How hard is it to succeed in research after an adviser's death midway through PhD?

In academia, as everywhere, life happens.
Fortunately, a lot of people understand this.

It will definitely be harder to succeed when your advisor has passed away than if your advisor had lived.  I suspect, however, that it will be much easier than if you had a falling out with your advisor, which has been addressed in a number of different questions on this site.

It sounds like your institution is doing the best it can to offer you options for getting new advising, and that those options are not so bad.  It is also the case that you are reaching the point in your program where you would in any case need to start reaching out to build strong relationships outside of your home institution.  Where your advisor might once have helped bootstrap your connections, you have instead your institution's offer to help you meet with other mathematicians.  This is a big juncture in your life and career, and everything changes.  Despite the fact that the original quote is false, a crisis really is both danger and opportunity.

Also, make sure to take care of yourself.  You just had somebody close to you die, and that might affect you in a lot of ways, including interfering with your ability to work.  If you aren't already doing so, I would suggest proactively starting to see a counselor to help you navigate any psychological challenges that may come up: even if you don't feel you are having troubles now, they may start and it is better to catch them early, rather than having troubles that you might attribute to your new advising and then realizing six months down the road that it was actually your reaction to the death.


Is this unprofessional academic writing? How to cite it anyway?

If you cite the secondary source (the book written by the sort-of-careless Harvard professors), you are not at risk of plagiarism.  That does not mean it is great practice: finding a primary source or something close to it is always a good idea.  But you will not be at fault if you simply site the Harvard profs and take them at face value.

One thing you could do is find secondary "primary" sources to back up the profs.  Then you could site an idea like this:

  ... and that is why monkeys like to steal bananas from the Harvard library (Mr. Fancy Harvard Prof 1, Mr. Fancy Harvard Prof 2, 1999) (Mr. Honest Zoo-Keaper Who Interned at Harvard, 1998).

Wherein the "Mr. Honest Zoo-Keaper Who Interned at Harvard" is the primary source you found on your own, externally, who seems to back up the less-than-well-documented assertions of the illustrious "Mr. Fancy Harvard Prof 1" and "Mr. Fancy Harvard Prof 2".


Should an abstract make an argument about why an experiment is important?

Yes it is generally better when the abstract indicates why the experiment is important, since it's key to hook the readers (otherwise why bother reading the paper if it brings no "important" results?), but succinctly as anything else in the abstract. There are typically 2 parts in the abstract where you can explain why the experiment is important:

when explaining why the problem it addresses is important (somewhere in the first half of the abstract)
when summarizing the implication of your results (at the end of the abstract).

I love the following abstract for a paper on how to write an abstract written by Steve Easterbrook; I italicized the two parts I mentioned above:

  The first sentence of an abstract should clearly introduce the topic
  of the paper so that readers can relate it to other work they are
  familiar with. However, an analysis of abstracts across a range of
  fields show that few follow this advice, nor do they take the
  opportunity to summarize previous work in their second sentence. A
  central issue is the lack of structure in standard advice on abstract
  writing, so most authors don’t realize the third sentence should point
  out the deficiencies of this existing research. To solve this problem,
  we describe a technique that structures the entire abstract around a
  set of six sentences, each of which has a specific role, so that by
  the end of the first four sentences you have introduced the idea
  fully. This structure then allows you to use the fifth sentence to
  elaborate a little on the research, explain how it works, and talk
  about the various ways that you have applied it, for example to teach
  generations of new graduate students how to write clearly. This
  technique is helpful because it clarifies your thinking and leads to a
  final sentence that summarizes why your research matters.

That said, to make sure your in the same tone as the conference, reading abstracts of papers published in the same conference in the last years is the ultimate reference.


Supervisor not approving submission because of coauthor he didn't approve of

To learn at submission stage who else is coauthor on a paper is unusual, indeed. So to some extent, your supervisor being annoyed is understandable. To block the submission of the paper is a rather extreme reaction though. Could there be some history between supervisor and ex-cosupervisor that you are unaware of? (e.g. your supervisor suspecting the ex-cosupervisor of data manipulation, etc.)

My suggestion would be to apologize to your supervisor for the lapse in communication, and to ask about his reason for blocking the publication. Provided that this is indeed the case, it could help pointing out that the contribution of your ex-cosupervisor happened prior to him being removed as your cosupervisor.

If this approach fails, then the right moment to speak to the vice-dean has arrived.


Emailing a professor in another country for a feedback on a project that I'm working on?

First, assuming that you are in the US, learn to use professional grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and fonts.  Starting off with "i m a" will not get any professor's attention.  Try using "I am a".

If English is not your primary language, and you must communicate in English, then find someone to help you.

Next, just write up what you need, in detail.  Spell it out, like this.

Dear Doctor ______,
I am a student in _________ and I am working on an idea regarding algorithms.  Specifically, ___________.

I would like to get your feedback as you are an expert in algorithms.  May I stop by your office during office hours?

Thanks in advance,
_________.


Citing part of a work when using IEEE style

This is not necessarily a bad thing. The rule of thumb I have is "how hard is it to find the said result in the citation". In older papers which might have theorem numbering starting fresh for each section (without a section prefix), I'd include the most accurate citation I can provide. In a paper whose introduction states "This paper is devoted for X", I would not bother in case I only refer to the general proof of X.

Ultimately, you need that the readers will be able to verify that the reference you cite say what you say that it says. When this is easy and the reference is "general enough", I think it should be fine to just give the citation; and when the reference is a complex body of work, it is better to pinpoint the citation.

You want to use citations as photographic evidence in court. The resolution should be sufficient that the jury can see the image and understand it properly; additional markings (e.g. arrows pointing the attention to something) can often be useful. However pointing to a specific pixel is not always useful. And most importantly, don't fake evidence.

(If you are not sure, err to the side of more detailed citations. The worst that could happen is that the referee or the editor will remove some of the details.)


It is most helpful to think of the faculty hiring process as a black box. Decisions get made according to some opaque process of which only a small amount of detail is revealed to you, the candidate. But the bureaucracy of a university, and the dynamics of a job search involving multiple finalist candidates, are complicated, so the reality on the ground can involve a lot more that’s going on than what you are being told. I don’t mean a lot more necessarily bad stuff, or a lot more good stuff - just in general more people and more decisions (some perfunctory and some that are more uncertain) on which the outcome depends. Some of those decisions can be purely logistical or financial in nature (or even political) and quite far removed from the question of whether you are “good enough” to get hired by university X.
The bottom line is, if the department chair is competent then they have likely shared the maximal amount of information they can reasonably share with you at this point without risking misleading you into believing the outcome will be either better or worse than it might end up being. The only thing that’s reasonably certain at this point is that you’re still a viable candidate. For anything else, you’ll have to wait for the black box to do its thing. Good luck!


Are masters degrees treated equivalently in academia on both sides of the Atlantic?

The UK and US have fairly substantial differences in their underlying educational philosophies. In my field, in the US Masters degree programs are generally one or two years long and include both course work and research in equal proportions. In the UK, Masters degree programs are a year long and have little to no research requirements. As for the level that the taught components of the programs are taught at, they are pretty similar across the two countries using similar textbooks and covering similar amounts of material in terms of both breadth and depth. The US and UK institutions I worked for accepted students from both countries and while international students often have more difficulties than home students, it is not obvious to me that going UK-US or US-UK is easier.

As for the difference between a US and a UK Bachelors degree. Final year classes taught in both countries again use similar textbooks and cover similar amounts of material in terms of both breadth and depth. In my experience, there does not seem to be a substantial difference between students coming out of US and UK institutions in regards to their preparation for graduate school. That said, there are substantial differences in these students. The US system provides much more breadth of education (e.g., foreign language requirements and general education requirements) that are absent from UK universities. I have never heard an admissions committee member in the sciences argue that student X is is more likely to succeed than student Y because student X is competent in a foreign language.


Can a graduate student friend of mine help me get into a different grad program at the same school?

It is highly unlikely that they would have any ability to directly influence your admission to any graduate program. It is plausible that they could help you indirectly, however.  They could be helpful for the following:

Scouting Professors/Labs: Finding out more about the interests and goals of the professors and labs that you would want to work with. This would help you tailor your application so that certain professors might be more likely to advocate for you, if they see a good fit for you in their lab.
Gathering Comparisons: Talking to recent grad students admitted to the program and seeing if they wouldn't mind sharing their application packets, so you could see what a successful candidate looks like (and what factors seem to be valued).
Informal Reference: If a professor who is reviewing your application packet has worked with your friend, they might ask them for some details about you. This is highly unlikely in your case, due to them being a new student and in a different department. I provided this kind of background once when my lab was evaluating an acquaintance of mine from my undergraduate program. It is fairly uncommon and would not sway the decision greatly.

Some of these things would have been more effective if they were performed earlier (e.g, gathering comparison CV's), since it gives you more time to beef up any weak spots that you have or to build on your strengths.


Undergraduate research feels like it is going nowhere. Any advice from someone experienced?

Undergraduate research feels like it is going nowhere.

That's normal.  If it were easy, it would have been done before, and it would not be research.

  he's not the best at communicating

That's not normal.

  he never tells me what we are actually working on

That's not normal.

  if there's any meetings I can go to to please invite me, but I never really get anything back.

That's not normal.

  I don't know if he feels like I am incapable or doesn't want my name on his research paper.

More likely he's disinterested.

  I am a first generation college student, so all of this is very new to me.

<5% of people with college degrees have studied abstract algebra.  Being first generation isn't that relevant here.

  I haven't heard from him in like 4 months

The pandemic doesn't excuse zero communication for four months (assuming he's alive).

Conclusion:  You are not receiving adequate research mentoring.  Find new mentors.


Is abandoning my PhD degree better for my career path?

Your argument for abandoning your PhD hinges on a few false premises.

P1) You will wear the mark of your PhD for your whole life.

That is not true. A PhD is, in principle, a degree given to someone capable of independent research. Whilst you do your PhD you may be associated with your supervisors. That's because you're a minnow in the sea and it is the easiest way for someone to know whether you are worth talking to (sorry about that). After your PhD, people will rarely if ever ask that. I say that as a postdoc.

P2) You will exchange your dignity for money if you renew your contract. WHAT? That's something internal to you, an external observer is unlikely to see it that way.

Moreover, if you do not intend to do a postdoc, none of these points you made will apply to industry people. They will just see that you have a PhD and they will think that's worth something.


Not any place reputable. All of the reputable schools follow the standard application schedule of Nov-Dec deadlines and spring notifications for matriculation in the fall.

There may be some online or non-traditional schools with rolling deadlines, however these should be avoided.


How early should a graduate student begin their job search?

The following is condensed from advice for academic job hunts that I've read here and here - I imagine it should be somewhat applicable for jobs in industry as well:

If you would be applying for a position at Fall, begin applying from summer the previous year - applications tend to be sorted during committee meets, and the earlier you apply, the fewer applications are there, so there are higher chances of getting your application noticed. Hence, you'll want to draft your research statement, teaching statement and curriculum vitæ (CV) the summer before your search. If you are applying for industrial as well as academic positions, you probably want more than one resume, since achievement, skills, and goal-oriented resumes can be more effective in the industrial setting.
The middle of January is when most schools stop accepting applications. Even then, keep submitting to any position you find through February, particularly if someone there recommends you apply. You will probably hear back with invitations for interviews in January and February, but sometimes even March and April.
Get your letter writers primed as early as possible. You'll need at most six letter writers, but no less than three, and you'll want to ask them at least a month in advance with all your documents.


Is it appropriate to ask a professor for a discount on his expensive book?

Authors usually don't and cannot sell directly copies of their books, and the price is decided by the publisher.

Of course, an author has their draft copy in electronic format, but they might not even have the final electronic version as published. Authors typically receive a few courtesy copies of their books, but they have no access to other copies for free.

My suggestion however is to borrow the book from your university library: that's what library are for, after all.

If the library doesn't have a copy, depending on your position, you can:

Suggest the library to buy a copy. Many university libraries buy books according to the suggestions of their faculties: if you cannot do this directly, probably your adviser can.
Ask your library if they can loan it from another library. In many countries there is a system of interlibrary loans, and sometimes it works even across different countries.


Difficulty in admission to online software engineering graduate programs

Kgvnova,

Congratulations on all of your success so far and your decision to consider furthering your education.  I'm in a very similar position as you and I'm currently considering distance education for a Master's degree in Computer Science or Software Engineering.  I'll do my best to answer your questions the best that I can.

1)  The difficulty of getting into programs varies, but I would say it's probably easier to be admitted into an online program than the live/in-person program.  I was accepted into all programs that I applied to.  (I graduated with a science degree at the top of my class, have good test scores and work experience, so I'd say I'm a strong candidate for most programs.)  Just be careful about some "diploma mills".  Some schools are "for profit" and let everyone in.  Just try to find an established school that has a distance education component and you should be in good shape.

2)  Whether you go straight to a Master's degree or not depends on you and your life situation.  You can consider your situation from a few angles.

Job Opportunities/ Return on Investment:  I think that most computer related careers are available to people with a technically-oriented bachelor's degree so the return on your investment might be neglible since you already have a bachelor's.  You mentioned that your employer may pay for it, so your investment might just be your time and energy.

Timing and Other Life Events:  If you are willing and able to invest 20-40 hours per week for the next 2 years or so, then getting a Master's could be a good idea.  If you're planning on having a family in the next few years, maybe it's a good time to get this done.  If you're just starting a family or have other commitments, then maybe you should wait.  Graduate schools aren't going anywhere.

Certainty:  How certain are you that this is the career/industry for you?  Do you have significant experience working in software engineering?  I just ask because you may find that this is not what you actually want to do, especially if you've never done it before.  I've changed my mind a lot in the past.  Since I've graduated a few years ago, I've worked in sales, health services, teaching, insurance, and web development.  I always thought I was going to enjoy those fields until I actually worked in them.  Once I started doing web development and LOVING it, I decided it's worth pursuing an education to take me a step further.

3)  There are a lot of programs to consider.  I started by looking at US News to see a list of highly-regarded schools.  I then visited their websites to see if they had distance programs in Computer Science.  Another few schools that I've considered are:

Brandeis University - Master's in Software Engineering
University of Bridgeport (CT) - Master's in CS with Software Engineering Concentration (ranked in top 10 online CS programs nationally)
Harvard Univerisity - they have an Extension School where you can get a Master's in Liberal Arts with a concentration in Software Engineering

You should also consider the finances and "pacing" of programs.  Some programs are really expensive.  Also, some degrees are accelerated and take 18 months, while some programs take 3-4 years to complete.

Sorry for the long response.  I just wanted to give you the information I've been researching this for several months.  I wish you the best of luck with everything.


Should a post doc recruit and supervise final year undergrad students when PI is getting older and wants to reduce involvement?

There are two basic problems here.

The interviewing process is too time-consuming.
You are being given a responsibility without the corresponding authority, i.e. the grunt work is being delegated to you, without the decision-making authority being delegated to you along with that.

If you "ran the zoo" (I'm quoting the children's author Dr Seuss), in other words, if this were your project entirely, I think you would organize the application process in a more streamlined way, that would take up much less time.  For example, you might develop a list of questions each applicant should answer, and you might send the questions to the applicants via a google form, so you can easily compare the responses in a spreadsheet.

It could seem to you like a waste of your time to find out interesting things about the applicants in the in-person interviews, for the PI to just ignore all that anyway when making the selection.

You might want to assert yourself politely with your PI:

  Explain to the PI that you want to support her decision to step back from the day to day running of the lab. Let her know that you find this assignment intriguing and helpful for you in your own career growth.  Explain that if you take this assignment on, you would like to have her blessing to handle the whole assignment autonomously, from beginning to end.  Ask if she would like you to submit a final report on the decision(s) you came to.

Project confidence.  (No complaining about how much time it will take you.)

It will look good on your CV.


Open Access Crowd Based Publications (StackExchange like)

Instead of anonymous peer-review, every member of the forum can comment and rate the publication. Is there something like this out there?

Yes.  The forum is called "the academic community," the comments are called "what they say about your paper in their paper," and the ratings are called "citations."  They are not anonymous.  Actually, citations alone are misleading, since they can be negative as well as positive.  The real way to determine if your idea is good is to see if people use it to build new, interesting ideas / explanations / products / companies / whatever.  (I think they call that "impact?")

In other words: publishing is the easy part (these days).  Getting people to say good things about your research is the real challenge.

I do think you are wise to think about publishing in open-access journals—and not for some self-righteous political/philosophical reason.  The real reason for making your paper freely available is: more people will read it!  Plenty of interesting people in the world live behind the Great Paywall of Academia.


What does "International Journal of" mean or imply?

It means nothing, as mentioned in the comments. A new journal must take a different name from existing ones, but usually wants to convey by its title what its subject is, e.g. Finance. If "Journal of Finance" is taken, one option is to name the new journal "International Journal of Finance". There are other options: "Journal of Financial Studies", "Review of Finance", "Finance Bulletin", "Finance Advances" or simply "Finance".

There is the marketing aspect that the journal name should sound fancy and intellectual, so "Blah Finance" is not a common title choice.


What are the consequences for missing a semester grade reporting deadline?

Probably none, especially now, and especially if it is a one time thing.
Bad things happen. The "higher ups" need to deal with those effectively so that they don't recur.
But there won't be much beyond a possible apology and a report, though a reexamination of policies may occur.
Pandemic disruption is pretty widespread. Misfeasance also, I suppose, and repetitions and/or carelessness will have repercussions, up to termination. But people aren't perfect.


Why call it a "major" revision if the suggested changes are seemingly minor?

It varies by journal I'm sure but sometimes the line between "minor" and "major" revision is set by whether the reviewers wish to see the changes authors make in response to their comments before recommending acceptance.

A "minor" revision would go straight back to the editor and then to production while a "major" one goes back to the reviewers first. This might not be related to the amount of work required.

In your case it's possible that the reviewer wants to be sure you include an appropriate section about the limitations of the algorithm otherwise they wouldn't recommend acceptance.


Would preaching in a church be advantageous for becoming a lecturer?

Would preaching at a church help you to become a better lecturer? Almost certainly, as would any similar experience. During the later stages of my PhD I worked in a very popular small museum giving tours and answering questions from the public. I always tell my students that it was the best way for me to hone my speaking abilities: I really learned how to catch attentions and to convey information in a stimulating way. Further, answering hundreds of questions every day (some of which were strange to say the least) prepared me to diplomatically deal with whatever questions are tossed at me after lectures, talks, and conference papers. If preaching does similar for you, you'll see benefits.

Would putting preaching at a church on your CV help you land an academic job? No, except in the rare case of that being directly relevant to your teaching post: e.g. I had a housemate who did a PhD in religion, taught at a missionary training school, and landed a job at a religious affiliated Uni in the religion department...they would benefit from preaching on their CV. Just as my museum experience was considered "not lecturing", preaching would be the same. You're simply not drawing on the same pedagogical focus, nor are you teaching towards markable learning outcomes.

Edit to answer your final question. No, I truly doubt you would face any discrimination for mentioning preaching on your CV. You would, however, face panel members who would fail to see why such information is relevant on an academic CV. I didn't put my museum job on my academic CV when I was an early career researcher because it wasn't related to my academic work and was, thus, tangential.


How do I look up grant information of PIs in Germany?

You can find DFG-funded projects on their website via the DFG GEPRIS tool. This only shows the DFG funded projects, for other projects the PI might be involved in, you should check the websites of the respective funding agencies (e.g. CORDIS for those funded by the EU).


Is this psychological abuse? Should I switch supervisors?

You write that your advisor said that you "committed severe ethical violations."  But you don't say anything about what specifically you did, whether the accusations are true, or how you responded to that accusation.  We simply cannot give you good advice without knowing more about these violations.  Honestly it sounds like you don't understand what the accusations were, which is extremely worrisome!
It's sadly common that there are advisors who are abusive bosses, but this is not one of those common situations!  Either your advisor is completely disconnected from reality and is making up ethical violations, or you are a serious danger to your research group because you commit bad ethical lapses and don't bother to understand what you did or how to avoid it in the future.


Recommended rejection of a paper, but invited to review the paper again

This has happened to me a couple times. As Peter Jansson has pointed out, what probably happened is that, while you recommended rejection, reviewers 2 and 3 said "it's actually publishable if the authors solve such-and-such problems". This is the kind of situation where a sympathetic editor will make a "revise and resubmit" decision.

In this particular case, you have it easy. Just write a very short review along the lines of "in my first review, I recommended rejection of this article because of [problem that made you recommend rejection]. As the authors have not addressed this problem, I'm regrettably forced to maintain my previous evaluation".

[FWIW, one of the times I reviewed a paper like this, the journal actually ended up publishing the paper in question, with the problematic section still exactly as it was  when I reviewed and rejected it. Go figure]


Lobby groups like having their arguments known. They publish them on their web sites, often as media releases. If you can't find what you want there, call them: lobby group representatives will be happy to explain their positions.

My husband works for a lobby goup/peak body and he quite enjoys talking to students who contact him with questions about his industry.


Do all countries have the same gender imbalance in science?

Within Europe alone there are huge variations in the number of female mathematicians as documented with lots of graphs and maps here.


Do sample solutions increase student 'productivity'?

I have three types of exercises in my algorithms classes: homework problems, exam problems, and discussion problems.  I'm not entirely sure which you're asking about.

I release detailed solutions and grading rubrics for all homework and exam problems, in part for the advantages you list, in part to speed up grading, and in part to better calibrate my own expectations for the students.  (If it takes too long for me to write up the solution, the problem is probably too hard for them.)  I take them all down again at the end of each semester.  I don't actually mind if students have access to my old solutions—as long as they write in their own words and cite their sources—because homeworks are only a small part of the course grade.  (Students who are stupid enough to submit my old solutions verbatim, typos and all, are not quite publicly fed to the wolves.)

On the other hand, I deliberately do not release solutions for discussion problems (which we discuss in, you guessed it, discussion sections) because the solutions are not the point.  The point is to practice finding the solution.  I know students are adults, but it takes a lot more discipline to practice hunting when someone just regularly hands you the meat.  Also, some discussion problems reappear later on my exams.

But this is really an individual choice.  I know plenty of algorithms instructors who don't give students solutions, and others who hand out solutions on paper but don't distribute them on the web, and others who distribute them on the web but behind a firewall, and others who beg people like me to please for the love of god stop giving away homework solutions because coming up with good algorithms homework problems is really really HARD.

Update:  Starting in 2017, I now regularly release solutions for my discussion problems, typically a few days after each discussion meeting.  (Just like homework solutions, I take these down at the end of every semester.)  Perhaps as a result, these discussion problems are now effectively fixed from one semester to the next -- in a typical semester I replace 5%-10% of them -- and discussion problems almost never appear on exams.  (I should also clarify that discussion problems do not contribute to the final grade.)

I also include an extra solved problem in each homework, with a complete grading rubric.  Again, these solved problems rarely change (as opposed to the problems the students need to solve, which change every semester).

In both cases, the idea is to provide concrete examples of the structure, precision/formality, and level of detail expected from their own work.    Realistically, once the discussion sections are over, unsolved discussion problems are not as valuable as the solutions; students are busy!  And I have lots of other unsolved exercises in my lecture notes for students who want unsullied practice.

Writing all those lab solutions (just over 100 pages of text) was a lot of work, but now it's done.  The net effect of releasing all these solutions seems to be positive—more clearly for teaching evaluations, but also for student performance.


Why do we not reinvent the journal system?

Please meet the Open Access movement.
In the last twenty years, many scholars and librarians did try to address the problem you pose.
It is, in fact, a huge issue, and things like this don't change overnight.

The OA movement focused on two main strategies:

Publishing in peer reviewed open journals (gold open access): the idea is to create a brand new journal (or to change the model of an old one) which will provide articles free for the readers, without the current subscription model in which libraries (meaning, taxpayers) pay. The crucial factor of Gold OA is the presence of peer review: organize real journals costs a lot of money, and at the moment the major business model is APG (author processing charges), meaning that the author (often, the faculty behind it) pays for being published and cover the journal costs.
We're still in transition, and there are a lot of drawbacks: there are predatory publishers who try to scam authors, and big publishers offer the "open access option" charging huge fees (this is also called double dipping, because a hybrid (both Open and Closed) journal will receive the money from subscriptions and the money from the authors. It is important to remark, also, that big publishers make a lot of money with subscriptions and they are actively challenging the open access model.
PLoS, for example, is one of the new Gold OA publishers.
Self-archiving in repositories (green open access): it is the model of arXiv, Repec, and thousands of other repositories. They can be "institutional" or "disciplinary", and they accept mostly pre-prints, but also post-print articles.

Of course, there are some experiments in the field:

PeerJ has a very interesting business and pricing model.
Epijournals (from my understanding) are journals created selecting papers from arXiv and other repositories.

References

Open Access, by Peter Suber, MIT Press, 2012.
Wikipedia "Open Access" article. Accessed 4 Jan 2015.

Full disclosure:
I've worked as a digital librarian in managing OA journals from University of Bologna. I'm biased towards OA and open knowledge in general. Please keep it mind that my answers reflect these bias.


How is the applicant's bringing attention to his/her own application viewed if you know nothing about him/her?

If you want to send such an email, you could contact someone in the department with whom you have some special affinity, and personalize the note.  Aim to interest this person in not just you, but the specific sub-field you and that person share an interest in.  Make it a friendly letter.  After you draft it, read it over, imagining receiving it ten years from now.  In this letter, you can mention names of people you and that person both know.  To do this well, you will have to spend some time looking over the faculty and postdocs at the target department to choose a person with shared interests, and then looking over the chosen person's CV to get a feel for their research interests, how yours would complement and reinforce theirs, what people you might know in common.  That last one makes it easier for that person to contact a common acquaintance for their impressions of you.  Once you understand what the person's research program has been and what direction this person is going in now, you'll be in a better position to let him or her know what strikes you as exciting about what they're doing.  You can send a reprint or a preprint if you have something that relates.

I'm not exactly answering your question, I'm suggesting a way of doing what you have in mind, that would maximize its effectiveness.

But this type of networking can also be done over time, at conferences and in response to your reading, prior to the application process.

At the application stage, the best use of your time might be to contact the people you have networked with over time, to let them know where you're applying, so they can put in a good word for you if they know someone at one of those departments.


I found some topographical errors in one of my published papers

As you discovered, journals usually don't correct typographical errors if the paper's meaning is unaffected.  Publishing a correction is a lot of trouble, and they don't want to do it unless there is a compelling reason.

So there is nothing you can do.  You will just have to live with those errors being there.

Perhaps it will motivate you to proofread your next paper more carefully before submitting.


Will the graduate school that I've been accepted to reconsider my admissions offer?

Almost certainly not. Every program/department/country is a little different, but in general I'd say a single lower-than-average grade at the last minute isn't a signal that someone isn't ready for graduate school. Especially in situations where the acceptance was based on far more than grades: statements of purpose, letters of recommendation, fit with the department, etc. If you failed a bunch of courses in your final semester, that might be seen as a red flag, but a single B- isn't likely to faze anyone in the slightest. You'd need a lot more than that to threaten your good standing (which in my experience is taken to mean 'not in any kind of trouble academically or otherwise').


Citing private individuals without their authorization?

Because these private individuals do not sound like they are publishing their work (in which course your questions about citation would make more sense), and you mentioned interviews with these individuals in a comment, your situation sounds more like it falls under the category of Human subject research which has all sorts of rules and regulations. Assuming you are at some sort of university, your institution probably has a Institutional Review Board that governs this type of research and includes guidelines for obtaining informed consent, etc.

In short, you cannot do research on human subjects without their consent, and this consent typically needs to be granted before the study begins. Human subjects research includes interviews, etc, you don't need to be doing medical experiments to be doing human subjects research.

If you are truly using only the publicly available resource I would still recommend trying to get permission to use the resource (and if you are reproducing any portion of the resource, permission may be mandatory), but at most all you can do is cite that resource and attribute it to the organization that has made it public, you can't attach your personal knowledge of the individuals involved.


Does Hill University (USA) have legitimate accreditation?

The Hill University's, website dead as of Sept 2015*, accreditation page did not make it clear which of their degrees were accredited, instead the two accrediting bodies (IOEAB and OKOLA) are listed at this random website as "fake degree accreditation agencies". They are also the accrediting agencies used by Speedy Degrees which would suggest to me that accreditation by those bodies is more or less meaningless.

Further, the web domain is .com and not .edu which is highly atypical for US universities. The requirements for .edu domain require a US location and "proper" accreditation. While not using a .edu domain could be related to the online nature of the university, it is also a warning sign that the accreditation might be questionable.

* Recent reports by NYTimes and UIUC list this university as a fake.


No startup funds for new tenure-track hire?

In my field (biological sciences, US), receiving no startup funding at all (at least for lab space and basic equipment) would be unusual. Maybe I could see a case where departmental overhead is sufficient to start a lab but I would still think of this as "startup money" even if established professors have access to the same pool.

However, asking funding agencies to pay your salary would be the usual course of business and the expectation by the funding agencies is that they would cover the portion of your salary corresponding to your effort towards the project: if the project is going to be about half of your work, it would pay at least half your salary.

If you have a gap in extramural funding, the expectation is that the institution would pick up your salary in the meantime, though this may come with other institutional responsibilities attached like an increased teaching load or some administrative work, especially if you have more than a brief interval without outside funding. I would be greatly worried if the institution isn't willing to contribute in this circumstance, but it is reasonable for them to ask for you to look outside for funding.

Funding for students in my field would also typically come from extramural grants: you would ask in a grant proposal that the work fund a graduate student to complete the experiments. Direct departmental support for students to do research is uncommon, but they may be supported by other external fellowships such as institutional training grants or grants directly to that student, or through a teaching or project assistantship through the department.

On a side note, I could see the situation for startup funding being a little different as an internal candidate, that is, if the institution is expecting you to continue working in the lab space you are in (i.e., if you are a postdoc or scientist, taking over some space from your current PI) and grow your independence over time.


Management after Software Engineering undergraduate degree or separate management masters degree?

IMO, MEng Software Engineering.

You need to stay on technical side. Do MBA after you have more years of industrial experience if you think you need to.

The CEO depends on CTO for technical decision. CTO needs to have a lot technical knowledge. For example, you need to be able to tell one software architecture is better than the other.


Applying to a full time lecturer post in the UK in a psychology related field

I'm from a physical science field in the UK, so things could vary in different faculties.
From my experience, new faculty at research intensive UK universities are usually required to apply for a New Investigator Grant during their first 3 years as part of their probation. Hiring committees will therefore be looking to see that you have plans which have a realistic chance of winning such an award. It's important that your plans for this award have an appropriate scope. You can find information about the ESRC New Investigator Grant here: https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/esrc-new-investigator-grant/
That is probably the most important one to mention. But mentioning other plausible pathways to funding is also helpful. Depending on exactly what your research interests are, a few other popular UK funders which may be relevant are:

Wellcome Trust
Leverhulme Trust
Royal Society

If you have experience with EU grants such as Horizon Europe (which the UK remains a part of despite brexit), this would be worth mentioning. But I get the impression applying for such grants is not common/expected from junior academics. If you are working in Clinical psychology then you would probably need to look for more medical related funding, in particular through the MRC, which I am not very familiar with.
UK academia is very interested in the impact of research due to the Research Excellence Framework. If you can show how your research has/does/will generate impact this will be to your advantage.


This is very, very common. At most conferences, there are simply not enough time slots for everyone to give an oral presentation. Conferences still tend to be way too long most of the time with way too many "less important" presentations between "interesting" ones anyway.
Posters can be a very efficient way of communicating your results and connecting with other researchers important to you. You are not "wasting" your paper by presenting a poster. And you will attend other's presentations and can engage in the discussions. So I don't really agree with your conclusion.

It's understandable that you are disappointed. However, while it is totally up to you, your decision on whether to participate should not depend on a potential resentment of being "rejected" from an oral presentation. Base your decision on whether to go on who you think you might get to know, and who might be there who could benefit from your results. Prepare a great poster. Have handouts ready. Approach people directly, start to network actively.

Whether or not you might receive any money back highly depends on the specific event and the local organizing committee. You can ask. But at this stage I would say it's unlikely.


Finishing PhD early and becoming my PI's postdoc instead

Regarding potential downsides for you:

"Time since obtaining the PhD" is often taken as the academic age, so by graduating early, you make yourself appear older. This can have a formal impact, for example, many grants meant for postdocs come with age restrictions, so are only available in the first n years after obtaining your PhD.

[Side note: This wouldn't matter for you if you get a faculty position straight away, but at least in my area, this would be quite unusual.]

The academic age can also play a role informally if people have to judge your productivity. (Number of papers)/(Years since PhD) is a formula I've seen a few times in this context.


Should I tell other interviewers where else I've interviewed?

Some professors and other interviewers have asked me where else I have interviewed. Should I tell interviewers where else I've interviewed?

Yes, it is very likely in your best interests.  If you have other interviews at comparable schools, then you will benefit from saying so.  If you don't, then it's not so clear.  However, departments will assume your job search is not going well if you are reluctant to address the issue and they haven't heard impressive rumors about your interviews, so avoiding discussing interviews won't really help.  Instead of saying something awkward like "I'd rather not talk about that", it's better to be up front and optimistic.  "This is my first interview" is better than "This is my only interview so far".

Here are a few reasons why telling about other interviews can help your case:

As a general rule, people want something more if they know other people also want it.  Valuing a second opinion is rational behavior.
Even when it doesn't change the outcome, competition can speed things up.  If a search committee member is trying to make an offer and still needs some final committee or administrative approval, it's helpful to be able to say "Let's move fast, since she is also interviewing at X, Y, and Z, and we'd like to make a good impression by coming up with the first offer."  If it's too late for that, they can say "She already has an offer from X, so we need to act before she decides."

In principle, you could hurt your chances if you list a lot of schools typically considered much more desirable (which could make the school you are currently interviewing at feel they would just be wasting their time trying to compete).  However, in this case you are probably already in trouble, since the rumors of your busy interview schedule may already worry the search committee.  Instead of trying to cover things up, it's better to acknowledge that you have these other interviews.  If you are worried about this risk, you can address it by making your interest clear throughout the interview.


Would students feel uncomfortable if I include in my lecture a quote which is somewhat sexually suggestive?

Avoid, but not for that reason.

Sometimes it is a teacher's duty to do things that may offend members of their class. A biology teacher who avoids the subject of evolution for fear of offending creationists is not doing their job, and there are plenty of other examples. The problem here is not that the joke could offend; it's that it gets in the way of learning.

It treats women as eye candy rather than as thinking beings, implying that a woman's clothing should be chosen for the benefit of male onlookers rather than according to her own priorities.

Whether you actually believe that or not, telling that joke gives students the impression that you do. That perception makes the classroom environment more unpleasant for a female student and less conducive to learning.

Humour has a place in teaching. Used judiciously, it can help hold the audience's interest and keep them engaged. But for your female students, at least, this particular joke is unlikely to serve that purpose. There are plenty of other ways to say it.


What type of gift could I give to my PhD advisor?

As far as I'm aware, giving gifts to your PhD adviser upon completion in the US is not an obligatory ritual, as compared to Christmas gift exchange in families, or Mother's Day cards and flowers, which are obligatory rituals.

Before you decide to give a gift and choose one, you should consider your adviser's personality, value system, relationship style, and cultural background. Does this adviser frequently give and receive gifts from other faculty members?  From other students?  Does he/she display many gifts or honors in the office?  If so, examine the symbolic nature of these gifts.  Are they personal to him/her?  Are they status oriented?  Do they reflect or signify certain values or identity?  Following this line of inquiry is fruitful on two levels.  First, what ever you give him will certainly show that your knowledge and appreciation of him/her as a unique person.  Everyone likes to be valued for their unique, special qualities and "quirks".  Second, you will be giving something that has significance in the context of your relationship with him/her, not something that is generic.

My personal opinion is that the best gift a PhD student can give their adviser is to be a great student, to be someone who is easy to advise, to be someone who heeds the advice, to be someone who stimulates the adviser intellectually, and, above all, finishes the PhD program on time (or at least expeditiously).  You can also express in words what your adviser means to you in your acknowledgements section of your dissertation.  You can also offer public thanks at the dissertation defense.

If you think a gift is warranted above and beyond this, then I'd lean toward something that has low economic value but very high symbolic value in the  context of the adviser as a unique person and your unique relationship with him/her.


Is it bad to apply for a job immediately after it was posted?

I don't know how mathjob distributes candidates' applications to schools, but I doubt anyone cares. I put all applications I get for my job postings into a folder in no particular order and never look at the order of application. Someone has to be first. Go ahead! Apply away!


Citing a paper for which a corrected version exists online

I would list the published version in the bibliography, with something like "corrected version available as [insert its article ID] from http://www.arXiv.org" appended to the end of its entry in the bibliography.  When you discuss the article in the text of your paper, you should mention the corrections there too.

You should certainly not cite the arXiv version without explaining that the published version contains a mistake (readers may assume the published version is a cleaned up copy of the arXiv version, rather than vice versa), and it seems weird to say this without actually explaining where the article was published.


What costs should be covered when inviting a university professor from another country to attend your university?

I don't think this question has any absolute answer. This depends on the professor (a "famous" speaker for a large public event will be a different issue than a "regular" professor that comes to give a talk for the students and faculty of the university), the host institution (a professor might be happy to go and give a talk at ETH Zurich, and maybe less so to travel to an unknown university), how long the trip is, and whether there are some pre-existing relations (i.e., whether the inviting professor is already friends with or at least an academic acquaintance of the speaker).

Minimally, it is standard that all costs of the speaker are covered, including (sometimes) business class airfare and a nice hotel for the duration of the trip. If the invited talk happens as part of a conference, the conference fee or entry should be waived for the speaker. Further, it is customary at least in my field to give the speaker a small (local) present, such as a bottle of good regional wine, as a sign of appreciation directly after the talk.

Whether the speaker asks for money on top of this depends on all the things above, but this seems to be relatively unusual in my field. The only persons that actually get paid in money to come and give a talk are well-known public figures, like Tim Berners-Lee. I have recently had the honour to listen to a talk of Don Knuth, and rumor has it that not even Knuth was asking for direct payment.


Is it ethical for a journal to cancel an accepted review request when they have obtained sufficient number of reviews to make a decision?

I think that in this particular case, the journal behaved ethically. A deadline is a contract, and if one of the involved parties breaks that contract (notably, without seeking communication), it's up to the other party to decide how to deal with that.


Proper notation to represent a set containing sequences of numbers for scientific papers?

I'd recommend standard mathematical notation, which should be sufficiently unambiguous yet legible. Use the standard "union" symbol (\cup in LaTeX) to denote separate sets you want to take the union over.

Unfortunately, no MathJax here - so here is the LaTeX code and below the result (done using CodeCogs):

\{k\in\mathbb{N}\mid 1\leq k\leq 100\}
\cup \{200,500\}
\cup\{1000k\mid k\in\mathbb{N}, 1\leq k\leq 10\}

Depending on your layout (one vs. two columns), insert linebreaks at appropriate places, e.g., like I did in the LaTeX code but not the result.


Can I upload a Book to Arxiv which I have already Published?

It's very dangerous to say "I suppose I have already signed a contract". This is legal stuff. The exact wording is important! If you have signed a contract, take it out and read it. What exactly did you agree to?

The odds are good you'll have to ask the publisher about whether you can do this. Even if the contract said you can't do this, it's possible they'll still say yes, especially if they've stopped actively trying to sell the book. Nonetheless, they might impose other restrictions - for example they might say you can only post the raw manuscript (i.e. no redrawn figures, no title & half-title pages if they were prepared by the publisher, no book cover [again if it was prepared by the publisher], no special fonts ...).

In any case asking the publisher is never going to be wrong, so I recommend doing that.


I have done my PhD research without learning the numerical method details. How can I defend successfully?

Your advisor is giving you good advice. She presumably knows what is required here and will come to your aid if any issue arises. An advisor supporting a candidate in a defense happens in some situations. And the advisor probably knows more about all of your work than any other committee member.

But if you are using a standard tool in a standard way then it is unlikely that the tool has affected your results. Hopefully you can refer to other, published, studies that use the tool or even marketing material that point to its verification.

Your field isn't the development of such tools, but their use. Had it been tool development for ME then you'd have a problem. Your undergraduate education probably gives you a general basis for the underlying math/physics/dynamics/whatever.

Relax.

Note that my experience is in situations in which the advisor is either a committee member or sits as an advocate. I recognize that there are other traditions in which the committee is independent. But even then, you are unlikely to be strongly challenged for not having details of the tool at hand, beyond general ME principles of analysis.


Inquiry about reference of dropout of grad school

It is possible that Boise State hasn't kept a record of your attendance if it was so short. Request a transcript from them before you make any decisions. If they have no record then you need not mention it in future. But if there is a record then it might depend on what the record says. If there is a grade assigned (incomplete or whatever), then it might be necessary to state it somewhere, though I doubt that the CV is the correct place. If the incident was brief and inconsequential, then your mention of it should also be brief.

If the time period represents a gap in your education/work life it might be more necessary to mention it. However, I doubt that anyone would hold a brief mistake made in the past against you in any way.


How can I apply a Computer Science degree towards a career in a research-related position of another field?

I merely skimmed through your post, but from the title already I find the answer to be straightforward and very interesting. As a CS student and having done plenty of research, I feel that CS is a great field but other fields are equally interesting. CS will allow you to inject yourself into more or less anything you like. The simplest example is simulation, even though physicists and other specialists are usually hired to automate all the formulas and programmers merely implement, you could easily have those specialists show you everything you apply and have them explain it to you. Then you just go on to simulate something else and pick up knowledge from another field.
Even more obscure and theoretical things can use CS, a simple example is artificial speech, combine it with AI and you could get into interesting concepts. However simulation also could apply, with some more difficulty, to sociology.
I find that game programming is a field that allows one to get into anything he likes, loop up the term serious games, they are games that are made for training professionals and are often used by the army or corporations. Try some out and see what skills are needed from non computer related specialists to get an idea.
As for getting masters degrees and such, you can go for many different ones that combine sciences, creating a chain between them. You do not necessarily need to specialize, if you invest serious time and effort you could prove to the world that you specialize in just applying CS to anything.
About Job opportunities, often it is helpful to create your own, you can find people interested in a specific area that are willing to help you out and start up your own project, this will help in more than one ways, first is that you might actually get something good out of it and eventually make a living from the project, second is you get hands-on experience which goes straight to the CV and proving you are serious about this, and third is that this may well attract academics and professionals to call you in for collaboration.
I personally have more or less the same problem, I am mostly into CS, am aiming for game development, but I am immensely fascinated by economics, forensics, chemistry, engines, history, even shipbuilding, so I have started making my own games. It has payed off very fast, I get to become a microsoft student partner in October while I have had a proposition from a professional to collaborate - even though on a small project.
Finally, you can fill in your spare time with online courses, I picked up forensic science on Coursera, from the university of Singapore, it takes little time, I've learned many things from different fields and it shows you're more into learning tons of stuff than just getting something satisfying and then lying around. A master of course is worth a thousand of these as the rest of the community here told me, but it's fast, fun, effective, and it's worth something.
Hope I helped, sorry for the length of the text, felt that it was necessary to cover your questions and show as much as possible of the immense flexibility imaginative people have with CS. Cheers.


Does there exist Top 50 rankings of applied math phd programs?

Why aren't there a ton of different sources where I can get rankings from -- like in the business school world (and probably law school world too)?

One issue is that I think you are comparing apples to oranges.  Applied math is generally considered a part of mathematics--it is often not a separate department: the AMS only lists 30 graduate applied math departments.  What you are asking seems to me more akin to "what are the top 50 schools in environmental law"?  (I don't know whether such lists exist or not.)

Second, what is considered "applied mathematics" varies from department to department, and perhaps from person to person.

Last, neither overall rankings nor specialized rankings should be regarded with too much seriousness.  There aren't meaningful, natural orderings on departments which measure "how good" a department is, largely because "good" is a nebulous concept.

As for how to choose schools, here are a couple suggestions:

Ask some of your professors in applied math for ideas.  Where I went to grad school was a place suggested by an undergrad professor.
Use general math rankings to get an idea of reputation (and thus selectiveness) of departments, and look at department websites to see which have active applied math groups.

Note: many students won't know going into math grad school won't know whether they want to do applied math, stats, probability, analysis, algebra etc etc, so in terms of selectivity, looking at the general reputation of the department may be more helpful anyway.


Is there any field in which applicants to PhD programs (in any part of the world) usually have publications?

I'll point toward the Max Planck School for Computer Science,
IMPRS-CS, if I remember correctly they used to have even stronger wording than the current

  A successful candidate must...  have performed research and published (or submitted for publication) the results

But the MPIs are not the norm. Mostly, you would be fine with just your Masters thesis in math, comp sci, biology, or chemistry.


Does translating an article for a magazine require permission from the author?

Translations are considered a "derivative work." Preparation of a derivative work is one of the exclusive rights attached to the copyright holder.

If the article you wish to publish is not in the public domain or under a license that allows preparation of derivative work, you must get permission from the copyright holder to translate it. (Unless one of the copyright exceptions applies.)


Does APA Style prescribe BC and AD or BCE and CE?

Unless this was changed after 2016 (e.g. in the 7th edition style manual), APA does not prescribe either version. The choice of format does not seem to be addressed in the 6th edition style manual, which should typically be interpreted as leaving the writer or journal the freedom to choose their preference. In this case there is also direct confirmation (shown below) from the APA Style official Twitter account that either version is fine as far as the style is concerned.


Is it wise to change my supervisor in the late stages of my PhD?

There is no harm to change supervisor if he is not supportive nor encouraging nor friendly. Because in most of the cases, he is the only person whose recommendation you need to get your next position. So first of all, think how much of your present work can be added to your final thesis if you change a supervisor. If you can add more than 50-60% of your present work, then it would be a great decision to work with another good supervisor who is really supportive and interested to work with you. It is not a good idea to change a supervisor, if you plan to do everything from scratch again as it is already passed 3 years.


Is there any point in handing back exams ordered by grade?

No good reasons, only tradition (this is how we've always done it) and sadism (the poorer scoring students should be shamed into doing better). In the US, these days, at the college level at least, it also might now also be considered bordering on a FERPA violation by some. If you announced that the grades were returned in score order, but didn't reveal an actual number, you might get a pass, but I bet you'd get a lot of complaints. If you announced the scores as you did it, you'd definitely be in violation.


How do we properly include and cite a set of equations from another paper?

It is generally sufficient to say explicitly that "in this section we will recall the method X from [citation]", and then simply do it. However, you may find it preferable not to quote equations and text from the original paper, but to adopt it according to the style, notation and message of your own manuscript.


Is there any provision to provide reference to the paper which is in process to get published in journal at the time of graduate applications?

In general, the answer would be no since different conferences have different procedures. For the one of interest to you they may have something such as pre-publishing to aRxiv or similar. This is appropriate for your CV: ... "to appear".
But you can also just say that your paper has been accepted to the conference that will be held on date future. You can also send them a copy of the paper if you like and they will accept it. And you can offer to send it in any case.


Is it acceptable to use Mathematica to derive results in your research?

Is it okay to use Mathematica to solve the integration and use the result in my research?

Of course it is.

It might be useful, though, to make the Mathematica code employed for the calculations available to others, either through a public repository or by a note in the paper suggesting to contact the author(s). This will allow reviewers or other readers to check your calculations, or, possibly, reuse or extend them.

In a paper where I made extensive use of Mathematica, I wrote the following note at the end:

  To those interested, the authors can provide the Mathematica notebooks of the full calculations developed in this work.


Best practices when refering to above section

This section explains how the point-by-point problem description in section 1 maps to the point-by-point solution description above, in section 2.1.

Being unambiguous and adding redundant information is good, because you might very well make a mistake when writing one of the references (but it is unlikely to make the same same mistake with all of them), and the reader might make a mistake when reading the references (but this is less likely when there are several things all pointing to the same direction).

If your sections have names in addition to numbers, you may refer to them using both, if this is a good stylictic choice, or only the name or only the number. Do not, however, alternate between using only the section number and only the section name, as this will only confuse the reader, who might not realize that the name and the number point to the same thing.


How to organize the referee report of a paper?

I organize my reviews in the way that I would like to receive them, sorted from most important from least important.  My general structure is:

First, I summarize my understanding of the the key ideas and contributions of the paper.
Next, I give my judgement and main reasons for this judgement.
Third, I have a "Major Issues" list of other scientific problems that I think absolutely must be addressed before publications
Finally, I give a "Minor Points" list of nitpicking, language issues, typos, etc.

The first two sections show that I have understood what the authors are trying to say, and the big picture issues.  The third gives the contributing factors, but tries to make it clear that fixing these without fixing the big picture issues won't change my basic judgement (if that judgement was negative).  The final is things that will improve the paper but aren't really affecting my judgement.


Research "employment" options for students graduating midyear?

My experience is limited to anecdotes. What I have generally seen is that students usually attempt to get either a paid industrial internship or an paid/unpaid research internship with a particular research group.

In fact, I have been mentoring an undergraduate who is graduating in the middle of the semester and is preparing to spend the next 6 months working as a research assistant (paid ~$15/hour) for a research group in our university before joining a prestigious PhD program in another university.


On the teaching side, I wish that I'd read at the start of my career:

Ambrose, et. al., How Learning Works
Bain, What the Best College Teachers Do

And specifically for math instructors:

Krantz, How to Teach Mathematics


What is the job market like for someone aspiring to become a mathematician (uk)?

You're right that the job market is academia is very competitive, across all subjects, not just maths. While raw talent is important to be able to succeed (and by "succeed" I mean get a permanent job in academia -- your definition of success might be different), your publication record is generally more important. The quality and volume of publications you write depends on many things: your own hard work, the work of your collaborators, the guidance you get from your supervisor (having a distant or disengaged supervisor can seriously hamper your progress during your PhD unless you're extremely good at self-motivating and learning), the tractability of the problem you're working on, etc etc.
All this to say that, once you start your PhD, the classification of your undergraduate degree doesn't matter. Working on interesting publishable problems with a wide range of people (ideally collaborate with academics outside your own university if you can) will give you the best chance at success. It's also important to advertise your work as much as possible, and don't be afraid to relentlessly self-promote; go to conferences, talk about your work to everyone you meet, convince them that your problem is interesting and your solutions even more so.
I think you have nothing to lose by doing an MSc (apart from a year's potential earnings). Try to choose a course with a research or dissertation component. This will give you a chance to explore what doing research is really like, and will help you decide if doing a PhD is right for you. Your Master's supervisor or tutor would also be able to advise you about that, especially if you tell them early on that's what you're interested in.


Manuscript was returned by the Editor to include more data, should I prepare "Response to Editor"?

If you mean "dispute the editor" then I don't recommend it. For the most part, if you don't generally follow the editor's advice as best you can, then you are likely to be rejected at the end.

But if your response is of the form "these are the changes...", then yes, include a response, as they will make the editor's job easier and more likely to give you a fair and accurate review.

There may be a difference of opinion, of course, about how much data is enough, but that can be worked out if everyone stays positive. Just don't try to tell an editor, who has all the power, how to do the job. That isn't a path to success.


Purpose of participating in "student doctoral programs" in conferences

In my field these are usually called doctoral symposia or graduate consortia. They are a great way to get feedback on your research direction.

They are generally setup as a discussion between a panel of professors and the other students that are participating. The students have an opportunity to present their research and receive feedback from everyone. This is nice because you also get to see other students in various stages of their PhD talk about their work and the feedback they receive.

  Also I was wondering if it makes sense to apply for one, considering I am already submitting a paper there

That is the best scenario to participate! You'll get to present your conference paper and get feedback from the doctoral program. Two birds, one stone!

Additionally, it is something you can put on your CV, the paper might be published in the proceedings depending on the conference, a great way to network with other students and professors, and some of these programs provide travel funding.

I'm currently working on applying to my second graduate consortium (this time as a mentor) and am really looking forward to it! The one I attended previously helped me a lot.


Received offer to work for free, how to negotiate for a salary?

The question you have to answer is:

  Can you go for one year without eating and living under a bridge?

As I assume the answer is no, you simply tell her you cannot work without getting paid. She shouldn't be offended by this.

Even if she has no money, she may know other labs that have, and can recommend you My master's advisor came one day with a friend of his and said "this is Prof. Smith, and he is looking for a PhD student in a project I think will interest you".

Lastly, depending on the country, working for free may be illegal. In Spain it is common to do PhDs unfunded, in Sweden it is considered slavery.


I submitted manuscript to a special issue of a Springer journal. The review date has passed. What should I do now?

I would not worry about this at this stage.  In publishing (and organizing conferences, etc.), almost everything takes longer than the original deadlines would suggest.  At this stage, the reviews may have been completed; but then the editors have to go through all the reviews themselves and decide what to do with each paper.  Moreover, there are probably a few referees who are late turning in their reports, and the whole process can be pushed back several weeks.  Add to this the fact that early December tends to be a very busy time for many academics (semester winding down, final grading to be done), three or four weeks from the reviewing deadline seems a totally unremarkable delay in hearing back from the editorial staff.

I would recommend not doing anything, until at least some time next year.  However, if you wish, you could send an e-mail to the editor, asking about the status of your submission.  Keep in mind though that replying to requests like that just take up more of an editor's time, and it will probably have very little marginal effect on how quickly your paper is dealt with.


As a beginning graduate student, can you do without conferences in theoretical CS?

Conferences are very important in CS. Journals are also important, but they tend to accept more mature work, and therefore might be especially hard to publish into as a beginning graduate student (which, in your terms, seems to refer to someone who hasn't finished his/her master thesis yet). Nothing is impossible, of course, but you have to be careful not to end up with no publications after 4 years, just because you were aiming too high. In addition, some journals are very slow to respond, so you might spend half a year or even more waiting for a decision. In the mean time, you cannot send this work anywhere else.

You should ask students there how the official policy is, it might just be that they don't want to fund you a trip to a small workshop in Hawaii, but the question could be different if you were to get a paper at POPL. You should also consider that there are good conferences coming to Asia, and many conferences offer financial support to students (including reducing the registration fee, sometimes even helping with transport/accommodation). Finally, if you're writing your paper with someone else, such as your advisor, this person might be able to travel to the conference and present the paper (which would be a shame for you not to attend, but it still counts as a publication in your CV).

EDIT Some clarification: technically speaking, the only important thing is to produce good research, and to write good paper. What you plan to do after your PhD also matters, but if you'd like to stay in Academia, you will need at some point to get a job, and you will be judged on your papers (on other aspects too, but papers are very important). Now, to answer your question: yes, you could get a job with only journal publications, as long as they are good. Is that the best strategy? Probably not. Conferences are very important because they allow you to meet other people, to be exposed to state-of-the-art research, to confront your ideas with the community, to get published within a relatively short time period, to receive more frequent feedback, to construct your research project in a more incremental way (present your idea at some workshop, work on a good conference paper, present the extended version to a journal).

If I can give you one example, I've presented some of my work at a workshop with no proceedings (so it didn't count as a publication), and I met there someone who accepted to be one of my external PhD examiners.


Is it disrespectful to invite a renowned lecturer if I know that he will be travelling through my city?

This is a completely fair request, and you can ask her/him without any worries. That said, there are some aspects that you may want to take into account to increase the chance of the speaker actually saying yes:

Please do not just show up at the lecture and ask there. Almost certainly (s)he will have made other plans at this point. Ask in advance, and as soon as possible. This also has the advantage that you are not putting her/him on the spot directly, but give time to ponder the issue.
If possible, use a joint acquaintance to put you in contact rather than cold-mailing her/him. The probability of the speaker actually taking time out of her/his day to speak to your faculty will be so much higher this way than if you are just a random stranger who sent her/him a mail.
Frame the meeting as starting point for collaboration, not just an informal chat. Prominent people tend to not be keen on wasting their time on meetings with unclear outcome, so make sure that you and (s)he knows what to expect.
Relatedly, have a clear agenda in mind and make sure in advance that, should the speaker decide to visit you, the key people that you want her/him to meet are actually available. It apparently happens quite frequently that a motivated individual invites a prominent professor over, and then all the other faculty / students are actually not particularly interested in talking to the guest. As you can imagine, this tends to be embarrasing, for both, the guest and the host.


Can I ask the Associate Editor of a journal for an update on a paper I refereed?

Ask sure.
But you may not get a response at all or just get a “it’s in progress” or “it is completed and published or not”. He/she may decide to give detail if they wish.


Should I always address both PhD supervisors in emails?

I think that asking won’t hurt. But that said, just because two PIs are jointly advising a student on a degree does not entitle one to be privy to all exchanges with the other. Or put another way: just because you have two advisors doesn’t mean you lose all rights of privacy when communicating with either one of them. Of course sometimes information concerns both, so an email addressed to both is appropriate.


How can I add an article to my Scopus id, that is already associated with another author's profile id

Go to your profile page.

Click on "Edit profile".

You will be redirected to the "Author Feedback Wizard", where one category is called "Review documents".

Scroll down and click on "Search missing documents".

Find your paper and confirm - if you cannot find it, perhaps make sure that the publication is indeed eligible to be indexed in Scopus.

You could also try to link your profile to your ORCID, to see if that helps.


It happens from time to time. The idea is to give people who did not make it to the "normal" conference an opportunity to attend and present something. E.g. it could be work in progress without evaluation or projects at their very start. Usually, the deadline for workshops is after the final acceptance / rejection of the host conference.

Depending on the conference, there might be an extra fee for the workshop.

It depends on the workshop organizers (who are often selected by a "call for workshops") on how the contributions are published.

This might differ between conferences!


I want to opensource my code. Is it legal? Can I still publish?

I'm the main developer of several open-source libraries, one published and one under review, so I can give you a pretty up-to-date overview on open-source in the machine learning community. This may differ for your field, but probably not much.

Whether or not your university will allow you to open-source and/or publish depends entirely on them. Based on my experience, open-sourcing can be sensitive depending on how old-fashioned your university/lab is. However, if they are fine with open-sourcing, they will certainly be OK with publishing too (after all, it's a free paper!). Only way to know is to ask your advisor.

The only move you have here is to ask your advisor. To my knowledge, at least some MPIs are very much in favor of open-source (e.g. Bernhard Schölkopf, head of MPI intelligent systems, is a co-author of an important open-source mission statement within machine learning).

Releasing software before publication

  I suppose I cannot "publish" my code already, meaning open source it and share it so people can bug-check it before publication?

Yes you can and in fact you should. Typically you need to show active user interest before you can publish your software formally (e.g. github stars, download, mentions on twitter, ...). See for instance JMLR MLOSS guidelines, which state "Evidence of an active user community should be demonstrated ...".

In any case, releasing software prior to submitting your paper is not a problem. Publications don't work like patents.

Publication venues

Lately, there is a lot of journal interest in software. To name a few:

JMLR MLOSS
Plos Computational Biology: Software
The R Journal
Journal of Statistical Software

A more complete list is available at http://www.software.ac.uk/resources/guides/which-journals-should-i-publish-my-software

Next to journals, you have a lot of conferences/workshops specifically about software. For many projects, you are actually better off publishing there with the added benefit of shorter review times and far less drama.

License

  I want to make the code's licence as  permissive as legally possible, probably under Creative Commons Zero to aid  with this ...

Creative Commons licenses aren't really suitable for software. Be aware that choosing an open-source license isn't entirely trivial, that is open-source licenses don't necessarily allow users to do whatever they want. Most commonly used permissive licenses include BSD, MIT, Apache and WTF licenses as opposed to the GPL. I do recommend informing yourself about the main differences of highly permissive licenses vis-a-vis GPL-style licenses. Some questions you should ask yourself include

Do you want your license to permit commercial use within closed-source projects for free? If not, slap a GPL on it and (optionally) dual license your software.
Do you want to permit non-GPL open-source software to build upon your work? If so, then make sure your license isn't GPL (this is because of the copyleft nature of the GPL).

In my opinion, the best license types for relatively small (but useful) research software projects are usually highly permissive (BSD, Apache, ...). Your university's technology transfer office may disagree, if you even have to go through them (if MPI claims IP ownership of the software you developed you have to pass through the TTO).


Is it possible to write two separate Master's theses?

No one cares about your masters thesis.

Stated differently, your masters thesis will serve a single, time-bound goal: earn you a masters degree. To that extent, the amount of work you put into the thesis itself should be just enough to get that goal, and no more.

That said, you should definitely look to publish your work in as many reputable journal articles as you can. Rather than focusing on writing a second thesis, I recommend (a) writing up your first thesis topic as a paper, and then (b) writing the alternative thesis that you want to write as a second paper.

Please please PLEASE talk to your thesis advisor before taking the above advice. He or she will know whether your research is at journal-level quality and can save you a lot of unnecessary work if the answer is "no".


Applying and requirements for a Phd program

Consider programs outside your country, which may have different requirements.  For instance in the US, it is still very normal to NOT have a masters prior to starting the Ph.D. (only have a bachelors).

P.s.  Very hard to help you with a country-specific issue if you won't tell us the country!


How hard do early-career academics in the United States work, really?

TL; DR: 51 work hours a week with 12 vacation days a year

It is very difficult to assess how hard someone works. It is relatively easy to quantify the input (number of hours worked and the number of vacation days taken) and the output (papers and grants). In 2003 the Sigma Xi post doc society in the US began collecting data from 7600 post docs across 46 different US institutes about a number of issues including hours worked, vacation days taken, papers published and grants submitted. A summary report Doctors without Orders is available. Aggregate data is available via the Wayback Machine. I believe this is the best data set available to answer questions regarding the input and output.

The self reports suggest 12 days of vacation a year and 51 hours a week on average with 25% taking less than 7 days and working over 60 hours. The self report of the publication rate is around 3 with one grant application.

While self reports of hours work and publications are potentially biased, they might be a better measure of the perceived "hardness" of work than the actual hours worked. Obviously it would be nice if the publication and work rates were objectively verified. Obviously, publication rate and hours worked may not be the best metrics of how hard someone is working. This study found that alcohol consumption was negatively correlated with output. It is not clear if high alcohol consumption is positively or negatively correlated with how hard one works, but it might be relevant. Finally, Forbes has a report that University professors have the least stressful job, so maybe despite the hours, we don't actually work that "hard".

The comments to the questions suggest that understanding the input/output function would be desirable. This should be possible from the raw data of the Sigma Xi study, but not from the aggregate data, to determine if the inputs (hours worked) predict the outputs (papers and grants). I would be surprised if there was not a strong correlation, but also wouldn't be surprised if there were a number of outliers (i.e., lots of input and little output and little input and lots of output). Now, publication rate may not be the best measure of output as it doesn't consider quality. A psychology study found that impact factor is not correlated with publication rate suggesting that quantity and quality, as dubiously assessed by impact factor, are not correlated.


Accepting a tenure track position if I know I won’t stay till tenure

I would ask what the cost of applying is, the expected duration of the process, and the prediction of a similar position opening at your current institution.

If the cost is effectively zero (perhaps two hours of your time, then another hour to interview), the process taking 6 months, and a cursory conversation with your dept. head and budget, you will lose out if you never apply.

But if you do apply, and you are not offered anything, what would the harm be?

If you receive an offer, would you bet that it would be better (in terms of salary and benefits) than your current role right now?


When is asking for an update on PhD admission status appropriate (given international flight prices)

The general rule for you is that you can ask. It would be good to explain in any request that you need to arrange international travel and that finances are an issue.

But the general rule for the university is that they may be very constrained in what they can tell you. There may be rules or agreements about deadlines and about giving out information early, even if it is available. So, you may not get much of an answer and it would be very unlikely to get an early decision.

Graduate open houses are useful, but perhaps not necessary in every case. Make reasonable plans but stay flexible and expect that things can change. Money out of pocket probably isn't your most important consideration.


Is sending fall semester transcripts beneficial even if grades show a downtrend?

You should include the latest transcript.  The reason is simple: that is now your true transcript, and replaces the prior transcript.  If you don't include the most recent grades, then the universities where you are applying may wonder why: did you have terrible grades? Were you not attending classes at all?

Your current transcript is your transcript.  Just include it, and don't play games about it.


Should I email my professor's colleague?

I'm a professor, and two weeks is not a particularly long time for me to get around to replying to a non-urgent e-mail.  That said, I'm not generally as good at replying to e-mails (particularly those from former students, which you now are) as you describe your professor as being.

In your situation, I would do one or both of two things:

E-mail him again.  Say directly something like "I sent you a couple of e-mails over the past few weeks, but I haven't received a reply yet.  Could you please reply and let me know that you're all right, to put my mind at ease?"  A phrasing like this is less likely to come across as demanding, and more likely to come across as simply concerned.
E-mail his administrative assistant (not another faculty member) and ask whether Prof. X has been in to the department recently, or whether he is traveling or on vacation or the like.  You can say that you haven't heard from him in a while and you're starting to get concerned.  Administrative assistants are much more likely to know whether a particular professor is in town or out of town.  A random faculty member, on the other hand, is much less likely keep track of where your professor is;  I couldn't tell you what the details of my colleagues' schedules are.


Follow up email in 2 weeks - PhD application - a good idea?

No, the delay didn't spoil your chances, and no, don't write a followup.

The prof wasn't waiting for your reply, and didn't expect it to come the next day. If he is "well known", he may get dozens of applications every week, plus hundreds of other emails. He likely didn't notice the delay, but just processed the daily flood of messages.

Even if he did remember when your first mail came, he knows that compiling a good application with references takes time. You usually have to write a reference yourself and find a professor who knows you at least by sight to sign it. You could have been out of town for a job interview, ill, etc., there are a million very legitimate reasons why you didn't have it ready by the next day.

If he actually has an open position in which you might've fit, he has surely checked your references, and didn't like them. If not, there is little you, or he, could do.


Term for someone with a doctorate in nursing

You call him "Doctor Surname" unless you are sufficiently well-acquainted to call him by his given name.  (I worked with someone with a DScN degree and she was called "Doctor Smith" by the physicians in committee meetings, etc.)

If you and this person will be working with patients, ask "How should I address you when there are patients present?" before the need arises.  As guifa states in the comment above, the badge, or embroidered name, will show the degree, not the honorific.

Edited to add: The scope of practice of licensed healthcare professionals is set by state law, and the doctorate in nursing does not widen that scope in any state that I know about.  Guifa's comment that some states, including my home state, restrict the title "doctor" in the context of health care is correct.  You can expect the holder of a doctorate in nursing to know the restrictions, and to have a preference, so the best way to find out what to do when there are patients around is to ask.


My peers are publishing high impact papers and getting awards or offers while I am struggling to write a decent paper. What should I do differently?

If you're working 80+ hours a week, it's possible that that's getting in the way of you taking time to get enough sleep, and/or to maintain a healthy diet, and/or to get a decent amount of exercise, and that in turn is adversely affecting your cognitive function and impeding your ability to produce your best work.  It might be worth trying taking your foot off the pedal a bit.


Are alternative metrics taken seriously by hiring committies?

I served on a hiring committee in mathematics at a research university in the United States, and I don't believe that any of us paid attention to the sort of metrics you describe.

My personal inclination is that I would not recommend listing any of this information unless it is unusually notable, e.g., if someone particularly well known blogged extensively about your work. However, different countries, universities, and departments might operate differently.


Using the same control pictures/data in two different papers

This is a recurrent issue in biological sciences, and seeking for peer advice is a commendable step. Most colleagues would just move on while trying to conceal the fact that the results of two different manuscripts have a significant overlap.

My general advice is quite simple: focus on the scientific outcome of your research and aim for robustness. Transparency is essential, so that others judge whether they can trust you. Give your readers & peers all they need to follow your steps and rationale.

In short: as long as you explicitly declare the overlap and you unbiasedly trust it cannot affect your conclusions on both papers, I think you should be just fine.

Of course, independent controls and higher numbers of repetitions are always better for more representative results, and there will be always those who will not appreciate your "strategy". You cannot please everyone. Rest assured many of your critics include those who just don't like the concept of transparency.

Can you publish both papers in the same journal? Consider depositing all raw data in the same repository, to be linked to both papers.

Good luck!


I have made my independent research available as a book on my website. Why is it not celebrated by the mathematics community?

There should be a celebration of general topology being alive, but this does not happen. What is wrong?

The people who say general topology is dead are generally not unhappy about this conclusion: they feel it died a well-deserved death due to a lack of important connections with the rest of mathematics.  (They are wrong, both about whether it in fact died and about its lack of connections, but these beliefs persist.)  Your work does not challenge these beliefs, because it appears to be almost entirely self-contained, with minimal connections to other topics in mathematics.  If someone considers the field dead, then they will view your book as a zombie, rather than a sign of life.

This doesn't mean you have to try to change their minds.  It's perfectly reasonable to ignore them and focus on the mathematicians who do care about general topology.  But those mathematicians won't be surprised to hear that the field they work in is still alive.

  Well, one thing because which this does not happen is that I have not (yet) solved any specific open problem (not counting open problems which I myself formulated).

This is a major issue.  There are two ways you can attract researchers to a new research area.  You can show them how this area is connected to things they already care about, or you can convince them the new area is outstandingly interesting and important in its own right (more so than what they are currently working on).  The former is far easier, while the latter ranges from difficult to impossible.  If you can't build connections, then the chances of ever attracting much interest are low.

  But what else keeps the world off celebration?

Celebration is not the default state.  Every day, several hundred new mathematics papers are posted to the arXiv, some of them rather important.  On a typical day, none of them will get a reaction that could reasonably be described as celebration.  You should not expect it to happen here.

As a general rule, it can be difficult for authors to predict how their papers will be received.  Your book is exactly the sort of thing you like.  Maybe it's your favorite topic in the world, but that doesn't mean it will be everyone else's favorite too.  This can be really frustrating.  Some of my papers are much more popular and influential than others, and they aren't always the ones I'm most excited about or proud of.  I sometimes wish I could say to people "Hey, if you think X is so great, why aren't you twice as excited about Y?"  But ultimately people's tastes and preferences differ, and you need to make a case for your work in terms that other people understand and value.  This is not easy, but it's the only way forward.