The lecturer supposed to grade my presentation fell asleep while I held it. Should I complain?

The first thing to note here is that sleeping in such situations is often not a voluntary action, but a physiologically unavoidable response to the situation the body is in - many people die every year after falling asleep at the wheel of a car. I don't think you'd describe the results of that on other people in the car as "rude". In general, if you are in this state of involuntary somnulence, then no amount of caffeine will change anything.

You do not know the circumstances in which this lecturer is in: casual lecturers or adjuncts may be working several other jobs, or may have insufficient income to afford rent and therefore a proper place to sleep. Permanent folks may have so much work that they literally don't have time to sleep and complete everything they are required to do. Or they might have a young child or as you say, mental health problems. My point is these things may not be voluntary choices for the person concerned.

If i had a dollar for every student that fell asleep in a lecture that I had spent days preparing...

But....

None of this is your problem. You deserve not just to get the correct mark for your work, but also the feedback that will help you improve - after all, you are there to learn, not to get grades. As others have said, wait and see what the feedback is (and really you want proper feedback, not just a grade). If it's fine, then I'd wait and see, but even if it is - if this becomes a pattern then it might be in everyone's interest, including the faculty member's (depending on how understanding the Chair is), for people to know what is going on.


On-campus or off-campus residence for a married couple?

I generally advise anyone before moving to a place they are not familiar with to visit that place in person - specifically during unusual hours. The higher the population density (such as in on-campus housing, apartments), the more important this is! If you are more particular with your living arrangements (such as having children, an ill family member, pets, noise sensitivity, and so on), it is even more important!

The most important times to visit an area are: in the early morning before you usually wake up, after the end of the usual work day (6-7pm), at your usual bed time (9, 10, 11pm - or whatever that time is for you if you have a less usual schedule), and of course "the wee hours" of midnight to 2-4am.

I've lived in many places, and these are the key "pain points" where the neighborhood can cause a problem. In "family communities" where many people have kids, it's the loudest in the morning when kids are getting off to school and after work hours when kids are out playing before dinner. Meanwhile in some more 'dicey' communities going anywhere after 10pm is going to give you something to talk about the next day, at best.

In college communities, this varies tremendously - sometimes even between individual buildings on campus! Most campuses have personnel who are very familiar with living conditions throughout, and if you have a "Protective Services" (campus police) you can talk to they can be a great resource if you are willing to strike up a conversation and explain your concerns or situation.

On many campuses there are even different types of accommodation. Sometimes there are typical undergrad dorms, buildings dedicated to older/wealthier students (at my institution they are called "suites", but this is not a universal term), and yet other buildings that are often only rented to graduate-level students and faculty. Some institutions run their dorms strictly, where excess noise need only be reported to a floor-level employee (often called a "Resident Assistant") and they will handle it - and regular offenders are fined and even thrown out without a refund or formal eviction required.

Meanwhile, other campuses may features areas of rowdy nightlife where noise and late night drinking and carousing is normal and no one calls the cops (and campus police aren't terribly bothered unless things get out of hand). They don't put this in brochures or on their webpage, so you can't know without visiting and/or talking with the right people who are willing to be a bit more blunt about the realities of campus.

Off campus housing is really no different, though! I once lived in a privately owned house where it was well known (to people in the area) that the purple ice cream truck did not sell ice cream - it sold methamphetamine, and the cops didn't bother it so long as it didn't go into certain upper class areas or along the main highway. And yes, this was in the USA and even in a small-mid-sized town.

So no matter where you go, especially if you have an ill family member, it's really advisable that you visit in person, ask around to people who have personal knowledge of common living conditions and experiences, and try to visit during common times that might cause the biggest headaches. Only then can you make an educated decision, rather than making a blind guess and just hoping for the best.


What's an appropriate phrasing of a caveat about self-citation?

"In previous  work [1-3] the author showed that ..."
or
"We have recently shown that ... [1-3]"

With phrases like that I never had a complaint from a peer-reviewer.


What to do when being responsible for data protection in your lab, yet advice is ignored?

There is a trove of documents from Microsoft with advice on GDPR compliance, such as "Windows and the GDPR: Information for IT Administrators and Decision Makers" and has a pretty thorough explanation of what data moves where.

According to the document itself, it takes 17 minutes to read.  I think you'll feel better after you've done so.

There's a lot of paranoia about Microsoft, some of it possibly justified, but the hard fact is that MS cannot afford to ignore the GDPR or, in the U.S., HIPAA.

I did read the answer in Information Security SE, and did not find it helpful; the quotation from MS has to do with disclosure of data as required by law or legal process.


Verbatim self-plagiarism in introductory sections

There seems to be no risk of getting credit twice for the same work here, as the papers are fundamentally different. It is possible that more modifications to these paragraphs would make them better suited for their role in the new paper, in which case suggesting that the authors do so is appropriate for the referee. However, rewriting the paragraphs just for the sake of it seems like a pointless endeavour. As a referee, you should not suggest that the authors waste their time on this.


How should I write research description essay in my PhD application?

Normally, to be registered successfully for PhD project you have to write an abstract (10-20 pages) (and make a presentation). This should cover roughly and shortly:

state of the art
state of knowledge
open questions
the very specialized niche of your work and what the motivation is(better understanding, prototype, measurement accuracy improvement...)
how you are going to achieve this (probably), i.e. a reasonable working and time plan

As you are still applying for a PhD position, it has to be much shorter, so show to the committee that you can identify above points analyzing literature and summarize them in 2-3 pages.

To make things more easy, google similar current published PhD thesis related to this topic and read the preface (above points will often be summarized there within 2-3 pages). Don't write an essay, if the committee asks you to write 3 pages of decription of research area, write exactly 3 pages ;)

PS: Oh forgot, why are you are motivated for this topic you don't know again? Maybe after writing the description of research you should polish up the statement of motivation also a bit based on that ;)


MS incoming student: How to convince my department to give me financial support?

It's almost certainly not possible. The grad school sent you to the department because funding isn't the grad school's job. They don't really know if the department has funds or not. The department's initial response was negative probably because they don't have funds for you. I can only guess at why they've agreed to take a call anyways, but it's probably just because you've been persistent and either a) they are having a hard time saying simply "no", because it's culturally uncomfortable to say, or b) they think you'll take the "no" answer better over a call or stop bothering them.
There are no secret words; there aren't typically funds for MS students and your rejection for PhD was likely because they've offered the available funding slots to candidates they liked better for the PhD program; you're left as someone they maybe would be okay taking as a PhD student given unlimited funds, but they don't have unlimited funds, so they've offered the MS instead.
A more cynical viewpoint is that they don't really want you at all, but are willing to take any student who is willing to pay the high undiscounted fees that are typically charged to international students.
If you'd like to be a PhD student in the US, you are probably better off applying as a PhD student at other universities.


I reported cheating in an online exam and now I am scared the professor is going to blame me

I don't understand your exam situation as you describe it, but that's not really an issue.

Yes, if that professor has had an academic dishonesty issue with you, it is a reality that the professor may choose to look at your work more rigorously than otherwise.  Your performance is what generates the way people think about you.  Even so, the plagiarism you describe doesn't really suggest that you would cheat on an exam.  I have, in the context of academic honesty hearings that I've served on, seen students have two findings against them in the same semester by the same prof.

If your academic dishonesty incident was in another class with another professor, your current professor would, by policy, not be aware of the incident unless directly told by the other professor, and that is really frowned upon in many places.  If this is the case, there would be no reason to focus extra attention on your work.

I don't understand your situation about the video, even a little bit.  If you sealed your exam prior to opening the browser to search for the question, you should be OK, unless somehow there is real evidence of cheating on your exam or on the video.

All that said, you can't see what's on Chegg without a Chegg account.  With a finding of academic dishonesty against you, I strongly recommend deleting your Chegg account, and never log on to it again, either with your account or a "borrowed" account.  You have a finding against you.  A second finding will yield real penalties, and a third might lead to a permanent separation.  You would be amazed by how often I hear the word "Chegg" at academic honesty hearings.


How feasible is it to go back to BS to get a second degree?

The main thing is to reverse your attitude a little compared to lower-level study.
You are not applying. You are considering employing these people as your paid servants to teach you what you want to learn. You will be paying them in money and in time.
From their side, their desire is to serve their students properly: that is, to give them a good education. They cannot do this if you do not have the background knowledge and skills you need to be able to understand the course. If you are the one sitting at the back of the room counting on his fingers while everyone else is polishing up on Fubini's theorem, it is a waste of your time and therefore of theirs.
Conventionally, their suitability to teach you is measured by the bachelor's course you have taken and the certificate you have stamped on your forehead. From what you have said, you are not conventional. That is fine. Most institutions recognise to some extent that "entry requirements" are convenient measures of suitability but not necessarily the only measures. If an institution is unintelligent enough not to be able to understand that, then it is a clockwork machine, not an institution.
You need to contact the institution in question (or each institution, if more than one). You need to find the right person to talk to to have an exploratory discussion. This is not - and should not be presented as - a clever way of circumventing the requirements.
To give a concrete example: I know someone who failed to get into Oxford to read English and gave up the idea of academic study. Some years later she realised that if she didn't use her brain, it would explode; and that History was her chosen subject. She contacted the best college in Oxford, explained the situation, went and had an exploratory meeting with the tutors, and they said (a) from motivation and intelligence she sounded a perfect fit but (b) to make sure her essay-writing skills had not been forgotten they would require her to take the entrance exam.
Find who the right person is to discuss with. Ringing the secretariat and asking is a good a way as any: they love being asked for advice. When you have your meeting, simply put the case as clearly as you have here.

Is there anything I can do short of going back and being a first-year undergraduate again?
If starting at the masters level requires more skills than I have, then (a) do you have recommendations as to how I can acquire those skills and (b) do you have recommendations as to how I can reassure you that I have acquired those skills?

Adult-to-adult you should have a much more productive conversation than if you approach it as suppliant-to-gatekeeper.


do you know anyone who is over 30 years old, but got admission from top math grad school?

Knowing an answer to this question won't help you. What will help you is making a good application to a school you'd like to attend showing your skills and potential. No one will say, "Well, this is the greatest mathematician since Riemann, but, alas, he's 30". Age won't play any part at all in an application, not even competitively. Your suitability will be evaluated on what you have done and what can be expected of you.

But in any top school, the competition for a position is fierce and you will have a lot of other applicants that show near perfect records on most criteria. Make sure that you can stand up to the competition, not only in what you write on the application, but what you can say in an interview.

But if you don't apply, you don't get accepted. That rule is almost universal.

If there are gaps in your record, be sure you have an acceptable explanation.


IEEE referencing : Acceptable reference format for personal work log

If it's not published anywhere, be it in a peer-reviewed journal, conference proceedings, some book or whitepaper, then don't put it as a reference.

You could write,

  According to our work log, we first frobnicated the machine, …

The idea of including references is for interested readers to follow up on them. If it's some internal document nobody will ever see, then it does not qualify as a reference. It also makes it impossible for peer review to happen: you could claim anything and back it up with a reference to your internal document—and nobody could ever (dis)prove it.

The APA blog has an entry on that subject (emphasis mine):

  Likewise, if you have other nonretrievable sources (personal communications, like personal e-mail and phone calls), these do not get reference list entries either (although they do receive in-text citations, because they involve other people than just yourself).


What is the difference between Project's background and Project Significance?

Background: what (general) information should the panel know to properly judge the project. For example: What has been done before? How does your project relate to this previous work? If your project is about disease X, what is this disease exactly?

Significance is another word for "importance" or "impact". Why is the project important, for example: How many people are affected by disease X, and what do you expect to achieve when the project is completed. Better knowledge about the disease mechanism? A cure? A better detection mechanism? The structure of a protein involved in the disease (how does it help if we know the structure)? What they want to know is: How important is your project and how does it help to make the world better?

There is indeed some overlap between the two, but the requirement to write a section about the significance indicates that they want it to be separated from the background, without overlap.


Submit abstract to conference with no results yet

This depends very much on the conference in question. There are several conferences I submit to where it is fairly routine to outline broad strokes results, with the expectation that they will change in between the submission and the conference. There are others that expressly do not allow this, and want final-form, precise results and prohibit things like "...will be discussed."

So check the conference, and ask your advisor about the norms in your field.


Seeking advice with dissertation chair: possible theft of idea and possible blackmail

In my view, you did well. It is very courageous what you have done so far and science needs people like you.
The difference with the girl you refer to from two years ago is that probably she had not contacted the ombudsperson and you are second. I suspect there are more cases. Would be good for you if you discretely can find out as it may help your case.
It is difficult to predict the outcome in these situations but I believe on a higher level in life, you will succeed whether here or somewhere else. Shallow comfort: Your case will also add to the file of this supervisor.
You did not ask for this to happen but it did. It is not your fault. It may take you extra time but in the end it will enforce your personal strength.
You may consider to ask the ombudsperson to start an independent investigation. An ombudsperson can start such investigation if there is sufficient reason. In that case he/she should able to keep you out of shot and a formal complaint from you should not be necessary.
Take care, trust your instincts and do not let this unfortunate situation break down your self confidence.


No. It's a waste of your money, and a waste of their time. Your application will simply be filtered out.

There are cases where schools make exceptions. But they need to know that they should make an exception and why -- so if you think that you have a particularly good reason why you do not meet their minimal threshold, write an email to the graduate adviser of the chair of the graduate committee and tell them about it.


How to deal with poor scientific articles that seemingly reached the right conclusion?

I am writing a paper and some of our findings validate the conclusions from an already published peer-reviewed article in a respected journal. We also find things that differ.

That is all good and normal.

  However the authors of the paper uses techniques that are not ideal for making their conclusions, and furthermore, some of their data look particularly weak to me, i.e. I do not find that they substantiate their claims. For example, there are immunofluorescent images that simply look black.

Often (especially when it comes to experiments) the choice of technique is down to what is available to the authors, and what their expertise is. This is generally understood, and it's left for later papers to improve on methods, analysis, data, etc. In fact, an earlier less-than-perfect publication, while not great for the scientific record, helps position and justify your own paper.

Also note that it's possible they had better data than made it into the published figures. Sometimes the picture quality deteriorates during the publication process, sometimes the authors do not know how to make high-quality graphics, and sometimes there are outright mistakes. It might be worth reaching out to them asking for more details.

  How do I discuss and reference a paper, that seemingly come to the right conclusions, but do so in a manner, I am not sure about?

It's best to be sure before directly criticizing the other work. If you're not sure, it's usually better to focus on presenting your own work in a good light by positioning it relative to the other work. It sounds as if you are in a good position  to do that here, perhaps writing something like "System X has previously been studied using technique A [1]. We use technique B [2], which has better time resolution and allows for more precise control of property c." This construction can be adapted to discuss the claims where you agree and disagree with the other work. Basically focus on your own work first and foremost, and argue why we readers should trust it over the other one, not why we should distrust the other paper.

I'll add the caveat that this obviously breaks down if you come to wildly different conclusions than in the existing literature. In that case there's no way around directly addressing their flaws, but then you really want to be sure.


Citation of an article is not reflected in Google Scholar database

In addition to "indexing takes time (if it is done)" and taking into account that your journals in view are SCI indexed, consider Clarivate Analytics' / Thomson Reuters' Web of Science as a subscription based alternative bibliographic database. It has historical roots to the SCI (source).

Perhaps field dependent, but from own recent experience in chemistry, between appearance on the publisher's site (Wiley) of an about 1 year-old journal and Web of Science the gap was just about half a year.  To accelerate visibility of your work during this period, you may import publications as yours via the doi in the ORCID database, and simply link to the your personalized profile page there.

It is equally possible that your publication's abstract appeared on other sites than the one of the publisher's and consequently was cited.  Scopus (more oriented towards engineering than sciences, backed by Elsevier) is a potential source.  ResearchGate and the listings of Mendeley' catalogue add to it, too.


Building a local database from Web of Science and Scopus search results

Author disambiguation is a big problem in most plattforms / citation databases, and an issue in much bibliometric work. I don't think you will find a quick fix. Orcid (which WoS sometimes provides) is aimed to partially solve this, but depends on researchers actually having and using Orcid. Scopus currently has a better functionality in finding publications from standardized author records (i.e. "all" publications for an author, after their algorithm for merging authors have been applied), and this is also exported in e.g. their CSV format in the field "Author(s) ID".

See for instance these exported records from Scopus, with overlapping authors (and therefore author-IDs):

'Author(s) ID'  EID
24802234300;6602122539; 2-s2.0-84861411180
24802234300;55923304700;6603273826;6602122539;  2-s2.0-77955097159
16229637800;6602122539;24802234300;7003423871;  2-s2.0-51749084398

So if you want to build a local database from an online bibliometric source, which include some form of unique author ID, I think Scopus would be a better starting point. Web of Science has their own identifier included in exports (ResearcherID in the RI field) and Orcid IDs (OI field), but only for researchers that has those IDs, which is usually the minority (both across papers and within individual papers). One downside with Scopus is that there export does not include Orcid from what I know (at least not in the open web interface or the basic API), so it may be harder to integrate with other data sources.

Note however that all identifiers are not always included in all export formats (goes for both Scopus and WoS) so you should focus on e.g. csv-exports (which include the identifiers I mention above).


Are there any legal issues in having someone's book as the basis and as a textbook for an online course?

I cannot see any problem with this as long as no copyrighted material is accessible in such a way that it breaks the copyrights  of the book. Although the outline of a book probably can be considered the intellectual property of the author (and possibly the publisher depending on copyright), I doubt anyone would object since the purpose of writing a (course) book is to provide a product to support teaching of a specific topic. The structure of a book can often be the most logical way of presenting the material. The key issues is rather if you reproduce parts of the book such as providing the exercises on-line. As long as participants must obtain the material in the book on their own you should not worry. From this perspective it is no different from a normal university course (where it is also illegal to copy and distribute material freely from a book (or equivalent).

So for an on-line course, you just need to be very careful with reproducing text or figures from copyrighted materials in ways that breaks the rules. You can also contact the holder of the copyright (author/publisher) to obtain the right to provide parts within the course. The success of this may depend on the system you use for on-line material and what file formats you use for distributing the materials. Such details will likely be made clear by the copyright owner if you ask.


When you have published some nice papers during your PhD thesis, it still might be possible to land a 2nd post-doc, even when you did not publish during your first post-doc. Try to emphasize your accomplished publications and enthusiasm in your letter and cv.

You should, however, consider that it very likely will be more difficult to find a second one, especially at a top institute. They have often enough candidates to choose from.

Academia is often a very competitive place, and can be very unforgiving for setbacks, especially when not being tenured yet. This is really a pity, because there can be plenty of valid reasons why talented hardworking people hit a dry spell regarding publishing. (Think of not getting along with co-workers or supervisors, picking a niche that in retrospect does not connect well to one's specialty, going through a rough time in your life, illness, ...).

For some (many?) 'publish or perish' feels like 'perish while trying to publish'. I think that science does not always benefit from this.


Are comments on application folders accessible to students?

If a student is admitted to the university and ultimately enrolls then yes, under FERPA they have the right to access any educational records about them that have been retained by the university.  However, this doesn't include confidential recommendations in cases where the student explicitly waived the right to review the document.  It also doesn't include the records of students who were denied admission or who were admitted and didn't enroll (FERPA rights begin when a student enrolls at the university.)

In the last few years it has become common for students to request this information.  There have been articles about this in the campus newspapers at many prominent universities.  In response to this trend some universities have changed their policies on retention of data from the admissions process (e.g. you can destroy any notes at the point when a student is admitted and then there won't be any record for the student to access.)

Keep in mind that the vast majority of students in the US attend institutions where admission is either completely open or is based purely on high school grades, standardized test scores, etc.  In these cases there typically aren't any "comments" on the student's application.

See these articles:

http://www.browndailyherald.com/2015/04/22/ferpa-requests-yield-limited-access-files/

http://www.stanforddaily.com/2015/03/09/first-students-gain-access-to-their-admissions-files-through-ferpa-provision/


How important are recommendation letters for doctoral program admission?

Because I do not think it is that common! I agree some professors (especially if they overseas or know you in person) will let you write your own letter, they will read it, sign it and send it. Others will use your document as a draft only. But, the majority do not do that since it is very questionable and unethical!

Most professors write their own letters. Hence, recommendation letters are still important. Especially in cases where they can express if a student is exceptionally good, or to discuss his contribution in writing papers/proposals or even to discuss why did s/he perform poorly in undergraduate level courses (like me!).


The variance of peer-review types across research disciplines

Community answer:

Single blind

In single blind reviews, the authors are not given the identity of the reviewers, but the reviewers are given the identity of the authors. The editors handling the submission know the identities of everyone involved in the process, and the authors may or may not be given the identity of the editor handling their submission.

Pure Math
Physics (single blind is natural given the lively preprint culture)
Some parts of Computer Science:

Algorithms
Logic
Verification

Atmospheric Science / Meteorology (typically Open Single Blind, i.e. reviewer reports and author responses are openly available)
Library and information science

(if your discipline primarily uses single blind reviews, add your discipline here)

Double blind

In double blind reviews the authors are not given the identity of the reviewers, and the reviewers are not given the identities of the authors. The editors handling the submission know the identities of everyone involved in the process, and the authors may or may not be given the identity of the editor handling their submission.

Some parts of Computer Science:

Cryptography
Natural Language Processing

Economics (although preprints common in practice)
Public Policy/Administration

(if your discipline primarily uses double blind reviews, add your discipline here)

Triple blind

This is a system where the authors are not given the identity of reviewers, the reviewers are not given the identity of the authors, and the editors do not know the identity of the author and only find out if/when a paper is accepted (partial after-decision unblinding).

Philosophy (example here and here)

(if your discipline primarily uses triple blind reviews, add your discipline here)

Hybrid

Some disciplines use a hybrid system that is not easily classified as one of the above. If your discipline fits this description, note it below with a short explanation.

Human Computer Interaction (HCI) - examples: CHI and UIST

2-3 "outside" reviewers review a submission double-blind. 1-2 reviews are single-blind reviews or meta-reviews by the equivalent of editors (members of a program committee), which both summarize the previously obtained external reviews and include the reviewers own judgement and discretion in assigning scores of their own. A light anonymization process is used, so blindness at any stage varies by submission. Final decisions are made collectively by a larger program committee, based heavily on the judgements of the editors as informed by external reviews, often using a score-cutoff (submissions receiving less than a certain score will not be discussed by the committee and are rejected automatically).

(if your discipline primarily uses such a hybrid system, add your discipline here)

Note that in all fields, how strict the blindness of submissions must be varies. Sometimes the submission must be scrubbed of any hint of who the authors might be, up to and including censoring citations that might suggest identity, rewording phrasing to speak of work in the third person, etc. Some venues within fields may even check to ensure that a search for the title of the submission does not return identifying results from previous talks or pre-print copies. Others take a light approach, and allow authors a great deal of discretion in choosing how heavily to censor their submission. Blindness does not mean that one party absolutely cannot figure out or determine who the authors might be, only that the identity of a party is not made intentionally explicit.

Shepherding

The Patterns Community in CS and other fields (including Poetry, actually) assign a shepherd to each paper. The shepherd works with the authors through several versions of the paper, seeking improvements. The shepherd reads a version and make suggestions. The authors produce a new version in light of the advice. Usually after about three rounds, the shepherd gives a recommendation to the conference committee.

If the paper is accepted by its shepherd and the committee then the resulting version of the paper will go to the conference, and be workshopped by peers of the authors in a session in which the authors take notes but, in the classic version, don't participate. A workshop isn't a presentation by the authors. The authors then write a final version of the paper that will appear in the proceedings.

Rejected papers might need to go through the process again.

There has been some evolution of the concept, but it is still used. If you read a paper in the proceedings of a patterns conference or in many books by community members it has gone through this process.

AFAIK, this process was first developed in the poets community where I assume it is still used.


Accused of not citing a source in an english final paper

It sounds like you're confident you didn't do anything wrong, at least not on purpose. So I wouldn't panic.

The instructor may have used an automatic plagiarism detector. Depending how it was configured, it may have been too strict in identifying similar text, and the instructor didn't apply human judgement. You may have accidentally and innocently written a sentence that is similar to something online. In that case, I would just explain what happened.

Alternatively, someone else may have copied from you.


Can my paper be published in a conference's special issue against my will?

In my experience, there are typically two classes of conference special issue, and the answer to your question will depend on which one this conference is using.

Some conferences simply have their entire proceedings published as-is, "converting" them into indexed journal articles for the benefit of people in departments or fields where conference articles do not count.
"Selected papers," on the other hand, typically refers to inviting the best papers of a conference to be upgraded into better articles for final publication, presumably on the basis of continued work and feedback received at the conference, and typically with an expedited peer review process.

The statement that you quote is unclear, since it says only selected papers, but doesn't mention invitations, extended versions, expedited review, or any of the other words typically involved with the second model.  Moreover, if the conference is not very good, it may be that they simply don't care.

I would thus recommend writing to the organizers for clarifications --- and make sure it's a conference that you really want to be at.


Reporting in first person singular where two authors are listed

Number in scientific writing is fairly straightforward:

Multiple authors should be plural.
Complementarily, a single author should be singular (except when speaking of author and reader together), but many academics are uncomfortable with this and end up either sort of doing a sort of "royal we."

The response of the authors seems to be asserting that the supervisor is not really properly an author.  As such, I would suggest pointing them toward the Vancouver Protocol and giving them a choice:

If the supervisor is really an author, the paper should be changed to plural.
If the paper remains singular, the supervisor should be demoted from authorship to acknowledgement.


I could see what part of the exam paper another student seemed to be focusing on, now I'm worried I was cheating

OCD or similar, if formally diagnosed, could be legally considered a disability. Your school would then be obligated to accommodate your needs in an instructional setting.

Taking examinations in a separate room is a very common form of accommodation for students with mental disabilities. Whoever it is in your institution that deals with students with disabilities will be very familiar with this measure. Schools like it because it's easy and cheap to accomplish.

Given how upsetting this experience seems to be for you, and that it sounds like it wasn't a one-off thing, I'd really advise you to get together with your Office of Disability Services or whatever it's called and figure out a way that you can take exams without having to struggle with these challenges.


Is it possible to resubmit a manuscript to the same journal by a different author?

As far as the journal is concerned, your paper was declined (if I understood you correctly) and the next submission will be treated as a separate paper (even though the journal may know it's a new iteration of an old paper and it may still get the same associate editor and reviewers). This paper may have different authors, substance, or whatever -- it's a completely different manuscript, so anything goes. Whoever does the "submitting" is not important: in some places papers are still submitted by departmental admins who have no other relationship with the authors.
Having said that, from your personal perspective, the situation is tough. It's really the conflict with your advisor and how you can resolve it. Perhaps your advisor now thinks that the paper needs substantial improvement and that's why he wants to retain control of it. He probably thinks that there's something good in it (that's why he wouldn't just remove his name from the list of authors and allow you to do whatever you want with it), but at the same time, he may see some issues, so he also doesn't want to have it published in its current form. This situation is as old as the academic world, and the only peaceful resolution is to somehow settle your personal conflict to the level where you can productively collaborate on the paper.


Do research laboratories hire international students with a Bachelor's Degree?

I am not sure you can call it a job, but if somehow you put it nicely as a internship, or unpaid internship, you might be lucky enough to find someone that would like to invest some time on you.

Keep in mind that apart from your will, there must be some supervisor that would be willing to guide you along the process. For that to happen, either there must a be an open position, or you have to convince them that you are worth it.

One thing you could do is not to as for income, since you mention your main goal is to upgrade research experience. If you need income at any case, then you can as for student-job positions which are common in Europe (especially in Germany). But, still the Professor will need to spend some of his funds on you.

Prepare a good motivation letter to convince the Professor, get quality recommendation letters, show some proof that you have the potential to conduct research "independently" (if you have some publications in the field that would help you), make sure you find a research group that fits you (more precisely you fit them, in the sense that you know the field they are working on, you know the tools they use for the specific research)

But since you are a Bachelor student, and I assume you don't have much to offer you should keep your demands as low as possible. Alternately, check if your university has cooperation with other universities, maybe you can go to a university that could fit you as an exchange student?!


How can a senior undergraduate find academic journals in math and computer science?

I would agree that you should mostly be ignoring journals and focusing on conferences, as they publish the majority of new computer science research.

Microsoft Academic Search is a good place to go to get an approximate listing of the top conferences for each sub-field of computer science. Other fields other than Computer Science are listed there too.

Use your school's network to access the ACM Digital Library (this should be free through your school's library), and download the proceedings for the conferences in the past year or two. Find the papers that look interesting to you and then search for them on Google Scholar. You can print them out if you prefer hard copies.

Hope this helps!


Career Suggestion: Should I try to improve my manuscript or try to increase paper count after submitting PhD thesis

If the question is whether to emphasize quality or quantity of publications, the answer is "both." But if you have to pick one, go for quality. People understand that peer review takes a long time, so it will not necessarily be held against you if your papers are still under review when you're applying for jobs. But it will be held against you if the papers are substandard in quality, or if they're published in mediocre journals.

  Should I submit the unpublished works in tier 1 journals and try to improve the quality of the manuscripts (with the reviewer's suggestions)

You should first of all improve the manuscripts as much as you can on your own, and with your advisor's help. Then submit to appropriate journals. Manuscripts do sometimes improve with referee comments, but just as often, a referee will reject a paper without detailed feedback (especially if the paper is clearly not good enough). Attempting to treat peer review as a free editing/consulting service would be a waste of the editor's and referee's time.


Breadth vs. depth of reading in preparation for postgraduate study

I fear answers to this question must be subjective and Am I reading enough of the scientific literature? Should I read for breadth or depth? seems to cover the general topic of breadth vs. depth pretty well. Plus you answered your own question in that you should try to do both.

As a returnee myself however I can't resist to share my experience. I also tried to prepare informally for a return to university, both deeply and broadly. I found that actually diving in deeply was very challenging since I had been out of academics and working in the software industry for 10-15 years. Consequently my math was rusty, my familiarity with notation and other formalisms was all but gone and I had a pretty huge disconnect between this new research and what little I recalled from my previous stint. If you haven't been out of the loop for as long as I was, things hopefully aren't this dour, but you can imagine this wasn't a particularly inspirational experience.

Thankfully I found catching up in broader terms made up for this. It was easier to pick up things closer to my general interest and which didn't require all that prior knowledge, but it also provided the context and motivation to understand the deeper, bleeding-edge stuff. Perhaps most interesting is that the really broad stuff, even way outside my field (physics to make math prep more fun, history and philosophy for context) have given me a perspective that isn't of direct use per se, but which adds immensely to the enjoyment of my study and personal development.

So to answer the question directly, do both starting broadly and dive in when you really want to know more deeply about a particular topic. It works wonders for motivation and they'll throw you into the deep end when you get back anyway.


Asking an academic for a cursory look at a paper

First of all:

  no risk whatsoever of scooping the paper

It's never possible to achieve "no risk whatsoever" when dealing with human beings.  The best way to trust a person is to know them for a long time, but even that is no guarantee.

However, I don't think scooping is a serious concern in this scenario.  Alice has already submitted the paper, which is about the best possible way to establish priority.  Moreover, if the person were to go on to publish the results, even if they claimed to have discovered them independently, Alice would be able to show that in fact she had sent her preprint to that person, so they were well aware of her work.  Similar logic applies to the possibility of posting to arXiv - I don't think fear of scooping is a good reason to avoid that.

In general, looking over a paper informally is something that one does as a favor.  I wouldn't hold out hope that a stranger would agree to do it for someone they don't know.  I think about all Alice could do is to look for people who would be well qualified (e.g. who have done related work in the field, and possibly whom she cites), send them the preprint with a polite request, and be prepared for lots of polite refusals.

But I also think this is a particularly poor time in the paper's lifecycle to make such a request.  Alice would be asking them to duplicate work that is already being done more thoroughly by the referee, for no better reason than to satisfy Alice's impatience.  It would have made more sense to ask before submitting the paper.  At this point, I think Alice should be patient and wait for the referee report on her paper.  If it gets rejected, she should make her best efforts to improve the paper, and then consider trying to have someone informally review it before resubmitting.


Is it acceptable to write a report for one university mentioning unpublished research done in another?

I don't understand the basis of your worry unless you signed a non-disclosure agreement as part of your internship. Don't assume that everyone hearing of your research, even in some detail, will immediately want to (or could) try to scoop you on a publication. People generally are more honest than that.

But it is, I think, fairly easy to discuss research without giving up too much in the way of detail on the conclusions or how they were reached. General statements about the field, the methodology, and your part in the larger enterprise are probably sufficient in any such report. End it with the statement that the results are being prepared for publication.

People in academia share quite a lot with colleagues. They even ask for and get advice without having to be paranoid about primacy or getting scooped. Getting scooped normally happens when two groups work on the same problems in parallel, often without knowledge of one another, but occasionally in competition.


Is it acceptable to give out information about an unpublished paper in an application?

Whoever told you not to circulate the paper is the person to ask. If you were specifically asked not to do so, the author could consider it a breach of trust to  mention the ideas/results without clarifying the extent to which you can make claims about the project. Maybe they do not mind a general overview, only the paper, but this is something you need to find out from them.

"I will definitely be including it in my applications" is a problematic sentence under these auspices. It is not a good idea to mention the journal, either. Say, it's a top-tier journal. Anyone can submit a paper, but at this stage it is not accepted yet.

In addition, you probably should get more detailed advice from a trusted mentor on how to develop your application.


Is it always acceptable to publish working papers on your website before submission to a journal?

To make sure what your rights are, including:

preprint publication before submission
preprint publication after acceptance
publication of revised version
publication of publisher's version

check your journal at http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/index.php


Whether or should I ask for a reference from my advisor who I believe does not like me?

While I don't doubt your judgement of the situation, I think it's best if you put your doubts to one side.

Let's consider the best case scenario: you contact your adviser and they agree to write a strong reference letter for you, based on your excellent performance over the course of your dissertation. Great!

Now let's consider the worst case scenario: you contact your adviser and they refuse to write you a reference. What then are your alternatives? I would suggest contacting your personal tutor from university, or another lecturer who you knew well and have fewer doubts about their attitude towards you. As a last resort, you could ask someone in your place of work e.g. supervisor, line manager. Explain to them that the letter needs to emphasise your potential to succeed in graduate studies.

Finally, let's consider the most likely scenario: you contact your adviser and they agree to write you a reference. They remember that your working relationship was not the most positive, and this may be reflected in the tone of the letter. However, after six months or a year, this impression may have faded. The excellent grade in your dissertation, however, is concrete evidence of your ability to achieve, and they base their letter on this. The reference may not be glowing but it will be an accurate reflection of your potential.

As an aside, I would hope for your sake that your adviser is able to put their professional judgement of you above their personal feelings. Good luck!


Should an interdisciplinary researcher work twice as hard?

I collaborate with, and work on projects, involving human health, animal health, ecology, and the occasional bit of applied math.

Should I work four times as hard?

The simple answer is no. Because it's both impossible, and rather unlikely that you're even capable of that.

Instead, the answer is unfortunately that if you wish to be doing interdisciplinary research you should not be looking at those departments.

Because not all departments do this. Right now, my unit is hiring people working in health economics, and we've been very mindful to put their work in the appropriate context, including asking field experts what "counts" for them. We're doing similar things with other people we are hiring - for example, right now, we have representatives from at least three departments sitting on a committee for interdisciplinary hires.


Getting assistance for publishing a paper without experience

Inviting a professor with whom you don't have an established relationship to co-write a paper with you is rather futile, I think. In the first place, such people are extremely busy. Second, they don't know you and the quality of your work. Third, they don't know whether your findings are without blemish (by this I mean that the results, your analysis, the data and the methods were conducted to their satisfaction). Finally, they would wonder, as do I and I'm sure a number of us here, why you would be approaching them and not your supervisor or other teachers. Perhaps your supervisor turned you down for the reason that the work, while garnering a high score, isn't worthy of publication. This last one would be my biggest concern.

On the other hand, you might attract early-career academics hungry for an easy publication given that the thesis is already written.

Just a few things to note:

It seems to me that the rejections you've received from previous attempts have been due to language issues. In most cases, if the language of the submitted manuscript is substandard, then the paper is not sent for review. I think you should make an effort to correct the mistakes and resubmitting the manuscript. You might then be able to receive feedback about the content of the work rather than the language.
Instead of spending time finding strangers with whom to collaborate on this paper, I suggest that you resurrect the relationship you had with your supervisor.
If you do choose to try to attract strangers, be very careful about their motives and be clear about your expectations.
You might be focusing on the wrong thing here. If your goal is entry into a PhD programme, then a publication isn't the only way you can prove your capabilities. By focusing on this, you might be neglecting other areas that require attention as, for example, bolstering your language abilities, especially if there is a language requirement that you need to hurdle.

PS. Just by-the-by, I have seen a number of such invitations on ResearchGate, which was one of the many, many reasons I've abandoned by profile. You might try your luck there, though.

Good luck to you!


Looks like what you are actually citing is the software (which happens to be zipped), not the zip file itself. Obviously, how to do this this depends on what citation style you are using.

The according to the APA style blog,

  Use an individual’s name in the reference if he or she has proprietary rights to the program. In all other cases, create a
  reference as you would for unauthored works.
  After the title, in brackets, provide a descriptor for the item. This helps the reader immensely.
  If the software is available online, provide the URL rather than the publisher name and location

While the MLA Style Guide says

  To cite software, use the following form:

  Epi Info [computer program]. Version 3.2. Atlanta, GA: Centers for
  Disease Control and Prevention; 2004.
  Intercooled STATA (for
  Windows) [computer program]. Version 7.0. College Station, TX:
  StataCorp; 2000.

  Software need not be cited in the reference list if it is mentioned
  only in passing or is available without charge via the Internet (eg,
  shareware or freeware).

Whichever citation style you are using should likewise have guidance posted for how to cite software.

Edited to add:

Similarly, you should be able to find citation information in your chosen citation style for "citing datasets". Some examples are given At the MSU library site as well as other library sites. The APA, for instance (according to the above link) gives

  Unpublished raw data from study, untitled work

  Basic form:  Author, F. N. (Year). [Description of study topic].
  Unpublished raw data.

  Example: Smith, J.A. (2006). [Personnel survey]. Unpublished raw data.

Further edited for second follow-up question:

The University of Oregon Library website gives some general guidelines for citing any sort of data source:

  Citation Elements

  To be most effective, a data citation should include at least the
  following elements. The utility of these elements will depend on the
  research discipline, source data center/repository, and data format.

  Responsible party (i.e., study PI, sample collector, government agency)
  Name of table, map, or dataset with any applicable unique IDs
  Name of data center, repository, and/or publication
  Analysis software, if required
  Date accessed
  URL and/or DOI/DOI link or other persistent link


Can/Should I add CRAN package to my work published?

I would definitely consider including this in your CV. It's scientific work, and you expect people to cite your package.

It would make sense to put this under a separate heading, so your publication list contains "Peer-reviewed publications" and "Non-peer-reviewed publications" - this way, you don't give the impression of trying to inflate your publication list by sneaking in some non-reviewed stuff.

If at a later date you have authored multiple R (or other) packages and perhaps published other non-reviewed material, you could subdivide the "Non-peer-reviewed publications" by splitting off software into its own section.


How to cite a github repository that I used for data collection (research paper)

First of all: Contact the creator of the software and ask if he or she has some citable publication.
If not or in addition fork the repo. Use zenodo to get a DOI for a version of the forked repository (check the license of the original repository if this is allowed).
The APA-style reference would then look like:

Name (Date). Title [Type]. doi:10.5281/zenodo.XXXX

Name: owner of the original repo, if no real name known then github uid
Date: date of last commit to the original repo before your fork
Title: title of repo (heading of README.md)
Type: suggestion: "electronic resource: python source code"

If you take it serious: You needed to archive and reference exactly that version of the repo that you used for processing your data (later versions could lead to different results due to (fixed) bugs). If you have a snapshot of the software that you actually used it would be better to archive that through zenodo.
Would it not be better to archive and to get a doi for your data set instead of the toolset? AFAIK zenodo provides 50GB space per doi for datasets. I would try to contact the zenodo people if you exceed that.
To make it maximum reproducible you could create a new combined repo with your primary data, tool set, and secondary data. If there is just one "parent" repo (the python code as the basis of your tool set) you should fork that and add your data on top of it.


Hum, I do understand the impulse, but I don't think a CV is the right place for that. You don't want it to look like the back cover of a crime novel :)

In my country (France), PhD thesis undergo both a peer-review and a formal defense. Thus, you usually come out of it with two written reviews of your thesis, and one written review of your defense. It would be quite uncommon to quote these in a CV, but in many applications it is fine (and sometimes mandatory) to actually attach them to the application, as supporting material.

So, unless it is common to do so in your system, I wouldn't recommend quoting praise for yourself in a CV (a CV is a list of facts, mainly, not opinions), but you can try to include it in the application if it is allowed. Either raw, or you could quote it in the application letter, statement of intent, summary of your work, whatever:

  The research topic of my PhD was to study the influence of UV irradiation on bacterial growth rate in the lab's fridge. I quantified the extent to which it was detrimental to the life of these poor innocent bacteria. I also made the case for a new classification splitting part of the UV range currently known as “UV-C” radiation into a new “UV-D” category, based on its distinct harmful effects on fungal growth.

  This work was well received by the community, with a total of 4 published papers and 3 conference talks during my PhD. The thesis peer-review committee called it “a brave and well-inspired revolution of the old dusty classification of UV radiation” and characterized the end product of the thesis as “a clean lab fridge: the greatest service you can render mankind or, at least, labkind”.


What is the proper way for an abbreviation of assistant professor?

In my experience, what comes before professor (e.g. assistant, associate, full) is only really used in formal contexts, and in most other cases simply "Professor"/"Prof." is enough.

And, at least in the sciences, "Doctor"/"Dr." is typically used when that is the highest title.

I've never seen both "Professor" and "Doctor" used together.

So, in your case, I suppose "Prof. X" is good enough.


Adding pictures to mathematical academic papers

In my experience, these kinds of pictures are usually created using the LaTeX package TiKZ. An example collection of what can be done with TiKZ and how is available here: https://texample.net/tikz/examples/


professor pushing me to get result when nothing is right!

The case as I understand it is:

(1) You are taking a course and the assessment is based on      producing a publishable paper based on a pre-assigned topic.

(2) The topic assigned to you is not your research interest and appears to be broken, whereas other classmates have been assigned more appropriate topics.

(3) You feel that you are forcibly being roped in to fix someone else's problem.

Point (1) means the professor has the right to set assessments as per his judgement. There's nothing you can challenge here. No, you can't refuse to work on it (unless you forego the grade).

Point (2) is unfortunate, but it's inevitable that some inequality will exist between students. You can voice your objections, as you have already, but it's entirely the prerogative of the professor to act upon them. I would suggest making a calm and composed case mentioning only the perceived differences in difficulty of your project vs other projects. Don't talk about what flaws the project has. It might be a good opportunity for you to try correcting them. Maybe you were assigned this because you have a particular aptitude. Don't fight it before trying everything at your disposal.

Point (3) is a serious charge amounting to ethical misconduct. If true, this should be reported and escalated to the relevant authority. However, keep in mind that this is your interpretation only, possibly subject to bias. If you choose to act upon this, do think long and hard first, being as objective as possible.


Attempting to move an accepted PhD to another university

Universities handle their PhD admissions independently. That is, if you don't want to continue your PhD at the university where you are currently admitted, you have to find a supervisor at the other university and get newly admitted there. If you already have research results from your current place, it may be possible to integrate them into the new PhD project, but that should be discussed with both the former and new supervisor. Such a move would not really be "frowned upon", as it can happen because of various understandable reasons, but in case you had already started your PhD, some people may interpret this as failing your first project and may have questions on this later during your career.

If you were in contact with someone about starting a PhD at their place, but they don't follow up, it may indeed mean that they lost interest, or maybe don't see a chance to have you doing this, for example because of a lack of funding or supervision capacity. Best would be to explicitly ask whether they still see a chance of having you as a PhD student.


Do not have the right tools for my thesis problem

I had exact same problem in a different domain. I think this little story of mine will help you:

6 Months Before Thesis Submission: I was almost done with the whole thesis, then suddenly the supervisor decided to force me into adding another aspect of my work to my thesis. Basically another chapter on the whole matter that I already solved and concluded, but with a different tone (as it was another domain parallel to the domain that I solved).

Panicking Period (1 month): I panicked like hell. The whole thing was done and she wanted me to go to a domain that I ignored since I put my foot at a university.

Exit Strategy (1 month): The time was running out, I said to myself, well I will find 'easy references' that tackled this issue in a very simple way, will learn them, then write the chapter about it and then I will cite them. I found around 20 references on the subject matter.

Gold mining (1 month): It was one the most fun period of my PhD!. I narrowed these 20 references into 1 (thats right!), and then learned its related references.

Writing Period (2 months): Wrote around a 35 pages based on that reference and my work. It actually gave depth to my thesis, as I explained and tackled the same problem using a different method.

Putting my foot down and submission (1 month): Let the game of cat and mouse begin!. Supervisor did not liked the approach I was taking. I did explain that it is actually a very good and important reference, and this chapter is enough on the matter. She disagreed and I did not gave up.

Defence: Fortunately or unfortunately, one of my examiners where a master in the field I tackled and wrote a chapter about. He loved it. In fact 70% of the defence time was about the material I wrote on that chapter.

Conclusion: Be honest with yourself. At the end of the day, if you can defend what you wrote and contributed, then well, you be fine in defending your thesis and your whole PhD.


What does count as "something new" in the field for PhD?

Your thesis committee, and your supervisor in particular, are the ones who decide if your research is sufficiently novel.
Make sure they are happy and seek their guidance if they are not. It seems your supervisor isn't happy, so work with them to find what you can add or what other direction you can take. You could provide a StackExchange answer with dozens of upvotes saying your work is a novel contribution and it won't get you closer to graduating.


How to get information about new citations in Google Scholar without making profile public

You can set an alert on "New citations to my articles" and receive this information by email.


Colleagues exaggerate problems in department

I don't know whether it would work in your situation, but I have often found that disagreeing in a questioning manner helps defuse more than disagreeing directly when dealing with this sort of 'build up' because explicitly disagreeing makes a person defensive and more rigid in their position. For example, instead of saying "Prof X wasn't being rude", you could try something like "yes, Prof X did seem unusually focussed this morning, must have had something on his/her mind".

But it sounds like nobody knows each other very well. Such problems tend to disappear when there is more interaction because people are more likely to attribute a bad interaction to 'must be having a bad day' rather than 'must be a bad person' when they know the person. Would it be possible to encourage more interaction within your department? For example, you could suggest a work-in-progress monthly session where PhD students and postdocs once a year or so talk about their work. If you have 4 people from different groups presenting, then more senior people will turn up as one of 'their' students/researchers will be presenting.


How to find enjoyment in teaching being a research oriented professional?

I would not worry about enjoying teaching. If I were you, I'd optimize my teaching first. You need to identify the time consuming parts and simplify them as much as possible. Use help from senior faculty as much as you can. Here is what I would advise myself if I were to teach again.

First, you need to set boundaries. You must be available for students only during office hours. You'll get many emails. Answer only the ones with special requests (e.g. make up exams for disabled people) and tell the class you'll resolve all else during office hours.

Grading is a time black hole. Do not grade homework and quizzes - use some automatic system, or offload it to your teaching assistants, they'll love you for that.

Do not make up problem sets or even exams. That takes a lot of time and it's likely you'll make mistakes which will upset your students.

You should not try to exhaust the subject in class. Even if it tempts you, you should not spend time searching for ways to make the class interesting. The objective is that your students understand the basic concepts you are trying to teach (enough to solve course problems). Any nice new experiment or class project would take a lot of time to prepare and it's only worth doing it if you have a lot of help from enthusiastic students and teaching assistants.


How should I address other people in languages with a tu/vous distinction?

Unfortunately, there is no general rule covering every situation (or every language).

However, a good rule of thumb is to just use the "vous" when you are not sure which one to use and then imitate the other person.

If you are more senior you probably can also offer using "tu", especially at the university, but with the rule from above you can be sure that you are not being considered rude.

The generally accepted way to address professors unfortunately differs from university to university (in my experience more than from country to country), so I suggest you use the rule from above.

With fellow graduate students and postdocs, you are right, you can in general use "tu".

  Does the answer change depending on if you see the person face-to-face
  or if you write them a letter/email?

No.

(This might be specific to Germany and France, but I guess at least in Spain this behavior would also be fine.)

Addition: If you are on a first-name basis that usually means that you are allowed to use "tu" (at least in Germany this is generally accepted and from my observations this is also true in France).


Looking for a postdoc 2 years after PhD completion - no advice from adviser

Faculty, particularly ones at big schools, triage their e-mail. It is not unusual (but it is horrible) to have to wait to hear back from people. I do consider it unethical when they fail to respond, but that doesn't mean I can force them to change their behavior.

My advice is two part: 1. decide what you really want from them; 2. do not let their non-response sabotage your career goals.

In some departments there is a staff person who helps with job placement and references (academic advisor or job coordinator position), there may also be a career services department through the Office of Graduate Studies or Dean of Students Office. Try e-mailing any of those offices to get advice.

If you need references, contact each professor directly and give people short specific directions on where to submit their reference on your behalf (e-mail link, and deadline). If what you want is advice, ask for a meeting or even lookup and attend someone's office hours. But come with specific questions and requests, not for a chat.

If after all of that you still cannot get a conversation going, write-it off and look for direction and information elsewhere. If you are struggling to find post-doc or job opportunities try joining professional organizations, reaching out to former student-colleagues, or even enrolling for a class at a different college to re-establish your professional network. Try presenting a paper or poster at a conference or teaching a class at a college or community college. You need to be actively collaborating with people with similar goals to find opportunities. You need to be actively creating new things to keep people's attention (note your faculty responded to you while you were working on a publishable paper...)

This might sound strange, but instead of looking for a post-doc, have you considered applying for faculty positions? Alternately, if you are currently employed in a corporate setting, try for an adjunct position at a local college and then working your way back into a department, if that is your ultimate goal.

And this final advice is a little discipline-specific, but in some cases you could try applying for a grant and "building your own post-doc." If you e-mail a faculty member at another institution saying you are half way through applying for a grant you are likely to be awarded and would they consider "sharing" the money with you in return for it being structured as a post-doc, they'll fall all over themselves to help. (Warning: this is a lot of work) An e-mail like "NSF Grant Collaborator Needed for XYZ research from Dr.ABC" get's attention, but it's gotta be real and meaningful.


How can you identify which are the strongest PhD programs in particular subfields?

Two suggestions:

Look at the research publications of faculty in your area of interest and then look for the most widely cited research in this area.  You can easily find such information using tools like Google Scholar.  Then find out where the authors of these widely cited papers are teaching.
Look at what happens to graduates from the different programs.  Many faculty have web pages that list their recent PhD students, some universities publish graduation programs that include lists of graduates, and there are sometimes other ways of identifying recent graduates of a particular Phd program.  If you can't find those people on the internet, that's a strong indication that they working in academic careers.  If you find them but they're teaching at community colleges and regional comprehensive universities, then that tells you a lot about how well the graduates have done in academic careers.


Most number of co-authors in a single paper?

A good survey can be found in this article.  In short: within approximately the last 5 years, large international collaborations have started to exceed 1000 authors per paper.  The largest authorship papers are all LHC papers at present (with 3000+ authors), but other collaborations, particularly in biomedicine, may top that in the future.


Is it acceptable practice to list solitary courses on an academic CV?

Acceptable?  Sure.  Useful?  Probably not.

If you're applying to graduate programs, then listing these courses would be appropriate.  On the other hand (at least for US schools), you need to submit official transcripts for those courses anyway.  Also, if you expect those courses to play a significant role in your admission, you need to make that case in your application statement.

If you're applying to an academic position that is primarily teaching, then listing the courses might be appropriate to show that you have at least taken courses on the topics you intend to teach.  But if you expect those courses to play a significant role in your hiring, you need to make that case in your application statements.

If you're applying to an academic position that is primarily research (including most postdocs and tenure-track faculty positions), there's no point in listing what courses you've taken.  With rare exceptions, your research record (as listed in your CV, described in your research statement, and judged in your letters) is essentially the only thing that matters for such positions.  Teaching experience might play a role, but classes that you've merely taken won't.  If you think specific courses significantly strengthen your case—making you one of those rare exceptions—you need to to make that case in your application statements.


Becoming professor and showing autonomy - when to exclude supervising professor from co-authorship

Assuming that I understand it now, I do have a suggestion. Given the norms in your field, in which the PI is (I think) a co-author of every paper and who controls the grant and the research, you can't really distinguish yourself without help. But if others speak to your qualities more than you do, it might be enough - or even better. That would be the case in the US, anyway. Especially if that other is your PI and former advisor. You are, after all, his academic descendant.

Suppose you are looking for a position elsewhere. Suppose your professor writes the letter that says you wrote the grant and were the lead investigator for much of what grew out of the grant. Not your words, but theirs. That is pretty strong.

That may be easier to negotiate than trying to write as sole author, acknowledging the professor. Such might be possible, depending on personalities and norms, but maybe not.

At the opposite extreme is excluding your professor unilaterally. I'm guessing that would be breaking norms in your field and place. It is also a terrible way to move forward if you become alienated from that professor. They are not going to be there for you either in career moves or research opportunities.

In any case, it would be useful to have a conversation (or series of conversations) with your professor about this very question. "How can I distinguish myself here sufficiently so that I can move to an independent position? Can you help me do that? What should we do to enable it?" If the professor is honorable, and you don't suggest otherwise, you should get the help you need. And the professor, knowing the entire story may have options for you that none of us here can conceive of.


Am I considered fulfilling postdoc duty in this situation?

I don't see any ethical consideration as long as your PI is happy and you aren't violating any specific contractural arrangements from your funding. I think that is unlikely. Whether you need to list the PI or not is a different question, and depends on your field and somewhat on the PI. If the PI can help in your future career, it would be good to consider them as author, but my opinion is that would imply that they contribute something.

But authorship of PIs and supervisors varies by field.

And yes, acknowledge the grant and its funders.


Is possible cite an internet site (of an academical project) with the authors

Yes, you should always provide all of the bibliographic information that you can.

In the citation of websites, authorship is often not given because authorship is either unstated, unclear, or complex.  If, however, the authorship of an online resource is clear, then you must list its authors, just as you would for any other source that you cite.


How can I find out which digital libraries include a given journal?

Worldcat.org will give you this information. Search for the journal by name, click on it in search results, and look under "Find a copy online".

For example, "International Construction Law Review" appears to be available in two digital libraries:


Importance of "independent" under-graduate research in graduate admissions

In an application, list all material that shows you in a positive light. Being able to perform successful research, both on your own and under supervision, is good. The fact that you engaged, on your own (or with friends) on research and were able to publish it (I assume in a peer-reviewed journal) is a plus for your application… unless the quality of the paper is really (visibly) bad.


An erratum would usually only include the part to be corrected from the original publication. Hence it would be insufficient to cite just the erratum and not the original article. Examples of such errata are shown in the US NLM  site. Thus you must cite both original article as well as the errtum.
But there is a method to cite errata. You should cite the original article [A] in the main section and cite the errata [B] after the citation info of [A] in the references section.
Similar to this.

References:
[A] Authors of A. Title of A. In conf./article/report/etc. Erratum. Author of B [B]
[B] Info of B...

A simple example is provided in the answer here.


What consequences are imposed by an institution when a researcher commits plagiarism?

Different institutions have different policies in place; however, it is the duty of the author's institute to conduct a detailed investigation if there are allegations of plagiarism or any other form of misconduct. If the author/researcher is found guilty is confirmed, depending on the nature and extent of misconduct, one of more of the following actions may be taken by the institute:

At first, appropriate steps are taken to correct the damage
Letters of reprimand may be sent to the guilty persons
Sanctions are imposed on them
Their work may be closely monitored to ensure compliance with the funders' policies and publication ethics
The institute informs the funding agency and this can lead to suspension or termination of a grant
In extreme cases, the guilty person may be suspended or terminated from the institute
If copyright violations or fraud is involved, the institute sends the findings of the investigation to the appropriate agencies. The Office of Research Integrity (ORI) releases the names of people guilty of misconduct on its website. This can damage the reputation of the researcher, and he/she might be banned from submitting papers to journals for a certain period.


Dutch Higher education degrees have a major or a minor?

(As mentioned in the comments) It is possible to do a minor while at university in the Netherlands - for example, on the Biology course of Radboud University, it is possible to do 15-30 ECTS on a minor subject.

This website gives more information about higher education in the Netherlands, but you can confirm for yourself by looking at the course descriptions at other universities.


AFAIK, postgraduate research would, equally, be known as both Ph.D. and post-doctoral programs. Graduate studies do cover M.Sc. programs, there. Therefore, whatever after that would be named as postgraduate. So, one might assert that a postgraduate researcher could be either a Ph.D. candidate or a post-doctoral fellow.

Of course, theses definitions are highly flexible and even interchangeable among different universities, even in UK.


Does university location affect job prospects?

Far more important than location is the quality of the program. You can get some measure of the program's quality by looking at the job placement of recent graduates. If they are making it out to the companies you are interested in, then you should be fine. If all the graduates are staying in-state, you will probably want to look to a different program.


What is a reliable accreditation to look for in British business schools?

I am not sure how valuable accreditations are. I would suggest going by reputation rather than a binary is/isn't accredited. I think it would be rare for a school to have a "good" reputation, but lack critical accreditations. There likely is variability in the accreditations that schools with questionable reputations have. I would still base my decision on reputation and then only when deciding between a few schools with very similar reputations give any weight to accreditation. As for finding out about reputation word of mouth, league tables (e.g., the Guradian tables), and the RAE are reasonable starting points.


SOP - UK department offers two distinct masters - I am interested in both

I am on the admission committee for a fairly prestigious UK MSc and see this kind of thing all the time (indeed, we also get quite a lot of candidates who apply to both our MSc and PhD). More generally, it is very common for (a) intelligent people to have a lot of active interests at once, (b) intelligent people who face many open doors to struggle to choose which one the like most. The admissions guys (who are human beings, not machines!) understand this, and applying to both programmes will almost certainly not upset them.

What will upset them is any sign of insincerity on your part, or any sense that you are trying to game the system by feigning an interest in one of the topics. My advice is therefore:

Treat the two applications as separate opportunities to write the strongest statement you can for each. In particular, think about how you can use the statement to give verifiable evidence that you have a real intellectual interest in the topic. Simply saying "I have a lifelong passion for X" won't convince anybody, so look for ways to send a more credible signal. For example, you could talk about how some readings influenced your thinking, or about some open research questions you think are interesting and how they might be solved.

Likewise, if you talk about what you will do with the degree in the future, try to be concrete and show that you have thought about how the programme fits your needs. What are the specific skills you hope to acquire and what specific modules on the degree will help you to develop those skills?

In your particular circumstances, I think it might make sense to include one or two sentences at the end of the statement acknowledging the fact that you are also applying for another programme. But, again, my advice would be to aim for sincerity rather than trying to play mind games. It should suffice to say that you fell passionate about, and ready to commit to either programme should you have the good fortune to be admitted.


What is the term for a list of interviews?

I don't know how they call a list of interviews, but in practical terms, I would simply use "Interviews" as heading for the relevant section. I've seen this quite frequently.


How to list workshop presentations on a CV when circumstances change?

I think the second option is better since the abstract appeared in the proceedings. Otherwise, the first would probably be best. People searching will likely be looking for the abstract as accepted and published.


How to acknowledge oneself as the author of materials created in industry research position?

You should be able to place your authorship somewhere in the front-matter of the document without compromising branding.  I think the magic phrase you need is something along the lines of "Prepared by: [authors]".

To take one of your examples: in a manual, after the cover there is often a set of front-matter with history and disclaimers and such.  You can add "Prepared by" as its own little subsection or insert it into the version and history information.  This makes it absolutely clear that you are the author, without putting yourself in front of the company's brand.


How do I deal with postdoc acceptances that come in before my preferred institution makes its decision known?

This can be difficult. If you get an offer with an uncomfortable deadline, I would recommend bringing it to the attention of departments which you prefer (and/or individual faculty at those departments).

This is not guaranteed to push them to make a faster decision, but it could.


Should getting no response in this timespan be understood as a no? What should I do in this situation?

Your time scale seems too short for me. Patience might be a virtue here. But sending the thesis and the request at the same time is probably a pretty heavy load to drop on a person.

Ask your advisor to follow up with a request and a recommendation. It might be more successful coming from them than from you.

But in general, making a request and offering to show related work in the initial request might be more successful than just sending it all at once. Some people get a lot of these requests and have learned to ignore them.


How long does it take a student to conduct undergrad research and then release a publication based off of that research?

I think your question is perhaps ambiguous (does "typical length of time" mean hours you put in, or days/months from the start of the project?), and not really answerable regardless of the interpretation. There are different kinds of undergraduate research. Here are a couple of the usual ways undergrad research is done:

A somewhat intensive short period of time (6-8 weeks, say) where a student works on a topic chosen by an advisor ahead of time. Presumably these topics are carefully chosen so that the student is able to make real progress in such a short period of time. These projects are often in the form of an REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates). If you do some googling, you will likely find REU's in your field of study, and some advisors/organizers nicely list all of the publications that come out of the REU's. You will see that not all REU projects result in publications.
Working over a longer period of time with a specific professor in your department. This can be an actual job, where you are paid to work in a research lab, or it can be an "independent study" course, where you actually get a couple of credits to work with a professor on a research project. If you are being paid to do research as a student job, your hours may be (at least technically) limited by university policy. This type of research can be very substantial. For example, I knew a person who worked in a professor's fluid mechanics lab for all 4 years of his undergraduate education, and I think they produced and published some nice results.

So, for shorter more packaged projects, I think a "typical" time would be 6-8 weeks. For longer, more open-ended projects, you could potentially work with a professor for years (depending on lab space, grant money, etc.). All of this is highly field-dependent I'm sure.

Now, all of this being said, I think the most important point to make is that publications should not be your ultimate goal. Work hard, be passionate about your field of study, learn as much as you can, and keep up on the other things you have to do as an undergrad. If you do this, then you will impress your advisors and have great letters of recommendation, which will help you get into a great graduate school, and then you can spend the rest of your career worrying about publications :)


Research-assistant classification in C.V

I'm going to suggest that among your option, Work Experience is probably best. I doubt that you were given a formal "Certificate" for your work. A letter isn't the same thing. It is probably more easily evaluated as work experience in any case. The letter will stand for itself. Don't embellish it.


I did everything on my own regarding my B.Sc. thesis. My supervisor did nothing. I want to publish it without his name

The basic rule is that you can publish your own work without limitation. You can also correct previous versions, such as drafts, or even work submitted for class or a degree.

However, there are two considerations.

The first, is that in some fields, questions can be raised about "contributions". In a chemistry lab, that is grant funded and has a lot of participants and a PI who wrote and manages the grant, it is considered proper to include many (all) of those participants, often as co-author. If you are in such a field, and depended on such things, then you need to consider the contributions that made your work possible, even if the contributions were indirect.

The second consideration is purely political, but not ethical or legal. An advisor who likes you and your work can do you a lot of good in the future, especially if you want to aim for an academic career. In such cases either an acknowledgement (even if unearned) of an advisor, or even including him/her as a co-author, might just do yourself some good in the future. An adversarial relationship with an advisor, especially when you need them for letters and such is a career killer. Having a faculty member, advisor or not, who dislikes you, whether validly or not, won't help you and could hurt.

But the advisor needs to weigh in on whether s/he wants to be a co-author. It is improper to include someone who hasn't agreed. You don't need permission for an acknowledgement, however.

My approach would be to tell the advisor that you want to publish an updated version of the work. Ask for advice in doing this. You don't need to offer co-authorship, but if it is requested, my advice would be to submit. If nothing more, the name, assuming the person has a good reputation generally, will add a bit of weight to the paper, since you are a novice at this. It can be an introduction to the bigger world.

If the advisor agrees that it can/should be published, you can ask if s/he wants to participate in improving it or if you should just go on your own. The answer you get should be instructive.

One danger here is that some people will try to take it over. Before you start on improvements, make sure that you know how authorship will work. Do this at the beginning, and keep a record of the interchange so that misunderstandings don't occur later. This is one sort of transaction where (saved) emails can be a good thing.

If you get advice not to publish it you will need to explore the reasons. It may be that the work isn't "ripe" enough for publication, even if it was fine for the degree.


Adding your professor as a co-author in name only won't help from the perspective of being taken more seriously in the review process.

Including your professor as a genuine co-author will almost certainly help in that your professor has a lot more experience in writing papers, knows how to write in a scientific way, how much background to include, what previous work by others is relevant, which results to highlight, how to format the paper so that it meets the requirements of the journal and is enjoyable for experts to read, and how to engage constructively with the review process. And don't under-estimate them: they might even have some scientific insights to add to your own.


How can I include figures with non-English text (and a translation) in the appendix of a research paper?

As the comments state, if the wording is of any significance to understanding your manuscript then a translation is in order. Depending on the type of figure you have several options

If your figure exists in editable digital form, you can see if actually changing the wording is possible. Even better if the format is a vctor graphics is to redraw the figure completely.

If your figure is a bit map, you could ad labels to the figure and provide translations in the text or figure caption (preferably).

Clearly the possibilities vary with the format of the original but it will be important to make the figure as understandable as possible for people not familiar with your native language.


Doing an unpaid Post-Doc in the US with own savings, visa

I don’t know about the visa, but even aside from that there are legal, ethical and reputation issues with your idea. Considering all of those, I’m 99% certain that neither MIT nor any other reputable university will give even passing consideration to the idea of an unpaid postdoc.
On the legal side, there is this thing called minimum wage that forces organizations to pay their employees. The exceptions are volunteers and unpaid internships, and there are rules governing who can count as either of those, to avoid organizations using those categories as loopholes to exploit workers. I don’t know enough about this topic to be able to say for certain that a postdoc couldn’t be categorized as an unpaid intern, but I suspect that at the very least, the idea would be unusual and eyebrow-raising enough to deter anyone from wanting to even test whether this is possible.
On the ethical side, postdocs are already a somewhat vulnerable population that are paid less than their qualifications make them “worth” on the free market (outside of academia). This raises real issues about the potential for exploitation. There are reasonable arguments why this pay structure makes sense, but employing unpaid postdocs absolutely does not make sense, and would undermine the ability of people who can’t afford to take such unpaid positions from being competitive in the academic jobs market. The last thing a university would want is to open itself to accusations of such exploitative behavior.
On the reputation side, a university like MIT can afford to hire the best postdocs in the world, and its reputation is much more valuable to it than the cost of employing a postdoc. If you are good enough to want them to work for you, they will offer to pay you like any postdoc, to avoid anyone getting the impression that they are settling for subpar talent in order to save money, if for no other reason - even setting aside the legal and ethical issues I mentioned above.
Bottom line: an unpaid postdoc at a good university almost certainly isn’t going to be an option for you, sorry.


Is it okay to give a gift to my research mentor who happens to be the dean?

I don't think the fact that your research mentor is the dean changes the issue. The only minor thing might be that the dean may be even more concerned that they follow official university policy.

Thus, all the general questions about buying a gift for your supervisor would apply:

Is it appropriate to buy a "thank you" gift for a PhD supervisor?
Is it standard for graduate students to get gifts for their advisors?

The core issue from my perspective is that you want to avoid a conflict of interest for the advisor. Thus, I would wait to give a gift at least until after you have passed your thesis.

In addition, it is important that the gift is not too expensive. Many universities  have policies about gifts over a certain value having to be declared or are even forbidden. Furthermore, if the gift is expensive, it has greater potential to be seen as creating a conflict of interest. Related to this principle is the idea that the gift should be a small token of appreciation and, in no way, should it represent a form of payment.

Also, as you suggest, custom and policy can vary between universities. So that should be a good guide to what is reasonable.


Someone copied my assignment without my knowledge but I am now accused of directly assisting them to copy my work

It is pretty hard (read impossible) to prove a negative. But it may be that you are really being accused of sharing the blame by being sloppy in keeping your own work private. Some places will treat that as cooperating, even if it is unintentional. If you were sloppy you probably have little recourse.

But one avenue may be open to you (among others). If the written warning is part of your permanent record you can ask to place a written rebuttal into the permanent record as well. If it isn't part of the permanent record, you can probably just move on. If you are questioned about it in the future, assure them that you really weren't at fault. But in most places, a single transgression is unlikely to end your career, especially if the official response was a warning.

Other options that might be open would be regular or ad-hoc judiciary panels that can adjudicate such things, though you aren't guaranteed success here.

And it is also just possible that the other person could take full responsibility for the act, leaving you in the clear.


Meaning of et al. when referring to multiple papers with the same first author

I understand this "X and others" to mean one specific set of (unnamed) people, unless they are the same bunch I'd write them separately. Just like when I was citing two papers by Chen together, but they were different Chens.
Perhaps use "X, Y et al. [203] and X, Z et al. [205]"?


Was there ever a case where one has to prove access to materials cited?

I could interpret your question two different ways: (a) proving that you have read the article (because otherwise your research is academically dubious), or (b) proving that you were legally entitled to read the article (because otherwise your research is legally dubious).

If the material is published, then you do not need a license to read it, you only need a license if you want to copy it. It is perfectly legal to read it by looking over someone's shoulder on the bus or in the library. Therefore, you do not need to prove that you were legally entitled to read it.

On the other hand, if you don't have access to a copy that you can go back to any time, you are going to have trouble responding to any queries from referees that suggest you didn't read it carefully enough...

As for unpublished material, such as private letters, I think it would be prudent to refrain from citing the material unless you have legitimate access to it.