Do universities notify failed candidates?

Generally, yes, they will let you know, but only after someone else has been chosen and they cannot proceed with your application any further.  But you won't be told that you are low on the list of people, nor likely to be told if you are just a "backup" candidate.

In the case in which the search is closed with no candidate at all, they may not notify everyone, but I think that varies.

There are exceptions, of course. And some places will have pretty strict rules and regulations about what is proper here.

If you think you are in the running and wonder whether you have been rejected, you can ask for an update on the state of the search. I, personally, wouldn't ask specifically about my own chances, but a general update will probably give you information you need to make other decisions.

There is a caveat here, I guess. If you are in the running for a position, but have other options and let them know that, they may give you more information. But the information is likely to be self serving. Something like: "You are high on our list of candidates, so don't lose heart."


Will your undergrad GPA affect your graduate GPA in US?


Should I review a Paper of NonSci journal

They want your free labor. I doubt that there is a real person at the journal who thinks your work is great. I would say no, without even bothering to answer this spam request.
If they actually sent you a paper and it looked really interesting to you and worth your time, then you could consider saying yes.
Neither answer will affect your reputation in any significant way.


How to properly claim credit for peer review?

The standard information to give is the journal's name and only this. As far as I recall I have never seen a CV that gives more details than that (mostly I know academic CVs of mathematicians).

I would not go as far as saying that it would be unethical to include more information, but it would seem unusual and the advantage is not very clear.

If you are concerned about the claim not being credible, I'd not worry too much about this. However, some journals and publishers offer certificates for reviewers. See for example this information about reviewer recognition at Elsevier

There may be exceptions to this if you happen to be involved in some very high profile reviewing endeavor, but if you reviewed a normal paper I'd just give the journal's name.


No, there are no general worldwide standards, other than "the examiners should be satisfied".

Your advisor is probably the best person to answer questions like this for your specific case.


What is the proper way to deal self plagiarism?

I'll assume you're wondering why your similarity level is still high.

With most courses, it is up to the professor. You might have a professor that would allow you to do something like this, but it's incredibly unlikely.

When assignments are submitted to TurnItIn, they are stored in an external database that your school unlikely has access to. This is something maintained by the company. This is why your originality checks appeared to remain the same despite transferring institutions. You might have some benefit to this, as your professor's "common sense" is pretty important when using something like TurnItIn; they'll basically have to review it and talk to you about it. However, if it's not random bits and bobs like citations and bibliographies, you might not be in such good graces.

As for what you can do about this, very little. Talk to your professor about re-using the old assignment. They're going to need to know about it regardless. However, my two-cents are that you shouldn't have bothered reusing an old assignment; most professors simply do not accept work that was done for a different course, regardless if it was your work or not. None of mine ever have, from recent memory.


Is it a negative that my PhD research has been in several unrelated areas?

To the degree that you do have a PhD thesis and some other work (that, more over, has been published), I would say it is a positive thing, not a negative one. It is a good combination of "breadth and depth" as one comment has put it. The general advice I have heard many times for long-term planning, is "the ideal is to try to distinguish yourself in two fields inside a discipline. One -everybody tries that. Three -and your image starts getting blurry". Or something like that (and with the caveat that "fields inside a discipline" may not mean the same thing for different disciplines).


Should non-native speakers get extra time to compose exam answers?

Disability conditions are applicable when there is an uncontrollable disadvantage that prevents the person fairly demonstrating their knowledge, skill and ability in the same timeframe.

This is not the case for a person who has and takes the option of moving to a country or region where their language proficiency is not sufficient to demonstrate knowledge or skill.

Such a person has the choice of developing their language skills to sufficiency or of simply studying at a university where the common language is one they are fluent in. They control the situation and therefore, it is their obligation to resolve it, not the assessor's duty.

Where these two groups intersect is a case rare enough that it should be handled on its own merits according to any applicable policy and law (which most likely will mean the extra time is given to account for the disability).


Author order when senior and lead author same person

I've been in a similar situation as a co-author in a paper where the corresponding and the senior author are the same. In this case, this author listed herself as the first author (since she made most of the work and wrote the paper) and the remaining co-authors were listed alphabetically. An important detail is that some journals allow or even require that you specify the contributions of each author.


If I believe a student lacks the preparation to pass, what should I say to them?

With only three weeks you can already tell they are bound to fail in five months? Yes, that is too discouraging.

There is a middle ground between "you will get an A" and "you will most certainly fail", i.e.,

  If you want to pass, you'll need to strengthen this and that and do a lot of exercises on the material of the class. I know August looks far away, but actually, it will come sooner than it seems, so I suggest you start working on this right away.

By assuring them they are going to fail you have discouraged them from even trying, and possibly planted a predisposition: they know they will fail, you know they will fail, so they will fail (or you will fail them, or they may think you graded them too strictly to fulfill your prophecy).

Your task as a teacher is to help them learn as much as possible, and at the end, assess if they have learnt enough and grade them. I was recently teaching some programming courses, and some of my students were really bad. I knew one of them wouldn't be able to finish the tasks on time, but he took a bunch of tutorials and painstakingly went through them, trying to understand every step of the way. At the end, he didn't know enough to pass, but certainly learned more than if he had just given up at the first try; and he knew that was a possible outcome.


How should an educational institute woo good faculty?

Money

First, there's very little way - I think - for a university to improve its standing across the board. Institutional reputation on the level of say, an Ivy League school, where everyone assumes each department must be excellent because they're at Ivy is a tall order, and one that I suspect is impossible.

But in a particular field (or a particular School)? Money. And the willingness to take risks. A few ways to help:

Find a few key faculty members. Established researchers with very solid reputations, and see if you can poach them. This might not just be a question of "how big of a check do we need to write"? There are other factors. A considerable bump in prestige. Quality of living perks. The chance to shape a promising new department in ways that you rarely get in established departments - a chance to be the formative voice in something.
Be looking for promising potential new hires. Maybe they're coming out of the universities you hired these key faculty members from. Maybe they're coming from top schools generally. A generous start-up package, extra lab space and internal funding, a generous tenure process - these are things that might lure top candidates away from a harder path at a more prestigious institution. It represents a risk for both parties - you might get a dud researcher with a good degree, and they might get a department languishing in obscurity. But if it works, it works very well for both.
Buy something big. Are there no Expensive Piece of Equipment equipped centers in the region? Become the people who have one.


How to provide an anonymous copy of work online?

I added the work to vixra.org which is similar to arxiv but with fewer boundaries. Maybe it does not have the reputation of arxiv, but i used it for anonymous uploading of my work.


Is a partial PhD a liability in a job search?

It's possible that they're not taking you as seriously as you would hope because they think you might want to make your PhD the priority and quit the job soon and return to academia. Or, they may see you as non-committal—one who jumps careers—and they are looking for somebody who will stay with them.

Also, software engineering is a hot field right now. There might be a ton of other really stellar applicants, so you might be facing stronger competition than you expected.

Of course, it does depend on a host of other factors, some of which are in your control and most of which are not.


What are the prospects of a Math Master student applying to Finance PhD programs?

Admissions for PhD programs at top-tier schools is hyper competitive, and I would imagine it to be even more for finance and economy. Admissions there get huge pools of applicants and they are spoiled in their choices. Applicants would come with these perfect GPA and GRE scores and crafted portfolios from top-tier undergrad programs and so on.

I would say, though, that you can apply and see. But do not limit yourself with top tier universities! You can always find 2nd-tier ones with fantastic research groups in some specific areas that might be of your interest. Do NOT choose where you want to do PhD solely based on the reputation of the university. There is more to it than that, you have to see the research group and their reputation and what journals/conferences they publish in, etc...

Also, here is a link for you to read. You might find it to be such a treat.
http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2013/05/if-you-get-phd-get-economics-phd.html


No reviews after 7 months of paper submission

Plenty of people have experienced the same situation. See e.g.

Submission review is taking too long

I submitted a paper five months ago. Should I wait a little bit more for a response?

Elsevier Review Speed

14 months waiting for first review time to go elsewhere?

In general: ask the editor pointed questions about what's happening to your paper. They might not be able to tell you when the reviews will be available, but they should be able to say things like "we've invited 4 reviewers of which 2 have declined". Ask them for that information, and perhaps when the review due dates are as well. With this information you can make educated guesses about how much longer it'll take to review your paper. If there's no sign at all that the article is being reviewed, then consider withdrawing and submitting your manuscript elsewhere.


Should I contact the journal because I am not receiving a response after a year?

Yes, after a year you should definitely write to the editor and ask for an update.

Production completed likely means that the paper is actually ready for immediate publication either in print or online. But check, nevertheless. Print, especially, takes a while to get out the door. But even online publication takes a while to move from staging to final servers.

But, yes, ask.


What do PhD researchers generally do when someone else solves their problem?

If you work in a "hot" area in some field this sort of thing is fairly likely to occur. A lot of other people are also looking to make advances simultaneously. This is what makes it "hot".

What happens for the degree depends on the local situation. In some fields and with some advisors it is a true setback and the student needs to either start over or continue on looking for "fresher" results. In other situations, the judgement might be that there is no problem and you just finish. But that assumes that your research is essentially done (not in the middle) and all you need to do is write it up. In those situations the degree might still be awarded.

I know of a case in which two people did the same work at the same time, independently of one another and submitted it to the same CS conference. It took faculties a year to determine that it really was independent work and both received degrees. Both students went on to become fairly prominent - and friends, I think. This was an example of a question being asked that was fairly "hot" and many people wanted to see it answered. So the independent searches was easily understandable.

But for a student in the middle of research, with few results so far, it is a setback. The first thing to do is to talk to your advisor about the options. It may be that a slight redirection will serve. It might be that an extension of the published paper will serve. The student presumably knows a lot about the (sub) field and so should be in a decent position to recover, though it may add time to the quest. But starting over on a new problem should be only the last resort considered.

But it doesn't mean failure in any sense. The student was on the right track, at least. If you are really doing research, there is no schedule for when the results appear. It is a reach into the unknown.

With the consent of the advisor it might even be worth forming a collaboration with the other authors. That might work better in some fields than in others.


Is it possible to do a Master's and PhD at the same time?

In most European countries you can be considered for a PhD position only if you have already a master in a related field.

I also think that doing a master and a PhD at the same time will be too much work for one person.


Withdraw submission due to lack of referees

Some reviewers reply to invitations slowly or not at all.  Worse, some reviewers initially promise to review, then later change their mind (there can be good¹ or bad reasons for this).  Worst, some initially promise to review but are then never heard from again.  The job of the (associate) editor is to somehow handle all of this, and since reviews are voluntary there's very little the editor can do.

I was recently a reviewer on a paper that was slow.  The review of my co-reviewer never materialised, and other invitees either ignored the invitation or declined.  After several months, the editor, fed up, sent out 17 invitations in a single day.  6 declined the same day.  6 declined up to 2 weeks later.  4 never replied.  1 accepted and delivered the review.  Ultimately, the discussion phase was extended almost 3 months beyond what was originally planned.

Bottom line: don't read too much into the review being slow.  Although some publishers communicate some details to authors, most don't.  Just wait.  Solving this problem is the editor's responsibility, not yours.

¹A colleague agreed to review a paper (his first) based on the abstract.  When he received it it was almost 100 pages long.  I think he sent it back with a short note along the lines of I can't review this, please shorten it or write a book instead.  I don't know what happened to the paper in the end.


Informal Meeting with Prospective Mentors at a Conference - How to Prepare?

Be knowledgeable: know the mentors’ research papers and themes.
Be curious: prepare a few good questions to ask the mentors. Get them to talk about themselves (there’s nothing professors love more than talking about their work!)
Be forward thinking: what would you do to improve their work? What do you bring to the table? What good ideas do you have? You don’t need a 5-step research program, but you definitely need to show you can suggest good directions for future work.
Be relaxed: or act like it. appearing nervous, profusely apologizing at every turn, being overly subservient etc will make you look bad. Talk to them like an equal. If your prospective mentor has such a fragile ego so that they need you stroking it, they’re probably not fun to work with.

Good luck!


Ask thesis supervisor for permission to include his name as co-author of a journal paper and risk being denied?

It sounds like you need to consider three distinct issues:

Trade secrets / copyright: Is the data truly yours to publish? I am not a lawyer, but depending on location, type of employment and contracts / NDAs you may have signed, the simple fact that you took the readings and acquired the data might not make you legal copyright holder. What you may need - given that the organization in question is notoriously protective or even over-protective of their data - is permission to publish by the head of that institution, even if you do not intend to publish the entire data set but merely results derived from it. Formulations like notoriously protective make it seem highly advisable to look through any formal papers you may have signed prior to starting there.
Academic integrity: Even if advisors seem to have very little to do with a project, they still may have provided guidance or maybe even just the opportunity to acquire data (as in, they did the work of putting together equipment necessary to acquire the data). In those cases, it is still necessary to put the supervisor in the author list.
Affiliation: Putting the organization in the affiliations is - as far as I understand the situation - necessary, because without their equipment / setup, you could not have collected the data. Think of the CERN or DESY: Sure it's you spending the night on site when you have beam time, but you'd still put that organization in the affiliations.

I may be mistaken, but your question sounds like you feel that academic integrity warrants putting your advisor as co-author, but if you do that, people might notice that you publish work based on data acquired at that institute. And that institute might object to you publishing that data, hence you'd rather avoid "waking sleeping dogs". If that's the case, i.e. if people at the institute could object to you publishing the data, you should ask before publishing.
If it turns out they'd rather not have you publish but have no legal way to keep you from publishing, there's no harm in asking and you can always publish anyways. But if they have legal means to keep you from publishing, just publishing anyways could be a very bad idea with potentially serious consequences for your reputation and your career (plus perhaps penalties to be paid, but again, I'm not a lawyer).
Email your supervisor, ask them how to proceed. It is very likely you're not the first who wishes to publish somthing based on research done there.


Shall I contact multiple faculty members in one department?

If you are interested in the research topics of several members of a department, you can contact all of them. Everyone knows that people apply to several topics and several universities. You should always make sure that each message is "personalized" and explains why you are interested in that particular topic. Generic emails are more likely to be ignored.

If the recipients are likely to talk to each other (as is the case when they are in the same department), I would mention in the emails that you have contacted some other members of the department. They will probably find it out anyway, and it looks more honest if you say it in advance.


Do you know if Science/Nature/PNAS accept review articles that are not invited and do not contain original research?

Nature Review articles do not need to be invited. And review articles are often not "original research". Nature Reviews http://www.nature.com/reviews/index.html accepts these. So the answers to your questions are "yes" and "yes"


Studies on lost teaching hours due to USA Affordable Care Act?

While the requirement of "adjunct faculty" likely makes this too specific to have a study done looking at this, that doesn't mean we can't at least drawn some expected inferences from wider observed market forces and more general studies.
It's a "known issue" that the 30-hour requirement is resulting in some people having their work hours reduced so they don't count as full time. Back when the Affordable Care Act was not even passed yet there were employers - especially restaurants and other low-wage institutions - stating explicitly that this is what they'd be doing. So without a study, we'd explicitly expect this to be one effect of the law
As for studies seeking to quantify the effects, there are some, such as Effects of Federal Policy to Insure Young Adults:
Evidence from the 2010 Affordable Care Act’s
Dependent-Coverage Mandate. On page 23 we see:

Our data allow us to investigate the effects of the federal mandate
on whether young adults report working, whether they report working
full-time (30 hours or more), their weekly work hours, and their rate
of job turnover. We also examine the impact of the mandate on their
work schedule flexibility by evaluating the probability that young
adults have work hours that vary from week to week.
Our results,
starting with the first column of Table 7, show no statistically
significant evidence that the mandate affected the probability of
employment of young adults. Since the receipt of ESI is usually tied
to full-time work, we examined this measure next and find that the law
is associated with a reduced prevalence of full-time work by close to
2 percentage points (roughly 5.8 percent) during the period after
implementation began, relative to pre-ACA enactment. We also find
statistically significant evidence for a reduction in hours of work
(about a 3 percent reduction); these effects are statistically weaker
when we examine log hours as the dependent variable.

So this isn't a specific study to adjuncts, and this study specifically looks at young adults who aren't so likely to be adjunts, but without a specific study we are certainly permitted to assume that this is a real effect of the law - some people will see a cut in pay/hours so as to avoid having to be provideded benefits.


Are grad school acceptance rates skewed?

Acceptance rates are nearly meaningless as isolated numbers, for exactly the reason you describe.  They are averaged over the entire applicant pool, and therefore they imply very little about any particular applicant's chances.

If you are trying to estimate your own chances of admission, then you need more information.  If you attend a school that regularly sends students to a given university, then you can form a decent estimate based on feedback from faculty and comparisons with your peers.  Otherwise it's harder to predict.  At top grad schools, it really depends a lot on what your recommenders say, how seriously the admissions committee takes their letters, etc.  You may have a faculty mentor who can help you arrive at a good estimate, but you'll get at most a crude approximation from grades, GRE scores, counting REU publications, etc.

  So is grad school really that hard to get into (If you are on top of your game)?

For people who are genuinely on top of their game and have made sensible decisions about where to apply (based on their accomplishments), getting into grad school is not that hard.  They might not be admitted to their dream schools, but they'll be admitted somewhere reasonable.  On the other hand, thinking you're on top of your game doesn't imply that you are.

This makes it difficult to give universally applicable advice.  Some applicants should stop stressing out and have faith that it will work out OK in the end, while others need to start worrying and rethinking their plans.  We end up back in the same situation as with admission rate statistics: it all depends on your personal circumstances.


The Manual Way
Microsoft Word supports hyperlinks within documents. For instance, in the version of Word I have (Office Professional 2016), when I attempt to add a hyperlink (1), the menu gives me the option of hyperlinking a "Place in This Document."

If you use styles to designate text Headers in Word, you will see those listed under "Headings" and can use those as links. Alternatively, you can set Bookmarks in Word (2), and then use hyperlinks to point to those bookmarks.
So you would need to set bookmarks for each reference and then put hyperlinks at each in-text mention. It's time consuming, but it works, and these links are even preserved if you're eventually saving to PDF.
(1) You can add a hyperlink by selecting text or a point in the document and (a) right-clicking and selecting Hyperlink; (b) navigating from the top menu - Insert -> Hyperlink; (c) using "Add a Hyperlink" from the search function; (d) pressing Ctrl + K.
(2) You can add a bookmark by selecting text or a point in the document and (a) navigating from the top menu - Insert -> Bookmark, (b) searching for "Insert a Bookmark" from the search function, (c) pressing Ctrl + Shift + F5.
The Macros Way
If you want the functionality to be friendly with Mendeley, you may need a third-party solution like mabentwickeltsich's Mendeley Macros on GitHub, which works for APA and IEEE. For this and other third-party tools, you would want to read the user documentation and make sure you understand what it's doing. That said, they do automate the process.


Should a student mention about contacting a faculty in a SOP even if the faculty has not replied yet?

I would recommend against mentioning e-mail contact with faculty unless you've had a substantive interaction, one that leads you to believe they would remember you and support your application.  In particular, you don't want someone on the admissions committee to mention to a colleague "So, I hear applicant X has been in touch with you; what was your impression?" and receive the reply "I have no idea who that is."

If there has been no reply to your e-mail, you could still indicate interest in your statement of purpose ("Based on my interests in X and Y, I envision Professors A and B as possible advisors.").  This would help classify the application and indicate who should look at it, without setting up the expectation that they will already know who you are.


Bad recommendation letter from previous postdoc adviser

When applying for your first tenure track job most search committees will expect that your PhD supervisor and current supervisor will be amongst the N letters of recommendation that you provide. While having your PhD supervisor and current supervisor write letters is not a strict requirement their absence would be noticed. The other letters can come from anyone that knows you well and is experienced enough to write letters for a TT position. There is no expectation that you have letters from all supervisors that you worked with.

That said, you should talk with your current supervisor about the possibility of getting a letter. There maybe some positions they are willing to recommend you for and there may be cases where you need N+1 letters and you only have N.


Is it acceptable to use non-English references in a computer science paper?

Having many non-English references is absolutely no valid reason to reject a computer science paper.

If a reader wants to follow up on the references, they can learn some German, find a translator, etc. But this is the responsibility of the reader, not the author.


I have PhD degree in Mathematics. Can I get a research supervisor for another PhD?

There are some places that would forbid this and others probably permit it. But there are better options, such as a post-doc or even a paid faculty position somewhere. Earning another degree won't do anything for you that further study won't. But you can get that study while working, even in your current position.

What you really need is a relationship with one or more other professors in your field with whom you can work and extend your knowledge. You want colleagues, not supervisors. International cooperation is even possible these days if travel is difficult.

But two PhDs in the same field seems to me, at least, to be spinning your wheels.


Prospect of pro-bono/voluntary work with current advisor after graduating with PHD

I think it really depends on how long you plan to work without salary. If you apply for some grants in the next months, and you'll get the answers for instance in February 2012, I guess it's ok to work without salary for a couple of months, but only because you're expecting something specific. But I wouldn't recommend being in such a situation if there are no concrete expectation, because, in addition to the fact that you might need money to live, it can also be psychologically difficult, for both your advisor and yourself (maybe it's just me, but I would feel bad asking someone to do some work without any salary, even if this person is willing to).

You say that visa regulations make it difficult to move from one country to another, I don't know which country you come from, but having a PhD usually makes the process quite easier, especially coming from the US. You still have more than 6 months to find a postdoc, you would be better off with trying to get a job somewhere, meet new people, do something different and in the mean time, work with your current advisor on a proposal that would allow you to come back with some funding. An important aspect of a postdoc is to demonstrate your ability to cut the apron strings with your advisor, and to show that you can work with other people.


Fair use and copyrighted materials explicitly stating not to use

This is fairly standard boilerplate in UK-published books. You'll probably find that all books from this publisher have identical text, with gentle shifts in phrasing over the years as they refine it.

This statement is effectively saying "to be clear, we don't give you permission to do any of the things that the law requires you to have permission to do, and you can't pretend you didn't know this". However, it will not prevent you doing anything you would otherwise have been allowed to do as reasonable fair use/fair dealing/etc by local copyright law - generally speaking, the publisher cannot prevent such use.

Incidentally, "other means, now known or hereafter invented..." is a relatively new addition - it's a reaction to ebooks! I have a collection of essays where the editors were feeling playful and added "or magical" in here...


Are there any differences between Master's admissions and Ph.D admissions in the US?

The difference is huge, at least in my field, computer science.  Master's programs are typically money-makers, with students paying full tuition.  Some programs are purely coursework; others require Master's theses or projects.

In contrast, PhD programs accept many fewer students, none of whom pay tuition, instead receiving stipends paid for by fellowships, teaching assistantships, and research assistantships.

Because of the difference in the size of these programs and who pays whom, PhD programs are far more selective.


Empirical evidence on the relationship between GRE scores and post-graduate performance

There is a massive meta-analysis by Kuncel et al (2001) that empirically evaluates the correlations between various aspects of the GRE with multiple post-graduate performance criteria.

Based on hundreds of studies and thousands of participants, GRE shows  reasonable correlations with post-graduate GPA (i.e., around observed r = .21 to r=.43). Similar correlations emerged between GRE and faculty ratings of the student.

Correlations of GRE with research productivity and publication citation counts were smaller, but still positive. This is not surprising given that these are more distal outcomes and there are many non-academic reasons why people may or may not pursue an academic career or have publishable results.

The authors thus concluded that GRE was a valid predictor of a wide range of graduate outcomes. They also noted that "subject tests tended to be better predictors than the verbal, quantitative, and analytical tests."

In general, selection decisions are assisted by standardisation, and a big part of academic achievement involves measuring baseline ability. Thus, the GRE combines both standardisation and competence measurement.

Response to comments

There have been a few points made in other answers and in comments, which I'll comment on here:

Conflict of interest:  @msw wrote that they "consider the cited paper to be junk because ETS provided all available data". In general, I don't find the results in the meta-analysis surprising. Most tests like the GRE tend to have fairly strong correlations with general cognitive ability. It is well established through thousands of independent studies that IQ scores correlate fairly well with both school grades and job performance (i.e., in the r=.50 range; see Neisser et al 1996 for a field consensus review). The results show correlations less than .50, but that's not surprising given some of the issues around standardisation, practice, range restriction, domain specificity and so on.
Belief there is no correlation based on personal observation: Note that if the correlation is around .20, that means that 4% of variance has been explained. That leaves a huge amount of variance in performance to still be explained. It would not be surprising to meet many people that did well on GRE and poor in graduate school or vice versa. Thus, it is problematic to rely on personal experience when it comes to evaluating the validity of tests where such correlations are likely to be only modest.
Small correlations are useful: While a .20 correlation is small, it can still help make selection decisions. In particular, when evaluating the suitability of selection tools, you need to contrast the validity of a given tool with other available tools (e.g., interviews, GPA, references, and so on). I'm not as familiar with results in the graduate selection domain, but certainly in the employee selection domain, which is quite analogous, cognitive ability tests tend to correlate more highly than interviews, references and so on (for a comprehensive meta analysis of employee selection, see Schmidt and Hunter, 1998). That said, the best selection decisions are typically obtained by integrating multiple selection tools. Furthermore, the small correlation also should highlight to individuals who score poorly on the GRE that it is not that predictive, and therefore it shouldn't discourage an individual from pursing post-graduate study.
Does training invalidate the GRE?: @user8134 wrote "many people significantly improve their GRE scores by taking courses with prepping companies like Kaplan. So it seems GRE test does not measure any intrinsic ability/talent necessary for grad. school." I agree that individual differences in training and preparation for the GRE may influence test scores. That said, if you characterise test scores to be determined by true ability, training, and error variance, then I would expect that true ability would remain the much larger source of explanation in test scores. This is based on general observations about testing for ability based assessment. In general, the degree to which training is an issue would depend on how much the test materials teach to the specific test. Overall, I would assume that this would reduce the potential validity of GRE, but that the GRE would still be useful. Furthermore, training and nuisance factors can be used to do better on many selection instruments. For example, people can be coached on how to frame their CV or how to answer questions in interviews. Such training is potentially a source of error variance, but it doesn't invalidate CVs and interviews completely.
Why would anyone care about post-graduate GPA? (@JeffE) @JeffE further notes " in PhD programs, the only thing that really matters is the student's research output.".  Some post-graduate courses include meaningful graded coursework and others don't. For the courses that do include meaningful coursework, then such coursework provides a more standardised way of measuring post-graduate performance. So the validity of GRE  in predicting  such outcomes is not surprising. And thus, presumably we could generalise this to being indicative of how people perform in less standardised aspects of post-graduate performance. Of course, there's an inferential leap here, but in general, performance in related domains tend to correlate (e.g., coursework in mathematics with research performance in mathematics); it's not perfect, but it's still a positive correlation. Furthermore, if the validation study includes some post-graduate coursework where everyone gets top marks and such data is mixed with studies where grades are valid measures of performance, this would only serve to attenuate the observed correlation. Thus, this would suggest that the correlation between GRE and post-graduate GPA is higher than reported by the meta-analysis. Also, the meta-analysis does report correlations with research output and they are weaker but still positive. It also reports correlations with supervisor ratings.
Better alternatives to GRE: None of my comments above are necessarily advocating the use of the GRE. Developing an effective selection and recruitment system whether it be for employment or post-graduate admission is a complex task. That said, most post-graduate selection systems would want to get a reliable and valid measure of academic aptitude. GRE, IQ tests, other ability tests, undergraduate GPA, all have reasonably validity evidence. And in general standardisation and efficiency are important. So, for example, administering your own selection tools takes more time, whereas taking pre-existing measures like GPA and GRE is more efficient.
Ethics of requiring applicants pay money to complete GRE: Several people are critical of the GRE on the basis that it costs several hundred dollars to complete. I think that this is a perfectly legitimate question, but that the question of predictive validity can be answered separately. Such a fee could potentially discriminate against low income applicants. That said, presumably the fee in comparison to forgone wages associated with completing a post-graduate degree is fairly small.

References

Kuncel, N. R., Hezlett, S. A., & Ones, D. S. (2001). A comprehensive meta-analysis of the predictive validity of the graduate record examinations: implications for graduate student selection and performance. Psychological bulletin, 127(1), 162. PDF
Neisser, U., Boodoo, G., Bouchard Jr, T. J., Boykin, A. W., Brody, N., Ceci, S. J., ... & Urbina, S. (1996). Intelligence: Knowns and unknowns. American psychologist, 51(2), 77. PDF
Schmidt, F. L., & Hunter, J. E. (1998). The validity and utility of selection methods in personnel psychology: Practical and theoretical implications of 85 years of research findings. Psychological bulletin, 124(2), 262. PDF


Why do potential reviewers take a lot of time to reject the request for review?

In addition to the Kerkyras answer, here is what happens all the time when I receive an invitation:

The potential reviewer needs to find the time to skim the paper to form a well founded decision to accept or decline to review.

I want to accept a review when I am sure that I have the expertise and time to do a good review. It takes about 2 minutes to decide if I have the time for a review (usually my conclusion is "no"), but to decide whether I have the expertise is more complex (and if the answer here is "yes", I often agree to review, even if the answer to the former question was "no"…). Hence, a basic skimming of the article is needed and this may take some more minutes. Some days (or even weeks) are extremely busy such that finding just 10 minutes to skim a paper is hard.


How much does video broadcasting on youtube benefit you academic life?

A publication will get you more than such a tutorial. It is unlikely that the video or the tutorial will be cited. I don't think it will help you in formal competitions. However, much competition is informal. Say you make your videos/manual and they are used. Next time you go to a conference you'll notice that will come to you just to see what Electricman looks like in real life. You'll be noticed and that can snowball. However, you need to make a trade-off. This is a rather "soft" benefit and there is no guarantee that it will happen.

My experience along these lines is the following: I have shared a lot of tips on another statistical package because I liked doing that (some people have weird hobbies). Only later I noticed that it also benefited me (the last two jobs I received were definitely helped by my presence in this community). So if you like making videos and explaining things and you would do this as a hobby, then by all means go ahead and use the idea that it might also benefit you later on as an excuse to spend a bit more time on it (but not too much!!!).


What to do when asked to do something that seems unethical by a co-advisor which might result in losing credit for my work

You shouldn't start a fight with your coadvisor, but you shouldn't let them push you into an ethical compromise, either. (Or perhaps into a deeper ethical compromise — most instructors expect course projects to be the work of the students, not the students and their advisors.)

If you're not comfortable hiding details from your class/instructor, say so. Directly and professionally, without accusing him of shady behavior. Exactly as if your coadvisor were a responsible, ethical, adult human being.

  he refused to write me a recommendation letter to prevent me from leaving the university

This is where I would normally write "Walk away". Your coadvisor is using you. Fortunately, it looks like you've already figured that out.

  Moreover, I intend to leave the university for PhD somewhere else

Good.

  (he doesn't know that yet)

Not so good. Why are you keeping this a secret?


First of all, congrats! I don't have a full understanding of your situation, and my field of study isn't the same, but these might be some questions which might help you rank your options:

What's your post-graduation plan? Do you plan to get a PhD or start working after you finish your MSc? Knowing what you want to do with the degree will certainly help you see joining which university/lab will take you closer to your goal.
It's a research-based MSc: how much do you know about the lab you are going to be working with? Have you talked to the PIs of those labs personally? Can you request a brief online meeting with the lab members? Are they happy with the lab culture? What are former students from those labs doing now?
In my opinion, the alignment of your research interests' and the lab's, and the lab culture are the most important.


When is it right to send an email when a conference misses its deadline?

It's fairly frequent, particularly for smaller or less tightly run computer science conferences, for the response to authors to slip back by a few days.  Often, this is because some reviewers may not have sent their reviews in on time, and if the program committee isn't proactive about scheduling for slippage and having backups available, it may take them a few extra days to get enough reviews to decide on those papers.  This then is likely to delay responses for all of the papers, because both the organizers and the conference software wants to sent all of the notifications at once.

So, to your question of what to do:

If you know anybody else who sent in a paper, compare notes with them.  If they haven't heard yet either, no worries.  If they have heard, then you can email immediately.
If you don't know somebody else, give it a week, and then ask.


Detailed navigator for UK Computer Science Master's?

So, is there a specialised computer science master's course ranking
  website with a column for “philosophical direction” or some kind of
  “business vs academic career” weighting?

No. While it would be nice if there was a system that you could enter your definition of "best" and it would spit out the school for you, it just doesn't exist. While it probably is not a fair system, if you want the "best" according to your grandmother's definition, you probably want to limit yourself to the Russell group. You could also look at the 2008 RAE for what HEFCE thinks is the "best". You can also use league tables. The best approach would be to actually define what you mean by "best". Factors you may want to include are location, course size, research component, course work, faculty, and reputation.


Advising students taking part in a competition: how to provide direction, but not to contribute?

I have only worked as a TA to help students on an individual exercise basis, but I think the idea is kind of similar to this. In the case of a competition like this I can only speak from my role as being supervised.
However, I would say that the most important thing is to ask questions, such as "Why do you think that step X that you propose here would be a good step?" or "What results do you expect by doing this thing Y you're doing?". This should make them think about what they are doing in this competition and why they are doing it.

Regarding the presentation, you can of course always give them advice about how to present, how to style their slides, and how to convey the information they are presenting in an efficient way.

All in all, with most things you help them with, just ask yourself if you're telling them how to do it. If not, you're probably fine I guess.


How to quote bulleted lists using IEEE style?

Put it in a block quote and cite it like you would any other quote. The fact that it's a bulleted list doesn't necessarily  make it special.


I believe that double majors are for the most part a waste of your valuable time. This is coming from someone who did a double major. Man do I wish I could go back in time and take out some of the boring classes I took just to satisfy the beuracratic requirements of my second major for more interesting graduate and upper level classes of my choosing (some of which actually being in that major's field) and more time spent on extracurricular research/internship projects.

My advice. Outside of the first major, take the classes that interest you. If that allows you to get a second major or minor, great! If you have to take a bunch of basic classes that don't interest you just to satisfy the requirements of the second major, don't do it!

Usually you can use a personal statement or CV to show people that you are the right one for the job or graduate program you want. Degrees in Applied Physics and Computational Physics are close enough that it shouldn't matter if you do go the double major route (I'd lean towards applied Physics given your interests though, comp physics doesn't say much more than your CS degree already does). However, in my opinion if you are set on C.S. and are just looking to do something related to the physical sciences/engineering, I would get a C.S. degree and then take a bunch of physics classes that interest you and build a portfolio of physics related projects you have worked on. Maybe apply to physics REUs that sound exciting. Many schools have undergrad research projects on electric, hydrogen and solar vehicles, so look for those if thats what excites you, and if your university doesn't have them look for summer opportunities that do.

I'd say for at least 90% of students, a double major is a bad idea. I'd discourage it!

Note there are some cases where a double major may be a good idea. Say your first major is History and its your love and passion, but midway through school you realize that you likely won't get a good job with that major. Getting a second major may be important in this situation because the fields are almost complete opposites, but if the majors are somewhat related I still hold on to my general opinion.


Cons of putting accepted paper on arXiv?

It's really hard to find cons. If I were forced to list some, I'd say:

people get to see your LaTeX source. If it contains secret macros or unflattering comments that you forgot to delete, the whole world sees them. It is also possible that they contain other copyrighted material that you do not have the right to distribute, such as a commercial font. (In my experience, no one will look at your LaTeX source anyway).
Arxiv gets rights to distribute your paper online, forever. This may conflict with copyright rules for your future publications. For instance, you may want to insert content from the paper into your thesis, and then publish your thesis as a book with a publishing house that wants full 100% absolute exclusive rights. (In my experience, respectable publishing houses don't.)
Your publication agreements or grants may mandate additional requirements when you publish your work. For instance: provide a reference to the journal version, or acknowledge the National Institute of Funding Grant 1234567890. If you forget about them, trouble may ensue. (In my experience, it hardly ever does).


Is there a place in academia for researchers who write only white papers?

How is it possible that so many white papers are accepted for conferences and publications and their authors can still work in the academia?

Technical reports (including white papers) are used for early dissemination. Any such document that is subsequently published is as valuable as a published work that wasn't released early.


Should you justify or left-align text when writing?

Look for the specification and implement it.

In your particular case, your teacher specified that she prefers justifying, so you should act accordingly, since she is the one who will grade your essay.

Later in your academic career, you may come into situations where the format is specified by an institution rather than an individual person, for example, a journal or a funding agency.


SoP for applying CS PhD program with research experience that is not my interest

In my own SoPs I wrote about my past experience and how it informed what I wanted to do in the future. For me in particular, I had done some computational research and some bench work unrelated to neuroscience, but I wanted to do some more wet biology in neuroscience. I wrote about how those relatively unrelated pieces of experience would apply to what I wanted to do next. I think it makes a lot more sense in a statement of purpose to talk about what you want to to study and learn rather than only what you've already done. If I said "I've been growing walnuts my whole life and I want to do this PhD to grow more walnuts" - that might be great in a job application to be a walnut-farmer, but if I read that in someone else's SoP I'd wonder why they were after a PhD and if they had any idea what a PhD actually was.

Presumably in your work with machine learning in computational neuroscience, you've learned about some of the benefits and limits of machine learning in that domain. You now know a bit what it's like to work with those tools, and you'd like to apply them to a new problem. Presumably, in a CS PhD, you'd be expected to do more work developing the tools rather than just applying them. That seems like a pretty straightforward SoP to me.


Applying to Ph.D. programs: Should I include my master's degree transcript?

You do need to include your Master's transcripts when applying for a PhD.
Aside from the academic dishonesty issue of not including your transcripts, having taken many of the core courses at the graduate level will make you a more attractive candidate, as they will know that you do not need to take remedial coursework before beginning doctoral-level studies.  Having the Masters will also make it a lot easier to get teaching assistantships, since those often go first to those who already have Master's degrees.  Your letters of recommendation, too, need to come from academic references for your PhD (not supervisors or coworkers or general character references), so you will need to get letters from your Master's degree professors that can speak to your potential/experience as both a researcher and as a graduate student.  So I would say a definitive yes to including the transcripts.

The second question you need to consider is about whether to address extenuating circumstances in your application.  I think it is helpful to address, but only insofar as it presents you in a more positive light; that your disability helps you to better understand the situations that your students face, that your health issues have helped to build your resilience so that you'll be capable of long term study and research, etc...  This might be especially important to include if you have obvious "red flags" on your transcript like withdraws or incompletes - so that they both know there's extenuating circumstances but also know that those same circumstances are not going to wash you out of the doctorate.  (Which is why you'd always want to portray those circumstances as an asset rather than a liability). So this one is a little more complicated and will require a lot of thought to deal with in your application statements.


Looking at the job market, they don't advertise for people 'who like solving problems'

I think you've already found the perfect way to advertise yourself! There are a lot of companies interested in people like yourself. Now, I'm not a mathematician, and I don't know the full details of your background, but it seems to me like there's plenty of problem solving going on in optimization situations. Since you say your background is in applied mathematics, there may be some overlap with econometrics, too.

And also: don't hesitate to contact companies who are searching for computer scientists if you like the vacancy. Ask them if they would be interested in interviewing someone with your skills palette, it never hurts to ask.


Are there any negative consequences associated with asking your former advisor about the status of a joint paper collaboration?

I see no problem with such a question.  Just phrase it in a non-pushy way, like:

  Hi, XXX: I just wanted to check in on the status of our paper, since we sent it to YYY for input a couple of weeks ago.  Do you know if YYY has gotten a chance to review it yet?


Is creating fully functional software considered to be a quasi experiment?

As undergraduate research, you mostly don't have the time, experience nor support to create a full fledge project from scratch. By that I mean creating original work in you field. Thus, given the scope of the project, implementing a software is a valuable exercice that can also be really useful for research. For exemple, in my domain (bioinformatics) there is a special issue of NAR (Nucleic Acids Research) solely devoted to webservers. The latest issue can be found here.

I think one of the big issues you are facing (in almost every field) is that the amount of knowledge you get when leaving the bachelors has been pretty constant for the past 50 years. At the opposite, the level of new research has grown exponentially in these time. Thus, the gap to create something new is constantly growing.


In my opinion references are transient. I would expect anybody asking for my reference to do so for each time the reference is requested. the reason is that I would want to know for what I am providing reference and also because I am keen to make the decision to be a reference under my own control.

Hence, i see no reason to provide references in a CV in some permanent way. For each occassion the CV will be used it will of course be possible to add names to the CV but then only for one-time use. It is after all not complicated to edit the CV.

To add a line "references are available on request" would be a big no-no for me (this applies to all aspects of, for example, an application, not just the CV). If you have an application, it should be complete and provide all material and information you want in support unless the application makes it clear some information should be added upon request.


Is it appropriate to copy a drawing from a book in my master thesis?

Well, to my eye this is a good case of improving the state of the art, of course citing appropiately your sources. It is the same as quoting from a book.

On the other hand, if the publisher is especially nitpicking, maybe you could just use a software editor to re-create the drawing (still sourcing!) instead of using the "edited" drawing from a book.


How to cite a conference paper in an "extended" journal version?

I write something along the lines of:

  This paper is an extended version of work published in [1]. We extend our previous work by A, B and C.

Note that some new figures etc. will probably not really count as new content (this would probably be called new presentation rather than new content). New findings and new data, that's what people will really be interested in.

One common pattern that I often see in my field is that the conference paper has most of the ideas in place, but a rather cursory evaluation. The journal extension then has the ideas of the conf paper + whatever input came out of discussions at the conference + a more or less large-scale validation. The "nucleus" of the paper is reproduced more or less in verbatim. To be fair, I am not sure if this is even ok from a copyright point of view, but it certainly is common practice in my field FWIW.


Is it ok to send an email informing about your new paper?

I think there are two important factors to keep in mind when writing unsolicited email, which could be taken as spam by the person who receives it:

Whether you believe, in good faith, that the receiver will find the information useful.  That test is not as easy as it may seem, because what seems obvious to you (“this guy in field Y will be happy that we're developing somewhat related concepts in field X that may generate a new vision of his field”) may not be to him (“why is this X specialist writing to me to promote his recent work I don't care about?”). Messages need to be tailored, so that people can immediately see how your paper can be of interest to them.
The frequency of such messages: if you write 5 papers a year on a given topic, and send a nice informative email each time, that is a lot of mail! Consider doing this only once in a while, maybe for high-profile articles or reviews.

Now, regarding whether it's accepted practice (and common practice): I receive a dozen such emails of this nature per year, from colleagues in my field, and every time I am actually interested in their paper. I have not yet received spam of that sort, i.e. notification of new papers I couldn't care less about (I receive lots of spam job applications, on the other hand).

I also do it myself, once or twice a year: sit back, think about my recent papers, and ask myself “what colleagues do I have that may be interested in this and that?”. Usually, I then write a few different emails, depending on the specific interests of the colleagues in question, so that the email is personalized. I also use that occasion to ask questions to them , if I have any of relevance, asking their opinion on recent developments (by them, me or other groups) in our field.


Have I offended my professor by applying to summer research at other universities?

Tell him that you do intend to participate as previously agreed, but that funding for the summer was an important consideration. If he is at all reasonable, then that should be enough. If he is offended, then he isn't being reasonable.
If he offers you summer funding, then consider that, of course, but he should have little controlling say over a volunteer.
Perhaps he values your work so much that he thinks losing you for the summer would be a blow. Alternatively, he is just a jerk. If he hasn't got a reasonable response, you should find a way to be done with him. What he did is unprofessional, probably unethical.


Would using 'they/them' in publication biographies stand out?

As a reader, familiar with the gender-neutral usage of they/them, I wouldn't consider it weird. Beware, however, of two facts:

Papers are read by international readers with different levels of English who may not clearly understand the usage.
Frequently copy editors (e.g. I'm familiar with IEEE on this) heavily edit the biographies to adapt them to the publishers' editorial styles: sometimes, I have found that in doing so the copy editor introduces significant errors (because e.g. they do not understand local information). So, if you submit a biography using the pronouns they/them check carefully the proofs and be prepared to ask for changes defending your choice.


How to choose between very good journals in mathematics?

Is there any reasonable way to use public data in order to sort them from best to worse?

Not really.  To start with, there isn't a remotely well-defined notion of ranking.  For example, it depends on the subfield (some journals attract better papers in certain areas than others), it can vary over time, and it depends on the specific goals you have in mind.  More importantly, people just don't always agree: I know some people who would argue that one of the journals you listed is clearly a better choice than the others, but they wouldn't all choose the same one.

The explicit rankings I've seen do a poor job of accounting for these factors.  At best they are mediocre (perhaps valuable as a first cut for distinguishing between journals at very different ranks, but useless for fine distinctions).  At worst they are positively misleading.

Fortunately, choosing between well-known journals like these is not so difficult.  You should look them over and try to gauge which ones look to you like they are publishing the most important papers in your area, while also asking around to get other people's opinions.  (Ask mentors of yours, ask your friends or collaborators, ask colleagues at tea.)  If there's a clear consensus among the people you ask and it's consistent with your own impressions, then you're done.  If there's a clear consensus that disagrees with your impressions, then you need to think and talk a little more.  If there's no clear consensus among several options, then it doesn't really matter which of them you choose.  After all, journal prestige matters only to the extent it is perceived to matter by the community; if the community can't make up its mind, then there is no right choice.

Carrying this out takes a little time, but it's worth it since you learn more about how things are perceived in your research area.


Can I send an email to the journal editorial board explaining a specific situation about the status of my paper?

Pragmatically speaking, you have nothing to lose! I don't think it's wrong, either, as your situation seems unusual. So the clear advice would be to send the email.

However, to maximize the chance that this is effective, I do think you should be clear that this is an extraordinary request. Don't expect or demand that they will be able to grant it, and be sure to thank them for taking the time to consider your email. If you are polite and to the point about what you need, I don't see how anyone could take it wrongly, but there could be some logistical, technical, or policy reason why changing the review status is not possible.


What type of paper is this and how should I input it into JabRef?

This looks like a conference paper to me, so "InProceedings" is appropriate.

The one you thought of, "Proceedings" is for the entire conference.  i.e. the book that contains every single paper from the conference, not just a single paper. That's why there is no author field, and the title field is for the name of the conference.

BTW, definition of the categories is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BibTeX


Is it advisable to self-advertise in conferences being on the job market

It is ok, but it may not be ideal.  Academia often frowns upon open self-promotion (more than it probably should, in my opinion), and flat out saying that you're on the market in a public presentation seems a little...well, "desperate" is too strong, but the next thing, perhaps.

Some thoughts about how/when/whether to do this:

Cultural nuances can vary in very subtle and localized ways.  If you are going to a big conference in your profession or field, there must be other people there who are on the job market.  Look to them and see how they are behaving: is anyone else advertising their availability in their presentations?  If not, maybe don't do it yourself without an especially good reason.  If so, look to the audience members and see how they're reacting.  A little face-reading will probably tell you whether people are happy to hear this kind of information.
Consider trying to disburse this information slightly less directly.  For instance, ending a talk with something like "Please come talk to me if you're interested in X [or, by implication, me].  I would be very interested to take these things further."  Then, when someone talks to you one-on-one or in a small group, you can work the fact that you're on the market organically into the conversation.
Whenever you go to a conference and you're on the job market, concentrate on making meaningful academic and social connections with people, especially potential employers.  Don't prioritize selling yourself directly.  If they meet you and like you and your work, you can follow up later by letting them know you're on the market.  And you should.


Does it violate academic social norm to email someone around midnight?

The good thing (maybe the only good thing) about email is that it's by nature asynchronous. A phone call in the middle of the night is intrusive, because there is an explicit expectation that the receiver does something about the call right there and then. An email is not like that - if you send an email, it will happily sit in the inbox of the recipient until they explicitly take an action to react upon it. Consequently, it does not matter when you send the email.

  I imagine a scenario where a phone that is linked to gmail rings due to my email, and that wakes up the person I intend to email.

This is, in my opinion, not a valid concern. First of all, the kind of person who is annoyed by getting disturbed by email outside of work hours has a very easy fix to the problem - turn off notifications. In my opinion, if you explicitly have notifications enabled you can't at the same time be annoyed that you get notified.

Second, you'll need to understand an almost universal basic truth - starting from a certain seniority, most people in academia get a lot of email. Hundreds per day, in some cases. Many of these emails will come in during the night. If you wake up every time you get an email from one of your collaborators on a different continent, you won't get much sleep at all. So your email is highly unlikely to wake anybody up, because it will drown in the flood of other emails people get over the night.

That said, as discussed in a somewhat related recent question, if you are a supervisor or manager, it may pay to be somewhat careful about what "message" you transport with when you send emails. In this question, a student was stressed because their supervisor kept sending them mails in the night, and the student interpreted these as work items that needed to be done by the next morning. Also, if you as a supervisor are clearly working until midnight, it may implicitly communicate certain expectations and standards that you don't really want in your team.


Is there a correlation between where I finish my PhD and where can I secure a Postdoc position

In short: your chances of securing a position is higher with people that know you (or someone you have worked with).

Whether that is people that are physically around you, or people that are working on the other side of the globe (whom you met in a professional setting e.g. at a conference). This is in line with what @la femme consmique, mentions in the comments, networking is important.

That aside, I have noticed a general skepticism in the U.S. towards Europe. I mean if you are applying for postdoc positions in the US from a European university, you might have to deal with a certain skepticism that does not exist amongst European institutions. It's almost as if you need to convince them that the university actually exists and you haven't made it up on your own (yes, I am exaggerating a bit).

[I would like to make this very clear that this is a subjective statement from personal experience, not a fact.]


Advice for a hypersensitive postdoc who has a hard time reading social cues and making small talk

From Hamlet:
"...to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them."
Don't let criticism get to you.
It is common for all postdocs, and often quasi-bullying. Advice: become as independent as possible, and as sure in your own abilities and goals as possible, without social confirmation. Slowly, the hypersensitivity will fade as you realize it is contrary to what you know about yourself. I see it most in the best people, not the worst, who often aren't sensitive to this at all.
I would say it happens all the time for the wrong reasons, and is more about "territory" and allegiance than anything. People often highly praise those who are most under their thumb.
Everyone is hypersensitive at the beginning of every new profession and role, due to fear of mistakes, which lead to a general sense of failure throughout one's life. But anxiety is overcome by self-security, and from self-reliance. "Become your own man/woman". Then you are invincible and free.


Is it ethical to refuse a postdoc offer after lab visit

There are no ethical considerations here. They are willing to spend the money to get a look at you as well as let you look at them. Just be honest with them so that you don't seem to be leading them on.

Thinking of it any other way would imply that a small expenditure from them would lock you in. That would be unethical.

Good luck.


Prepare presentation for Ph.D. Interview in Germany

No your don't have to know everything, first of all that's impossible to do in just two days, second of all you could not talk about every aspect of the topic in just 15 minutes.

15 Minutes is really short If you want to talk about your experience/skills don't include this into the talk. I guess they want to hear you talk about the topic on the first place so use this time to do so. This is the second round of an interview so the persons not knowing you will ask if they want to know something. Of course you can create slides to do so but I would keep them independent of your main talk.

"A Potential Methodological Approach" Don't talk yourself into trouble here. If you are not familiar with the topic and they even know that I would not risk too much at this point. Just talk about stuff which you are absolutely sure that it's right.

"Expected Findings" This seems quite bold if one keeps in mind that you are not familiar with the topic. Of course everyone can dream about some nice results but without some knowledge of the field this point seems a bit too much. Just say what you want to do.

Other Idea You could include some quite new results. If you have read some papers about the topic maybe there have been some recent results. Just mention them to show that you are trying to get into the topic. (Again just do so if you are sure).

Other than that just try to give a nice introduction to the topic and explain what is known and where you want to tackle open problems. You are not giving a talk about an/your research proposal.


What GPA is considered as Competitive for top five schools in Engineering in US

As noted in the comments, there is no single answer, because when you are applying for a highly competitive graduate program you need to be both an "excellent student" and have additional strong qualifications that set you apart from all of the other excellent students.

That said, GPA is definitely a negative filter, and one can still extract some guesses. Here are MIT's requirements for entry of its own students into the internal EECS 5th year M.Eng. program: 4.25 on its 5-point scale (equivalent to 3.25 on the usual 4-point scale), plus at least 4.0 (3.0) in the most recent term.  Since these are internal requirements, you can assume it is likely that external applicants for graduate programs will be measured a bit more harshly since they will be less well known.

Assuming a 4-point scale, I think that a safe rule of thumb for Ph.D. admissions is that if you've got at least a 3.75 both overall and in your field, you can stop thinking about GPA and start worrying about the rest of the package.  If you're below 3.0, it will be extremely hard (though not necessarily impossible) to convince people that you are a strong enough student, even if you are very good in non-GPA aspects of admission.  In between, the lower your GPA, the more you have to shine in other aspects in order to overcome GPA-based concerns: e.g., 3.6, not so hard, 3.25 very hard.  This are rough heuristics, of course, and every case may differ...


Should I share the prize money from a paper award for my graduate work with my former PhD advisor?

I suggest splitting the prize money 50-50 with your advisor, or at least offering (with honest intent) to do so. It is the magnanimous and appropriate thing to do, especially considering that his mentorship and assistance to you in turning the project into a finished, polished paper are likely to have been instrumental in getting the award. And there is always the chance that he will be even more magnanimous and refuse to claim his share... By contrast, trying to come up with a formula for quantifying each author's contributions seems petty and ultimately futile. After all, the work may have been "entirely yours", but the paper carries both of your names, and from your description it sounds like the award is for the paper. Logically, I'd say the adviser definitely deserves at least a share, and very probably deserves an equal share.

Finally, even from a purely utilitarian (some would say cynical) point of view, by making such an offer you are likely to impress your adviser (and others who will hear about this -- word gets around!) as a sensible and pleasant-to-work-with person, which would be good for your reputation and could end up benefiting your career trajectory in all sorts of unexpected ways.

Congratulations on the award!


Can it hurt me to accept a brief "Visiting Lecturer" position?

The title of lecturer does not necessarily imply that you would teach full time. Sure, it usually implies more teaching than research, but that does not mean it's strictly teaching only. Especially for a visiting lecturer position, one could imagine there be arrangements possible.

So: have you checked the exact term under which you would be employed?

Also: how long would be this “brief” position? And what is your current seniority in your local research system? Those factors will play heavily into the decision.

Overall, I expect it's a net positive for you if you manage to keep some research activity going on, especially if you can travel relatively often to visit your non-US lab. Otherwise, if it's purely teaching with no opportunity to maintain some research activity, and you are not far from getting a job where you are, accepting might be risky.

“Long absent, soon forgotten”


What is the best technique to represent similarily among different methods?

I assume that the high, low and medium corresponds to some analytical values and are dependent on various factors. So how about to assign some values to all constraints and so to this high, low and mediums also. Then finally show as an shaded matrix plot e.g.,


How to present data in a paper in terms of style

The purpose of any style when presenting graphics should aim at making the information as easy to read and comprehend as possible. I do not think any journals would provide specific style recommendaions except provide information on, for example, the thinnest posible lines, smallest possible font sizes to be reproduced in printing, color models etc.

I think it is important to think about how you present data in any scientific or professional communication. It will be largely up to you to make decisions on the material you visualize. My recommendation is to look at the book The Visual Display Of Quantitative Information by Edward Tufte and then to learn by example. This book, in my opinion, like no other, provides a good basis for understanding graphic display of data. Look at what others do and critically evaluate how successful those attempts are.


Article: Author information when occupation has changed

This may be specific to journal, research area, whatnot. However, in a recent edition of Applied Physics Letters one finds in the author list:

The "2" corresponds to an institute in the affiliations list (other authors have other affiliations) where the author was at during the work.

The "a)" links to:

Followed by the new address for that person.

Other uses for footnotes include email addresses and apportioning credit.

This is how it was done some 25 years ago when I last changed institutions.


Is the end of April too late to find placement in Ph.D programs in the U.S.?

For the most part, yes, it is too late to be considered for graduate admissions at most programs for this coming fall, as most schools have already made their decisions as to who they will admit.

That said, if you are an exceptionally qualified candidate, and unusual circumstances have taken place, it may be possible to be considered by specific programs. However, there has to be some really strange events taking place. (For instance, one school I know had a banquet during their one prospective students' weekend, and accidentally food poisoned everybody—and ended up with 20% of their expected yield of students. They probably would have loved additional late applicants!)

But, basically, you'd need a department that had a major shortfall of accepted students compared to their research needs, and you'd need to be a candidate that would be strong enough to accept in the regular admissions cycle.


Writing postdoc fellowship before contacting postdoc advisor?

I'd write to the potential advisors with your CV and a summary of the proposal. I don't know what the paper work is for these schemes, but I suspect they require a ~1 page summary or abstract. I'd write that as a token that you've thought about it and arn't just trying it on. You might find thought that the sponsoring institution has processes that must be gone through before they are allowed to sponsor people, and that these have deadlines earlier than the NSF/NIH deadlines.


Yes, I would say that he/she should still be included as an author. Despite this person's sections being eliminated, it is likely that they contributed intellectually in other ways throughout the project, through discussions, meetings, paper revisions, etc. Even in the rare occasion that this is not the case (individual responsible for that one analysis only), it is not his/her fault the contribution was removed, and one should respect the time spent.


Do's and Don't's of Undergraduate Research

To me, the quality that makes a student not a burden is the following:

  A willingness to learn for themselves and good judgement about when to stop and ask for feedback.*

If a student isn't willing to try things out and learn independently, then it creates a burden on the supervisor. I really don't appreciate when a student asks me how to do something before they do a basic Google search.

Similarly, if a student doesn't know how to judge when he/she is "stuck" and needs help, this also creates a burden on the supervisor (because the supervisor has to keep checking on the student to make sure they're progressing).

The dos and don'ts (to avoid being a "burden") that come to mind are:

Do ask your supervisor this question at the very beginning, to find out what he/she expects from you.
Do take detailed notes when you have a meeting with your supervisor or somebody teaches you how to do something, so you can refer to them later
Do keep a written record of your own attempts and progress (such as a lab notebook) to show your supervisor during meetings
Do ask a question if you don't understand an instruction or something that is said, because it will be much better for everyone involved if you clear things up sooner rather than later.
Do mention your own ideas to your supervisor, if you have some that you think will make your research better.
Don't think that just because you are an undergraduate, you can't make much of a contribution. Obviously experience helps, but it's really only a small piece of what makes someone a skilled researcher. Willingness to learn is a much bigger piece, IMO. I've had high-school summer interns who were better than any of the M.S. students in the lab, simply because they put in more effort to learn.

* Source of the quote: The Unwritten Rules of PhD Research, by Marian Petre & Gordon Rugg


How to know whether a visiting professor will charge the university to present a lecture to academic staff?

The usual way is to state explicitly in your invitation which costs you are going to cover. For example:

  Dear Professor X

  I would hereby like to formally invite you to give a seminar talk at our university on a topic of your choice. We will of course provide you with a hotel for your stay as well as cover your airfare and all other reasonable travel expenses.

  Sincerely,  Y

This way, it is clear to everyone what exactly you intend to pay for. If Professor X wants anything else, he will have to ask for it explicitly, and you can then choose whether you think that you want to pay for that as well or not, but at least you put out there what you expect to pay for.


In a typical US MS program the research component (MS thesis) represents only a small portion of the formal degree program.  For example, 6 credit hours of thesis in a 30 credit hour MS program is quite common. In practice, it's not unusual for a student to spend more than 20% of their time and effort on the thesis.  This seems to be similar to what you're describing in Germany.  It's certainly true that most MS students who are applying for PhD programs haven't yet finished their MS thesis.  However, it is helpful to have some partial results and evidence of this such as a conference poster presentation or even a submitted paper.
US PhD programs usually have required course work in addition to the dissertation.  On average it takes students five years or more to finish PhD degrees in the physical sciences, but there typically isn't an explicit time limit for the degree program- you're finished when you've completed the requirements, however long that takes.

Students who come in with an MS degree may be excused from some of the course work, but this will depend very much on the details of the students MS course work.  Don't be surprised if you're required to take a number of courses in subjects that you've already studied.  Over all you might be able to cut a year off of your time in the PhD program by having a previous MS degree, but don't expect that your two years of MS study will cut the duration of your PhD program by two years.

Completing a PhD in the US often takes longer than 5 years.  A study conducted by the NSF (using data up to 2003, so a bit out of date now) showed that the average time to degree (counting only time registered as a student) after the bachelors degree was more like 7 years, with some variation between disciplines.


First conference: choosing which session to apply to talk at

The APS March meeting is indeed a large conference, with around 50-60 sessions running concurrently. This scale means that they find a time slot (10 minutes + 2 minutes for questions) for most (close to all, it seems) submitted abstracts. If your work is at least of reasonable quality, you'll likely get that practice in. (Even if it is of dubious quality there is a chance. Google APS March meeting crackpot session if you want some entertainment.)

This scale also has the downside that it might be hard to get a lot of quality feedback on your talk - the right people might be elsewhere, and two minutes for audience feedback is not a lot. If you have specific questions, it's worth identifying experts ahead of time, and either try to schedule a meeting with them or just strike up a conversation in the corridors.

How do I pick a session which maximizes the chance of achieving Goal 2. while minimizing the damage to Goal 1.? I.e. if my talk falls outside of the scope of the session I applied for (but not the conference), will it increase my chance of being rejected? Or will my submission just be altered by conference organizers and moved to a different session?

You should just pick the category that's the best and most specific fit. Ask your advisor or colleagues for advice on which one that might be. Sometimes the descriptions are a little vague, and you can get a better idea by looking up the organizers' research interests.

If there are several reasonable fits, I'd tend to pick a focus session over a standard one, because it has a higher possibility of a) attracting people working on similar things, and b) having other talks I'd be interested in. However, keep in mind that a) is far from guaranteed, and there is a high variance that's out of your control. For example, if there is a relevant invited session at the same time, it will likely be more popular. (Protip: these tend to be the best sessions, along with ones specific to your interests.)

I have no numbers, but I doubt that there is a big effect on your acceptance chances overall for not guessing what the ideal session is. Also note that the list you see is one of sorting categories, not a final list of sessions. The organizers certainly can move your talk to another session - maybe even one not announced yet - as well as split and combine sessions. Maybe have a look at last year's program to see what it tends to be like.

Am I more likely to be accepted at a standard session than focus session?

To be clear, I don't think it matters for getting accepted to the conference in the first place. Whether your talk is scheduled in a focus or standard session is going to depend on your topic.

Does APS allow for indication of interest in more than one session?

I don't quite remember, but I don't think so. In any case, you'll find out yourself when you submit your abstract. (Maybe I'll update the answer next week after submitting mine.)


Should I explain the type of a graph in my Masters thesis?

You should use your caption to explain what the graph is supposed to be indicating. i.e. "Boxplot of survey data showing generally higher level of experience with SVN than competing technologies". This achieves both, and further supports the text of your thesis, rather than explaining to the reader something that should be completely obvious (e.g. "This is a boxplot of the survey data"). If you include the type of chart in the caption then it will help if someone is unfamiliar with that type of chart and won't take up much more room than typing "Chart of survey data showing..."

That said (and slightly off-topic), a boxplot doesn't seem to be the correct graph to use to convey this information. A boxplot should be used for continuous data. Here you have discrete (categorical/ordinal) data. Perhaps a barchart (with the different categories shown in different colours might work better)? I'm struggling to understand what the "lower quartile" between "Keine" and "Grundkenntnisse" means for google docs. Is that 25% of respondents had Keine experience of google docs? Very confusing! It seems like you've decided you want to use a boxplot and are trying to find a way to use one.

Let's say I want to know how many people have expert understanding of SVN, how do I determine that from your graph?

However with a bar chart... it's clear that (for example) 5 people who responded were experts


Are fixed-term research funded staff such as post-docs entitled to redundancy rights, such as severence pay at end of contract?

Yes. If you refer to your contract, you will find it is a contract of employment (and probably explicitly states that you are an employee of the university*). Indeed, some universities issue permanent contracts, with a "we'll make you redundant once the funding runs out" clause, to their postdocs.

A few other points:

If you wanted to claim redundancy benefits, you would have to wait for the university to actually let you go. This prevents you leaving before the end of your contract, so will limit your ability to look for a new job in a timely fashion. The university could just shift you into another role to avoid the redundancy costs (especially if it's one you'll want to leave); although, hopefully, most wouldn't be that cynical.

(There's a possibility that they could also require you to apply for suitable, open internal positions, but I don't know whether they could seriously claim your failure to do this equated to leaving voluntarily.)

From your own link, there is no notice period on the non-renewal of a fixed term contract; so a notice period on non-renewal of the contract would only apply to people who, by virtue of over four years of service, have become permanent employees:

  Fixed-term contracts will normally end automatically when they reach the agreed end date. The employer doesn’t have to give any notice.

Postdocs are not students or trainees. Here's the definition of those two categories, from the Fixed-term Employees (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2002 (part 5, exclusions) (emphasis added):

  18.—(1) These Regulations shall not have effect in relation to a fixed-term employee who is employed on a scheme, designed to provide him with training or work experience for the purpose of assisting him to seek or obtain work...

  [cut, funding info]

  (2) These Regulations shall not have effect in relation to a fixed-term employee whose employment consists in attending a period of work experience not exceeding one year that he is required to attend as part of a higher education course....

  [cut, references to the acts that define a HE course]

The pay grade is irrelevant.

*Weirdly, I have seen employment contracts that state you're not (and not for self-employed contracting arrangements). I don't know why because a court wouldn't find someone not to be an employee just because the contract says so.


If any student feels disadvantaged by this, then you will have an uproar and complaints to administration. You describe a system in which they depended on the actual thing you built not some "instruction" you gave.

I would guess that you are stuck with the thing for this group of students, both practically and ethically. Otherwise grading will seem chaotic and unfair to them. Your reputation might suffer both with them and with your boss.

This sounds more to me like a case of releasing untested or insufficiently tested software.

One way out would be to void the results of the autogravder for anyone disadvantaged and give them one additional attempt to submit. But that could also be a problem because of time constraints on other things in your course and in their other courses.

Live and learn. But first, be fair.


What percentage of links posted in published articles are dead?

Reposting my answer from the original thread

There have been multiple studies about this over the years and in different fields, indicating a link rot on the order of a few percent per year. Here are some, in chronological order:

Randy J. Carnevale, Dominik Aronsky, The life and death of URLs in five biomedical informatics journals, International Journal of Medical Informatics, Volume 76, Issue 4, April 2007, Pages 269-273,  doi:10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2005.12.001.
states

  Of the 19,108 references extracted from 606 printed and 86 in-press articles, 1112 (5.8%) references contained a URL. Of the 1049 unique URLs, 726 (69.2%) were alive, 230 (21.9%) were dead, and 93 (8.9%) were comatose. URLs from in-press articles included 212 URLs, of which 169 (79.7%) were alive, 21 (9.9%) were dead, and 22 (10.4%) were comatose. The average annual decay, or link rot, rate was 5.4%.

Edmund Russell, Jennifer Kane (2008). The Missing Link: Assessing the Reliability of Internet Citations in History Journals. Technology and Culture, Volume 49, Number 2, pp. 420-429. doi:10.1353/tech.0.0028
states

  We examined the reliability of worldwide web citations in two leading history journals (Journal of American History and American Historical Review) over seven years and found that 18 percent of web links cited over that period were inactive. The problem increased over time. In articles published seven years earlier, 38 percent of web citations were dead.

Jason Hennessey and Steven Xijin Ge (2013): A cross disciplinary study of link decay and the effectiveness of mitigation techniques. BMC Bioinformatics 14(Suppl 14):S5. doi:10.1186/1471-2105-14-S14-S5
states

  we downloaded 18,231 Web of Science (WOS) abstracts containing "http" in the title or abstract from the years under study (1996-2010), out of which 17,110 URLs (14,489 unique) were extracted and used. We developed Python scripts to access these URLs over a 30-day period. For the period studied, 69% of the published URLs (67% of the unique) were available on the live Internet, the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine had archived 62% (59% unique) of the total and WebCite had 21% (16% unique). Overall, 65% of all URLs (62% unique) were available from one of the two surveyed archival engines.

Klein M, Van de Sompel H, Sanderson R, Shankar H, Balakireva L, Zhou K, et al. (2014) Scholarly Context Not Found: One in Five Articles Suffers from Reference Rot. PLoS ONE 9(12): e115253. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0115253.
looked at link rot in article corpora from arXiv, Elsevier, and PMC:

  All three corpora show a moderate, yet alarming, link rot ratio for references made in recent articles, published in 2012: 13% for arXiv, 22% for Elsevier, and 14% for PMC. Not surprisingly when considering the dynamic nature of the web, for older articles the link rot ratio increases in all corpora. For publication year 2005, the link rot ratio stands at 18%, 41%, 36% for arXiv, Elsevier, and PMC, respectively. Going back to the earliest publication year in our corpora, 1997, the ratios become 34%, 66%, and 80%, respectively.

Zittrain, J, Albert, K and Lessig, L . (2014). Perma: scoping and addressing the problem of link and reference rot in legal citations.  Harvard Law Review 127: 176–196.
surveyed law journals and court decisions, with the following observations

  We documented a serious problem of reference rot: more than 70% of the URLs within the above mentioned journals, and 50% of the URLs within U.S. Supreme Court opinions suffer reference rot — meaning, again, that they do not produce the information originally cited.

I also think I had seen a study somewhere that indicated that even "early online" articles start out at about 5-10% link rot, i.e. they start rotting well before official publication. Could not find that right now, though.


How negative to go in a statement of purpose?

In my opinion you should not "go negative" at all in a statement of purpose.  A vivid description of what turned you off to a previous program seems only to give those considering your admissions case something concrete to worry about, whereas just saying that you lost interest and have since regained it (and then talking extensively about the second part!) is not such a hard sell: by the way, most people lack the perspective to find graduate level mathematics (or whatever) interesting.  But a certain percentage of students who do an undergraduate degree in mathematics (or whatever) slowly but surely find their interest and passion in the subject increasing until the point where they are motivated to go back to school for further study.  As long as you sound interested and motivated now, how you felt in the past is not so relevant.

It may also be helpful to know that your specific story did have a mildly negative effect on me.

  The problem was the people in the program didn't like my concentration field (lie groups).

Having your heart set on one mathematical field while starting a master's degree is probably a mistake.  At best you know something about your initial interest; you can't possibly know whether you are interested in everything else (and even what other things relate to your interest).

  All the profs thought their own fields were more interesting, wanted me to focus on those instead (like discrete geometry).

You were surprised by the fact that faculty are interested in their...interests?!?  That surprises me.  If you have your heart set on Lie theory, why didn't you go somewhere in which Lie theory was a major research focus?

  No other students were really interested in my concentration so important classes got canceled, "low enrollment" they said.

Lack of sufficient interest is exactly what causes courses to be cancelled.  You didn't expect them to run classes for you and you alone which lie outside the research interests of the faculty, did you?

By the way, when I went to grad school I had my heart set on algebraic number theory...and ended up doing that (or one of many things that comes under that broad banner).  In order to do algebraic number theory I had to learn some Lie theory and some discrete geometry, and these remain of interest to me to this day.  Though I know relatively little in each of these areas, I know more than enough to know that they are fascinating fields, and that if I had studied them as a graduate student rather than algebraic number theory per se...well, that would have been fine.  And of course my point is not that these two subfields (which I gather are not the "real ones" occurring in your narrative) are so specifically great: rather, believe that if you have the temperament for graduate study in mathematics, then you may just as well study any subfield -- or any subfield of interest to the faculty and your peers in a strong graduate program.  So to me, your claim that you would have done well the first time if only you had been learning "the right mathematics" is a bit suspect.  It might be true, but it might equally well be true that you just weren't into your studies as much as you needed to be to continue...and now you are.  Again, I would go with the latter narrative.