in the admissions process.


What can I do after publication with double affiliation in an open access journal?

There is nothing wrong with publishing a dual-affiliation paper. It happens often when a person conducts a piece of research at one institution but finishes writing it up at another institution. This is a genuine dual affiliation because writing is part of the scientific work.
That said, however, I am extremely suspicious of a journal that does not allow you to declare your own affiliation. Your description of that and other interactions leads me to question whether you are being scammed by a predatory publisher.  I would strongly recommend evaluating the quality of the publication and making sure you actually want to publish with them.


What's the name of Wikipedia's default referencing style?

As you can see above, references to journal articles from the English Wikipedia are styled in the following manner:

  Author, First A.; Author, Second B.  (year). "Title goes here". Journal of failed experiments volume (issue): pages-pages.

This is documented here. It corresponds to the APA citation style, with additional quotation marks around the paper title (which are not present in the standard APA style). Also, the references are styled as footnotes rather than “(author year)”.

In addition, note that it is not a strict Wikipedia requirement: the documentation I quoted above says:

  There is currently no consensus on a preferred citation style or system for Wikipedia. If you cannot decide on which style to use, or if you do not know what information to include, an example partially based on the APA style is given below.


Is there a smarter way to search for PhD theses for a specific topic?

I have had some success by doing a similar type of search in Google Scholar. For example, if I want to search for dissertations related to convex optimization, the following search terms in Google Scholar

  "convex optimization" dissertation site:edu

returns many useful results. In the above example, the search is restricted to those institutions that are archiving their dissertations on the .edu domain. Obviously, you can alter the domain, if need be.

You can also substitute "thesis" for "dissertation", but Google Scholar seems to be smart enough to give results for either, no matter which one you use.


Should I submit a personal statement even if the program doesn't require one?

You can certainly ask the program if they'd be OK with you sending a statement of purpose (or anything else they didn’t ask for) in addition to the rest of the application. If so, then go ahead. But in general, you shouldn't provide information that isn't requested for by the program in question. Information not asked might may not be considered, and may hurt your application.


Where can I find online research projects that I can work on?

If you have any ideas about reducing morbidity and mortality from traumatic injury and sudden cardiac arrest, you're welcome to join my working group. Seriously. We're intersectoral - everyone is welcome.

Alternatively, start a blog/website and leverage social media to bring collaborators to you. This methods has really worked for my group.


To reprint normally implies to republish something in an unaltered form from the original. In principle, therefore, any change is an adaptation of the original. If you correct an error, it could be listed as a “reprint with corrections,” but then the corrections need to be specified. Otherwise, it’s adapted.


What you have looks fine to me.  I've seen numerous cv's with notation like that and never thought amiss of them.


ResearchGate: an asset or a waste of time?

It's hard to predict how this will develop in the future. As is, I have yet to hear any positive success story from my peers. All I've heard of ResearchGate  are complaints about their invitation spam.

If you sign up (or are already signed up), make sure to carefully check all settings. There are some "hidden" settings that will repeatedly send out "Invitations" and even "Invitation reminders" to your peers (make sure to disable this right at signup time, before "claiming" a single paper!). You can imagine that if your peer gets a dozen of them each week, he will get annoyed. And ReseachGate uses your name for the invitation, so he will get annoyed at you.

Before "requesting" a paper on Researchgate, make sure they have signed up. Otherwise, use regular email (even better, just use regular email right away!)
When you request a paper from a non-user, they will be sent an invitation letter, but they cannot answer without joining: researchgate does not include contact information in your request!?!

Other than that, I have the impression that ResearchGate is mostly used by students, not by established researchers. Therefore, do not expect much high-quality interactions to happen.

Most of my peers that were on RG once, seem to have left. This is not a good sign.

If they don't manage to get high-quality interactions happen soon, their name may end up remaining associated with spam. They may have been too aggressive at boosting their user numbers quickly. The overall idea is good, but they need to find a way to get quality contributions, not only quantity. As is, I see them only strong on the quantitative side so far...

Honestly, in my opinion there is one thing really important for the visibility of your research:

Make it available. Publish with open access, or a publisher where you can put the preprint on your webpage. Make sure that Google Scholar indexes it, because that is what everybody I know uses for searching literature. You must get Google Scholar to return a PDF link for your article.
Make it available. Also put data sets, detailed description, source code, etc. on your web page; offer collaboration.

If you make it easy for others to build upon your work, they are more likely to do so. In particular, you must make it easier to build upon your work, than on alternatives. Making a RG profile does not really help; effectively it just means your data is spread to one more site. Instead, put a lot of information on your homepage.

Here is an example. I'm convinced that one of the reasons why he has been very successful is that you can download data and software and tutorials right on his homepage. Compare to his ResearchGate profile (I was even surprised he has one)  - it's a dead duck, absolutely useless. A Google Scholar Profile may be much more useful, as it will be linked from any article, making it easy for people to reach your other publications. Again, the same example: Google Scholar does a much better job at providing an automatic publication list for you.

IMHO, Google Scholar is a must, because the profile will make it easier to get updated on your other publications. I visit Scholar profiles quite often; in particular to see the latest and the most cited work of an author of which I already have discovered a good article.


Will every PhD student from a reputed institute land a postdoc position?

There is a filter, surely.

Actually, at least in German system there are two filters: PhD → postdoc and postdoc → tenure/tenure-track.

But you are missing out one issue. Even if all people doing postdoc probably would like to get a tenure-track position (but do not), not all PhD students would like to get a postdoc. Heck, not all PhD students even finish their PhD! But the major point is: not all PhD holders want and do stay in academia.

Ok, you do want to stay in academia. There are three major issues:

Publications
Teaching experience
Funding acquisition.

The detailed answer is probably too long and too country-dependent, but typically you'd need these three major issues to be covered, if you want to land a tenure-track position.