How many reference letters are too many?

"Too many letters of recommendation" is not something I would consider a problem.

At some point additional letters may become overkill and not really help you that much.  But I can't imagine them detracting from your application, provided that they are all good recommendations from high-profile people.

I would certainly not leave out a recommendation from a "big name" in your field because of volume.  The fact that you have worked with a large number of high profile people, and they think highly of you, is a good thing.  And you never know which of those people someone who is potentially hiring you might know or think highly of.

Five is certainly not too much if they want "at least 3".

The wording clearly means that more than three letters is acceptable. In fact, one might conclude that three letters is the bare minimum and a "good" application should have more.

I would normally consider five letters to be a lot (though not harmful, as discussed above).  But it doesn't seem like an unusually high number if they want a minimum of three.


Is it ethical to use already existing material to complement teaching?

If you cite the work you avoid plagiarism, other questions aside.
But the really ethical way to do this is to ask permission first and explain how and why you will use the material. If they have published it online there will probably be no reason to refuse you.
But another issue is how it will be perceived by your own students. Other questions here have revealed that some students feel cheated when this happens. So, make sure that you add value to the slides you borrow and that the value added is clear to your students. You may want to explain the borrowing to your own students as well.
In general, students want to know that you are spending effort on them.


How to efficiently progress on a complex problem in research?

Write notes as you work. Brainstorm a list of questions, then try to write down answers to them as you investigate. Bonus points if some of them are questions that you would have asked before knowing the term game theory, or if some are ones a six-year-old would ask. It sounds like one of the questions on your list already is, "What conditions produce each equilibrium?"

You've already found the equilibria (do you know if you found all the equilibria?), but why is that interesting? How can you interpret that for someone? So what? (The questions that end up being most interesting or giving you the most to say should be your research questions, with their answers being your thesis statement(s).)

Below, I'm taking a lot of liberties guessing about what you're doing and what might be productive. Wherever I assume something wrong, try to use that as a jumping off point. ("That's completely silly! This wouldn't be a complex system because X!" or "Using an agent-based model wouldn't capture Y." or "Existing small world models don't account for Z.")

Depending on exactly what model you're using (e.g. an agent-based model for a repeated game) you may be creating and analyzing a complex system. There might be emergent properties you're trying to capture, and you may want to tune the model to better illustrates that emergence. If you just altered one variable at a time you might get a tipping point model ("Huh, turns out the dividing line for getting cooperative behavior is if everyone starts with an endowment of X.") but just cataloging those univariate effects doesn't necessarily capture emergent behaviors that involves interacting traits or evolving patterns of behavior. (E.g., an interesting emergent result might be: "Generally, increasing equality of endowments or increasing N leads to an equilibrium of cooperation. But when you have perfect equality of endowments and increase N, you paradoxically have higher rates of defection." Then you could illustrate how that typically plays out, turn by turn.)

Maybe mathematicians or others who work with complex systems could tell you about classes of functions or models that are thoroughly understood, and you could compare your system to that. My guess is that systematically recording the results of your playing around with the model (potentially trying to answer 6-year-old-style questions) will lead to better work.


Does posting a paper on an online forum establish priority?

If somebody copies your text, then the fact that you posted this text publicly and earlier on the internet (in a location you can't feasibly control, so it won't look like you faked the historical record) will prove that they plagiarized.

It's a little trickier if somebody in inspired by your idea and writes their own paper that doesn't cite yours, since there's no way to distinguish this from independently coming up with the same idea.  It would be unethical to do this, but it could in principle happen.  If you pointed out your prior posting, you would deserve to at least share the credit.  However, people might still downplay your contribution.  "Sure, there was an earlier internet posting outlining the basic idea, but it wasn't nearly as well developed and nobody noticed it since it was posted somewhere obscure.  The real scientific breakthrough occurred when the idea was independently rediscovered, properly understood and worked out, and disseminated to the research community."  You could end up as a footnote, which is still credit but a sort of grudging credit.

I don't expect this will cause any problems.  It's not worrisome unless your ideal is attractive enough to seem worth stealing, while remaining obscure enough that someone could hope to get away with it.  The biggest barrier to intellectual theft is publicity: once enough people know about your idea, anyone who claims to have found it independently will get shot down by someone saying "You may not have known about this, but that's just your own ignorance, since the rest of us know Awesome Academist came up with this idea in 2015.  You should pay more attention to the internet."

Furthermore, if your idea really stays obscure enough that someone could get away with stealing it, then your posting evidently didn't have much impact on the community and you arguably deserve only a footnote's worth of credit.  (People deserve some credit for reaching the goal first, but more credit if they make a bigger contribution by circulating their ideas and influencing the research community.)

I doubt you need to worry about theft, but trying to publish your paper formally could help address this possibility by putting your work before a broader audience.  Anything worth stealing is worth publishing in the first place, so if theft worries you then you should consider publication.


Why are some journals for research papers called “review”?

Among the various meaning of review, the Oxford English Dictionary reports (2.1):

  [OFTEN IN NAMES] A periodical publication with critical articles on culture and current events:
  'the New Left Review'

A similar definition can be also found in the Random House Webster's, 2nd ed., (on paper):

  A periodical publication containing articles on current events or affairs, books, art, etc.

The above definitions do not seem to imply journals publishing only review papers in the common scientific sense.

The Online Etymology Dictionary yields for review (bold mine):

  mid-15c., "an inspection of military forces," from Middle French reveue "a reviewing, review," noun use of fem. past participle of reveeir "to see again, go to see again," from Latin revidere, from re- "again" (see re-) + videre "to see" (see vision). Sense of "process of going over again" is from 1560s; that of "a view of the past, a retrospective survey" is from c. 1600. Meaning "general examination or criticism of a recent work" is first attested 1640s.

I think that journal papers can be considered "examinations of a recent work", that is, a review in the sense highlighted above.

It is worth noting that this usage of the noun review to denote a periodical publication is widespread also in other languages: in French, with the word revue, and in Italian with the word rivista. The note at the top of the last link says (lousy translation mine):

  nel sign. di «periodico» è modellato sul fr. revue, che a sua volta
  ricalca l’ingl. review

  (with the meaning of "periodical", the term is modelled on the French
  revue which, in turn, follows from the English review)


Is there any research funding for Independent researchers to work staying at home?

I don't know which country you are in, but in the United States at least, a lot of grants assume you will be affiliated with a university or other institution (which is why there are things like indirect costs) and are not set up to be given to individuals with no affiliation.

That said, if someone has a decent scientific track record (eg. you're not a risk to the reputation of the university) it is fairly low-risk for a university to offer you some sort of 100% soft-money position (part-time research professor, etc.). Soft money means your entire paycheck has to be covered by grants, so the university doesn't risk any money on you themselves, they just give you a university affiliation so you can go hunt for grants. If you had a soft money position, and were able to get grants, you are pretty much your own boss and able to decide whether you want to come in to the office or work from home.


How to prosecute plagiarism when the discoverer of the plagiarism is an outside third party?

There is no single global authority that deals with academic plagiarism.

While the current legal system stands, there's no quick and reliable way to prosecute anyone because everyone has a right to defend in court, and court processes are long, tedious and don't always result in a way that you expect. Your question seems to assume that plagiarism should lead to immediate dismissal of the president; this will not happen. Actually, this should not happen without a thorough investigation.

This being said, I sympathise with your cause, but you have little legal ground here. The university has the right to revoke his PhD degree, should the university decide so. If the university does not, it's the reputation of the university that is at stake. You have the right to distribute this information and show that the university officials are caring about politics more than about science.

Also, it is highly unlikely that a plagiarised PhD thesis would get a president of any country to quit. I have been closely following the work of Dissernet, a similar group in Russia that examines PhD theses for plagiarism. While they have uncovered plagiarism in theses of several high-ranked officials, including the Minister for Culture, no one in Russia bothered to admit it, much less quit, zu Guttenberg style.


What to do if I can't get a visa to attend a conference that accepted my paper?

If your paper gets withdrawn, then there may be no public record that it ever was accepted (and if there were, it could potentially be misconstrued as a withdrawel for other reasons). I can't say I've ever seen such an item on a CV.

On the other hand, even if you cannot make it to the conference in person, you can try to either:

a) have someone else give the talk in your place.

b) give the talk via telecommunication, e.g. Skype.

Both options are certainly not too unusual in my field (theoretical computer science/math). If you have to go for the second one, make sure not to leave contacting the conference organizers for the last moment, and be aware that this causes quite some work for them. If you can provide enough detail on your visa issues that it is clear that it's not just "You waited too long to apply", most people will be quite understanding.


can I use instagram pictures for an academic work

In a a word no, users of Instagram retain copyright of their own images, and grant Instagram a licence to reproduce them on Instagram's website. No licence is granted to other users of the website, so you would need to approach each user individually to gain permission, unless your usage comes under a fair-use right. This differs between countries, so it depends on where the user is located that posted the image, and where you are located as to what rights you may have under this. These fair-use rights are very restricted, and have no relationship to academic work in particular.


Do academics look down on well-designed academic websites?

As has been stated several times, there is no such thing as a site being "too well designed."  Of course the design should take into account the audience that will be viewing the site—i.e. if you are designing a website gallery for minimalist paintings, it would be very odd indeed to use as many buttons and links as Amazon.com, whereas for an online store that isn't a bad design at all.

However, in my view, the keynote is really not so much design as implementation.

There are two crucial factors: file size (also known as website obesity), and overuse of scripts (which is closely related).

The website you linked in the comments doesn't load at all in my browser, because I have scripts disabled by default.  I enable them for sites that I expect to run scripts, such as gmail or youtube.

I grant that I may be in a minority of the general web browsing population...but I expect a disproportionate number of academics are aware of such things, and are more likely to be irritated by websites which require plug-ins, scripts and high bandwidth simply to display a bunch of text.

Do your design as well as you please, but try to keep it as minimal as possible on bandwidth, plug-ins and scripts.

(Note: My own personal settings aren't the main topic of this answer, but as several people have made noises of shock at my default blockage of scripts, I'll clarify: I don't block first party scripts that are served by the actual website I'm visiting.)


What do admission committees look for in a diversity essay?

It seems to me that it would be prudent to start from the assumption that the words in the question have been chosen carefully, after some deliberation; and so she should answer the question put, as it is asked.

The quote you've given does not ask for complaints. It doesn't speak of judging her by national origin, ethnicity or financial status. It doesn't ask her to talk of struggle. So those things would only go in the answer if they give a particular perspective that adds to the value she would contribute to the diverse learning community they strive to create.

They want to know how her status as a member of a historically-under-represented community adds to the value she would contribute. In your answer, you've already given three aspects of that. I'll paraphrase slightly - I hope I haven't distorted your friend's intended meaning - and for each I'll frame it within the question as asked on the application form:

she's seen her being from a historically under-represented community as a challenge rather than a struggle; as a member of the department her very presence could provide a positive role model for others both internal and external to the deparment
she's maintained optimism and not let the status quo get her down; as a member of the department, she would bring a realistic optimism and determination.
she's sought to work towards a system that rewards merit for its own sake regardless of national origin, ethnicity, financial status, and so on; as a member of the department, she would contribute to the department's culture of meritocracy: academia of all places should strive to overcome conscious and unconscious biases, and work strive towards meritocracy.

That would seem to me to cover the question on the form as it has been asked.


Importance of teaching as a PhD student to go into academia

If this is the US or in a place with similar traditions, then nearly all academics teach. Some more than others and some only at advanced levels, but generally, we teach.

If you are good enough to be hired primarily as a researcher at an R1 university in the US then the hiring decision won't hinge much on your background as a teacher, but for most other academic jobs it will be a consideration, perhaps an important one.

So, it is a good thing to get some experience with it, though it is time consuming the first few times. Post doc positions don't necessarily provide any teaching experience, though some do.

Observing your own teachers gives you only a bit of the knowledge you need to put a course together, deliver it, and keep a bunch of students happy.

But all universities have a complex mission, and teaching the next generation of scholars is a big part of it.


How do data protection laws apply to faculty applications?

I'm not a lawyer, but in the US at a federal level there is no legal expectation that job applications will be destroyed at the end of a job search. In fact it's the opposite, there are some laws (such as the Americans With Disabilities Act) which require employers to retain hiring records, which includes application materials, for a period of time in order ensure such records are available if someone were to accuse them of discrimination.

Employers are free to retain such records for longer periods of time if they so choose. For example, it's very common for large corporations to retain job applications indefinitely so they have a permanent record in case you were to apply multiple times to the same place.

In practice, there is a general expectation that academic job searches are kept private, but probably not to the point where job applications are destroyed. My department is required to keep hiring records (application materials and any written materials we make about our applicants) and turn them over to our university HR department at the conclusion of our search. From there I assume the university may keep them indefinitely if they chose to do so. I don't think there's any law that makes it illegal for the department to disclose their potential list of applicants (or even their application materials), but doing so would be violating the social custom.

Academic departments tend to be very close-knit, with faculty serving together and depending on each other for many years. Announcing one's intention to leave a department is a sensitive issue that is seen as that person's prerogative to disclose in their own way and time. More importantly, faculty should be free to look at other institutions and entertain the idea of leaving for a different department without committing to that action or disclosing to their current department that intention, which could have major impacts on the way their current department advances/promotes/treats them in the future. For this reason it's a major faux pas to discuss potential applicants outside of the department, but there's no law against it.


What is a magazine paper and how it is different from a journal paper

IEEE magazine articles are aimed at a more general audience than conference or journal papers, which are usually aimed at a small group of specialists in a narrow subfield.

They can be a way to expose the author's technical work to a broader audience, give an overview of an area, or present something that is of interest to researchers in the area but isn't appropriate for a technical journal article (for example, to explain the legal, economic, or political issues behind a particular research area).

Because they serve a different purpose from "regular" journal articles, manuscripts submitted to magazines are judged according to some additional magazine-specific criteria. For example, the peer review form for one IEEE magazine I reviewed for included the following specific questions:

  Is the paper understandable to a general ComSoc audience with minimum mathematical content?
  Does the paper format conform to magazine guidelines (max. 4500 words, 6 figures/tables, 15 references)?

in addition to more "usual" ones:

  Is the paper topic important and interesting to the magazine's readership?
  Is the paper technically sound?
  Does the paper discuss novel and original work?
  How is the presentation and organization of the paper?

A note on those "magazine guidelines": Because IEEE magazines do not publish specialized and detailed technical papers, they often have limits on the number of equations, figures, and references that authors may include. For example, from the guidelines for IEEE Communications Magazine:

  Articles should be tutorial in nature and should be written in a style comprehensible to readers outside the specialty of the article.
  Mathematical equations should not be used. In justified cases up to three simple equations could be allowed, provided you have the consent of the Guest Editor. The inclusion of more than three equations requires permission from the Editor-in-Chief.
  References should be included only to guide readers to more information on the topic; the reference list should not include every available source. A limit of 15 references is recommended. The inclusion of more than 15 references requires permission from the Editor-in-Chief. References to Web pages should be checked immediately for accessibility before submitting material to the Production Staff.
  Figures and tables should be limited to a combined total of six.

If the paper you want to write needs more equations, references, figures, or tables than the magazine guidelines allow, this may be an indication that it's too technical for a magazine article, and is more suitable for publication in a regular journal.

Regarding your other questions:

  I am also wondering, can a PhD student be a first author in a manuscript submitted to a magazine or the first author has to be famous in the field in order to be trusted by the reviewers.

Yes, a PhD student can be a first author on a magazine paper. I have a first-author magazine paper; I am a PhD student, and I am not famous :)

  Last question is if a PhD student graduates with one magazine paper will that help to get a faculty position or it is counted as a journal paper.

Magazine papers are nice because a good magazine article can rack up a lot of citations. For example, in my field of computer networks and wireless communications, IEEE Communications Magazine has the highest h-index. Similarly, IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine, IEEE Communications Magazine, and IEEE Wireless Communications Magazine are included among the top IEEE journals in terms of impact factor.

But a magazine paper won't be considered the same as a journal paper, because it lacks the technical depth of a journal paper.


A social experiment. What is the worst that can happen?

I like to think I have a pretty vivid imagination, so the worst thing I can reasonably imagine happening is that you would be seen as trying to perform an experiment with human participants without proper controls, questionable experimental design, possibly a lack of appropriately rigorous analysis (if this isn't your specialty), and lack of ethical review and oversight. From an ethics perspective, you propose to use deception on uninformed participants while possibly obtaining personally identifiable information on them which could lead to them facing serious social consequences if they were identified. With the mob mentality of the viral internet as it is, the consequences could be pretty darn severe - up to loss of job, death threats, actual violence, and more. Sensitive topics require sensitive handling, which is what any functioning IRB and responsible researcher would insist on.

In reporting on the results, even if informally on a blog, you could be seen as offering a pseudo-scientific view (or worse) on a controversial and important topic. If your experiment was performed poorly or your analysis done improperly, you could lend weight to an incorrect view - either providing what could be cited as evidence that discrimination does not exist where it does (thus making it harder for people discriminated against to make changes or be taken seriously), or supporting the view that discrimination does exist where it doesn't (leading to negative consequences for people who are doing nothing wrong and deflecting attention away from more pressing, extant issues). Bad science, even done with good intention, can easily make the world worse.

If some random blogger or journalist did this, most of us can gratingly dismiss it as "they don't know any better", or just the world of click-bait, etc. But if you were a qualified scientist who should know better, people might not be so willing to dismiss such activity just because it wasn't intended to be scientific and it wasn't intended for publication. Most people won't even know the difference in what is and isn't intended to be scientific when done by a scientist, and many that do know the difference might not consider it an excuse.

As Dawn pointed out in a comment, one version of this is called an audit study, and there is a pretty large body of literature that tries to do basically what you are suggesting in a systematic way. I cannot even try to count how many studies of this sort are published, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't already in the thousands, looking at everything from gender to race to the impact of varying lengths of time gaps on a resume.

Finally, the nature of this sort of field study is that even with everything going your way they are hard to do correctly. No simple analysis method works even if you did everything right and collected all the data appropriately. There is too much randomness, too much heterogeneity, too much structure, to allow any simple bit of statistics to give the correct interpretation. In short, unless this is your specialty, it would be trivially easy to get everything else right and still come to exactly the wrong conclusion.

For those who are not familiar with this kind of statistics, a classic example of how a simple analysis can go wrong is Sex Bias in Graduate Admissions: Data from Berkeley. In a simple aggregate analysis, it looked quite clearly that women were being admitted at lower rates than men, and thus bias was quite obvious to the point that the deans of the school were concerned this could be the basis for a lawsuit. It turned out it was a nice example of Simpson's Paradox, as it turned out the cause for the difference was that women were more likely to apply to departments that were crowded and competitive and thus harder to get into for everyone, while men were more likely to apply to departments that were less competitive.

If a similar condition existed in the employment sector, where you were applying to jobs in industry that turned out to vary in their selectivity in a way that you were not considering, this would mess up your analysis, and you cannot easily collect more information that would allow you to fix it. After all, I'm sure you weren't inclined to use random selection in your own employment search!

So, in summation, the worst that I could imagine happening is: you end up doing bad science that would reflect badly on you and would not be easily excused just because it wasn't intended for publication; you come to the wrong conclusions and in a way which could hurt innocent people; you casually report information that could be used in dangerous and damaging way; you end up being identified as the person responsible and it goes viral, so now the most famous thing you'll ever be known for was this thing you didn't intend as a serious study (and which could have gone horribly wrong); and, as a bonus, you could just end up wasting your time and the time of others for no benefit.

And since its the worst thing that can happen, I suppose you could also end up with a headache. Things can always be worse by adding a headache.


How to title a report on a project that is not final

I have typically seen the word "Draft" used, as in:

  Draft Model of X (Date)

If you want to track multiple drafts over time, then you can give a version number as well:

  Draft Model of X (Version N, Date)


Pure maths "dropout" wanting to finish MSc thesis

You have a lot of advantages, actually. First, though, ignore the age issue. It isn't something you can change and time moves on no matter what you do.
You seem to have contact with appropriate academics in your field. You can probably exploit that. But, since you are a bit non-traditional, for someone to take you on they might be concerned about whether you would be a burden or not.
Let me suggest a path, though there are others, certainly. Find a project that you think has merit in your field. Write up an outline of a thesis and fill in some parts of it, such as the literature search. Include a few ideas that might be developed into theorems, but which aren't currently known (yes, hard, I know). If you can't do that much, at least name one or two "threads" that might be pulled.
Take that to some professor that you have contact with and ask whether they think this has promise, first, as a bachelor's thesis. If yes, then ask whether they will guide it and get you over that first hurdle. It might be that a second thesis can follow the first along the same lines. Spell out your academic needs and background as you have here. A period of burnout after intense study is pretty common and many of us will understand that and have possibly experienced it.
But the outline will show someone that you are serious and the existing personal relationship will assure someone that working with you will be relatively easy and not a waste of time.

Even if the professor doesn't normally teach at the B.Sc level, they might be willing to work with you if you make their task easy. Note that I'm assuming that the bachelors thesis is an absolute requirement that can't be avoided. If so, tackle it first, even if your paper is more advanced than would normally be required.


Citing antichronistic works -- worth commenting that the publication order is counter intuitive?

The relation between paper A and B seems like an unnecessary detail. As you imply they are both about the same project. Keep it concise.

White et al used Bar and Buzz in [A,B] to analyze a dataset using methods Foo.

[Then go on to say why this is important and relates to your own research]


No response from recommenders after they agreed to write recommendation letter

You need to move on and find new references, people who actually know you.

Realistically, it's hard to imagine anyone wanting to write an LOR for someone they've never met and know only as a name on a paper they've cited.  But then you further poisoned the relationships by waiting a month to respond to their requests for a draft (of the letter you want?) and CC'ing your advisor on your requests, as if to "report" them for not responding quickly enough.  And who knows what you put in your draft or your "reminders".

If someone did that to me, I'd permanently ignore them.  I certainly wouldn't waste my time recommending them.


Appropriate time for contacting professors after PhD enrolment

As soon as is reasonable.

Think of it this way. There are possibly other students competing to work with this advisor, and they might have funds only for one new student. There might be other considerations - maybe the advisor is going on sabbatical, or isn't taking new students, and so on.

So as soon as possible, set up a meeting with the potential advisor, indicate your potential interest (and why!), and ask them point blank if they're taking students, and how they prefer to screen students (some do it through course work, some might like to work with you on an independent study project, and so on).

Depending on what they say, you can take further followup action - maybe they want you to take their class, and maybe they have a research group that has open meetings, and so on.

Bottom line: don't wait till your year is over, because it is quite possible that someone has made a decision already.

Caveat: if this year-delay is institutionalized, it might be that all advisors wait till the end of the year to even think about new students. I suspect this is unlikely, but in any case that first meeting will help clarify it.


Citing statistical information presented in a table using data from a variety of sources?

When it comes to citations with reference to a table, I often see it implemented in the APA-style, that is:

table heading above the table

in the table text, there are small letters in superscript (a, b, c...)

the references are named below the table, again with the small letters in superscript, but all in one line

I found this example in the APA Style Blog:

In addition, that blog post offers a different example in which the respective references are placed in their own column:


Do prizewinners use prize money for academic purposes?

I suspect awardees do not use the award money to do research in the majority of instances. My opinion is not judgemental: in most cases, it would not make much sense to spend that money for research purpose.

In fact, the average Nobel (or Fundamental Physics Prize, probably the largest sum awarded as prize to scientists) is shared among several people, and amounts to a few hundred of thousands of US dollars each. While that is a large sum for personal purpose, it is not necessarily a large sum for research purpose.

More importantly, a Nobel medalist is certainly in the league, and with much better prospects of success, to obtain research grants that range in the millions (European research council grant for  example). If you can fetch millions of research money every 5 - 10 years, what difference your ten times smaller, once-in-a lifetime Nobel prize sum would make? Of course the argument above is even stronger for the Fields medal, given its relatively low monetary value.


What is the advantage of m·s^(-1) over m/s?

I think the main advantage is that an ambiguity of a/bc is avoided. For example, g/m^2s may be read as g m^{-2} s^{-1} or g m^{-2} s depending on whether multiplication takes priority over division.  As far as I know, there is no consistency in opinions about it, so to avoid confusion a slightly uglier notation with negative powers may be worth accepting.


I can provide some information about the US, and maybe a bit of perspective.

First note that the process of doctoral education is quite different in the US and parts (at least) of Europe. I'll focus mostly on things such as CS and mathematics. It may be different in other fields.

In the US, there is a relatively low bar for acceptance into a doctoral program. An undergraduate degree is all that is normally required, though some institutions may expect more. Not only that, but a four year undergrad program in the US is a generalist degree, not a specialist one. The "major" subject is between 1/3 and 1/2 of the total coursework and not every student is much exposed to research.

Moreover, most doctoral students in the US in these fields are, in a sense, self funded, as they are employed by the university mostly as TAs (sometimes RAs). Universities with doctoral programs in math and CS, also normally teach a lot of undergrad students, which means either lots of small classes or larger classes with lots of TAs. There aren't normally enough regular faculty to teach all of the courses, so they depend on doctoral students to help.

In Europe, I suspect that the bar is higher for entry, with more courses and research experience expected. I also suspect that doctoral education there is somewhat less dependent on student teachers and assistants. In some places, doctoral students are regular employees, and may, therefore, also be teachers.

But, I think you need to expect that no matter where you are, that doctoral education is a full time endeavor. You can "have a life" with outside interests, but your full time "job" is directed toward your degree. The exception would be for someone who can do a degree part time on their own funding. These are rare. And, I think that "full time" normally means more than 40 hours per week. Most people make sacrifices in that way and require that other family members are willing to accept that. It isn't so much that it is demanded of you, though it might be, but that research isn't a regularized process. There is no way to say that in X course I will achieve Y results. Insight is precious.

Whether the "time to degree" differs depends on how you measure it. From the end of a secondary education to a doctorate is likely about the same anywhere. There are things that need to be learned and research that needs to be done and reported. Whether you count that as part of a specialized undergraduate degree, or an MS degree, or doctoral education, matters little. Since the starting point is about the same, and the end point is about the same, there are few shortcuts.

So, what is best for you, depends on where you currently are. If you have the prerequisites done for specialized research, then you want a program that will let you get to it. Otherwise you want something that will help you reach that point.

I'll note, however, that, even in the US, if you are well prepared on entry, many doctoral programs will expedite your entry into research without a lot of course preliminaries. You need to pass exams and write a dissertation. You won't, most likely, be expected to repeat courses for which you are already well prepared, though you may need a way to demonstrate your competence. You will need funding, and, as an international student, few fellowships will be open to you. So you will probably be expected to teach or TA. If you are already an experienced teacher, you may have more advanced duties than most, but (student) visa restrictions can still get in the way.


Does failing the qualifying exam leave a record?

But if the student has received his master way before his qualifying exam, is there other way to write the record that looks better?

First, the student doesn't get to write the record. The university writes the milestones that the student passes, specifically, which classes they took and with what grades, and which degrees they earned. (In some countries, the thesis itself also receives a grade, like a class.)  At least in the US, intermediate milestones like finding an advisor, passing or failing quals, proposing or failing to propose a thesis, probation, suspension, termination, and even academic integrity violations are rarely recorded on university transcripts.

So, for example, if a student were asked to leave a PhD program after 2.5 years, for whatever reason, the transcript would show five semesters worth of classes, ending without the student earning a degree, because they didn't.

Many PhD students in this situation opt to switch to an MS degree program in their final semester, so that they can plausibly claim that they were just a masters student.  (After all, in their last semester, they were just a masters student.) They don't have to explain why they left without a degree.

If the student already has a MS in their home department, earning a second MS in the same field is usually impossible.  But another option is to switch to an MS program in a nearby field, for example, applied math or computer engineering or operations research instead of computer science.  At least at my university, switching from a PhD program in department X to an MS program in nearby department Y is usually fairly painless, especially if you have a supportive advisor in department Y.

If even that is not an option, I'm afraid there's little one can do.  Your transcript will end without a degree, and most people reading it will assume that (or at least wonder if) you left because you were forced out.


Although referring the concerned institution guidelines for application should be self-sufficient, it wouldn't be wrong to ask a professor of the related department for any clarifications. But just make sure you go refer the guidelines first before you send a request-for-clarifications email.


Is it alright to ask recommendation letter from the same professor more than once?

tl;dr: yes, but do explain the circumstances.
Professors are well aware that writing recommendation letters is part of their job. We know that good letters are a requirement for students to advance, and if students have behaved reasonably well in their interactions with us, we should gladly provide such letters. I had a student apologize to me for asking me to send five letters to distinct employers, so I can understand your reflex to not want to be a burden. Let me reassure you, just as I reassured that student: it is not a burden at all. Writing recommendation letters is a bit of work that results from having had interactions with the student that I enjoyed.
All that being said: you probably will want to make sure that the professors will understand that their work has not been in vain. Thank the professors for their efforts so far, express that you are very happy with the achieved results, and tell them that you unfortunately must ask for a little more of their time. Then write the reasons why you couldn't accept any of the spots last year, and ask them to send the same letters again (only updating the cosmetic stuff, such as the date).
It may be difficult to be open about your personal circumstances to the professors. However, it is probably necessary to tell them why you couldn't make use of the opportunities last round, since this motivates why the professors wouldn't be wasting their time this round. If you write it like that, I would find this request absolutely appropriate, and I would be surprised if your professors wouldn't respond positively.
Good luck with the applications!


Asking 'silly' questions to doctoral supervisor

Every PhD student "lacks technical fundamentals" in some respect.  That is why you are a PhD student and not a senior researcher (though they probably lack more "technical fundamentals" than you would guess, also).  You aren't going to trick your supervisor into thinking you know everything by never asking questions that might be "silly".

But learning to find answers on your own is an essential skill, so it's good that you are practicing doing this.  I don't know why you say it is "suffering".

I think a good compromise is to spend a reasonable amount of time trying to find the answer yourself.  If you can't, then ask your supervisor, and mention what you tried or what sources you consulted.  A reasonable PhD supervisor should not "think less of you" for this, and in any case, it's almost certainly better for your supervisor to have an accurate view of what you know.

If you are in the middle of a meeting and you need to know the answer now in order to proceed with a meaningful discussion, then it is reasonable to ask the question on the spot.  Again, it is better to be honest about what you do and don't know, than to potentially waste everyone's time by proceeding with a discussion you don't understand.

If you find yourself spending too much time chasing down answers to random questions, then prioritize them.  It's okay to say to yourself: "This is an interesting question, but I don't need to know the answer right now; let me set it aside and come back to it in the future when I have more time."


Bibliographic entry for a pseudymous work with known real author

The "academically correct" solution is usually to format that bibliographical item as any other item, with the name which appears on the paper (this is also remarked in the answers to the linked question). Then, you can add a bibliographical note saying that the name is a pseudonym: in bibtex you can do this by means of the field note. However, about this, take into account the objections that have been pointed out in the answers and comments to the linked question.

The above solution would roughly correspond to your [1], with the exact details depending on the chosen style.

Of course, if you are writing a paper for a journal, the style guide might require a different formatting or might not accept notes.

Edit: I've checked The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition, and it suggest a slightly different style, more similar to your example [2]:

  14.81 Pseudonyms -- unknown authorship. If an author's real name is not known, pseud. (roman, in brackets) may follow the name. (In a
  text citation, pseud. is omitted.)

and

  14.82 Pseudonyms -- known authorship. A widely used pseudonym is generally treated as if it were the author's real name.

  [...]

  The real name, if of interest to readers, may follow the pseudonym in
  brackets.

According to the above, your example would become:

Đông, Q. P. [McCawlay, J.D.], “English sentences without overt grammatical subject”, doi: 10.1075/z.63.06don.

The New Oxford Style Manual suggests the same format.

For what concerns LaTeX, if you want to follow the above format, it appears that the biblatex-chicago supports it. However, it is probably not applicable to specific publications. For instance, the IEEE BibTeX style does not support explicitly pseudonyms, but it has a note field. The people at TeX.SE can probably give you better information on which is the best way to implement that specific format.


Is there a standard English translation of ausserordentlicher Professor?

First, the expression "außerordentlicher Professor" is no longer in current widespread use in Germany (although still understood; the exception is, as so often, Bavaria); a non-ordinary professor position is now usually referred to as "W2" (after the pay scale) or, in some states, "W3 ohne Leitungsfunktion". Most people who now hold such a position would translate it as "associate professor", although there are a number of significant differences between the positions that make this translation misleading in some regards.

It is also a very different position from the one Emmy Noether held (which was unpaid, for a start). In fact, Emmy Noether's position was actually that of an "außerplanmäßiger Professor", a title given to tenured university assistants after their habilitation, which entails most of the academic, but very few of the administrative, rights of a university professor. (The "nicht beamtet" previously disambiguated the two positions; the title was renamed during the Nazi regime.) This position -- which no longer exists in the German system, and, confusingly, was called "außerordentlicher Professor" (and now "assoziierter Professor") in the Austrian system -- has no analogue outside the very hierarchical traditional German system. Hence there is no canonical translation; if pushed, I would translate it either as "tenured research assistant" or "lecturer" (if there is no danger of confusion with the UK title, which would give the wrong idea), both capturing (different) aspects of the position.

Especially in a historical work, I would therefore do exactly what the English wikipedia article on Emmy Noether does -- use the original German title and give a parenthetical explanation:

  the title of nicht beamteter ausserordentlicher Professor (an untenured professor
  with limited internal administrative rights and functions)


Is it okay to share a tex template from a journal for teaching purposes?

Several journals have made their LaTeX classes available on CTAN: I suggest you to pick one of them.

Example journal classes available on CTAN are:

amsart
IEEEtran
elsarticle

As Federico Poloni rightly suggests, check anyway the license of the package you want to use, which is written on the CTAN page of the package.


Is a Master of Research qualificaton appreciated in Australia?

In the Australian context a Masters by Research is typically a 2 year research project. I.e., it is intended to be smaller in scale and scope than a PhD (which is notionally 3 years, although often takes more).

The degree to which students do Masters versus PhD research degrees varies quite a bit across disciplines. I have a casual impression that a masters by research might be more common in engineering/computing disciplines, but I could be wrong. In contrast, in my discipline of psychology, almost all research students do a PhD (or start a masters with the intention of upgrading to a PhD).

A few points

Some people do a masters by research if they want to do a PhD but did not do an undergraduate thesis (e.g., an honours thesis). Thus, the masters gives them the research experience that they need to then enrol in a PhD.
Some people enrol in a masters by research with the intention of upgrading to a PhD. This can be a requirement where the student does not meet the entry requirements for a PhD (e.g., grades not high enough). If the student demonstrates good progress in the early period of candidature, they may be permitted to upgrade.
A third group of people start a PhD, but decide part way through that they are unable to complete a project at the scale of a PhD. They then may apply to submit a Masters thesis. Similarly, one outcome of submitting a PhD thesis for evaluation is that the PhD is not awarded but a masters is (this is clearly an undesirable outcome).
Other people simply want to get some research experience, but they do not wish to do a project as big as a PhD.

If you are wishing to get an academic position, a PhD is usually required.


Is it normal for the manuscript submission date to change from the original submission date to the revisions submission date?

In my field, for a time, a very brief time, the time between submission and publication was a factor for people when submitting to journals. Some journals the time between submission and publication was close to two years while for other, equally reputable, journals the time between submission to publication was less than 3 months.

When people started complaining about the time to publications, the slower journals began to cheat. The outcomes of the review process used to be Accept, Revise and Resubmit, and Reject. To "speed up" the process they changed "Revise and Resubmit" into "Reject and Resubmit". The resubmission was treated as a new revision, although you got the same reviewers, so the submission clock was reset. While this did nothing to speed up the process for authors, it reduced the time between submission and publication (it also made the journal look more selective). As I said, it is cheating.

In regards to if it matters, while it would be nice for authors to have access to meaningful statistics, it is not something the publisher needs to provide. Some might argue that "time stamping", but realistically, in fields where articles are infrequently published in the first journal they are submitted to, time stamping does not exist since I have never seen a time stamp based on the first journal an article is submitted to.

One thing to be concerned about when the submission date changes is if the process has gone awry. It is possible that the resubmission is being treated as a new submission and not a "Reject and Resubmit". If that is the case, then you may get a new batch of reviewers (and editor). Unfortunately, the way the automated systems work, sometimes it is difficult to tell what is going on. In these cases, a quick message to the editor is not out of place.


What is the reference manager that can show the list of annotations?

Qiqqa will do this.
Zotero will also do it, with the Zotfile extension (which can extract annotations from a PDF into a note).


What to do with a new mathematics conjecture?

"Is there some forum to place non-trivial simply stated mathematical conjectures?"  As far as I know , http://math.stackexchange.com can be a good place where to start.

If the methods required turn out to be more sophisticated, you can try asking on http://mathoverflow.net .

I am almost sure that on these sites you'll receive the right advices for your mathematical question


How I can efficiently use Google Scholar to find prior research on a topic?

It is true; there are too many papers out there to even read the abstracts of all of them. That is why many research papers contain phrases like "to the best of our knowledge", etc.

My approach to minimize the risk of missing out publications is as follows: I start with reading review papers. These will sum up the research up to a certain point and will show you what the seminal papers in the field are. Then I look up the latest papers that cite the reviews and/or the seminal papers. This approach works very well with Google Scholar.


How can I "time-stamp" my data without publishing it?

Basically, I want to protect myself upfront against My research work stolen and published as his own by the co-author without my consent

What you need is to convince the research community that this is your work, so that if anyone tries to steal it, then it will be considered professional misconduct, they won't be able to publish their theft, etc.  I'm not convinced copyright law is the right tool for this.  Sure, being able to sue someone for copyright violation could be useful in certain circumstances, but often it won't actually settle the academic issues.  For example, collaboration.  I might claim to have collaborated with you on the research contained in the database, in which case I would be entitled to be a coauthor on academic publications, and you would be considered to be acting unethically if you denied me coauthorship.  There's no way to defend against this using copyright registration, cryptographic time-stamping, etc.  You might be able to prove that you already had a copy of the database in the past, but it's much harder to prove that I didn't somehow contribute to it, except in extreme cases such as having had a copy before I first studied this field.

In practice, people often deal with this difficulty by telling more people.  If you tell just one person about your work, then they can steal it, and it's your word against theirs.  If you tell ten people, then it's much harder for a thief to get away with it, since there are nine other witnesses.  If you tell a hundred, then it becomes really difficult to steal your work.  Unless someone immediately tries hard to steal it, it will become impossible: the community will react by saying "Wait, Quora Feans told all of us about this database last year.  If it was your work, why didn't you say anything back then?"

Whether more publicity is a viable solution depends on your circumstances, but there's a fundamental trade-off here.  Ultimately, academia cares about credit for the ideas and research, not just who owns the copyright.  (If I write a paper about your work, then I own the copyright to my words, but I don't deserve credit for the ideas.)  The more you keep your work secret, the harder it is to prove anything about who deserves the intellectual credit.


Is it ethical to limit marks based upon past performance?

What you describe is, in my opinion, horribly unethical!

Yes, past performance is often a predictor of present performance, but there are so many other factors involved as well.  What if a student did poorly before because of any number of reasons, but have since stepped up their work, caught up, and really mastered the material?  Or what if the student has been focusing heavily on this subject and has consequently fared more poorly in another subject?

It is manifestly stupid and counter to the entire notion of education to ignore good work by a student in one location simply because the student did bad work in another course or another time.  Ethical violations are a different matter---it is reasonable to be suspicious of a student with a history of cheating---but grading a student poorly for having the audacity to exceed expectations is a rank betrayal of the most basic responsibilities of an educator.


How should I approach building this particle simulator and pitching it to my advisor?

That depends on your goals. Your advisor should be able to advise you how to approach building this particle simulator. But in short it depends on the goals.

If you want to get funding to do the project, then state how that is going to be useful and profitable for the one paying.

If you want to make research with that, then state how is that research and why it is interesting research that will produce interesting publications.

You may have some other goals not included in these two. Your advisor may also have different goals. Whatever the goals are, try to plan to do whatever is useful for your goals and try to explain to your advisor how what you plan to do is useful for his or her goals.

Should I focus on underlying structures that would allow me to render complex physics-based graphics efficiently?

IMHO algorithms are going to be more interesting than structures specially when using parallelism, everybody loves parallelism nowadays. In any case try to check this [1] and possibly this [2].

Is there a name for that area of CS research?

Apparently that is computational physics, but simulation may work well too.

Are there papers in a certain area that I would want to start reading?

Yes, to find more papers you can:

take the first reference I provided (and possibly the second) this is your set S of all sources.
check the citations in S, add interesting ones to S.
check who cited the references in S (you can try google scholar and other services for that), add the interesting ones to S.
check other papers from the authors of the references in S, add interesting ones to S.
search (e.g. google scholar) for related terms that appear on the papers in S if you think they should be explored further, add interesting references to S.
you have now a lot of references to read, try not to read all of them, check the abstracts and summaries, try to prioritise what to read and how detailed the reading process should be. If you need more, return to 2.

At what point does my practical software project become an academic research project?

When you do something new and interesting from a scientific point of view, basically when you face challenges and provide solutions that are worth publishing, because reading about those solutions saves time to people working on similar problems.

E.g. If the solution is very specific (e.g. an implementation in a programming language) then reading about it may be a waste of time for people not using that language. An algorithm in pseudocode will be useful to anyone working on a similar problem if the problem is hard/big enough and searching, finding, reading, understanding and implemented what a paper says pays off in the end. Keep in mind that evaluation is a fundamental aspect in research, either empirically or formally (proof instead of evaluation then).


A professor stole my dissertation topic. Now what?

In two of the answers, people just suggest you to move further and forget about what happened. I disagree with it and think that if you truly believe that people took advantage of you (in my answer I assume that you described the situation in a correct way), you should stood up for yourself and be firm.

I do agree with D.W.'s answer that your chances are not high, and not all wrongs have a good remedy, but I think that you have to report it because:

how the next potential students of A and B know that they are not people who should be trusted?
when you hear a shot and a sound of breaking glass in the night you call a police, not because you think that your information is enough to find a culprit, but because you do not want this behavior to continue. Whether they will be able to find a person who did it and whether it is really worth of opening a crime case is not your responsibility.

Sorry, but I am unable to give you a suggestion as to how approach this situation, but please do not give up.


I am extremely passionate about entropy/physics, but I don't think I can get into grad school. What can I do to pursue these topics sustainably?

Passion will not make you a successful PhD student.  Health problems will prevent you from being a successful PhD student.

I suggest you find a job that is relevant to physics.  Considering your interests and the current job market, maybe a job in data science?  Demonstrate over a period of at least a year that you can be successful at that job.  Study for the Physics GRE and get a GRE score.  Then you might be able to get into a decent PhD program.

Enjoying studying entropy does not mean you will enjoy publishing about it; these are quite different activities.


Rejecting graduate school offer while recommending classmate - can this be appropriate?

Typically around now in the US, graduate programs will be finalizing their lists for offers of admission and a waitlist. I know for the program I attended for grad school, they ordinarily offered about 50% more slots than they actually intended to admit, knowing that some would choose other offers. If fewer students matriculated than expected, offers would start to go to people on the waitlist.
Other programs, especially those with less funding flexibility, may only admit to the number of slots they have and then grab from the waitlist only when people reject the offer.
It seems very unlikely to me that your slot would go to this student if they have not already been informed they are on a waitlist. It is even less unlikely that your opinion will sway the decision, the admissions committee has already met and reviewed the background of all their applicants. I doubt it would cause any harm, either: the decisions are already made. Whoever read your request might find it a bit of a sweet gesture while being quite naïve, but that's it.
Probably the best thing you can do for your friend is to compare applications to help them prepare for next year's admissions cycle. Maybe there is something in your applications that stands out that they haven't touted as well.


Do you find a computer-assisted qualitative data analysis tool useful?

My answer might not be as useful to you because it only deals with my personal experience. I often deal with mixed methods work and qualitative data analysis is something I do about ~25% of my time.

I have used Atlas.ti because it is provided free on my school server. However, realistically, I used Excel to code themes, categories etc. following a grounded theory approach (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). I don't find much use for it but I know significant numbers of professors and graduate students who swear by it. It seems to be the SPSS of the qualitative world.

One powerful use of Atlas.ti that I can attest to is organization, search and visualization of categories, codes, themes and performing some simple reliability measures (Cronbach, Krippendorf) etc.

However, the same can also be done in Excel with some elbow grease. :)


I've been admitted to multiple PhD programs, how should I choose between them?

Advisor

Your advisor will be a really, really, really key part of your PhD experience, and can make all the difference between success and failure.

There are many different advising styles, and you should learn more about potential advisors to find one whose style works for you.

walkmanyi sums it up:

  Many don't speak about this too often, but with an advisor you are not only choosing a field of interest, but you are choosing a mentor. By all means, you want to "tick well" with him/her. There is not much good for a PhD student having a star researcher advisor whom they see once in a quarter and who is a sociopath on a personal level (this is a bit too extreme, but think about it as a continuum between extremes). Choose somebody with whom you will be able to work, whose example it is worth to follow, from whom you want to learn, not only the scientific stuff, but also workstyle, level of quality he/she strives for, etc. These soft reasons are often more important than anything else.

Fomite has a fairly comprehensive answer on how to judge potential advisors by looking beyond their recent publications:

  There are a few things I would generally look at in a potential advisor beyond just their research/publications:

  Who were the co-authors on their papers? Are they actively collaborating with people in your field - people who could be potentially useful for post-doc posts, etc.? Do their students often show up as primary authors on publications, or are they invariably buried in the middle of a long list of authors?
  Personality. This goes beyond just do you like the person. Do they prefer frequent updates, meetings and the like, or is the occasional check-in enough? Are they a morning person and you prefer working nights, or the other way around? If you send a long email, would it get answered, or do they not often fail to answer emails? I've had some professors who I'm very fond of nevertheless would make poor advisors because of wildly disparate working styles.
  How are their students funded? Your funding stream can have serious impact on your completion time and productivity. If every semester, its a desperate Pick-N-Mix of funded side projects, TAships, etc. you're going to have a lot on your plate that, while potentially an interesting experience, will slow down your progress.
  Where do their students end up? Do they have decent career trajectories? Are they supportive of alternative paths like industry or government?
  Rank and age. A young professor might be more aggressive and eager, on the other hand they're less established, don't necessarily have the same level of institutional support, and if they're not yet tenured, its possible they'll disappear. An older professor may be more established and stable, but might not use "cutting edge" techniques, or feel less of an internal drive to publish.

Henry adds that there may also be some benefits to having an advisor who is generally well-liked by his/her peers:

  I'd add to your list how your advisor is viewed in the rest of the field. Not just on the quality of research (though that's important too), but again, how much people like your advisor personally. Again, a small factor, but having other people in your field like your advisor can make a difference.

But really, the best way to find out about a potential advisor is to talk to their current students, and we have plenty of questions for you to ask!

Piotr Migdal says the most important question to ask is

  Are you happy with your PhD in general?

  It covers a lot of issues, but usually you don't want to do a PhD in a place where students are unhappy and frustrated. The good thing is that if students feel really bad, they rarely hide it.

but he adds a few more, too:

  General contacts on the line student-advisor (How much contact and support can you expect, both for research and administrative stuff?).
  Funding (Is it a problem or a non-issue, e.g. for attending a conference?).
  Research (What the actual research looks like? What is the toughest part, biggest emphasis on, the most time-consuming part, etc?)
  How much time does it typically take to finish PhD? Does it happen often that someone drops out?

Suresh suggests asking:

  does PA [potential advisor] have time to meet with you when you need help ? Or does PA [potential advisor] want too many meetings ?
  how much guidance are you given ? Too much ? Too little ?
  is the relationship "work only" ? Do you talk about non technical academic issues ?

Theresa Liao has some more good questions to ask current students:

  Do/Did you (the current/former PhD) enjoy working in this supervisor's research group?  Do research group members work with each other collaboratively and help each other? And ask the PhD student to elaborate.

  This question tries to get at what the research group dynamic is. This is fairly important in my opinion - the last thing you want to concern yourself with is politics in the research group. I have seen PhD friends frustrated by this.

  Ideally you should ask this question in a less formal setting (some grad school visits will have time for social events). And sometimes you meet grad students who are comfortable sharing their experience openly. If you are not comfortable asking this question, as it can be an awkward question for the supervisor's current PhD, you can simply observe the interaction between group members, and between group members and the supervisor.

  Is the supervisor generally available? Does it take a long time to arrange a meeting to meet with the supervisor (used to be the case with my supervisor because he was so busy)? Does the supervisor respond immediately and effectively (another friend's supervisor tend to leave questions to last minute)?
  Are group members expected to work 24/7 or 9-to-5? Some supervisors expect you to reply to emails immediately, and some work strictly business hours.
  Does the supervisor take a hands-on or hands-off approach? Are students expected to be really independent with lots of freedom, or are they guided/directed along the way with less freedom?
  Does the supervisor support his/her students to consider career paths outside of academia? Some supervisors only want their students to go into academia, and it will be harder to discuss options with such supervisors.

  For Q2-Q5, the right answer will depend on your own preference - what you want is a supervisor whom you will work well with.


Should grading take all students' performance into account?

I'm going to give this from a student perspective, so take it with a grain of salt. But I can say that I would hope I was graded independently of any of my peers on a given assignment*. Simply put, I want to be evaluated on my progress relative to the course objectives. I'm not interested in my progress relative to everyone else's.

* That being said, once the independent grade is assigned, I don't care about or mind any post-grading corrections (a.k.a. "curves"). But again, that's after my exam is independently graded - so I can at least see the raw grade first.


Is it worth trying to get into a decent PhD programme with subpar BSc grades? (UK)

Ask your university, though undergraduate grades probably won’t matter because you’ll probably need to complete a Master’s Degree first.
Generally, there are two different methods for PhDs to be structured- ones that take 5-6 years to complete and include a coursework component and can be entered directly after finishing a Bachelor Degree, and ones that don’t include a coursework component, take 3-4 years to complete, and require you to have completed a Master’s Degree first.
The latter structure is more common in Europe, though I admit I’m not completely familiar with the system used in the UK; I do know that it is used in some Commonwealth countries like Australia, though. As a result, when applying for this sort of PhD, it’s likely that the admissions office will put a lot more weight on the results you got from your Master’ Degree than the ones from your Bachelor’s.


Is it commonly accepted to refer to a Master Degree in Statistics as M.Stat.?

You can only use the degree that is displayed on your certificate. I am not aware of any case in which one can make up one's own academic degree just for convenience. The only case of something similar would be when it comes to international adaptations (e.g. the German "Dr." is equivalent to a PhD (except the Dr. med.)). By using "M.stat." you would imply that you received this specific degree, which you did not. In my opinion this would be fraud.


What is the difference between two universities if students from either can take classes at the other?

Three key things to keep in mind when considering these types of arrangement are:

Different universities have different requirements, and taking courses from the one university will often not clearly satisfy requirements from the other.
Just because students can take classes at another university doesn't mean they will find it practical to cross town to do so.
Certain courses are restricted even within a university (e.g., Harvard's legal and medical programs).

Thus, for example, my observation of the Harvard/MIT arrangement that you provide as an example is that few students take much advantage of it.  Early undergraduate is dominated by core curriculum requirements that are incompatible between the two schools.  Mid-undergraduate likely focuses on requirements from one's major which are likewise either incompatible or duplicated.  It is only in upper-level electives, where the class is strongly individual to a professor, that there is likely to be a strong benefit for taking courses at the other university.  Even there, however, with two strong institutions there are a lot of good and interesting courses to be had "close to home," and students rarely choose to cross town unless they are strongly motivated towards a particular course.


Academic Positions: Following a campus visit, when are referees contacted?

In my experience, with universities that are often considered to be among the top 50 institutions in North America, referees will be contacted prior to a campus visit. Often times the decision to invite someone for a campus visit is expensive - time and $$$ - and universities/departments use as much information as they can get beforehand to decide on inviting a candidate for a visit.


What are some good tips for people who wants to start a workshop from scratch?

In Computer Science, many successful workshops are attached to major conferences, taking place on the days around the main conference. So (1) attend those workshops and see how they run, what you like or dislike, etc. (2) Submit a workshop proposal to the most relevant conference and trying to get included in the workshop schedule. This makes recruiting participants and the audience much easier --- they are already at the conference anyway.
To host a new workshop not attached to a conference, never having done it before, I'd really recommend adding some organizers with lots of experience -- and it doesn't hurt if their well-known names will entice people to come. (Sorry, that's how it works.)
Other than that, I would frankly say there's nothing tricky about it. I don't think I've ever been to a bad workshop -- not surprising, since I generally sign up because I like the topic! Some tentative suggestions:

Get at least 1-2 good, well-known invited speakers to give talks (45min plus questions is my suggestion).
Solicit submissions broadly and select some to give short talks (20-30min including questions is my suggestion). Focus on talks you think will be interesting to the audience, not necessarily the best/strongest work.
Make one of your goals diversity of your set of speakers.
A poster session and/or social time can be good. You can accept anything you rejected above as a poster.
Build in enough breaks and discussion/Q&A, be careful not to overstuff the schedule.
Speaking of schedule, it's probably good to have a webpage with the schedule and overview. Most of the schedule, like identities of the talks, can stay TBA for a while, it's ok.

There's probably an additional list of tips for a virtual modality....


Applying to grad school - Need to indicate history in previous not so good school?

You should disclose any previous schools when asked.

If you didn't like your previous school, that may or may not be a topic for the interview. However, if you choose to hide this information, consider the following:

did you transfer credits from your "bad" school to the "good" one? The admissions will probably ask where the missing courses are.
did you start in your "good" school from scratch? The admissions will probably ask what you were doing in the meantime.

Either leads down a rather uncomfortable conversation path.

On the other hand, if you are honest from the start, I imagine that the admission persons don't even care that much and won't mention it.

Bottom line, it is never a good idea to hide facts when applying anywhere.


What should I do if I have previously seen a problem on a homework assignment?

This is not a difficult situation, you worked on a problem and understood the solution, then having it set as an assignment - your grade is based on the effort you have put in - either during the course or before.

Benefit from it - other topics you may not be so lucky...

Whether it is an assignment or a final exam - this is NOT cheating - you put the work in and that's fine.

If the professor was meant to write "new" questions and did not, instead re-using old ones then that is their problem, and they may not see it as a problem ie back to "it's the work you put in".

Some students will do every problem they can find on a topic, others will only do two and say "that's enough" - apart from the students with "genius" level or a photographic memory then the grades tend to follow effort...


professor interfering in postdoc offer from another professor

Prof. A's (due to sensitive information-->clearance)

CyberGuy, I am really not convinced that there is bad or malevolent intent by either Professor A or B but Professor B's discouragement resulting in Professor A to withdraw his offer does seem unethical and patronizing.

The security clearance issue is significant though, in Australia, there is a difference between a citizen working on sensitive material compared a permanent resident or a visa holder, and I would imagine it is similar in America. The fact that you are about to apply for citizenship may not be appreciated by Professor B. Professor B overly forceful because he may be worried that you would pigeon-hole yourself into a narrow field and become unable to work if your citizenship is delayed. Professor B may have your best intentions when he advocated for you to work in a field that is still viable without citizenship, which is his field. I do not think that that is morally wrong, he seems to concerned about your long term employability (but unfortunately minimizing your passions and interests). However, Professor B's lack of responsibility for taking responsibility for Professor A to withdraw his offer seems unethical and wrong. But Professor B may not be aware of the seriousness of Professor's A withdrawal of the offer.

Why did Professor B insert himself into your negotiations? Professor B may be interested in collaborating with Professor A as well, the same way as you were keen to work with Professor A. You must also be an impressive candidate for Professor B to have been interested in working with you and wanting you to work with him alone. Now that you have an offer from Professor A, it may worthwhile clarifying how your skills and expertise fits better with Professor A and that you are soon to apply for citizenship. Professor A's lack of enthusiasm may improve if Professor B understands the situation better and their concerns are clarified. You may also be able to return to work with Professor B if you are unable to get security clearance at a later stage if you are able to smooth things over between them.

Other things that would clearly be unethical would be if Professor B misrepresented your Green Card status and implied that citizenship is not achievable for you. If Professor B misrepresented you as being more enthusiastic for his work instead of Professor A than that would be quite unethical. Also if Professor B lies and misrepresents the Green card or citizenship process to Professor A as a way of pouching you for himself. I am not sure that is the case and they both genuinely seem to want the best for you. I hope Professor B apologizes for the impact of his behaviour and your distress and he turns around support you in your decision CyberGuy.


How to find case studies for your dissertation

The Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship(CASE), research and education center based at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, has a number of case studies here

This article also was the first result in google scholar when searched.

Finally this book Case Studies in Social Entrepreneurship and Sustainability might be an option.


I will contradict Peter's answer: the CV is a living document, but it's one that needs to be supported by documentation. Something that cannot be proven should not be listed on a CV. If you only received a verbal confirmation that you were on the "short list" for an award, then you really don't have any documentation that you can provide, if called on to do so by a future employer.

Therefore, as much as it would be helpful to list such an award, I don't think it's a good idea to do so here.


I received an allegation of academic misconduct from my university. What should I do?

In a comment, you write that the professor had written in an email regarding the exam:

you will not have enough time to finish the exam if you spend a lot of time looking through your notes

This email is absolutely key. Quote the full email in your statement (including the date and timestamp), and highlight this sentence. It immediately implies that you were assumed and allowed to use notes.
The next point is that the professor apparently did not place any restrictions on what could be in your notes. (Did they?) Point this out.
The next exhibit should be that is was apparently easy to find practice questions that turned out to be similar to questions on the exam.
Nobody can hold it against you if you used the internet in researching what might come up in the exam, and in preparing your notes. (Yes, it would be better to reformulate your notes in your own words. Do this next time. You learn more that way.)
That should already be enough of an argument to rebut the accusation. Here is the structure of the argument I would propose:

You were allowed to use notes. Quote the email.
No restrictions on the notes were given.
You worked practice questions from various sources, e.g., from the internet. Quote the practice question, include if possible the link and a screenshot.
For one practice question, you used an answer you found online and put this in your notes. Again, include the link to the answer and a screenshot. Possibly include a copy of your notes.
One question on the exam was very similar to this practice question. Quote the question on the exam, perhaps highlight the similarities.
Therefore, it is not surprising that your answer matches something found in the internet.

Write this up in a short succinct way. Use paragraph breaks between the arguments. Don't ramble. Make this a short document of two pages at most.
If there is any sanity at your school, this accusation will be dropped immediately, and the professor will get some friendly advice about what to expect if they use questions on the exam that match questions that diligent students might find online while preparing.


High IF Journal From Another Field vs. Low IF Journal In My Field

Let me suggest that the IF of the journal overall is less important to you than having your paper seen by the people who need to see it. I assume you are interested in citations of your work. You won't get them if the people in your field don't have ready access to your paper.

I think that a specific journal is a (valuable) benefit to you, independent of IF, which is an overall measure that doesn't really impact any particular paper.

This is especially true for hard-copy journals that have wide subscription within your field. Your paper will naturally appear before suitable readers. But even for online publication, your readers need to have ready access to at least the index of the journal in order to know it exists.

The above is opinion, obviously.


Describing graduate certificate in written bio (US based)

It depends. There isn't always a lot of consistency to how graduate certificates holders are viewed. At some universities they are considered full alumni with all rights and privileges thereof. At other universities they you must hold a full degree (e.g., bachelors, masters, etc.) to be considered an alumni. In general, it is best to defer to the school's guidelines in terms of describing yourself as a graduate of the school or not.

However, it is always appropriate to list the certificate, i.e.,

  Graduate Certificate in Economics, State University, 20XX


How should a series of articles be represented on my CV?

The way you do it is just fine. It allows the interested reader of your CV to find the articles in question and peruse them, which is exactly what you want to achieve.

(As a side note, it is not uncommon for people to publish sequences of articles that start out the same, then have a roman numeral, and then some further text. For example numbers 34 and 47 on my list of publications are of this form: http://www.math.colostate.edu/~bangerth/publications.html#x-reviewed . Here is a much longer sequence by one of my teachers: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C6&q=heywood+rannacher&btnG= .)


What's the proper way to (APA) reference a settlement agreement?

According to the table of contents (pdf) for the APA 6th edition style guide, the APA defers reference styles for legal materials such as court decisions, statutes, legislative materials, and administrative and executive materials to The Bluebook®, which requires a purchase.

However, the APA Style has a blog, which has about 10 posts tagged legal, which gives guidance for a generic Name v. Name court case as follows:

  Name v. Name, Volume Source Page (Court Date)
  e.g.
  Lessard v. Schmidt, 349 F. Supp. 1078 (E.D. Wis. 1972)

And for the in-text citation:

  Name v. Name (Year)
  or
  (Name v. Name, Year)
  e.g.
  Lessard v. Schmidt (1972)
  or
  (Lessard v. Schmidt, 1972)

A settlement is just a specific type of court decision, is it not?


Does having publications on a completely separate field helps my graduate school application?

Should I ultimately decide to apply for PhD under the set theory/logic
department in the future?

It's up to you. Nothing you have said indicates that you should not pursue your dream.

How much would my past research experiences in other fields help in my
application?

A lot.
When I read the title, I thought it was going to be that you're applying to mathematics but published in biology, or something like that.  After reading the question I've learned that you've published a number theory paper in a small local journal, and may publish a paper heavy in functional analysis, and you want to apply for a PhD in set theory/logic. These aren't "completely" different fields, they are all mathematics subjects and there is always some overlap.
Having a publication, no matter what the field, does show at least a bit of aptitude for research, and that you have experience in academic research and publishing. Not all undergraduate students that get into prestigious PhD programs have publications (though it certainly would help). Even fewer will have a publication in precisely the same field as their PhD.


Should I review papers for a nameless conference?

Does it help you?

A good criteria are the people organizing the conference. Have you heard any of their names? Do you want them to know your name, too?

Also look at the papers published the previous years. Is there anything you like? Because that is probably the good papers you get to review (there will always be much worse submissions additionally that do not get accepted).
If you don't see anything interesting for you & in your expertise, then don't review.

Beware of 'pay to publish' conferences (is the publisher on Beall's list of predatory publishers?). There are companies that live of publishing article no matter what quality. To give at least the impression of being legit, they need names on their program commitee - and they reach out to low-ranked people and invite them. They want to abuse your name!

Don't get me wrong, there are really good small conferences (in particular some with 20+ years of history). But usually they have A) top names on the board, B) very interesting articles and C) no shady publisher, but e.g. Springer, ACM, IEEE, and some just put the papers on the website, or host them at a university library.


I embarrassed myself at a conference by asking an irrelevant question. Does this happen regularly?

If the question is "do most conferences have a few bad questions", the answer is certainly yes. People are likely to forget bad questions, more difficult to recover from a bad talk. I've been in quite a few conferences where someone (often a student without adequate guidance) would give a bad talk and everyone would be talking about it for days. I've also been to conferences where most of the talks were thoroughly forgettable and you would have to light the podium on fire to attract negative attention. I don't ever remember hearing people complain so vehemently about a bad question, only a bad talk.

The main "bad question" is one that is too basic for the audience ("what do you mean by calculus"?) or reveal a basic lack of understanding ("could you address heat dissipation by using logarithms?"). Questions that are too technical are rarely a problem unless it's way off-topic or takes up too much time.


Is it possible to get a book category based on ISBN?

The Google Books API offers a category-field.
Example: https://www.googleapis.com/books/v1/volumes?q=isbn:055380457X (Business & Economics being the category).
Another example would be WorldCat. Just type in the ISBN in the search for books, and you will find categories or topics associated with that book. (They also have a machine-readable API, but you will need to register, as far as I know.)
But note that normally every library uses its own curated hierarchy of tags.


Do senior PhD students form a part of the admission commitee?

Not a particularity helpful answer, but ...

No, it does not happen at all institutes, but it does happen at many. In some cases it is official and in other cases it is unofficial.

As an applicant you should assume that the entire time you are on campus is part of the interview including any drinks/meals.


If you have a relatively open set of research interests, I would focus much more on finding an advisor who you believe you will get along well with on a personal level. "Success" (which is admittedly an ambiguous term) in a PhD often matters much less on what you are studying specifically and much more on how engaged and dedicated you are to the research process as a whole. It is very difficult to be engaged in research on a topic you love, but with an advisor you despise.

I would not be too worried about getting trapped in a certain research field long term. You doctoral work is a relatively short portion of your research career as a whole. I have already changed my research focus twice in my career (MS was one topic, PhD was another, full-time employment is yet another). And I still have three plus decades of research to go (so my research career is still young). I did what work my advisor was interested in, put my own flavor into it, then changed my focus as necessary in  my employment.

As for your research making an impact, understand that very, very, very few doctoral researchers make a ground breaking impact as a PhD student. Most PhD researchers go their whole career in fact and only impact "a very small slice of the pie." That is how research is modernly. You can make an impact in any of the research fields you listed. Don't sell yourself short of course, but also be aware that most people with PhDs do not in and of themselves change the world.


Emailing a professor about a potential research idea, is there a risk?

Unless by mischance you are contacting people who are not actually respectable (on the world stage), the sorts of issues that worry you are non-issues.
The more genuine issue, assuming the above, is that more-expert people will not immediately have the same enthusiasm for your ideas as you do. For many possible reasons, including that they and their group have already thought about that, maybe many times, and/or they are aware of other peoples' thinking in such terms decades earlier, etc.
So don't be offended, and don't be suspicious, if/when people do not hail your ideas as revolutionary, etc.
In real life (in academe, in my 40+ year experience), although, yes, sometimes unscrupulous advisors and others do indeed steal their advisees' ideas/work, ... this is (mercifully) quite rare. In particular, again, unless you are unwittingly involved with nasty losers, this worry should by far not be your first consideration. Indeed, thinking in such terms would corrupt your thinking in many ways.
And, in any case, as Michelle Obama recently said, "when they go low, you go high".
Obviously morally ideal, ... and, yes, not always easily feasible in reality... but thinking in those terms is a much better base point than thinking in terms of endless dishonesty.


Recommendation letter for a short time collaboration

If your contract is only a year long, your mentor is likely expecting you to be applying for jobs very soon. I don't think they would be surprised; in fact, they should encourage you. I would not hesitate in asking for a reference.


Will time off spent doing things not related to my research interests count against me when applying to PhD programs?

Physics isn't my field (Mathematics), but I can't imagine a program that would think less of you for taking time off.

The danger is that if it goes on too long you lose your "edge" and get "rusty" both at Physics and the academic life in general.

However, there is little worse than starting an intensive graduate program facing any sort of burn out. You want to start out with a maximum of energy and enthusiasm because the road ahead won't be easy. Your credentials are good, but the competition, if it exists, in grad school will be from people just like you - the best.

In my own case, I might have finished the doctorate earlier than I did had I taken a year to unwind from a very intense undergraduate program.

Finally, if you take time away and then apply, make sure you are ready with a good answer if asked why. Life is more important than Physics (for most, anyway).


"other spoken languages" in graduate applications

If they ask about "spoken" languages then it is about speaking, not about writing and reading.

This should not be a surprise depending on the area of research you are studying. It could impact those you will be working with or it could involve your research subjects. For example, if you want to study cross-cultural team dynamics specifically between fracophones and anglophones and you only speak English and you cannot communicate at all in French, then you are going to have some difficulty with your research.

If they do not ask you to qualify your speaking ability, then do not worry about it. If they do, then answer appropriately.

So, in short, yes, if you can speak one other language even if not well, it does count.

As a side note, I know plenty of people who speak zero other languages.


The Downsides of Doing Undergraduate, Masters, PhD at the same institution

Normally the downside of studying at a single university is that the student sees and interacts over the years with fewer ideas since they keep coming from the same people. Once a person gets a degree from a university department, they may have been exposed to a set of viewpoints smaller than what is available if they looked wider. In other words, you can get into a mental rut.

But that doesn't seem to be the case here since, I expect, that your set of contacts even though in a single university is quite wide.

But you might, just for fun, talk to a few of your most trusted faculty contacts and ask them whether it is time for you to move on or good to stay. If you are a highly valued student, then there may be a bit of selfishness in their answer, so watch out for that. But if you detect such, then it is surely time to move on.

Over your career you want to develop and maintain a wide network of collaborators. If you can do that while still based in a single place, then you should be fine.


Would it be arrogant for me to offer my professor material on the module they teach?

Providing material to your teachers is all about HOW and WHY you provide that material. If you're providing this material purely as an extra resource than provided you approach it as that, you shouldn't appear arrogant. If you are doing this to prove your knowledge of the topic or to try and 'one up' the instructor, then yes this is gonna be seen as arrogance.

I suggest an email similar to the one below:
"Dear xxxx,
Looking ahead in the topic I noticed that we are covering yyyyyyy. I have previously done a project on this topic and thought that it might be useful in trying to explain the concepts. I have attached all documents on the project for you to review and would love an opportunity to discuss my work with you.

Thank-you for your time,
I look forward to hearing from you,
"
Etc...

That should get your point across without portraying arrogance. How you conduct yourself in any meetings or class however, that is really up to you.

Also be aware that the teacher may choose not to use your project or other materials. That is their choice and their right. They may choose to include it in subsequent versions of their topic.


"Lower division" courses are those typically taken by freshmen and sophomores (first and second year students at a typical 4-year bachelor's program).
"Upper division" courses are those typically taken by juniors and seniors (third and fourth year students at a typical 4-year bachelor's program).
Given that you've used the community college tag, it may also be relevant to point out that often community college credits are equivalent to lower-division courses and may be transferrable to a four-year school to substitute, as mentioned in answers to your previous question.
You could also possibly use the terms to group the students into 1st+2nd year and 3rd+4th year students, though these are also often referred to as "upperclassmen" and "lowerclassmen" (I'm not familiar with other gender-neutral substitutes - would appreciate an edit or comment if someone could add one).
There are not typically strong barriers to students taking upper division courses in their first two years (provided they meet necessary prereqs) or lower division courses in their second two years (especially electives outside their major).


Easiest way to get a bibtex citation of a paper that scholar is still not showing its proper published paper?

One technique for me (currently writing my PhD thesis, so did this a lot of times recently, works more than 95% of the time) is to google and go to the conference/journal/openreview page and get the citation there. I look for a button called "cite" or "export citation" or sometimes it is hidden under another button, e.g. "tools". Usually I first skim the page for a couple of seconds, then hit ctrl+f and search for the phrase "cite", if it does not find anything then I look for different buttons such as "tools"...
For your example: If you google (here) the name of the paper the first hit after the arxiv one is the openreview webpage: https://openreview.net/forum?id=ryGs6iA5Km. On this page there is a small button "Show Bibtex" right under the title. When you click on it it opens a small window with the bibtex entry as written below. This takes me about 10-15 seconds, definitely faster than writing it yourself!
"
@inproceedings{
xu2018how,
title={How Powerful are Graph Neural Networks?},
author={Keyulu Xu and Weihua Hu and Jure Leskovec and Stefanie Jegelka},
booktitle={International Conference on Learning Representations},
year={2019},
url={https://openreview.net/forum?id=ryGs6iA5Km},
}
"