If I am "homeless" researcher, where can I get affiliation?

Affiliation isn't a commodity to buy and sell.  It is simply a statement that at the time of researching and writing this article, you were affiliated (as a student, employee, or similar) with a particular organization.

From your question, it sounds like at the time of researching and writing the article, you were a student or employee of Chelyabinsk State University, so standard practice would simply be to list your affiliation as "Chelyabinsk State University".  If you are not enrolled or employed there any more, then list a "current address" stating how to contact you.

Ethically, if you feel that CSU contributed nothing to the work, and you did it on your "own time", then you could omit it; in which case, you would list no affiliation at all.  But this would likely be perceived as a petty insult to CSU, to the extent that anyone noticed it at all.

Affiliation should be determined only on the basis of what you were doing while you prepared the article.  Anything that happened after the fact is irrelevant.  You can't "get" a different affiliation for a paper you have already written.


Do we ever, in a research paper, mention methods we tried but did not get a satisfactory result?

I cannot see any reason not to mention what could be labelled "negative results". If you have tried a method and it failed there can be two reasons, either the choice of method was bad (which is likely a trivial unpublishable result) or the method is in some way not appropriate due to reasons not before understood. In the latter case, there are clear advantages to convey this result to others. This may spawn new research or simply help others avoid using the method. Hopefully you will be able to provide deeper insights into why things did not work out as you first thought. In essence, anything that progresses our understanding is worth bringing forth in a publication.


Here is your answer
http://www.globalilluminators.org/misg-2015-kualalumpur-malaysia/publication-prospect/
Your abstract and paper if you submit will be published in the proceedings, they are then put into selection for journals, but there is zero guarantee about that.


Advisor's wife is having a baby, should we be getting him something?

A personal gift from you, as an individual student, is not expected, at least by European or North-American etiquette. It may be nice to pool with other students and group members to offer a small gift (either something for the baby, or something for the father). It'd be more customary to offer it after the baby is born, rather than now.

On the other hand, there is no strong expectation that you offer a gift. I.e., if you decide not to for any reason, he won't think it weird.


Is my code my intellectual property or the university's?

As noted in the comments, this really depends on university employment policy.  It is further complicated by the fact that you were a student but not an employee when you did the first work, and so different policies might apply.  If you wanted to commercialize the software yourself, you'd probably need to get lawyers involved and everything would likely become complicated and sticky.

Given that your stated goal is to be free to work with the software in the future, however, the easiest path is probably to simply nullify the question by getting the software released under a free and open software license.  This is typically quite easy to do with early-stage academic software, and (de facto) usually just requires consent from your professor.  This is a win-win solution: you and the university both get credit for the software (no matter who owns it, your authorship is never in doubt), and you and everyone else in the world gets to make use of it and improve it, no matter where you may go in the future.


Conducting a systematic literature review and paywalls

I don't think that either of these strategies is likely to be appreciated much by reviewers.

Very few papers are actually entirely unobtainable to researchers. Most papers are either part of a university subscription, available as preprint from e.g., the author's website, or at the very least most authors forward you a preprint on personal request via mail. The purpose of a scientific review is to review, to the largest extend possible, everything that is out there.

Limiting yourself to only Open Access material, while morally commendable, means that you are not surveying the state of research, but only the state of what's available easily. This will make your literature review significantly less appealing to reviewers.

Further, I would definitely not go for

  Also some papers are accessible from my University without me noticing the paywall so should I rewrite the criterion to "... that are not freely available or included in the authors university contract"?

That just seems like a lazy excuse for not finding out what licence the used papers fall under. Even if the paywall is hidden to you, you can certainly figure out whether the paper would be available without subscription.


I have been asked about a rumor of a collegue, what should I do?

If someone asks you in person: I would recommend you to say to your colleague that you have no clue about what he is talking about, immediately - even if you know your supervisor's plan.

If someone asks you by email:
In this case it is easier. Just ignore it.

Some supervisors share a lot of things with their students and I think that is better to assume everything as private.

Since this rumour could have some professional consequence to your supervisor, I would alert him about that too.


Is it ethical to approach a professor asking for a (unadvertised) postdoc position?

I think you are making a much bigger deal out of this than what it is. Ultimately, you seem to assume that this is something shady that should be avoided, as indicated by your word choices ("gray market", "should I give up and approach senior guys directly"). This is not the case. It is not more honorable to score a publicly announced job than to get one that has been offered to you personally and without lengthy official search.

Hence, the ethical implications over other postdocs are minimal to non-existant.

  One ethical concern that I see here is that in some situations even when the agreement between the professor and prospective candidate is made, the position still has to be advertised (e.g. this may be a legal obligation in some countries). The advertisement will attract a number of applications, none of which has a chance to succeed, since the deal about this position has already been bade behind the curtains.

This may or may not be true, but it is certainly not your ethical issue. This is a problem that the professor has to deal with.

  Is it true that when a candidate approaches a professor with a request like this, some serious ethical restrictions arise? Is it more difficult to turn the offer down, if you was the one who was asking for it?

I don't see why this would be the case. A postdoc is a postdoc is a postdoc. You do not bind your soul to this professor for eternity because he has offered you a job directly. Generally, turning down offers may cause some -unwarranted- hard feelings (everybody involved is just a human, after all), but the same is also true for any other job search.

  Is it more difficult to terminate the postdoc contract earlier than expected (and move to permanent position, for example).

No professor should fault you for terminating a postdoc early to move on to a faculty position. Of course some will, but, again, this has little to do with how you got the job in the first place.

So if you have a network: go ahead and use it!


How does accepting a full time lectureship position at a top 15 University affect one's chances of future employment?

Lecturer positions tend to overwork you in courses such that research time is little to none.  If you really want a tenure track position at a university with a research focus or semi-focus, you need to continue publishing in quality journals.  If such is the case (in your scenarios 1-2), you may consider a postdoc research position instead.

If scenario 3 or 4 is your ultimate goal, get good teaching marks and recommendations is paramount and a lecturer position is ideal.


Is an idea still 'novel' when already published in a blog post?

Whether it is novel enough to be published is up to the editor of a journal.
But you are in danger of plagiarizing unless you are very careful about citing the  original idea. The idea isn't yours, but theirs. The "novelty" isn't yours, but theirs. The fact that you noticed that it was something new isn't the same as creating something new.
But even if you avoid plagiarism, you might be accused of scooping the originators if they have plans for more formal publication. I suspect that if they have a paper in preparation and complain to an editor you will be in for some problems.
The best way, I think, is to contact the original author(s) and ask them about publishing, offering to help and working out some details about authorship.


Benefits to home country while pursuing Masters in pure Mathematics abroad

Studying pure math seems to imply that you want to teach eventually, perhaps after pursuing a doctorate. If that is the case, and you intend to enter academia in India you have the basis for saying quite a lot.

On the other hand, if you intend to enter industry in some capacity then you can write about the benefits of the economic activity. Even if you won't be applying the specific topics you learn, your mathematical sophistication should be improved by the study, making you a better candidate either for academia or industry.

It only seems problematic to me if you don't intend to return at all, or to leave again permanently.


Is a post doc advisor who makes superficial contribution entitled to authorship?

The reality is that standards for authorship are not universal across disciplines.  In some disciplines, your advisors should be considered authors.  In other disciplines, you advisors should not be considered authors.


Is there an actual, physical event associated with predatory conferences?

So far as I can tell, and have read online, predatory conferences typically are associated with an actual event.

To my mind, this seems to be a key difference between "predatory" and "fraudulent."  If a conference takes your money and no event is organized, then there is clearly false advertising and grounds for legal action, perhaps even criminal charges.  If a conference takes your money and organizes a horrible, worthless, CV-staining joke of an event, on the other hand, there is no regulatory body that you can complain to: scientific quality is considered to be a matter of judgement, and there is no way to easily distinguish between an honest-but-poor-quality conference and a intentionally predatory conference.


Is it fine to change th order of authors in Arxiv?

Modifying an arXiv preprint is done with the "Replace" feature, and this allows you to make arbitrary changes to the Author metadata field.

There is no need to delete the paper, and trying to do so would likely cause more problems.  (You cannot actually delete an arXiv paper, you can only "withdraw" it, and trying to upload a preprint which is substantially identical to a withdrawn paper may be rejected due to excessive overlap.)

Just make sure that you also change the author order in the paper itself and upload new tex/pdf files, otherwise people will be confused.  And, of course, all of the authors must have consented to the new ordering.


Like many answers on this site, that depends on a lot of factors. For instance, you might need to determine whether the book contains original research that was not published elsewhere. Most often, material contained in books has originally appeared elsewhere in other forms (as technical reports, research articles, etc). However, in some fields some books are occasionally on the cutting edge of research and might contain truly original material; this is true in technical fields like engineering.


If a grad student is working as a TA, can they also be asked to work as their adviser's lab manager for free?

I'm going to skip the legal question, because legal questions are always location specific (and you don't mention location), and I am not a lawyer (nor will you find many, if any, here). Instead, the question is whether you should put up with these circumstances.

Training/advising are probably worthwhile things to learn, and one could argue that those activities contribute to your education even as you teach others; upon graduation you can advertise your mentorship experience. Even better if you can train/advise others while they work on projects within or related to your own research interests. I don't consider these to be "lab manager" activities, though if it is taking up all your time that is of course a problem. As in all things, balance is important.

However: processing samples for others? With your lab as 'service center'? Unless this is a collaboration where you are getting authorship, this is a rare case where someone posts here thinking they are being abused that I think you actually are. Don't walk, RUN, away from this arrangement (note: this is a quote from regular Academia.SE contributor @JeffE as advice to students in bad situations and comes with important caveats).

Except probably first talk to your advisor and try to see if they can be reasonable. If your lab is providing a service, your lab should be compensated by those using the service. If you are doing the work of providing the service, that compensation should include you in some way.

To reiterate: there may be legal issues here, but you should start by having a conversation with your advisor about how to continue in a way that is mutually beneficial. If your lab has no funding, your advisor may not have many other choices and this may be the penalty you (both) pay for staying in their lab; they probably aren't happy about this either. If, on the other hand, they are using your availability to keep themselves afloat, that puts you in a strong negotiating position and you should use that position to come to an agreement that keeps your research moving forward.


My advisor gave my main project to an undergrad and now I have no project, what should I do?

I see several issues here:

I don't understand any of the code anymore, because the undergrad has been working on it without me
I am basically doing nothing with my time

Well get on understanding it! Get the undergrad to explain to you what they've done. Or if you can't do that, sit down and spend your time working out what they've done. Research contains a lot of tedious sitting and thinking, not just creating and certainly not already understanding.

I was working on the old project for a semester
The project was entirely my advisor's idea and in fact he has expressed frustration with the fact that I don't have any ideas of my own and I am not an independent enough researcher.

If you've only been a research student for under a year then it's entirely normal that your supervisor would be providing the project. You are an apprentice researcher - your job is to learn to be an independent researcher, but you won't necessarily be at the start.
However, that doesn't mean you just wait for him to sort you out. As I said, you are meant to be learning to be an independent researcher. Spend some of your time trying to think of new projects for yourself. Read relevant papers and ask yourself what they could have done differently, or what questions are left unanswered. Think about what happens if you change one word in your original problem. Once in a while, try banging together completely random concepts, just in case you get some sparks.

I don't have any ideas of my own

It's time to start having some. Start generating ideas. For the first step, they don't have to necessarily be good ideas. Come up with lots of ideas, preferably vaguely plausible, first. Then start to think about whether of them might actually be worth testing out. Solutions don't pop into your head fully formed (generally). You have to try small steps and see where they lead. And most of them will be dead ends. Research involves trying lots of things that don't work, and finding a few that do.

I had to teach a class this summer, which consumed most of my time
I didn't make much progress because I was TAing a class while taking a notoriously difficult breadth requirement

Your full-time job is learning to be a researcher. Since most researchers will also spend a lot of time teaching, learning to teach is also a productive part of that. But if you need to teach to fund yourself to the extent you are not getting a reasonable proportion of your time for research then you are not in fact funding your studies. Do you have a realistic plan for getting all the way through your course within the time constraints?

taking medication that impaired my ability to concentrate

Try out some ways of helping yourself concentrate. Breaking everything in to small tasks is probably a good place to start, but I'm sure there are other ideas that could potentially help too. If you are having serious problems, it might be time to consider whether you need to take a break from your studies. You should also be sure your doctor is aware of the problem. It may not be possible to do anything about it, but on the other hand it might be.

My advisor doesn't seem to think I'm a very good grad student and I think he may have given up on me.

I think that's probably your biggest problem. I think you need to have a serious chat with your advisor about where he sees your research going. It may be he really has given up on you, in which case you should think about whether he is correct that this isn't the right path for you, or whether you would get on better with a change of supervisor and/or subtopic. If, on the other hand, you are wrong, you need to know that, for your own sake. Then start thinking about your own goals and motivation. You're going to need more driving you than what (you think) your advisor thinks of you. I think motivation is actually one of the hardest aspects of being a research student.


Is it okay to use same figures in different papers?

Conferences mean very different things in different fields.

In some fields (e.g. most of pure mathematics), they are essentially just a venue for presenting/publicising your work to other researchers.  In such fields, conference abstracts are not treated like full publications; there is no strong expectation of originality.  So you can re-use your figures freely between conference talks/abstracts, and re-use figures from journal publications in conference talks/abstracts.

The only thing to worry about, in this case, is that if you re-use material too often, then people who see it multiple times may get bored of it, and think you are being lazy and not producing much new research.  But this is unlikely if you are just re-using one or two figures, provided your talks/abstracts contain substantive other fresh material.

In other fields (e.g. much of computer science), conferences are a publication venue in their own right, on a par with journals.  In such fields, there is an expectation of originality; so you should re-use figures sparingly, and usually explicitly note when you do so.  Essentially, in this case, treat it as you would re-using material between papers.  So it’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially in e.g. a background section, but it won’t count towards the original content that a referee will be looking for.  And the re-use should be noted explicitly and prominently — e.g. “The relationship between fuzzles and woozles is shown in Figure 3 (reprinted from Jones 2014).” — unless possibly the figure is clearly just a very simple and standard illustration of background material.


Is it safe for a student to give negative feedback in student evaluations?

I feel there are two different layers to that - whether, and to what extent, teaching evaluations are actually anonymous, and if they aren't, whether it's still "safe" to give a bad one.

  Are evaluations anonymous?

On a superficial level, all universities that I have taught at had entirely anonymous evaluations. At no point in the process was I ever told which student gave which feedback. However, in a small class (say 10 students or less), anonymous evaluations aren't really all that anonymous - in such classes, I often have at least an educated guess which student wrote which evaluation. In a larger class I usually have no idea which student wrote which comment - there are usually groups of students with similar concerns and troubles, and I also don't know individual students nearly well enough at the end of a 100-students class to divine which student may have written what.

Yet, even in large classes sometimes a teacher may have a hunch which student wrote a specific comment, if the raised concern or the way of expression is sufficiently unique. For instance, in one of my introductory classes last year, one student was struggling extraordinarily and it was clear that he was working all the time on this course to pass (which he ultimately did). When evaluations came in and one student remarked on the almost unsurmountable workload it's easy to at least suspect that this was this student.

In short, relying on anonymity alone may be a dangerous game. If I were giving some really negative feedback I would try to keep it general enough that at least a handful of students could have written the same comment.

  Is it safe to give a negative evaluation (assuming it's not, or at least not completely, anonymous)?

Clearly, teachers are supposed not to retaliate upon receiving a bad evaluation, and I expect the large majority of teachers in a reputable university will not. However, professors also being humans, a subconscious bias may still taint further interactions. I guess it depends on what you mean with "safe" - there is no 100% certainty that a negative evaluation will not backfire on you, but by and large I can tell you that many students give negative evaluations in all schools I have been at, and as far as I can tell nothing bad really happens to them.

  Anything else?

It's not really your question, but in my experience it is almost universally a good idea to try hard to phrase negative evaluations in the same way as you would also do when giving feedback face-to-face (that is to say: fair, polite, without unnecessary superlatives, and if possible strengthened by data). Ultimately you probably want your feedback to be heard / integrated into the next course iteration, and the less a teacher is annoyed by your comments, the larger the chance that they will actually consider them. If you want to use evaluations to vent, this is certainly your right - but you should be aware that your evaluation will then have virtually no impact on the course design.


Is it acceptable for a professor to ask post-doc student to babysit for free?

Your friend's advisor has made a very unethical request because, as a supervisor, it makes it harder for the postdocs to feel like they can say no. And they should feel free to say no, since the request is not normally part of any university employment contract I've seen.

Now, if the request were at the workplace, incidental and of brief duration (something like "Could you watch her while I take this call from the doctor's office?", for instance), then it wouldn't be so problematic (although still less than ideal). But anything more than that—anything that involved a regular arrangement, or was of extended duration—should be handled as a separate business transaction, so as to avoid exactly the coercion problem that you've raised.


I left the acknowledgment part in a double blind review paper submission, what can i do?

Send an email to the conference program chair right away and ask. The better conferences will be honest with you, either way. The answer could be no revision, but then you could move on.

These mistakes happen.


Is it common for a lab to pay for international moving expenses?

I assume you didn’t just walk in to the office one day and got told “pack your things! We’re moving to Austria!” Instead, my guess is you were asked if you were agreeable to the idea of moving, told under what terms, and agreed (well, perhaps with the alternative being that you would become unemployed, but still).
If my guess is correct, the time when you were asked would have been the best time to ask the question about relocation expenses. If you have already agreed to the move under terms that do not include covering your relocation expenses, then sure, you could bring it up now, but it’s possible that that ship has sailed; if the PI or receiving institution are stretched for cash, they have little actual incentive to be receptive to your wishes.
Bottom line: there is no “should” or “shouldn’t”. In the workplace, you commonly get what you have leverage to ask and can get people to agree to give you. It sounds like you don’t have that kind of leverage in the current situation. Perhaps your PI will be understanding and agree to your request, which is reasonable after all. But there is no rule or ethical principle that says what should happen.


What factors to consider when choosing between similar tenure-track offers?

You might want to check into details about "tenure track." At some institutions this means they won't automatically fire you at the end of your appointment period, but your chances of actually getting tenure are very low. At others, tenure-track faculty who do a reasonably good job are almost sure to get tenure. And of course, there's a whole spectrum of meanings for "tenure track" between these two extremes.  (My own department's official policy is to make tenure-track offers only when we think there's at least a 50-50 chance of the person's getting tenure; in fact, our promotion record in recent times has been way better than 50-50.)  I'd suggest you find out, from each of the departments that offered you a tenure-track position, what percentage of the people hired into such positions in, say, the last 15 years got tenure.  (You might also ask what happened to the others. Were they denied tenure? Did they leave voluntarily for other jobs before coming up for tenure? Did they leave "voluntarily" because they realized they were unlikely to get tenure?)


How to convince and/or ask researchers to share data?

First, I suggest you to be very clear with what you are working on (which is not evident to me yet), what is your  deliverable, your time schedule, and why the data they have are important for your project.

Then, there always is something you can offer in return, that may have value for them: from a bibliographic report to innovative mapping of the data. Many people work at nice data vizualization tools that rock. Just saying, because you were talking about GPS data. We have entered a world of data science, where you can do a lot with novel tools.

Whatever the option, I would suggest to take some data you have, work on some awesome analysis method, and sent them as a pre-gift


Why does the director of graduate studies want me to keep my TAship, even though I obtained a scholarship of my government?

You need to ask your advisor, since nobody else can say for sure what his reasoning might be, but here are some possible explanations:

You do a great job as a TA, much better than whoever might replace you, and the department would be unhappy to lose your services.
You do a poor job as a TA and need to take this opportunity to improve your teaching skills before they interfere with your career.
Having more teaching experience on your CV or better teaching evaluations may help when you apply for jobs, even aside from whatever you might learn in the process.
If you "detest having to deal with those undergrad students", you may be miserable working in academia.  It's much better for you to figure out now whether/how you can handle teaching successfully without having it feel like a huge burden.  Delaying confronting this issue isn't necessarily in your best interests.


I would treat it as an online resource since it is not published and might be replaced by a newer version at some point. To cite this, you don't need an author but make sure you state the date when you retrieved the resource. In BibTeX it is done using @misc entry for example.

Another, but less formal, possibility is that instead of a reference, you use a footnote where you will place an URL and the date you retrieved the resource.


Paper author has not included all suggestions in peer review

The author owns the paper. They should consider any suggestions you make but need not implement any specific recommendation. Give up your "personal" feelings. That isn't your job. Re evaluate the paper on its merits and give it a fair assessment.
You are, of course, allowed to repeat your old suggestions, but it is a mistake to judge it solely on whether all of your suggestions were followed.
Some, but not all, authors will state in a "rebuttal" their reasons for ignoring suggestions. It isn't normally required. Judge the paper as it appears before you. Complain to the editor if you must.
Also consider that some really good suggestions are saved for future work by authors rather than included in the present paper. The work may already be in progress.


How to write the literature review part of a paper when 'the perfect one' has already been written?

I would use the other literature review as a baseline, and focuss on how helicopters are different from airplanes. So I would start with mentioning the other literature review, and saying that the basics are discussed there, and here I will focuss on how those apply and/or differ for helicopters.


When someone cites one of your papers, is it a good idea to send an email to the authors to show appreciation?

Straight answer: NO it's not a good idea

Citing someone is (and should) be neither a favor nor a gesture of politeness. So there's no point to send a thank you email. Thanking someone for a citation seems a way to beg for something. If you want to collaborate send an email explaining why you want to collaborate, or mention that you have read their paper when you meet the author/s. Take pride that someone more senior or expert has cited your work and move on.


How bad is it to put the wrong details in a cover letter?

Sometimes mistakes like this happen. Also, faculty search committees recognize that candidates are applying for multiple positions at one time, so it wouldn't necessarily send up red flags. Most candidates will use a template for their cover letter and change things around. I've chaired search committees and will say that having the university name correct, but the area (you mention it is related) incorrect would not be a fatal flaw for a candidate. However, I might be extra careful at looking at his or her other content/materials for fit and would be more likely to view any additional typos or mistakes as basic sloppiness.

However, it also depends on how competitive that specific position may be. If there are a number of stellar candidates and one made the mistake, it would be easier to rule that person out to make decision making easier. I do not suggest contacting the faculty search chair or members. It will only emphasize that you made the mistake.

Maybe to boost your hopes...I searched for my first faculty position during the recession and applied to 120 positions over a two-year period (many schools lost funding for positions after they were posted, so it was advised to apply for EVERYTHING). One school called me for a campus visit and I was excited. To prepare, I reviewed the cover letter I sent them...only to realize that I wrote the wrong university on the cover letter! With 120 applications, I gave myself some grace for the error. However, it didn't stop me from getting interviewed for the job - the rest of my application made up for the error. Good luck!


Better to give a poor/unfinished talk at a conference or cancel it?

When this happens to me, I just describe it as "work in progress" or a "research attempt" and present what I can with what I've got.  What's wrong with that?  That's how research works.

"...hasn't panned out like I hoped it would when I accepted the talk."  You can say this during your talk, and explain why it didn't pan out, and ask the audience if they can help.  Maybe someone in the audience (your next co-author perhaps?) knows how to proceed, and has the expertise you're lacking.  If nobody can help, maybe that's an indication that there is an obstacle (which is important to know).

You've said you're a PhD student, without expertise in the side-topic.  Feel free to mention it in your talk "I'm a PhD student in [some subject] at [some university] under [someone]."

You said a post-doc invited you to give a talk (which I expect is not in the sense of an "invited speaker"), who presumably knows you're an early PhD student, and presumably knows what early PhD student talks are sometimes like.  My suspicion is that this question is more about inexperience and lack of confidence than an inability to give a reasonable talk due to the work being unfinished.


Can I publish a paper in mathematics education on a computer program?

I agree with user2768's comment that it will be most convincing if you can publish a user study and/or test of the program's impact. However, if your program is designed around some part of learning theory that is important but hard to implement, or focuses on a neglected area of mathematics, the program itself may generate interest. You allude to interviews with children when designing the program--so if you can illuminate what the misconceptions are that kids have (or other needs you found) and how the program is designed to address those, that might be compelling.

You may want to take a look at the Bootstrap project, which started as a teacher's classroom tool to teach algebra and became a dissertation topic and then an educational tool.  http://www.bootstrapworld.org/community/

It's also not fully clear to me how far along in your thesis you are. You'd benefit from reading about Design-Based Research (see, e.g., the 2004 special issue of the Journal of Learning Sciences, starting with this article by Barab & Squire: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15327809jls1301_1?journalCode=hlns20), and possibly also this conference paper on how to build that into a dissertation: http://ro.ecu.edu.au/ecuworks/1612/ This method may offer you a framework to help you publish design work-in-progress, as well as knowledge you gain as you test and develop it.

Also, you may want to ask your advisor about good outlets to publish this, and whether getting a paper out at this point is a top goal. Since most education conferences are non-archival (double-check whether the individual conference publishes archival proceedings), this may also be a good thing to submit to a conference.


How can you best answer when a Scholarship proposal asks for your objectives?

"During the award" sounds a bit strange to me; I guess it means during the period covered by the scholarship. First, I'd be sure to answer the question with specifics, not generalities. Something like "During the award period, my objectives are: 1) to complete the first year with an A average grade, 2) to master programming skills in Java (or whatever) such that I can independently program a controller for quad-power drone aircraft, and 3) ... etc.


Postdoctoral length before landing a professorship job?

Speaking for Germany: in former times, a "Habilitation" war required for a full professorship - which you usually wrote during your post-doc phase. It usually took about 6 years (of course with strong variations). Now, you can qualify for a full professorship by being a "Junior Professor" - which takes 6 years with an interim evaluation after three years. In some cases, junior-professorships can be transformed to full professorships after six years, but if this really happens depends strongly on your university and faculty (in fact politics says it should be the norm, but in fact universities are having much more junior professorships than full professorships).

So the general norm in Germany is 6years+, since you usually won't get a position right after your PhD.


Can an undergraduate be advised by a professor who is very far away?

It's probably not impossible, but distance isn't the only impediment. If you want her to be your formal advisor then you may need permission from both universities and they may need to work out some compensation, depending on the rules. This will be especially the case if she needs to formally approve (perhaps sign) your dissertation.

Distance is a problem of course, but with today's communication options it can be overcome in such a case. But you should also consider the possibility, even the necessity, of working face to face on occasion. One way to do this is through attendance at a conference with an extra day or so to work after or before the conference itself. There are other options, of course, including trying to get a small grant from somewhere to cover travel - either yours or hers.

But asking is certainly appropriate if you are willing to also work to obtain the necessary permissions and deal with the distance issue.

If she is to be only a secondary advisor it is a bit simpler, but needs the buy-in from your main advisor at your current place. This is easiest if the two know one another and are comfortable working together. But there may still be permission and compensation issues to deal with.

Make sure you know at the start everyone's expectations about joint authorship of anything you produce, of course.


Dealing with uncertainty when reviewing a paper

Yes, it is fair to raise concerns when you don't understand a paper. It is the authors' job to explain in enough detail what they did. Especially if the method used is uncommon, then it needs to be justified. That justification needs to be done in a way that it is understood by the intended audience, not just the specialist within that audience.

Tell the authors in as much detail as possible why you think their method does not feel right. Maybe the method is problematic, and they will appreciate that feedback. Maybe they did not explain their method well enough, and they can use that feedback to pinpoint what was not clear.


Using the same letters of Recommendation from previous admission cycle

You should always try to get newer, up-to-date letters, if the first set didn't work.

You should try your best to get a letter specifically from the gap year, such as work experience or another type of academic program, that would benefit you greatly.

From personal experience, if it doesn't work the first time, trying again with the same package typically doesn't provide you a major benefit and ends up being you wasting money for admissions fees.


How to include a paper presented by someone else on CV

In your CV, you could write your name in bold in the author list of the paper and also make it available in a preprint repository. That way the paper will get a doi and will be freely accessible.


Unofficially switched PhD supervisor to one at a different institution. Can I get this officially acknowledged?

That is a question that only institution B can answer, but I doubt that they would be agreeable due to your formal link to A.

What you might be able to achieve is to have supervisor B included in some more or less official way in your process, though, as you say, he/she already declined.

So, supervisor B doesn't want to be your examiner, but perhaps, subject to supervisor A's sense of things, B could be a co-advisor and also sign your dissertation, giving titles and institution. A may even find it advantageous to have an association with B.

But that is largely a personality issue. I doubt that either institution would object.


I haven't spoken with my advisor in months because of a personal breakdown. How do I reestablish contact?

It should be enough to explain your absence with "I've been ill for several months, but am better now". You don't really need to go in to details. If asked, just reply that it is very "personal".
The professor may need some assurance that you will be effective going forward, but really has no need to know details.
And, of course, you should say you've been somewhat (at least) productive in the interim.
And keep contact with the professional counselor through any necessary transition.


How to mention that we are applying as a couple?

Different universities will have different rules. At some you will be strictly considered as individuals. At others some accommodation might be made, but only at the margins. You can just state in your cover material that you are seeking positions together for personal reasons.
But it is worth mentioning, so that the admissions committee is aware that you have some constraints. But if you are both marginally qualified, by their rules, it would be more a reason to reject both than to admit both.
But is is unlikely that one would be admitted if unqualified even if the other is highly qualified. Being married is probably better than just being "together".
Another possibility for you, however, if you are willing to live in a large city, is to make applications to several universities in some city, like NYC or San Francisco. Then it would be feasible to attend different universities, though such places tend to be expensive to live in.
And the application would be for the doctorate. It is unnecessary to mention a masters in such an application. A masters is normally earned "along the way" to the doctorate, sometimes just by asking and sometimes with some fairly minor additional requirement.


Is offering jobs to students I'm teaching as a "representative of industry" OK?

I agree completely with the others that you should check with your university and your company. Their opinions are the ones that matter. Still, it is quite possible that your institutions will not provide guidance in either direction, so I will not end the answer there.
The only conflict of interest I can see is if you are grading (or otherwise holding authority over) students while simultaneously encouraging them to apply for a job. In this case, students could feel coerced into applying for or accepting a job (or could construe this as a reason if they don't like their grade, etc.). The simplest solution would be to wait until the course ends (and some would say this is your only ethical option). But given that a successful hire is a huge win for all involved, and that hiring is often time-sensitive, you could consider other mitigations, such as having someone else from your company handle the recruitment process, and making it clear to the student that you will intentionally be kept "out of the loop" until the course ends. And of course, be transparent about what you are doing by proactively informing your department chair of your plans (preferably in writing).


Should I disclose to the editor that I am reviewing a similar paper by different authors for a different journal?

Simultaneous or independent discoveries happen often. If the paper A has a first submission date published, that should ensure paper A being fairly treated.

Apart from that, I do agree with the other responses that actually discussing the situation with the editors (without disclosing mutually the authors) may be a good idea here.

My purely personal view (others may disagree) would be that independent results which overlap temporally due to an unlucky accident both deserve publication. It was pure coincidence that in your case they ended up going via a single-person bottleneck.


How to ensure that a reference letter is sent on time if not knowing the reliability of a referee?

But one week before the application deadline the reference was still not sent (even despite my reminders)

This strikes me as entirely normal.  I try to write most letters a few weeks before they are due, but I end up writing some letters during the last week, and I believe this is pretty typical.  I don't have any statistics handy, but I'd bet that a substantial fraction of all letters of recommendation are written in the last week (or later!).  It may be stressful for applicants, but it's not unusual or particularly worrisome.

It's also worth noting that many deadlines for letters are actually flexible, and experienced faculty often know which ones are.  For example, NSF graduate research fellowship deadlines are absolutely inflexible (if you miss the deadline by one minute then you can't submit at all), while graduate programs in mathematics at U.S. universities are almost always flexible about letters (if you submit a letter a few days past the stated deadline, it won't do any harm).  Someone who doesn't seem to care about a deadline may just know that it doesn't actually matter.  It's not nice to do this without explaining the situation to the student, but it's not necessarily as terrible as it looks to someone who thinks the deadline matters.

Unfortunately, a few people really are irresponsible, and I don't know of any ideal solution to this problem.  One strategy is to propose frequent reminders, along the lines of "I know you are juggling a lot of things this semester, so I wonder whether you'd like increasingly frequent reminders to minimize the chances of a last-minute rush.  I could send you a reminder e-mail once a week for the last four weeks before the deadline, and once a day for the last four days (of course stopping once you tell me it's submitted).  Would that be helpful?  Or what sort of reminders would you prefer?"  I doubt anyone would be offended to be asked, since they could always ask for fewer reminders.  This can't guarantee that someone will make the deadline, but it minimizes the role of forgetfulness or poor planning.

  I was thinking of telling them of a deadline that is e.g. 15 days earlier than the actual deadline and in case no reference gets sent by my deadline

I would feel a little offended if an applicant deliberately misstated the deadline in this way.  As an alternative, you could explain that you feel very nervous about deadlines and ask whether your recommender could please submit their letter two weeks before the actual deadline.  They might not agree, but the worst case scenario is that they say that's not convenient.  (I would agree if someone asked me, assuming they gave me plenty of time to write the letter, but not if they asked too close to their proposed deadline.)  I wouldn't generally recommend asking this, since it would come across as eccentric, but eccentricity is better than dishonesty.


Do I need permission from motorsports organisations to write a research paper about motor racing?

You only need permission to talk about something if you use information you have gotten from someone for which they own the intellectual property (copyright). I specifically say "talk" because writing a research paper is, in some sense, still speech.
In other words, if all you have used in your paper is publicly available information, then you don't need written approval. If you have used a computational geometry in your work that you have obtained from someone else who has intellectual property ownership over it, then you do need approval.


About sending email for postdocs after finding a potential mentor

I recommend that you keep all your options open up until you have something firm. There are too many things that could go wrong for you to make assumptions that you "have" a position. Interest was expressed. Action was promised. A contract was not offered.

Don't mislead people, of course, but don't drop your other efforts.


Should I mention the reason I changed labs so often on my C.V. and/or cover letter? (Due to lack of funding)

I am not in molecular biology myself, so I may miss some subject-specific details. In general, though, spending 2 - 2.5 years in each postdoc-type position is not uncommon or particularly strange. Most of the postdoc positions I ever see are advertised for 1, 2, or 3 years; and longer postdoc positions are quite uncommon. On the contrary, I believe, if someone spends 5 to 7 years in the same place, the questions may arise as to why they did not progress and move to a better post somewhere else?

If you have spent at least one year in every lab, I believe, that is fine and you do not have to explain anything (until you desperately want to do so).
If you spent less than a year in some of the labs, this may look strange and this deserves an explanation. The cover letter is the best place to address such questions.


Most likely this means it has passed to the associate editor to decide what to do with the reviews.  In my experience the deadline for that action is typically about a week from the time the final review is available, but of course if the editor is otherwise occupied, it might take a while longer.  Patience!


Is doing a PhD just for the university requirement is a good idea?

In my university back in Mexico, they had something similar, if professors want to get ahead (income, professional, etc) they had to an additional degree (Masters, PhD)

I think that if you do not have the motivation, you'll have a lot of problems, doing a PhD is already a taxing endeavor, in the sense that many times you'll start wondering wether this was a good idea or not.

As in many things in life, if you do this because you are made to (like students that go to college because their parents want to) you'll have lots of resentment.

However, not all is lost, you can try looking for something you are really passionate about, and then try to do a PhD on that.


Writing and publishing a technical note about an R package

Obviously you will need to do a bit of work to find the most appropriate journal for your field, but publishing an article about an R package is completely acceptable. In fact, "An R package for reading EPANET files" by Eck was published in Environmental Modelling & Software which describes itself as follows,

  Environmental Modelling & Software publishes contributions, in the
  form of research articles, reviews and short communications, on recent
  advances in environmental modelling and/or software. The aim is to
  improve our capacity to represent, understand, predict or manage the
  behaviour of environmental systems at all practical scales, and to
  communicate those improvements to a wide scientific and professional
  audience.


Advice needed--reaching out to a potential advisor

Of course you should contact him.  There is no harm in that.  But I wouldn’t mention professor A.  Write a simple and short email stating the you have already applied in the department and you are looking for a supervisor for your PhD. Then also mention that you have been reading papers on topic X and you find them interesting. And since his research interests are similar to what you want to do, would he be interested in serving as your supervisor?  And then end your email by asking him to review your application and contact you in case of any question or query.

Good luck!


Offer to chair a session - how should I decide whether to accept?

Yes, you should.

Whether this is common depends very much on the conference.  The last time I was at a conference, I was invited out of the blue by someone I didn't know to chair a session, in a very short and very informal e-mail as if it was coming from a long time friend in a hurry.  This was less than a year after I obtained my PhD.  A PhD student in our research group did the same.

All it means, really, is that you sit on a chair in front of the room, make sure the presentations are on the presentation computer, announce the speakers, etc.  You will get detailed instructions.  Unless you mess up (and why would you?), you really have nothing to lose.


This type of preparation would be required for both an economics PhD and an econ-focused Public Policy PhD (one with a substantial number of courses in Econ department or co-listed). You would probably get admitted to a Public Policy PhD without real analysis, but you would then struggle in the courses if they were taken in the Econ department. Another area you would want to focus on is proof-writing.

I would suggest taking these courses at a 4-year institution if at all possible. You want the grades you receive to be reliable signals of your learning. The goal is to give the admissions committee confidence that you will succeed in the coursework. Many Econ and some Public Policy programs will force you to leave at the end of year one without satisfactory performance on qualifying exams.

You are correct that you can do similar work in both degree programs. In an Econ department, using the most flashy new methods is weighted more heavily, while in the Public Policy department, useful questions and answers are more heavily weighted. But if you find a dissertation topic with the right combination of questions and methods it would likely be acceptable in either degree program.

You are also correct that the Economics degree is more valued on the job market and will earn you a higher salary for the same position. I have a Public Policy friend who was told that he would have received a $10K higher starting salary if his degree had the word Economics in the name.


Ask for a recommendation letter from a teacher in the university I'm applying to

I doubt that the letter from a professor at the other university, especially if just "okay" is going to help you much, if at all. If s/he writes you a letter, ethics might require that they can't participate in your admission in any other way. I'd suggest it is better to get good letters from those who know you well, and if the other's remember you positively it will just be an added bonus.

Of course, if someone knows you, they might also be limited in how they can participate, depending on the nature of the rules in place.


Should I integrate the notations of different papers in the prior works section of my thesis?

In my PhD thesis I had a largeish section in the "state of the art" chapter discussing the wildly different conventions, definitions, and notation of previous work in the area, and setting up a common language for comparing them (and later for the main work).

In the resulting papers I just defined the terms, and paraphrased earlier work in them as required.

So, it really depends. In your thesis you do have the space available to make it absolutely clear, in papers/conferences space is at a premium.


I got better and improved results later of one chapter of my published PhD thesis

Improving on results is how science works. You should publish the results and be happy you did better!

As for minor mistakes, I would consider adding a short errata section as a supplementary file in your university database (if they allow it), or in your personal website if you have one. In either case this is perfectly normal and standard, don’t feel bad!


Does a minor obtained in a graduate school matter?

As you kind of alluded to in your example, the answer to this question depends a lot on what kind of "long run" you are planning to pursue.

First, in a career where your minor subject is irrelevant, then no, your minor likely will not matter. Sounds obvious, but this is likely the case for many people.

Further, in a career where your minor subject becomes your main focus, such as a mathematician transitioning to a position in philosophy, then you will likely need to demonstrate your qualifications with more than just your PhD minor. Your minor may be noticed when looking for your first academic appointment, but in the long run, it will be much less helpful than publications in philosophy, recommendations from fellow academics in philosophy, coursework in philosophy subjects etc.

There are a few situations where the minor could be helpful, such as if you are applying for an entry-level job in some interdisciplinary field. However, there are many more situations where the minor is either irrelevant or insufficient to prove your qualifications.


What is the modus operandi to get a postdoctoral position at a foreign university?

This is what I have done in mathematics. I have applied in Europe mostly.

Go to conferences relevant to your subject and get to know people. Give presentations. Ask around for jobs.
Find senior researches active in your area; start, for example, from a bibliography of a recently published article and search online for the names. Are there open positions at their departments?
Take one country at a time, or, in case of a large country, even less. Wikipedia might very well have a list of universities in that country. Go through them, one-by-one, and see if they have research (projects, researchers) relevant to what you are doing. Keep track of particularly relevant universities and check them periodically for new open positions, or set up some kind of alert or RSS feed if possible.
If there are any country-specific job databases, follow those, too, and use alerts or check periodically.
When writing the application, include a few words about how your current skills are relevant for the department or what you would be working on. This shows that you know where you are applying to, but also requires you to have done the work.
If you have contacts who are also applying for jobs, ask them if they know of any that would be suitable for you. They might not want to have you as a competitor, and it might not be polite to ask, so this is best with people who have somewhat different career stage or research interests. Also share jobs relevant to them with them, possibly excluding the ones you are applying for.
Your advisor seems to have published with a number of people. Maybe some of them are possible contacts?


How big of an advantage are publications for Applied Mathematics grad school applications?

The question is not answerable at this level of abstraction, because grad school admission is not decided on the basis of easily described rules.  If you're a coauthor on a brilliant and important paper, you may still be rejected if the committee doubts you were a major contributor to the paper.  On the other hand, some applicants with no publications at all may be accepted.

As a general rule, nobody on the committee will read the paper itself.  That would be both time-consuming and unlikely to be fruitful, since the committee probably doesn't even have an expert in this specific area.  They may get a little information from the abstract or your personal statement, but everything else they know about the paper will come from your letters of recommendation.

The letters need to indicate why this paper should help your case for admission.  Specifically, they need to explain why the paper is interesting, what you contributed to it if you are not the only author, and why your work was impressive.

This task will be easier if the paper is really good, and that's correlated with being published in a top journal, but this is not really necessary.  For example, if an undergraduate makes a major contribution to a solid but not exceptional research paper, then that could mean a lot, even if the paper doesn't get accepted to a leading journal.  Of course the paper needs to meet at least some standards - publishing in a junk journal or vanity press doesn't count.  However, the most important issue is demonstrating that you can carry out good research, not getting your name in a prestigious venue.


Where can I find templates for a mathematics research paper?

You can download the latex sources of the vast majority of (actually almost all) math preprints posted to arXiv. Just go to the abstract page of your favorite math paper and click on "Other formats" under "Download." There you can find the link to the source file in latex as long as the author(s) uploaded it and complied by arXiv's latex engine (which pretty much everyone does).

I think reading the actual sources of nicely typeset papers you like is a very effective way to learn how to latex.

For example, here's the abstract page of my latest preprint:

http://arxiv.org/abs/1409.2559

and its source is here:

http://arxiv.org/format/1409.2559v4

To get the latex file I submitted, click "Download source" near the bottom right.

The file is in compressed format. But as the arXiv page says, your browser may uncompress the file. My Google Chrome for Mac does this, so what I actually get by clicking the download link is a latex file, which is named "1409.2559v4" with no extension. If your browser behaves the same way, you can simply rename the file to attach ".tex" at the end if the extension is important.


A colleague's CV is taking credit for service that I did, and now we're both on the shortlist for a job. Is there anything that I can do?

I would just ignore it.  I doubt that anyone will even notice unless they look at the two CVs side-by-side, and even then, they will probably just assume that the two of you worked on the redesign together.  They wouldn't doubt your honesty (nor the other editor's).  So I don't think this really disadvantages you.

It might be a slight unfair advantage for the other editor, but I think it's minuscule.  In hiring decisions, things like professional service get a very low weight.  The fact that you were an editor is perhaps somewhat helpful, if the journal is recognized as publishing good research, but what you actually did as editor is too minor a point.  The fact that you can redesign a journal may speak to your graphic design skills, but academic jobs don't care about that - they care about your research and teaching (in some combination).  In fact, I'm not sure it is wise to emphasize it in application materials or interviews - people might think that tinkering with your journal could be a distraction from actually doing research.

If the topic of the redesign comes up at the interview, just describe honestly what you did.  You don't need to get into what your co-editor did or didn't do.

I doubt that you will be asked specifically about the fact that both of you are claiming credit (for one thing, it would reveal that the other editor is also a candidate for the job, which would normally not be shared with other candidates).  But if so, I would say something like "As co-editors, we share the responsibility for what happens to the journal on our watch.  But on this particular project, I took the lead."


On the definition of research - are 'what' and 'how' questions also considered as research?

In biology, what questions are extremely popular, even though they can be largely descriptive. The point is, that knowing descriptive details of a system is the first step in understanding how it works, and can often raise many interesting hypotheses. In fact, this trend of questions is increasing as high-throughput experimental methods are used to collect more and more data (which by itself is only descriptive).

Some famous examples of such what questions are "what is the structure of DNA?" and "what is the sequence of the human genome?".


How to arrange an invitation letter for research visit in another university (for PhD student)?

In mathematics, in the U.S., since people in Paris are vaguely acquainted with me, some years ago I was asked to be a supervisor for an Ecole Poly undergrad's "senior project", more-or-less. I had spare time-and-energy at the time, and the people asking me were known to me, and certainly gave the impression that they were not just spamming. (The student was very good, and later won a prize for his paper, "back home".)

So I think if you can get your local faculty to contact people who know them, and can recommend you to them, it might work well. (But, sure, sometimes people are already over-committed, as I am currently, so I sadly had to decline a similar offer, although I knew it would have been quite fun... Just not enough time.)


How should I interpret advisor overly positive feedbacks?

That’s a good sign. Not all the advisors would take pains to provide you with lots of English corrections. I suggest that you make sure all corrections are made. Some people in academia may be very negative about a paper written in bad English. It might have a very negative impact. You may ask American students to help you out with this simple task of editing your work. Then your advisor might switch to some other recommendations or critique. It might make your work even better if you accelerate the editing in this way. Your advisor will undoubtedly be very impressed. And I’m almost sure some other improvements will be suggested to you apart from constant English language corrections. I would have given the same feedback. I mean first things first. Language should not be dismaying; otherwise, as I said, it can have a very negative impact on your work, while it’s the contents the paper should be judged on. It’s good that your advisor is ready for the nitty-gritty job of plowing through the language of your paper. That’s commendable.


Is a postdoc-interview presentation a norm?

At least in my field and country, giving a talk about your previous work is pretty common for the hiring process of any academic position. But that does not mean you should prepare a talk.
Nobody can seriously expect you to know this and automatically bring a talk to a job interview just because it’s the unwritten norm (and you probably do not want to work with the people who do).
Moreover, it is impossible for you to deduce the desired length, audience, scope, and other aspects of the talk.

Instead, you have to estimate how likely it is that this aspect was just forgotten in the invitation (e.g., going by the other details it contains).
If you think that there is any non-negligible chance that this is the case, just ask them.


Is it plagiarism to copy the form and structure of an article?

You've done nothing wrong; most manuscripts follow the same structure.

Consider the following recommendations for structure: (1) Introduction, (2) Materials and Methods, (3) Results, and (4) Discussion. Would it be wrong to adopt that structure? No. It's a very common style and is widely adopted.

The OP added:

  It's not just the [structure] that I followed, but the language - i.e. transition words.

Transition words, e.g., https://msu.edu/~jdowell/135/transw.html, are standard, so they shouldn't create an issue.

  The order of the introduction is the same, for example.

That's just a different form of structural issue, hence, this isn't a problem.

  I said why the world needs the paper in a similar language even though there was two totally different topics and subject matters.

Such a style is advocated by many, e.g., Simon Peyton Jones, so that shouldn't create an issue.

Note: Without seeing the texts, we cannot comment on specific issues.


Do I need "Introduction" and "Conclusions" parts in my PhD thesis?

Run, don't walk, towards the advice of your advisor.

I'm not sure why you are questioning their "experience writing a thesis in parts."

You should add a broad introduction and broad conclusion that service your entire thesis; these will be before and after your Part 1 and Part 3, respectively.

You should add individual introductions and conclusions to each Part. Therefore you will have a total of 4 introductions and 4 conclusions, with 3 of each that have a narrower scope and 1 of each that have a broad scope.

You will probably additionally have introductions and conclusions within each chapter in each part, though you may not label them as such and they could simply be paragraphs. This is simply good writing and is not at all related to thesis writing specifically.


Have chosen a field without thinking much

Over the course of a lifetime a person makes many thousands of decisions, most of them with incomplete information. "It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time". Many of those decisions will lead to less than optimal results, so we learn to change and adapt.

You need to give some thought, I guess, about what your goals are and your options. Use the information you now have to try to set a new path. It will take time and effort, of course, but there is little value in continuing on a path that no longer seems right or has value to you. Likely, finishing your current degree gives you more options than dropping out of it, but that is yours to judge. But you have various educational assets that you can employ to change directions. But you need to try to make the best decision you can, knowing what you know now.

As for the other question, of denying your current seat to someone more deserving, it would only be an ethical issue had you set out at the time with the intention of denying that seat to another. That seems pretty unlikely. You did what you thought best. Others concurred with your decision. Now you have more information, and perhaps have changed and grown. Anyone who might have had your seat also had their own options and have, by now, made their own choices. You can't change that, nor should you worry about it. Someone else might be thinking the same way about their choices denying you an option that you might have had. But there is no global, universal, optimization scheme that sees the future and makes the objectively best decision for everyone.

Do what you think best with the information you have at the time. If you choose a path, follow it faithfully, but not rigidly. Let change happen.


How do I pay for classes as a non-degree student?

You might try enrolling in a university as a non-degree seeker. Such programs allow people who already have a Bachelor's degree to take additional courses for official credit but not towards any specific degree. These programs are common and a good way to add to a transcript in order to meet minimum admissions requirements for future programs to which you might apply.


How to transition from theoretical mathematics to theoretical computer science

The answer to your question in "no": Most of people who call themselves Theoretical Computer Scientists have PhD in (T)CS.

And yes, you need to have a CS background because the word says it itself: Theoretical Computer Science which is the study of what a computer can(not) do and with what resources.

Math is a vital part and on different fields of TCS different fields areas of math play important role (number theory, linear algebra, combinatorics. probability theory are by far the most used ones). Generally speaking, the maths used are rarely "obscure" or too abstract/pure.

As on the question of if this can be achieved outside formal education the answer is "depends" on the motivation, circumstances etc. It is really hard to answer that.


How do I tell if the content of an academic conference is available?

Availability varies of course. In some cases the conference has a (permanent) website that might detail such information. Or at least it can give you access to the program chair who can answer the question.

For conferences hosted by major professional organizations, there is probably a general policy, and even an established library. This is the case for ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) conferences.

But you can also contact the authors of the work. Even if the conference provides no repository, the authors can probably give you more information. Don't be hesitant about asking.


When does one go for a double doctorate?

Generally you cannot get two PhDs in the same field. One could get a second PhD in a second field.

People who want to do research in multiple fields or in a multidisciplinary topic or wish to change fields may obtain multiple PhDs. Alternatively, as you suggest, people who want to remain students forever do that.

The main downside of doing multiple PhDs is that people may not see that you are moving on with your career. There is a career after getting your PhD, and obtaining a PhD is a small step along that career path. Hovering around getting multiple PhDs would be akin to getting multiple bachelor degrees. People may see you as a permanent student, not someone growing into a mature researcher.


Typical assistant vs. associate professor startup packages

Your explicit question

Your question is about the statistics of startup offers to Associate versus Assistant Professors. I don't know if there's a resource that's able to answer that in detail, in general, across universities. The only Associate Professor startup package that I know of was indeed lower than most Assistant Professor packages, but I'm not in computer science, this Associate was bringing their own grant money, and N=1!

Your implicit question

However, it sounds like you're trying to use this data to make inferences about whether or not the university is giving you a "weak offer", and to use that information to set your negotiating strategy.

Don't.

This is a bad idea, for a couple of reasons.

A "weak offer" is not interpretable.

Let's say the university is making you a weak offer. Normally they'd offer $X, but for you, they're offering $2/3X. Uh oh! What does this mean?

They're not really all that excited about you. Sure, they'll hire you, but you were the best of a bad bunch. Not worth throwing money at.
These are hard financial times. The new budget is much tighter than previous years, and there are hard limits on what they can afford.
They don't understand your needs. Of course their previous hire, the robotics specialist, needed a lot of startup. But you, you work on computability theory, all you need is a pencil and a notebook, no problem!
It is a lowball offer, but it's flexible if you negotiate hard. The other hires were given similar offers, but negotiated hard and raised it fine.
Any combination of the above.

So, even if you did have an answer to your initial question, then you are left with even more questions.

Your startup needs are independent

Your startup needs are not dictated by what other people have been offered. Whether or not you need item X or software Y to succeed in this position cannot be determined by comparing your number to other people's numbers. This is a common problem in startup considerations, where the thinking is backwards.

Start with what you will need (and be generous, it's always good to have a little wiggle room). Come up with a budget to calculate what you would need to succeed, obtain grants, and really flourish. Share that itemized budget with your university contact. If the number is way off the number they are offering you, reflect on what is needed and what is flexible, and reflect on what is your best alternative to a negotiated agreement. That is, are you able to say "no" to them and walk away? Do you have other options? Can you maybe get away with using some cheaper equipment? Can you be creative with the startup, for example having it spread over several years (that way the capital outlay for the university is lower)? There are lots of options. Remember, the university has made you an offer because they want you. It is in their interests for you to succeed at your job and to flourish, so it is in their interests to ensure that you receive an adequate startup package.

Good luck!


How to convince a journal editor that my paper is not a duplicate?

Just enumerate in which ways the two papers actually differ. As you already do in your question above: they differ in (i) contents, (ii) purposes, (iii) data sets.

The reviewer may of course still think that these differences are not large enough to warrant a second paper. In that case, you need to reconsider whether you actually think that the second paper can stand alone. But your first step is articulating how you think the two papers are different.


Does obtaining citizenship somewhere help in applying for a faculty position there?

In general, employers in the US are allowed to discriminate between applicants who are already eligible to work in the US (by virtue of citizenship, permanent residency or some special immigration status) and applicants who are not currently eligible to work in the US (who would have to be sponsored for an employment based visa.)  It is not permissible to discriminate between applicants who are US citizens and those that are simply permanent residents or otherwise have work authorization.

Sponsoring an applicant for an H-1B or other visa can be very time consuming and costly.  Furthermore, approval of such a visa application (and even more so for a green-card application) requires the employer to argue that no qualified citizen or permanent resident applicants were available.  There are potentially substantial penalties for not following these rules.

If you're already eligible to work in the US, and you are otherwise well qualified for the position, then you probably will be more likely to get an interview than someone equally well qualified who does not have this status.

From my experience of running search committees for a math department, I can tell you that (1) The widely used AMS application form includes a check box for applicants to indicate their status and (2) interviewing qualified applicants who are eligible to work in the US is an important consideration and (3) the vast majority (95+%) of our applicants would require visa sponsorship.


Why do textbooks often include the solutions to odd or even numbered problems but not both?

This allowance is a custom to allow instructors to give homework where the solutions to some questions were not provided directly to the student (at least not in the book - this was from a time where searching for solutions to homework was not so easy outside of personal social connections).

If an instructor just wants students to work on problems where the students can easily refer to sample solutions at the back of the book, the instructor can just assign "problems 1-7, odds only". If they want to assign only no-solution problems, they can assign "evens only". If they want to give a mixture to try to encourage students to mix up their solving strategies, they can assign both. To go farther, putting them at the back of the book was another way to try to make it take a little more effort to look for the solution, to encourage the students to try to solve it themselves rather than immediately looking at the solution.

Finally, it is a custom that the problems tend to go from easier to harder, with some texts making the highest numbered questions of a chapter require more knowledge or skills than is actually provided in the accompanying chapter.

As you can imagine, this isn't the only system of designing a textbook that would support these uses, but it just became a very popular and simple way to do it - so you can generally expect to see it in many of the textbooks you'll encounter.


Moving to Europe and seeking research assistant work after undergrad / masters - best approaches?

From my experience, EU citizen and familiar with Australian degree system, you will have a hard time getting into a PhD program. The honors bachelor cannot be considered at the same level of the Masters degree. Regarding employment in a lab in Europe your first hurdle would be getting a working permit. This might be hard unless you already have someone who can sponsor you. I think you are better off trying to find some field technician or volunteer position to collaborate with some of the labs and then perhaps start networking from there.
Otherwise you could try and move to Germany with the tourist visa for 3/6 months and start network that way. However German professors seem quite reachable by e-mail, I would start contacting some of them for which you have an interest in their research and see what they suggest.


Is there a standard of professionalism in academia requiring me to hide self-harm scars if I'm otherwise comfortable leaving them exposed?

You should do what you are comfortable with. If you want to keep them hidden, that is fine. If you want to sometimes wear clothes that reveal them, go ahead, assuming the clothes are otherwise appropriate. Your colleagues will probably not care, and if they do, they need to - and will - get over it.

I would caution that letting students know your history could be problematic, in that it could increase the likelihood that they come to you about personal issues. No matter how supportive you are, no one wants more students dropping by to talk about personal problems.


Should one provide a reference list and a bibliography in an academic paper?

Typically, academic papers have traditionally provided the lists of works referenced, rather than bibliographies. Primarily, this is a matter of space, as well as recognizing work that has actually been used. Otherwise, it's too easy to include a bunch of random entries that have nothing to do with the paper in question. (It's still possible to do so in a works cited list, but you at least have to make the effort to work it into the paper somehow.)

In general, you should only include both lists if the journal in question allows such behavior. If you are publishing the paper in a venue that does not have such requirements, then you are of course free to include both lists if you choose. (Although I would not repeat the references list in the bibliography list, again to save space.)


Taking higher level theoretical mathematics vs taking less math and more courses in application areas?

I think that at this stage in your career, you should set yourself the goal of reaching some sort of mathematical maturity

  ... fearlessness in the face of symbols: the ability to read and
  understand notation, to introduce clear and useful notation when
  appropriate (and not otherwise!), and a general facility of expression
  in the terse—but crisp and exact—language that mathematicians use to
  communicate ideas.

Courses like abstract algebra, algebraic topology, differential geometry and e.g. combinatorics will give you a combination of breadth and depth that will make it much easier to quickly master any applied field that you will choose in grad school.

In my experience (PhD in string theory, currently applied economist), mastering the really advanced math courses should be done as soon as possible, when you have all the time and energy to immerse yourself. It's also my experience that it is rather straightforward to apply abstract patterns when you already know them, but the reverse (the emergence of abstractions from concrete applications) is much, much harder.

Of course, by all means mix and match your fundamental math courses with a small selection of interesting applied courses. There's no sense in not enjoying yourself.


How to acknowledge a colleague's authorship of text in a syllabus

This sort of practice is quite common, and documents of this type are often treated as the "community property" of a department.  This is a lot like authorship on a community wiki, where there is no expectation that the document is the original work of any author and there is the expectation that further authors may freely modify and contribute more text.  It is therefore not plagiarism to use your colleagues notes as a base, any more than it is plagiarism to contribute to a Wikipedia article.

Often, these documents have no copyright or authorship markings, and are simply handled by custom and tradition.  If you want to make the collective agreement more explicit and remove any doubt for those that come after you, then you should probably select a creative commons license (like CC0 or CC-BY) and put a small marking to that effect in the header or footer of the document.  If you choose to formalize it in this way, however, you should explicitly get your colleague's consent as well, because you are moving the document beyond the informal method of relationship-based exchange in which it was given to you.


I doubt that you will find many restrictions. It is fairly typical in many fields for students to spend a few years studying and paying for it as a TA. It is, normally, a job-like position, not a grant.

There may be some places that put a limit on it, but I doubt you would find anywhere that it was as little as two semesters. As long as you do a good job, of course, and keep up with your studies.

On the other hand, admission to a doctoral program doesn't automatically imply that you have a TA position. I is a separate transaction. But once you have the position, and perform well, it can continue.


Do editors allow authors to respond to reviewers when a paper has been essentailly rejected?

The most likely scenario is that the authors can respond to the editor, and the editor will decide (at their discretion) whether or not to pass back the message to the referees.

After all, there are valid reasons to message the referees afterwards (for example if the main argument for rejection is based on a misunderstanding). For a simple thank you, it will depend on the editor's preference, but it definitely doesn't hurt to try.


Is it ethical to profit by having my students buy my textbook?

This comes down to potentially conflicting principles.  Academic freedom requires that professors should be able to choose the most appropriate references for their courses, and of course the professor's own book will often be a perfect fit for the course that inspired it.  On the other hand, it's important to avoid even the appearance of assigning one's own book in order to make a profit: that would be offensive at any university, and often illegal at public universities (violating conflict of interest laws for government employees).  The American Association of University Professors statement on this subject elaborates on both of these issues, but doesn't find a good way of resolving the tension.

University policies are often more specific.  In many cases assigning one's own book either requires administrative permission or giving any royalties earned to the university.  See, for example, this report for a survey of the policies at eighteen public universities in the U.S.  My impression is that private universities are more likely to be flexible about this issue, but that's not based on a lot of data.

In practice, I doubt anyone cares very much unless the textbook is particularly expensive or the class is large, but in those cases I would strongly recommend donating the royalties to the department even if it is not required.  After all, you're then no worse off than you would have been if you had assigned someone else's book.  If you're not willing to do this, then it suggests that the royalties are attractive after all and may have played some role in the choice of text.

One special case is when you have self-published the book (or own the publishing company).  That looks terrible, because there you have full control over pricing and may be earning far more than typical royalties.  This is one of the few cases where I believe a strict rule is appropriate: if you are legally authorized to offer free or at-cost copies of your book to your students, then you should do so.  Anything less is clearly taking advantage of your students.


Why does the APA style call it 'the footnotes page' even though the notes are not placed at the bottom of pages?

The APA publication manual describes the way you should submit your manuscript, not the way the paper will ultimately be typeset. For APA journals, footnotes are grouped at the end in the manuscript but they appear at the bottom of the relevant page (actually at the bottom of the right column) in the final published version. Similarly, you would traditionally put tables and figures at the end of your manuscript, one-by-one on separate pages but once published in a journal, figures and tables will be embedded in the article.

If you are working on a student paper, you should first and foremost follow the instructions from your instructor but there is no reason to put footnotes at the end of the document. The APA publication manual provides useful guidance regarding language or statistical reporting but it's not a typography textbook. In fact, some publishers ask authors to follow (some) APA guidelines for the submission even if the final publication will have a different layout than APA journals.


Is it appropriate to ask a prospective PhD advisor whether working for them would be good for my career?

Could asking that question upset the advisor...

You have a legitimate concern. If advisor 2 is angry that you brought up a legitimate, important concern, you're probably better off working with advisor 1.

  ...and negatively influence my chances for later becoming a postdoc in their group?

It is far too early to start worrying about specific post-doc options.


Lecturer in Australia - response to selection criteria

It depends on the nature of the selection criteria. A criterion like

  PhD from an accredited institution

requires only a paragraph, but

  Research agenda with high probability of publications in leading journals

may require a whole section.

You see a similar thing with NSF research proposals; one question is (paraphrasing)

  "what is the grant number of your most recent support"

and another is

  "describe the research to be undertaken".


Are studies centered around one's own students regarded as publish-worthy scholarship within educational research?

Within educational research, is it regarded as acceptable practice to publish research which is only conducted on such conveniently available groups?

Sadly, yes. In fact, some of the most noted and most often quoted work on the psychology of learning was conducted by Jean Piaget on his own children.

However, there is a benefit to conducting such small studies of the type you describe. In the type of study you describe, where an instructor teaches two sections of the same course at the same institution to the same body of students that are otherwise identical except for whatever change in pedagogy the instructor desires, many confounding variables are inherently accounted for. Principal among these are the "instructor effect" and the "student-to-teacher ratio". Additionally, two sections at the same institution should be influenced similarly by demographic, socioeconomic, and academic effects on the student population.


Registering systematic review in Prospero

First of all, If you don't think it's mandatory, and you don't want to do it, just say it's intentionnal.

Since, as you said in comments, this database is apparently used when you plan to undertake a SR, it would have no value for you to register in it, since you are already in SR.

But you may ask the reviewer why he got the urge for saying that , and if he thinks it would be interesting for you to register on it anyway.


Would you discourage your undergrad from taking a year off to work on a self-devised project?

When I was an undergraduate, students in my peer group undertook serious summer research projects (up to 4 months), and worked on research part time during the year in their 3rd year, perhaps equivalent to the load of one or two courses. This seems about right, as all of coursework, graduating in a timely fashion, and research experience are important for grad school-bound students.

If the student wants to disrupt coursework for a project, it is absolutely your responsibility as an advisor to dissuade the student if you think the project will fail. You would do the same to a Ph.D. student about to delay his or her program for exactly the same reason.

If the student had a very compelling project, this would be a tougher call, and you might have to have a more complex discussion with the student about the risks and possible upshot. There's a real if not overglorified trend of students ditching college halfway through to become Silicon Valley rockstars, without their degree to prove themselves. The student might have something like this in mind, and your viewpoint based on years of experience seeing where undergrad careers go is probably useful.


(My personal take on this matter - which is only based on intuition/opinion rather than experience):

When you're about to publish such a paper, ask yourself: "How certain am I that the deceased would have put their name on the paper?"

If the answer is "certain", go ahead and name them a co-author. But - explain that the attribution is posthumous, both in a footnote from the person's name (the same kind of footnote used for affiliation) and in one of the opening lines (perhaps a note as the first line.)
If the answer is "not certain", but the deceased's contribution was significant, don't make them a coauthor, but devote a few sentences to emphasize the significance of their contribution or their involvement, and clarify that the work had progressed or diverged beyond what you had worked on with the deceased (or some such explanation).
If the answer is "would probably not", and the deceased's contribution was not significant enough for co-authorship, then you just mention them in a thank-you note somewhere in the paper, same as if they were alive.

As for "preventing dishonesty" - if you're an editor or non-blind reviewer, and notice the name of a deceased person on a paper, without an explanation of the deceased's contribution within the paper - reach out and ask the corresponding author for a side-note (outside the paper) explaining the deceased's involvement with the submitted work.


Unclear terms: Statement of Purpose, Academic Statement and Personal Statement

Your application is a chance for you to sell yourself, and prove to the admissions committee that they should give you money to do research.  Your personal statement should address your "background, practical experience, special interests, and career goals," but only in ways that prove you are a good researcher.

You shouldn't waste space talking about your childhood dreams, because usually those say nothing about your research potential.  Instead you should highlight parts of your personal history that would make someone want to hire you for their lab.


Will you be expelled if you commit a crime as a student in the UK?

I am aware of no University that automatically does anything. That said, most Universities, have policies in place to protect their reputation. At Cambridge, both Christ's College and Griton College have almost identical policies which makes me think there is an underlying university policy that I cannot easily find. To quote Griton's policy:

  Additionally, the University has a number of sanctions for behaviour impinging on the image of the University, while the most serious breaches, including all criminal behaviour, will be referred to the local police.

Basically, Universities should be reporting any criminal activity to the local authorities. They also have the right to follow their own policies, of which expulsion is a possibility. Universities like to protect their images (e.g., the recent sex offence scandals in the US). So what the University will do may depend on if the victim of the crime was another student and how vocal the sides are.


May copying a particular statement be considered as a plagiarism?

Suppose, I have mentioned a standard definition of a mathematical term, exactly copied from a textbook, in my research article. May it be considered as a plagarism?

If the term is really standard, no plagiarism has been committed. But cite the source you got the definition from. Even such a standard term as the set of natural numbers can be introduced differently: either including zero or not. There are also notational reasons: as an extreme example, there are researchers in the wild who don't associate ℕ₀ with the former and ℕ₊ with the latter (or at least, they say they cannot parse these symbols and reject your paper on these grounds).

  Similarly, I use an earlier proved theorem in my article. I mentioned its statement exactly as it is stated in the original article along with its proper reference. May it be considered as a plagarism?

The same applies here. If the theorem is really standard, no plagiarism has been committed. Again, cite the source. Some theorems have subtleties (the zero, the empty set, up to isomorphism, etc.) which you understand only when you dig deep into the cited paper.


What's the equivalent of this degree in Europe and USA?

The University of Cambridge's International Qualifications page recognizes a "Licenciado with an overall grade of between 8 and 9 out of 10" as "At least a 2i honours degree from a UK university or an equivalent standard from an overseas university", but also says that it's equivalent to a Singaporean Master's degree. I'd guess that most universities would consider it definitely equivalent to a Bachelors and probably also a Masters degree.


Referee recommends paper rejection with no further comment - how to react?

Submit somewhere else.

The accept/reject decision is made by the editor, based on the recommendations of the referee(s).  In this case, the editor felt that the referee's opinion of unsuitability, even without any explanation, was sufficient to reject.  Maybe the editor felt that the unsuitability was self-evident upon inspection.  Maybe the editor trusts the referee's judgment so implicitly that they didn't feel the need to ask for any explanation.  Maybe there were other referee reports that the editor decided not to share with you.  We don't really know.  But in any case, whether this decision was made well or poorly, I don't think there is anything you could say that would be likely to change the editor's mind.

You could of course decide not to submit to that journal any more, and you could share your experience with colleagues.  You could also try to have your paper looked at informally by colleagues in the field, to see if it has severe flaws that you haven't noticed.  You could even complain to the editor-in-chief that you don't think the editor is giving due consideration to the papers they handle (though this if the editor-in-chief agrees that the paper is self-evidently unsuitable, this will only annoy them).

But don't try to pursue publishing this paper in this journal - it's a waste of time.


Whether to avoid collaborating with an academic because it would prevent them from being a reviewer on your post-doctoral research fellow application

To succeed in a competitive funding application such as this one, you will need to convince not only people who work in your field, but also those working in more distant areas. Therefore, relying on impressing a single professor who knows your work well is not sufficient. As @Roland comments, you are far better off improving the quality of your proposal through collaboration.