Making the most of having two group affiliations

When the two PIs are at different universities, you could perform your thesis as a double degree (something I did myself), assuming that both universities allow this. One aspect that needs to be taken into account is that if you do so, you need to adhere to the regulations of both institutions, which sometime leads to conflicting requirements. Also you need to align with the bureaucracies of both institutions, which certainly results in some overhead for you.

Anyway, even when the PIs are at the same institution, you can profit from their (hopefully somewhat complementary) expertise. Also you will have a larger network. You will need to balance your time between both research groups, and align their feedback, which is a potential pitfall, but also a learning opportunity.


pick the latest entry on their publication list that roughly covers
  the project as a whole

This sounds like the best you can do in this situation. You should clarify that you are referring to the project as a whole, e.g., by writing:

  ... as found by the CompCert project (e.g., Foo & Bar, 2012; see also http://compcert.inria.fr)...

The "e.g." clarifies that this is an example publication. I like xLeitix' suggestion of citing the project website.

In this particular instance, I notice that there are no publications after 2012, so it seems like the project is finished, is it? In such cases, people might have a capstone publication "The CompCert project: overview, lessons learned and the way forward" that you could cite - which of course won't help you if the project is still ongoing.

Finally, you could of course contact the project's principal investigators and ask them how they would like the project to be cited. It would be a good idea to put such a piece of information somewhere prominent on the project website.


Is it a good idea to cite paper from publisher listed in Beall’s list

Do not think about the journal where the paper comes from. Just forget about it for a while.

Now, read the paper. Even better, be a reviewer for that paper. Evaluate it. Is it a good related work for you? Is it a not-so-good related work, so that you can criticize it? Does it help you to build some hypotheses, etc.? Then, just cite it. Otherwise, don't.

This is what you are supposed to do as a researcher. Build on top of other's work.
Bad papers are in every kind of journal. Good papers are, as well.

Beall's list is useful up to a certain point but it has got limitations. One of which, it is a one-man's work. I do not want to criticize the list here because it does not even matter how good that list is. Be your own judge for the work you cite. Where the paper comes from is, in my opinion, the least of the issues you could ever encounter.


When is a good time to go visiting potential post-doc opportunities?

The answer depends on your geographical and academic areas.

Postdoctoral positions in Europe are often attached to specific research groups and are funded through grants obtained by the head of laboratory/research group. As such their availability are often announced after the successful grant application, which means sometimes in the spring in general. On the other hand, if you have a specific person you want to work with and you have discussed this, it is good to get started early so you can help out as much as reasonable with the grant application process. (This is assuming that you have struck a mutual agreement that she will hire you if the grant is successful.)
Postdoctoral positions in the United States and Canada are, depending on field, are sometimes funded as in the European case described above, and sometimes funded by the department (departmental, "named" postdoctoral positions). In the latter case the application process may have begun already and you should consult the appropriate trade magazines or bulletin boards to keep yourself posted of these opportunities. (I see that your profile indicates an applied math background; many math positions are posted on MathJobs and AcademicJobsOnline, and you should of course keep an eye on SIAM publications.)

In fact, the schedule is also similar for faculty positions in the United States: you generally expect to be applying during the fall and winter (and sometimes the summer) of the year prior to the start date. (Something you should keep in mind after you land your postdoc job.)
The various countries' equivalents of the National Science Foundation also offer postdoc funding opportunities with varying deadlines. For example, the United State NSF funds postdoctoral research in various fields. And you are likely already too late: the Mathematics deadline was last week. While the Swiss NSF has a postdoct program whose due date is not under February next year.


Computer Related Discipline for Economist

The first thing that jumps to mind is something in data science, perhaps applied to analyzing big data sets in a field such as financial modeling, behaviorial economics, etc. Your software development background will leave little doubt that you could learn to implement data analysis algorithms in R or Python as needed, and your economics degree would be an asset if your were applying your data analysis skills toward problems in that field. Graduate data science programs in the US typically allow people to enter from a wide variety of undergraduate fields, provided that you have demonstrable ability in math and programming.


Is this situation actually normal?

Yup, pretty normal. It's what is called "office life".

I am almost tempted to vote to close this as a boat programming question, as it is really no different to any other "we-are-in-a-shared-office-but-my-office-mates-annoy-me" situation in any job. Anyway, I think this is common enough in academia that it may make sense to answer here.

Essentially, there are really only three ways to fix this:

Change the office layout. Either get smaller offices (very unlikely to be possible), or re-arrange the PhD student seating so that the quiet workers share offices as well as the enthusiastic discussers. Of course, if you have one big lab for all students, this solution is probably a no-starter (not common here in Europe, but I have learned that this is common in the US).
Home office. Probably the easiest, most immediate, and most common solution to the problem of the annoying other students is to spend more time working from home or another suitable location, especially if some high-concentration tasks are in the queue. Of course this requires a modicum of trust that PhD students that are not in the lab are actually still working, and not sleeping or using their XBox. Given your concern that you may appear as "not working enough" when you are not in the lab, this may indeed be a problem.
Noise cancellation. When we had this problem in our lab, the easiest fix was to buy a set of high-quality noise cancellation headphones from Bose. The ones we bought are massive enough that even just wearing them alone without any music already blocks out a lot of the regular room acoustics, and they are high-quality enough that you can wear them for hours without pain. Students that want to work now wear their noise cancellation gear, which incidentally also is a good "Do not disturb unless important" sign for other people that just want to chat.

I should mention that "talk to the other students and make them stop" isn't really a practical and permanent solution. There are just too many people with too many differing characters for too many hours a day in a typical PhD student office - if somebody is the chatty type, she or he will chat.

Btw., I feel for you. My productivity when I am alone in my office is twice of what it is when we are two persons, which is again twice of what it is when we are three. I was never in an office with more than three persons, but I presume I wouldn't even need to bother coming in. This Dilbert comic strip is representing my feelings regarding the current trend of "open floor plan offices" pretty well.


How are junior professors evaluated for promotion?

All of this is going to be very field- and country-specific. I will answer for biological/biomedical sciences at UK universities.

The career progression at most UK universities is:
Lecturer → Senior Lecturer → Reader → Full professor

In the UK there is no such thing as tenure unless you got it before 1987. However sacking someone from any job in the UK is much harder than in the US.

Promotion from lecturer to senior lecturer usually involves demonstrating:

You can secure on-going substantial funding for your research. This means getting multiple grants at different times that bring the university substantial overheads (not all do).
You have some leadership role in teaching – you have created new modules and now co-ordinate them, or are lead for a degree program or a reaching in a sub field.
You have at least one major admin role in the department, such as head of admissions, chair of the equality committee, head of outreach, exams co-ordinator etc.

Reader is normally a purely ceremonial position, that comes with no salary or benefits increase and usually awarded in recognition of a being a leader in your research field.

The big step to professor (also known as  a chair) is generally entirely research-based (although some places are now awarding professorships on the basis of world-leading innovation in teaching). Promotion to professor usually involves obtaining references from international colleagues saying you are where it is at in your field, worldwide. You will have brought in funding above and beyond what is normal, probably more than once (e.g. funds to start a research institute, or a large, multicentre program etc). You will become your universities leader in whatever it is you do i.e. Prof Such and Such, University of Neverland’s chair in X studies.

As for your specific questions

Funding is all. If you don’t get funding, you can’t do research. If you don’t get funding, you definitely won’t get promoted. In my university, if you don’t get funding you won’t pass your probationary period to get a lectureship, and at many places if you don’t keep getting funding, you are in danger of losing your job.  Not all funding is equal, because not all funding comes with overheads: that is, if I apply for a grant to buy a $ 100,000 piece of equipment and the funder gives me $ 100,000, then the university gets nothing. There are different ways of seeing this. You could see it as the university wanted to profit from the grant. Or you could see it as the university needing to find the funds to pay my salary, heat, light and clean my office etc. Making the university a lot of money is primarily what gets you promoted.
Research outputs. A cynic would say that as far as the university is concerned, research outputs are adverts that allow you to get more funding. Either by advertising to funders that you are worth investing in, or to companies that might want to licence your tech, or to student choosing a uni. A special case of this is the quadrennial ranking of universities by the government on their research outputs.
Teaching output matters in so far as having a reputation for good teaching helps you recruit undergrad/masters students. As for PhD students: in my field at least, getting a student is treated like winning a small grant. A PhD students costs someone around $ 195,000 over the course of their four-year studentship ($ 85,000 in tuition fees, about the same again in stipend for the student, and about $ 25,000 in research costs). Any student who can come up with that themselves is likely to be welcomed with open arms. Very few can.
Being an editor and sitting on committees is a service to the community that even universities recognise is necessary for academia to continue. It also brings prestige. For the professor, being editor of a leading journal is a good way to demonstrate you are at the top of your field. As for companies: if you are starting a company, you are likely to be doing so using IP licensed from the university. Spin-outs also look good when a university is try to demonstrate to funders/government that they are good at doing research that has an impact on society (the so-called impact agenda). In the US of course, once you are tenured, you can spend your time doing whatever you like.


Do you know about status date changes in Elsevier editorial

It means something went wrong with the review process. For example either of these could have happened:

The editor handling your paper resigned from the editorial board, and the journal assigned a new editor.
The reviewer who was reviewing your paper submitted a review, which updates the status to "required reviews complete" or to "decision in progress", but the editor decided the review was poor and invited new reviewers.

One thing that didn't happen is "nothing". Something definitely happened, or the status would not update.


If I change my research group, can my former supervisor restrict my access to my codes that are written by myself?

Any supervisor (including the OP's former supervisor) is free to block access to their resources, even when those resources include code written by the person being block (including former students).


Can someone with a bachelor’s degree in political science and a Masters of Business Administration teach undergraduate courses in Political Science?

Highly unlikely.  Even at the community college level, to teach in a field one must typically have at least some postgraduate degree in that field or in a closely related field.  So you someone probably teach in a polisci department with a degree in economics, because they use many of the same methods and consider some of the same areas.  Ditto philosophy.  Not a professional business degree.

(PhD political scientist here)


Will an Honours year grant me a second degree?

In Australia, an Honours is considered a separate degree.  Other countries may have no idea what your Honours is.

Usually, once you have an Honours there is no reason to pursue a masters in the same subject.  However, I do not have specific knowledge of bio/medicine.

As for your eligibility, you need to check with particular universities about their policies.  Probably they will consider your marks (grades).


Postdoctoral fellowships/calls to work in Europe for scientists/mathematicians/engineers that are similar to Marie curie?

Listing what I know, but it won't be a complete answer for sure.

Germany has several opportunities for foreigners, including DAAD and Humboldt fellowships.

Italy has launched this year for the first time a call with name SIR; it is now closed, but maybe it will be renewed.

All of them are generalist calls, not aimed at a particular field.


How to best approach literature with low information content for good retention

Last-resort, completely-silly trick: When I had to force myself to read through a particularly awful textbook, I decided to read it aloud to myself in a series of silly voices. That actually did make me pay attention to what I was reading, so I could get the emphasis and inflections right... and perhaps surprisingly, I did find and retain the new ideas I was reading for.

Another approach can be to take it as a translation or editing task. Into another language, or into the same language minus the sequipedalian verbiage and jargon. Again, the goal here is to try to make a bit more of a game out of it so it isn't a completely uphill slog.

Note that if you have any interest in publishing your own textbooks at some point, this can be an excellent education in what not to do... you might want to take notes on that too.

Occasionally, the right answer is not to read the textbook at all and just work from the lecture notes. Or see if you can find a set of Condensed Cream Of Textbook notes somewhere -- Cliff Notes-ish things do exist for some books.

... But in the end, the real answer is "try things and see what works for you."


What to mention in your introduction to your research methodology chapter

Answer this question in less than one minute, assuming that I have the basic knowledge of your area:
What is your research about?

Than add these in less than two minutes:
Why did you do your research in that specific topic? What is your innovation?

Lastly,
How did you do it?

Now, write your answers on a paper. And that would be the intro.
Edit: Commentors are right. Only the last part would be an intro for methodology.


How long should a graduate school statement of intent be?

It depends on the program, but if no requirement is set, I would go for about 500 words. That's about two pages double-spaced. You want to be to the point in these essays. Too much rambling may turn the reader off.

I never turn anything in single-space. Double-spaced documents help for readability. It's up to you, but I suggest double-spacing.


What is a customary startup package for a USA Engineering TT position at an R1?

Nothing in your proposed startup packages sounds too unreasonable. The only thing that might be a problem is the number of years of support. You’ll want to know how much it costs to support a grad student, between tuition and stipend. The larger the cost, the fewer the years of support you’ll be able to ask for.

Also, I would expect that the department will not support a post doc, but would instead prefer you to use their funding to support graduate students.


Yes, you should thank him. You don't need to work with him in future, but, as you say, he helped you along. He helped you start your career and you can now be independent. If you did good work under his guidance it is worth a thank you, and you may be well positioned for good works in the future.
There are a lot of racists around, of course, and many of them don't understand what it really means. But your bad experience is now behind you and you were pretty lucky (and strong) to overcome the issues.
But you may need a letter from him in the future to continue your quest. Don't burn bridges that don't need to be burnt.

And the jokes of academics are often not as funny as they think and the worldview they have may not be shared as widely as they imagine.
There are, I suspect, hundreds of questions here from people who are in a bad relationship with their advisor but are not finished and so have serious decisions to make about continuing or leaving. You are lucky now to have that behind you.
Good luck.


Are all papers published by ACM indexed in DBLP?

I think this question can be answered via DBLP's FAQ, specifically: What are the criteria for dblp to index a journal or conference? In a nutshell,

DBLP has a venue application and review process that seems to be applied to each newly included venue,
During this process, a set of minimum standards for newly included venues is considered. One of these standards seems to be inherently fulfilled by conferences published in the ACM digital library: ''All full-texts of contributions should be available online (either openly or as a paid service) in an established digital library.''
There are no guarantees for (timely) inclusion: ''Please note that beside the eligibility of a publication venue, the workload and the resources at dblp are always a limiting factor for the inclusion of new venues''.


Writing a commentary about a paper from a collaborator -- is it research misconduct?

If you want to be "safe" just reveal the relationship. Then people can better judge whether what you have to say is just fluffing (if it is too positive) or grumpiness/sabotage (if it is too negative) or that it is a fair assessment of the other work as it should be.

For an explicit answer to the topline question, however, motive matters. It is possibly misconduct either to try to "catapult" the work of a collaborator or to sabotage it. Writing a fair analysis isn't misconduct.

Following up on a comment, if the editor thinks that writing such commentaries is a clear conflict, then you shouldn't bother to submit it. In such a case, publishing it without disclosing the relationship would be misconduct, not because of the writing of the commentary, but from the deceit of withholding information from the editor.


Is it a breach of protocol to contact people higher in the academic hierarchy for social reasons?

It is great that you are thinking about networking as a PhD student.

My advice would be escalate the relationship by one step. Going from a "nice" conversation at a previous conference (where no email or contract info was exchanged) to a social activity outside of a conference is a bit like asking someone you had a coffee with once to go on a trip with you. It escalates the relationship very quickly and could get awkward. Furthermore, many people don't stay extra days at conference locations so it is likely to be unsuccessful.

Less intense ways to connect:

Send them an email saying that you noticed they were presenting at the conference, and you are looking forward to seeing their work and chatting again
Run into them at the conference (as Ian_Fin suggested) and ask what they are doing for dinner or lunch on a conference day


Feeling like a failure because of a class

What you may be experiencing is the fact that insight into some areas of mathematics don't translate into insight into others. I had a lot of insight into Analysis (my field) and General Topology, but little in Abstract Algebra. I once took a course (grad level) in discrete math and did terribly, experiencing much of what you describe.

To be successful you need a fairly general understanding of much (but not all) of mathematics and a deep understanding of one or two narrow areas. If you can achieve that then you can be a success.

It hasn't been possible for an individual to understand (at any deep level) all of mathematics for about 100 years. There are likely only a few living computer science professionals that understand all of CS, if that is even possible at all anymore, given what has gone on in the last 10 years or so.

If you are early in your studies then work on breadth. If you are mid to late, then it is time for a deep dive.


Differences between “Polytechnic” and “Technology”?

Wikipedia has a nice summary of this distinction (or lack thereof).  In essence: the term "polytechnic" comes from the French École Polytechnique.  Thus, a university with 'Polytechnic' in its name is typically one that was influenced in its founding in some way by the French system.  Today, however, there is generally no significant difference.


Can I get a faculty job in the UK without UK experience?

I am not sure what type of answer you are looking for. Based on personal experience as an American with all my education and training in the US, my first faculty position was as a lecturer in the UK. There are no laws requiring UK experience to get a faculty position of any rank in the UK. There are laws that give preference to those who have a right to work in the UK, but that is not the same as UK based teaching/education experience.

While some schools may prefer individuals with UK based experience, it was never something that came up during our searches. That said a familiarity with the UK system is helpful for demonstrating you can be a good tutor and help advise students.


How to encourage and motivate undergraduates to regularly and independently work on problem sets?

A few (by no means exhaustive) suggestions:

Use extended-response or open-answer style questions. What such a question would look like is completely field-specific, but it's definitely doable in every field (yes, even the technical ones). In theory at least, this makes it harder for several students to copy off of another student without commiting actual plagiarism.
Avoid assigning problems directly from a textbook. This requires more effort on your end, but it prevents students from being able to just copy out of a solution manual.
Make the students propose the problems. Similar to my first suggestion -- if the problem is that students are uninterested, give them the chance to do something that is interesting for them. Obviously you need to put bounds on this, but even within the confines of a single problem set this is doable. For example, in a course on Data Structures in CS, you could ask something akin to "write a simple program that uses data structure X and methods A, B, and C." What they do is up to them, but you still test their comprehension.
Use a flipped classroom model. This is probably the most involved suggestion, but if done properly it means the students are working on homework right in front of you. Makes it a lot harder to just copy answers when the instructor is walking around the room.


How should I present my work to my advisor?

I think the advantages of showing it soon (i.e. unfinished) outweigh any disadvantages. The advisor may have some suggestions as you note and may point you to prior work that you may not be aware of. That could make further work more or less desirable, of course, but either way, it is good to know.
And, whether publishable or not, it may indicate that you are gaining needed insight into your field.
I think that very few advisors would not want to be bothered.


Can I report my math GPA instead of major (CS and math) GPA when applying to graduate school?

Report the GPA they ask for. Anything else is basically fraud.

If you're unclear what GPA they require, look up their requirements, and contact them if necessary to ask. They may allow you to do your major GPA, or they may require your overall GPA. They may allow just your Math GPA.

At some point they're going to see your whole transcript, so there's no way to "hide" your past. But, many applications have a section for you to explain extenuating circumstances, where you could explain that you had difficulty with the CS materials and excelled at math.


Letting students grade their own homework

I have used a similar technique, albeit in a course for nonmajors and at a time late in my  career when I was willing to acknowledge that my grading was often pretty impressionistic even when I had a rubric.

To maximize what students learned from homework and to minimize the time I had to spend parsing their answers, I would go over the homework in class while the students still had their papers. I asked them to comment on their work, with a different writing implement than the one they used at home.

They could correct simple mistakes, flag serious misunderstandings, tell me which problems they were worried about. I encouraged comments like "I didn't understand this at home, now I do" or even "I didn't understand this at home and I still don't".

Then I collected the papers and read and graded them. That took much less time than it would have without their comments. It also gave me better feedback about problem areas.


Transition from Electrical Engineering to Physics

I have seen some people do this and I myself am have done something similar; it is certainly possible.

My university didn't have much flexibility for taking electives or minors either. Your best bet would be to convince your current university (or any local university) to take you on maybe as a non-degree seeking student after graduation (maybe even audit) to fill in the gaps in your general physics knowledge, with a view to eventually transition into the MS program. Doing so would help convince the professors at the institution to admit you into the program by subduing their doubts regarding your background in addition to forming some connections (I volunteered as an RA at a lab in the physics dept. in an area overlapping with my previous engineering background, which helped my get into the physics program at my current institution). Depending on the university, they may even let you into the MS program directly, with the caveat that you have to take some remedial undergraduate courses.

While you probably won't be doing high energy physics right off the bat, you will probably have the opportunity to do graduate level coursework in physics and that will set you up well for a future PhD in HEP or further graduate research in your field of interest.

You might find this link interesting
https://physicsafterengineering.blogspot.com/2018/06/my-journey-into-physics-after.html


How to anonymize research software in an abstract?

Confidentiality and anonymity are different things.  There is no way at all of guaranteeing anonymity.  When you discuss the extremely enlightening experience of an unnamed one-legged Spanish lesbian lion-tamer in Sheffield, you have pretty much made certain that someone could identify her.

If it is important to your professional community, however, that community should protect that person's rights not to be discussed in public.

For peer-review purposes, I would suggest that it might be best to offer alternative terms for the concepts that you describe if that can be done smoothly, but otherwise to trust the community to be judicious and conscientious.  If we can't respectfully do that, we will never get anywhere with anything.


Can you get into a top grad school coming from UT Knox?

I think you are asking the wrong question. For the specific question, your chances of acceptance at a top ten graduate school are near zero. That has nothing to do with you or where you go to school. It is just numbers. The fraction of accepted candidates at such a small set of schools is minuscule.

A better question, that I think will leave you more satisfied, is what you need to do to get into a really good school that will help you meet your overall life goals. It would be sad if at the end of your life the only thing one could say about you is "he went to a top ten grad school."

The way to success to to work hard, learn a lot, read, write, emulate those you want to be like, be bold when necessary, ask for help, learn to work cooperatively, don't burn out, be flexible, practice, ....

You can do all of that anywhere. You can even do it while being a bit of a goofball.

For the record, lots of people are late starters. I never had a positive educational experience until the second or third year of HS. My HS doesn't even exist anymore. But I learned how to be better and wound up with a doctorate and a successful academic career.

But when it does come time to apply for grad school, apply to one or two top schools along with some others. There are a lot of good schools that will help you build a great career and life.


Manuscript was "unsubmitted" because the manuscript was deposited in Arxiv Preprints

Most journals now allow and even encourage the use of preprint servers. Some, however, still prohibit it on the notion that it is competition with their own publication of the article, or even consider it self-plagiarism. This tends to be field-dependent as well: some fields (e.g., physics, mathematics) are very liberal in policy, while others tend to be more retrogressive (e.g., chemistry, certain portions of biology).

The only way to tell a particular journal's policy, however, is to check the specific journal (the SHERPA/RoMEO database is also highly helpful, since it's easier to find the policies there and they have been pre-interpreted by experts).

If you have, indeed, been prohibited from submission due to a journal's policy on preprints, my only advice is to find another that allows it.


Is it common to be given 6 months for a minor revision outcome?

I suspect that what happened is that the editor used a web form to notify you of his/her decision, and to send the referee reports. 6 months is probably a default in the software which the editor did not bother to change. The only thing it is likely to indicate is that the editor sees no need to rush you, and is happy to receive your paper when you're ready.

It's certainly a good idea to finish your revisions much more promptly, and it will likely result in your paper being accepted sooner.


What is the difference between keynote, invited, and oral conference presentations?

Having an invited talk and not having been invited is unusual, indeed. Maybe your professor was invited and passed the ball to you; the best thing to do is asking him/her.

"Oral" also is unusual for me (but maybe not in other fields). As noted in the other answer, typically the hierarchy is, from most to least prestigious:

keynote/plenary: people who were invited to participate by the organizers, who may also be paying their expenses. Unlike the rest of the talks, they are not in parallel sessions or have a reduced level of parallelism. Sometimes, when there are no parallel sections, "keynote talks"  are simply longer.
invited: talks given by speakers that were explicitly invited by the organizers. Typically (but not always), the travel and registration expenses of these speakers are paid by the organizers.
contributed: people who applied themselves for participation (and were accepted) and are going to give a talk, usually in parallel.
poster: people who are going to present a poster instead of giving an oral talk. Sometimes people are given the option to present either a contributed talk or a poster.

I assume that "oral" means "contributed" here.


What do I do if there is an error in a figure in my not-yet-defended thesis?

Speak to your mentor. However, I see no reason to panic or to be scared, if the mistake doesn't influence some fundamental contribution of the thesis. I've found numerous cases where mistakes in the thesis were found years after the defense, even with considerable impact (one extreme case de facto made ~60% of the thesis obsolete aka wrong).

If the thesis is completely printed/prepared/submitted, I guess that the mentor won't insist on repeating the process.

Again, this is not a great issue, if the error is not of fundamental nature (e.g you base your thesis that the actual value of pi is 4, but somehow you miraculously discover now that you were of by 0.8584).


Potential PhD supervisor replied short but expressed interest, what to do next?

Word of caution: my answer below is based on my experience in Canadian Universities and may not apply to other countries.
The way I interpret this response is: your profile is interesting and you are encouraged to list this professor as one of the potential advisors on your application.
If you want further information regarding the lab's research, it seems you will have to initiate this. Just keep in mind that at this point, the professor is likely getting a lot of enquiries. This is the likely reason for the short reply. Some professors may (at this stage) decline extended conversations and refer you to their lab web page, while others will gladly take the time to talk to you. I would send an email thanking this person for their reply, letting them know that you intend to list them as a potential supervisor (if that is indeed your intention), and asking them if they think it is appropriate at this stage to discuss your remaining questions over mail or via skype.


Any ideas how I could get people to participate in my live Internet application experiment for my thesis?

First: If you intend to do research, you have to pay attention to how you pick the participants. If you just take everyone willing to participate, there could be age/gender/etc bias in your results.

Answer to actual question: Standard way to do this is to pay your participants (though not necessarily in cash). Try movie tickets etc.


Is it possible to write a proposal to get a junior professor position in Germany, when existing openings seem far from my research interests?

Stephan's answer is generally correct, but I get the feeling that this is not what the OP has in mind:

  Is it possible to write a proposal to ask for a professorship position?

I take this to mean whether it makes sense to essentially do a "blind application" for a professor position (i.e., send to a university that is not currently conducting a suitable search an application to the extend of "here are my credentials and a research proposal, please create me a position"). The answer to this question is a pretty resounding no. This will only make you seem out of touch with how academia works.


How essential is your GPA for admissions to PhD programs to US universities in Theoretical Physics?

The importance of any single metric is binary and its value (important or not) depends on the size of the department. If the department is big admissions committees use metrics to weed out candidates. Basically anyone with GPA/GRE below X is triaged (doesn't matter what school you went to, how good your references are, etc). Smaller departments generally look at all applications. Once your applications is looked at, it is considered as a whole. There is no formula by which good GRE scores can offset a bad GPA. Obviously a better GPA doesn't hurt, but you really want to worry about the things you can control. For example, good research experience tends to trump everything else.


Ethical concerns regarding the review of a paper on autonomous armed drones

I suggest you withdraw and send a formal letter to the editor expressing your concerns. Cite a larger moral universe than the narrow one covered by the journal's policies. Suggest that the research itself is unethical and recommend, without detailed review, that the paper be rejected.

I've been in a similar but less fraught case. I was shepherd of a paper that crossed a less dangerous boundary. I had repeated contact with the authors and tried, over several communications, to convince them that the actions they were proposing were wrong. I failed to convince them. The paper was rejected. I was actually given an award for my efforts to convince them, even though I failed.

My experience suggests that the people who do this sort of thing are not going to be convinced by a dialog of any kind. They are too invested in it to bother to listen.

Don't wait for "the powers that be" to decide this stuff is immoral and leads to a bad end. If people like reviewers at the bottom of the pyramid don't complain about it, this sort of research will continue and will get implemented. There are too many historical exemplars of this to ignore the consequences.


Writing a function name in a normal paragraph in my dissertation

Is this a question regarding the formatting?

In this case I would use a typewriter font. In LaTeX this is simple by using \texttt:

... with the Java programming language we can use \texttt{System.nanoTime} ...

This looks similar to

  ... with the Java programming language we can use System.nanoTime ...

In Microsoft Word, you could simply use some font, such as Courier New.

However, you should check with your supervisor if this is OK for him or her.


Master's institution forcing me to deposit $5000 immediately -- what can I do if I accept?

I do not think the quick monetary outlay is common. You seem to be leaning toward acceptance and then backing out if you get a better offer. This may be possible because, in my experience, there is not a centralized system which lets other schools know you have accepted (although perhaps that could be different for Masters programs where you are using federal aid, not sure).

However, I would encourage you to take an alternative approach. Call them and explain that you are waiting to hear from other programs, some of which would be funded. Ask for a deadline extension until the April 15th deadline. In the past I was successful with this strategy, and I know students in our program have also successfully received extensions.


PhD defense in germany: how do they decide for the final grade?

To me it seems that your defense will decide whether you will get the grade 1.3 or 1.7. You will certainly not fail.

During my PhD it was roughly 2/3 the written thesis and 1/3 the defense, which is divided equally in your presentation and the rigorosum. However, for you I think this is not relevant since your Gutachten gave different grades and your performance will decide whether Gutachten 1 or 2 is "right".

If I were you I would take the defense seriously and be prepared for the topic the professors are going to ask you. Often professors give some hint on the topic or might even tell you in advance.

You should know that 1.7 will be rounded to 2, so I think it will be a "cum laude" vs. "magna cum laude". So it makes a difference.

To my knowledge virtually all grades are summa cum laude (1+) (approx 20%-30%), magna cum laude (1) and cum laude (2). So cum laude is practically the lowest grade, although it is a 2.

BTW: For the summa cum laude (the distinction) you need 1.0 in both Gutachten and also make an excellent presentation, where professors test you for your limits. Professors often use it to indicate that they think you are ready for the academic career. Also during selection of some programs of the DFG it is expected to have such a grade.

I hope this does answer your question.


Lodging an objection to a decision to reject my Master application

In my (central European) university, candidates for admission to a master's program who are coming from an outside university go through either an "admissions committee" (Zulassungsausschuss) or an "examination committee" (Prüfungsausschuss). Although the decisions are in fact made by those committees, the decisions are usually reported through assistants to those committees, who would constitute the "admissions office." It would represent a huge time commitment for the chair of the committee to individually respond to the different applications, and therefore that work is passed on to the intermediaries.

Thus, I wouldn't read too much into the fact the letter came from the "admissions office" instead of the "admissions committee."

However, if you were in fact rejected on the basis of having an "incomplete" application, even though you were explicitly told that you would be notified of missing documents, that would give you the right to request a review, since they didn't follow their explicit policies.


Changing some part of the paper after getting accepted for a conference

I am wondering whether I should modify the paper...based on the comments of the reviewers.

Yes you should. Acceptance was (most likely) coupled with an expectation that you'd address some or all of the comments. The reviewers (presumably) consider their comments relatively minor, since they'd have rejected otherwise, and are trusting you to make sufficient changes (that they won't check).


I had a "quarrel" with my bachelor thesis advisor, should I ask him to be my one of my referees for grad application?

Based on your history with him, and the fact that he insinuated that you were "mentally unstable" in a previous email - no, you should avoid this individual like the plague.

Perhaps ask the head of the department for a recommendation, explaining the situation?  They may be able to write about your work in the department and explain why your first adviser was not asked to provide a letter.


Is it impolite to ask a professor who was not my master's thesis advisor (but with similar research field) to help me to work on a research topic?

Not at all. You are not committed to doing your PhD with the same advisor. Even if you did want to work with the same advisor, he/she should encourage that you talk to others to hear out their ideas. I highly doubt your advisor would be offended to hear that you were interested in speaking to other professors about their research interests. After all, a PhD is a long road, and you need to be really happy with your advisor, and your work, to survive it.

In fact, I think it looks positive, even to your advisor, knowing that you have multiple options. I once had a job interview where, upon disclosing that I was also interviewing at other places, that "they would be worried if I wasn't".


To a publisher
Publishing a laboratory manual for an undergraduate course is in some way similar to publishing a textbook, which in some ways similar to publishing any other book.
Publishers publish books. In some cases, when they expect that there is going to be  a profitable market, they pay authors for the books they publish, and in other cases authors (or some institutions) cover the costs and either hope that the books will sell in sufficient quantity or receive the books and distribute themselves. In your case, the latter situation is likely - if you'd want to publish that manual, someone (perhaps your university department) would have to cover the full costs of doing so and would get the published manuals to distribute to students and potentially other customers.
Your university may have a publisher subsidiary (it's not that uncommon) who are involved in publishing academic material, if so, it would be worth talking to them.
However, that generally won't be treated as a peer reviewed research publication; it's plausible that it even won't be peer reviewed at all.  Preparing and publishing educational material can get you some "points" in various academic evaluations, but that's a different category than peer reviewed papers with novel research.


BSc thesis proposal: how detailed is the norm

I have gotten informal (but written) confirmation from a professor that the topic I suggested is ok, they even assigned some additional mentors...the thesis is not formally registered yet (it's mandated by university policy that registration needs to happen quickly/before substantial work) and I'm supposed to write a proposal.

Write as little as possible: The professor has informally agreed that the topic is okay and has assigned their resources. The professor is satisfied. Write something, check it is okay with the professor, and submit it. The professor is unlikely (imo) to be interested in the formal requirements, they (imo) just want you to get on with the work.


What does "Remuneration: Expenses" mean in an internship description?

It sounds like you will be reimbursed for your living and travel expenses, but you will not receive a salary.

As for the wisdom of taking such an internship, that's impossible for us to judge in the context of your career.


How can I thank/acknowledge people during a short presentation?

You can put such acknowledgements on the very last slide, which will stay up while you field questions after your presentation (unless you need to flip back to a specific slide to answer a question).

Don't recite every single name in a presentation. Just end your talk like this:

  Finally, I'd like to thank everyone who has helped me in this project.

Then look expectantly at the session chair, who should lead the applause and ask for questions, while everyone who is interested can read your acknowledgements on the slide.


How to organize content of slides for a conference presentation?

It is better to finish early than late (if they would let you). Do not
try to say too much. Then try to be informal, to give a feeling and
intuitive understanding for what you are doing. If you include an
equation, you probably want to explain it informally. It is often unlikely
that most people will follow details that are too technical.

Part, or all, of the presentation is really advertising for the
paper. Make then understand the concepts, and why it is interesting
and new. But you should probably skip the technical details of proofs
or programs.  However, relating your work to existing work is
important: the audience will want to understand why they should spend
time reading you paper, what advances they will get beyond what they
already know.  If they are interested in a specific detail they
consider crucial, they will as a question. But you are unlikely to
know in advance what it will be.

Remember, you will not tell your whole paper in one talk. Else the
talk would be longer, or the paper shorter.

If you think that some details are important and that you may have
question about them, though they would overload your talk, you can
prepare slides to answer questions about them. And you use them if
needed.  But do not mix them with the other slides, put them at the
end.

Your PDF (PDF is generally accepted) should be organized so that you do not have to think about it
during the talk. You will be busy enough.


How do Universities deal with poor teaching?

This is the first time (in 45 years) that I've heard of acting on a mid-term teaching review. Even a mid-term review is, I think, very rare. At least in the US. Students here usually provide a course evaluation at end of term and the department head is open to student complaints at any time, but I think that any formal system of supporting struggling teachers is also very rare. Prior to obtaining tenure, you are subject to being fired for poor teaching at many places. But, in general, it needs to be a pretty clear cut case for that to happen.

Instead, poor teaching is dealt with at the time of hiring and often as part of the tenure process, including at mid-tenure review. At most places, poor teaching is a mark against you, though at some universities a star researcher will still be hired. Such a person won't normally be put in a class room with novices, however, and teaching will be at upper levels where advanced students may be more able to deal with it.

Generally, though, if a major part of the job is teaching, you are expected to already be good at it in order to be hired. In many of the top research institutions where teaching isn't really expected of researchers, there is a special faculty track for teachers who handle much of the undergraduate program. These jobs can come with (eventual) tenure and a different set of responsibilities from those on the research track.

In many fields people are employed as TAs as part of the doctoral education and some of these positions involve actually teaching a course. Thus, you can get some experience teaching before entering the job market. That isn't universal, of course. If a TA turns out to be a poor teacher, they won't be put back in a classroom (one hopes, at least) and will be given other duties.

There are also, in some fields, special interest groups who hold conferences dedicated to teaching that subject: SIGCSE as part of ACM, for example, which holds several conferences per year. Here teachers can learn about the craft of teaching. But it is up to the individual, with encouragement from the administration, to participate in such things.


Creating a community around my research book

Instead of getting the community to approach you, I suggest that you be the one to approach the community.  As an amateur (one who is outside the academic mathematical community), you are at a big disadvantage.

I recommend that you attend conferences and interact with others who are doing work similar to yours.  In my opinion, the best way to get attention is to present papers in good conferences and to publish papers in respectable journals.  By doing this, your reputation will improve and your work will be better known.


Dropped out of Grad school after withdrawal period

At least in the US, the usual rules are that after the withdrawal period dropping out simply results in Fs unless some special agreement is made. It's possible you could ask the school to grant an administrative withdrawal (or some equivalent) as you are dropping out entirely and do not want any grades or credit, which they could conceivably grant (but aren't required to). School policy on refunds might be that you aren't entitled to any after the withdraw date, or that you could actually be owed some percentage (though if you are withdrawing in the very last week or so then probably not).

I've known people who did this with undergrad and had to deal with the result to their GPA years later when their situations had changed, so I would strongly advise you - if it is remotely possible at all - to deal with the added difficulty and meet with a proper administrator and follow procedure to withdraw from the program entirely.

Anyone in a similar situation - including you - might also consider, if they are at the very end of the semester, if they could just finish going through the motions and end the semester if early withdrawal is not possible. In short: leave yourself in the best position not to burn bridges, because life can change drastically over a few years. The few minutes you saved in not following through can result in some incredibly annoying results later on.

Take a deep breath, tidy up the lose ends (holding your nose where necessary), and then go on to the next chapter of your life with as much closure and minimized baggage as you can.


Advice about job applications in the US (mathematics)

Answers to your questions (the numbering is the order you asked them):

You should definitely email people at the university who might be interested in and familiar with your work.  But for tenure track positions it is weird to say you want to work with them.  Instead, I would just send a low-key email just letting them know that you applied to their position and would be very interested in coming there.  The goal is to be informative but not pushy.
It is true that it is both more expensive and more difficult logistically to interview someone who is coming from overseas, but it certainly does happen.  They just have to want you enough.  For postdocs, there generally isn't an interview, so it isn't an issue.  However, some kinds of postdocs are funded by sources like the NSF that only want to support US citizens or permanent residents, so foreign applicants won't be considered for them.
It's not weird at all.  Doing so will not affect your chances at getting a tenure-track position.  Everyone knows that the job market is tight.
There has to be someone at the university who advocates for hiring you, which means at least they appreciate the kinds of math you do.  But certainly there does not have to be someone who works in precisely the same part of mathematics (and in fact often the "needs of the department" involve hiring in fields that are not well-represented there).

My background: I've served on a large number of search committees in pure mathematics at a couple of different private research universities.


An ex-student of my future supervisor is accusing the lab of fraud. How does this affect me?

With no further information available, this seems like a situation to avoid. If you have time, and if the resolution of the case seems imminent, then you could wait, but otherwise you would be good to protect yourself. Protect yourself from the turmoil that seems inevitable to come as well.

One way to proceed is to go to the head/chair for a sit down and ask for advice. If the advice is to stay with this professor, you want some assurance that you will be allowed to succeed even in the worst case for the professor.

The charges might be false, of course, though the professor sabotaging another student would be equally serious, if that is what actually happened. But make sure that you aren't just being driven by rumor here. Make sure you have accurate information.

The head or another senior professor is likely to have better information.


Naming of subchapters which deal with same topic in different case

How should one select the titles for a thesis?

It is rather repetitive to use structures such as

 4.1 Usage of Software-as-a-Service
 4.1.1 Usage of Software-as-a-Service at Company A
 4.1.2 Usage of Software-as-a-Service at Company B

I suggest something less repetitive, e.g.,

 4.1 Software-as-a-Service
 4.1.1 Case study: Company A
 4.1.2 Case study: Company B


Approaching research adviser with worries about project feasibility

Ultimately you are the judge but by the looks of it, I would consider 3 weeks as too early to decide if a task is feasible or not. I am assuming that you know the colleague who graduated just for 3 weeks. That is a short time to know someone and calibrate their opinions with your own understanding and capabilities.

If the supervisor has given you the task despite the other colleague did not doing much on it there might be some weight in the task. I would suggest you do your own thorough investigation and give at least 3-4 more weeks trying to understand all aspects of the task at hand. Prepare a document and clearly mention what are the risks and opportunities in front of you, what are the related works surrounding the task.

At the same time, try to best gauge the intentions of involved folks, may be ask questions to other people around the lab, find experts online and write mails.

With this strategy, I think, at best you will lead to some groundbreaking ideas or findings and at worst you will learn a lesson in how to systemically conduct research, gauge opinions of others and strengthen the collaboration channels.

Hope this helps.


How much should I adapt a paper to fit another conference than where I originally submitted?

It's very hard to judge how well a paper will be received by a particular set of reviewers (which is the real question for paper acceptance).  It is certain, however, that the more that you adapt the paper to speak to the community that you are sending it to, the more likely it is to be well received.

I think that in making your decision, you would be well advised to think less about time and more about audience. Six months isn't very long to wait for a publication, so unless you've got a reason to really hurry, I wouldn't take that as a primary factor.  Instead, consider whether the work you are doing is an incremental step that would be best reserved for discussion in the focused community or whether you think it's broad and interesting enough that the larger community should hear it.

If the former, then finish the paper now and set a reminder in your calendar for a few weeks before the deadline of the focused conference. If the latter, then go for the earlier conference and put in as much work as necessary to speak to the broader audience.  Don't just send a narrow paper to a broad conference, though: even if you get accepted, you will have less impact than if you adapt the work for the audience to which you are intending to present it.


Ideas for and approaches to adding value to literature reviews

Your question very field dependent. In my social sciences field, literature reviews 1) answer some kind of open question in the field, just like an empirical paper does and 2) are, these days, usually systematic reviews.

You'll hear a lot of researchers talk about the right "time" for a literature review. They may say it's too early for a lit review in the field, or that it's the "right time." What that usually means is that there's enough collected empirical research in the field to do the review but ALSO that there's some sort of open question or idea that the literature review contributes to. Turn it back on yourself: if you were looking for papers in your field, what kind of literature review would you want to read? Methodological ones are good; there's a well-cited one in my field that reviews the empirical work in my area using a specific method that I use, and it's very useful in conceptualizing and writing my own papers.

More theoretical ones can be useful, too, if you're trying to answer a question: What really IS this X that people in the field have been talking about in 27 different ways - can we come up with a unifying concept or underlying theme that makes it easier to talk about that X? (I think that's the first idea that you highlighted in your question.) There are about a million papers on whether Y affects Z; have we come to some sort of conclusion as a discipline about whether and how Y really does affect Z? In my field, the people who write these papers are usually senior scholars (or a team that usually has a senior, established person on it). Some journals don't accept them unless they specifically invite the scholar to write one, or unless the scholar contacts the journal ahead of time with an outline or plan for what they want to write.

Basically, journals don't want a random summary or even a simple synthesis of several papers. They want a review that's going to push the field forward in some way. Most dissertation literature reviews don't do that - but if you can write your review in such a way that it does (or at least lay the foundation so that when you go back to it later, it's easy to transform it into one that does) you'll have an easier time getting it published.

The other thing is that in my field, these days, most journals want systematic reviews. It's a very specific way of doing a literature view that makes it akin in format to an empirical paper: with bounded year dates, specific search terms, and a systematic way of deciding whether to include or exclude papers (hence the name "systematic review"). It's a way of trying to ensure that authors don't only include papers that support their views. Many times systematic reviews also include a meta-analysis; I suspect that they are more likely to get published if they do.


Is it discrimination to hold someone from a minority or underprivileged background to the same academic standard as regular students?

You are asking two separate and completely unrelated questions. The first, which you posed in the title, concerns the meaning of the English word "discrimination". The answer to that question is very simple: no, treating all students according to uniform standards and policies without consideration of their membership in various ethnic or racial groups is not discrimination; rather, it is precisely the absence of discrimination. That says nothing about whether it is a good or a bad (or moral/immoral, ethical/unethical etc) policy, it simply answers the question of whether it fits the meaning of a particular word in the English language.

Your second question was about how graduate students from minority and/or underprivileged backgrounds "should" be treated, which I interpret as asking about whether the policy of applying uniform standards to all students alluded to above is a good or a bad thing to have. This is a special case of a large set of questions associated with the terms affirmative action and reverse discrimination. It is a controversial topic that has been and still remains the subject of a large amount of debate as well as litigation, and if you care to learn more about it, there's a large body of discourse on such questions that you can find referenced in the Wikipedia articles linked above or with a google search. It is a sufficiently complex topic that I feel I can't meaningfully comment on it in a short post, and in any case enough has been said about it by people who have given the subject much more thought than I have to make anything I can think of saying about it laughably simplistic and uninteresting.

To clarify, this answer expresses no opinion about what policies should be in place for treating graduate students from underprivileged backgrounds.


What is the proper way of referencing journals, as opposed to papers within journals?

It is probably best that it goes in the bibliography, which should represent a full accounting of the resources you draw on. It is an obvious place to put the URL of the web site.
In general, it is better to be a bit formal in such things than informal, whether you literally need to cite it or not.


In teaching, what do we actually mean when we say "syllabus completed"?

This sounds a lot like a "rantion". :) I'll try an answer, but most of what I writing is a truism.

  Does it make sense to just say that syllabus is completed in which students get almost nothing?

There are two different questions: was everything that was on the syllabus covered in the class? and were the lectures helpful and sufficient to learn the required material?. Both should be asked to the students. They should not be mixed up.

  Is it not worth teaching some small amount but in an optimal way so that the students would get the true knowledge from the course and could apply whatever they learned?

Clearly, there is a balance to be found between amount of material covered and depth/effectiveness of the lectures. For each course there are different reasonable balance points, and it's the job of a competent teacher to find one of them.

  What do we actually mean by the term "syllabus completed" -- Do we mean "students learned everything that we taught" or "we taught everything, but don't care about students learning"?

The second. The first one is a separate question, equally important (see above).


As a post-doc, can work on applications of existing methods harm my career prospects?

As a general rule: publications tend to be the measure of whether something is novel. So, if you are publishing, I'd say you indeed are helping your academic career. If you aren't publishing: that is a major complaint you can bring up with your PI. Here you can use the outsize importance of publications in academia to your advantage. You can debate all day long whether your work is novel enough with your PI, but no one can justify leaving you without publications.

Also, it is important whether these applications are helping you grow as a researcher. Are these applications trivial, mindless work, or do you learn things while working on them? Are you getting faster/better at implementing them? Are you ever surprised at results, or can you predict what the results are going to be before the experiments are done?
Note that breakthroughs in science often rely on a strong grasp of the fundamentals and the context in which the work is done. Having strong experience in applying those algorithms could be essential in later designing them yourself.


First of all, I don't give individual advice for prospective math PhD students without saying that the job market for permanent positions (including teaching positions) is terrible and likely to stay that way.  There are significantly fewer jobs than highly qualified candidates.
With that out of the way... You can get pretty much as good an education at a program ranked around 60 as at a program ranked around 20.  It's true that, at the lower ranked program, you will likely have to study some more advanced topics independently with your advisor that you might have been able to take a 2nd or 3rd year graduate course for at a higher ranked program.  But, given the job market, the qualifications of the professors are going to be pretty much the same.  You'll be able to get pretty much just as good an advisor who, if you're capable, will help you work on just as good a project, and the advisor will have pretty much just as good a network to help you promote your work and find a postdoc.
Another difference is the expectations of the culture.  At a program around 60, a student who gets a research postdoc is exceptional.  The professors will not generally push you to do that level of coursework and research until you demonstrate that kind of capability, and your peers will not be expected to do that level of research.  Some people are more likely to make an effort beyond what their peers do; others are not.  I don't know you.
However, you should also realize that, if you are capable of earning a PhD with research that will get you a research postdoc, then every program ranked around 20 will be happy to admit you.  Of course it's somewhat hard to judge the potential of an undergraduate student, but if the higher ranked programs all turn you down and you do get a postdoc after your PhD, then those programs have all made a mistake.  Sometimes that mistake is systemic and out of their control; perhaps all your letters of recommendation underestimated your potential.  This means, though, that failing to get admission to a top 25 program is an indication that admissions committees don't think you're likely to succeed to that extent.


The point of referencing is to allow others to determine what you've referenced and to look it up in turn.

Harvard has tools for citing multi-media formats, such as board games.

Inline: ([Rulebook] 1986).

Biblio: [Rulebook] 1986 Labyrinth (boardgame), Ravensburger.

Consult a full style guide and model off the nearest multi media work, for example, album liners to a CD.

Are you sure 2007 is really the date of the edition and not the printing?

(Kobbert 2007).

Kobbert, MJ 2007 '[Rulebook]' Labyrinth (boardgame), Ravensburger Spieleverlag.


Attend conference without a published paper

Actually, there are several things. One is you get exposed to a lot of ideas and current research by attending the talks. Don't be afraid to be visible. Ask a question or two if the opportunity arises. Smaller groups/talks/workshops are more useful for meeting people than plenary sessions.

Another is that you can meet a lot of people in your field, some of whom might give you more idea or be interested in your ideas. If the conference has lunch venues, be sure to spend some time there. Introduce yourself.

If there is a poster session, you can meet with some folks, many of whom are also grad students, and learn about their research ideas.

While you are there, take a lot of notes. Collect a lot of business cards if you can. Pass out a lot of business cards with contact information if you can.

Ideas. Networking.


Applying for an MPhil or PhD in Computer Science at Cambridge University

The MPhil in Advanced Computer Science is designed as a preparation course for the PhD, so yes, it is absolutely normal to apply for the MPhil with the intention to apply for a PhD while there. Being there also gives you the opportunity to get to know your potential PhD supervisor better. And you can get support from the Computer Lab and your college during the application process.

The degree itself is comparable to a single year of a two year master's programme. I recommend not to just apply "to Cambridge" but to spot the group or even the advisor you would like to work with. The Computer Lab is great for some fields, but not ideal for others, because as any department they cannot have a research group on every subject.


Is it worth getting a masters in a secondary field as part of an interdisciplinary PhD?

When you are evaluated as a job candidate in academia, the first thing people will see is your PhD.  That will tell them that you know how to dig into a topic, get the background knowledge that you need in order to conduct the research you are interested in.

The next thing they will look at is your publication record.  Because of the peer review process, they will feel confident that if you publish in reputable journals on a particular topic, you know what you're talking about.

So if you're sure you're headed for academia, I think you will be fine just cherry-picking the particular courses you think will be most helpful for you in Environmental Policy.  (Although if you find that you're, say, only one or two courses away from satisfying the requirements for the masters, then I suppose you might as well finish it off.)

Think of how many PhDs veer off in a different direction during the course of their career!  They don't bother getting a new PhD in the process, because they already have one.  You can think of the PhD studies as the apprenticeship to do research, and the PhD as a driver's license which was issued in one state, but which you can use in other states.


Do you think a computational math student should go to student seminars about pure math?

You're not going to be able to determine which seminars are useful to you without going to some of them. And yes, some of them will be wastes of time. But I've gone to seminar series that should be extremely topical to me that never benefitted me directly, and some from peripheral departments that turned out to be very useful - as mentioned in one of the comments, even if you don't take away anything from the lecture, it's useful to know people. One day, you might find yourself in need of a graph theorist or some such, and it's helpful to have met them once, or be able to say "I saw your talk..." in an introductory email.

Also, selfishly, from an applied field, having applied participants in more theory heavy fields is helpful for teaching theory students how to present their topics to people outside their narrow subfield.


What differentiates Bioinformatics from Computational Biology?

I often see the word Bioinformatics more related to DNA and sequencing than Computational Biology. It is more descriptive.
Computational Biology seems more used when referring to proteins structure, interactions or drug design. It is usually more guided.

In Wikipedia both terms are synonymous.


Is relevant self-citation an effective way to promote your work?

The answer might depend on how you define "effective promotion", but there is scientometric research concluding that self-citation leads to more citations - crucially including more citations by others. Instead of a comprehensive literature survey (which I'm ill-equipped to write), I'll just refer you to one of the more important papers on the topic as an inroad to the field.

Studying citations to Norwegian scientists, Fowler and Aksnes: "Does self-citation pay?", Scientometrics 72, 427-437 (2007) found (non-paywalled version)

  that the more one cites oneself the more one is cited by other scholars.  Controlling for numerous sources of variation in cumulative citations from others, our models suggest that each additional self-citation increases the number of citations from others by about one after one year, and by about three after five years. Moreover, there is no significant penalty for the most frequent self-citers — the effect of self-citation remains positive even for very high rates of self-citation.


How are instructors compensated for teaching a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)?

As @JeffE said, every department is different. There is remarkably little information available on the compensation offered to the instructors teaching the courses. A quick search revealed this article which states that this professor at Duke University doesn't receive any compensation for teaching MOOCs, including no reduction in teaching load, or any teaching assistants. See also this scathing article which states that professors teaching MOOCs are grossly underpaid--no hard numbers anywhere though.


How to become a reviewer for an engineering journal?

The short answer for formatting a cv is that you should do it like others applying for similar jobs (or already in those jobs), but make it easier to scan if possible.  So find home pages of people who have jobs like the one you want, and read their cv's to see how they format them.

Now for your second question:
Most editors are often (constantly?) looking for new reviewers.  To get a chance to review a paper, you should

let the editor know you'd like to review and
give him or her some reason to trust that you'll do a good job.

Accomplishing (1) is easy: simply send an email or tell the editor in person (for example if you meet him at a conference or visit his university).  Now (2) takes a little more work, but isn't hard.  Trusting you to review a paper is typically a low-risk gamble for an editor.  If you don't violate confidentiality (talk about the paper with others in more detail than you should), then about the worst outcome for the editor is that you fail to write a report, or write a lousy report.  That's less than ideal, but if it happens, they'll just ask someone else to review the paper.  All that is to say, you don't have to work too hard to convince an editor to let you review a paper.  So how do you do it?

As you suggested, one good way is to publish in that journal.  Others are publish in another related journal;  give clear intelligent talks on research in an area related to the journal; get a recommendation to the editor to use you to review, from a friend of yours who is more established in your field.

Once you do get an opportunity to review a paper, make sure you do a good job.  Mainly this involves: submitting your report on time, making a clear recommendation to accept or reject, and supporting your assessment with the strengths and weaknesses of the paper.  If you'd like more detail, that's another question by itself.


As an undergrad applying for PhD positions, can I add to my CV that I will be mentioned in an as yet unwritten paper?

It is certainly appropriate to put in a line on your CV about your participation in the project, naming it, and maybe the PI. You can also state that the work is "yet to be published". Don't overstate the case, of course, but if the paper is not yet written, nor the authorship determined, you can't say, now, any more than that.
But participation in a project is itself valuable for a CV intended for graduate admissions.


What are some implications of taking a break before a PhD in the US or Europe?

My perspective is primarily European, since I did my Master's in Sweden and my PhD in Germany. That said, I did take a break before starting on my PhD. It wasn't entirely voluntarily -- I did not get any PhD studentships when I wanted them, and had to wait for the next round of applications.

During my break, I moved from Sweden to Germany, and took a job doing industrial software design for a consultancy firm. It gave me good experiences, the knowledge that I could make a career in industry, and also a very strong drive to make it in academia. Furthermore, the PhD position I eventually was admitted to, I got in part because I had, at that point, both Open Source and industry experience with packaging, shipping and distributing software -- something my advisor wanted to learn more about.

For me, this all worked out well. I left my industry job after 10 months to start a PhD, I graduated with a decent enough thesis, and now -- several years later -- I am about to start the first research project with my name on the grant application.

One fundamentally important thing to note with my anecdote is that there is a huge difference in how PhDs are admitted in large parts of Europe vs. in the US. For my PhD, I applied for a job with a particular professor, which happened to include “opportunity to study for a PhD” as part of the job description. This is how it mostly is done in Germany, and also in Sweden. In this setting, it is important that you come to the PhD with a set of credentials that will be valuable to your advisor, specifically. I managed to do just this with my break -- but that was luck as much as anything else.

In the US, there seems to be a LOT more politics involved in the process, and the applying to a school aspect of the US process biases the experience more towards grooming your CV for academia in general.

Your mileage will vary.


Some postdoc positions do not have deadlines, but will open until filled. What is happening?

Long story short, they don't need to "settle for less". Though this may sound somewhat crass, the truth of the matter is that many elite institutions probably do receive a large number of applications but reject most of them. Because there is no risk of the supply of interested applicants disappearing, a lab can wait to pick out a candidate that they feel meets their (possibly very high) requirements.


Is it ever alright to add a subtitle to a title shortened by publication when citing?

I'd stick with the published title.  You definitely shouldn't edit it without indicating that you are doing so, for example with square brackets, and I'd avoid that too.  I've never seen anyone do it.  If you do edit the title, then the best case scenario is that you'll come across as a little eccentric, and you may confuse or irritate readers.  (They may wonder whether you are referring to a slightly different version of the paper than the one they have, for example a longer preprint or working paper that was shortened for publication.  Then they may waste time looking for it, or decide you are being sloppy about your citations.)  It may also throw off citation counts, which is not in your interests.  Incidentally, I assume you are talking about a previous paper of yours - you certainly shouldn't edit someone else's title.

Instead of editing the title, you can convey this information in the body of your paper via your citation.  For example, you could write "For background on Classes A, B and C and how they fit into Bigger Topic, see Paper X."  If you give the reader enough information, then the shortened title really won't matter.


It would depend, of course, on your aims and purposes. Academia generally rewards specialization over generalization. Doctoral Research, in particular takes you deep into the weeds of a normally quite narrow topic.

Survey papers, on the other hand, are evidence of generalization, though within a single field, usually. They demonstrate breadth, not depth. (See note at end)

Educators (as opposed to researchers) on the other hand value breadth, quite a lot. Most academic positions combine teaching and research, of course.

If you are wanting to apply to a PhD program, or for a research position, I think your deep and narrow papers will serve you well. If you are wanting to apply for a teaching (primarily) position, then breadth will be an asset.

In industry, on the other hand, the evaluations will be quite different. If you are hired to solve a particular problem, then the evaluation will be biased, at least a bit, on how quickly you can be productive (i.e. narrow and deep). But for a management position at the same firm, a wider and more comprehensive view is usually valued.

My advice to students is to study a lot of things broadly and a few things deeply. This seems (to me) to be a good balance.

I think, however, you are asking the question as a person who wants to enter a doctoral program. Unless you already find one tailored to your narrow interest, you will be well served if you are seen as someone who can relatively quickly move into a variety of research areas. It gives you a better choice of advisors than if you have already narrowed your interest.

Note that I interpret "survey" to mean a fairly wide net. It is also possible to "survey" a very narrow spectrum. In some sense the list of references in a dissertation form a survey of a narrow field. If that narrow view is what you actually intend, my answer might be quite different.


Roughly what date do NSF Postdoc Fellowship announcements occur?

In another answer, Zach H said that notifications for 2014 went out on January 14th.

In 2015, the date was January 26.

In general, the notifications are sent out a week or so before the coordinated postdoc deadline, the day before which most research universities agree not to require a decision on postdoc offers. http://www.ams.org/profession/employment-services/deadline-coordination/deadline-coordination  This deadline changes from year to year, but it is always toward the end of January/beginning of February.

The idea is that people should have an opportunity to find out whether they've received the NSF before making any other decisions on postdoc offers, and if they were not one of the lucky few getting the NSF, then they should have at least a week to mull over their decision.


Get Information about NSF grant with grant number

Visit research.gov

  Research Spending & Results gives the public, the scientific community, and Congress insight into federally funded research. Research Spending & Results provides information about how federal research dollars are being spent, what research is being performed, and how the outcomes of research are benefiting society as a whole. Anyone can easily access, search, and sort information in new ways through Research.gov. Currently, information is available for NSF and NASA awards.

Search the award data.


Correctly formatting automatic APA 7th edition style citations in Word

Instructions on building your own custom citation style can be found at this Microsoft webpage.  This instruction can be used to learn how to modify the current style, or use it as a template for a separate corrected style.

In the meantime, whilst working on the style, I found a workaround for the et al. inline citations in SuperUser.  You may manually edit incorrect inline citations by editing the field.  Doing this is still quicker than manually typing all citations and references as it only affects a few inline citations.

For example, with the inline citation used in the question

  (Okami, Olmstead, Abramson, & Pendleton, 1998)

right click on the citation and select the "Edit Field" option.

The citation field for this example was:

CITATION Oka98 \l 2057

If you edit it to this:

CITATION Oka98 \n  \t  \l 2057  \f "Okami et al., "

It becomes:

  (Okami et al., 1998)

The following explains the switches used.

\n removes the author names

\t removes the title (to prevent it being displayed with the other bug)

\l is for the locale code

\f is for a prefix which in this case replaces the author names.


The tricky aspect of this question is that you don't seem to know for sure how much progress he is actually making.  Ten years is a long time to spend in graduate school, but not unheard of.  If he is slowly making progress and supporting him isn't too much of a burden on his family, then he might be better off finishing in eleven or twelve years total, rather than quitting after ten.  (Finishing may feel much better than quitting, even if he doesn't get an academic job at all.  There are also different sorts of academic jobs: he might benefit from the degree if he ends up in high school or community college teaching, where having a Ph.D. could mean something and they might not care if it was a long, slow process.)

If he is making no progress at all and will most likely never complete the degree, then doing something else with his life would be a better choice, but of course that's a very difficult conversation to have.  If this is the case, then his advisor should already be dealing with this issue, but it's possible that the advisor is avoiding the topic.

Another difficult case is if he could complete the degree, but nobody wants to support him for long enough, or if his plans for what he'll do with the degree are unrealistic.

My recommendation is that you shouldn't intervene unless you have an exceptionally close relationship (romantic partner, best friend, etc.).  Otherwise, it's really none of your business and I doubt you'll have a productive conversation.

If you do have a close enough relationship, then the first step is to have a honest conversation about how things are going, what his hopes are for the future, what's realistically possible, what the trade-offs are, what his fallback plan is, etc.  Without that, all you're doing is guessing.  Merely having this conversation could be a useful way for him to clarify his thoughts, so I'd start with that rather than focusing on making changes.  Discussing potential changes can wait until you have reached consensus on the situation he is facing.


Why was I offered an associate professorship after applying for an assistant professorship position? How will this be perceived?

UK perspective

(1) What do you make of this?

They think you are good enough to be recruited directly to the higher-ranking grade. It sounds reasonable in light of your seven years' postdoc experience plus having publications commensurate with the grade. They obviously think you are an outstanding candidate, and may be offering you the higher-ranking grade to make the prospect of international relocation as enticing as possible. Congratulations!

(2) How will this unusual feature of my future CV be perceived by universities in the west, if I later try to get back?

To be honest, I can never remember the difference between "associate professor" and "assistant professor" -- most UK universities do not use these terms and the whole concept of "tenure track" does not really exist in the UK (although some UK universities have very long probation periods for more junior staff dressed up as fancy schemes -- here is an example that involves up to 8 years' probation). A UK academic reading your CV would, once he/she has familiarised itself with the relative seniority of the grades, be impressed that you skipped straight to the more senior grade. In the UK, an academic who reaches the equivalent of "associate professor" level (probably "senior lecturer") within seven years of getting a PhD will have done very well, but it is not extraordinarily unusual. Definitely, it would work to your advantage.


Mentioning my clinical depression in a statement of purpose

No. It is not a good idea. These statements are to show your positives and potential. You are not cheating any one if you did not mention that. But no one asked you about your medical history.


Seriously conflicted about a graduate program option

I'd just state that the offer, while tempting, is second selection for you, and apply to the schools that interest you anyway. Worst case, you'll be rejected elsewhere. Don't close options unless you really have to.


Is it a good idea to introduce myself via email after submitting application?

I think that in most US places, such a letter is likely to be ignored. The application itself should be used to show such strengths, perhaps in a personal statement. But a university with a large number of applicants has fairly strict rules about addenda to applications. I doubt that it would improve the chances, but would, most likely, not harm the case, though it might if he seems desperate.


Should I list my papers which are published in less known journals in my CV?

PhD admission committees look for evidence of your ability to successfully complete the PhD program. Published papers can be a big hint that the answer is "yes".

Unless it can be argued that the journal is a predatory one, I would suggest mentioning the published paper in your application if you think that the paper is of good quality. Even when the journal is not so well known (but has good standards), it shows that you can perform the type of work expected from you if they choose to accept you.


How to deal with racial insensitivity in an academic environment?

In your question, However, he realized it and walked away immediately. and But after few hours, he came back and he was conversing with me like nothing happened

indicate to me that he felt sorry and didn't know exactly how to deal with it.

Professors are also human. They make the same mistakes others do.

I would suggest you to talk to him in person about this incident politely and seriously. Tell him that you are upset with the remarks he made earlier and explain to him why. Don't be emotional.

Whether or not he will apologize is up to him. If he doesn't offer apology to you after you talk to him, then talk to his superiors if you want the apology.


Do researchers reuse benchmark results for existing algorithm when comparing with their algorithm?

Quoting the results from another paper (with citation) is all right, but using it in the benchmark comparison table is something which is practiced in research?

I would wager it is not done enough. It is certainly ok, even required, to compare your results to earlier work, and the more fair and unbiased you can do this, the better. It is perfectly acceptable to say "on the right-hand side of Table XY, we report the results for this problem previously achieved in [1]" (and then list them exactly as reported).

The one thing to make sure, though, is that when you want to say that you are better than a previous work, the comparison is actually fair. For instance, one sometimes sees papers where the authors use a long-running deterministic algorithm (which you need a map/reduce cluster to execute on) and claim that their work is better than an earlier heuristic approach, which was built for speed and on-line execution. Don't do that.


What is Summa cum Laude and how do you get it? (USA)

Each university can define summa cum laude and magna cum laude as it choses.  Honours/honors/medals cannot be considered directly comparable between American and Australian universities.  Keep in mind that American universities do not have to adhere to national regulations or standards.  They are much more variable than Australian universities and also far more numerous.


The word contingency basically means "possibility". He can not supervise you now for the reasons he explained, but there is a possibility that in future he will. I would take it as a polite no.


It may work very differently depending on the group size, their skills and engagement. My only experience (when it comes to lecturing, not - giving a talk) is with teaching gifted high-school students, for other cases (less skilled or less motivated students, or stricter plan) it may not hold.
Never assume that students follow you, just because they are silent, nodding agreeably, saying that they follow you or even (especially?) repeating your phrases. By interaction see if they get the idea, sort of get the idea, or don't get it at all.
(And "make it slower" is not an universal remedy, because either they may be totally lost at this point, or they may not follow because it is already to slow to keep them awake.)
After giving a course ask a few students is person to name 3 strongest and 3 weakest points of it. (It's important to do it, i.e. to force to give 3 weak points, because otherwise they may be not that willing to do so. All courses have >=3 flaws. The questions is if they are minor or serious. And beware that a mean grade of a course (e.g. student gave you on average 7.6/10) is almost meaningless, even if split into categories; only text based comments make sense.)
Be inviting so they ask questions (compare: "exams are a sick thing, when the more knowledgeable person asks question the less knowledgeable one". ) Don't kill the natural curiosity. And remember, if they knew everything, then it would be not point fort them to attend your course.
(BTW: One of my friend was giving a candy for every student asking a valid question, regardless if simple or hard.)
If the material goes slower that you want, never (once again: never):

cut breaks (without a break many could leave the other part, learning not less),
just run faster (it makes it even more incomprehensible).

Just plan better the next one, given you have some feedback. Writing a lot of stuff on a whiteboard may trick you into believing that you explained them, but in fact you did a chaotic, unpleasant lesson. Compare (excuse me for an entropy joke):

Efficiency of teaching is measured by mutual information between you and your audience.
Not by entropy of your blackboard nor entropy your created in their minds.
Both are poor upper bounds.

Other things:

watch others giving a lecture,
record yourself giving a lecture.


No.

He was an LL D of Trinity College, granted 1765; and a DCL of Oxford, granted 1775.

See https://www.britannica.com/biography/Samuel-Johnson

Note:
DCL= Doctor of Civil Law.
LL.D.= Doctor of Laws, that is of both the Civil and the Canon Law.


Invited talk had to be withdraw for visa reason, can it be on CV?

As long as you're honest about it, I suppose you could put it on a CV.  However, I don't think an invitation to give a talk is likely to count for anything if you didn't actually give the talk - it raises more questions than it's worth.


Can a UK research council-funded PhD change direction to fall outside the scope of the RC?

It is a serious problem if the unforeseen issues make it impossible to fulfill the terms of the grant.  You will need to work with your programme directors about that.

If the unforeseen issues and distractions merely make you prefer not to fulfill the terms of the grant, than too you could ask your programme directors.  But don't be surprised if they prefer that you do fulfill them.


Is it okay to send a thank-you-for-teaching to a professor who taught a course a few semesters ago?

Yes, it is entirely appropriate and will be appreciated. Let the person know a bit about your current activities - especially successes.
Even better, if it weren't for the pandemic, would be to pay them an in-person visit during office hours. Too few people get a chance to thank their important mentors, I'm afraid.


Should I quit a PhD with little supervision at a prestigious university and start a new PhD?

For PhD supervisors, an ideal outcome of a PhD trajectory is that the student learns to independently generate good research ideas, and perform solid investigation of those ideas following the tenets of the scientific method. Ideally, this results in several top-level publications, co-written by the student and the supervisors.
You describe (including information from the comments) how you independently generated a good research idea, and managed to get its investigation published as a journal paper. If I were your supervisor, I would be happy with your progress. In fact, if I were your supervisor, I would be very reluctant to start rocking the boat: why would I interfere in something that is progressing nicely? You are achieving what you are supposed to achieve. It would be very silly of me to attempt to change the current situation: if I start micromanaging a productive PhD student, this may demotivate the student and harm productivity, which is the opposite of what I want.
Your post clearly indicates that you expect more from your supervisors. It is important to explore that; you owe it to yourself to make the most of your PhD trajectory. But I cannot see from your post exactly what is missing. You write that you expect "useful technical suggestions on the research", but if your research gets published, what technical suggestions are there to be made? I think it would be prudent if you ask yourself precisely what it is that you are missing, because if you can formulate this precisely, you might also be able to communicate to your supervisors clearly what you expect them to additionally contribute.


Interviewing at nth choice school after being accepted to first choice school

I think the only thing that would be considered rude would be to have the interview and not take it seriously. Declining the interview if you're not going to attend saves everyone time, and accepting the interview if you think you might attend is perfectly reasonable. It can even help you if the less preferred school offers you a better support package.


How can I signal that I don't intend to follow up the items in my "Future Work" section?

I've never heard this about "Future Work".  Items that you put in this section are simply things that you are currently considering, and someone else who does them should at least cite your original work.  However, anyone who beats you to actually doing the work should be able to publish it.

If you want to make it absolutely clear that you do not intend to work on this material (and, you never know, you might end up going back to it later anyway!), simply call the section "Further discussion" or just "Discussion".