Citing multiple images scraped from website

In this case it turns out that the Metropolitan Museum has made available a large number of public-domain works under the Creative Commons Zero license. Legally, I think this means you don't need to cite anything, but you'll probably still want to, both in order to be a good scholar and to encourage the museum to keep expanding their digital collection.

Individually citing thousands of individual images is obviously excessive, especially when they don't show up in the paper. Instead, I would suggest citing one or more of the datasets they have made available on GitHub. You might not have used these directly, but if they include all the images you've used this makes for an inclusive reference. Also, they write

  Attribution

  Please consider attributing or citing The Metropolitan Museum of Art's CC0 select datasets, especially with respect to research or publication. Attribution supports efforts to release other datasets in the future. It also reduces the amount of "orphaned data," helping to retain source links.

For reproducibility reasons, you might also want to include a list of all the pictures (or their accession codes) in some kind of electronic Supplemental Material.

For completeness, if you want to cite an individual image, their FAQ states

  How should I cite and credit a CC0 image that I've downloaded from The Met's website?

  CC0 (Creative Commons Zero) does not require any attribution or credit, but as an educational institution, the Museum hopes that you will include a citation. All the information necessary for proper citation of a CC0 image is available on the Collection page for that object.

  A sample object credit line format is as follows: "The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York," followed by the specific information identified as the "Credit Line" on the Collection page for each work of art. The citation could also include the URL www.metmuseum.org.


What is the meaning of promotor and copromotor in Dutch PhD thesis?

In Belgium (Flanders) a Promotor is the English term they use to refer to the Advisor/Supervisor. The co-promotor would be a second supervisor. Therefore, I think just citing the Author is enough.


Does it make sense to apply for assistant professorship positions before Ph.D. graduation?

Most people apply for positions while still students. That is normal. The "date of hire" could mean various things, depending on the institution. Don't worry too much about it, and apply. If there is any sort of issue they might be able to finesse it a bit, but likely they intend that early 2021 graduates are part of their intended outreach.
The date of hire is not usually interpreted as the date you get an acceptance letter, but the date you actually become an employee (with a paycheck).


Does a recommendation have to be from a professor from your university?

A letter of recommendation absolutely does not have to be from someone at your university. It should be from someone you have collaborated with. In general, a letter of recommendation will be most valuable if:

It can speak to your potential as a researcher: letters from supervisors of research projects are much more valuable than letters from people who have only had you in class
It is written by someone well known in the field that you are attempting to enter. When this person says you have potential to be a researcher, it is much more credible if they have experience working with excellent researchers in the field.
It is written by someone who knows you well. They should be able to point to specific things you have done with them, specific conversations you have had, specific ideas you have had.

You should pick your letter writers by seeing how well they optimize these three properties. It won't matter if they are at your home institution or not. The only reason not to get a letter from "someone you have collaborated with online" is if they don't satisfy these criteria. In particular, I might be concerned that they don't know you well enough if you have never met them.

That being said, it might raise a red flag if none of your letter writers are from your home institution. But if you have one of these, that should be enough.


Where can I find resources on how to be a good supervisor?

There are three sources that I would look into.

Internal: you got a PhD and had fellow students share their experiences. What worked for you? What didn't? Advising is a very personal process so I think it's wise to make it your own.

Departmental: what are the advising norms in your department? Do you have a department mentor, or does the university offer workshops to new faculty? If so - attend them. They are invaluable for you to understand how your university perceives the advisory role, which may be different from place to place.

External resources: there are several online resources, I personally found this piece by The Professor is In here useful; this Science article is also very useful. TL;DR: be consistent, honest (for better and worse), supportive and attentive.

Good luck!


Where do the responsibilities of an MS GRA doing a thesis actually end?

tl;dr Your adviser is not wrong. There are plenty of additional responsibilities and duties of maintaining a matured lab affiliation even as a MS student.

I think you went about it a wrong way. A little hill out of a molehill has been created.

Being a GRA in a lab does not mean that the buck stops with your thesis research. I am a member in a medium sized lab based in a ECE department.  Typically, we have 4-6 graduate students, 1-2 post docs and a gaggle of undergraduate and masters students at most given times.

My Responsibilities:

Thesis research. This is primary and takes up most of my time.
Collaborative research with another graduate student. This is my secondary project and takes up a little bit of my time.
Giving talks in the lab about our works in progress.
Guest lecturing for my adviser in his courses when he is away.
Mentoring REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) students when they come in summer.
Mentoring undergraduate and masters students from my own university in their own and lab projects.
Helping other lab members out with analysis - typically quantitative and some qualitative.
Reviewing articles written by other lab members.
Social engaging with lab members and lab visitors.
Designing presentations for lab funding reports and reviewing said reports.

I am sure I have forgotten a few more "responsibilities" but I can assure you that my work does not begin and end with just my own thesis research. It sounds like a lot but I can assure you that it really isn't and the situation is quite typical for my university and department. I have an excellent work-life balance. Now, I am a PhD student but once upon a time, I was a MS student and I had similar responsibilities.

The situation you describe is not atypical. I have seen folks in labs (which develop apps as a stepping stone to doing research) spend a lot of time actually developing the app. You are right. It takes time.  Being a member of the lab means contributing to projects which are not just your own. It is a team effort.

Your adviser has actually given you a sanity check in terms of getting a PhD admit and in terms of what other graduate students usually do. Getting a paper accepted in a prestigious IEEE transaction is quite a considerable effort and takes a long time. It seems to me that your adviser does not feel that your research will be accepted into such a venue. I also think you hit a nerve somewhere when you argued about quantum of hours and projects to be worked upon according to your GRA deal. It doesn't work like that. You are not a unionized worker.

Research takes as long as it takes.


Maintain scientific output after having a baby

Can you produce as much, or even more, with less time available? Yes.

Is it easy? No.

What generic advice can be given? Little, especially in such short space. Numerous entire books have been written on the topic of time management. Read the advice of others, decide whether it can apply to you, try it out.

Now, the above isn't very helpful. Not in the short term, at least. Below are a few tips from my own experience, maybe you will find them helpful:

First, decide what your priorities are, what you are willing to compromise, what you aren't. When I read “engaged in a lot of things”, it sounds like a warning to me. Honestly, the first two years of a baby's life are hard on the parents. Social life is hard to maintain, work output too, etc. Decide which you want to keep most, and focus there. Don't set your expectations too high across the board.
Second, learn to say no. People at your department probably ask you to participate in all sorts of research-related work (committees, etc.). If you have been playing ball ’til then, probably they can understand if you say “I'm sorry, right now is not a time I can take some extra work, I need to focus on my family”. Don't use that as an excuse to get out of every commitment, or avoid anything that is thrown your way, but strategically get a bit more time that way. Most people are quite understanding of the hardship of having a newborn baby. (Or my colleagues and bosses are extraordinary people; knowing them, it's also quite possible!)
Delegate stuff. You lead a team, so you have some responsibility in sharing the load. You can try to offload yourself a bit, by getting others to step in.
Work whenever you can (read: when the baby sleeps). Adjust your work style. I'll give only one example: when the baby gets to cry real bad in evenings or at night, I noticed I could get her to sleep if I had her in a sling against my chest and rocked from one foot to the other:

(the sling was as in the picture, except I needed to be standing and rocking). Well, I put my laptop on top of a high table (bar table), and quickly adapted to type and rock the baby. That way, I had time to work at night, while her mother could rest. I wrote quite a few grant proposals and articles that way.


How to do undergrad summer research in philosophy, when there aren't any programs?

There are many options, a lot of research internships are offered across the globe, you should look what universities have relationships with yours, at national or international level, an then you can apply. However, for now just prepare writing short essays and get a partner so them can be reviewed, also, read a lot of philosophy; I tell you this because most of the research internships are for high-performance students, and you don't want to under-deliver, also, most of them only accept students with more than the 50% of the total credits finished.

So plan ahead and you'll do something really interesting, I was accepted in the Globalink program in Canada, and if I have no problem with mexican bureaucracy I'll be in Montreal this summer. Keep in mind that most of this stuff must be planned a year ahead, and always look for updates of many programs so you can have a variety to choose, there are also a lot of programs for practices and professional service if you university requires either of them. Greetings and good luck!


You can send another reminder, but I would wait a bit. It is an uncomfortable thing to do, and my own level of discomfort with sending such notes usually gets outweighed by my impatience at around the 2-month mark. So, if you don't hear anything back by early June, you might write again.

But different journals and different fields have different typical timelines, so you will need to come to your own decision about the timing.


You may often be surprised how often a "universally" understood acronym turns out to be either ambiguous or not quite as universal as you believe.  For example, look at all of the alternate expansions of your example of IT (some of which are even reasonable).  I also find that if I wouldn't say the acronym (e.g., "WWW"), then it makes for smoother reading to use the words instead.

As such, I personally find it best to start by writing out a name in full before giving the acronym.  In fact, when there is a short prose alternative like "information technology" or "web," I prefer avoid the acronym altogether.

The exception to this rule is those acronyms that have made the transition to become words (e.g., RAM, laser, radar) or that have no real expansion, such as GNU, which is more of a recursion joke than an acronym.


Should I use a not-self-hosted website for both blogging and collecting academic materials?

In academia, an amateurish-looking website can almost be worse than having no website at all. Now "amateurish" here does not mean "made yourself"; it instead refers to sites that use bad design practices (lots of garish colors, ill-chosen animations and transitions, poor design choices that make it hard to find information). However, there is not necessarily a strong link between poor design and web host. So, you can and should decide if the web host makes sense for you.

I know a number of researchers who have their websites that are hosted by sites such as Google Sites, but they do look professional enough to pass muster. On the other hand, the main issues for a web site in academia is that you are able to find the information you need. A bare-bones text-based website (which many people still use) is perfectly acceptable if you can access a researcher's CV, lists of interests and publications, and get contact information.


Professor wants me to accept his school's offer early

In the US, "hope you can accept the offer quickly" has become a set phrase in graduate admissions letters. You have the right and their explicit permission to wait to accept an offer until the deadline they give (such as the April 15th common US graduate school deadline), and you almost universally will not be penalized in any way for taking that time if you need it (i.e., waiting to hear from other schools, going to visit days to see the place in person, etc).

When I say set phrase, I mean that every offer I received from every graduate school had this term in it, so it is actually part of form letters now for many (most?) places in the US.

What does it mean? Simple - everyone would ideally like to know as soon as possible what your decision is, so they can know who is joining. That's it. They would naturally want to know, so if you have already made your decision they would like to know and have you lock it in rather than exhibit the common behavior or waiting until the day before the deadline to submit your decision.

That's it! So don't worry about, at all. All you need to do is is reply and thank them for their offer, perhaps state your excitement at having received the offer (if you genuinely have that reaction!), and let them know you will let them know of your final decision as soon as you have made it. No need to give excuses or be sorry, that's just how this works. No need to feel pressured into deciding sooner, its a big decision and you have the set deadline for lots of good reasons. Make the decision when you have the responses you need, and if there are visit days feel free to wait to accept the offer until after you have gone and met them (especially true if you have multiple offers you are trying to decide between).

Congratulations on your offer, and good luck in your future career!


How to deal with slow peer reviewing process

As others commented already: Nine month is not unusual in math, and this applies to journals of all levels.

However, 9 month is a good time to send a new friendly reminder to the handling editor. From my experience, this seems to be the time when the editors also get impatient and start to press the assigned reviewers harder (or even proceed with one review less).

I would have written the first friendly reminder after six months (four seem a bit early to me) and a second one after nine month.


Are there introductory graduate courses for non-American PhD programs in mathematics?

From Oxford's webpage, Broadening Training,

  Courses should be designed to broaden your knowledge and understanding of the Mathematical Sciences as a whole. They should, by definition, not be directly related to the topic of your dissertation ..

And it goes on to list where these courses can come from. I took a look at some of the offerings, and as a US graduate, to me they essentially amount to any approved graduate-level course. Whether you can call them introductory is a bit subjective (course looks cool, ends up nightmare, etc.), but they also confirm that part of these 100 hours of broadening does include seminars and colloquia.


Does anyone monitor/support public-sector scientists?

Your questions appear to be asking about non-academic government scientists.

To answer your question about supporting science, yes groups exist that support them. The largest of which is probably the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) who advocates on behalf of scientists both in the United States of America and other countries as well. The mission and purpose of AAAS is to
advance science, engineering, and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all people.

I am member of AAAS and a government research scientist. The news and updates section of Science includes both news about government scientists and what AAAS is advocating on behalf scientist and science.

To answer your question about monitoring science (at least in the United States), the Office for Personnel Management (OPM) provides oversight and standards for managing scientists across agencies (e.g., this public webpage lists some of their resources).


Having a hard time understanding reviewer's comment

A closed-form solution solves a problem in terms of a finite number of functions/operations from a "standard" set. If your method solves the optimization problem in a defined number of steps, it could potentially be described as closed form. In which case, you could describe this by writing the algorithm as pseudocode and/or providing equations establishing that your solution is closed form. It's likely that adding or substantially revising content is expected as you've been asked to make major revisions.
If your solution is closed-form, I think the main consideration is if whether that adds to the focus of your paper. If it isn't relevant, it'd probably be best to include pseudocode/equations in an appendix. You could also reply that "it's a closed form solution for insert reasons; however, we don't think that extended discussion will add to the focus of the paper (insert paper focus)".
If your solution is not closed-form, reply that "the solution is not closed form as insert reasons".
If you're still unsure and have asked your colleagues, I would reply that "we're unsure specifically what you're asking". Ideally, this would be followed by comments addressing a couple of possible interpretations.


What should I tell schools when my supervisor sent me a recommendation letter and said she has no time to upload it?

Tell the school(s) exactly that (leaving out the baby and so on) and ask for advice. They may make some exception (or not). Maybe permitting you to submit. Maybe being lenient on deadlines. Maybe contacting the professor themselves (if you provide her email.)

You could also ask her to send the original email directly to them, rather than dealing with the online system.

Apologize for the inconvenience, even though it wasn't you that caused it. Just a polite ritual.

Dear x

I apologize for the inconvenience, but my professor sent me the enclosed recommendation but was unable to find time to upload it due to a family emergency. She can be contacted at y@z.edu for verification if needed.

If this is not acceptable, please advise me on ...

Sincerely X Z


How do I email my co-authors asking them to review a manuscript very quickly?

It's much more important to send something right away, so that they have as much time as possible to look at it, rather than wasting precious hours finding just the right words.

State clearly and concisely what you are asking them to do, and when you need it done by

Explain briefly the reason for the short deadline

Apologize for the rush and acknowledge that they may be unable to do it in time

Have a backup plan in case they cannot meet the deadline.   You can always ask the journal for another extension.  Given the amount of effort they have already put into reviewing your paper, and the promise they evidently see in it, they have an incentive to work with you.  The worst case is they say no, in which case you may need to withdraw your paper and submit to another venue later.  That is annoying but not the end of the world.


Motivation: why is this an important problem? Why should anybody care about this?

For example:

  X affects tens of thousands of consumers in the United States each year, and costs companies billions of dollars.

or

  If we can solve X, we are one step closer to solving the biggest open problem in the field, Z.

Contribution: what is the new thing (result, approach, technique, whatever) that this paper describes, that advances the state of this field?

For example:

  This paper describes a way to do X using Y, which is up to 200 times faster than the current state of the art.


What are acceptable criteria to select publications for a (systematic) review?

I do not find any of these points very relevant. The publication date couldbe useful if your topic is such that older references are indeeed obsolete.

To write a review you want to collect papers that describe your topic as well as possible. A review is usually a good point for others to see the depth and breadth of a subject so being complete is usually a sign of quality.

Given that you have a topic, you need to consider how you should organize your information. Is there any new that can come out of the way you organize your review? A review is not just a collection of older results, you need to provide a synthesis. Often the outcome is to made limitations in older work visible or to identify gaps in knowledge or point at directions for new development. Depending on what the purpose will be you may end up chosing papers differently. However, often you do not know the structure until you have read enough and come to realize how the knowledge in th earea is distributed.

So for me there is no real difference between review and systematic review. A review is simply a way to orgnaize and sort older information in a new way so that new patterns emerge and hint at directions for further research or other forms of new ideas.


How to effectively manage a new collaborator?

I just wanted to comment that your choice of words in the question is somewhat inappropriate: you do not "manage" a new collaborator when your collaborator is more senior than you are. As a graduate student, you cannot have any reasonable expectation of asking for and receiving commitments from a professor—if anything, it's the other way around, even if you will be the one doing the majority of the work!

However, this also tells you something about how to handle the process. Remember that the professor is quite likely to have many more time commitments than you will. Therefore, you will need to be cognizant of that when making plans. What takes you a few days of effort may take your collaborator substantially longer, if he has to do it himself. So it may be very useful to find out if there is another point of contact you will be working with in the other professor's laboratory group, and ask if you can coordinate things directly what that individual.


Is it a common practice for reviewers to recommend their own papers in the review?

This is a delicate issue.

On the one hand, a reviewer is most familiar with their own work, and will certainly know if their work is relevant to the paper that they are reviewing.
On the other hand, it can feel like a crass "citation for publication" trade.

The way that I typically approach it is to only recommend citation of my own work if I am also finding it appropriate to recommend citation of other related work at the same time.

Put another way: if the hole in their literature review is "me," then I find it likely that I'm wishing they cited me because of personal bias and my own ego.  If the hole in their literature review is "me and a whole bunch of other things like me," then I find it likely that it's a legitimate gap and it's OK to recommend my work as part of the set of things to fill said gap.


What title do you hold after you've defended but before you graduate?

There isn't a formal, universally accepted title here. The general standard has been to call them "Doctor" since everything else is in principle a formality.

The only other note that I'd make is that it's not commencement that makes the student in question a doctor, but rather conferral of the degree by the university. Some universities may confer degrees multiple times per year, but only have one commencement ceremony.

So, I would not include "Ph.D." next to my name, but in the education of my CV, I'd write "Ph.D. (to be conferred Month Year)," as that is entirely accurate representation of the state of affairs.


Worthwhile to put subreviewing on CV as a grad student?

The status of subreviewers, and even the designation as reviewer or subreviewer, varies a lot from venue to venue. In some places, reviewers are official and are listed in the proceedings. In others, it's as you say: informal assistance provided to the actual reviewer.

A student should definitely list instances of official reviews (i.e where there's documentation of their effort) in their CV. But if the subreview is less formal (or there's no record of it maintained by the conference), then I'd be inclined to leave it off the CV, mainly because it's difficult to verify. I understand the desire to indicate some degree of competence with research critiques, but the danger is that without documentation the process is ripe for abuse or at least inflated claims.


which one have more importance to US PhD program ?TOEFL and GRE or publication records

Neither.

PhD admissions committees at strong departments are looking for clear evidence of potential for high-quality independent research.

Test scores only matter if they're low.  In particular, if your math score is low, there will be serious doubts about your math ability, and if your verbal/TOEFL score is low, there will be serious questions about your communication skills.  In some departments (like mine in CS), admission to the PhD requires a TOEFL Speak score above a certain minimum (in my case: 22), because all PhD students are expected to be TAs at least once while they're in the program, and the state of Illinois requires a minimum Speak score (in my case: 24) on TAs who are not native English speakers.

Publication records only matter if the papers are either good or horrible.  It's utterly impossible to tell from the number of publications whether the applicant has significant promise for future independent research.  High-quality papers, written in flawless English, published in well-known venues that are easily accessible online from the US, are definitely helpful.  Poorly written incremental results in the Inaccessible Khazakhstani Journal of Computer Stuff is at best meaningless and at worst actively damaging.


How to deal with unavoidable failure in my first year of tenure-track applications?

I suggest dealing with the situation by revising your (misguided, IMO) definition of “failure”. Even if it is, as you say, “ineluctable”, that you will fail to land a tenure-track position this year, you will still be a highly qualified and highly successful person with excellent career prospects. To refer to this as a failure is itself a failure - a failure of the imagination, that is.

I and most other successful academics had to spend multiple years after graduation to get a good tenure-track position. Almost all of us struggled with repeated rejections, job uncertainty, and geographic dislocation before arriving at a good place career-wise. Keep your eyes focused on your long-term goals and on the fun and passion of doing research, and given your description of your situation I predict that you will be fine. Regardless of what happens with your current job search, a “failure” you most certainly are not.


Co-author responds to email by mistake cc'ing the EiC

I think you can safely ignore it. I don't see how or why the editor would suddenly disfavor your paper because of something like this. They seem to think your paper is worthy of publication and they want to publish such papers, not get upset about small communication glitches.

And, of course, people often get cc'd on emails they shouldn't see, causing minor embarrassment. And I think that it is only that here: minor embarrassment.

Let it go. Someone got a chuckle out of it perhaps, but there isn't any reason for them to take out the big hammer.


A survey paper shouldn't just be the result of 'I did lots of reading'. There are two key types of survey I've come across. One is when some major result has been proved, and so it is time to do a 'round up' drawing together all the different ideas that go into it and with it. The second is when you've done lots of reading and have something useful to add as a result (ie the paper contains new research, on some level, as well as survey material).

I would say the issue isn't whether you 'revisit' something, but rather whether you try to publish work that doesn't add enough to the literature. No-one is going to really mind if you freely release an extended paper as an eprint for those who want to read it. On the other hand, trying to get published two separate papers that are nearly the same is not going to look so good.


What is the equivalent degree of a Diploma in Information Technology from India?

It's not "equivalent" to any US degree.The US educational system is sufficiently different that no such equivalent degree exists in the US.

If an online application doesn't have your specific credentials as an option, choose "Other" and specify. Don't invent equivalencies.


Why would a professor write many recommendation letters?

The answer is simple: you generally only write one letter per person and only customize it insofar as changing the name of the institution to which it is sent (if even that: "Dear Admissions Committee" works pretty well). If there are very different types of programs involved, you might customize a bit more, but not much. That means the incremental work needed for many letters is not much more than is necessary for one.

If you think about it, it should make sense: a recommendation letter is primarily about the candidate, not the institution. If a recommender writes the best letter they can for one institution, how much could it vary and still be the best letter for another?


How do I deal with the overwhelming ambiguity of my project?

Is it a normal part of the process to feel lost and hopeless - even this early on?

Yes, it is very normal. Particularly early on. There are many things you do not know or understand yet. I spent at least a year of my Ph.D. on projects that never amounted to anything (literally), and know there were many times I asked myself these same questions.

Now to the more practical question:

  How do I deal with this?

Based on my very similar Ph.D. experience, my best advice is to "own it". You need to convince yourself that you are doing the research that will go in your dissertation. It will take you personally making mistakes and learning from them. It will take you developing a workflow where you quickly prototype ideas so that the bad ones can be discarded without too much time lost. I would bet that although you feel like you are treading water, you are developing skills and insights that will be useful once you gain more traction.

For this to work, you may need to stop expecting your supervisors' directions. Instead, systematically "try stuff" on your own. Start by addressing some simple concrete question related to your project: try something naive and see why it breaks down. After you identify the flaws, think about and implement some naive modifications. Iterate on this process and document everything carefully. Use your supervisors as reviewers -- explain to them what you did and ask for feedback rather than direction. In my case, iterating this method led to solving a problem parallel to the one my supervisor had original posed, but in a more 'hot' area of research.

Finally, regarding this point:

  I face a constant stream of discouragement, be it my peers succeeding while I don't, my supervisors just expecting me to 'figure it out' when it comes to the details, my unsupportive family, etc... and it's affecting my ability to work.

I often felt deeply discouraged as well. First, comparing yourself to your peers is a recipe for frustration. Avoid this at all costs (easier said than done, I understand). Second, I found exercising, pursuing my hobbies, and meditating all helped curb the day-to-day frustration of the "treading water" feeling.  Talking to other grad students, particularly from different disciplines, also helped. I found this feeling is far more common than some of my peers would let on -- and being able to open up to those a bit removed from your specific project was always helpful.


No.

Mid-april was last week, and his response implied that he couldn't be sure to receive the reports (who could be sure of how long reviewers take?). I suggest you wait at least one week, ideally two before contacting him.


Do you contact the search chair before applying for a position?

In general, it is a good idea to contact people you are applying to. They might say that they are looking for someone with your background (or with another).

But if they write

  send the application, we will review it

just do it. There is no shortcut.

Don't expect that they will write how likely are you to get accepted - even forgetting about the legal things, they don't what are the other applicants.


Can I copy an image from another paper (that I am citing)?

You have two different questions: one in your title, regarding coping an image, and another regarding the results.

Copying a figure:

It depends on the license of the paper. If it is appropriately licensed (as with a Creative Commons Attribution license), you generally can, as long as you indicate it. If it is copyrighted, you are in the grey area of possible fair use. In these cases, the safest option is to contact the copyright holders (usually the publisher) and ask for permission.

Another option is to contact the authors and ask them for the raw data itself, so you can plot it yourself (so you keep a constant style across the paper), or ask them to regenerate it for you.

Using results:

The results are not copyrightable, so you can freely use them. If Smith et al, 2007 report an accuracy of 91%, and you get a 97%, you can freely put the numbers next to each other.


Can you publish a paper Simply Implementing another Paper's Algorithm?

This is a judgement call and will be for editors and reviewers. But the main question they will want answered is what is new/novel in your paper? If you can give them that, then they will be more likely to accept it.

The other question is, whether exactness is worth the effort. If the approximation methods give good enough answers then the expense of an exact solution may not be worth it in practice. Can you address that issue in your paper?

You don't describe anything here about scaling if that is an issue with the algorithm. A few minutes on a modern system may be good or bad, depending. If the algorithm needs to be executed once for each Google query, then it is pretty bad. If it has to be executed once per "noticed supernova" then probably fine.

There are a lot of questions your paper could address that might push the editor toward acceptance if you can handle them well.


Submitting to Journal: General prestige Versus Localized Focus

Since there is no guarantee that your paper will be accepted, my suggestion would be to submit to the more prestigious one first, imagining that it is harder to get accepted there. You can always submit to the other later if you are disappointed in the first.

Also, be aware that this is only your first (or early) work, and that you will have opportunity to publish again later, perhaps in the more arcane corners that fit your field best. But a wider reputation is probably best for a new academic.

But your advisor is correct. It is a bit of a personal choice and if you get it "wrong" it won't end your career.


Do published university admission acceptance rates include applicants for all courses or just undergraduate?

There is no enforced standard for acceptance rate - it means precisely whatever the institution decides it means (and is generally not audited or required to be made publicly available). It's largely used for marketing of admissions for an institution, so a cynic would point out that the numbers can be assumed to be less than rigorously straight-forward and should not be relied on to be meaningfully interpret-able.

However, generally acceptance rate is by category (undergraduate, Master's, PhD), and is usually defined as applications received compared to student's officially accepted. Some programs have less common relationships between Master's and PhD (such as offering an unfunded Master's to a PhD applicant, and it's unclear if they call that an acceptance or a rejection - but this varies by field).

Breakdowns in the numbers are sometimes available from some institutions, but you usually have to dig for them. I've seen institutions post acceptance rate of 5-10%, but then deep inspection shows some groups accepted at nearly a 50% rate. Some institutions post enough stats that you can break down by gender, reported race/ethnicity, domestic/foreign, and even give additional info on acceptance (the institution said yes), admittance (the student accepted the offer by the institution), and enrollment (the student actually showed up and started the program). Some provide almost none of this information, and even less institutions provide yearly updates.

Some programs will also give some incredibly limited stats about grades or test scores (average GPA of incoming students, etc - I don't think I've ever seen standard deviations provided).

Finally, as GEdgar pointed out in the comments, some institutions also break up the reporting by department/program (medical school separate from computer science, which is held apart from arts). Sometimes many areas are aggregated together, such as the entirety of the "graduate program" or across colleges, etc.

In the end, acceptance rate is purely a measure of applications in vs acceptances out. People use it to infer lots of other things, and that's a practice that is extremely questionable - but popular.


What is "target decision date" in sciencedirect-publishing journal?

Unfortunately it is all too common for some reviewers to be delinquent in their manuscript returns. In particular in traditional academic publishers. Often reviewers are professors/researchers with multiple hats in academia including writing up their own research.  I would agree with the previous answer that a target decision date is a way for editors to try and push all reviewers to respond.

One example where the turnover is quick(er) is the highly structure online journals like Frontier or PLOS. In the former the turnover is ±14 days for most journals and article submission. The second review process is also around 14 days so all in all about 5-6 week turnaround depending on the quality of the manuscript.


Is verbal commitment to work with a potential advisor binding in a moral sense?

A few points:

First, morality is a bad way to evaluate this decision. Certainly you want to be an ethical person, but realize that taking on a graduate student position is an employer/employee relationship. It is generally expected that you will make decisions that are in your best interest, even if that means switching advisors or switching programs. Your potential advisors are certainly going to make the decisions that are in their best interests. Your advisor/advisee relationship should only last as long as it's in both of your best interests to do so.

Second, there are definite consequences to reneging on an agreement, written or verbal. Academics is a small community. You are embarking on a professional career, and your reputation will follow you. You want to be seen as someone who follows through on commitments. When you do need to back off of an agreement you want to do so gracefully and avoid "burning bridges". That said, your actions in your current position are not going to follow you for the rest of your life. Your potential PI has not sacrificed for you, they will be able to find another grad student, and you leaving them at this time is not going to ruin their career. This is very different than, for example, working with an advisor for years, building expectations and relationships, and then vanishing.

However, if your decision is firm you should definitely inform them as soon as possible. The pool of good applicants grows smaller the longer you wait.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, there are community expectations and norms concerning this. The most relevant thing here is the April 15th Resolution. Many graduate schools are signatories to this document (including most or all of the highly desirable "role-model" institutions). Essentially, the resolution says:

Prospective students should not be obligated to commit to a graduate school until April 15th.
Students are only considered committed once they have formally accepted an offer of financial support. This means formal acceptance of a scholarship or stipend supported position such as a research or teaching assistantship. A verbal commitment to attend, without a specific formal offer of financial support, is not considered formal acceptance.
Students may withdraw their acceptance until April 15th by submitting a written resignation to their prospective department. Appointments not recinded by the department or resigned by the student by April 15th are expected to be honored by both parties.

Lastly, the goal of the graduate admissions process is to make the best matches between students and schools. You are doing yourself and your potential advisor a disservice if you go into a program without full conviction. Your potential advisor certainly will not like the news that you've decided to go someplace else or study a different topic, but they will be far happier with a student who really wants to be with them and study their topic. You will be far happier if you are a place you really want to be and studying something that truly engages you. Certainly they will understand your actions and will (probably) not hold a grudge if you secure a better position than what they can offer.


Value of published (non-english) books for applying in a PhD program

I don't think the language matters. It is a substantial achievement, I think. If it is in your field, which I assume, it will have value. But, depending on where you are applying, you will need other things as well. If your contribution was "only" providing exercises, then it might be a bit less, but for content contributions it would be good.

But no one thing is determinative of your suitability for admissions.


Graduate school needs my masters grade but I have no grades yet!

The best way to do this would be to insert "n/a" into the field for your grades, or simply write "not available yet" as CaptainEmacs suggested. In the event that you cannot write a non-numerical answer (as was the case when I applied to grad school), a "0" should suffice that it is not your actual grade. Your application will likely require preliminary transcripts (and eventually official transcripts), so I would not worry about not being able to report your official grade, especially since this is a common problem.

I would avoid writing this issue into your statement of purpose, since your SoP should be relatively short and to the point, focusing on your research and other accomplishments. While I would definitely include your MSc course in your statement, I would not mention anything relating to the application itself. Often universities have a graduate coordinator for any given department, so I suggest reaching out to them if you have questions about your application.


Transferring / re-applying to PhD programs - Humanities

When I served on a PhD admissions committee we saw a few candidates like this--people who were in their first or second years at highly regarded programs, but their research statements portrayed more alignment with the faculty in our program. I have two thoughts on this: 1) despite being worldwide, academia feels pretty small in that the professors at your institution might know or know a friend of the professors in the department you are thinking of applying to. Therefore, you should probably have their blessing before applying. It is not uncommon for faculty on admissions committees to reach out to colleagues at the school you are at to find out about you and your research interests. 2) you should probably address the reasons for your switch in a note to the admissions committee or in your personal statement that describes your evolving research interests because people on the admissions committee will likely have questions as to why you feel the need to switch. Admissions committees are trying to find good people to invest in and might be concerned about your ability to make a long-term commitment to the program if you are already switching out of another.

An alternative to switching programs--get a meeting with your POI to strike up a conversation about your latest project. They might be interested in working with you or have students that you could co-author with in the future.


Can a rejected paper with no resubmission allowed be resubmitted to the same journal after changing content and heading of the paper?

Someone at the journal will make a judgement as to whether it is in fact an improved version of the same paper, or if enough has changed that it's a different paper.
This is a judgement that can only be made by someone in your field who understands your work.  We cannot judge this, and the judgement cannot be made using some automatic rules.
If you think it can reasonably be considered a different paper and do submit to the same journal, you should be up front with them and tell them in the submission letter that your new paper incorporates the work from the old paper, which was rejected without giving you an opportunity to resubmit.  Then the editors can decide for themselves whether to consider the paper or not.
If you don't think it is really a different paper, you should not waste your time or that of the editors.
What you definitely should NOT do is submit without mentioning the old paper.  The journal might consider this an unethical attempt to resubmit a rejected paper and ban you.  In this case, you might not be allowed to submit anything to the journal (or possibly any IEEE journal) for a period of several years.
For my research, there are always at least one or two other journals which are roughly equivalent to any given journal (if for no reason other than that each journal's editors have somewhere to submit their work) so there is really no reason to try resubmitting.  I realize this may be different in other areas.


How to cite in APA format for an author who uses only a first name?

When there is only one name, simply use that name.

The guiding principal of citation is to give a clear and unambiguous pointer for finding the work in question and related works.  Thus, when dealing with a mononym, the general APA dictum of "author's last name" (which is quite culturally narrow in any case) maps cleanly to "author's only name."

Examples can easily be found for famous ancient authors such as Plato, e.g.:

  Plato. (1961). Meno (R. S. Bluck, Trans.). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. (Original work published ca. 380 B.C.)

The same principles can be applied for modern mononymous authors.


This is indeed a reference to the Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach (Oberwolfach Mathematics Research Institute), a conference center in the small German town of Oberwolfach.

The Institute has developed a rather idiosyncratic style of meetings.  The most common events are weeklong workshops on specific topics, whose participants are invited by the organizers.  Speakers are chosen from among the participants on just one or two days' notice.  The talks are indeed relatively "low density", perhaps 4 or 5 x 45-minute talks per day, so not all participants will give talks.  Long periods are left unscheduled to encourage informal discussion and collaboration.

The conference center is isolated and so most people don't leave the campus during the week.  Participants are housed and fed onsite and meals are communal.  As Aru says, there are also measures to "encourage" a more social atmosphere: seating is assigned and changes from meal to meal, and Internet access is not available in the guest rooms until 10pm or so (edit: Najib Idrissi's comment below suggests that this policy has changed).


Elsevier's article class for submission vs. the published version

It is very rare (in mathematics) that a journal really makes using their style necessary for submission, even for the journal making that claim in their guide to authors. My advice is to never adjust the style of a paper for submission, and simply submit the version you originally produced.
The reason is that formatting for each submission turns out to be a waste of time, all the more so that journal styles are rarely that much more readable for the referee than any standard style. (Note that unless you really know about typesetting you should not depart from standard style too much, e.g. do not use the fullpage package. Large margins have a purpose.)

In fact, most of the time this is not even mandatory to use the journal's style after acceptance, because the journal will do the job of adapting the article to their class. I try to do it for reasonably cheap journals (e.g. MSP journals), but I never do that for Springer and Elsevier.

Also, unless strictly mandatory (e.g. page limit) you should never change the content of an article in function of the formatting style (of course you can resolve overfulls and other warnings): the content is driven by what you have to say, period.


How do I describe my "academic profile" for graduate school application?

Projects completed are more important than skills learned from coursework. Give preference to what distinguishes you from every other student. If you did an internship, mention that. If you worked on a project at a university department, mention that. If you did a Bachelor's Thesis, write about what you did there.

Saying something like "I learned about LTI systems in course X and I acquired MATLAB programming skills in course Y" will not distinguish you from every other Electrical Engineering student, so those statements should have the last priority.


How does a faculty member get to work at two universities or more?

The situation I've seen most often is that a professor will hold a primary appointment at school A, where they have a lab and complete their research. Often for reasons related to collaboration, school B will then give the professor an appointment in a related if not identical department. If the professor also teaches a few courses at school C, they will likely be granted an adjunct position there as well.

This was my setup when I was in graduate school; I was a grad student in bioengineering at U Pitt, and I had a secondary appointment at CMU due to both lab collaborations and my being registered in a certificate program there.


Best approach to suggest a PhD student from a external collaborator to be her/his PhD co-advisor

I worry about the politics of it and urge a bit of caution. The relationship between the student and the formal advisor is essential to completion of the degree. The politics arises because there is the issue of the personality of the formal advisor and how s/he would interpret such a "move". I think it would be vastly different for different people. Some would take it as very helpful. Others as interference.

I think the best way is to propose it jointly to the student and the advisor and using somewhat tentative language. "I'm happy to help out there. Is there some way that we can come to a formal arrangement?"

You don't want the student to be conflicted. You don't what the advisor to be annoyed. And most of all, you don't want the student to be getting different, possibly conflicting, advice from you and the formal advisor.

However, there isn't really anything wrong with your intent. Just be sure you know the personalities and what the worst case scenario might be. Eyes open.


I mostly refer to industry resources as technical reports, and as I use BibTeX, I use the @techreport citation for that. If they're simply websites, I use @misc. Many citation styles will produce different results in how the reference is formatted, but I can think of the following example (that combines both the report and website, but you could leave the website out if that's not wanted):

J. Baker, 2014. "Ten Key Considerations when Terminating Employees". Technical report of <Company Name>. From: http://website.com/, accessed <date>.

Instead of technical report it could also be 'whitepaper' or 'brochure' or any other type, if you want to specify this.


High impact journals GIS and Remote Sensing

I agree with the comments above—the idea of journals paying authors for articles guarantees that you will not have a high-impact journal. A trade publication might pay an author, but a reputable journal should not.

On the other hand, there are very likely good journals which do not require authors to pay "page charges" to get the article published. But you'll look in vain if you want high-quality and profit!


Can an advisor write a student's PhD thesis?

The salient point here is that a PhD thesis is supposed to be the student's work. What primarily matters both for appropriateness of the degree and issues of plagiarism is whose work it is, not who typed it into the computer.

Usually the student is the one expected to do most of the writing, and if they are not, I would probably consider it a red flag. But I could imagine circumstances where this might be entirely appropriate. For example, perhaps a student did the work but is unable to write it up due to a physical handicap or a mental condition that makes writing difficult.  I don't think it would be considered inappropriate for someone else to do the bulk of the writing--directed by the student concerning content--in such a case.

The situation you describe is indeed problematic. Even if the professor wrote every word of the thesis, it would be inappropriate to omit attribution unless the student literally contributed nothing to their own PhD project.

Either the student's PhD was not legitimate or the professor is plagiarizing the student. Quite possibly both.

Note: since you described extensive copying in a paper on the same topic, I'm assuming the copied text is a substantive part of the thesis. It would be somewhat different if the copied material is just something like background info shared between both. Though omitting a reference seems inadvisable in any case, it would be a much smaller issue.

Note 2: just to clarify, this is a general answer. I don't have any academic experience in mathematics.


How does one go about starting a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)?

As far as I know, you don't need to have a signed deal with e.g, Coursera. You can do it independently. For example, the University of Helsinki has started offering some MOOCs, but they are not listed in the aforementioned provider.

One good approach would be to follow the line of Khan Academy, maybe it seems rather simplistic, but it can bring good results. One piece of general advice that I can give is to focus on quality instead of quantity. Just a couple of well-made online courses, with lecturers that have experience in the topics, is enough. Also pay attention to the evaluation tools that your site will have, that is crucial for its success and interaction with the prospective students.

Good luck in your idea!


What is the difference between a review paper and a research paper?

A review paper is likely also known as a "survey paper", where you read (i.e. survey) related works in the field and then comment on them. Usually, a review paper should be able to contribute a small amount of knowledge in its own right to the field by providing a taxonomy of work.

Another type of paper that reviews extensively related work but isn't actually a review paper is a "systematic review paper" in which you usually ask a meta-question about the field.

If it appears in a refereed, peer-reviewed journal, then yes, it is a publication. In fact, if done well, these works can often have pretty high impact and can be cited very frequently. However, as already noted, since they don't usually involve substantial original research they need to be augmented with traditional research papers. If a graduate student has only survey papers or systematic review papers, I'd wonder as a search committee reviewer if this student did nothing but read related work rather than working on research.

With respect to MS or PhD applications, I'd think that the fact that you have a publication at all is already a bonus point for you. Most students who apply to these programs don't have publications.


Which one matters more - grades or qualifications - for admission to post-graduate study in Germany?

Since you're specifically asking about the situation in Germany, here are a few remarks that might be interesting for you (although the main point of these remarks is that it is essentially impossible to answer the question at the given level of generality).

Admission rules at German universities depend on various things: for instance, the specific university/universities you're applying to, your intended field of study, and the specific programme(s) your applying to. Also, admissions for scholarships will strongly depend on the particular scholarship(s) you're applying for.

Things might also depend a lot on whether you are a citizen of a country within the European Union. Some (but certainly not all) Master programmes in Germany have quite loose and simple rules of admission for German citizens and thus, by EU regulations, also for EU citizens. For instance, for many Master programmes in mathematics, a Bachelor's degree in mathematics with a certain grade will suffice for admission.
(But one important issue here is, of course, how grades will be converted between different academic systems.)
On the other hand, things can be more complicated (and more expensive, by the way) for international students from outside the EU.

Concerning the "top university vs. mediocre university" stuff: Generally speaking, prestige of universities plays a much smaller role in the German academic system than, for instance, in the US (even if an applicant has done their undergraduate studies in a country where such prestige questions play a huge role, chances are that this won't be weighted as much in the decision process at a German university as the applicant might expect).
But then again, as pointed out above, things depend a lot on the particular circumstances, and there is at least a non-zero chance that such prestige questions might play a certain role in the admission process. For some programmes that are specifically designed for international students, it can even happen that private agencies are involved in the admission process and, for instance, make a recommendation on whether an applicant should be admitted or not. Whether such agencies take the purported prestige (or ranking) of universities into account will, again, depend on various circumstances.
As a corollary of the cultural aspect described above, I should probably add the following point: In case that the application process includes the submission of a cover letter or a statement of purpose or a personal interview (which might be more likely for applications to scholarships than for applications to study programmes - but again, it probably depends), my advice would be to be a bit careful in case that you're in situation 1) described in the question. If your application leaves the impression "My grades haven't been good so far, but my degree is from a top university, which certainly makes up for the bad grades", there's a considerable probability that this attitude will backfire.


Publishers have to eat too, and if you can take the same thing you published with them and publish it again with someone else, who will buy it from them?  Their argument is that they invest in the publication process and need to get a return for it.  I have some skepticism about this argument (these days, universities could pretty easily and cheaply operate open-access online publications, etc. etc.), and am personally a much bigger fan of open access, but that's the standard argument.

N.b. there's also a (smallish) benefit for authors in having a central place to go for things like reprint requests.

Also, many publishers these days are ok with a certain amount of republication.  For example, most copyright transfer agreements I've seen for journal articles explicitly allow the author to republish in a larger book, e.g., a collected papers book or a follow-up.


While the details are dependent on the venue where you are publishing, most mathematical papers will put the full citations at the end but reference them in the midst of the text (e.g., via a citation number).

You can format these automatically if you use LaTeX, and the AMS provides widely used packages for formatting.


Publishing research using outdated methods

What you call "an outdated method" another may call "the well-understood method".

In neuroscience, this is a very common occurrence. There are new techniques for analyzing different types of neural recordings coming out each month in a number of journals, and each one aims to improve on a specific aspect of a predecessor. Unfortunately, the new techniques are exactly that—new—and therefore untested against lots of data with different initial conditions. There are a good number of researchers who will simply ignore all the new techniques until people have developed them to a place of comfort. Even for those that do gain acceptance, they may not be appropriate for every type of analysis1.

I'm unfamiliar with your specific case, but I have seen similar concepts elsewhere in Econ, where older published techniques remain highly popular because (1) they're well-understood and (2) the new techniques were created to fix problems that not present in all databases, or not relevant for a given analysis. The old fogies sometimes do have something to offer.

1 In one case, a technique called DCM became widely popular in a very short period of time, and consequently was very quickly becoming widely misused. It got so bad that the authors actually published a paper titled "Ten simple rules for dynamic causal modeling" with the goal of educating researchers how to use the technique. (Biomed researchers in general don't have a great track record of performing world-class data analysis, but thats a separate story...)


Can I copy the "background" and "related work" part of my published paper?

This is called "text recycling" or even "self-plagiarism" and generally frowned upon by editors. It's better to avoid it as much as possible, even if it results in more work, particularly for non-native speakers of English. Too much overlap can result in rejection or later retraction, where "too much" is at the discretion of the editor. You are also very likely to annoy reviewers if they notice the overlap with your previous publications.

The Committee on Publication Ethics has the following guidelines for journal editors:

  When should action be considered?

  Text recycling can take many forms, and editors should consider which
  parts of the text have been recycled. Duplication of data is likely to
  always be considered serious (and should be dealt with according to
  the COPE guidelines for duplicate publications [1,2]. Use of similar
  or identical phrases in methods sections where there are limited ways
  to describe a common method, however, is not uncommon. In such cases,
  an element of text recycling is likely to be unavoidable in further
  publications using the same method. Editors should use their
  discretion when deciding how much overlap of methods text is
  acceptable, considering factors such as whether authors have been
  transparent and stated that the methods have already been described in
  detail elsewhere and provided a citation. Duplication of background
  ideas in the introduction may be considered less significant than
  duplication of the hypothesis, discussion, or conclusions.

  When significant overlap is identified between two or more articles,
  editors should consider taking action. Several factors may need to be
  taken into account when deciding whether the overlap is considered
  significant.

  Text recycling in a submitted manuscript

  Text recycling may be identified in a submitted article by editors or
  reviewers, or by the use of plagiarism detection software, e.g.
  CrossCheck. Editors should consider the extent of the overlap when
  deciding how to act. Where overlap is considered to be minor, authors
  may be asked to re-write overlapping sections, and cite their previous
  article(s). More significant overlap may result in rejection of the
  manuscript. Where the overlap includes data, Editors should handle
  cases according to the COPE flowchart for dealing with suspected
  redundant publication in a submitted manuscript [1].


Why do some conferences have a variable amount of reviewers for each submitted paper?

Editors usually invite more than the minimum amount of reviewers when they assign a paper for peer review, because not all invited reviewers will agree to do the review. A suggestion that I have seen in a guideline for editors (and which indeed mostly works well in my experience for this specific publication venue) is to invite 5 or 6 reviewers initially when aiming to get 2 reviews.

Occasionally an editor will be lucky and (almost) all invited reviewers will submit the review, leading to a higher than required number of reviews for this manuscript.

In other cases there will be less than the minimum number of reviews even though more reviewers have been invited, and the editor will have to invite even more reviewers.


Extreme timidity is not the best approach in Academia. You have to take initiative, which sometimes involves some risk.

In this case, there isn't really any risk. The Professor expected to communicate with you at the end of the year; otherwise he would not have told you specifically that he would keep you posted. So do remind him, but make it not-salt-rubbing, e.g.:

  Hello Professor HIS_NAME,

  We talked several months ago about post-doc position openings at FACULTY_NAME, and you suggested some might become available at the end of the year, provided funding becomes available. I'm writing to ask whether it is now possible for you to say with more certainty whether a position is available.

  Respectfully,
  YOUR_NAME

  [Quote his original message here]

... and make sure not to send it right on January 1st; wait another week or so. That's really not rubbing salt on the wounds; at most you are gently touching them :-\


Paper from my already published PhD thesis -- How do I cite it?

Yes, you can publish a chapter of your thesis as a journal paper. The two-year time lag is slightly unusual, but it's not a show-stopper. However, since the thesis has been cited already, it is possible that someone else may publish a work that extends the results of the chapter you intend to publish, which might lead to rejection. You should be prepared for that.

I would also cite the thesis, in the introduction or perhaps in an acknowledgment section (depending on the intended journal; have a look through the archives to see common practices). "Some/The majority/Most of the materials contained in this paper were previously published (in modified form) in my thesis ...".


At good American PhD programs in the STEM fields, are there not enough American applicants, or are the international applicants simply better?

I don't know the specifics of the US, but I can give you my 2 cents about what's going on in European countries under a similar situation, which I think might probably apply.

It's not about people being better or worse, but about several factors:

Education/Attitude. In many "rich countries", the educational system has changed to a point where the knowledge about STEM subjects in primary/secondary education has become weaker, less demanding, often collaborative, and sometimes even "subjective". Parents are complaining about excessive homework, taking kids to alternative schools so they can play and spend more time with other kids and learn at their own pace, etc... Other things are valued more. You can see that the level of mathematics, physics, etc... has really declined from 50 years ago to now. My parents laughed at the STEM subjects/problems our generation studied at a certain age, and I laugh about what the current generation studies now. In the countries you mention (China, India, Russia), the rationale and culture are absolutely the opposite (as they were in "rich countries" 50 years ago): an emphasis is put in learning by the book, no matter if you like it or not, and individual ultra-high effort, because this is the path to get a better life, possible in another country, even if it's in detriment of having a healthy childhood, friendships, free time, or a proper socialization.
Expectations/Knowledge. Because of the great life they had and what they often see on the Internet, TV, etc... young people expect that life is a low-effort/high-reward business. They have been sold that anyone can be anything, and it's a matter of just "wanting it very much" (or paying very much/knowing someone to get into the club of good jobs). The aim is to become a manager or earn a lot of money. Certainly, no sane person would consider a PhD/research career as a path to achieve that and the other ones you mention make much more sense (law, business...). When I studied Computer Science 20 years ago, you needed nearly an 8 out of 10 in your SAT to get in because of the high demand (same in other engineering studies). Nowadays, there are free spots, so everyone gets in. This has happened in many technical universities because students are moving to other areas of knowledge.
Market. Here comes the market. You have two groups: (a) the local candidates, who were born having had everything, barely confronting any difficulty in their lives, and within that educational culture and expectations described above, (b) candidates from China, India, Russia, who often have had a tough life they would like to improve, with a different educational background and culture that values effort, willing to work extremely hard for a better life. STEM subjects are, in general tough and objective. A theorem, a piece of software, or an engine, simply have to work. The market prefers people from the (b) group.


Should a lecturer be friendly with students?

Krantz in How to Teach Mathematics does actually want to become friends with his students (Sec. 3.1, Breaking the Ice):

  Since I so enjoy a class once we have all become friends, I find the
  period of tooling up to that happy steady state generally too long and
  too painful. What usually happens is that there is a period of two to
  five weeks during which the students look at me as though I am from
  Mars... You should consider ways to make yourself seem like a human
  being to your students... Find some way to open up to your students so
  that they will open up to you... My view is that you should show
  students from day one that you are a person, and that you are going to
  spend the term doing your best to communicate with them.

But elsewhere gives this warning (Section 2.10, Grading):

  You do not want to develop the reputation among students as an
  instructor with whom grades can be negotiated. I've had this rep, and
  I don't know how I got it... This process is unpleasant and (can be)
  degrading both for you and the student. Doing a careful job of grading
  in the first place, and posting carefully written solutions for
  students to see, can help to assuage much of student discomfort with
  grades.

Now, Krantz is a teacher "of long experience" (Sec. 3.1), and I can see this being interpreted differently/incorrectly if you are close in age to your students. Also, this will vary based on your institution and quality/maturity of students that you're getting. In my experience at community colleges, the strategy I was forced to start using early on was to be relatively strict at the start of the semester (adamantly not allowing any bit of variation from the course policies when students test them), and then becoming a bit more flexible and friendly later in the semester.

Added: More Krantz (Section 5.9, Begging and Pleading):

  It really is true that if you look and/or act like a student then
  students will find you more approachable. They will more readily come
  to you with propositions that they wouldn't consider broaching with a
  more wizened (or older) faculty member. In short, younger faculty are
  more vulnerable. This is one reason for dressing differently from
  students and maintaining a slight distance. Again, this may sound
  cold. But I speak here from hard personal experience.


How hard is it to get an academic position in Australia/New Zealand with a PhD from the US?

I know many academics in Australia who obtained their PhD in the United States. In general, I think that overseas experience is seen as a positive, whether it be an Australian going overseas to do a PhD or a PostDoc or a non-Australian  obtaining their PhD or PostDoc overseas. Some ranking systems even rate departments based on the number of international faculty members.

Of course, you still need to meet the job requirements. Thus, it is still going to help if you have a great publication track record, have studied or worked in a world-renowned university with world-renowned academics, and so on. Most Australian universities have a job listing site where you can subscribe to job alerts. Also, you would generally need to have good English language skills.


Is going to graduate school the same place I went to undergrad okay?

Hiring managers in industry will care more about the reputation of your master's degree than about where you earned your bachelor's degree.

If your undergraduate degree is from a medium-to-small school, you will probably have the same professors if you take your master's there.  In other words, you will have learned much of what they have to teach you when you finish your undergraduate degree.  So, for maximum learning, consider a master's from a different school that has a good reputation in industry.


How should I position myself in the US job market if I am an assistant professor with tenure?

They will not care about your position outside US. They will care about your publication list mostly. There are countries where people get a formally permanent university position just after PhD, but their are not called professors immediately. This fact does not, however, mean that their position is equivalent to the tenured professor in US.


Obligation to quote an unpublished source if I am the source?

Avoiding self-plagiarism is very much different from avoiding plagiarism. In the latter case your goal is to avoid using someone's else's work without credits. In the first case you avoid publishing the same piece of work twice (say, avoid inflating your cv). Thus avoiding self-plagiarism means avoiding reusing only your published work without references. So theoretically if you were using your unpublished essay in a new work, there would be no need to cite it. However there are several things to consider. First, as you're writing a master thesis, and not a journal paper, this is a qualifying work rather than just research, and you're are supposed to invest a certain amount of work in this assignment. In this sense reusing an earlier work may be considered sparing some efforts you're supposed to invest to get your degree. Hence, you may want to indicate that this piece of work was done earlier and should not count towards rating your work on the thesis.
Second, as your essay was written within the framework of some assignment given by a professor/instructor, you should acknowledge their input when reusing the essay. Did that person suggest the topic, guide your work or otherwise contribute to the essay? You should clearly give credits to their role, and in this sense it would also be better to mention that you're relying on your earlier essay written in the class of professor XYZ.


Is it common practice for book reviews editors to be excluded from chief editor(s) meetings?

This is going to vary from journal to journal. Still, it's unlikely they're intentionally excluding you for nefarious reasons. More probably they're simply doing it because of inertia (it was always so, why change it?) or because they think you might not be interested (sociaca88 is probably busy and we're not paying her so we should try not disturb her, etc).
If you want to join the meetings, you can just ask. Be sure to mention "which books to focus on", which is a great reason for you to attend the meetings. They probably won't decline as well. Only caveat is there will probably be broad swathes of the meetings which are not relevant to you and might not be of interest to you.


Would it be seen ok to change PhD more than once?

Only you can decide how unhappy you are in a given situation, so what action you should take is up to you.

I can tell you how such a CV would come across to me, though.  It wouldn't be positive.  It would look like your decision-making process doesn't have enough thought behind it, and that you're likely to make important decisions and then change your mind.

The quality of work you've done might get you an interview after someone has drawn such conclusions, it may not.


Should I include web pages in the references

The general rule for such things is that if you use the work of others for things not commonly known, then you must cite them. So, yes, cite web pages as needed and quote, formally, from them also when needed. But cite them even if you paraphrase things.
You also probably need to do more than just include a list of references at the end of the paper. The reason for including a reference should be made clear, usually in the text itself. There are exceptions to this, but it is better to be clear about why you include a reference and to be specific about what you have used within any referenced article.
The form of the citation/reference is a bit less important than the fact of it and unless you are given some specific format, use examples from things you read. Use something similar to what is used in Wikipedia or a textbook if you have no better source.

One note about citing web pages. Since such things can change without notice, the correct thing is to include the date at which you last read/used the web page. "Last accessed 29 Jan 2021" for example


Etiquette for seeking collaboration via E-Mail?

A collaboration is comparable to a business relationship; both sides need to put significant, continuous effort into making the relationship work, and the benefits are often only realized after some initial time period has passed. Given that mindset, you'll have to convince the prospective collaborator that:

You are a good researcher,
Your idea is worth researching, and
They will significantly benefit from having your cooperation in implementing this idea.

<negative nelly>
From my experience, as a graduate student, you will likely find it very difficult to succeed at convincing them of 1 and/or 3 without having the full backing of your advisor.
</negative nelly>

All that being said, if you plan on initiating contact via email, simply compose it as you would a communique to a business contact; write professionally, describe the idea clearly and briefly, and discuss how they should contact you to follow up. You will want to convince them of all three in the email, which may be a difficult task. I would imagine you should follow up via phone or in-person meeting, as you would a business contact.


Would a PhD from a foreign country hurt you in U.S. academia in terms of job offers?

1) I don't know what you mean by second-tier, but TCD isn't at the level of Harvard/MIT/Princeton/Berkeley.

2) The answer does depend on what your range of acceptable careers post-PhD is, because the answer is different for different segments of the job market.  For research positions, it won't matter much, though you have to be careful not to work in an area that is poorly represented in the US.  For primarily teaching-oriented positions (and many US PhDs in mathematics take a teaching position, permanent or temporary, straight after finishing - certainly more than those who take postdocs), you are unlikely to be considered a serious candidate without US (or at least North American) teaching experience.


Why are examinees often not allowed to leave during the start and end of an exam?

Well the 10 minutes at the beginning is to allow some to arrive late without the possibility of collusion.

Where I work, it is 15 minutes at the beginning just for any who are late...

The 10 minutes at the end is probably to allow those rushing to finish a quieter time to concentrate - most students leaving manage to make noise - chairs scraping etc


The formal "point of no return" is the moment when you have submitted the copyright form. After this, you can still ask the conference chairs and the IEEE contact person to withdraw the paper. While you should not expect a positive reply, there's still a certain chance that they accommodate your request based on good will.

To improve your chances, you should reach out to them as soon as possible. Later in the publication process, the effort for performing the withdrawal may be greater, and you would also have wasted more time on their side to process your paper.


Extent of "unscientific" or wrong papers in research mathematics

I would say this is a common, but not fatal, issue.  I think most mathematicians are aware of several papers in their field with serious errors/gaps without retractions/errata, and over time at least the wrong papers which are important get discovered.  (e.g., see this MO post for temporary counterexamples---there aren't too many that went unnoticed for too long).  There are also some grey areas where most people aren't sure if they can trust certain papers or not, and in certain areas/topics it's more of an issue than others.

The culture in mathematics is that retractions are typically for academic dishonesty, and incorrect papers either get corrected (or at least have their flaws exposed) in other papers or with errata.

What to do:

for an individual paper, check its review on MathSciNet, and check papers that reference that paper: if many people use it freely, it's probably okay, but if someone later found an issue they will often mention it in another paper.  if the paper has a corrigendum, it will be linked in MathSciNet.
if you start reading the paper and for this or other reasons become suspicious, talk to experts---usually if a paper is important and there is a serious issue, experts become aware of the situation relatively quickly
check if the author has errata/comments on their webpage
some authors are more reliable than others, and they get a reputation for it; this is something you typically learn over time from your own research and talking to experts.
don't panic: if you happen to use a result that was wrong and don't realize it (or publish a paper yourself with a major error), that's okay.  it happens from time to time and you can't check everything.  you might discover the error later or someone might point it out.  in any case, you are often able to then write another paper correcting the situation.
don't contribute to the problem: put errata for your own papers on your website and if there is a major error not corrected in a later paper, publish a corrigendum
(optional) keep track of known issues in a personal notebook along with their resolution.  i do this because there are quite a number of papers in my area with errors/gaps and i have a bad memory.  i contemplated making this public and letting other people contribute to this list, but i haven't so far mainly because i'm not sure i want to put in the effort to update it and make sure it is fair to all parties involved.  however i have shared this list with some people individually.


Is it wrong to start your abstract with a question?

As an author, you can choose different styles for abstracts. As far as I know, the most interesting and shortest abstract ever was written in this paper, Can apparent superluminal neutrino speeds be explained as a quantum weak measurement? by M V Berry, N Brunner, S Popescu and P Shukla.

  Abstract

  Probably not.


What is a bachelor of Engineering (Honours) and Master of Engineering

Yes, if you graduate this course you will get both a bachelor's of engineering (honours) and a masters of engineering, however this will take longer (as in 5 years rather than the normal 4 years for an engineering degree).
If you look at the AQF (Australian Qualification Framework) level you'll see that its level 9, which is a masters degree. Level 7 is bachelor degree, level 8 is bachelor (honours degree) and level 10 is PhD.
Normally (in the Australian framework) you get a bachelor degree in 3 years then you can do an honours degree on top of that which is an extra year. Rather than doing a honours degree you could instead do a masters degree which was often 1.5 to 2 years long. Some universities only offer masters degrees and for some universities a masters degree is essentially some upper year course from the bachelor degree plus an honours degree (though this also depends on the field). After either an honours (which is sometimes mixed with the bachelor degree) or a masters you can apply for a PhD, however places in Europe don't always recognise an honours degree as it would be recognised in Australia.
This degree in particular started about 10 years ago the University of Queensland started a combined masters/bachelors course for engineering (I know some people from the first cohort). This is essentially the bachelor of engineering course plus the requirements for a masters, including a research thesis which you don't need for the bachelor of engineering (honours).


meeting with Executive VP for Academic Affairs during faculty interview

At a small (selective or not) liberal arts college (or a small engineering college like mine), there will typically be relatively few faculty members and as a result, there may not be as many levels of management as at a larger university.

For example, at my institution, we have about 120 faculty.  Until recently there were no deans between the department chairs and the vice president for academic affairs.  Under that system, the vice president for academic affairs was doing the work that a dean might do within a larger university.  Note that he had fewer faculty than the dean of a large college within a big university might have to supervise.

The vice president will probably have questions for you that are similar to those that a dean might ask.


Who should be listed as authors on extended abstract of thesis?

It's safest to ask your collaborators what they would prefer.  You can't include them as coauthors of an extended abstract without their permission, and they might be upset if you leave them off.  (Even if doing so is standard at this workshop, they might not know that or might disapprove of this standard.)  I'd guess that they would politely decline authorship of the dissertation abstract if asked, but there's no way to be sure other than asking.

But first I'd recommend asking your advisor about this issue.  I'm not sure what sort of workshop you mean, which suggests that this may be field-specific.  In that case, you need to be aware of the conventions of your field and this workshop in particular.  Presumably you aren't the first person to submit a dissertation abstract to this workshop, so this issue must have been dealt with before.  If your advisor doesn't know offhand, then it's worth looking through past years to try to find examples.  (As a last resort you could ask the workshop organizers for advice, but you shouldn't bother them with this unless you have to, and I'd be very surprised if you had to.)

Then you can write to your other coauthors and say "I'd like to submit an extended abstract of my dissertation to Workshop X.  When people have done that in the past, coauthorship of papers appearing in the dissertation has been handled like this: ...  Is it OK with you if we do the same here?"  It's worth including a copy of your proposed submission, so they can see exactly how they would be mentioned if they won't be authors.

If you don't include them as formal authors of the abstract, then of course you should make it very clear that this is merely a summary of work published elsewhere and who the authors of those papers are.


how to evaluate the quality of scientific journal?

There is no straight answer, since as Tom commented, "good quality" can have several meanings. Further, a journal can be considered good for a specific domain and not for another.

What I usually do:

Check the impact factor (and compare it with "known good" journals),
see some of the published works (Usually to discard automatically accepted stuff that has horrible english and worse results...)
Talk to other people with more experience. In your case, what do you advisor thinks? Or any other professors that usually publish in that area?

Another interesting concept is if the journal is correct for your work.

Nature is an awesome journal, but I caters to specific domains and requires a very high quality article. Sometimes it makes more sense to send the work to a "less good" journal that is specific to your domain and which "matches" the level of your work. As long as there is a proper review involved, it works.

(For instance, sometimes you don't have time to further develop something, or there is not much more to be done/improved, etc... instead of "losing" the work, you publish it in a "reputable", "less good" venue)

The ability to match  work <-> journal is important and comes from experience. If you don't have it yet, ask for the help of someone who does. That's why advisors are there! :)


Publication ethics - rights of a co-author to access full data

In order for the benchmarking exercise to be convincing to readers, it will ultimately be desirable to release all of the data (and presumably code) so that the comparison can be replicated.

There's no reason that the ground truth data couldn't be revealed to all participating researchers after they've done their analysis and the results have been frozen but before the submission of the paper.


Is using uncited references in master thesis a good idea?

I would suggest avoiding adding references to your list of cited works if you do not cite those works. It may be appropriate to have a "Further Reading" section but this section may not be helpful in a master's thesis. Your thesis should ideally have a single, primary focus and therefore any additional content essentially serves as a distraction.

If you must include the references, cite them briefly.


I wrote a new paper. Should I reapply for a postdoc at mathjobs?

As I understand it, "reapply" is merely a technical term in mathjobs and this should cause no problems.  See, for example, the statement "Update (re-apply) applications as many times as you like, or whenever you have new info to add" in MathJobs Workflow & Features.  I don't know why mathjobs uses the term "reapply," which certainly has the potential to cause confusion.  I can't guarantee that nobody will hold it against you, but I'd be very surprised if anyone did (and I think it would be a big mistake on their part).

Updating your application may not be enough if it has already been read.  I'd recommend also e-mailing key people you would like to work with to let them know about your new paper once it is on the arXiv.  Of course you shouldn't spam large numbers of people, but sending out an announcement is perfectly appropriate if you restrict it to people who would genuinely like to hear about the paper for mathematical reasons, and not just as an advertisement for hiring you.


How to switch from a physics PhD. to complexity theory?

I would suggest you to continue studying in your physics Ph.D. program and successfully graduate. However, considering your interest in complexity theory (which I share with you, by the way, though, unfortunately, my math background is more limited than yours), I would advise to find a topic on the intersection of physics and complexity theory (aka complex systems) and write dissertation on that topic. That way will have a nice and flexible general physics education and, at the same time, you will stay motivated (which is extremely important for writing a dissertation) throughout the whole dissertation writing period. As for the complex systems field of study, please see my relevant question on Cross Validated site and references within. Good luck to both of us!


Why are some non-thesis MS or MA programs just called M?

In general the formal name of a degree is a very bad guide to the contents of the degree; the name of the degree is heavily influenced by local history and traditions (some extreme examples: a Master of Arts degree from Oxford is automatically awarded 21 terms after matriculation to anyone with an Oxford BA; the degree that qualifies one to practice medicine in the USA is a Doctor of Medicine, while in the UK it's typically a combined Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery; a Bachelor of Philosophy degree at Oxford is a two-year philosophy degree aimed at those with a first degree).

In the UK there are increasingly degrees called 'integrated masters' (or sometimes 'undergraduate masters') whose names fit the pattern you mention. These are generally four-year degrees, generally in fields like mathematics, science and engineering, which one enters without a previous degree and which aim to leave students in a position to embark on doctoral study. See this example from Manchester Metropolitan University. Individual degrees may or may not include a mandatory or optional thesis requirement.


Am I obliged to tell students that there are different versions of the exam?

Making different versions of the exam is standard practice in a lot universities when physical barriers against cheating are not available, when students take the test in different moments or with take away exams or homework.

Provided that difference of versions is not noticeable at first sight, not telling the students in advance won't harm honest students, but it will make dishonest students to unsuccessfully cheat in a way that will be easily noticeable - probably some students will produce the answer to their neighbours'questions. Therefore, I don't see an ethical problem in not telling them.

In the end it depends on what is your goal: If you want to catch dishonest students cheating, don't tell them, but if you prefer discouraging dishonest students from trying to cheat, tell them. When faced with that dilemma I usually choose the later.

Of course, by telling them you will give cheaters some useful information on how to cheat, but that should be addressed in another way.


Coming back to a tough subject after long break

I was in exactly your situation once.  I brushed up on Calculus I, which was basically about differentiation, on my own a bit, and signed up for Calculus II, which was basically about sequences, series and integration.  The Calculus II teacher helped me and it worked out fine.

Returning students often have several important things going for them: motivation, focus, self-awareness, impatience with some of the *$5%! that younger people will take lying down.

However, I don't know if the route I took would work for everyone.  Why don't you try some review of the material in your high school course, and see how you feel?  Do not hesitate to visit any math tutoring center within reach.  No one will check your credentials at the door.

Basic calculus courses are often offered in winter terms and summer sessions.  So you might not need to feel too constrained by your planned transfer timeline.


This should be guided by 1. your institution's requirements for your thesis; 2. the standards of the citation guide referenced by your institution.

For example, most colleges have an Office of Graduate Studies to whom the final thesis must be submitted for final approval and archiving. They will have a "style guide" that includes rules about citations. These rules could indicate, for instance, the Chicago Manual style, APA, or Harvard citation style, which in turn will tell you how to handle the on-line articles.


Student asks for letter of recommendation: I can't remember the student

I would try to accommodate the student. Most faculty were traditional college students, so this  might seem like a weird request from our point of view, but many students don't have the same backgrounds, expectations, and economic resources that we do. Some students may need to take a long break from school due to economic setbacks, or because they've had a kid, or because of health problems. Also, keep in mind that not all grad schools are elite PhD programs, so the function of a recommendation letter may not be to vouch for the student's brilliance and ability to do groundbreaking research. For many programs, the purpose of the letter may be more to make sure that the student isn't a cheater or a psycho.

Be up front with the student. Explain honestly that you don't remember him. Let him know that if he has other possible recommenders who would have had more recent interactions with him, he would be better off with them. But if that's not possible, ask him for more detailed written info about his life and plans, and write the best letter you can. You may want to show the student the letter before you send it out, so he has an idea of what he's getting.