What are the upsides for British science from Brexit?

There are no upsides for British science from Brexit.

This is a corollary of the almost certain fact that there are no upsides for British society from Brexit.

Science funding has never been a priority of the current government and I hardly expect that situation to change once we leave with no deal. In truth, we are cutting off access to collaborations (e.g. ESA) that we can never hope to compete with as a single, tiny nation with a floundering economy.

To understand, then, why in spite of this 12% of UK researchers still voted to Leave, you have to realise that when the referendum was held, a large number of people in the country used their vote as a protest-- against the establishment, against immigration and against the perceived power of the EU parliament over our own.

People were generally misled by self-serving politicians that societal benefits would occur once we left the EU-- more control over our laws for instance, forgetting that we elect MEPs to the European parliament so have just as much say in EU law as our own. They perhaps believed that there would be more money for the NHS, even though the reason the NHS is underfunded is not due to the EU but due to the same Conservative government that has been in power for the last eight years.

I am certain that not even the politicians gunning for Leave actually thought the benefits they claimed would ever happen-- they simply picked the side they thought would gain them votes, and for many Conservative MPs with very right wing, anti-immigration constituencies this was Leave.

For the reasons I have outlined above (and doubtless many more), a person may have decided to vote to leave. The vote was a very personal decision for a lot of people and as Thomas says, scientists are people too. The 12% that you quote likely voted to leave based on non--scientific issues, just as I voted to remain based on non--scientific issues, namely that I believe that a diverse and multicultural society is better and more productive for everyone, I am averse to hatred and xenophobia and I like going on holiday to other EU countries without needing a visa.

If our politicians were capable of thinking about something other than their own ratings in the polls, they might have been able to negotiate a sensible leaving deal, with every eventuality considered and taken care of. In that case, I would be less worried about the effects of leaving on British science.

However, we are now faced with the prospect of a no-deal Brexit. The government is trying to hide the fact that it is stockpiling food and mobilising the army to prepare for the worst (presumably they are afraid of rioting and looting).

People's wilful ignorance of the wholly negative effects of Brexit will be sorely tested when food rots in the fields with no EU workers to harvest it, when a black market begins for "luxuries" like cheese and chocolate, and when their relatives die in hospital because their medicine is on the other side of the border.

Society will suffer. Science will suffer.

I am aware that this is an emotive and partisan answer, but Brexit is a very emotional subject for most British people. I am still living in hope that one day soon we will have a general election, form a sensible government and call the whole thing off.


Publishing policies - copyright transfer

You can publish the preprint online, e.g. on arXiv, RG, or your university preprint server.

If your paper is accepted in the journal, you probably will be asked to transfer the copyright to the journal. The copyright applies to the accepted version of the paper, i.e. after reviewers' suggestions are implemented, the paper is proofread, copy-edited and typeset in journal style. According to SHERPA/RoMEO, you can upload a post-print version to your own website immediately, and any other website 12 months after the acceptance.

If your paper is not accepted by the journal, you are free to make it available anywhere on the web.


University asks not to promote other university's research

The only reason why you should not promote another university's research should lie in science itself.

(fell free to add more examples!)

Acceptable reasons:

Severe scientific misconduct by the other university (made up data)
Their results are too weak and do not support their conclusions
Their research is done incorrectly (bad methods, etc.)
...

Not acceptable:

Your professor does not like their professor
They got their project funded but you did not
They are more advanced on the topic than you
...


How do I become motivated after unfairness in research?

In both of the experiences you describe, you were not treated fairly.  I think it's really healthy to be disappointed at unfair treatment: for one thing, this kind of disappointment is a key component in learning to treat others fairly; for another, indifference to being treated poorly could be dangerous just as absence of pain on being burned could be dangerous.

It is however good to cultivate a sense of perspective on such matters.  When unfair treatment has serious, lasting negative consequences, you should fight back.  When it's a passing thing, sometimes it is better to take just one quick shot at rectifying the situation, and sometimes it is better just to let it go.  Let me ask you this: What are the specific negative consequences of what happened to you?  Are they durable?  Will they affect your future?

With regard to the first case: I am a tenured full professor, and I have never had my academic research formally judged and graded at a conference.  So I honestly don't know what you lost out on by being judged poorly.  Maybe some words of praise, a line on your CV, and/or a small cash prize?  These are not serious losses.  The experience seems to have hurt your morale.  I understand that, but I think you can easily shake it off with the right perspective.  Two people evaluated your research.  One person gave you an excellent evaluation, and one person gave you a poor evaluation.  Already that's not so bad.  But wait, it gets much better: the person who evaluated your work poorly had you confused with someone else.  So actually no one really thought your work was poor.  Isn't that great?
The second situation is similar in that in fact you are only receiving positive feedback.  If going to a conference in Pittsburgh is praiseworthy and you went to the conference, then the praise actually applies to you.  The person who gave the praise may not know that, but you know it, and that's much more important.  By the way, when a student award is for something subjective like "good research" rather than being best with respect to an explicit metric, awards are very often given to graduating students rather than non-graduating students.  If an award was given to a graduating student in your research group and you feel more accomplished already than that student, you have quite a good shot at getting the award yourself when you graduate.

There is a general theme here: successful academics are largely self-motivated.  And for most academics, the greatest reward and job perk is the satisfaction they derive from their own understanding and achievements, both at any given time and the experience of being on a steady upward trajectory of mastery and accomplishments.  (I am reminded of my college's alma mater: Let knowledge grow from more to more; and so be human life enriched.)  Praise and rewards are not insignificant -- among other things, they are key checks on our own self-evaluation -- but they ought to be less significant than your internal sense of your own academic trajectory.  If you actually love research -- and it sounds like you do -- then that is your reward right there.  I'm not saying you should ignore the rest, but as above you can try to put it in perspective.

To address your questions:

  Is this kind of thing common in academia?

The specific nature of the bumbling you describe is not necessarily so common (though bumbling of one kind or another is hardly rare).  But being underappreciated largely by mistake or inattention is rather common, I'm afraid.  Every academic I know can spin a wrenching yarn about excellent work which was treated rather shabbily by others.

  More importantly, how do I feel confident and motivated again in research when I feel really unsupported?

That's a very personal question, but I have given some part of what I hope is a helpful answer.  Namely, you have to do you.  Being unsupported through what you can clearly and rationally perceive are the faults of others rather than your own should not discourage you from continuing in academia.  It may mean that there is a better place for you, but good news -- repeated changes of location which bring new mentors, collaborators and subsidiaries are a key feature of academia.  As I mentioned, in each of your stories above there is clear positive feedback on your work and no clear negative feedback -- so I see absolutely no reason for you to lose confidence in yourself and in your own work.

The point of being in an "honors college" is not accumulating honors, by the way.  (To be frank, the terminology is really pretty silly, and even somewhat off-putting.)  Rather it is about being given extra opportunities and being guided towards more rapid mastery: to say it slightly mathematically, it is about increasing the slope of your academic trajectory.  Giving a student an award for going to a conference is also a bit silly, like giving a child an award for bringing home a good book from the library: yes, there was some praiseworthy behavior involved, but the important part is the opportunity, not the praise for receiving it, and whether the opportunity was used well and/or turns out to be significant is for the person who received the opportunity to judge, not the person who gave the praise.  Would you rather have the praise and not the book or the book and not the praise?  Clearly the book is preferable...if you actually want to read it.  Similarly, I hope you will see that by going to the conference and not getting the praise, you were supported more (in this one instance, anyway) than your colleague who was lavishly praised for a conference that she didn't attend!  Ask yourself whether you enjoyed the conference.  If you did, there's your motivation.


Soliciting pre-submission manuscript comments from people who could later be peer reviewers

I see no problem with refereeing a paper after I've commented on it to the author. I would tell the author what (if anything) I think would improve the paper, and I would tell the editor whether I think it's appropriate for the particular journal and if so then what (if anything) would improve the paper.  There have been cases where an editor asked me to referee a paper and wrote, in his cover message, that he knew (because of acknowledgements) that I'd already read the paper, so it should be easy for me to referee.


One way to resolve this would be that your advisor refused to review the manuscript and suggests you as a possible reviewer. Then the editor can decide what to do. Do not overthink why your advisor was chosen first. He has been around for a longer time and is therefore more known to editors.

I would prefer this procedure to a simple 'yes' to the request  (which would be the easy and probably common approach) because it makes contributions transparent. You made a good start with making yourself the corresponding author of your own paper, so it would be consistent if you sticked to this path.

Addition after comment: The answer above makes most sense if you already know how to handle a paper review resulting in a high quality report. Should you require some general support on this, asking your advisor to do the review together and communicate this accordingly to the editor is a possible and viable alternative.


In PhD admissions, if a correspondence is opened with a prospective student, is it common for a professor to just stop replying?

As a faculty member, I try to respond to all prospective students but many times the questions are too vague, tautological, or impossible to answer:

Will I get in? Impossible to answer.
Will you work with me if I get in?
Tautological. If you are in my field of study and you get in, it's likely because I want to work with you. But I don't want to say yes because that may be misread as saying that we will accept you.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of your program? Not easily answerable, self-serving if I deem my own area strong and likely to insult faculty in the areas I deemed week.
Tell me more about your research. Too open ended. My CV is online.

I don't mean to sound harsh but questions that can be easily answered are the most likely to get responses.

Faculty do welcome e-mails from prospective students, especially those in our fields. When you get 150+ applications, it might be easy to miss someone in your specific area, so a personal message saying that you are applying is always welcome (especially early in the semester --- Sept or Oct -- before things get crazy).  Questions that aren't answerable on our website are also welcome (for example, not all department websites list which students are associated with which faculty; asking about our team members in those cases is welcome).

If you pique our interest (and we have the time), we may ask for further info from you -- for example, a paper you wrote or other writing sample. While I try to send a simple "thanks" ack message to these responses, I may be asking for something in November that I won't look at seriously until February with the other application material. So don't take the lack or brevity of acknowledgement to mean anything significant.

Note that we may not want to send an e-mail prematurely closing down discussion as we may feel that this is rude to an applicant who may have more questions. So we are in essentially a typical asynchronous communication hang condition.

That being said, I do often wish that I could respond in http status codes:

100 continue
200 ok
303 see other
307 temporary redirect
402 payment required
404 resource not found
406 not acceptable
412 precondition failed
417 expectation failed
503 service unavailable


What is FLA in the Elsevier manuscript submission checklist?

In Elsevier nomenclature, FLA is an "article doc subtype" acronym for "Full length article". Other article type acronyms include BRV for book reviews, NWS for news, PGL for practice guideline, and so on.

The checklist requires you to have a section labelled "Introduction" for a full length article. For other article types, this is not required.

I hope this helps.


Using first name only for university email alias

You’re overthinking this issue. Nobody cares. Enjoy your cool email, and have fun in grad school.


Is GRE scores required before contacting potential advisors?

You can contact anyone, I think. But you need to give them a reason to reply back and to consider you. I doubt that many would care, initially, about your GRE, but might want to know how you've done in relevant coursework or other research. I don't think I'd ever care about the GRE specifically, though my university might. The GRE is about your general level of knowledge, not your research potential.

But, don't send out mass emails to people along with your CV. You will be ignored. Make sure you have some knowledge of their interests and that you can speak to how your background and interests fit with theirs.


Dean will not tell me what upcoming meeting is about. What do I do?

Go talk to the Dean prior to the meeting, and resist the urge to "reply all" to any mail that might be even remotely contentious.  Email and text messages are good for exchanging facts, such as the time of the meeting.  They are much less good for dealing with disagreement or even potential disagreement.


How will my second PhD application be perceived, after abandoning the first?

Although such a decision depends usually on personal factors, here are some points on the subject:

I think it depends of what you want to do afterwards. PhD inside companies are usually intended for people who have an interest in finding a job in the R&D department of that company or a competing one. (It's also a great way for companies to hire highly educated people for a fraction of the usual salary, but that is out of the topic).

If this is the case, I would recommend trying to salvage the project, maybe by negotiating a contract extension, adding another aspect (analysis of the data, modeling?) while you wait for the new prototype, etc. As a PhD student it is normally not your job to secure funding, your advisor should be the one concerned about that now.

If your goal is to work in academic research I would recommend switching to another PhD program (preferably in a university). It wouldn't necessary mean starting from scratch, it might be that the work you already did can be used for another application.

  new prospective groups will understand my situation and give me new
  chance or my application is going to be rejected

I think that your previous experience will be an advantage when applying to a new position, especially as it is clear that its interruption had nothing to do with your performance. I think the perception is going to be fine, experience is always appreciated.


Postdoc: internal v. external candidates. Can I expect a fair process?

Nothing in life is certain, of course. Different places have different rules and different levels of actual adherence to the rules. Your concern that they may prefer a known quantity may well be balanced by their desire to bring in a fresh face. Different members of the search committee might have different preferences if they have any at all.

But it sounds from what you write that you are likely in a fair process even if that isn't a universal phenomenon.

But, in the end, they will choose the person who they feel is best for the position, based on whatever formal and informal criteria they have. You have no actual influence over that.

I'd suggest that you take a deep breath and also have a backup.


Cite in two different ways in same paper?

You should stick to one citation style in one document. But mentioning author names or publication dates in the text while using a numbered citation style is no problem:

  It was first shown by Heston in 1949 that the model is complete [4]. An easier proof can be found in [5].


Is an instructor position a possibility to pursue research (semi-)seriously?

I will not be able to provide a full answer, but here are some assorted thoughts:

  First: I am being told by the recruiting committee of position 1, that people recruited in this position have found it easy to continue working on research part time. Yet this could be to convince me to take the job.

I am sure this depends, but I would certainly not take the committee's word on that. Instead, I would talk to other instructors informally. To be honest, if the summer is the only time where you could do research (as in, during the term you have no time at all), I would assume that you will be out of the research game entirely before long. Further, if you are not evaluated by your research outcomes, it may be hard to keep up the motivation to do any research and not focus solely on teaching.

  Second: I cannot either determine if this type of position - by contract - is meant to be long term or not.

It sounds like it's supposed to be long-term by default, but keeping the window open to get rid of you should you (a) underperform or (b) your expertise not be needed anymore short-term.

  this position [the assistant professorship] comes with the same teaching load but also the expectation of research.

Something seems off here. If the first post allows for research only during the summer, and the second post requires research and teaching, with teaching load being as high as in the other post, when would you do the research?

My experience is that it is very hard to estimate in advance what teaching load one really will have at a new place. Number of courses, number of students, etc. are all relative coarse-grained instruments, as it is entirely unclear how much work teaching X courses per year will actually be. I tend to look at what the committee expects you to do in addition to teaching, as this will be based on what other people in your post manage to do. If they expect you to do teaching and research in the second post, I would assume that the actual teaching load will be measurably less than in the first post, where they seem to assume that you have time to research "during summer".

  This type of position is known to be strenuous and I have rarely met individuals holding this position that seemed happy (it comes with the usual tiresome academic hassles).

Yes, assistant professorships tend to be hasslesome, because you have to juggle a lot of balls. However, if you plan to take the instructor position and do serious research on the side, you will have the same problem (maybe worse).

  The only silver-lining - and at this point I am not sure I consider it a silver-lining - is that this position comes with lifelong job security.

It is a silver lining. Lifelong job security does not mean you are chained there and can never leave. Even if it is not your dream job (which it clearly isn't), you can stay there until you are able to secure a better position, and then move on. Having an unbounded contract can almost by definition not be a bad thing.

  the pay is less than half

This is clearly an important argument, but do take costs of living into account. Typically, the places that pay very well are also very costly to live in (I work in Switzerland, I know what I am talking about here - I would not have deemed possible how much more expensive living here is than in my home country).

  Both positions are in top 10 universities in their respective countries.

But how are they in relation? Being Top 10 in Austria says next to nothing (we have less than 10 actual research universities in total). Being Top 10 in the US is pretty cool...

  Finally, for full disclosure, I should mention, to be fair, that position 2 is in a city that has a significant richer cultural life.

I consider this a very important factor, but judging whether the same is true for you is an entirely personal thing, which we cannot help you with.


Adviser wants to be joint first author, even though I did most of the research

You write:

  The only "effort" my adviser does is writing the actual paper

Well, in many fields, that would make them sole author. It certainly gives them a very strong claim to be first author, in fields where authorship is determined by contribution to the paper.

If you want to be first author, then write the paper yourself.

And if you can't, then don't expect first authorship, and be grateful for co-authorship (rather than an acknowledgement).

You've now added that you have done a bit of the writing, but your adviser has done most of it. So yes, they would, in many fields, still get first authorship, and you would get a co-authorship on that basis, assuming what you've written is a non-trivial proportion of the whole.


Why do some MOOCs close their enrollment?

Lacking individual interaction between instructor and student, MOOCs often have a policy that this kind of feedback is replaced by interactions with the "community" of other students on web forums. So my sense is that closing enrollments from time to time recreates traditional semesters, that is, batches up students into similar cohorts in time -- and then hopefully this serves to create a "critical mass" of respondents on the forums, who are all working through like material at about the same time, and more likely to respond to each other's questions and concerns in a coherent fashion.


Deadline For PhD offer while waiting for other results

There are generally two things you can do - and you can and should do both at once.

1) Try to extend the deadline. Contact the people who've offered you the position and ask for extra time. They aren't going to give you an infinite amount of time, but ask for ideally how long you'd like - say, an extra two weeks? - with the expectation that they might be willing to give you less time than that. They might say, "Sorry, we can't extend the deadline" or "we can only extend the deadline X days" - but hey, that little bit of extra time could be very important! If you are polite it can't really endanger your offer at any place you'd want to dare attend, and they could always say yes. Just be 'reasonable' in your request - asking for an extension until days before the academic year starts won't be granted and might encourage them to give you no extension at all.

2) Contact the programs you haven't heard from and let them know you've received other offers, and that you'd really like to still consider their program - but you are on a deadline. Inquire if you'll be able to get an answer from them before your deadline. Everyone in the process understand that candidates who get in anywhere often get multiple offers, and deadlines don't always sync up. If you've had contact with a prospective adviser at the institution, consider CC'ing them as well (on the chance that they have already made a decision but the institution is being slow).

There's not really anything to lose if you act professionally, and potentially a great deal to gain. You could get an extension, you could get an early response from other programs, you could find out responses were sent but did not reach you - or worst case scenario you end up in exactly the same position as you are in right now.


Visited website on different dates - apa style

From the link you provided I don't think you need to include the retrieval date for the following reasons.
The blog post you link has a publication date.
A blog post in the APA Blog states the following about website dates.

Determining Website Dates
A second source of confusion is that many websites or webpages do not include publication dates. If no date of publication is provided, use the letters n.d. (which stand for “no date”). The copyright date on the website itself should not be used as the publication date for particular content on that site.
If multiple dates are provided, use the most recent date on which the content was changed. For example, if the site says the content was first published in 2010 and last updated on August 6, 2016, then use the date 2016 in the in-text citation and reference list. However, if the site says it was first published in 2010 and last reviewed in July 2016, then use the date 2010 because a review does not imply that any information was changed.

The following 2 guides also indicate to use a retrieval date if info on page is likely to change over time.
From APA Style Website

When a DOI is not available, and a URL is included, do not include retrieval dates unless the source material may change over time (e.g., wikis).

From APA 6th Edition - University of Lincoln guide

When citing sources that you find on the Internet you only need to include a retrieval date if the information you viewed is likely to change over time.  If you reference an article from a wiki, for example, you would want to include a retrieval date because information in a wiki can be subject to a lot of change.


How do the "proposed research" essays of those who win NSF Fellowships compare with those who don't win NSF Fellowships?

As someone who reviews graduate applications, both for admissions and for fellowships, I can say that the number of strong applications is really large, and now in many cases is almost certainly larger than the number of fellowships being awarded in most of these competitions. The unfortunate side effect of this, which is obvious here, is that in most cases, you could have an application that is "strong enough" to merit receiving the fellowship, but not get it. Unfortunately, you don't get to do multiple stochastic realizations; you have to deal with the events the one time they unfold.

That said, how do you impress the reviewer? By having a clear sense of what your project is, and being able to talk about coherently and convincingly. The reviewers are looking for good ideas and good people to fund. You need to convince them that you're going to be a good researcher, and you have a good idea to "sell." If you don't think your research is all that amazing, how are you going to convince somebody else about that?


Including unrelated (but current) job on CV for PhD application?

You've included a piece of information on your CV that's essentially irrelevant for the position you're applying for, and that's how it will be viewed.  Most people on admissions committees won't care, assuming your application indicates a high level of motivation for a PhD.  So don't worry about it.

That said, some people will probably want to know why you'll have a 1-year gap between the end of your masters and the beginning of your PhD.  Presumably either you applied to some places last year and were unsuccessful or just didn't apply.  Neither of these things would be held against you much—but there are potential concerns here that I would want to see cleared away in other parts of your application.  For instance, not applying last year might lead one to wonder how serious you are about a PhD and/or how on top of things you are.  Hopefully your letter writers/personal statement would put any such concerns to rest.


What's the difference between cover letter and application email?

Write a traditional cover letter and attach it to your email. The committee reviewing your application may not get forwarded your original email. They will probably get a packet sent to them that's prepared by a staff member that aggregates all the submissions. Your email can be short and sweet: "Dear Whoever, Here are my application materials for the position Professor of Blah Blah Blah as advertised at URL. Please see attached for all the requested documentation."


How should I respond to a terrible copyediting job?

That does sound terrible.  I haven't run into anything so bad myself, but I know people who have.  It seems to vary a lot by publisher.  My impression is that it happens occasionally when they try to save money on copyediting by outsourcing to a new, cheap copyediting company.  If the results are terrible, then the publisher will switch to the next-cheapest company, and this will continue until the publisher finds an acceptable level of quality.  Unfortunately, it leads to bad results for authors who get caught in the middle of this process.  Hopefully the publisher will learn from this incident and the problem won't continue.

  More importantly, is a strong response warranted?

Yes, certainly.

  ask them to start over from scratch, and to furnish a list of all changes made, no matter how minor

I'd guess that getting them to start over from scratch will be difficult, but you should certainly insist on seeing a second set of proofs.

Asking for a list of all changes made could be useful, but it's not clear whether you can trust that they will compile a complete list (they may be sloppy about that too).  Many copyeditors mark up a paper copy before changing the file, so you may have some luck in getting a photocopy/scan of the marked up copy.

I'd also recommend letting the editorial board know, and perhaps the publisher too.  If you just resolve the issue directly with the copyeditors, it's possible that nobody else will find out what happened.


How do I cite a dataset from a database (Datastream)?

A question similar to mine with a satisfying answer can be found here: http://libanswers.brunel.ac.uk/faq/49262


I got a provisional acceptance and submitted my clerical revisions almost two months ago. Email the editor?

The question hangs on the meaning of "provisional acceptance." If the reviewers suggested that no further review was required, then the editor should be able to make a decision fairly quickly once the changes have been made and submitted, so two months is probably too long for the subsequent review. However, there is the possibility that the editor sent the paper out for an additional round of reviews, in which case the delay is much more "explainable," but still bordering on too long.

In any case, a polite email to the editor asking about the status of the paper wouldn't be remiss. What you've written is fine.


Yes, click on the article title and scroll down in the dialog. You can hover over the bars to get raw count.


Why doesn't a master's thesis get read by a PhD admissions committee?

While I am not on an US-style  admission committee, which I suspect this question implies, I assume that the answer is quite simply that the committee does not have enough time. Or, in other words, the information tensity of taking half a day off to read a single thesis with any thoroughness to better evaluate a single candidate is not high enough.

For better or for worse, any evaluation on any level (PhD admission, faculty applications, paper reviews, grant reviews, tenure, ...) needs to balance thoroughness with time effectiveness. Pragmatically speaking, this is also why we have (for better or for worse) grades, bibliometrics, awards, honours, conference rankings, or journal impact factors - not that the information captured by these metrics is great, but because they give away some information in no time at all.

To what extent time becomes a factor obviously also depends on how many candidates there are to be evaluated. A tenure committee can and should afford great thoroughness because it is evaluating only one (or a few) candidates. PhD admission, on the other hand, usually needs to compare hundreds of candidates. Note that, annoyingly, the importance of the decision to the candidate is usually not a substantial factor in the decision how much time to spend.

That being said, I personally still often use the master's thesis as an important piece in my decision for or against a PhD candidate (I work in Europe, and we hire students directly). However, I am not reading the thesis end-to-end, but I glance over it to find out:

How well the candidate writes, especially how well the candidate writes in English.
Whether the thesis would in terms of contribution hold up in my own university - if this is not the case and I do not know the university that the student graduated from, I will assume that the level is weak. If the contribution is small but I know the university to be good, I will often assume that either the student or the advisor is weak.
Whether the student knows good scientific practice, in terms of plagiarism, overselling of results, truthful reporting of threats, ...
If the thesis is in my field, I will also check if the student has a reasonable grasp of the state of the art by looking at the background and related work section.

All of this can be done in very short time - it is not necessary to read more than two or three paragraphs to figure out if the student is able to write English documents, for instance.


What do professors do if they receive a complaint about incompetence of a teaching assistant?

A somewhat less cynical, but hopefully still realistic take.
First, there is a certain "activation energy" for the professor (and even more so, the department/faculty) to pay attention. The reality is that there is a certain baseline of largely-unwarranted complaints about all TAs, professors, etc., since there is a certain baseline of students who complain about everything, or fundamentally don't get (yet?) that at University, they are responsible for their own learning, and won't get spoon-fed. Of course not every situation/complaint fits that mold, but it has to break out of that noise to get acted upon. Complaints that come from articulate students, with generally good performance in the course and in their academic careers to date, that provide concrete evidence, and avoid name-calling, are less likely to be ignored. And multiple such complaints, not necessarily coordinated, help.
Second, immediate remedial action in the current course depends on the professor. And professors vary widely in their interest in teaching and in their willingness to expend additional time. When I used to teach courses, I would try to attend my TAs' tutorial sessions once in a while, but there were certainly trimesters I never got around to it. However, even then, I think if potential issues had bubbled up to me, I would have made the time. I have subbed in and been "acting TA" for my own course when a TA fell ill during the term, and I'd like to think I would have done the same thing if a TA were hopelessly bad.
Professors generally have office hours. If TAs are good, very often the professor's office hours are poorly attended. A student or group of students could exert pressure, deliberately or not, on a middle-of-distribution-in-terms-of-caring professor by showing up regularly at office hours with questions, and being factual (rather than just complaining) about useful help not being received from the TA. If a professor is regularly being asked "elementary" questions, and hearing the TA could not or would not answer them, it doesn't take a rara avis teaching-prioritizing professor to realize they need to do Something.
In all the above, the unfortunate reality is that it is very difficult for a department to replace a TA during a course. So immediate remedial action is essentially limited to the professor or some other teaching coordinator coaching the TA, and/or the professor doing more of the work themselves.
As to consequences for future courses, again it depends. I wish it were better, but the number of universities/departments that have meaningful performance management and professional development for TAs, in the way I have gotten used to in the industry part of my life, is pretty darn small. The reality therefore is just hope that some coaching helps, and/or there is enough of a clear situation that the TA is not assigned to that course next time.
As to removing bad TAs from the future pool altogether, it depends on the supply/demand balance of TAs in that department. I've taught in applied science-type departments where TA-ship is a building block of financial support for all grad students and it would take someone really bad to be taken off teaching--there's a perpetual hope they'll do better next time around. I've been in a math department where teaching was core, but there were more students than teaching spots and poor quality did have consequences. And I've seen language departments where TA/lector spots were highly competitive and a poorly-student-rated lector was just not going to get hired again.
Finally, decades ago it was pretty awful, but Universities are getting better at policing misconduct. So all the above applies to poor quality teaching by TAs. If the issue is blatantly unfair grading, unresolved material grading errors, or--even worse--misconduct towards students (or others), there are usually now independent processes to take care of that. There may well be challenges whether those processes move swiftly enough and are impartial enough, but it's a whole different ball game.
This answer has a North American, science/math/STEM bias.


Interview with potential supervisor for graduate program. Should I keep contacting other potential professors?

You should continue contacting and interviewing possible professors until you have an official offer of admission that you have accepted, especially at other institutions.

It seems like this professor is most likely willing to take you as a student, but only if you are accepted to that program (which likely does not depend only on that professor's opinion), and only if nothing else comes up including an applicant they like better, unexpected personal circumstances, changing financial situation in the lab, etc.

As you say, acceptance to the program is conditional on having a supervisor: that means it is necessary for admission but not sufficient. The professor has only granted you permission to identify them as a potential supervisor on your application, this is not an offer or promise of admission.


Does publishing gives you an edge when applying for jobs in industry?

This depends upon your specific position within any given company. Check out Science Careers for discussions about this, but a summary of some examples for publishing and not publishing:

Some position will not require or expect any publications. These can be technical (e.g., run a machine all day or develop new proprietary methods), managerial, or other types such as sales.
Some positions will want prior publications to show that you can complete research projects but not expect you to publish when you are working them.
Some companies such as environmental consulting firms expect their scientists to publish so that they continue to be experts in their field and highlight their publications on their webpages (e.g., WEST).
Some companies publish with their clients (e.g., look at the author affiliations on this publication).

In summary, publication expectations in industry range from none to regular publications. I suggest you find people doing jobs you are interested in doing, get to know them, and see what their specific expectations are for publishing. The Ask-the-headhunter blog contains suggestions for breaking into new fields as does the previously mentioned Science Career page. Also, the Chronicle of Higher Education has many resource for people seeking "alternative" careers (e.g., here).


When can I ignore related work in my paper?

Did the paper you're asking about contribute to your knowledge of your topic, or to the analysis or contextualisation of your results?

If yes, you should include it, wherever you found it and whatever it was originally. You might have to qualify your use of a non-conventionally or accidentally published source (if Google Scholar scooped it up from a random webpage the author might not know it's out in the wild). But attribution of sources is non-negotiable.

If no... well it might be up to your judgement. mts's comment about calling it a "related discussion" might be worth considering. If the typical practice in your broader field is to mention significant literature by way of contextualising your own work, I would probably leave this one out (due to the aforementioned questionable provenance). That particular document is unlikely to be a widely significant piece of literature. If the typical practice in your broader field is to mention as much as possible, you might be inclined to include it. A lot depends on how your field typically does things.

Which makes me think: have you been as thorough as possible in checking the author's body of published work, to make sure the same material can't be found somewhere more reputable? If it can, use that instead.


Pursued PhD under an advisor who did not know what to do. Now am stuck with future prospects

First of all note that your experience has probably made you a lot more independent than many of your peers. This is a desirable quality for a post-doc, and you should sell it. If you have produced any a single author  publications (which sounds likely in your scenario), this is again something you should emphasize.

As a second piece of advice, consider applying for a suitable post-doc fellowship. Advertised post-doc positions are often bound to specific funded projects, therefore a PI will be more inclined to hire somebody with proven expertise to work on that project, putting somebody switching (sub)fields after their PhD at disadvantage.

Postdoctoral fellowship applications allow you to put more emphasis on your individual qualities and allow you to tailor a research proposal to your combination of expertise. You would (in most cases) still need to find a suitable host for your fellowship, but this may be easier than getting them to hire you as a postdoc (it is relatively low risk for the host). Of course, you should be warned that many fellowships have a very low acceptance rate. (10% acceptance rate is not uncommon for many grants, although some have rates as high as 30%) So, you need to submit a very strong application.


Past experience seems to be overlooked by future employer in recruitment process: Is that a bad sign?

First, learn to take good news as good news! You've got better things to do in life than to second-guess these things :-)
As for the actual question: We really can't know. In academia, a lot of things are available in written form. You probably had to provide letters of reference, and the people who interviewed you will have read them. You also wrote a PhD thesis, and the people who interviewed you will have taken a look at it. You may have written publications, and the people who interviewed you will be aware of them. So a lot of your past performance is an open book. What isn't available to the selection committee is your ideas about your future because, I assume, you don't have a website on which you have provided a vision statement.
So, first, it doesn't strike me as particularly odd that the people who want to hire you for a particular job ask you about that job rather than your previous job. Second, just take the fact that they're offering you the job as good news and celebrate!


Advice on what to do before applying to Grad School in CS

It's good that you have some sort of (specific) idea as to what you may want to do.  I'm a potential applicant for grad school in CS myself, so take this with a grain of salt, but...
The fact that you went to a top CS school like CMU will carry some weight.  A 3.0 from CMU will definitely carry more weight than the same GPA from a lesser-name school (maybe even a little higher than 3.0).  However, a 3.0 GPA is still low, regardless of where it comes from, so you will still need something to show for that.  As you mentioned, you'll need recommendations that can speak to your abilities and convince departments that you are much better than what happened in your undergrad.  My advice would be if you have some sort of connections with a few professors from undergrad, feel free to reach out for advice and see where you can go from there, maybe even see if you can get recommendations from them.  In addition, without focusing too much or being too negative, explain in your statement of purpose how you recovered from your earlier issues in undergraduate, especially if it was because of an extenuating circumstance(s).
As far as research experience goes, you could see if there are any options back at Carnegie Mellon, although options may be more limited there, especially if professors can only afford to bring on enrolled students.  Even if not, they may be able to point you to other opportunities that could help you get where you need to go.  For CS + economics, there are also opportunities at other institutions or even in industry if you look around.  You don't necessarily need a publication (you may if you want to get your PhD at Carnegie, Stanford, etc. but others will take students without publications).


How do I tell my PhD advisor that I'm about to start medications that impair my cognition?

In the UK, disability legislation says an employer has to make 'reasonable accomodations' for long term health issues like yours. Mental health problems are (sadly) not uncommon in academia. It sounds like you get on well enough with your supervisor that you could just tell him what's up. If you're not comfortable with that, you might consider going through more official channels.


Citation - Collection of images for machine learning

Let's look at what some popular image databases say:

The website for the CIFAR image databases, which are widely used in machine learning, ask that you cite them.

  This tech report (Chapter 3) describes the dataset and the methodology followed when collecting it in much greater detail. Please cite it if you intend to use this dataset.

  Learning Multiple Layers of Features from Tiny Images, Alex Krizhevsky, 2009.

Another often used database, the MNIST handwritten digit database, does not contain citation information, but a search on Google Scholar shows over 450 papers citing them.

It sounds like these features are an important point of your work and are extracted from training on the images. You should definitely cite the database for in your work. You should also cite them in the future if you are just using these databases to evaluate a technique (like object or hand writing recognition).

There's little harm to be liberal with citations.


While not exactly an answer to your question ...

I should start by saying I am not an expert in the field of education or learning sciences, but it appears your gamificiation strategy is based upon extrinsic motivators. In my opinion, Malone and Lepper (1987) make a pretty clear case that intrinsic motivators are the way to go. Therefore, asking a question about how to optimize extrinsic motivators seems like a premature optimization problem. The framework that Malone and Lepper (1987) set out with individual motivators (challenge, curiosity, control and fantasy) and interpersonal motivators (competition, cooperation, and recognition) seems like it should be universal, although how to achieve those motivators, and the relative strengths of them, will likely vary with culture.


How to handle the particular situation when mind goes blank during a presentation?

You may be experiencing what is called "mind blanks".

Before I answer, remember that every individual is unique and many factors could be the cause of the mind blanks you are experiencing.

It may be fatigue, let's say you may have been doing your presentation for already half an hour, and it is natural, if you aren't too passionate about your subject, to get tired or have your brain pull the plug for a brief moment, as random thoughts run through your head.
To remedy this, I personally try to get a coffee/espresso half an hour before doing a presentation. Caffeine can help connections between those gray cells.
You may get distracted, sometimes when looking through the room, you may notice something about one of the people that sets you off and it completely shatters your concentration, and trying to get back to your topic can be challenging.
Whenever that happens, try going a step or two backwards, ask yourself "what did I say before I lose track of my speech?", it's okay to start over from a previous sentence and it will also reduce your stuttering or "uhhh"-ing.
Lack of self confidence may also be a factor of disruption in your speeches. Thoughts rushing through your head may interrupt your speech and before you know it you focus on that one point, making you feel like your short-term memory completely failed registering what you were just saying.
Fear and feeling exposed can completely freeze some people.
Make sure to remain structured in your presentations, if you happen to use your slides to help yourself, remember that slide unicity is crucial, one slide should contain one and only one message. It'll be better for your audience and for yourself. Audience often forgets anything you had said 30s earlier if you deliver a poor presentation.

All that being said, my personal experience has taught me this :

One thing/trick I noticed that is crucial to a "perfectly" fluid presentation, is to be completely passionate about your subject. Whenever I knew my topic by heart, and was wholeheartedly implied in it, I would actually have a hard time to remain concise and synthetic, simply because I knew so much about the subject that I wanted to explain every single aspect and each of these aspects would also pull another string of 10 micro-subjects.

Unfortunately, in corporate environments, you don't always choose your topic and it can be hard feeling implied and dedicated in it.

If it happens again, try to relax, take it slow, I suggest to not put pressure on yourself as it will only make things worse. Another crippling event that happens along these mind blanks is caring about what people think, so be aware of that as well.

Now to handle this situation towards your audience, do not hesitate to apologize or even ask somebody in the room what you were saying just before, that way you might even be able to add a touch of humor behind this and be like "just making sure everyone's still with me". This is a common joke amongst teachers.


What precisely does "ISI-indexed publications" mean?

Right, the IP & Science business of Thomson Reuters (the business formerly known as ISI) curates the indexes Web of Science and Current Contents Connect. The journal coverage in those two is almost identical. Thomson Reuters then creates some data products from the Web of Science and Current Contents Connect data, such as the Journal Impact Factors.

Other indexes that are important in computer science include IEEE Xplore and ACM Digital Library. There are also more open indexes such as DBLP and CiteSeerX.

Thomson Reuters mentions "Bradford's Law" as a principle it uses to include or exclude journals. The general idea is to include some 12,000 journals that are well woven into the network of scholarly citations, viewed broadly.

I have read more than once that computer science is unusual in the value it places on conference papers. That fact may help to explain limitations in the collection of conferences in the Web of Science collection. I am not certain whether or not the collection strategy for Web of Science specifically takes into account that computer science is unusual in that way.

The Web of Knowledge product that provides access to the Web of Science collection happens to have a more subject-specific collection called Inspec available for subscription. That is a bibliographic collection curated by the Institution of Electronics and Technology that historically was the UK's counterpart to IEEE. Not every institution that subscribes to Web of Knowledge elects to include Inspec in its subscription. Conversely, Web of Knowledge is not the only way to access the Inspec collection - although I believe it is the only way that is cross-referenced with Web of Science.


How to mention analysis tools/functions developed during a thesis

If one-sentence descriptions would be enough for another researcher to replicate your work, you owe the reader nothing more. I would only link to a code repository if it were both topical and substantial (and if it were, that code might be a major theme of the paper).


Should I withdraw my paper if I find another paper published with the same idea?

It's a slightly grey area but assuming the journal paper in question was not publicly available before the submission date of your conference, I think you are fully entitled to publish the paper if accepted. It's a parallel result, which means there was (verifiably) no wrong-doing on your part. If accepted, in the "camera-ready" submission, you can add reference to the journal paper with a note that their results were developed in parallel (with mentions of the dates involved in a footnote, for example). You get your publication, the authors of the work get their citation, and the conference themselves know that there was no wrong-doing involved.

So again, you don't have to withdraw, but you can if you want (e.g., if you don't want to be associated with a weaker form of the result, or if you are a really nice person and feel that the slot at the conference might be better used elsewhere).


How can I lookup the registering info of an ISSN number?

A partial answer:

You can check if the ISSN is 'fake' or not at this ISSN-Validator website. It doesn't provide much useful info though. All numbers entered are either 'invalid' or 'valid' with no further information given.


Is there a limit to the number of rounds in a peer-review process?

Long answer short- It depends on the editorial policy of the specific journal or the current editor.

In my field, 4 or more rounds of revisions is not completely unheard of. Despite people's frustration with such policy of unlimited number of revisions (Imagine being that person who got a rejection after 4 major revisions and the manuscript being under review for 3 years? --- this is not uncommon in the social sciences), some journals do retain such policy. The top 2 journals in sociology are notorious for this.

I currently serve on an editorial board of a reputable journal in the field (one of the top 5), where the current editor has changed the journal policy to not extend second R&Rs. In this journal, you only get once chance to revise, and the result of the revise can either be an outright accept, conditional accept (which will come back with very minor change suggestions-- for example, cite an overlooked source, change the title of the paper, rewrite the conclusion, etc), or reject. I think this is a positive step forward, especially since many editors in the field tend to be very nitpicky about minor/aesthetic issues.


Having preferred and non-preferred reviewers in journal submissions

Just to add an editor’s perspective even though it partially duplicates the other answers:
Having seen the effect of preferred reviewers in the journal where I serve, I am not altogether happy about these options. The non-preferred category is one that I take seriously because conflicts can lead to bad or poor reviews for reasons other than the science. My problem is instead with the preferred reviewers.
When I assign reviewers I basically steer clear of the preferred reviewers as a rule. In the past when I have selected from this list, I have been extremely disappointed. Almost exclusively I have received accept reviews (accompanied by rejects from other reviewers), which I have been forced to deem practically useless and look for additional reviewers. I do not mean to say that all persons put on these lists provide poor reviews, but what I perceive as the original purpose namely to provide examples of names of persons whose objective opinion the author highly values is rapidly being drowned by names of friends. This has led me to stay clear of this list unless I myself recognize a name as somebody with integrity. I will nevertheless scrutinize that review with a hint of suspicion based on the experience I have. One way to avoid this could be to add a line or two stating why you have selected these names as preferred. This would help evaluate the usefulness of such reviewers. Sadly many submission systems do not allow for such comments except in the submission letter.
So I agree with the others answers, provide particularly non-preferred names but feel free to add also preferred but do not count on the preferred names to be used.


Which discrete math journal should I choose to publish my findings?

One good place to start is the journals in which your most important references were published. (The authors of those references would be good candidates if the journal asks you to propose referees.)

Or: ask other people that work in the same field what journal they would suggest. (While you are at it, send them the manuscript and ask them for comments, nicely.) Have you presented your results at a conference? Do you recall anyone there working on a similar topic? Ideally someone who sat in on your presentation?

Your advisor should have at least a passing acquaintance with your field, so he should be able to suggest something. That he does not do so suggests to me that he is watching how you cope with this situation :-) How about other students of your advisor, does anyone work in this field?

It is not easy to judge whether a given journal is good. @EnergyNumbers' comment is helpful.


What is a strategy to do theoretical research?

In mathematics, a paper with 20 pages of proofs does not have twenty pages of original ideas. It might have a page worth, maybe. The rest are combinations of 2-6 previously known ideas, often with little or no acknowledgements of their first appearance [footnote 1].

To beginning graduate students, I strongly suggest to read much older papers. They are usually much shorter, much simpler, and actually allow to learn ideas in their simplest. In my branch of mathematics, that means papers that are at least 30 years old. General useful mathematical background papers go at least 60-100 years.

A good way of doing research is just to be curious --- after all this is what got you into the position you are now, right? Whenever you are curious about something, try figuring it out, look for some way of doing it, search references, read whatever looks interesting, swear at whatever does not. Keep journal with your questions, observations, dead-ends, ideas and swearing. Occasionally, when there is something particularly nice, add those 5, 10 or 15 pages of formal expository and technical scaffolding that is needed to convey your message to others [footnote 2] and share with the world. That is research.

[1] Many find it embarrassing, awkward and out-of-place to write ".... by Cauchy-Schwarz inequality. (This way of applying Cauchy-Schwarz inequality I learned from [ref] which is completely unrelated to the current topic). Next we can bound (5) by..."

[2] After spending much time thinking about X, you will find that you need to spend much time to explain the basics of X to anyone who has not spent the same time thinking about X. That is why you need all that scaffolding.


Should I indicate an invited paper on my CV, when I am one of the authors, but not the invited author?

I believe that the key distinction here is not whether the paper has been "invited" or not (since there are lots of different types of invitations with different implications), but whether the paper has undergone meaningful peer review.

If the paper has undergone a normal peer review process, it doesn't matter whether it was invited or not: it can be reasonably collected with all of your other peer-reviewed manuscripts.

If the paper has not been peer-reviewed, then it should be separated for listing as a non-reviewed publication---still potentially significant, but definitely a different category.  Again, the invitation itself is not really the issue, but the standard to which you have been held before publication.


Referencing earlier passages: Cross reference or "as discussed earlier"

What you prefer is barely relevant; think of the reader. It so happens that earlier today I was consulting a book to find a specific method. I quickly found an example of its use, but the book said '...as explained in detail in Chapter 13...'. Chapter 13 was a long chapter. The explanation when I found it was very short - and it took me a long time to find it.

In general, the more cross-references the better but you have to credit the reader with some short-term memory. A cross-reference to the previous paragraph would be more irritating than helpful.


The problem is, my undergraduate institution is number one in the field I am doing, and in the graduate field I hope to pursue.

Here's a well-known story:

Richard Feynman did his undergrad studies at MIT. Near the end of his studies there, he approached John Slater (the head of physics at that time) asking to stay on as a PhD candidate. Slate asked him why, and Feynman's response was:

"I want to go to MIT because it is the best school in the country."

Slater then said: "That's why you should go to some other school. You should find out how the rest of the world is."

(Paraphrased from "Surely you're joking...")

Here's a personal story:

When I was applying for graduate schools, everyone is applying everywhere, and in particular most of my cohort also applied for the graduate school program where I did my undergraduate degree. Now, most of them do not really want to stay another four or five or six years there---entirely understandable as the town is not very exciting, and after four years of undergraduate studies there one typically cannot wait to go away for a while. So the department is often reluctant to admit their own students for fear of "wasting an offer".

So I was slightly surprised when I got a phone call from my then undergraduate thesis advisor inquiring about my intentions, after laying out the above "facts". This being rather early in the process and before I had received any concrete offers, I responded in a way that is mostly truthful but also (I thought) calibrated to not ruin my prospects of getting some/any offer! So I equivocated that only an offer from one other institution would seriously tempt me away, and in the case I get offers both from that other institution, and my then current one, I would have to think harder before making up my mind. But the chances are 50-50 absent any significant differences in the offer.

My thesis advisor then asked me whether I am out of my mind, and why I would consider going anywhere else when he is the best in the world there is.

I stayed, and I am not sorry for it. (Well, at the very least, I still have a job.)

Having been in hiring discussions: I have never heard the esteem of any candidate lowered solely because he or she studied for both the undergraduate and graduate degrees at the same place. Concerns about "leaving one's comfort zone" and about "lack of connections" are more often raised in the context of

Having postdoctoral research that closely mirrors doctoral research (no growth).
Having a very small set of collaborators, one of whom is the doctoral advisor (no connections).

By the time most of us finished our undergraduate degrees, we are significantly less mature than we are after we finished our PhDs. No reasonable person would judge you on one decision you make when you are so young. Besides, if you really are the type that cannot venture far from your comfort zone, it will show up (probably more clearly) elsewhere in your CV.

So your consideration should really be: will I learn if I stay? Will I grow if I stay? Can I count on myself to reach out and make more connections should I stay? Will I perform excellent research if I stay?
Your decision should ultimately rest on your expected growth as an individual (both scientifically and otherwise) and not on unreliable perceptions from "the community".


Should I include a short summary of my MS research in the Statement of Purpose for PhD position?

Yes, absolutely.

A statement of purpose for a PhD should indicate why you want to do research and that you are prepared for it. There is no better way to establish that than to discuss your research experience.

However, when discussing your prior research make sure not to only focus on the past. For example, explain how your prior research has motivated you to do more research in the future (via a PhD).


Widening the Search-ability of a Journal's Articles

Google scholar

You can find the general indexing policy of Google scholar here: https://scholar.google.com/intl/en/scholar/publishers.html#policies

And the more technical information is available here: https://scholar.google.com/intl/en/scholar/inclusion.html

In case of link rot, the articles should be findable via search keywords such as "google scholar indexing".

The non-technical summary is that the abstract or the first page of the articles should be vievable for everyone. Further, I think the article should look like scientific articles, with titles, possibly abstracts, text, references, and so on. The exact parameters are almost certainly unknown. I know at least one journal published as a blog, and it is not indexed by Scholar, while some websites are.

General visibility

Publish good articles, get famous editors, perhaps appear in conferences or sponsor them, if relevant for your field. Avoid being a predatory publisher or looking like one.

Maybe also look into the basics of search engine optimization (not the arcane stuff about how to cheat Google, but the basics like having metadata and website headers right) and usability of websites.


Is it appropriate for random students to approach professors they admire?

There's nothing wrong with approaching a professor whose work you are interested in and asking for an appointment. The worst that can happen is that the professor will decline to meet with you. However, most professors (like most human beings!) will be appreciative that someone enjoys reading their work, so I'd think you're more likely to find the professor will agree than not.

That said, I would probably change what you'd say. Rather than just say "I have a few questions," I'd say "I'd like to know more about X and Y." This shows that you're serious in your request.


Can I write in my SOP that I want to join labs which aren't belonged to the department I apply?

This entirely depends on the university culture. Some universities and labs are very free in terms of the flow of faculty and students, others are much more siloed. It's impossible for us to give you a general answer.

You should instead talk to students and postdocs enrolled at that university and in those labs and ask them whether it's possible. They are the ones who are most likely able to tell you what the situation is there.


A website that offers some related information: http://www.semanticscholar.org. Sadly, they don't give the precise number of citations, but a list of "influencing" and "influenced" researchers based on a metric which incorporates the number of citations.


Do 90% of all German Chemistry graduates start a PhD?

According to the German Chemical Society, apparently 90% of master's recipients in chemistry do start doctoral studies afterwards.

Partly this is because PhD "admission" is largely not an admissions process at all in Germany. Individual faculty members who receive grants can hire master's recipients as "Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiter" (literally "scientific worker," but "research assistant" is a better translation). They can do this without recourse to going through a department-level admissions process, and can skip outside advertising altogether if they have an internal candidate they can appoint instead. And, since many students follow the rule of "Was der Bauer nicht kennt, isst er nicht"—"What the farmer doesn't know, he doesn't eat"), many students do their entire education at one school.

So yes, it's much easier to get a PhD position if you're already in Germany.


I can't trust my supervisor anymore, but have to have his letter of recommendation. What should I do?

If you submit an application with a bad reference, it will quite probably sink your application. On the other hand, simply ignoring the requirement in the application may lead to a desk reject.

However, if obtaining a good reference from your advisor is not going to happen, you should probably address that up front in your statement of purpose and include the reference anyway. Disclose, in a neutral fashion, that you had difficulties with your previous supervisor, and focus on what you learned from that. If you can show in your SoP that you can endure challenging situations, and even grow from them, while also showing you are able to conduct high quality research, this may outweigh not having the critical reference.

Pros:

It meets the requirements of the application (if, indeed, you have verified that this is a hard requirement)
It demonstrates that you can endure challenges in research, as you will inevitably face more during your PhD (just hopefully of a different nature)
It shows maturity in your application (by favouring openness and transparency)

Cons:

It includes a weak reference letter in your application, if you can even persuade your advisor to write it
It risks presenting (rather than concealing) less savoury characteristics of your past research profile, which shows that you're not a "golden," flawless candidate.


Should I simplify my writing in a foreign country?

Thou shalt not dumb down thy writing, but don't make it a vain exercise of style

I'm a non-native English speaker, and let me put it straight: I may write in simple English, because limited are my English writing skills, but I don't want to read simple English because I want to enrich my vocabulary and grammatical constructions.

But whether you write for a native English speaker or not, write clearly, avoiding unnecessary verbosity just to show off your eloquence.

(And, honestly, stop wasting time using those readability tests)


How relevant are non-top conference papers to a PhD CS admit panel? (USA)

Let's assume a paper in a B conference. In the CORE system, from which the division into A*/A/B/C stems, B conferences are literally called "good to very good". A publication in a B conference is a nice CV entry and definitely valuable. How valuable might depend on the particular conference, as not everybody shares the same opinion about all conferences. Ranking decisions of the CORE committee certainly have been disputed in the past. In my area, there are fairly good conferences which have not even been ranked by CORE, despite being organized by top researchers and being around for more than 15 years.
But it will also depend on the subfield of CS. There are particular "hot" subfields that have crazy expectations about a PhD applicant's research profile. There is an interesting blog entry from someone who published at an A* conference in AI as an independent researcher to get a PhD position (and ultimately does not recommend anyone to follow that path). Another BSc graduate with a B conference paper might have a hard time competing against that.


Medium-quality English conference vs. Higher-quality non-English conference

Which conference to publish in depends on your goals for the publication:

Conferences can be extremely valuable networking opportunities, and speaking at a conference puts your work in front of the audience of that conference.  If the non-English venue is a community that will be valuable for you to connect with, then publishing there can be extremely helpful with building professional contacts, getting into a good Ph.D. program or getting a good job, etc.  Note that this may apply even if you're planning to study abroad later, as those colleagues may have overseas contacts.
On the other hand, sometimes you are less interested in the interactions at the conference than in just having a "this is published" stamp and collecting citations for another line in your C.V.  In this case, it's not the conference itself but the online accessibility of the paper that's likely to be matter more to you, and it will likely to be more valuable to have it in English if your subfield is (like most currently are) English-dominated.

Note also that you may be able to gain the benefits of both by a follow-on journal publication.  If you are in a field where it is typical for conference publications to be upgraded into a more archival "extended form" journal publication (e.g., computer science), then you might publish originally in the other language, then follow up with an English journal publication, thus obtaining both sets of benefits, though at a cost of having the English version come out much later.


Appropriate response to sexual misconduct 'joke' made against an academic

This is a very unfortunate event for your affected colleague. Usually the proverb "where there's smoke, there's fire" has some truth, but when artificial smoke is generated without the fire, it is very detrimental. As you state the comment may stick and through the grapevine it may attain any proportion.

What then to do? Well, first, I think the teacher should tell his (in this case) students that he feels the 'joke' was totally inappropriate and the he was hurt by it and also explain that this sort of action is not to be tolerated by anyone. This will set the record straight with his own class. It could spark a short discussion about political correctness and even if it takes time out of the subject teaching it will be worth it. It is a good lesson that should be taught.

The next step is to actually step up to the person who made the 'joke' and explain that it was uncalled for and inappropriate, particularly in public and at his expense. I understand that this may be difficult to do but unfortunately the choice is to do it or let it be and face the fact that the issue is unresolved.

A third step is to bring it up at a departmental level and try to turn it into a general discussion to eventually also involve students. The university/department probably has rules about (mis-)conduct and correctness. It can be fruitful to provide an opportunity to have a discussion on how people (faculty and students) should conduct professionally,it does not even have to bring up this 'joke' in any way.

Finally, being affected by a situation like this is about the worst that can happen, particularly if the 'joke' propagates without any control. It may be that there are officers within the university that can provide advice on what can be done and help defuse the situation in case it will propagate into rumours, etc. The students will therefore also be involved and can be good support if brought in to discuss the matter from a correctness point of view.


I believe my classmates plan to hand in a plagiarized project, how should I handle this?

Should I inform the project teacher, to have them exposed to the exam committee?

Yes. Tell the teacher exactly what you know: that there is a game that seems very similar to your classmates' project.

As a student, it's not your responsibility to decide what is and isn't plagiarism, or to decide who should be punished for dishonesty and who shouldn't, or to start a "movement" to let the cheaters know you're onto them. If you believe you have evidence of misconduct, report it and let the administration handle it from there.


Is it okay to change advisors in the same university between Masters and PhD?

In general the answer to the question would be yes, and many people do so, both by staying at the same institution and by changing universities. But there are caveats. It probably isn't the norm, and there may be local traditions, say in Brazil, that suggest it is a poor idea. But you would probably already know if that were true.
There are many reasons to change advisors beyond a poor experience. One of the main ones is that the student wants to change sub-fields and another faculty member would be more appropriate. It might also be desirable to move to a more senior faculty member for a variety of reasons. An untenured advisor can be risky since their main focus will necessarily be on their own work.
I don't actually think there is a need to explain it. Certainly you don't need to say that you haven't been happy. If pressed, just say that you've decided that the other person would be more appropriate.
I also doubt that you need a "gap".
But find another person and get their agreement to take you on before you make any waves.


Unfunded UK PhD offers - both deadlines imminent

I wouldn't recommend it. I started a PhD when I had my own funding for the first year. The second year some money was scraped together, but after that there was a complete failure to find funding. Things got ugly.

If you are really intent with working with one of these two PIs, make sure they have a solid and extensive track record with funding. If these are new labs, forget it. But since you don't seem overly interested in working with them, I would say find a safer option.


Justin, I think you raise good questions, and I'll try my best to clarify what I intended to say.

Regarding the first quote you cite, I did not meant to imply that in general non-tenured faculty are dysfunctional. The vast majority are incredibly dedicated and hardworking teachers. When I said "most", I really meant that most adjuncts who believe they have proved a major theorem (as Zhang did) are almost always wrong and usually "have very dysfunctional personalities and lives, and are unpleasant to deal with, because they feel disrespected".

As for the second quote, I was trying to be facetious. Those of us who are tenured professors know how many responsibilities and duties we have in addition to our research and teaching. So I like to say that Zhang had set up the perfect situation for doing research over a long period of time. He didn't have tenure (which as I said entails a lot of distractions) and just had to teach calculus (which, after a year or two, requires minimal preparation time outside of class). In addition, he had no children, and his wife lives on the other side of the country. This was perhaps not a good joke for a broader audience, but my colleagues all get it.

Finally, my point about Zhang is that he really was a good mathematician who had received very little respect from his peers and yet showed no signs of being bitter about his experience, even though he certainly would be justified in feeling that way.


Exam design: give maximum score per question or not?

Examinations are time-limited, so time is a scarce resource that students need to economise.  Stipulating the marks allocated to exam questions has three main purposes:

Objectivity: The stipulated marks creates a more objective assessment, insofar as the weightings on the questions are fixed by the stipulated marks.  This prevents students from being unfairly penalised by subjective re-allocation of marks.
Time allocation: The stipulated marks allows students to economise their time by allocating it in a manner that gives appropriate levels of time relative to the marks available for the question.
Implicit expectation of detail: Ideally, marks should be allocated roughly commensurately with the time the question will take to complete if done properly.  This gives the students an understanding of the proportion of time that each question should take, and so it allows them to diagnose whether they are taking too long on a question.  This also means that the allocated marks gives the student an implicit hint as to how much detail they are expected to give in a question --- low mark questions usually do not require large amounts of detail.

In your question, you seem to be taking the view that it is bad for students to economise their limited time, and that this incentivises students to eschew answering entire questions.  So long as there is sufficient time available in the exam, this should not be the case.  (A useful rule-of-thumb I heard for exams was that the course lecturer should be able to complete the exam in 1/3 of the time limit for an undergraduate exam, or 1/2 of the time limit for a postgraduate exam.  This should be done under conditions where the course lecturer first "forgets" the answers to the exam, and has to figure them out in the time limit.)


Do I have an "anti-research" personality?

Having a broad set of interests and knowledge is fine, and can lead to some 'outside of the box' solutions. Yes, you will find periods where anything else is more interesting than your PhD work, irrespective of how interesting your PhD work actually is. You'll find that as you come closer to the end of your PhD, your concentration on the problem at hand will sharpen, and while a PhD deadline isn't quite as good at sharpening a mind as an impending duel, you probably will find your ability to concentrate improve as the ending comes into sight.

Furthermore, don't assume what you're researching your PhD on is what you'll be doing for the rest of your life. Having a wide set of skills and a shallow knowledge of many things will often help you out when you (most likely) realise you don't have the desire to become an academic, and need to search for a different job (which, let's face it, given your background means probably going in to Data Science)
I don't know too much about the culture of applied math to make an informed comment on this, but in general, finding a good real-world application of a concept, and carrying it out, is difficult. It can involve a lot of time mucking around with real world datasets, which are often messy. You have an obligation to show that your results and methods are useful, but to what degree is up to taste, and I don't think is an issue with any kind of 'anti-research' personality.
This sort of thinking is by far your most serious problem. If asking fellow students for help and collaborating is cheating, then so is using Stackexchange or reading from a textbook. Modern civilisation rests on the ability to record our thoughts so every human doesn't have to derive all the rules from scratch. There is nothing dishonourable about asking for help. If someone gives you helpful ideas, thank them in your thesis. Even if they do clever novel work on your problem, you still have to at the very least understand it and synthesize it into your own work.

There is a certain kind of person who is reluctant to ask questions. I would count myself as one. If you feel uncomfortable doing do, I recommend working on that skill until you do feel more comfortable. Stackexchange is the perfect place for that -  even if it isn't a question about anything to do with your research.
This behaviour is fine. One can get a certain fatigue when working on certain projects for a while.
& 6.  It does really seem like you have a need to derive and understand everything from its foundations. In real life, this is rarely necessary.

I did a PhD in organic chemistry. After that, I decided I didn't like chemistry anymore and went on to be a Data Scientist. At first, I would spend a lot of time trying to mathematically understand the techniques I was using, and I wouldn't feel comfortable using them if I didn't understand the underlying linear algebra. Then I slowly got more comfortable using techniques whose underlying mechanics I don't understand. We by and large don't understand the inner workings of a car or computer. We do know, roughly, its outputs when given certain inputs. The inner workings are a problem already solved by someone else.

As you grow older and read more, you'll be continuously struck by the sheer quantity of stuff out there that people have figured out. The sheer amount of knowledge that goes into, say, building an aeroplane or a computer game or a treatment plan for a specific disease or a skyscraper or a hadron collider. Letting go of the need of having to understand all aspects of a certain thing is an important skill. Practice triage with the information you receive and the problems you encounter. Trust in the expertise of others who have come before you. Know when to expend your brainpower, and know when to conserve it.

So in summary, apart from issue 3, I don't think you have any significant "anti-research' personality issues.


Why should I enter a pure math PhD program if I most likely won't end up in academia?

why should I enter a pure math PhD program with the goal of entering academia if I will (1) probably not achieve this goal, (2) probably have a few hard years after my math PhD, and (3) probably end up in industry in which case I could have taken a less stressful route and even prepared myself better with a PhD in another field?

With the mindset that you are showing by the very loaded way your question is phrased - including several rather misguided beliefs I will address below - consider the possibility that the answer is “you shouldn’t”.
What are these beliefs I’m referring to? They are:

Something is not worth trying if the probability of success is lower than 50%

The definition of “success” in pursuing a pure math PhD is to have a career in academia

Any argument for pursuing a pure math PhD is not helpful or worth considering if it is “vague and subjective”.

In fact, these beliefs are not true in any universal sense. The decision to pursue a PhD in pure math is a personal and completely subjective one. It’s right for some people, and not right for others, and for each person it’s either right or not right for different reasons: e.g., for some people who do define success as an academic career it’s still the right decision because they are talented enough to defy the average not-so-great statistical odds you are referring to; others simply define success in completely different ways.
Likewise, the people for whom the decision does not seem like the right one also differ in the reasons why they reach that conclusion. Some are passionate about math but don’t think the effort, stress and opportunity cost are worth the risk of not achieving the dream of an academic career. Others may be so mathematically talented that they can know with a fairly high degree of certainty that they can have an academic career, and yet nonetheless find other opportunities more alluring.
Your question suggests that you want someone to come here and persuade you to do a pure math PhD by giving you some objective, scientific reason to do it. That’s not how it works. You’ll have to do your own thinking and make your own decision based on your own ideas of what matters most in life and what kind of life and career you want. I said at the beginning of the answer that it sounds like a math PhD may not be right for you, but of course I don’t know you and may well be wrong about that impression, so don’t let it prevent you from making the choice that’s right for you. Good luck!


what should you answer to your potential supervisor's question: Are you applying to other programs?

The obvious answer to the first is that you will apply until you are accepted into a suitable and interesting position. For the second, it has no implication other than that he is interested. He is willing to give you advice, but your admission can depend on several things. The SoP is only one of those.
In some cases, depending of place and field, the professor may not be directly involved in decisions to accept you. But nothing is assured until you get an acceptance letter.


Is a professor allowed to require me to give him permission to speak with my doctor before letting me make up an exam?

That sounds like a big no to me, but that comes from Germany with very strict rules on privacy. Your medical condition is your thing, and yours alone. If you have a document that certifies your illnesss, that should be enough.

Check your university policies, what you need to provide in case off illness HAS to be written down somewhere. If it states there that a written thing is enough, it is enough. Point your professor to that document, if that does not help talk to faculty cousellors. They should be able to help you.


Referring to the candidate in a recommendation letter

You are writing on behalf of the applicant, and are supposed to be providing information that shows how well you know the applicant's strengths and weaknesses. That knowledge is more convincingly implied if you refer to the candidate by her name, rather than as "the candidate" or "the applicant."

Also, most good letters of recommendation I've seen actually refer to the candidate by her first name, rather than as "Ms. Doe."


Where to include acknoledgement for used graphics

You want the reference close to the actual picture. You could go with @Memj's suggestion in the other comment. Or simply put it in the caption:

Fig. 19: Measured relationship between galaxy distance and
red shift. (Figure reproduced with permission from http://abc.org,
copyright Adam Smith, 2015.)


What constitutes as stealing of an idea?

This answer assumed that OP was in some way senior to their counterpart, either in position or experience. Since this assumption is not true (OP is a masters student, the other person is a PhD student), it seems there is some fault for both parties in how they communicated expectations at the beginning of the project.

It's going to be difficult if not impossible for anyone here to judge this because none of us are in the situation and have the daily exposure required to do so.
However, with the limited information you give here, it sounds to me like someone came to you with an idea, and rather than help them with their idea you judged yourself more capable to do the work and took off with it.
It's like instead of helping a student understand their confusion on part of their homework, you've done most of the assignment for them, while keeping them informed of your progress. In doing so, yes you've helped them complete their homework, but you've stolen from them the opportunity to learn while doing it. Or imagine a 5 year old assembling a train set. They've run into a problem and can't get a loop connected because they've installed too tight of a bend, and ask for help. Do you provide some suggestions on how they might fix the problem? do you rearrange a piece or two to help demonstrate this? Or do you wait for them to go to sleep and show them when they wake up how you've completed it all for them and solved all their problems? Clearly you get the credit for completing the train set, but was it fair?
It sounds a bit like you've stolen an idea to me. The conversation about the project and authorship should have occurred at the beginning before you decided to "run with it", or at least in one of the intervening times when this person indicated they didn't have the time right now, not when you'd like to finish off the project and already did all the work. Arguably the other person should have brought this up on their own then and not now, but there are various reasons (such as social hierarchies, cultural norms, and their own personality) that may have prevented them from doing so, and if you are the more experienced person in the situation the onus is on you.
You very much may deserve the majority of credit on the final work. The infraction is not in deceit about what you were working on, but on taking on so much of the project that it became yours without getting permission or an understanding up front. Especially if all you were asked was if you would help with a literature review.


Uploading an elaborated proof from a published paper on arxiv

Yes, I think that's a great idea.  arXiv is a good place for expository work like this, which may be of value to the scientific community (experts or learners) but isn't novel enough to be published in a journal.


Research on strategies for student recruitment

There is a nice survey report online: "What Matters to Student Success", a report from the Government of Kentucky.

The work analyses the factors most crucial to student success in a college. It also discusses recruitment of students. For example,

  Consumerism colors virtually all aspects of the college experience, with many colleges and universities “marketizing” their admissions approach to recruit the right “customers” — those who are best prepared for college and can pay their way (Fallows et al. 2003)

It does not exactly answer your question on strategies for selection, but gives some insight to what makes a successful student pool, for which admission process is one determinant.

I am sure the reference papers cited in the journal (and their citations) will assist you in an extensive literature survey.

For a relevant journal, I found this: Journal of College Admission. I do not know about the quality, but I was able to find this discussion (or thereabout) in a few papers herein.


The following may seem a bit nitpicking, but such details are what separates the wheat from the chaff:

  a 1.5-fold improvement

Bad. This implies that the improvement – not the quality measure – is 1.5 of something else, that is reasonably comparable, e.g., another improvement. This would make sense in a context like:

  We compared different performance boosters and found that contrafibulaties yielded a 1.5-fold improvement compared to the improvement by pericombobulations.

(Note that I do not consider the above sentence an example of good writing as it is bound to be misunderstood by somebody, but it’s at least technically correct.)

  a 1.5× improvement

Very bad. If I am benign, I read this as “1.5-fold improvement” (see above). If I am not, this does not make any sense at all. Replacing words with mathematical symbols just because they have some semantic relation is a very bad habit as it almost never yields a clear meaning, is bad style, and is indicative of deficiencies in basic mathematical concepts.

  performing 1.5 times better

Meh. If we are being literal, it has problems similar to “a 1.5-fold improvement”: Does 1.5 times apply to better or something else? Now, linguistically, this is a fixed idiom with a clear meaning, so the situation is not that bad, but I would guess that some non-native speakers misunderstand it. Moreover, idioms do not stylistically mix very well with accurate, quantitative descriptions.

  performing 50 % better

Almost Good. Similar to the above, but better, since 50 % is by far not as likely to be understood to apply to better than 1.5 times.

  performing 1.5 times as well
  performing 150 % as well

Good. These leave no room for misunderstanding as you make clear what 1.5 times or 50 % refer to, and it’s the correct thing, namely “goodness”, i.e., your measure of quality.

  an improvement by 50 %
  an improvement to 150 %

Good (with sufficient context). Again, it is clear, what the numbers actually refer to.

  performing 50 % better than A
  performing 1.5 times as well as A
  performing 150 % as well as A
  an improvement by 50 % in comparison to A
  an improvement to 150 % of A’s performance

Very Good. By naming the actual reference, you avoid misunderstandings. However, with sufficient context, the expressions I labelled good may be preferable for brevity and avoiding unnecessary redundancy.

Note that all this assumes a measure of quality that increases with quality. If your measure decreases with quality (e.g., runtime), it’s probably best to directly talk about the measure, e.g.:

  A’s runtime was 50 % of B’s.
  A runs twice as fast as B.


How does grad school view a consistent B average in a course sequence?

Although this might be a showstopper for some specific schools), this need not be a show stopper in general. Especially if you have at least one very strong letter of recommendation.  My answer is based on the assumption that you would apply for CS or statistics, which are just tangential enough to be able to pass muster from most people's point of view.

It could be more harmful if the B sequence were exactly aligned with what you're going to apply for.  But it isn't.

(There are of course other ways to increase your chances, e.g.: don't apply late; if there's a subject GRE required, a strong score here could help; get some feedback on your essay draft.)


Citing "p. x" to mean page ten of a book looks confusing since "x" isn't clearly a Roman Numeral

You shouldn't be veering from the style guide (you are of course following a style guide, right?), and style guides cover such meticulous points as this. Even if you feel their advice is a little off and you might have a better solution to a readability problem, you should never contradict it. (Why you should not contradict it is a lengthier topic, and I think this answer stands without going into it.)

So, the right thing to do is consult your respective style guide whether it's AMA or Chicago or anything else, and do what it says.