Percentage of waiting-list students offered a PhD position

No, there really isn't a rule of thumb for this.

For graduate departments that admit on a fixed cycle, they generally have a certain number of places open each year. They admit from their applicant pool a number of applicants that, when all decisions are made, are designed to give them their target number of enrollees. If, for some reason, the number of students who accept is significantly smaller than the target, and there were good students who were wait-listed, they may be offered admission, although this is by no means guaranteed.

For graduate departments that do rolling admissions this is obviously not an issue, as they don't need a wait list.


This is very field specific, and possibly country specific as well.

In math in the US, most postdocs are hired by the department and it's generally considered a positive if they're also working on their own independent research as well as work with their supervisor.


Is it weird to ask a professor you don't know if your potential project is already being worked on?

Would it be inappropriate to email a professor who's more well-versed in the field and ask if they're aware of anyone who has begun working on a similar project?

Absolutely not, I'd say. I've emailed several professors from different schools, textbook authors, and other people. While you may not get a reply (that's ok!) it takes zero effort to write and the pay off can be large. You're not going to offend someone by sending a nicely worded email inquiring about their field. If they don't care to answer they won't. So why not?


Should I be suspicious of a conference that invites me, a recently admitted graduate student, to be an invited speaker?

It seems it is a junk conference, which will not bring you anything, but waits for your money!

Don't go, it is a waste of time, you will get nothing good from it, since no one really involved at a high level in your field will come.

It is not unusual for those kind of conferences to invite "anyone" as an invited speaker.


Unfortunately my answer comes too late for the OP specifically.

First, you should contact the session organizers to explain your situation. This is important because you do not want to be regarded as a no-show by the organizers. Depending on the conference, it may have a negative impact being able to present at the same conference in the future.

Second, you would want to avoid wasting your opportunity to present at a poster session. As others have suggested, try to print a full size or even a partial size poster, or even just your major figures. Ultimately the point is for attendees to see your research, results, affiliation and to network, and any kind of information is better than no information. As long as its enough for someone to come up and talk to you, I'm sure you can fill out the rest of the details by your memory.


Can I pursue a bachelor degree at 42? What should I consider when deciding whether to do so?

Firstly, to answer the actual question at the top: yes, absolutely. There is no age limit on doing a degree. It is not at all unusual for people significantly older than you to complete degrees.

My worry is, I will end up having my degree at 47 if i enroll.

Is that a problem? Most people with degrees have degrees at 47 - they just happen to have had 26 years to forget most of the material in between. Sure, having a degree earlier might have been a financial/career advantage, but unless you've got a time machine (in which case present it and collect all the degrees you could ever possibly want) you can't change that, so your choice is, instead, between being a 47 year old without a degree and being a 47 year old with a degree - I can't see any particular disadvantage to the latter, unless the process of doing the degree course is going to cause you problems (via stress, loss of income, cost, work-life balance issues, etc.).


How can I tailor my faculty application to maximize my chances at a liberal arts college?

I wouldn't drop anything from your CV.  I might shift things around so that the "List of Courses Taught" (or that you could teach) is on page 1 or 2. Teachings awards and anything similar also up front.

The cover letter is key. Your research accomplishments should be one paragraph while discussion of your love of math, the fantastic students you interacted with at one of your postdocs, the courses you would like to teach at X, and your teaching style should be at least 2-3 paragraphs.  One thing that I did when I was applying to SLACs was to have a list of my courses in my cover letter followed by a very small print (all course syllabi listed here are available on my website: www.example.com).

And of course you should also include a separate teaching statement if they require one -- or even hint of wanting one.


Has a "portfolio" of orthogonal projects ever been acceptable for a PhD thesis, instead of a single large project?

It will depend on the advisor, the university (i.e., will they allow you to work in different fields. I mean, technically they can't forbid you to work on something, but your advisor might not be pleased with it) and the details of the topics (will it be really possible to work on a variety of them).

In general, a thesis should provide an answer to a research problem, either in the form of a self-contained book, or a sandwich thesis.

I'm also interested in many fields (which can be divided roughly into 3 main ones at the moment) that are not really connected to each other that much. My advisor told me to compose a thesis only about one of the topics (which I published 3 papers on), and not to make a mix of unrelated works (sounds reasonable to me). And that's how it was done (in the form of a sandwich thesis).

I added the papers on other topics to my CV, and they were useful when applying for a grant, scholarship etc. And of course for conference presentations.


How much professional development should I share on my CV?

It is very much better to include those courses/workshops you've attended, which you think has helped you to improve on that particular topic. After all, a good CV is the one that stands out from others. Also, when you add, it would be better if you could mention what you've learned from it(instead of just writing  "Attended the workshop on.... Etc etc.."). All the best!


Where to put the theoretical framework in a PhD dissertation (social sciences)

A different structure works for different manuscripts. However, the theoretical framework typically follows after the introduction and the literature review. The review should motivate the research question and the methodological and theoretical approach. The latter is then explained in the theory chapter, the former in a subsequent methodological chapter or subchapter. The methods chapter then bridges the theoretical and the empirical part of your study:

intro
review
theory
methods
empirics 1-n
analysis/discussion
conclusion


Few professors will have any incentive to work with you. They are either busy in summer months or unwinding from otherwise intense efforts. If you have a personal connection to someone it might be different, but "cold contacts" probably will fail, even not getting any response.
But there are a few things you could try.
First, it may be that your current instructors could guide you if you don't put much burden on them.
Next, they might have maintained contact with their own teachers and can introduce and recommend you to a distant university professor.
Third, you can find the course requirements online for some topic of interest to you and get a copy of the textbook. Get the syllabus if available and follow it. This will give you access to readings and possibly exercises that you can do. Do a lot of them. Getting feedback on your results will be an issue, but maybe someone local can help you.
Finally, you might consider forming a study group if you can find others who are interested and work together to learn and give each other feedback. A local professor might help you arrange such a thing and even provide minimal guidance.


Is it weird to visit a scientific conference as an undergraduate student?

Would it be weird if I attend this conference alone?

Probably, as an undergraduate, you won't be able to connect too much with the more senior researchers, but there's nothing weird at all. So, if you can, go for it, and enjoy your first conference!


Can’t get a Letter Of Reference with signed seal

Try contacting the program's admissions office first before submitting the application, and as long before the deadline as possible (so, immediately). They may offer a workaround. For example, they may provide an email address to which your professor can directly send the letter. Even if it turns out that they allow you to mail the letter yourself, you need to check with them first.
I did this once when in a similar situation, where I could not submit the recommendation letters in the usual method prescribed by the program, and was told of an alternative method on contacting them.


How to contact a potential PostDoc advisor?

Depends on whether you know the person, or not. If you know him/her well, you might go for an informal inquiry. In the case the person is not your acquaintance, you better formulate it as any other job seeking inquiry.

To the style, this template always worked for me well (as advised in some job-seeking training course I took):

  Salutation,

1.- me
2.- you
3.- us together
4.- conclusion and a kind request for a reply.

  salutation.

Each of the points above should be a single paragraph.

Firstly, you introduce yourself, possibly mentioning how you know each other if that is the case and most importantly articulating the purpose of the e-mail/letter, that is that you are seeking a job. In passing you should mention what you are doing now, position, affiliation, expected date of graduation, etc. Basically you want to motivate the other party to read further.

Second paragraph should be about the other party. What you know they do, or did in the past and highlighting whatever other positive aspects of their work, which are a relevant reason for your application. Possibly, you can mention that you learn from somebody else/opening, etc. that there is a possibility of an open position in the group, etc. The purpose here is to prepare the ground for articulating why you fit for them in the subsequent paragraph, as well as to show that you mean it and you made your homework well (e.g., read their papers).

The third, most important paragraph, should be about you as a fit for the position, or the group. It all revolves about how you can contribute to their work and why it should be their interest in hiring you. Here you expand on the relevant experience/projects you did, about your abilities to publish papers in top journals/conferences in the field, your abilities to solicit external funding, teaching, whatever. Still you should consider how much bragging is appropriate. The message should be clear and concise: "there is a potential fit between the two of us".

Finally, I would close the letter by explaining what can be found in the attached documents and possibly what other constraints you might have. When appropriate, I also make it clear that this is of course an unsolicited application, but still I would be glad if the person would find time to review my background and reply.

Attach your CV and the statement of your research interests.

Worked for me. Also you should be as concise as possible. The length of this reply is probably already at the edge of acceptable length.


Can one of your letters of recommendation come from a professor in a department unrelated to your field of study?

I can't think of how an excellent letter of recommendation from a professor in an unrelated field of study could hurt you. Perhaps if it was the only (excellent) letter of recommendation, maybe then. But you mentioned you have an excellent letter from your employer and can (I assume) get at least one more good letter from someone else, so I think you are in a good position.

You are right, his letter of recommendation would not be about your technical skills related to EE, but it would mention your characteristics, work ethics, teamwork ability in a very good light. Research writing course is also not that far away from EE. It shows you are more diverse than the stereotypical programmer or engineer. You worked with this specific professor for 2 semesters, he could give you an outstanding letter of recommendation. I think his letter will give you more than any single average/solid letter from other professors.


How to convey your main idea in a research paper?

One of the important and difficult skills to learn in technical presentation is how to tell the same story at multiple levels of detail, from a single sentence to a multi-hour tutorial or long-form journal paper.

Moreover, any well-organized presentation (written or spoken) should typically present at multiple levels of resolution. As one of my grad school mentors used to say: "Tell them what you're going to tell them, then tell it to them, then tell them what you told them."  This is not redundancy, but rather priming the reader to understand how the pieces fit together and summarizing to help them retain it.

In most good papers, I would thus expect to see the "main idea" presented either five or six times, at various levels of resolution:

As a few words in the title, naming the most important "keyword" ideas.
As a few sentences in the abstract, identifying a problem, giving an approach, and claiming evidence of progress.
As one or two paragraphs in the introduction, sketching the key ideas and how the rest of the paper is organized.
Optionally, as an overview section providing a sketch of the main sections and the grounding of the approach in prior work.
In full detail in the main sections.
In a few summarizing sentences in the final section, highlighting the most important things to remember from the main sections.

So how do you write at a "lower resolution"? I recommend thinking about the difference between what you are doing and how you are doing it. For example, the statement of a theorem is a "what" and the proof is a "how".  In a lower resolution, however, the "what" can become a how, presented consistently but less formally.  For example, that theorem may be one of several things that you prove as the "how" to get to the "what" of collectively proving a key result. One can then continue going to lower and lower resolutions. For example, all the work on proofs may be one "how" that combines with an implementation "how" and an experiment "how" to get to the "what" of demonstrating progress against the problem you are trying to address.

In short: remain consistent in your terminology, but drop as many levels of detail as you need to fit the space available for each telling of the main idea.


How does one reference work in Oxford Style for a Website without an Author or a Date of Publication?

I am not familiar with the "Oxford Style" guide and therefore do not believe that there is a single "standard" style. I think Oxford style has a footnote in text citation and a reference list. This makes it similar to Chicago style. While I do not have the CMS to check, Prudue OWL has a nice comparison of MLA, APA, and CMS (all of which have comprehensive and standardized style guides). In CMS it doesn't seem to be a problem since you are using a footnote for the in text citation and the reference list doesn't require an author or date for webpages.


I agree with JeffE that leaving is the best solution, but it may not be an option.  One key question is whether you have tenure: if not, you're presumably doomed (if the chair's behavior is as bad as you fear) and you will need to find another job anyway.

Assuming you have reasonable job security, I'd sit down with the chair and ask what he envisions.  Don't complain, argue, or try to present your side.  Instead, you could start by acknowledging that the two of you have unfortunately gotten off to a rough start in your working relationship, and that because of his stature and leadership role it's important for you to earn his respect, so you'd like his advice on how to improve the situation.  Your goal is to learn, not to debate.  Don't explicitly agree to any facts that aren't true, but you don't have to fact check everything he says, and you shouldn't dispute his perspective or opinions in this conversation.

One possibility is that he is an insecure jerk who wants you to submit to his power and authority.  If you do so, and let him boss you around a little without complaining, then he may treat you somewhat better.  [This is assuming he can't treat you any worse than he already is.  If you fear things could get worse, then be careful, but your question suggests you don't have a lot to lose.]

Another possibility is that he just doesn't want you around, and there's simply nothing you can do to get on his good side.  In that case, maybe he could help you transfer to another related department, for example.  Of course, you can't even bring this up unless you have some job security, since otherwise you have no leverage at all.  And it's important to do it in a face-saving way.  There's no way it will happen if it looks like he is getting rid of a problem employee (the administration and the other department will not accept that as a valid reason for such a transfer), and obviously he won't cooperate if the stated reason is getting you out from the control of an irresponsible chair.  Instead, you'd have to give it a positive spin: helping your career by giving you a chance to develop in a slightly different research direction, building ties between departments and fostering interdisciplinary connections, etc.  It may be galling, but you need to set this up in a way that makes it look like your chair is doing something valuable for the university by helping to arrange it.  If you can get your chair enthusiastic about this, and if there's another plausible department, then the chair's influence within the university might really help you.  And don't be too restrictive in ruling out possible departments: there might not be any appropriate match, but I know of a couple of cases in which people have successfully resolved personality conflicts by moving to departments that were a bit further afield than one might expect (engineering vs. science, for example).  If you've got tenure, then the university has a powerful incentive to fix this conflict, even if it means letting you sit in an odd department.

Leaving the university is radically different from switching departments, and you should not ask the chair for help in doing that.  Within the university, your chair's standing with the administration will play a major role in what opportunities are available.  Outside the university, your chair probably can't help you very much, but could certainly hurt you, so it's not worth the risk.

The worst case scenario is that your chair hates you and wants to hurt your career, regardless of which department you are in.  In that case, there's nothing you can do if your chair has the full support of the administration, and you'll have to either leave the university or wait for the chair to retire.  However, you shouldn't give up all hope until you've exhausted options like submitting or transferring.


How to know whether my PhD advisor knows the area of research?

I suppose it is rather hard to give a satisfying answer to this question with the amount of information available. I mean, it's hard to estimate all the unknowns in this particular case.

  if yes, then why he did not provide constructive ways to sharp the ideas to get it published in a top conference?

One could speculate in so many different ways; that he does not have the necessary grasp of the field to give meaningful critique is one speculation. Here's another plausible explanation; maybe he wants you to try flying on your own a bit, as a sink-or-swim approach. My supervisor did (and still does) this very often, I have almost too much freedom as to how I write, and what I write and to where I submit, then when the replies and reviews come in we sit down and improve on what I have done. Could be a similar approach

But to come back the question of how to know whether the supervisor is knowledgeable in a particular subject, here are some things that could be useful in the general case:

checking your supervisors publication record. Maybe the s/he has published articles on about this model before you even came to the group. Or maybe he was involved with an older but related model Y?
inquire you supervisor for his interest in the subject. If s/he gives you a paper about model X, all of a sudden then there is certainly a goal with that. To-the-point, effective communication might help you figure out his/her grasp of the field.

EDIT: In reply to the comment:

  if I have too much freedom as to how I write, and what I write and to where I submit, then whats the point of supervision!

My supervisor often says that his job is to teach me how to do research, not provide me with knowledge or make sure I become successful/famous/rich... Your supervisor has ZERO responsibility in providing you the means to publish in top venues, IMHO. He merely has a responsibility to make sure you get the tools you need to be able to do the research you want to carry out, later on in life.

As a side comment, I think your perspective to research might cause your frustration with your supervisor. Getting published in top venues is not a birth-right to all hard working grad students; and quite frankly, as a grad student where your articles get published have little to do with you or your work (at least in biomedical research).


Yes there are MSc as well as PhD programs in Biomathematics. You should look for programs in Biomathematics and/or Mathematical Biology; this field of study is also branded as Systems Biology quite often. A quick Google search returns quite a few hits both in UK and US. The Society for Mathematical Biology has a good (but I would say somewhat US-centric) list of such programs available here.

Entry requirements usually depend on the program. Generally speaking good Maths and Stats (eg. Network/Graph Theory, Stochastics, PDEs) help a lot, as well as showing an interdisciplinary approach to your training. My best advice to prepare for such a course would be to be a great student. It is too early in your academic journey to focus exclusive in one area (eg. Stochastic Processes) and hope it will carry you through graduate school. Besides it will be very unlikely that a star-pupil in Maths will be denied entry to a graduate Biomathematics programme.


In a grant application, how to address gender aspects when working in a highly technical field?

It's unclear to me what "gender aspects" means. It sounds like you're assuming it's asking about handling gender in your research, which is a great question since a lot of studies (especially psych and medical) have been done on all-male participants. Some of these fail to replicate in mixed-gender or all-woman experiments. There's also a pretty interesting (and depressing) history of abuse of women in scientific research as research subjects that has gained greater attention recently, which is wonderful. In that aspect it seems like it won't relate to your work at all, since you don't have test subjects. Even amongst research program without the kinds of testing issues, some projects in philosophy, social theory, or medicine are plagued by sexism in their experimental design or theoretical conceit. Here the issue is less the treatment of test subjects as inherent issues and assumptions in the underlying theories. This would also not apply to mathematics, physics, or computer science as they don't develop theories about humans.

However it could also mean to ask about more administrative things, like discrimination against women and transgender people in the project. If this is a small project it might not relate to you, but in a larger project and especially a in a lab this is important.

To clarify, by "small" I mean "me and two of my grad students and we know each other well." Even a working group of 5-10 people can run into gender discrimination issues. Do you know how you'd respond if a woman working under you came to you and said that she was being harassed or her ideas were being discounted because she's a woman? Do you know how you'd respond if a new grad student was to join and tell you that they were transgender? Or how you'd respond if they were rejected by other people in the project because they are transgender? If you haven't thought about these things, you definitely should. Even if this isn't what they meant, you should have an answer to these questions.

I would recommend reaching out and asking for clarification as to which of these interpretations is meant. Definitely don't say "I don't think it matters to my work" because that can come across really poorly, especially if they mean the second interpretation I gave. Simply say that you were unsure if the question was asking about gender as a topic inside of the research or about discrimination within the group of researchers.


Converting from and to British grading scheme

The UK system uses the notation of 1st, 2.1, 2.2, 3rd as degree classifications. Most individual modules/classes are grade on either an A, B, C, ... scale or a percentage scale. I believe the conversion of A-=70=1st and B-=60=2.1 is pretty universal. At reasonable universities, approximately 10% of students get a first and 60% get a 2.1.

Under no circumstances would I advise converting your own marks on an application. State the marks you got and if it is a particularly bizarre system provide a link where they can get more information.


what is the research strategy to adopt to compile my notes into a scientific article for a conference?

Conferences generally publish novel research: papers that present new findings, ideas or techniques. Research in academia does not mean the same thing as in high school. So if all you have is notes on other papers, that's not publishable.

The only real exception to this is survey papers, where you give an extremely comprehensive overview and framing of  research in a given topic. But these tend to be long, so they're usually in journals, and are usually written by experts who have been involved with the developments they're writing about.


There is a number of websites that specialize on out-of-print or rare books. Those sites include BookFinder, used books section on AddALL, rare or out-of-print section on The Bookloft and others. In your particular case, the book that you're looking for (the 1995 edition of B. N. Roy's Principles of Modern Thermodynamics) can be easily found for sale on Amazon UK site via BookFinder and via AddALL. Here's the resulting URL: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0750300191.


Can a public university block me on their official social media
account if I am a student and/or employee?

De facto: yes. De jure: we don't know (see Noah Snyder's answer and the comments), but I don't see a compelling reason against it.

I am concerned about potentially starting a legal battle with the
university

Then don't.

But I'm not sure I should even worry about it because of how close I
am to graduating and whether it will affect my job search.

Starting legal battles simply because of political disagreement or because you cannot accept being blocked (after a twitter fight with you using multiple accounts) means there will be a public record of behavior which many people will find unpleasant. Such a reputation can obviously affect future job prospects. To avoid this, don't do anything which earns you a this reputation (i.e., let it go).

At the same time, even if it will have no long-lasting effect on me, I
don't want the problem to go unaddressed for other students.

As you only found out "rather accidentally" about being blocked, there seems to be not that big of a problem. Possibly other students avoid this situation by avoiding posts which get them blocked in the first place.


What to do when you discover computational errors and mistakes in your accepted paper at the proof stage?

Sometimes mistakes happen. Yes, it's a pain to have to deal with this mistake now after the paper was accepted for publication, but it's a good thing that you caught your mistake before the paper was published.

Note: If you have coauthors, before doing anything, contact your coauthors and explain to them the changes you need to make. Do this before doing anything else.

  What should I do? Should I send the errata to editor or copy editor?

As you mentioned that you are dealing with an IEEE journal, my response here is specific to the IEEE:

Talk to the senior editor that you are working with currently. Tell them specifically the changes you want to make and that "the logic of the concluding remarks is still correct and the discrepancies only impact the affected numerical results and the specific conclusions drawn from them," and that "the other numerical results are correct."

The senior editor will take it from there. Based on my past experience, you do not need to contact the editor-in-chief about this directly.

  Will it affect my paper's value?

No, but I don't really follow why you think correcting a mistake will affect your paper's value. Correcting a mistake prior to publication is a good thing.

  Will it need to go through another review cycle?

This will depend on the steps taken by the senior editor.


When/whether to do pre-submission inquiry at high impact journals

I have never found a pre-submission inquiry to be useful, and was always advised against it. The main argument is that it does not increase your chances of acceptance and just adds another hurdle to pass. Additionally, assuming you use a reference manager the difference in formatting between journals is usually minimal (or you can ignore some of the rules on your first submission).

However, I always submitted to journals that I know and read before, so I knew that the topic is generally appropriate. I would only consider a pre-submission inquiry if I am not sure whether the general topic is appropriate for the journal.


issue with discontinued or missing journal

Publishers who care about the availability of published works tend to join archival initiatives such as the Controlled Lots Of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe (CLOCKSS) or Portico. These archives become public after so-called 'trigger events' occur (as determined by a governing body of these initiatives), such as when the articles are no longer available through the original publisher. This archival is a primary function of a scholarly communication system (see also Roosendaal & Geurts, 1998)

If your publisher does not have this policy, you could rehost the article on your webpage or another file sharing site. Note that this would depend on the copyright status, because if the publisher (for example) went bankrupt the copyrights might be transferred in a firesale of that company.

Edit: Centralized => Controlled


Changing p-value adjustment method during major revising

I'm sure you already know this because you have been working with it in your manuscript, but the Benjamini Hochberg procedure is for avoiding false discoveries. So, in other words, Benjamini Hochberg is, I'm sure you know, a procedure you use to reduce Type I errors, where you incorrectly reject true null hypotheses, which are false positives results.

If, upon revising,you discovered "many spurious results that very subtle change are considered significant," it sounds to me as though you may, possibly, have considered some of the results in your latest draft to be false positives, prompting you to change your statistical procedure to Bonferroni for your next draft.

The key point to keep in mind here is that Benjamini Hochberg avoids false positives but Bonferroni tends to produce false negatives.

Therefore, the real question is why your switching statistical procedures. If your hypotheses, your work, and  your  data all indicate that the results are trending toward false positives, then Bonferroni is the way to go.  Otherwise, switching procedures at this point may not be, in my own opinion, the optimal way to proceed.


Will a letter of recommendation from a postdoc fellow be valued for applying a PhD program?

What the admission committee looks for is specific and reliable information about the skills of the applicant.

Specific. If a postdoc fellow, or any other member of a team worked with you long enough, they usually can describe in some details what you achieved and how your skills and mindset helped you to achieve this. The more specific examples they could provide usually the better. In academic reality sometimes students spend more time with their TA's than their Profs, and I think people in admissions usually realise that.
Reliable The letters from Profs are usually considered as more reliable than the letters from colleagues of moderate rank, and not without a reason. Indeed, if a Prof would decide to praise his student more than they deserve, it would be noted, remembered and all further letters from him would be taken with a bit of salt. Therefore, Profs are really responsible for providing actual information to each other in a small world of academia. RAs and TAs do not necessarily feel that their academic credibility is at stake, and can be more inclined to "help" the student by over-assessing their abilities and achievements in their reference.

The balance of these two factors makes the game. My suggestion is --- go and ask that postdoc to write a reference for you, but also ask them to be very specific about everything they write, and only put in their letter the information which can be justified by some evidence.


Should I publish my first paper in a conference?

Personally, I don't think that it is considered "bad" to publish a conference paper. Even less so, if it is your first paper. Nobody can expect you to release in a top journal of your subject all the time and especially not with your first article.

Where I am from you do not need to publish anything before your PhD, so I am not sure how important this is in your case. From my point of view, though, anything published is better than nothing (in this case at least).


How should students react to inaccuracies in professors' teaching without causing resentment

I think your fears may be exaggerated.  I can't think of a professor I've ever met who I think would be offended by having a mistake (politely) pointed out, much less retaliate.

Accusing anyone flat-out of being wrong, or worse yet, lying, will certainly make them defensive; and if it turns out they were right, it will be more embarrassing for you.  So I don't suggest thinking of it as "confronting" the professor.  What I would suggest instead is to approach the question as something that you don't understand.  "Hi Professor Smith, in class today you said X.  But I'm confused, because I thought that Y."  Listen to her response.  Be open to the possibility that you are mistaken, or have misunderstood what she said, but if your doubts aren't cleared up, figure out what part still seems wrong to you, and ask about that.  "I still don't understand; what about...?"  Stay calm and polite.  If you find you are getting worked up (or she is), take a break.  "Let me think about that, and if I still have questions I'll come back later."  Hopefully in the end, everyone agrees on where the truth lies, and nobody feels too embarrassed.

If you think she's simply misspoken about something in class, or written something incorrectly on the board, point it out right away: "Is that X supposed to be a Y?"  If there's something deeper, it may be better to discuss it in office hours or by email; I know that when I'm teaching, if I think I may have a serious mistake, I get flustered and it throws off my rhythm.  I'd rather have time to think about it offline, and then correct the error in the next class.

I think the other comments saying "Be sure you are right!!!" are excessive.  It's not a bad idea to try to think carefully about your question; if you can clear it up yourself, you'll learn better.  But don't hesitate to talk to the professor.  Even if it's you that's confused, part of my job as a professor is to clear that up.  And if it turns out I'm wrong, of course I want to know.

Your suggestion of having some sort of middleman to anonymously forward queries strikes me as a bit extreme.  Again, I think you may be more intimidated by your professor than is really warranted.  It may help to try to get to know your professors better: early in the course, make it a habit to drop by their office hours.  Ask some trivial questions if you like.  "Are we going to study Z next week?"  Then later, if you have more substantive questions or concerns, you'll feel more comfortable approaching them.

Anonymity seems unnecessary and perhaps counterproductive.  If you come to me with something you don't understand, and I'm able to clear it up, I won't think less of you; instead, I'll be pleased that you now understand it better.  And if it turns out I was wrong, I won't resent you; I'll be impressed that you understand the issue deeply enough to spot the error, and grateful that you brought it up.  But if you're really timid, you could consider sending an email from an anonymous account. ("I'm sending this anonymously because I'm embarrassed that it may be a silly question."  Either way she'll probably assure you that it isn't.)

One final comment: If you have mentors suggesting that professors are never wrong, find better mentors!  I agree that it is not pleasant to argue with anyone, but that doesn't mean you can't discuss your question and try to sort it out.


Is it appropriate to share the distribution of grades for a small class?

No, for exactly the reason you give. If just a couple students share their grades with each other, it becomes trivial for others to be discovered by process of elimination.


Can I publish a paper with new proof but the same result?

You can publish anything interesting.

There are instance where a new proof of a new theorem is not interesting. There are also cases where a better exposition of the existing proof is interesting.


Does "corresponding author" carry an implied meaning?

Corresponding authorship is often used to signal the person who is the primary contributor to the work. I've seen this in fields like economics where there is a relatively strong norm of listing authors alphabetically. In these cases, the primary contributor is signaled with the corresponding author designation. I've seen people go so far as to list corresponding authorship on their CVs when they list their papers although I think this is far from the norm.

In fields where authorship is not simply alphabetic, I've seen the corresponding author designation used to flag the second author as a major contributor because, even in cases of so called "dual-first authorship," somebody's name has to come first.

In lots of other fields, it caries little signal value and really is just used to mark the person who is in the best position to answer questions about the work. Of course, the person marked as best able to answer question will, mostly likely, be someone who was involved in a wide variety of the research reported in the paper.


Do I need to add answers to the reviewers’ comments to a conference paper?

It's unclear from these instructions whether a separate response document is required by this program committee or not. However, it's easy to write one, and it will make it very easy for the PC to see that you have addressed the reviewers' comments. You should prepare a short separate document that lists each reviewers' comment and the action (if any) you have taken to address it, referring to pages, sections, or figures that have been modified. Depending on the submission system, you may be able to upload this as a PDF or incorporate it directly into the submission system in a comment to your final submission.

Not every comment will lead to an action on your part, so if you disagree with a comment and made no change based on that comment, you can address why in your response document. Sometimes, you will write your reason for not making a change, realize that your reason could be incorporated as a clarification in the paper itself, and then make that clarification instead (and note it as such in your response to reviewers). Thus, preparing the response document and addressing each comment point-by-point, can help you figure out how to deal with each comment and lead to a better article.

You should prepare at least the outline of this document even if, in the end, there's nowhere to submit it. If you're having trouble finding a place to upload it, you should ask the PC Chair or whoever is shepherding your article whether they want your formal response.


Proper reply for an letter "We will soon contact you for an interview"

4 days is not particularly long. If it's cramping your decision-making - for example if you really need to know when the interview is so you can decide on a suitable date to schedule your marriage - then go ahead and ask, but otherwise I would wait a bit longer (up to ~2 weeks).


What should I do if the Production editor has not responded after the proofreading process for over a month?

Try a different email. It could be that the production editor resigned, is on leave, has been reassigned, etc. You could try the journal email, if there is one, or the publisher email, or even the editor-in-chief.
Worst case scenario, phone the publisher.


The GRE is generally not used at all in Europe for Master/PhD admissions.

Another thing is TOEFL, if you will be studying in English you usually have to prove that you are proficient with the language, and there are multiple ways to do it. You have to check with particular institutions to what they require, it could be the TOEFL or IELTS or any other test of english, or proof that you have already completed a degree in English, etc.


Accidentally leaked the solution to an assignment, what to do now? (I'm the prof)

Very simple actually. Abandon the assignment. Apologize for the error, but not for wasting people's time. Those who didn't find the solution and worked on it certainly learned something. Those who found the solution used their time otherwise and hopefully learned something else.

Mistakes happen.

If you use a large number of exercises in grading it is probably harmless to give everyone full marks. They will be happy and it won't really matter otherwise. But trying, in any way, to discriminate between various levels of "performance" on such an exercise is a minefield.

One thing to remember, however. Presumably you gave that assignment because students would be expected to learn some specific thing(s) by doing it. That may not have occurred, so you need to assure that you find some way to reinforce that lesson in some future activity.


Has any research been done into the marks awarded by markers using different strategies for exams with multiple questions?

The question we'd like to answer is:

How should exams with multiple essay-type questions be graded?

Note: It isn't possible to answer this definitively due to unavoidably large variations in grader performance and exam structure.

Each course topic, exam, and set of graders is going to be unique and your own experience and judgment are likely to yield better results than any prescription of what you should do.
This is a large part of the reason both teaching and assessment are challenging and generally require a lot of experience, testing, and adjustment to get right.

While you're own views should necessarily be more relevant for your teaching situation, here is One perspective to consider:

Ideally, we strive to consistently award the same amount of points for the same level of written work. However, it is likely that our impressions about the abilities of individual students (from lectures, office hours, etc.) actually have a negative impact on the overall consistency and reproducibility of the results when marking written exams.

Whitfield et al. compared oral evaluation results to written exam grades and found that facilitator impressions of student knowledge overestimate the performance of the weakest students.

  [Whitfield, 2002] "... there is little overlap in the factors which
  account for facilitator’s ratings and actual student performance ...
  Our conclusion from these studies is that an assessment given by a
  facilitator for student knowledge is not likely to be useful."

The take-away is:

knowing which student's answer you are grading will make the range of scores wider (lower reliability) for the same work, and generally lead to higher grades overall.

For the most reliable grading:

the grader should mark answers non-consecutively and randomly from the entire set of exams in order to:

reduce the chance of identifying the student that provided the answer
reduce the comparative influence from one marked answer to the next

The following articles look promising for further investigation, however, I don't have convenient access to these texts, so they are offered without comment:

"The interrelations of features of questions, mark schemes and examinee responses and their impact upon marker agreement," Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, Volume 18, Issue 3, 2011.

"Towards a model of the judgement processes involved in examination marking," Oxford Review of Education, Volume 36, Issue 1, 2010.

"Double-marking students' work," Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, Volume 19, Issue 1, 1994.

"Responses to written work," Educational Review, Volume 30, Issue 2, 1978.

"A further study of the reliability of English essays," British Journal of Statistical Psychology, Volume 7, Issue 2, pages 65–74, November 1954.

Related SE questions:

double marking
---- keeping focused
---- avoiding bias


Effect of a guest semester in graduate school admissions in Mathematics?

First of all, UChicago is a top-6 school, with a great grad program.
The other places you've mentioned are also good places for doing graduate studies, with many graduates getting NSF postdoc grants and getting into good places.

Second, some Chinese schools are known in the West (definitely Tsinghua and Peking, I personally also know some faculty in Fudan and Sichuan). You need to understand that someone from a lesser known school would always be in a disadvantage compared to say graduates of good US universities, as I would not necessarily know the letter-writers and how to evaluate them accordingly (being top of class is nice, but I need to know about the class). This is relevant even for people from the best schools in China, as not all the faculty of even the schools I have mentioned are widely known in the west.
Considering the fact that there are ~100 places in the top-6 grad programs per year, and you are competing with the best graduates of US universities, Canadian universities and some European, Israeli and Indian universities, you see that it is EXTREMELY HARD to get into those programs, even for really good students, and a lot of this rides on your letters of recommendation and pure luck.

I would say that your best strategy would be to transfer to the better school as soon as possible (and obviously don't do the 5 year program, maybe only the first 3 years for BSc and then move to the better school for the MSc), as this will raise your chances, as you will be able to write the name of the better school on your CV later with the MSc degree. Moreover, doing grad courses (and hopefully some research) there will get you recommendations from professors at the better school, so most likely they are better known.
Anyhow, especially with your remark about the master graduates, I suspect the graduate program is not very good/not perceived like one in the West, so it is best to move to other places even for the masters as soon as possible.

If you want even more chances, pull out your cheque book and go to Princeton (I personally believe that you will get better mathematical education for BSc in Tsinghua, but it will be hard to deny a good letter from a Princeton professor, simply the way it is).

I don't think that continuing asking this question with epsilon-changes any week will help you or be productive.
A lot of good mathematicians got their education from not top-6 schools.
There are many upsides for going to top-6 schools, but also some downsides.
Again, if you are not happy where you are, you should move ASAP, and definitely not stay there for 5 years, as this will lead to depression and for you being counter-productive.

Good luck.


What to do when a reviewer is late while daily posting about other activities on social media?

You have to separate two things.

First, it seems your journal has certain procedures regarding late reviews. You say that "if [you] do not receive a reply, [you] cannot grant the extension". You have not received the reply, so simply do not grant the extension. Do whatever you do whenever you do not grant an extension; I assume that this means telling the reviewer that they are relieved of their commitment to review the paper due to being 40 days late and not replying to reminders, as well as finding a new reviewer and probably notifying the author(s). What you saw on Twitter is not involved in that.

Second, you have to think about your relationship with this reviewer. Unless you have a very compelling reason to continue asking for the services of this reviewer, then I would consider not asking anymore. Being very late – I assume that 40 days is a long time for a review in your field – is one thing, not answering emails is another, both combined with public posts about spending all their time on non-work related stuff is not great. Unless the tweets are about helping the authorities deal with the outbreak or taking care of vulnerable persons close to them, I understand your frustration. Referees provide a very valuable service for free, but committing to do something, not doing it, and not communicating about it (while being clearly able to) is not okay.

Perhaps this is worth pointing out. I would guess that the tone of the tweets also matters. If it's something like "great, I'm stuck at home so I have an excuse to stop working", I think being annoyed is fair. If it's rather "wow, dealing with confinement is hard, thankfully I have these activities to take my mind off it", I would be a bit more wary. Dealing with the current situations is difficult, and for some even more so. I don't know what country the reviewer is from, but in some places, it has been forbidden by law to go outside your home (except for essential reasons) for weeks/months. This takes a toll on the mind. It can cause emotional trauma, even PTSD or depression, according to experts. Keep that in mind before cutting off the reviewer.


Getting into grad school from an unknown undergrad university? Is it possible?

First, a lot of people wind up in graduate schools that are rated better/higher than their undergraduate institutions. It can have some impact, but is normally not determinative. Of course, it is harder to get in to "top" universities than others since the competition is much stronger, but it is still possible if your application materials clearly indicate that you are a good candidate for success.
Anything that can make success seem more likely is a help. Publications, certainly. Research, even if not completed is a positive. Good grades, good letters from your professors, all contribute to a larger picture.
If any of your professors studied in the places you are contemplating, you might ask them for advice. Sometimes the personal contacts between professors can have an effect, depending on the admissions system. At a minimum, a letter from someone trusted by the reader has more impact than it would if there was no such relationship.
Make sure your CV is complete and, very important, make sure that your SoP talks about your future career goals and how you intend to pursue them. Any ideas you have about research projects can help, though less detail is probably a good thing. If you aren't a native speaker of the language of the country you apply to, make sure your materials are checked by someone who is so that the language is correct and not misleading or awkward.
And, also very important, is to apply to a range of institutions, not all rated about the same. There are a lot of good universities out there that aren't rated near the top in their respective regions.


How do you get started organizing a class?

How do you take the absent students names?

I don't.  If a student finds my lectures boring or useless, they shouldn't waste their time coming to class.  (As others point out, there are very good reasons to require attendance in laboratory-, studio-, and discussion-based classes.)

  How do prepare your materials?

Coffee and LaTeX.  Lots of coffee and LaTeX.

  How do you write a syllabus for students and do you hand them out?

When I started out, I modified the syllabus from the previous iteration of the course, which was taught by an experienced instructor, so I could be sure to include all the necessary details.  I used to hand out the syllabus on the first day of class, but now I just post it on the well-advertised course web site.

  What computer programs do you use to plan your lessons?

I write everything in LaTeX (specifically, TeXShop) and distribute everything as PDF files on the course web site.  (See the first question.)  I also use SubEthaEdit to edit the course web pages themselves.


How can I get research experience in between degrees?

As someone who hires research assistants in my own department, here are some concerns I would have about such an offer.

There are students in my own university who would appreciate the research assistantship. My department has more qualified students to do research than supervisory capacity to give them all that opportunity.
I have an aversion to taking on a student who has not made any real commitment to the job and has no accountability. (I will only take on students who are either getting paid or getting credit for their work with me, partly for this reason.)
I strongly prefer to work with students who will stick around for a while, e.g. undergrads who still have a couple of years left, or M.S. students who may be interested in doing a PhD in my department. Working with research assistants initially takes a lot more time and effort than they save me, and I'd rather do it with someone who has a chance of sticking around long enough to give me some return on that investment.

So for me to consider taking on a research assistant in your situation, you'd have to assuage some of those concerns.

Tell me what skills you already have that will help me and my students advance our current research efforts in the short term. (This obviously requires that you do your homework and know what my group has been working on recently.)

For example, when you say "I am interested in learning about X, which your students are currently doing," I hear "This is someone who I or my current students will need to spend a lot of time training to do X - which we don't really need, because we already have students capable of doing X - and who may or may not stick around long enough for it to pay off."

On the other hand, when you say, "I already know a fair bit about Y, and I think it could advance your research in Z that your students are currently doing," I hear "This is someone who offers a promising risk - benefit ratio. We won't have to spend a lot of time on training, and he/she will bring something useful to the table immediately."
Are your plans to go to graduate school fairly firm? Do you have a timeline in mind for applying? If I think that you are committed to the work because you really need it to bolster your graduate school applications, I'm a little less concerned about you disappearing as soon as something gets difficult, or your day job interferes, etc.
Are you seriously considering applying to grad school at my institution? If you are, you should definitely say so.


Attend an international conference during PhD? How to know I'm ready (or not) to attend/answer a call for paper?

From my experience, it's much more useful and rewarding (even for people following your talk) to present a non-finished work than a completed one. As you said, people may come with an interesting opinion or fact you didn't think about and that may improve your study. Moreover, I found much easy and stimulating to talk with someone asking for suggestions rather than presenting a finished work. In this case, they're probably not interested in my opinion anyway.
I attended couple of big international conference and the talk I remember the most was from a guy who didn't even went to the field site to collect samples yet :)
That said, if you think some people may be interested in copying your work and publish it before you, that's a big no-no.


Graduate Recruitment weekend: faculty interview - research area mismatch

Don't make assumptions. Perhaps they really do see something in your background that they think is valuable to their own work. Maybe that would appeal to you, or not. But have the conversation first, and keep an open mind.
However, it might just be that the faculty as a whole divided up the interview task so that every one participates and everyone gets an interview. They might even recommend you to a colleague if there is a real mismatch. You say they "shortlisted" you but it may have been something more clerical than an actual choice. Don't read too much into the description of how you were chosen.
But there is no reason to give up your goals if they lie elsewhere. You probably don't need to accept a long term research relationship that you wouldn't find interesting. If you know of another professor, by name, you could even mention them as someone whose work appeals to you.
But, more important, if what they do is "important and interesting" then background can be developed. In the US there is a lot of opportunity for that, but less so in some other places.


Does Web of Sciences indexation implies a JCR impact factor for a journal?

Not just a mere Web of Science indexing. Within Web of Science, there are subgroups and it should be under SSCI or SCI or SCIE, inorder to have an Impact factor score.

For example, journals indexed in Web of Science, but under ESCI group, do not have an impact factor score.


When should I start applying for a PhD program in the UK?

Funded PhDs in the UK usually follow the academic calendar and start in late September or early October. Accordingly, application deadlines tend to be in February or March (often set by the funding councils and hence will be the same for every university).

The exception to this is if you are planning to self-fund your PhD, in which case you will have more flexibility on starting dates (but check with the universities you are going to apply to if you are planning to do this).

The best time for you to submit your applications is probably as close to the deadline as possible, especially if you want to use your supervisor/ tutor/ other lecturer from your MSc as a reference. The longer you wait to submit the application, the better they will get to know you and hence be able to write a better reference.

However, don't wait until the last minute to ask for a reference! Ask well ahead of time (>1 month) and let them know when the application deadline is so they have time to prepare.


Which is the better scheme for a poster: “tell a story” or “important first”?

This may be field dependent, but anyway, I'll tell you my (hopefully educated) opinion.

The conclusion should be at the end. It's sometimes criticized that some research starts with a conclusion and then start doing some p-fishing and other unethical practices to support that conclusion. You may present the question that you are trying to answer and as a "spoiler" the answer to that question, as it is not infrequent in the abstract, but that doesn't eliminate the need to present the conclusion in the end, explaining how do you get to that conclusion from everything else, in a very (straight)forward way.

In short, wrt to your question, you may (or may not) introduce the results at the beginning, but the conclusion should be at the end in any case, explaining how do you get to it.

Additionally to your question, it's nice (not required, but definitively good) to explain why the objective set in the first place is important. This may not be needed in some cases, e.g. curing cancer, obviously everybody thinks finding a cure for cancer is important. However, if your objective is deciding whether plastic bottles should be taller or wider then maybe you should explain the impact that a shape change could imply in terms of sustainability, before explaining what are you trying to do (e.g. reduce the amount of plastic needed).


At this point in time, a Ph.D. is generally a non-negotiable requirement for a postdoc position.  If you are already carrying out independent research, however, then it might be possible for you to obtain a Ph.D. in graduate school in a significantly shorter period of time than normal.


Sources to understand dissertation process, methods?

The goal will be to show that they were "proposing" the same core
  construct of human functioning.

You should consider starting with a question, rather than a preselected answer. For example, consider the goal of

  Analyze the similarities and differences between the constructs of
  human functioning proposed by Murray Bowen's "emotional system" in
  Family Systems Theory and the core Buddhist teachings of Vipassana.

The difference lies in how you will view anything that suggests differences. With your current goal you could be tempted to ignore or downplay differences. With a more open-minded goal you will be more able to give balanced treatment to everything you find out during your research.


At what point do you remove undergrad / graduate awards and honors from your CV?

I will never remove my IMO medal from my CV, and that is a high school award.
Even if you are extremely successful later in your academic career, you probably want to keep awards for the signaling to prospective PhD students, if you think the award correlates positively with academic ability.
If you think the award in question is unrelated to your academic success, you should maybe remove it, and vice versa: if it's something prominent and you remove it from your CV, you signal it is not important to you.


Conflict of interest -- recommendation letters

You cannot incur a conflict of interest within someone other than yourself. In the situation you describe, the only person in jeopardy of a conflict of interest is the professor.
This professor might have a conflict of interest if the professor were to be both a "recommender" and also someone who "asked" you to apply to the professor's department. That is not your concern, since you obviously are not familiar with the details of your school's rules on ethics—the faculty at your school has seen this same situation hundreds of times, and the institution will have well-demarcated guidelines which tell professors how to handle these things.
(I am puzzled regarding two things

how is this professor a "recommender" without also already being committed to writing you a "recommendation"
the difference between being a "recommender" and someone who recommends (someone who "asked [you]") that you apply to a certain department's program.

Perhaps you are referring to the professor as having some formal status as a Recommender. If that's the case, it is unclear. Anyone can be a recommender, but only a few are Recommenders.)
Do what you will, and if there is any potential conflict of interest for the professor, that is for the professor to resolve. It is not your responsibility.


What can I do about nasty comments in student evaluations that could cause me to get fired?

To answer this question: "Can the students be held responsible for their lies? The questonnaires are anonymous but they were done online so it would be possible for the institution to find out the identities of the students."

Probably not.  If the university promised the students their comments were anonymous, then it probably cannot reveal their identities, which would rule out holding them responsible.  Most likely the university did not retain records of who wrote which comments, so as to protect itself against accidental disclosure or subpoenas seeking to deanonymize the comments.


As with any certificate course, it really depends on what you intend on getting out of the program. All of those are well-respected universities, and the coursework will almost certainly be extremely informative. In that regard, you'll learn a lot. On the other hand, there exists a frankly ridiculous amount of high-quality, freely available information online related to data mining from many universities, including some of those you listed above, so you can definitely learn all that without paying a not-insignificant sum for the experience.

Regarding job prospects, it really depends on where you're looking to be hired. This answer from Workplace.SE is an excellent overview of how useful a certificate can be in helping you get hired, and this question from Programmers.SE has many useful answers discussing how certificates like the ones you mention are viewed in industry. Long story short, they're usually not that useful for jobs unless they're industry standards, which the ones you list are not.


Should I explain change of major in my statement of purpose?

Should I explain in my statement of purpose for PhD programs why I changed my major?

Yes, this is a substantial enough change that it's worth at least a brief explanation.  As a general rule, it's better to explain than to make the committee guess.  There might not be much to say beyond that you realized biotechnology was a better fit for your research interests.  If so, then say that; if there is more to say, then it's worth clarifying further.


How to submit a computer science paper to arXiv when I am a physicist?

That is somewhat hidden. Here's where you find that:

Login to the arXiv, go to "My Account". Below the info-box with your information there is the link "Change User Information". There you'll find boxes for the different groups to tick.


Is it common to include author without any contribution in a paper?

No, it is not ethical.
Yes, it is common.
Particularly for countries that have requirements on absolute number of papers to be published by grad students prior to graduation, this is a relatively common practice. Many journals now ask for the authors to explicitly list what was each author's contribution to the article, but of course this is also quite easily padded.
A question to consider, however, is whether or not these other authors had any contribution to your project you're not aware of. For example, if you are doing experimental work, perhaps they built the system you use to acquire your data - even if they have no idea about your data or experiments. In these cases some argument could be made for their inclusion. Whether that's true or not in your case is up to you.
As to what to do about it, if you have a good relationship with your advisor, ask him why they are being added using the most neutral language you can find. They may have some very good reason for adding them. If you don't agree, you can voice your disagreement and go from there. If you have a poor relationship with your advisor, you probably will just have to accept it and move on. I don't recommend secretly or "accidentally" going against your advisor's wishes since this will likely backfire, and they will in any case simply correct it at the proof stage.


Can I hand out students a few pages from books as supplementary materials?

First, in most cases, the channels through which you distribute the material to your students (hardcopies, restricted-access course website) is not important. Secondly, the copyright holder for each work is (again, in most cases) the publisher, not the author. Thus, getting permission from the author is not necessary.

So, the surest way to avoid trouble is to secure the permission to reproduce the content from the publisher. Publishers should have an online page (e.g., see here for the American Chemical Society publications) explaining how to obtain this permission. Many academic publishers nowadays rely on a centralized online service called RightsLink, where you can directly select the material you want to reproduce and the conditions in which you will use it:

The tool then tells you if you can get a permission to reproduce at no charge (it usually is if you want to reproduce only small parts, a few figures) or if you would need to pay.

Finally, under US law you may qualify for a fair use right to reproduce parts of a copyrighted content.


In Chinese academia, what is the significance of the corresponding author, beyond 'public relation'?

I have been doing research in China for 10 years now, and hopefully I can answer your question. When a candidate is being considered for a faculty job here, only those papers where he/she was a first author or corresponding author are counted. This is because there is a rampant abuse of honorary authorships, namely colleagues and students are added even though their contribution was minimal or none at all. As usual, instead of cracking down on the abusers, more rules and regulations are put in place. This is why in most papers published from China, there are around three to four first co-authors (whom contributed equally) along with four to six corresponding authors. The consensus is currently being upped another level where some institutions are not counting corresponding authors.


How to nail a Ph.D. interview when the professors work is not a good fit with your background?

In the US this probably matters less than you think, though I don't know your field. In most cases, however, a research advisor isn't chosen at the time of acceptance, but later, maybe a lot later. First, you need to pass qualifying exams and before that, take whatever courses are necessary to enable it. If you are already prepared for those exams, then it is shortened, but still an essential step.

So, you are normally joining a "department", not a specific PI's lab. It may well be that Prof Y is just handling lots of the interviews for the group of four and they are collectively looking for a group of good students to join.

While it might be otherwise, the above is the normal thing in most fields in US.

So, the fact that your research focus isn't the same as that of Y may matter little as long as you show you are prepared generally, that you are interested, and, perhaps, that you are flexible. The last can save you and get you in the door, after which you may have more options.

It should be fine to say that you have more experience and even more interest with topic M than topic N if you are asked specifics. But it might be a mistake to say that you would never consider N.

In other countries the situation is quite different and application is more commonly made to an individual professor than a department.

But I was several years into doctoral study in math before I linked up with my research advisor. Though I entered with only a BA.

In chemistry it might be a bit different, but only if the four professors ran separate labs, separately funded. But the fact that they advertise as a group, suggests not.


Is it OK to ask the graduate chair if my background is competitive?

I am currently the Graduate Coordinator of my department (mathematics, UGA), and it is the season for me to get a lot of emails from would-be or might-be graduate students.  Variations on "Will my application be competitive if I apply?" are the most common question I'm getting.

It's okay to ask this question in the sense that it doesn't bother me at all and I will reply with something.  On the other hand, my reply in most cases has been along the lines "Thank you for your interest in our program.  I encourage you to apply."  I don't think it's in anyone's best interests -- mine, my department's, or the questioner's -- for me to try to evaluate the degree of competitiveness of an application based on very incomplete, self-described information.  I can (and do) address the required components of the application.  If based on the information provided it seems like applying to a graduate (usually PhD) program at a top 50 math department may be a mismatch -- e.g. the applicant's undergraduate major is in something other than mathematics (or a closely related field with many mathematics classes taken) -- then I might explore that a bit in the reply.  But the bottom line is that the application process is relative and competitive, so more than likely we can't know how any given applicant will fare until we see all the applications: i.e., until we go through the application process.  (However, if the self-described profile of the applicant sounds very strong, then I may mention that and encourage them more enthusiastically.)

A few final comments:

1) I can see that it is frustrating to apply, perhaps repeatedly, without knowing one's chances.  But in fact the state of applying for a bunch of things without knowing whether one will get them is a quite common one in later academia, so maybe it would be well to wrap your mind around it now.  (It is not a trivial thing to wrap one's mind around.  I was a really excellent high school student.  When I took the PSATs I expected to become a National Merit Scholar, and I did.  I applied to the University of Chicago not just because I expected to get admitted but because I expected to get a merit-based scholarship, and I did.  I had enough of this kind of expected success that when it came to optional academic competitions / scholarships for which the outcome was in real doubt -- and especially when I didn't see success improving my life in any clear way -- I often didn't apply / show up / give my best effort, to the point of occasionally disappointing my mentors.  Looking back at all this, I must say that I find my behavior quite rational.  But it's not the way that "grownup academia" works.) I spend weeks every year writing a big national grant application; thus far, I've applied for the grant five times, gotten it once, not gotten it three times, and the latest time is pending and will be for many months.  For this grant (NSF), I do get feedback every year, which is helpful overall (though sometimes frustrating in its particulars).  On the other hand, I have applied twice for a smaller, privately funded grant (Simons).  When I didn't get it the first time and got no feedback about it, I was pretty taken aback and felt like complaining about it.  But I thought it through: it was clearly to my advantage to suck it up and apply again.  I did, and I got the grant the second time.  That's grownup academic life -- relatively successful grownup academic life, in fact.

2) There is a kernel of advice lurking in point 1) above.  The best time to ask for feedback is soon after someone has carefully evaluated your application.  If you've applied to a program and didn't get in, you have every right to ask why and how you could improve your application.  It sounds like you think that the reason you didn't get in were your GRE scores: is that what you were told?  If so, given that you improved on the thing they told you to improve upon: that sounds good, you should probably reapply.  Finally, if you already spoke to someone at the program, they told you to improve your GRE scores, and now you have, then it makes considerably more sense to me to continue that conversation with the person who told you to improve your scores: given that your GRE scores have improved so-and-so much, do they think you should reapply?  In that situation you have a better chance of being told something substantive, I think.

3) My program is relatively small (we generally enroll no more than 15 students per year).  In quality, the distance from the very top programs and from "less than serious" PhD programs are each rather large.  Once in a while we "steal" a student from a top twenty program, and sometimes for various reasons we take chances on students with inferior backgrounds.  So our admissions process really plays out a bit differently every year.  I could imagine that a program which is significantly larger, better or worse than ours might have less variation.  I suppose I would nevertheless be surprised if such departments were significantly more forthcoming in their reactions to questions like this, but I don't really know.


What does "to be enjoyed with all rights and privileges pertaining thereto" mean on a French diploma?

That phrase is clearly not France-specific, as @ff524 mentioned. In order to add to and further illustrate the nice answer by @vonbrand, I will share the following paper, which discusses Roman origins and Medieval expressions of the relevant phase(s): http://www.jstor.org/stable/1844716.

In addition to some comments and answers for the above-mentioned most likely duplicate question, I would add that modern practical meaning of this phrase significantly depends on graduate's field of study and institution they graduated from.

In regard to the field of study, rights and privileges might include (beyond the implied rights and privileges to say that one graduated with specific degree from a particular institution, to wear the institution's regalia, to be referred to as a Dr. [for Ph.D. graduates], etc.): to be able to practice in specific regulated fields, such as medicine and law (upon satisfying additional conditions, such as attending medical residency or passing specific state's bar examination, correspondingly).

In regard to the institution, some rights and privileges include to participate in alumni activities, to retain institution's e-mail address, to get discounts on various products and services as well as on attending individual classes and, even, enrolling into certain degree programs at one's alma mater.


No sane search committee member is likely to care about your citation style as long as it looks "professional." Nobody is grading you here, so really, you're just looking to avoid raising red flags.

So, what is "professional"? By that, I mean that it looks pretty much like something that they would likely see in a publication.  Most fields have a range of citation styles found in different publications, and thus pretty much anything that fits within such a range is likely to not be remarkable, and your goal for your citations is simply that.

One last note, though: it seems that your choice of citation style is being dictated significantly by inertia of familiarity with APA.  Since you will likely be required by future publications to use a range of citation styles, you may wish to switch from manual citation to using citation management software, which will help simplify compliance with a wide range of styles.


About eligibility for the Cambridge International Scholarship Scheme

Given that that's the same as the requirement for applying to Cambridge, have a look at the international qualifications page to see how degrees in your country map to Cambridge degrees.


What to do when a thesis adviser refuses to recommend me?

This is a tricky situation, and it's hard to interpret it without more information.  Thesis advisors certainly have an obligation to help their former students within reason and to recommend them for appropriate positions.  An advisor who gives up too quickly on a student is an unsupportive jerk at best (and it's easy to think of much worse descriptions).  On the other hand, nobody has an obligation to recommend a candidate they cannot honestly support.  Telling someone that is really awkward, especially when it's their own student, but the alternatives are writing a dishonest letter or writing a letter that undermines the candidate's chances, neither of which is any better.

Based on what you've written, there's no way of telling whether your advisor is a jerk or the two of you are just caught in an awkward situation.  I'd recommend asking your advisor some key questions:

Are there other positions you could apply for that might be a better fit for your background and accomplishments so far?
Based on your unpublished work, how could you prepare a good paper as quickly and efficiently as possible?

Hopefully you'll get encouraging and useful answers.  If you and your advisor can work out a plan that satisfies both of you, then that's great.  If not, you may have to give up on your advisor and apply with letters from other people.  That's far from ideal (the first thing everyone will ask is why your advisor didn't write a letter), but it can work if you get strong enough letters.

Of course publishing would help with getting strong letters.  Ultimately, I'd bet that publishing another paper or two is in your best interests, regardless of the situation with your advisor.  I can understand that it's upsetting to feel forced into publishing on your own, with no job in your field and no guarantee of getting one in the future.  However, it's probably a worthwhile investment of your time, and it's a valuable contribution to the academic community in any case (so regardless of what happens, it's something you can be proud of).


First of all I think you should apply and then decide, based on where you are accepted.

If you can find equal level masters in Europe (I'm sure there are) that cost less, can maybe guarantee you a scholarship, and are overall less risky from a financial perspective  you should aim to these ones. Consider especially German speaking countries, like Germany itself or part of Switzerland, that offer masters in English, in this way you'd have to learn Germany which is probably the second most important language to speak in Europe. This  could open a lot of chances in those countries after you graduate.

If for some reason you only want the USA you have to find out first if it's doable from any practical viewpoint, how much your parent disapproving is gonna affect you in every possible way (mental, economical...) and considering these factors how much you want it compared to the risks.

Answer to your edit:

There are excellence in Europe, you could talk to your professors and ask them about good places.
If you want to go outside of Italy the closest place is Switzerland, with ETH and UZH in Zurich, Lausanne polytecnique and the center for computational science at the Italian Switzerland university in Lugano being among the most famous and excellent places there. Lugano may be particularly good economically and practically since you could live in Italy (Italian cost of life) and cross the border to go to lectures. They speak Italian there so you won't learn another language, but it may be more comfortable. Going farther you can look anywhere for great universities. Take Germany, UK and Netherlands for example, they surely have great universities in your field.


How much background information should I provide in a paper if it is a follow-up to a previous publication of mine?

I think you need to assume that the reader cannot access your first paper for some reason. If the second contains enough description without it, then that would be acceptable in most fields to refer to the previous work for more details/justification.
However, I would caution against you being the only judge of whether you have enough detail as you are likely too familiar with your own work. If you have a colleague who has not read the first article, that could read a draft for you to give their opinion, I would recommend it.


Revoked access to data within same institute after moving section

Shouldn't the data be usable by another section at the same institute?

Not automatically, without review.

There are at least two issues. One is that all databases that might have privacy implications should be on a need-to-know basis. Moving around an organization can change what you need to know.

Second, combinations of databases can reveal information that is not stored directly in any of them. An apparently harmless database can help link other data. Letting people keep their old access as they move from section to section increases the risk of someone having a combination of access that has not been properly reviewed.

There is presumably some procedure in your organization for requesting data access. If you still need to access some or all of the data from your old section, use that procedure. If there is no suitable procedure, write up what you need to access and why you need it, and discuss the matter with your supervisor.


So, like the title says, how novel ideas should conference papers present? I'm early in my career, and find it difficult to judge is my work yet publishable or not.

This is extremely field specific and even specific to different conference venues. But conference venues, by offering (supposedly) quick turnaround of papers, do emphasise novelty of results.

Speaking as a reviewer, in judging novelty, I look at four main things:

Is novelty made clear: Have the authors clarified what methods have been presented in the literature and clearly argued how their work differs?
Does the novelty make sense: Oftentimes, authors strap things onto previous works or make unusual design choices (seemingly) just to be novel, and then they adapt their evaluation accordingly. If you say, for example, you have designed a new "hexagonal" wheel that's different from the round wheels in the literature and you show that it's less inclined to run away down hills, that's obviously problematic. (Though the analogy is a hyperbole, this case is quite common in my experience.)
Did I learn anything: If the results are new but are already quite obvious, or are trivially derived as a synthesis of existing results, novelty is poor. As a reviewer, I need to learn (or at least confirm with solid data) something non-trivial!
Could this lead to further research: It is certainly a boon for the paper's novelty if it could lead to a new line of research; i.e., if it's novelty warrants further investigation, and could lead to further publications, particularly by other authors.


Publishing without a pre-defined PhD topic?

Your question contains two related questions

"can a PhD revolve around a fuzzy subject... as long as the problem is solved using the methods in that field of study?"
Is it possible to write and publish a quality paper without a well-defined goal?

In research, almost by definition you do not know what you are going to find. (See the answers to this question.) If you did, it wouldn't be research! So it is definitely possible to have your PhD 'revolve around' a fuzzy subject. But when it comes to writing the actual paper, you will need a well-defined goal for the paper. The paper may not, and probably will not, cover the entire scope of your research. So although your research goal may be nebulous--at least in the beginning--when you are writing a paper to report the findings of said research, you should be able to very clearly articulate  the purpose of this specific paper.


How do I get a professor at a different institution to read my essay draft?

This is a classic example of what’s been dubbed the “XY problem.” You have some actual problem to which you’ve decided that emailing this professor is the solution and you’re asking about your solution.  But I’m quite confident that getting a professor at another school to read a draft of an essay is not the correct solution to any problem.  You should not be emailing your draft to a professor at another school and no advice we can give on how to email this person is going to make your plan work.  Instead, you should ask a new question about your actual problem.  What kind of essay is this? What kind of problems are you having with writing it?  What kind of help are you looking for?


Protecting my project from theft by panel I am submitting it to

My long research has prompted my few family/friends in the industry to ridicule me (which I don't mind), and have warned me that creating a "good" project would run the risk of "questionable" practices enacted. In short, I've been told that the panel might fail my project and transfer all it's content to a favoured student of their own if they find mine interesting enough. I do not know if this is a fact or just a rumor. But, I don't want this to happen (with me or anyone else).

I hope that this is just a paranoid rumor. It would not be founded in any university I am aware of, but of course not knowing your institution, one can't say anything for sure.

However, the question is what you can do to minimize the risk, if you feel this is an actual possibility that you need to insure yourself against. Usually, the best bet against having your work stolen is to make sure that as many people as possible know of this work as yours. For instance, you can show it to other faculty members that you trust (if you need an excuse, you can always ask them for feedback), or upload it to a (timestamped) preprint service. For code, the best is probably to just upload everything as open source to GitHub or a similar service.


Pros and cons of including mathematical equations in presentation slides

You are starting from the wrong point if you are asking the question of whether to use formulas in isolation.

When you write a presentation, a paper, a proposal, an expose, or anything else, here are two questions you should ask yourself:

Who is my audience? What is their prior knowledge? Why are they there and what are their motivations for attending/reading? What do they want to take away from you provide them with?
What is my own motivation? Do I want to teach them something new? Do I want to illustrate how smart I am? Do I want to give an overview of a field that everyone in the audience should understand, or do I want to impress a few key people?

If you have answers to these questions, then (and only then) should you start writing. You will find that, maybe unsurprisingly, the question of whether to use formulas will have different answers depending on your audience and what you want to achieve. If you are giving a job talk and you want to provide depth to your talk, then formulas are probably a fine approach. If you are giving a department colloquium that should have broad appeal to grad students and professors alike, then maybe using words instead of formulas is the better approach.

The point is: It all depends -- on the audience and what you want to achieve.


I organized our department's seminar series recently.  This is what I did:

know your audience

Are you trying to build collaborations with your department?  Are you trying to expose your students to new ideas?

I'm at an all undergrad institution.  We wanted speakers who might be recruiting grad students.  So I looked to bring speakers from institutions where we've sent students in the past.  I also wanted to expose the students to research areas not represented by our small faculty.

You know what you want.  Who do you want to hear from?

what's the budget

We had very little in the way of budget, so I focused on nearby institutions.  Luckily there are a hand-full of institutions within a 3 hour drive.  Plus, it's way less trouble to get a speaker to come down for an afternoon.  It's a pain for everyone when dealing with plane tickets and a hotel rooms.

I also looked around for some additional money.  There are often specific instances where a funding agency like NASA or NSF will have money to send speakers around.  You may not get to pick who you get. I was able to bring in someone from across the country who would have been way outside our usual budget.

cold call

People you already know are more likely to respond, but you won't make new connections if you don't try.

I dug around on department webpages, looking for anyone who seemed interesting and emailed them.  I also asked if they could recommend one of their grad students or post docs who could come in their place if they could not.

Many potential speakers keep a list of available talks on their personal webpage.  Ask for a specific existing talk, or a small modification to one.  That's less work for them: more likely to come.

fill in with personal connections

After I got some spots on the agenda filled, I contacted the people I know.  I can more easily convince them to come on some day that no one else wanted.

If you still have holes, go back to your closest neighbors.  There is some grad student who can come (especially if you offer free lunch).

invite a mix

Hearing about the same thing week after week is boring.  Try to invite a mix of topics and/or speakers.

junior/senior faculty / private researcher / post doc / grad student
men / women
big research university / small college
local / far flung
etc...

In the end you're in charge, so do what you want.  If your colleague doesn't like the schedule, let them put it together next time. :)


Asking faculty up for tenure about the tenure decision

Getting tenure is a major life event for faculty. So the same rules apply that also apply for questions that revolve around "how is your unborn child doing", "how is your parents' health", "has your spouse recovered from that recent illness": these are kind questions to ask a human, and if the answer is positive, you get all of the credit. But if the answer is negative (tenure denied, parent died, child is born with a disability), it puts a rather serious damper on a conversation.

There is no good way to describe whether the question is appropriate. In the end, these are personal questions that relate to family and, in this case, career aspirations. Whether or not you are in a position to ask the question depends on how well you know the person, and whether you have a relationship good enough to have conversations about awkward and difficult topics.


How to ethically approach publishing research with conflict of interest?

Unless I'm missing something, I don't really see the conflict. Write the paper when the time comes and submit it. If an editor or reviewer thinks you have a biased viewpoint that incorrectly impacts on what you have to say, they will probably catch it and reject the paper. But, I think a biased outcome is different from a conflict of interest.
And your comment suggests that if you don't develop the methodology you won't be in the running for the prize in any case.
For full disclosure you can include a statement in the paper (or to the editor) that "This paper was (awarded top prize)/(a finalist)/(submitted)/(soundly rejected)/(disparaged from the podium) at the 87th annual underwater basket weaving festival of doing Y to achieve X securely". Whatever best describes the history of the work.


At what point can I call my professor by their first names as an undergraduate research student?

Ask her!

Forget about figuring out when you can address her by her first name. Be up front, and ask politely if you can address her by her first name.

Do not be offended if she declines.

Naturally, if in conversation she invites you to call her by her first name, then that's pretty clear.


How should you respond to your teacher who cannot help you with a recommendation?

"Thank you, I understand." ... and then let the subject drop.

Also, consider that the expression you say may not have been sadness that the professor did not have time, but discomfort with having to say no to a request in person.  In addition to possibly being true, "I don't have time" is also often used as a standard face-saving code for "No."


Choosing between a funded PhD offer and a possibly funded one

Yes, you can try those things.  It is unlikely to make your situation worse.  Only A and B know if they are willing to help you.


Can one publish ideas well before one has evidence proving the ideas work?

Generally, no.

Insights are a dime a dozen. Insights with evidence are how science (social and natural) proceed.

Proceeding through your bullets:

You mention e-journals. Have you read the "literature" in traditional journals/books/whatever the field's standard is? There's a lot of good reason to be suspicious of e-journals, so you may not have a full view of the field.
Belief in ideas doesn't make them true(r). Sorry.
Is there a reason that you think that these expansions of paradigms haven't been considered? Are you sure that they really have never occurred before?
Perhaps that's the argument for obtaining a Ph.D. or research master's --- to demonstrate that ideas have empirical heft.

If you really want to make a difference, you will have to offer evidence that your ideas work or have worked, beyond the logic you offer.


What should I do if a coauthor, who has contributed the most among my coauthors, declined to be listed as a coauthor?

I have previously asserted that a co-author has the right not to be recognized as a co-author, if that is her preference. If she is amenable to publication (as would appear to be the case here), then you may proceed with publication. (If not, then you would need to remove her contributions entirely, and then see if the paper is still salvageable in that form.)

However, you should make sure you have a written documentation of the coauthor's declining of credit. You should also make sure that you have explained clearly why you feel she should be co-author; perhaps you can include a list of the contributions of the other co-authors.