This depends on what you want your career to be like. At a "teaching-intensive" university or a Liberal Arts college, expect teaching to be much more highly valued than research, though you can't ignore the latter. This explains the small start-up funding. If you want, primarily, to teach, the position will probably serve you well.

But if you really want research to be your focus you need to think hard about it as you will probably be largely on your own for obtaining both funding and the time for research. Given that, generating lots of quality papers will be harder, though not impossible if you have, or can develop, a wide circle of collaboration. And without a lot of papers it might be harder to move up to a research focused position. Again, not impossible, but harder.

Your choice. Think first about what you really want from your career.


Is it normal to feel that your career comes to a halt when you achieve tenure?

Tip 1: Sabbatical.

This is a great way to get up to date and to drive in your research again.

Tip 2: Leverage the abilities of your students/postdocs to help you stay up to date. If you find a paper that you would like to read, try to find a student for which the paper would also be useful, let them read it and explain to you. If you find a new book/topic you would like to know more about, try to give a lecture or a seminar about that topic.

Tip 3: Say no to more administrative positions, if ever appropriate. You've got tenure and you do your service as you should do you may say no. Some people may not like it, but this is ok - they will get over it.

There was a recent question here that was similar with some great answers, but I can't find it right now…


As far as I know, most research in CS involve some amount of data structures, algorithmics and programming, buy very little research is done exclusively about these.

I'd suggest you try to discover which most specific field you're interested in.
In a very very very simplified picture, one can distinguish two very broad categories of research in CS:

About the systems: Computer architecture, Networks, Distributed computing, IoT, ...
About the content: Artificial intelligence, Machine Learning, Image/video/audio/text processing,...

Naturally there's a lot of overlap. And did I mention that it's also a very simplified categorization?


What are the stages for pursuing medical sciences in America

For a student in the U.S. system, the common academic route to PhD admission in biomedical sciences is to obtain a bachelors degree and then to apply directly for PhD programs. For competitive programs, research experience is very important for applications, and so many applicants do additional research in between their bachelors degree and PhD applications: working in academic labs, participating in post-baccalaureate programs, or sometimes participating in a program that offers a masters degree (particularly if you are taking a more interdisciplinary route), but the masters degree is not usually a strict requirement for a PhD program in biomedical sciences.

Masters degrees are uncommon as a goal in biomedical sciences, and many institutions do not even offer them as a program that accepts applicants. Instead, masters degrees are sometimes awarded to PhD candidates who choose to end their studies early, or they consist of add-on programs (almost like a more developed 'minor') meant to accompany a PhD and are applied for simultaneously. Of course this can vary with the exact institution, and varies in other fields.

For a student outside the U.S. system, things can be more complicated. As discussed in the comments by BrianBorchers, U.S. institutions vary in how they treat bachelors degrees completed in other countries. A 3 year program (an actual 3 year program, not a 4 year program completed early) may not qualify. In that case, your best option may be to get a masters degree in the educational system you got your bachelors degree in, but this is something you should discuss with individual programs you may be interested in applying to in order to find out their specific rules: there is no guideline that will apply to every school or every program. Alternatively, programs may instead have a course of study in mind that you will have to have completed before your application is considered: it will be more important that you can show you have completed those courses in your studies rather than the specific length of your degree.

Most major PhD programs in the U.S. are going to have a web presence with rules and admissions requirements posted, as well as support staff for the program. You should read these as thoroughly as you can, and then ask additional questions to the staff.


Doing a research paper / poster without much available data?

The fact that there isn't much data available sounds like a fantastic opportunity to collect lots of data in that field, setting yourself apart from other folk and carving out a nice niche for yourself.

The fact that there isn't much data available in the field shouldn't hold you back from just doing it yourself. Science is the pursuit of knowledge, after all.


Should I share my external grant with my supervisor? He reasons that he supported me earlier

Take into account that ethically (and often legally) speaking you cannot be reimbursed more than once for a conference trip.

I am assuming that the ACM grant was a travel grant to cover the expenses for the conference, right?

The most reasonable option, given that you found external funding, is to return the money from the university grant + your professor's, using that same ACM grant.

It's not your professor's business to decide what you do with the remaining money from that grant, if there is any.

Your professor should actually be happy that you were able to get external funding so you could attend at 0 cost for the University and his team.

Saying that you have to pay back more to him than he "loaned you" because "he supported you" tells a lot about your professor already: he does not support or help students because he considers it's his duty or job, but in exchange for future rewards.

Unfortunately, this bullying, favor/grant-exchanging, mob-behavior is not new to many of us at all.


Using social media brands (logos) in academic publications

I guess the answer subjective but as far as I'm concerned it's totally fine to use logos.  I've done it myself*. In the caption you can make it clear they are just examples. Of course there are some exceptions.

Regarding your concerns:

  it may be considered a promotion or endowment of mentioned brands.

It's fine you take well-known brands.

  it may be considered unprofessional.

No (at least not in my research community)

  it may loose relevance with time

That's life. The entire paper is likely to lose relevance as well.

*Example:


What are all the types of scientific articles?

There is probably no exhaustive taxonomy. The options depend on the database. Databases of scientific publications usually contain the variable 'document type' (or so) in their metadata, and have a wide range of options for operationalising that type.
For example, Web of Science lists their document types here. They include, inter alia, 'Article', 'Biographical Item', 'Correction', 'Database Review', 'Excerpt', 'Hardware Review', 'Music Score', 'Reprint', and 'Retraction'.
Scopus has a smaller list; you can see its document types in this PDF on pp. 11-12.
ORCID likewise allows you to choose from many options regarding the 'work types'; see the list here. They include, to name some examples, 'book-chapter', 'dictionary-entry', 'dissertation', 'encyclopedia-entry', 'edited-book', 'journal-issue', 'manual', 'newsletter-article', 'supervised-student-pulication', 'translation' and 'working-papers'.


How important is a deadline for an open post-doc position?

Certainly we can construct scenarios where being late with an application would hurt you, but whether or not it actually does will probably strongly depend on the pool of applicants available.

In all likelihood the soft deadline means "we won't start considering applications until Nov. 24th, but after that point in time we might select and hire someone". If you want to guarantee that you're given a fair assessment it would be wise to have your application in as soon as possible.

If this is really a match-made-in-heaven, and you're confident that you're just as appealing to them as they are to you, it might be worthwhile to send along your CV and a short cover letter explaining why you are really ideal for this position and giving a specific date by which you'll have a complete application submitted.

Note that they're probably only waiting a couple of weeks at most for any stragglers. Don't plan on applying in January.


It seems my advisor doesn't trust me, but why?

You may be misinterpreting and actually getting it backwards. Of course, I don't know the prof or the other interactions, but much of what you write here could well be explained by your advisor trusting you completely to get it right and the other student needing more help and practice to get up to where you are.

Student X may need all the help they can get, whereas you are trusted to make it without the need for extra intervention. It could also be that some people know you already have enough to do.

I could be wrong, of course.

But it would be worth having a face to face conversation asking your advisor for advice on your progress and, especially, any advice on what to do to position yourself for a great career. I'll guess that if there are any reservations about you that they would become obvious in such a conversation without having to directly ask whether you are trusted or not. And if you are trusted, the advice would probably be pretty valuable in the future.


How do you join programme committees for conferences?

It's rare. I know of one conference though (in theoretical computer science) where the steering committee actively maintains a list of "qualified but has never served", and strongly encourages PC chairs to look over that list when selecting names. Your best strategy might be to approach the steering committee and suggest that they do something like this, so as not to sound like you're shilling for yourself :)


The aggregated chance of admissions to top program in the humanities

I think the basic idea of the calculation is fine.  It's actually irrelevant that some superstars will get accepted to multiple programs. The schools know that and compensate with mechanisms such as (1) sending out more acceptances than slots, knowing some percentage will decline, (2) waiting lists, late admission decisions, and early admission encouragement to fill their remaining slots.

So from a practical standpoint, looking at the entire sum of slots filled versus applicants makes sense.  Of course details may be slightly more complicated.  But the basic insight applies.

Edit:  Yes, cag51 is right that your qualifications matter.  This is not just picking colored balls out of bags.  However, even here the 10% versus 2% point makes sense.  (Consider that if a perfect selection process is run, you need to be in the top 10%, not the top 2%.)


How can I point the reader of my report to another source for background information?

This is a fairly common kind of citation. Here are some examples, so you can choose one that sounds good to you:

In Baker, Mona. "Corpora in translation studies: An overview and some suggestions for future research." Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 7.2 (1995): 223-243. -

  (For a more detailed overview of text processing operations, see Sinclair 1991a.)

In Sederberg, Thomas W., and Scott R. Parry. "Free-form deformation of solid geometric models." ACM SIGGRAPH computer graphics 20.4 (1986): 151-160. -

  This paper assumes that the reader is familiar with Bezier curves and surface patches. Necessary background can be found in [Boehm '84]. Basic understanding of solid modeling is also presumed, such as discussed in [Requicha '82].

In Vese, Luminita A., and Tony F. Chan. "A multiphase level set framework for image segmentation using the Mumford and Shah model." International journal of computer vision 50.3 (2002): 271-293. -

  For more recent and general expositions on the level set method and applications, we refer the reader to Sethian (1999), Osher and Fedkiw (2001, to appear).

In Rothlauf, Franz. "Representations for genetic and evolutionary algorithms." Representations for Genetic and Evolutionary Algorithms. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2006. 9-32. -

  For a more detailed overview about different types of representations see Bäck et al. (1997, Sect. C1).

In Abraham, Farid F., et al. "Instability dynamics of fracture: a computer simulation investigation." Physical Review Letters 73.2 (1994): 272. -

  We refer the reader to Allen and Tildesley [10], Hoover [11], or Abraham [12] for a treatment of the molecular dynamics (MD) simulation technique, including the many procedures for implementing it.

In Kak, Avinash C., and Malcolm Slaney. Principles of computerized tomographic imaging. Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, 2001. -

  Interested readers should also consult the paper by Crawford and King [Cra90] and the special issue of Transactions on Medical Imaging [Wan00] for an overview of current approaches.

It can even be a brief parenthetical. See for example Brown, Judy, and Michael Fraser. "Approaches and perspectives in social and environmental accounting: an overview of the conceptual landscape." Business Strategy and the Environment 15.2 (2006): 103-117. -

  Indeed, legitimacy theory is one of the most widely used frameworks in explaining why organizations voluntarily engage in SEA (see Deegan, 2002, for an overview of this literature).

Note that in all of these examples, the reference is treated as a normal citation, using the same citation style as all the others in the paper and referring to a source that is included in the list of references.


What should I do as a TA if the instructor is not teaching properly?

I'd bet that the grad student teaching the course knows very well that his or her teaching competences are lacking, and that the students struggle to follow. After all, even if this person has little experience teaching, he or she has a lot of experience being a student, and is thus likely to recognize poor teaching, but unable to do something about it.

But alas, such is life sometimes. The grad student cannot suddenly, by magic, become a teacher with 20+ years of experience. Nor should they be expected to. The department, who already made the decision of putting an untried grad student in charge of a course, is also unlikely to suddenly allocate more resources.

It would be perfectly fine if you did nothing. Nothing is expected of you, you will not be paid for doing more than you are asked, and if you just do it, no one will thank you.

If you feel compelled to do something anyway, here's a suggestion. Go to the grad student and say that it is your impression that the students struggle way more with the material than last time you TAed the course, and ask if there is anything you can do. Prepare a couple of suggestions, stuff that you know could be improved by going over it a couple of times more in lectures. Don't pass any blame, but try to be as constructive as possible.


People who work together find it natural to also interact in small (or large) ways not connected to the work itself. We aren't robots programmed to do a job and the job only.
Over time, a certain level of caring might naturally develop among colleagues, even when their primary communication is about work.
And, I'll guess (and predict) that this level of  human contact actually makes the work easier and more efficient when not taken to extremes (three hour poker or D&D sessions, say). I think many of us have the experience that it is harder to work with someone who refuses to do this and sets up a wall of isolation. Integrating a new person into a work environment often takes a fair amount of this sort of interaction.
Life is life. Work is only a part of that. You don't put your human nature in a box when you go to work, I hope.


Is it unethical to have a possible future coauthor to review my current paper?

Many think it is unethical to have your coauthor to review the paper; many think it is not.

Many journals and associations have strict guidelines on this matter; I suggest you to take a look at the answers to Conflict of interest as a referee, especially @DavidRicherby's one, and possibly also to other questions with the tag conflict-of-interest. In any case, a recent co-author, in my opinion, is a big no.

In my situation, I am discussing possible collaboration opportunities with researcher A. He knows the field well and might be the fittest referee for my current paper, which is also in this field.
Is it unethical to nominate him as a reviewer?

I assume these are serious discussions and not just a generic exchange of niceties "this is interesting, we should discuss it some time" at a conference. In this case, I suggest nominating him, but mentioning the possible conflict of interest at the same time. There is no harm in being explicit about it; just let the editor know and decide for themselves. If you have only a tiny text box to nominate possible referees, you can argue more in the cover letter.


Handicap for PostDoc and Academia Jobs from having a PhD from low ranked universities

I can only answer for my own job market (UK) and field (biology), but in general, what a good pedigree gives you, is second chances. If I was hiring a postdoc, I might take a chance on someone graduating from a good lab at a good uni without a publication under their belt, while from a less well regarded uni, or a research group I'd never heard of, I'd definitely want to see evidence of the ability to do publication quality research.


Why many research results are presented as paid articles?

Professors who publish their research results normally do not earn money from these paid articles. It is the publishing journal who earns. There are even journals who ask the author to pay for publishing the articles.

Contact the authors of the paid article directly and ask them for the copy of the article. Be polite, explain why do you need it for. In most cases, you will get that copy for free.

Also, try put the article name and authors into Google search. Another similar article by the same authors may exist and be free to download.


Is it good to mention in a recommendation letter that a student always attends office hours? What kind of impression does this make?

Well, you could really put that like you want to. Attending all office hours could mean a lot of things like the student is extremly insecure and needs confirmation on everything (even though he might be able to do it on his own) or he's not afraid to admit he doesn't know something and asks before doing something wrong.

It really depends on what you think of the student and if you think he is good enough. From your post we really don't know if attending the office hours was a positive or negative thing. But I wouldn't really write about the office hours themself but more general about the action of the student.


Reviewer comments are in complete contrast about research article

Since it was the editor that said you need a thorough "response", I think you need to revise. It sounds like s/he is trusting the second reviewer. Think especially about the significance. It may be that it is there, but you didn't state it clearly enough.

I doubt that the editor will respond favorably to such an email. Just re-think your  paper and do a revision. You don't need to explicitly change it for any particular reviewer comment, but you need to consider what the reviewer has said and how you can improve it if possible.

It may just be that one of the reviewer (either one) has missed something, but you don't really know which.


What exactly counts as an 'unofficial transcript' for graduate school admissions?

An "unofficial" transcript is generally considered anything that doesn't bear the "sign and seal" (or equivalent) of the issuing institution, as well as any reproduction of the official transcript (scan, photo, copy, etc.). So your "copy" would be sufficient as an unofficial transcript.

The question about "satisfactory completion" of first-year courses is not really a big deal. Different schools know that different universities have their own systems in deciding what does and does not get graded (some schools are pass/fail for a semester, others for a full year, others allow different courses across the four years to be graded that way). So long as you're not doing that with your major courses, there's probably little harm. Moreover, freshman year is the year where little stigma will be attached if letter grades aren't reported.


Professor using student paper as an example of what not to do in class?

This sort of behavior by a professor is poor pedagogical technique and, in many cultures, poor etiquette.  It is not misconduct and it is not rule breaking.  If you are a student and a professor acts this way, you can criticise the behavior in any anonymous teaching evaluations.  Otherwise, ignore it and move on.
Receiving criticism, including bad quality criticism, is part of academic life.


Getting credit/ownership for improved software

As a software developer it is hard to believe that improving a piece of (proprietary) code can made it two orders of magnitude faster. Although parallelization can make it 2-5 times faster on a modern workstation of 6-8 cores, unless the original code was notoriously bad it is hard to imagine that it can really be faster by two orders of magnitude (~100 times faster) just by improvement, without changing the original algorithm. So, are you 100% sure that the acceleration you get is legit? Sometimes (especially with parallelization) when things are too good to be true, there is some subtle condition which usually breaks by parallelization. So, first make 100% sure (compare results produced for a wide range of input data) by the two versions of the software (the old and your version). I assume you use some version of version control system (who does not?), so you still have the old version somewhere. It does not matter if this experiment takes a few days - 1-2 weeks it has to be done to be 100% sure that something did not break and you do get identical results between the two versions of the software for a wide range of input data and not just by a small test case.

If you are 100% sure that you really improved the software without breaking anything, the main question is did you actually improved the original algorithm or not. Simply adding an OpenMP directive and parallelizing a code which was parallelizable all along, is not a publishable result. In this case, your improvements do not merit a publication and therefore no publication => no citation, since you did not create the  original software. On the other hand, if you did more than refactoring / parallelizing the software and your contribution is significant you must publish these results on a technical-focused CS conference. Then everyone using your version of the software could cite this work and additionally could cite the online version of the software if it is publicly available.

On the legal version of your story, I really do not have the expertise to answer. In this case, I would search the IP policy of the university as @NateEldredge suggests and ask an experienced lawyer who knows about software patents. I do not think anyone of us here are really entitled here to give legal advice. Of course if your version of the software starts getting money for the university, you are probably entitled to a share and you must protect your rights as good as you can. It is just that right now, we do not know if this software is going to actually become a product for sale.

Also about your paragraph:

  If I was working in industry this is about the time I'd be going to my
  line manager and at asking for a salary bump or a promotion. In
  academia it seems like this sort of work is relegated to a pat on the
  back and a footnote. I suspect I'm being sour, but is this just the
  way it goes?

I do not know how much experience you have in the software industry, but be rest assured that you do not get a raise everytime you do a good job. After all, this is expected from you and it is a prerequisite for you keeping your job for a long time. You can always ask for a raise, but that does not mean you will get one.

On the other hand as I mentioned earlier, either you changed the software's algorithm and implementation so much that you deserve a separate publication or you bug-fixed a crappy code (which you will use on your PHD) which does not really say that much. Either case, this is probably the only credit you will get.


Can I get admitted to a master's program at top European university with an average GPA?

they have no restriction intakes ,

Why they do that ?

Caveat: I'm in germany and in a STEM field.
Many European countries have rather open admission systems for university, in particular if the program is not overcrowded. These programs in turn tend to have high failure rates at exams.
The philosophy behind this is that everyone should get their chance, but to go on, you need to produce the goods.
Also, since the pace and organizational requirements at university are quite different from school, many students struggle with their exams in their first year, even students who then "wake up" and become top students towards their BSc thesis. This makes it a bit difficult to use a grade average for distinguishing consistently weak students from very good students who had a slow start.

taking in consideration only ects and english Score

ECTS do not measure your performance, but roughly how many courses you took and studied so you did pass. English score probably because they teach in English.
ECTS are to weed out applicants for whom the courses are not meant (if you don't meet them, you'll need to attend at least some Bachelor level courses) - I expect the ECTS points also need to be in certain subjects. A BSc in physics won't get you admission.
English score is to weed out applicants who cannot possibly follow courses taught in English.


How do you validate a scientific paper that uses a non-public cell/animal line?

You've published the results in a prestigious journal.  In most of those journals, that means you've promised to make those mice available to other researchers.  For example, Nature says

An inherent principle of publication is that others should be able to replicate and build upon the authors' published claims. A condition of publication in a Nature journal is that authors are required to make materials, data, code, and associated protocols promptly available to readers without undue qualifications.

(Emphasis in the original)
Science says

After publication, all data and materials necessary to understand, assess, and extend the conclusions of the manuscript must be available to any reader of Science.

Similar verbiage is in most high-quality journals.  Typically, you agree to those conditions when you submit, or when your paper is accepted, by agreeing with and/or signing forms.
So you may not have known it, but you have already promised to make those mice available.  Do you feel that you can't do that?  Then you shouldn't have agreed to do so when you published.  If someone requests the mice, and you refuse in spite of your agreement, you may end up being blackballed by the publisher and may never publish with them again.  Conceivably -- though I haven't heard of cases reaching this point -- your article could be retracted over your objections, or you could face an academic dishonesty investigation.
(The same applies to the original researchers who made the mice, of course, and in practice most researchers would consider the onus to be on them, not you, to provide the mice.  But that's a pragmatic thing. As I say, you've most likely already explicitly guaranteed that you will make the mice available on request, and it's your problem to make good your promise.)
Edit to point to an even more explicit explanation from the NIH, in the Grants and Funding section, Frequently Asked Questions: Sharing of Model Organism and Related Resources:

What is NIH policy regarding the distribution and sharing of mutant strains of model organisms created with NIH funds?
The NIH expects that new, genetically modified model organisms and related resources generated with the aid of NIH funding will be distributed and shared with the scientific community in a timely way, generally at least upon publication of the primary results announcing the development of the genetically modified model organisms. Investigators submitting an NIH application (including competing renewals) are expected to include a concise plan addressing the timely distribution of organisms and resources, unless the proposed research will not generate new model organisms and related resources.

Question 9 is particularly relevant here:

... I don’t want to share my novel animal strains or the reagents used to make them. Can I be forced to do so?
Sharing of research resources is a very important NIH policy and is included as a term and condition of your award.

(My emphasis)
So not only have you agreed to make the mice available when you agreed to the publication terms, if your work was NIH-funded, you also already promised to make them available, even if you don't want to.
That section notes that there are possible reasons for not sharing, and the NIH will consider them, but they must be explicitly stated in the grant (and putting that in your grant will make it less likely to be funded).  If it was not explicitly stated in the grant originally, this is not an acceptable excuse.
Other granting agencies have similar policies.


For what sorts of reasons would a university deny an application to a graduate program in the U.S. after the department recommends it for admission?

In both the private and public R1s that I've been in (in the USA), the departments run admissions. They read through the applications and then send the graduate school their ranked list of admits, a rolldown list, and the list of rejects.

However, technically the department does not admit students, the graduate school does. So the department list are only "recommendations."

I would say that 99% of the time, the graduate school acts on those recommendations. They'd be fools not to, since the disciplinary expertise is in the department.

The 1% that I've personally experienced was with a graduate student who had horrible GRE scores but other stellar qualifications. Despite our university annually sending us guidance saying that GREs are not correlated with graduate school performance, very low scores could be cause for concern in their office (likely because of national rankings, but I have no insight there).

The dean of the graduate school wrote to us about that student and held up their admission. We had to write a response as to why we felt other aspects of their application overrode their poor GRE scores, and the student was admitted. But the experience did make it clear that the graduate school does look over admits, and might step in for extreme cases -- and why we have to be careful in our communications with students that we're only recommending admission.

Another scenario that might apply is that the graduate school changes its calculation midcycle in terms  of how many slots a department might have, or how much funding is available to students (cutting, for example, some fellowship slots). I haven't heard of this happening, but I would imagine the grad school reserves the right to pull such a maneuver, especially as we are asked to submit ranked lists and so it is possible that the 13th student in a 13 member list might be sent off the island in some scenarios.


How does one find an advisor doing research on a niche interdiscipinary subject?

From my perspective (as an advisor), you sound like the ideal candidate: someone who is self-driven and motivated to work outside the regular comfort zones.
Assuming you can't find anyone at the exact intersection you're looking for, my advice would be to find a potential advisor who values interdisciplinary science like you do, and works in one or more of the disciplines involved. I would start by asking the most relevant faculty at your current university if they might know of someone who fits the bill that you could email.
For an advisor that values interdisciplinarity, your background shouldn't matter so much - they will be looking for initiative, drive, and decent grades. Argue those three things as concisely as you can when you send those emails.


Citing two authors with the same surname – is it worth noting that they are distinct people?

Check your style guide. Many surname-year styles, such as APA, have provisions for exactly this problem.

  But do you know how to proceed when a reference list includes publications by two or more different primary authors with the same surname? When this occurs, include the lead author’s initials in all text citations, even if the year of publication differs (see the sixth edition of the Publication Manual, p. 176). Including the initials helps the reader avoid confusion within the text and locate the entry in the reference list.

http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2014/01/when-to-use-author-initials-for-text-citations.html

In your case, this would lead to:

  We use the Smith corpus (F. Smith 2010), as prepared by Johnson et al. (2015).
  This corpus is partitioned into test, development and training subsets, and has minor clean-up from the original data collected by F. Smith (2010).

  It is also uses by B. Smith et al (2016), and Otter et al (2016).

Note that since "Smith corpus" is a name of a corpus, rather than a citation, it can remain without the initial.

Also note that in APA style, all citations to any Smith papers have to have the initial. So even if this is the only time you mention B. Smith et al 2016, all of your references to F. Smith 2010 have to have the initial. This is a little annoying but nicely unambiguous.


What can I do as a graduate student to maximize my chances of obtaining a professorship?

I don't think there's anything "special" that's unique to applying to academia that a graduate student can do to increase the odds of becoming a professor in the long run, particularly if one is going to do a postdoc later on.

The two areas that might help are:

Gain teaching experience that goes beyond the standard "recitation section" leader—that is, into actual lecturing and other forms of direct interaction with students, as well as formulation of assignments and examinations. This might make a difference at schools which are more teaching-oriented rather than research-oriented.
Formulate a well-defined scope for your future research activities, and also develop the tentative outlines for the first few projects that you'd start in that field. This is an essential part of any professorial application, and the sooner you start working on it, the more polished it will be when you're ready to apply for positions when the time comes.

Beyond that, what makes someone a good candidate for a postdoc are essentially the same qualities that will help in being a good candidate for a professorship later on.


Including a joke in an otherwise correct exam answer as the student

As I understand, your main question is:
Could it impact the immediate and/or long term evolution of my grades, education and professional/academic life beyond just this exam, whether negatively or positively?
Immediate grade: Obviously. People might have different rules on how they grade. Graders are usually humans who are impacted conciously and subconsiously by their students' actions (and how they speak, look etc.) One teacher might like you more for making jokes, one might be angry that you wasted their time, one might not find the correct answer because you wrote too much irrelevant things etc. One might not care. In grading, almost everything is possible.
Long term evolution of grades, life: Most likely not. If you have one teacher in different courses who likes you or doesn't like you because of jokes, this might play into other exams. However, usually, after a course is over, if at all, people care about the grade you got and not why you got it. It's unlikely that anyone will see the exam after the end of the course.
If you get extremly famous, it might be a nice episode about you that you made jokes on exams. Or not.


How to cite the original source of an algorithm and a secondary source that provides a clearer description of the algorithm?

Something like this should be OK:

  The Bar problem can be solved using the Foo algorithm [1], which is based on
  the fact that Equation holds under Conditions. A useful and detailed exposition of the Foo algorithm and how to implement it in practice can be found in [2].


It is better to ask, because it is not obvious whether you can use their materials or not. As you can see from the link there are different types of cc licenses.


As per the comments on your question, I think this is really context specific and the role of an author can vary quite subtly from area to area. I'll try give a general answer to the general question first, and then look at the specfics of your case afterwards.

  How to handle not being credited for research software development in papers?

The first question is whether or not you should be credited for the software you developed in the paper. The answer is predicated on what precisely the contribution of the paper is and what the contribution of the software is.

If, for example, (part of) the core contribution of the paper is describing optimisations and techniques that you invented and applied in the software, then I think it is more than fair that you should be credited as a co-author.

If, for example, the core contribution relates to a methodology for doing X where your software was specifically designed for that methodology, then you should probably be credited as a co-author or, at the very least, mentioned in the acknowledgements.

If the core contribution of the paper is not directly related to the software itself but the software is used to some ends, then you should probably not be credited on the paper (otherwise Linus Torvalds would have millions of publications). But if the software system was described in another paper and played a significant/specialised role in the current paper, you could expect a citation.

  Since the publications wouldn't be possible without the systems I developed would I have any remit to ask for credit and/or authorship?

I think your reasoning is a little flawed here. Making a research paper possible does not entitle you to co-authorship (as a simple counter-example, if paper A builds upon the results of paper B such that paper A would not be possible without paper B, the authors of paper B should not expect co-authorship on paper A). Providing part of the core contribution of the paper—the reason why it was accepted in the first place—entitles you to co-authorship.

I noticed something crucial in your comments that you didn't clarify in your question:

  "Since xxxx our system has collated data on x cases and found that.."

The authors should absolutely not be claiming credit for a system they did not design or build. This is clearly wrong. (And it also indirectly suggests that part of the contribution is indeed the system and the authors are trying to claim credit for it.)

Since you know the authors, you should talk with them, show them the relevant quotes in the papers and tell them that you are not happy with them claiming the system as their own. Tell them that if they wish to continue claiming the system in future then you should be a co-author on the paper.

If you wish to escalate, you can contact the editor(s) of the journal(s) involved and tell them your story. The editor(s) might agree to let you publish a letter referring to the specific paper and outlining your case. This should be considered the "nuclear" option.

EDIT: Not in answer to the question, but this quote in the transcript of Hamming's address "You and Your Research" (well worth a read for anyone in research) reminded me of this question:

  I also did a second thing. When I loaned what little programming power we had to help in the early days of computing, I said, "We are not getting the recognition for our programmers that they deserve. When you publish a paper you will thank that programmer or you aren't getting any more help from me. That programmer is going to be thanked by name; she's worked hard." I waited a couple of years. I then went through a year of BSTJ articles and counted what fraction thanked some programmer. I took it into the boss and said, "That's the central role computing is playing in Bell Labs; if the BSTJ is important, that's how important computing is." He had to give in.


Here is a book chapter on this topic:

Mazza, C., Riccaboni, A., & Quattrone, P. (2008). Found in translation: On the persistence of the university as institution. European universities in transition: Issues, models and cases. Northampton: Edward Elgar Publishing.

These authors argue that the longevity of traditional universities is due to their socially legitimated role to "make ideas, people, and disciplines meet and cross-fertilize".  For centuries, this role was manifested in such artifacts as great libraries (and later university presses) and degrees for the elites in government, religion, and (to a lesser extent) business.  Of course, being self-sustaining financially (endowments) and physically (buildings and infrastructure) has been an important factor.

Historically, the university was the first institution in human history to systematically question itself as part of it's very constitution.  From the start, the communities of scholars engaged in systematic inquiry and critical debate on the subjects of study, and even the way those subjects were investigated and taught.

Though far from perfect, this self-critical capability gave universities the capacity to take in and develop new knowledge and to let go of knowledge systems that no longer had intellectual support.  For most of their histories, universities shaped the educational norms of the society around them -- at the national and international elite levels, at least -- rather than being shaped by those elites.  The certainly weren't responding to the changing educational preferences or needs of the general public.  Other institutions filled in this role (gap), including public universities, land-grant colleges, community colleges, polytechnic institutes, and so on.

The oldest universities in continuous operation are:

University of Bologna - 1088
Oxford University - 1167
Cambridge University - 1209
University of Salamanca (Spain) - 1218
University of Padua - 1220
University of Naples Federico II - 1224 (first public
university)


Are problems in PhD science labs not present in math phd research?

Keep in mind that the number of questions on this site doesn't give any indication of how common such issues are, since people usually only post when something is wrong.  We don't hear about all the cases where everything is fine.

I don't know any reason why math advisors should inherently be better people than in any other field, and I don't know of any empirical data that attempts to measure this.  However, a few of the specific issues you mention are perhaps less likely to arise in mathematics, due to cultural and structural reasons.

  "my advisor has stopped funding me"

In the US, at least, the main avenue of funding for math graduate students is through teaching assistantships, since math departments teach a large number of service courses.  Faculty who have grants can sometimes offer their students a research assistantship instead, so that the student doesn't have to teach.  But a student really isn't completely reliant on their advisor for funding.  Moreover, there typically aren't major expenses for the research itself (no expensive equipment, etc), so as long as the student is getting paid, research can continue.

(This is not necessarily the case in other countries.)

  "my advisor wants to be 1st author, when I did the majority of the work!"

The general practice in mathematics is that all authors are listed alphabetically, and the concept of "first authorship" does not exist.  As such, people don't bother to keep track of who did the "majority" of the work.  So this particular issue doesn't arise in mathematics.

  "my advisor is stealing my ideas!"

While individual departments may vary, I think there's a general sense in mathematics that a joint paper "counts" about the same as a solo paper.  As such, if a student has contributed to a project, the advisor has no particular incentive not to include them as an author on the paper.

  "my advisor wants to add another student to the paper and this is unfair!"

As above, it isn't any particular disadvantage to a student if another student is added.


In APA style, How should rough financial numbers be written?

Your question has two components: 1) Whether to write out the number as a numeral or in words, and 2) whether to indicate "dollars" in words or with a symbol.

I did not find a direct answer or example in the manual, but a discussion on the APA style blog may provide some guidance:

http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2010/04/feel-like-a-number-part-3-the-earth-day-edition.html

To address issue one, look at the question in the comments sectiom (comment #7 from the top) where a student asks about the proper way to write about an approximate number of people. The author of the style post states that the correct answer is "Almost 3,000,000 people." She provides the explanation that because 3,000,000 is larger than 10, is should be written as a numeral. She does not comment on the issue of this being an approximate amount, but because the question is about an approximate number of people, it seems she interprets the exception to rule 4.31e as only pertaining to the units of time listed in the exception. Also, note that in the body of the blog post, the author refers to approximate units of time rather than approximate numbers in general.

To address issue two, look further in the comments section, at the bottom two comments on the page. Here, someone asks how to write about an amount of money that is less than $10. The author notes that in prose, she would recommend writing out the word "dollars," while in tables or with mathematical operators, it might be more appropriate to use the symbol (referring to rule 4.45 about describing statistics in text).

In sum, this discussion seems to indicate that "I have about 5,000,000 dollars" would be the correct form. The number would be written in numerical form because a) it is over 10 and b) it is not an approximate amount of time. The unit of money ("dollars") would be written in prose text and appear as a symbol on tables or when discussing mathematical operations.


Consolation position after tenure is denied

No, this is not common.  Someone denied tenure is generally allowed to stay in their current position for another year, to give some time to find a new job.  However, it's not standard to offer them a non-tenure-track job as a replacement.  Theoretically there's no reason they couldn't apply for such a job, but it sounds really awkward.  I imagine most people wouldn't want to stay in the same department in a lower status position, and the department wouldn't want them to either; I've never seen it actually happen.  When it does happen, I'd bet there's some compelling reason behind the scenes.  (For example, perhaps the lecturer in your department has a strong personal reason to want to stay in the area, and there are no other suitable jobs available.)


Workshop submission by a first year student, does it count?

Does it count as having a paper

That depends on the workshop.  Your submission counts as a (peer-reviewed, published) paper if and only if

The submission is an actual manuscript, and not just a short (few-paragraph) abstract, AND
Your submission is accepted by the committee after significant review by your peers (the workshop committee)
After some revision, the manuscript will be made available to the public in some persistent form, either paper or electronic, that can be found many years in the future by someone who did not attend the workshop.

Many workshops fail all three of these conditions—submissions consist of only few-paragraph abstracts, which are lightly reviewed by the committee (to eliminate obvious garbage), and which are printed verbatim onto paper handouts that are distributed at the conference, but never made public elsewhere.

This may be a language issue, but a "workshop proposal" doesn't sound like a paper describing your own research, but rather a proposal for a workshop that you want to organize, either for other people to present their research, or to collaborate on new research, or both.  Organizing a workshop could be valuable experience and a positive point on your CV, but it does not count as a "paper".


How to work with relocation issues during phd?

That needs to be worked out with your advisor and the university. The worst outcome is that you have to abandon. But working remotely may be possible in many fields. You would need to establish a regular communication regimen with your professor, of course, and possibly also find local resources (Library, computing...) to enable you to continue. But with the research largely done it may be a simpler matter than you think.

Organizing a defense of the dissertation will be a challenge, but, with some expense, it might be arranged remotely. The university likely has AV facilities on its end to enable it.

It might not be easy, and it might cost you a bit of time, but, subject to restrictions imposed by the field (lab work, ...) it should be possible. But it will put some burden on your professor and the committee that they will need to agree to.


Getting a patent after a poster abstract got accepted

You have not yet made what's called a public disclosure of your research, which would render it (from an institutional standpoint) un-patentable. The second you display your poster, or if there is a short paper published along side it, is the second your work becomes publicly disclosed. Also bear in mind that if you have, on some website or another, posted code pertaining to the project, etc. this counts as a public disclosure.

As MJeffryes mentioned in his comment, you should talk with the office at your institution responsible for such endeavors (at mine it is called the research foundation) as soon as possible. The patent process takes quite some time (re: years; just FYI). Anyway, they should be able to fill you in on all that's necessary and the steps you should take, should you want to pursue that course of action.

Edit: As Dan Romik pointed out in the comments, at least in the US, there is a one-year grace period, from when you make a public disclosure, that your work can still be patented-- but anybody could patent it. I found this helpful in terms of clarifying some of the specifics.  However, in speaking with the individual in charge of the research foundation at my institution, the impression I got was that, once this public disclosure was made, the foundation was no longer willing to pursue a patent (again, at my particular institution).


What should I do if I've enrolled in a badly organized course?

I have seen cases where the instructor is given a module just two weeks before it starts, has no time to prepare, and might not have the proper background to teach it.

You might consider that the instructor is doing his/her best with what they have to work with. You might consider talking with the instructor to see what they believe you should be doing in order to succeed in the course. If they say "read the book" then you should read the book and study with little support.

Not all instructor are good and some are good but in a bad situation (that is, a situation not of their own making but rather one forced upon them). Either way, talk with them and find out what you can do to succeed.


Leave quotations in original (bad) English or edit?

Quotes should be included verbatim, so don't edit. Instead, insert or alter words using square brackets. E.g., "I'm wondering whether it is [okay] to leave the quotations as is..." Alternatively, replace direct quotes with a summary of what was said. Finally, use "[sic]" sparingly: Using sic "may be defensive, but its overuse is offensive" and "[in] truly minor matters it's usually better [to quietly] correct the original" (source: The Columbia Guide to Standard American English).


When is it a good idea to let an academic department (or a professor) know that I have Asperger's (or ADD)?

I agree with aeismail's answer, however I would just add that you might need be careful about the perception of your condition(s), especially the negative aspects. For instance, with the ADD, it's better to ask people to send written copies because you have a visual memory, because it's a constructive remark, rather than saying that you don't fully understand verbal explanation. Myself, I ask people to send emails about important things, and I clearly state that it's due to my great visual memory and my terrible auditive memory.

In other words, I think it's a good idea to inform people that you have Asperger or ADD, especially those you work closely with, but it's more important to explain the positive aspects rather than just stating your condition.


What is the best way to "fire" my advisor?

If you are having trouble with your advisor, I think you should talk to your department's director of graduate studies (or the equivalent). At most universities (at least all the ones I have been at), there is someone whose job it is to handle paperwork and the such. They are also there to act as a kind of ombudsman, helping students handle disagreements with advisors.

I've had this role before, and I view myself as squarely on the side of the student. I can fight advisors on their behalf. I've done all of the things you are asking for: navigating committee changes, telling an advisor they are no longer a students' advisor, etc.

I think it is important to document such behavior on the part of the advisor. Even if your breakup with the advisor goes poorly, an official record of such behavior might make the department think twice about allowing such a pattern to continue.


Is it possible to apply for a post doc (and get a post doc) while struggling with the health issues (a life-threatening illness: cancer)

Serious health problems can strike anybody at any time.  You know that you have a much higher than background risk of having your condition return, but you also have a pretty good chance of getting into a serious traffic accident or having a parent come down with a serious illness or getting hit by major depression or any of the myriad other ways that your ability to do your work can become impaired.  No sane organization expects its employees to be in a protective bubble where bad things cannot happen to them.

If you can do your work effectively now, and don't have a known crisis expected in the near future, then the only sensible thing to do is to carry on with life.  You don't need to inform potential employers, any more than you would need to tell them that you might get into a traffic accident because you commute.  As noted in the comments, though, you definitely do need to make sure you have good access to health care that will cover your condition if it recurs.


Etiquette/social norms for a grad student toward a faculty going on sabbatical

When a professor goes on sabbatical for a year they know full well that students will graduate in the meantime. They have seen this happen from both sides (they were students once and their professors took sabbaticals as well.) There is no standard way to say good-bye. A note,  either electronic or physical, delivered before you leave is appropriate. So is asking the professor in question if they will be attending any of the graduation/end of year ceremonies that you will be having. Or you can simply say good-bye the last time you are going to see them before they leave since it may be the last time you see them.

General advice for keeping it from being "really weird" is to keep whatever you do short. Rambling will make it get uncomfortable for both of you. You have three basic things you might want to say: thank you, good-bye, best wishes for your sabbatical. You don't need a lot of words to get through those ideas.


What is the etiquette on presenting work-in-progress that's mostly literature review in a conference talk in the humanities?

Although I'm in the social sciences rather than in the humanities, I'll give a general response:

"Socially acceptable" is an odd question. I understand that you are asking about if people who attend your session might find your presentation appropriate or not. However, academic conferences are peer-reviewed. That means that before youre presentation can be presented to an audience, it is evaluated not only by the conference committee, but by two or more subject experts. So, if your presentation is acceptable to the committee and to the peer-reviewers, then I expect that that answers your question--yes, they have approved it for presentation before an audience. (Of course, and especially if you are only submitting an abstract for consideration, you must be explicit that your final presention would be of a literature review.) If they don't accept it, then no--though their rejection might not be because it is a literature review per se--it could be for many other reasons.

Also, note that what is acceptable for one conference might not be acceptable for another, and indeed, what is acceptable for one conference one year might not be acceptable another year (since you often have different evaluators). Only by actually submitting would you know.

So, in short, submit it for peer-review and then you'll get your answer. You don't need to worry about the audience; the peer-reviewers are there to protect them from inappropriate material.


What should be emphasised in a statement of purpose when applying for STEM PhD programs in the United States?

As the name implies, a statement of purpose should be forward-looking as much as possible. The "biographical" element of a statement of purpose should be included only to the extent that it helps to explain what you want to do as a graduate student. You most certainly do not want to start off with recollections of early childhood and the first time you realized you want to be a researcher.

Instead, spend your efforts explaining why you want to be a graduate student in the department to which you're applying. You should make specific reference to how your research will fit into the department's interests. (For instance, don't propose a project in area X if the department doesn't have a specialist in X.)

If you're in a field where the advisor selection is made after matriculation, then you likely want to present a somewhat broader profile. If you show interest in only one professor's work, then you are dependent on the decision of that single advisor (who may or may not be on the admissions committee!).


Just be direct and honest: you wanted to do more theoretical work in your project and, as you said, you mutually decided a different project and program was in your best interests. There's no reason to try to hide the fact, and mention that your former advisor was fully aware of and supportive of your request. That should satisfy any concerns that you're doing it because you didn't get along with your advisor or because your project failed or anything like that.


Why should data mining be minimized in research?

Assuming by "data mining" what they really mean is "continually testing hypotheses until you find something significant"...

See:

https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/310119/why-does-collecting-data-until-finding-a-significant-result-increase-type-i-erro

or a comic depicting the same issue:

https://xkcd.com/882/

Basically, when we perform a hypothesis test (using a frequentist approach), we are asking whether it is likely that the data we observe (for example, a difference between two groups) occurred simply by chance.

However, if you look at multiple possible questions, it becomes increasingly likely that you find a result that, due to the flawed approach, appears unlikely to have occurred by chance. If you use a significance threshold of 0.05, you in fact expect that 1/20 times (in the large number limit) you look at completely random data you will conclude a significant difference.

You can still do this systematically and correct for this exploration without increasing your false positive rate. The problem is when you set these explorations aside and pretend that only the "interesting" ones (based on a flawed measure of statistical significance) occurred, you are likely to report a result that occurred by chance and is not replicable.

This problem is even worse if you use your results to inform further analyses in an unprincipled way. For example, you compare two groups: jelly bean eaters and non-eaters, and find no significant difference in cancer risk, but you look and see that the difference is smaller in a subgroup. You then exclude that subgroup (say, people over 55 years old), repeat your analysis, claim "statistical significance", and write a paper titled "Jellybeans cause cancer in people under age 55".

If you didn't set out to test this hypothesis because you had no a priori reason to expect age differences in jelly bean danger, it is very likely your conclusion is wrong: you have "mined" out a result from the data that didn't really exist in the first place.


How to recover work output from past lab when the head is uncooperative?

If an artist borrows a canvas and a brush to create a beautiful piece of art, who owns the art? The person owning the canvas or the artist himself? Who owns the intellectual property (IP)?

Your problem is a very ethical question and I would expect that there are laws and agreements between your university and the guest university governing that. If your University or Faculty has a dedicated law department I suggest you get in touch to figure out what regulations apply to your specific case; Asking "who owns what".

You should escalate this issue to higher levels: Supervisor, Head of Department, Devision, Faculty, [...] There are people with enough power and knowledge to deal with this issue in the correct way. You are not the first person to face such an issue; You will not be the last =) In fact you should have done so 1.5 years ago.

I am no lawyer, so I suggest you speak to somebody more qualified (and local). As a rule of thumb, IP belongs to the person that pays for the work.

If your guest professor contracted you he owns it and there isn't much you can do.

'produced in his lab "is exclusively him" ' is not enough to claim IP as that is merely providing the tools [at least in computer science]. That's saying "I gave Picasso his brush and he painted this in my Café, I own that painting".

In your case you are using his hotbed, ... "Consumables" (e.g. the paint and the canvas) are again different. There it very much depends on local regulations and there could be a caltrop hidden somewhere. Again speak to local people with more experience, in my experience they are more then happy to help.

Now above is something you can do. The consequence is that it will ruin the relationship between your two labs (plus some potential other consequences). On the other hand you managed to work over 2 years (at least half of your PhD) without those samples. How important are those samples to you and your work?


How to track the papers that cited one specific paper

Google Scholar is one of several repositories that has such a citation graph (and I find it the most straightforward for doing the task you are suggesting).

Every entry in Google Scholar that has been cited and had those citations tracked in Google Scholar comes with a "Cited by N" link; clicking that link gives you a list of all of those citations.

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=17803823686299873243&as_sdt=5,50&sciodt=0,50&hl=en

You can also search within those citing articles.


Is it okay to reference theorem in the secondary source If I don't know where the theorem begins?

Is it okay to reference the theorem in the source that might not be the first paper to prove it?

It’s not only “okay”, but you must cite at least one source you are aware of, and preferably the chronologically earliest one. If you can’t trace the exact provenance of the theorem, then do the next best thing, which is to describe the earliest possible source, and explain that you were unable to determine if that represents the original source or a later source.
Of course, saying this carries with it the assumption that you made reasonable efforts to determine the source, for example by asking your adviser, colleagues, or emailing the author of the paper where you found the theorem if they are still around and easily reachable. If you didn’t make such efforts, then that’s what you should do first of all. But if you did make an effort, then sure, proceeding as I described above is “okay” and is the standard way to proceed.


Do I need to re-send the same GRE test score if I want to apply for the same graduate program again?

It depends on the university. Many of them don't retain materials from applicants whom they ultimately did not accept. However, their policies regarding GRE scores may differ.

Shoot an email to the department; they should reply within a few days.


Does Google Scholar link to post-print PDFs lodged on academia.edu or ResearchGate?


How much revenue do academic authors make on their published books?

I co-authored a research monograph in a rather specialized area of applied mathematics.  I have received about $300 in royalties over several years.  I think this is typical.

For most authors, the important consideration is not how much money they will make, but how effectively the publisher will be able to distribute the book.  This usually means going with a well-established publisher.  I know some highly-respected authors that also shop around to find the publisher that will distribute their book for the lowest reasonable price.


As far as I can tell, this is an Oxford (or maybe Oxbridge) thing.

From Too Many Words – A Life in the Law 8:

  The Oxford system in 1962 marked scripts by classifying students into alpha, beta, gamma, and then, within each class, adding plus or minus, or double plus or minus, or triple plus or minus, and in between using query to further distinguish. So the available range of marks ran downwards – alpha triple plus, alpha double plus query plus, alpha double plus, alpha plus query plus, alpha plus, alpha query plus, alpha, alpha query minus, alpha minus, alpha minus query minus, alpha double minus, alpha double minus query minus, alpha triple minus, alpha beta, beta alpha, beta triple plus etc.

So B?+ is between B+ (which is higher than B?+) and B (lower than B?+).

Other references: Oxbridge: beta-minus-minus


Potential ethical concerns on advisor's advice on publication venues

In essence, you're peddling in conspiracy theories: You're claiming some dark motive in your adviser's response for which you have no real proof. You also claim that he might sabotage you, without actually having any concrete evidence nor do you show any reason why he might do so. Moreover, your adviser actually gave you three quite sensible reasons why he thinks that your current plan isn't good that you dismiss out of hand.

Here's the thing about life: If (i) someone says something that actually makes sense, then (ii) that's usually what is actually the case. In your case, I very much believe every reason your adviser gives you: It genuinely is hard to write a paper in 3 weeks; I'm going to claim that it's impossible. If he says that the journal generally published a different kind of paper, that's something that can be checked by why not just believe an experienced researcher and author? And finally, if the community is small, you do risk running into the same reviewers and your adviser is correct that there is a stigma attached to having reviewed someone's half-finished manuscript. Nearly every other statement by your adviser in your question also seems totally reasonable to me.

So I see no good reason to believe any of your conspiracy theories. I think you fundamentally need to adjust your assumptions about people indeed meaning A when they are saying A.


Formally it is a title given to a university teacher, translation: private lecturer. It means you are able to teach, but not yet a professor.

In practice it is the required step-up from the PhD degree, to get a permanent position.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatdozent


Can one have two different sources for postdoc fundings together in Europe?

The main issue I can think of would be time allotment. Most grants require you to specify how what percentage of your time you will spend on the grant. As you cannot overcommit yourself (i.e., total time allotment cannot exceed 100%), you'll have to specify that in the proposal. Many professors have funding from multiple grants at any given time, so this situation is not too unusual.

Do note, though, that it is highly likely that once "Department D" catches on that you have an external source of funding, they may decide to withdraw their offer and provide the funding to someone who has none. Not sure how that would work.


How to address an author showing replicated results from his paper?

Don't send your thesis unless requested.  You may write to the author and say that you were interested to read his or her paper, that you applied the method to data from Argentina and you obtained similar results as described in the paper.  You may give a little hint about any interesting quirks you found along the way but that is optional and if you do it, you must be very brief in this initial email.  The author may be interested enough to write back enthusiastically, asking for more information, and then you can send a summary and your thesis.  You may get a conference invite out of it.  You may get an invitation to collaborate.  You may get a reference to your thesis in this person's future work.  You may get some new ideas for future work of your own.  This email you will send will be a fun bit of icing on the cake for you, after a lot of hard work!


Dispute grade penalty for reading in class?

The only relevant section in the syllabus says, "Good manners provide the foundation for proper classroom behavior: arrive on time, listen attentively and take detailed notes, remain quietly in your seat until dismissed by the instructor." There is a strict no-screen policy, but nothing about reading.

I am pretty sure that all department chairs would agree with a faculty member who concluded that reading in class is the opposite of listen attentively and take detailed notes. I would put your chances at exactly zero that the chair would override the decision to not credit you with attendance on that day, but marking you as absent for two days does not seem justified unless there is another penalty for not following proper classroom behavior.


How to make leaving a PhD program seem like a positive thing on a resume

I think it is a really bad idea to list your time as a grad student as "Researcher".

As a general rule, it's usually considered unwise to make up stuff on a resume, and this includes job titles.  I think the only title that really fits your status is "PhD Student" or "PhD Candidate" (or, if you want to focus on the job, "Teaching Assistant" or "Graduate Research Assistant" or the like - whatever was on your pay stub).

The title of "Researcher" would normally be attached to a full-time (non-student!) staff position, generally someone who works on a research project led by a faculty member.   Although the duties may be somewhat similar, the hiring process and level of responsibility could be rather different, so it is really a misrepresentation for you to claim this title.

Suppose a prospective employer calls your university, checking references, and asks "Was Unsure a Researcher at your institution during the following dates?"  The university is going to answer "No, he/she was a grad student" (or even worse, maybe just "No").  Then the employer tosses your application in the trash because your resume is inaccurate (or as they might say, "falsified").  And if they don't check and you get the job anyway, but they find out later, they could easily consider your application was fraudulent - that gets you fired for sure, and is possibly career ending.

If you think employers are going to figure out anyway that you were in a PhD program, why not just go ahead and put "PhD Candidate" on the resume?


Is there such thing as too many follow-up emails to a professor?

Email is obviously not succeeding, so contact him another way.  Phone, postal mail, visit his office, etc.  You may also contact his department chair and ask if they know of any reason why he wouldn't be answering emails.

  I don't know whether he wants to continue with this project anymore.

Even if that's the case, you have every right to be told that directly.  Ignoring your emails would not be an appropriate professional way for him to communicate that to you.


What is difference between PhD and Postdoc?

In mathematics, a "postdoc" is a special kind of faculty job you get just after your Ph.D.  It may have a fixed term (not tenure track).  It may have reduced teaching, so that you can concentrate on your research.  You may have a "mentor" assigned to advise you on doing research.

But (unlike some other fields like experimental physics) you are probably not working in someone else's "lab" on someone else's research program that someone else got the funding for.


Omitted question mark in quoted material

How about: "Now we find that our land has unacceptable levels of contamination. Will it never stop” [sic]. This indicates that the error was in the original and the quote is exact.

See https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sic, the first definition here.


Are there "uninteresting" publications in high profile journals?

If a paper is published in a very good journal (one that is sufficiently good that it doesn't need to accept boring papers to fill issues), that means somebody (reviewer, editor) thought its contributions would be interesting, novel, and/or useful to a nontrivial subset of the journal's audience.

But, this doesn't mean that the paper is interesting to everyone. (Very few papers are!)

For example, I usually find papers that say "We applied a known technique to optimize problem X for some metric Y" very boring, but others in my field appreciate these contributions.

In some cases, you may find the paper uninteresting because you either understood less than the reviewer or more than the reviewer.

It often takes some knowledge of the field to really appreciate the contribution a paper is making.  In most journals, the authors are allowed to assume that the reader already has some field-specific knowledge. If you read the paper without understanding this context, it will probably seem boring or not useful to you.
It works the other way as well. Sometimes, a reviewer reads a paper and thinks, "This is an important contribution," but those with more knowledge understand that it isn't. For really good journals, the editor can usually find a reviewer who understands the field well, so this (ideally) doesn't happen as often.

I am sure somebody can think of a paper that was accepted only for e.g., political reasons, and is genuinely, objectively unimportant. These are rare enough that I don't think these are the papers you are asking about.


Which is considered more valuable for faculty job applications, teaching experience or participation in conferences?

Where do you want to work? Research universities want people who do research, publish, go to conferences,  and can tolerably teach, in that order.

Small liberal arts colleges want people who can teach and who do enough research to keep up with the field.

These are rough generalizations. There's no right answer here.


You seem to overvalue "style" and undervalue "content". That's a rookie mistake because it's easy to see for a reader if you've spent too much time on the style and not enough on the content.

My recommendation would be to use some standard style that is neither exciting nor boring and use your time to focus on the content. Certainly expressions like "can easily devataste a good SOP" are entirely unwarranted.


Should I mention at my PhD interview that I already got an offer from a first university?

If A is your first choice, accept the offer and withdraw your other applications. If You would prefer to attend C, tell them (C) you have an offer from A but that you would rather attend C.


Is it acceptable for university to ask for detailed financial report?

I'd say those details are a bit too detailed for comfort, especially for a graduate admission programme. However, the technical rationale behind could be that they might have some consideration for scholarships based on the financial details you provide. In the end, it is your decision.

If you are still concerned about the necessity of those details, you may request the respective department of the University for a clarification of the reason behind them.


Did scopus choose not to add my paper (from an accepted journal) or did something go wrong?

Something probably went wrong. It shouldn't take this long to index.

I would contact the journal / publisher and ask. It's possible your article "did not pass" some criteria, but those aren't fixable by you - the criteria is probably something like "we need your files in this format and the publisher did not provide it".


Is it possible for a research article to be informative and ground breaking without referencing any other work?

I know of exactly one peer-reviewed research paper with no references at all.

  Mark H. Overmars and Emo Welzl. The complexity of cutting paper.  Proceedings of the [First Annual] Symposium on Computational Geometry, 316–321, 1985.

Here is a screenshot of the references section:

According to Google Scholar, this paper has been cited 29 times.

So yes, it is possible, for the right value of "ground-breaking", but extremely rare.


How to become a visiting student in a UK University

There's no simple formula, and each university will have its own visiting student schemes. This being said, there are usually classic methods for visiting a UK university:

Enrolling in a degree

Obviously you can apply to be enrolled in a degree, pay your tuition fees and study for the degree in the UK. You can usually get a Visa via this mechanism (except for London Metropolitan University which is no longer allowed to issue visas by the UK Border Agency).

Duration: 1 to 4 years.
Cost: a lot. ~£4,000 to £10,000 for EU students, ~£20,000 for non-EU students.
Requirements: apply to target uni. Proof of academic competence required, usually good grades and a BSc/BA for a MSc/MA position.

Applying for an semester abroad as an Erasmus student

You can use the Erasmus Programme to visit a EU university as a EU student. Some non-EU universities located in Europe may also be eligible.

Duration: usually 3 to 6 months.
Cost: free, paid by your university and the EU's Erasmus mobility budget.
Limited scholarships available, usually ~€400 / month
Requirements: must apply to your uni of choice, selection process varies. Your uni often must have a prior agreement with the target uni.

Applying as an exchange student

You can apply outside the Erasmus scheme if you uni has an exchange agreement with the target UK uni.

Duration: usually 3 to 6 months.
Cost: depends on agreement, can be free or can requirement payment of tuition fees.
Requirements: depends on agreement.

Applying as a visiting research student.

You can get opportunities to visit foreign unis as part of your PhD, a bit like an internship. This is fairly common across the world.

Duration: 3 to 12 months.
Cost: free.
Requirements: must be enrolled in a PhD-level course, must have found a supervisor to welcome you in target uni.

Applying for an internship.

You can also join a uni as part of an internship programme, if a position is available in a research group. This normally does not involve any teaching, or in marginal amounts.

Duration: 2 to 6 months.
Cost: free.
Remuneration: depends on uni, not guaranteed... ~£330 per week in some London universities.
Requirements: there must be an internship position available, and you must be the best available candidate. You must work.

Applying for a volunteering position.

You can also join a uni as part of an internship programme, if a position is available in a research group. This normally does not involve any teaching, or in marginal amounts.

Duration: depends.
Cost: free.
Remuneration: none.
Requirements: there must be a volunteer position available, and the supervisor must agree to take you in. No deliverables required.


What are polite appellations for teachers in British universities?

Here's an answer based on my experience in the United States.  I don't know how well it generalizes to other countries, but some issues may be similar.

You can't go wrong calling someone Professor or Doctor unless you know for sure that it is inappropriate and they know that you know.

At the college level in the U.S., it's common to refer to your teacher as Professor X regardless of whether their official job title includes the word professor.  (The primary teacher of a college course is considered to be acting as a professor for that purpose, even if their official title is visiting scholar or postdoctoral associate or whatever.)  This may not apply to grad students, but it can cover just about everyone else.

When possible I'd avoid gendered titles like Mr. or Ms., and specifically Ms.  The issue is subconscious sexism: some people tend to use fancier titles to address men than to address women in comparable positions, and calling someone Ms. may make her wonder whether you are one of those people.  (If you are such a person, then you should mend your ways, and even if you're not you could still be mistaken for one.)

On the other hand, Miss and Mrs. are far worse than Ms., because they indicate marital status.  You should never address an academic as Miss or Mrs. unless she has explicitly indicated that this is what she prefers.


If someone has told you they are interested and to do it, where is the doubt? I say do it.

You can always send the professor an email saying that you have seen that the application deadline is over, and ask if they think you should still apply.

A lot of PhD offers have no academic deadline other than the funding deadline, very often you can just start whenever.


Has there ever been a pure mathematics thesis longer than 909 pages?

I am not sure that this is a good question, because the length of a thesis is obviously highly dependent on factors such as line spacing.

Having said that, it is possible to give a definitive answer to the question as written, even in the restrictive form asking about pure mathematics:

  Yes.

From MathSciNet:

  Lan, Kai-Wen Arithmetic compactifications of PEL-type Shimura varieties. Thesis (Ph.D.)–Harvard University. 2008. 1077 pp.

Here it is.


Is it advisable to have many clickable hyperlinks in an academic CV?

I agree: most academic CVs do not have a festival of hyperlinks.  I don't see a problem with it, unless -- as @Taladris says -- the large amount of hyperlinking creates clutter in the document.  For something like a CV, where the spacing on the page is highly adjustable, I would think that you could probably have even a highly hyperlinked CV and take a little care to make sure that it does not look too busy to the eye.

I can tell you though why I don't feel the need to hyperlink my CV (and I imagine the reason holds more generally).  It's simple: I also have a webpage, and anything which appears on my CV which could get linked to also appears on my webpage.  Further, the translation between the two is straightforward: I have a section of my CV listing papers, and I also have an immediately visible link to a subpage containing papers from my main webpage (which, as you can see, is no frills to say the least, but it seems to get the job done).

Although I am certainly no expert on the visual display of information, webpage design (you'll know that immediately if you clicked on the above link) or anything like that, it is my opinion that a webpage is a more natural medium to have clickable content than a CV.

I think every young academic should have a professional webpage.  If they do have one, I'm not sure that a heavily hyperlinked CV is necessary, although again I see no harm in it.


Junior academic jobs in the time of COVID-19

The road to the future is never smooth and upward trending. It is bumpy. In the current chaotic situation, expect chaos in the short term. Others, such as myself, have experienced career setbacks due to circumstances we can't control. I finished my doctorate at a time when the market for mathematicians was one of zero demand and massive supply. But over time, the bumps eased out for us. Perhaps, and we hope, they will for you also. But prediction of the future is an uncertain business riddled with errors among fantastic claims.

Unfortunately too many governments around the world are behaving incompetently, making everything worse. But in the long run, climate change will probably have a bigger effect than the current pandemic. And it is also being ignored by some governments.

However, unless we are willing to give up scientific study altogether and unless we are willing to give up educating the citizenry for the future, there is a lot of incentive to continue as we have as much as we can within the constraints that we see. Universities have many incentives to maintain their services and their structures. Most feel an obligation to faculty, students, society, and science itself. Those are strong positive forces.

The incentives, however, need to be met with action. We don't have answers yet to some important questions. One of the questions is how meaningful and complete we can make an education without face to face interactions. Another is how we can continue some sorts of research, say lab sciences, without physical labs staffed by researchers. These are hard questions. It will take some innovation. Conferences could, in principle, move to virtual space, just as "classroom" education is doing now.

Fortunately we are in a better place today than even 20 years ago with fairly ubiquitous internet communication. Some of the problems are probably solvable relatively quickly.

But we don't know how many students will seek higher education in the next couple of years. We don't know how taxing authorities will deal with funding education in the face of economic disruption. Some, but not all, signs are positive. But uncertainty is high. Budgets, needs for faculty, working conditions, etc. All in flux.

I suspect that the careers of people in your situation will be disrupted for a while, as mine was. But I also suspect that the situation will improve for you, though it may take some years to do so. Provided, of course, that we don't kill the planet along the way.

Try to find a way to be healthy and happy, even if your short term goals must change. Try to use the internet to stay connected. Try to stay as productive as possible given the constraints. Apply for what positions there are, and for positions that you might not have considered if times were better.


First, follow Tara Bs advice of reading such journals (this will help in choosing the appropriate one as well).
Second, try to describe your idea on a level of complexity, you would explain it to your grandparents in max 10 sentences (assuming they are no experts in your field). This gives you a nice outline of the most important concepts and context of the idea.
Now dig into the topics which are really relevant, and explain them in more detail. Keep the state of the art as short as possible (but demonstrate that you know the relevant literature).

Since you have no simulation results yet, your simulation system is the result of your paper. Therefore "methods" are the way you built your system and design considerations. In the results, you can show some data from pre-tests if available.

You should keep your major paper in mind, especially make sure, the full paper will not be regarded as self-plagiarism of the short paper. But if everything goes well, you can cite your short paper in the methods section of the long one.

In my field (computer science / informatics), one would often choose a conference paper instead of a short paper, but this really depends on your scientific discipline and strategy of your institute.


Why has the time spent studying declined so sharply in the United States over the the past few decades?

First, it is important to deploy your scientific skepticism in assessing this claim.  The source, after all, is the American Enterprise Institute, which is a political "think tank" that is explicitly dedicated to pushing a particular point of view.  Other key elements of its scientific record including taking tobacco company money to produce pro-smoking studies the 1980s and recent attacks on global warming.

There does, however, seem to be at least some difference there, and a deeper analysis of both the data and possible causes found that a major transition happened across the 1970s:

Expansion of the student population to include many more people who are working to support themselves, parenting, commuting long distances, etc., which means they cannot devote as much time, and
A shift in faculty requirements away from teaching and toward research, with a concomitant decrease in the amount of work that faculty are able to support asking from students.

From the early 1980s to today, however, the situation appears to have been more stable.


Is it better to publish a few papers in one journal, or one paper each in several (equally good) journals?

While I cannot state authoritatively that this is the case for all disciples, it is my experience that it does not matter.  Equally prestigious journals have equal prestige.  Moreover, while the reputations of the journals you publish in is certainly not irrelevant to your future career prospects, you should expect your work to be evaluated at a deeper level than just looking at journal names and citation counts.

If you want to pursue a research career, the people who will be considering hiring you are going to want to know about the substance and significance of your work.  What journals you publish in may be relatively low down on the list of things that they look at.  Hiring committees want to see clear explanations of why your work matters from your reference letter writers; and the committee members likely will read some of your publications for themselves and draw their own conclusions about the quality of your work.

For reference, when I was a post-doc, I published the vast majority of my papers in a single highly-regarded journal, and it was never an issue when I was looking for permanent faculty positions.  I do not think the issue of having too many publications in a single journal has ever come up in the search committees that I have been on either.


Scientific presentations - black or white?

Conferences tend to take place indoors in dimly-lit rooms.  Dimly-lit rooms are a good place to fall asleep.  Using a white background helps avoid this.  Also, dark text/lines on a white background are easier to read (I've seen more than one study showing this).

If you are going to be showing a lot of astronomy or fluorescence biology images, where the image is mostly black with some interesting colorful things in it, you probably want a black or dark background for at least those slides; at some point you should just switch over.  Also, if it is essential to understanding for the viewer to discriminate many shades of color, it's easier with a black background because you can use a wide variety of discriminable pastel colors that would be washed out to invisibility on a white background. You can't even use saturated yellow or cyan on a white background and expect it to be seen.

But for most scientific presentations there are good reasons for a light colored background.


Should graduate students who are graders help undergraduate students with homework?

This is really a question for the professor(s) in charge of the course. You can and should get specific direction from them.

However, just for background and context. A lone professor in a smaller class will find him/herself in this situation frequently. It is unlikely that it is wise to not answer at all, but also unwise to give such specific hints that student learning ceases and the student just follows directions.

But it may take some experience to be able to balance the needs (and also to keep the prof happy). In general, you can think about the question you were asked, and before answering it, ask yourself whether the student has an unmet need that generates that question. Do they have a misconception? Have they missed an important reading? Something. I suspect that it is generally fair to address those needs rather than "helping" them with the specific assignment. Even giving them an easier task that might help them understand where they are and why they are having problems might be suitable.

The base line is, don't get in the way of their learning just to help them complete a specific task.

But you might check even this advice with the prof. You might also cause more specific training to be provided to you are your fellow graders/TAs.


How can I progress with researching/working with profs with a bad transcript?

Honestly, you should take a step back and focus on your coursework first. Research experience is great and often necessary for graduate applications, but it's useless if you don't have good grades in upper-level classes. Focus on showing that you can do well in courses before worrying about adding research to your workload.

Also, excelling in an upper-level class is the probably the best way to connect with a professor and get a research opportunity at this point. If you can get to know a professor a little through class and office hours and impress them there, then it's much easier to ask them after the class is over about research opportunities. The key, however, is that you have to actually impress them, and no professor is going to be impressed by a C or even a B in their class.

It also helps if you are willing to work as an unpaid research assistant or similar. Getting funded positions as an undergraduate can be very difficult, especially in math since it's unlikely you will do any real work. But unpaid positions can still be very valuable and are much easier to obtain.


I have sometimes seen in the references an entry like:
...
[37] Professor Bigshot, Private Correspondence
...


First of all, you will spend virtually your entire career doing this (trying to remember stuff you forgot), so this is a question that's worth really working on. You'll hopefully receive a good few answers; try them all over the course of a year or two in different situations and choose the one that works.

My personal method is very similar to your (2); review the specific parts of the material that you need to know for that specific situation. In most cases, you'll find this to be sufficient for solving a particular problem. If you don't understand your material, then either Google the topic and try to read someone else's overview, or simply take a step back and go over the more fundamental material, working your way back up to the topic at hand.

Note that this will not work for situations where you need everything, such as interviews. For those, you'll want to read outlines and try to summarize contents for yourself. I've also gone back and looked at homework problems, which (assuming they were well-written assignments) can provide you with a good overview of the material that you need to know about the topic.


How to deal with a professor skipping his office hours?

Most faculty members state that they are available during their scheduled office hours or by appointment. If this is the case, then the most effective way for you to handle this situation is to send an email (or in-person) request for a short meeting outside of the regularly scheduled office hours.

If the request is declined, you may want to speak to the person in your department who is responsible for undergraduate education to let them know about the situation, and ask for help in resolving the situation.


How can I finish my algorithms research project in 3 weeks?

You won’t know if you can do it until you give it your very best shot. All we can say is that what you are asking about doing is very difficult. Some people might be able to cobble something together in 3 weeks. It won’t be as good as it might have been if they had, say, 3 months, but some rare very talented and hardworking people might produce something halfway decent.

Other people won’t come up with something good even in 3 months, or 3 years. It depends. We don’t know you, and we don’t know how hard this goal is.

I suggest that you give it your best effort. Even if you “fail” (in the narrow sense of not producing a minimum viable paper by the deadline), I believe it will be an educational and very rewarding experience to work extremely hard for the next few weeks in an attempt to meet this deadline. It will both advance your research substantially, which will yield some useful benefits in the future regardless of whether you meet this particular deadline, and teach you a lot about yourself and what you’re capable of. In my opinion, most people (especially younger, less established ones) use maybe 15% of their true intellectual capacity. Learning how to make the most of your potential is an incredibly important life skill that separates almost all successful people from everyone else, and trying to meet a crazy, impossible-looking deadline is a fantastic way to get on the path to acquiring this skill.

Finally, I don’t want to be guilty of giving you any more reasons to procrastinate by giving you long psychology blogs to read, but here is something that might give you a bit of hope/inspiration. Good luck!