Math PhD in US vs Master + PhD in Europe

I got my PhD in Germany (Heidelberg) and then did a postdoc in the US. I think that was the right choice: In the US, you will have to spend a couple of years taking classes, satisfying your breadth requirement, and you will likely have to teach alongside your research. There is much to be said about this system -- including that it teaches you to teach, and that you get a broader overview of what mathematics is -- but it all gets in your way of doing research. On the other hand, in the German system, you will most likely have relatively light teaching duties (if any) and have time to specialize. This will help you find a research area, and it will likely mean that you are better qualified than many American applicants once you apply for postdoc positions.

What is going to be important is that you form the personal connections on the other side of the pond to get a postdoc position there. Postdoc positions are not just awarded by accomplishments alone -- much as we would like that to be the case -- but also based on who you know, who your adviser knows, etc. This is so because when you apply for postdoc positions, your resume is still relatively thin: A couple of papers, a couple of conference presentations. In essence, every applicant on paper looks equally good, and so things like what university you come from, who your adviser was, and what the letters of recommendation say all have influence. The biggest influencer is if you know someone at the university you apply to. In other words, build these connections: go to conferences in the US if you can, contact people there to see whether they want to collaborate with you, see if your adviser knows people there and can support you for a 4-week stay. All of these things are going to matter.

Second, see that you can teach a course for a semester. Almost all US graduate students teach courses, and postdocs generally have to do the same. As a consequence, having taught (and having letters of recommendation that speak to your abilities as a teacher) is a criterion that is often considered when evaluating postdoc candidates. Try to make the selection committees job easier by providing them something in this area.

Finally, make yourself knowledgeable about the application deadlines in the US. These days, they are often at the end of October or November, for appointments that start in August or September of next year, at the beginning of the next academic year. (One can think that that is crazy, but that's how it is.) Most applicants will not yet have graduated at the time they apply, hoping to graduate at the end of the spring (May) or even summer semester (August). In other words, don't wait until you have your PhD to apply for a postdoc position -- you might have a gap of nearly a year if you do!


Open-source the project code before or after publication?

Double-blind reviews are usually more common in conferences. For example, I don't know of any journals using double-blind review in my field (machine learning). I'm going to assume revealing your identity is not an issue (if it is, circumstances differ).

Whenever relevant I provide an implementation along with a paper. This also helps reviewers, in case they want to fiddle with an algorithm under slightly different circumstances than those reported in the paper (which is a good thing!). When an implementation is provided, the option is there.

The pros are increased visibility, reproducibility and (in my opinion) credibility since you allow everyone to try for themselves instead of taking your word for it in the paper. On rare occasions, your software may become quite popular during the review period, which may positively impact the paper under review.

A potential con is that someone may discover a critical bug in your implementation. From the perspective of software engineering this is always helpful since you can then improve the software. For the associated paper this may be a good, bad or irrelevant thing, depending on the type of bug:

One that does not influence the results reported in your paper: no big deal. Simply fix and move on. Best case this improves the user experience of your software, worst case you lost a bit of time fixing something unimportant.
One that does influence the results: big deal. This will at least delay a potential publication. Ofcourse it is better to find such errors and fix them instead of publishing erroneous conclusions, but this may have an impact on credibility.


How to phrase follow-up email to professor to find out whether funding has come through regarding potential graduate school project?

Don't overthink it, he did ask you to email him. Keep your email short (one or two lines). Wait until mid-end November and reply to the previous email with something like "Hi Dr. Lastname, I'm still interested in the ___ project and just wanted to follow up with your previous email from October to see if you have any update about the research project and funding. Regards, aspire94"


Is it harder for academics to make fundamental discoveries than in the past?

Actually, exactly the same question might have been asked around 1900 when Henri Poincaré ruled the world.

There is a tradeoff, of course. Some fields get saturated and the seemingly important questions get answered, closing the field in some ways. But those fundamental breakthroughs may open new lines of inquiry. And there is the corresponding effect that other fields open up. Mathematics is like the latter. People today think about a lot of mathematical ideas that didn't really exist historically.

Whether physics is a fixed field in which everything will eventually be known is, I think, an open and debatable question. I suspect that there will be new ways of thinking about things and thus new and important questions as long as humans can manage to still exist. Quantum entanglement is still pretty "spooky".

And in the social sciences we may be only at the beginning of what can be known.

Moreover, each new generation of scientists, in whatever field, starts out at a higher level than their predecessors, and so, have a base on which to reach still higher, with a deeper understanding. Poincaré had problems grokking relativity, as did many of those in his generation. After they started to actually die, relativity came to the fore.


How to condense a 2 page statement of purpose to 500 words?

Print it
Highlight the key sentences ('claims')
Write a bullet list from these sentences
Delete those that are redundant or unimportant
Extend each bullet point to a short paragraph by adding supporting statements to each key sentence
If you run out of space, combine key sentences into broader statements or use less supporting statements


Choosing and training (admitted) PhD students for research

Do you tell him to go and not to come back till getting some advanced math classes. Or do you tell him: "you did well on the general machine learning class which I taught why not come and join my group and lets have a look what we can do"?

If by "advisor" you mean "research mentor/collaborator", definitely the latter!  In my experience, strong students can jump in and learn as they go.  Even the most inexperienced student can ask useful "stupid" questions, precisely because their backgrounds aren't yet firm.  Moreover, struggling with research (either reading or thinking or coding) while taking their first topology class tends to drive the relevant topology deeper into their heads.  I don't expect most new PhD students to contribute real research results in my area (computational topology) in their first year, but I've been pleasantly surprised more than once.

On the other hand, if by "advisor" you mean "provider of research funding", my expectations are a bit higher.  Before I hire anyone as a research assistant, I need concrete evidence of research output (not just potential), preferably in the general area of the grant.

On the gripping hand, if by "advisor" you mean "guy who signs paperwork", things are different again.  Regardless of their background, I'll agree to be a student's official advisor only after we've worked together for at least a semester and they've worked with at least one other professor for at least a semester and we both agree that we're a good match.


What should one do when the professor uses condensed terse notes in a graduate class?

To directly respond to your first question: yes, "density" is quite common in middle-to-top tier grad programs in math in the U.S., once one gets beyond the "required/core" courses. There is a lot of backstory for almost all subjects, and faculty want to catch up to somewhere close to current events. It is also common that one's conception of an incisive, efficient, insightful course is not mirrored accurately in existing textbooks, so one writes notes to match. (This is better than "in the old days", pre-TeX, when most often there were no published notes of any kind, not even hand-written, so note-taking in class was critical.)

About "abstract" functional analysis in particular, yes, I think it is fair to say that the style of many of the standard texts (and of practitioners) has drifted in a certain direction, including a sort of "density". The hilarious and not-really-helpful opposite, from an older time, was the Dunford-Schwartz 3-volume extravaganza, which treated nearly every bit of mathematics as though readers would not have heard of it. Determinants, polynomials, etc. Naturally, this low-density high-volume approach created its own problems, not the least of which was locating the key examples that were not part of "general" mathematics, but specific to the functional-analytic ideas.

The subsequent decades' monographs or texts on "topological vector spaces" have always struck me as peculiarly unhelpful in making connections to other parts of mathematics, though "maybe it's just me". I cannot keep all the possible adjectives straight, and I do not see the point of many of them, nor are examples clear to me. Again, maybe it's just my own limited interest, since I care about "functional analysis" for "applications" (to automorphic forms and related matters) rather than to itself, or to "applications outside mathematics".

A point that was not clear to me for a long time is that the "more exotic" types of topological vector spaces (and families thereof, as in Sobolev-space theory) are not merely "handy", but essential in making many innocent-seeming discussions legitimate. So, not merely Frechet spaces, but LF-spaces (strict inductive limits of Frechet) already appearing as the correct topology on $C^o_c(\mathbb R)$, for example. The notion of quasi-completeness really is necessary, since LF-spaces are never "complete" (unless they're secretly Frechet), but are always quasi-complete. And quasi-completeness is enough for many essential things to still work, like the Gelfand-Pettis (or Bochner) ideas about vector-valued integrals, and Grothendieck's results about holomorphic vector-valued functions, and the strong operator topology (weaker than the Banach-space uniform norm topology on operators on a Hilbert space). Holomorphic distribution-valued functions, and so on. (My on-line functional analysis notes certainly go in such directions.)

In short, examples are critical, both to illustrate adjectives and theorems, and to see the necessity of introducing various seemingly-exotic types of topological vector spaces.

At the same time, I think building up a resistance to random counter-example demands is good, much as with point-set topology. Some counter-examples are significant, others aren't. Much time can be killed, not terribly profitably, by trying to illustrate every possible logical distinction. Don't do it.


Matters Arising: Nature Communications post-publication commentary

Many journals publish commentary articles on published papers; sometimes these are even invited directly by the journal editor to allow other researchers in the field to respond and are published simultaneously as an editorial, especially if a new finding is challenging established dogma.

Sometimes these commentaries are mostly critical, sometimes they are mostly positive. When negative, the original authors often will reply.

Like the commentary, that reply is typically another separately published article rather than an amendment to the original article. It could include additional analyses, further perspectives, references to additional literature, or agreement with critiques of the original paper.

Nature isn't inventing something new here, they are just adding a title to an established practice.

You can try to find some of these comments and replies by searching Google Scholar for 'comment on' since those words are often added to these articles, though this search term is of course not perfectly sensitive nor specific. I think it is unlikely you will find statistics on how common these sorts of articles or replies to them are, and I suspect it varies a lot with field and journal.

One example paper of authors replying to a comment on their original work comes up on the first page of the search linked above:

Wang, J., Scholl, A., Zheng, H., Ogale, S. B., Viehland, D., Schlom, D. G., ... & Neaton, J. (2005). Response to comment on" Epitaxial BiFeO3 multiferroic thin film heterostructures". Science, 307(5713), 1203-1203.


Should I contact the university? I will be in the area?

I take, you have applied to a position at said university? I would not propose that you contact them. They are making a decision on the applications, not bechause you are in the vicinity. It could sound a bit to clingy for them and result in a rejection.


Part-time UK lecturer - how much admin and what counts?

Unfortunately for you (and, I would argue, everyone) .6 FTE teaching-only contracts in the UK are, by and large, used by the Universities to squeeze out as much work for as little pay possible. They are often conceived of as a way to mop up the teaching and admin tasks that researchers with full time research+teaching contracts don't want to do, perhaps because one of them got a big grant which buys them out of teaching and admin. Thus the answer to your question is that you likely have to do a lot of admin and you likely have little choice about it if you wish to keep your job. Indeed many of these .6 FTE positions are on rolling contracts so they can let you go if you aren't performing. As for what admin you should do and what you can say no to, that is something to discuss with your line manager and your head of school. you should have some sort of work load model (or equivalent) that helps spell out what your duties are and then helps you say no to things that are not your job. It is very possible that people are piling work on you because, again, you are in this position that may have been created for work to be piled on to, but it is your line manager and head of school's job to make sure that you aren't doing too much. If they are the ones giving you the work, well, you should probably be looking for a new job.

A note on .6 fte teaching contracts because what you said above is a common but distressing sentiment. You wish to advance your career and gain promotion on the back of your research which you say you do in your unpaid time (though, of course, your Uni gets credit for). However, as you are on a teaching contract, you will be evaluated for promotion based on criteria related to teaching; it is very rare for someone to have their position regraded from teaching, and I've never actually seen it happen. It sounds to me that you are in the wrong position; the position you are in does not match your career goals and is very unlikely to lead you to the research career you are looking for.

Finally, though there is variation, "senior lecturer" is a title that everyone has at UK universities irrespective of if the are "teaching" or "research and teaching". I'm a senior lecturer, I'm on a R&T contract, and 75% of my time is pure research, with 25% of my time for teaching, supervision, and admin. You sound like you DO want to be a senior lecturer, just that you want to be in a full time, traditional, research and teaching role.


What is the etiquette for CCing faculty in eMails?

Yes, that sort of etiquette (CC'ing the PI of each involved partner in a collaboration, even for exchanges at lower level) exist in some groups. It is particularly true of recent collaborations, either because they have been established recently or because the research is still in its infancy. In both case, I suppose it is nice to help PI's stay on top of how things are progressing, both on the science and on the interpersonal relationships (like, is everyone acting professionally).

It's not universal, but it is common. It depends a lot on the nature of the relations between the PI's and their groups. I tend to ask students/post-docs to keep me in CC of the first few emails to our collaborator after they arrive/we start the project, then after sometime I tell them to drop me when it's evident things are going well.

In your situation, the safest course of action is to keep people on the CC list. You didn't CC them, but someone did, so don't drop them unless they ask for it. Also, ask your own boss how he likes to do things.

“I imagine that as a group leader you get flooded with emails, so why would you request more?” — Whatever you do, you will be flooded with emails. You don't read them all, but you may skim those for tone/content, keeping an eye on things.


"Is a postdoc successful only when completed?"

Short answer: No!

Long answer: No it's not, mostly because there is no "completing" a postdoc, much like there is no "completion" in academia beyond the PhD unless you are going after a qualification for future promotion e.g. Habilitation in Germany (and possibly other German speaking countries?).

You are constantly accumulating information and experience, and there is no end to it as far as I can tell. There is always more to read, more avenues to explore, more projects to design, start and complete. Perpetual work...

There are people who spend less than a year as a postdoc and those that are practically stuck on a forever postdoc situation. When you leave your postdoc is a interplay of several variables:

Availability of funds, or lack thereof
How well suited you are to the research group and/or to the projects at hand (i.e. mutual satisfaction between yourself and your mentor)
What other offers are on the table
Any personal (e.g. family) constraints

I have never heard of a postdoc certificate, and would look very skeptically towards any such. That is not to say that it doesn't exist or that it wouldn't be legit just because I haven't seen or heard it, but it sounds extremely old fashioned and not really relevant anymore.

At the end of the day, when you write your CV you list your postdoc experience, over a given time period and what projects you have worked with during that period. When a potential employer looks at your CV carefully (in other words if they actually consider you) they might notice if the postdoc experience is too short, or if the projects listed there aren't published. As long as you can justify why you left a postdoc "too early" (whatever that may mean) you shouldn't have any problems

Hope that helps


How can I balance the reading requirements for a large survey course?

Survey courses are generally designed to be superficial. The music department offers music appreciation. The fine arts department offers art appreciation. These courses expose you to the major themes of the field for the sake of appreciation and not mastery. The goal is to expose none experts to a field in order to broaden their horizon.

You state yourself that the majority of the students are not history majors. Therefore, why would you treat them like history majors and expect them to develop a deep understanding of military history? Few of us become experts in the electives and GEs we take as students.

If you are worried about the history majors you may want to include additional optional reading so that they can go deeper if they desire but weighing down STEM majors seems pointless. Better to stoke a fire/passion for history rather than burn them up with heavy content.


Letting aside the messy aspect of the question as highlighted in the comments, let me address your main concern.

Since all three of you agreed from the beginning that you are all going to be first authors (not sure how this works in practice), and you gave your best effort and time in good faith during the preparation of the manuscript, there is no ethical issue in you being first author.

In one of my papers, it has happened to me that the section I was mostly involved in writing turned out to be removed in the final version. Nobody, including me, considered removing my name from the paper.

Now, I don't see why you should be so concerned about how your colleagues acted (apart from the issue of removing "first author status", which I understand is not an issue anymore). They did not like what you've written and they decided to rewrite it. This is good proactivity of their part. If you think something important has been left out, you should try to convince them, with sound arguments, why you think this things are important.

Note that the main concern should be the final quality of the paper, not who wrote what and why. In fact, you should also review what they have written and provide feedback (rewrite what you don't like, and so on).

But bear in mind that in the end, all three of you must agree on the final version. Just know when it is relevant to disagree, and when it is best to let it go.


How to find out whether my advisor expects to be author of a paper to which she did not contribute?

For almost every paper (and particularly if you are the sole author), it’s a good idea to have an “internal peer-review”, i.e., have a colleague who is not an author read the manuscript and give feedback before actually submitting it to a journal.
(The main reason for this is that it is much faster and interactive than peer review.)
Usually this internal review is done by other advisees of the professor, other professors within a collaborative project, or close colleagues.

Now, if you are authoring a paper on your own, your advisor is the most obvious choice to perform the initial peer review¹.
Moreover, in many cases you also have to report to your advisor about your research not due to authorship reasons, but due to her being your superior (in the employment sense), because the rules of your PhD programme say so, or similar.
This gives you enough reason to talk intensively about your work, without delving into the issue of authorship first.

Now, the details depend on how much you already communicated about this piece of work and how you generally communicate within your group, but here are a few suggestions:

Ask your supervisor to internally review your paper, but leave the author field blank. This may prompt your supervisor address the topic herself, telling you what she wants. There are some variations of this, which differ in risk and effectiveness, such as to giving her a paper which only lists you or both of you as the author or thanking her for constructive feedback in the acknowledgements.
If your target journal requires a list of explicit author contributions (“X and Y designed the experiments; Z held the Giraffe, …”), you may be able to elicit a response by having a title for this segment, but leaving a big and fat “TODO” below it.
If this did not yield any feedback, you can now bring up the issue of authorship mostly neutrally, saying something like:

  It seems that the paper is ready for submission now. Now, we only need to talk about authorship.

Maybe the internal review prompts creative contributions from your supervisor that would justify authorship and you avoid the dilemma altogether (but lose your sole authorship).

Be aware that if you really want to be the single author of this paper, giving the paper to your boss for review may be a slight risk, as it may give her a reason to think that she should be a co-author in the first place.

Finally, do not forget that authorship is not only about writing the paper. So, if your supervisor gave constructive input to your work, this may qualify her for authorship even though you did all the work and writing.

¹ unless this is a “hobby” paper in a completely different field


Two questions on Marie Curie Actions and current open calls

FP7
Under FP7, which was the EU funding programme running from 2007 to 2013, the People Programme was offering the Marie Curie Actions. This programme considered two types of researchers:

Early-stage researchers are defined as those in the first four years (full-time equivalent) of their research careers, starting at the date of obtaining the degree which would formally entitle them to embark on a doctorate, either in the country in which the degree was obtained or in the country in which the research training is provided, irrespective of whether or not a doctorate is envisaged.

Experienced researchers must, at the time of recruitment (i) be in possession of a doctoral degree, independently of the time taken to acquire it, or (ii) have at least four years of full-time equivalent research experience, including the period of research training, after obtaining the degree which formally allowed them to embark on a doctorate in the country in which the degree/diploma was obtained or in the host country (irrespective of whether or not a doctorate was envisaged).

So you are correct to say that fellowships for experienced researchers can correspond to postdoctoral fellowships (although strictly speaking, someone without a doctoral degree might still be able to apply).
In FP7, experienced researchers could apply to four types of fellowships (together with an organisation):

Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowships (IEF)
Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowships (IIF)
Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowships (IOF)
Marie Curie Career Integration Grants (CIG)

The calls for these fellowships are now over, and as far as I know, these terms should no longer be used (apart to designate existing fellow).
H2020
We are now under Horizon 2020, and the Excellent Science pillar offers the Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions.
An experienced researcher can now apply to an Individual Fellowship (IF), which can be either European (replacing IEF) or Global (replacing both IIF and IOF). The next deadline for this call is on the 11/09/2014, September 11 of this year.
The programme is also providing a Research and Innovation Staff Exchange call , which corresponds to the previous IRSES, but it closed on the 24/04/14 (another one should open next year). So the link you mention with Staff Exchange is a typo, and it should read Individual Fellowship (and as a matter of fact, if you click on the link, you'll reach the IF page).
If you are interested in applying for an MSCA, I'll recommend the official Guide for Applicants.


What is a fast way to get the reference in a specific style?

Write in LaTeX, and use BibTeX which will automatically format your references in various styles.


Taking out a loan to pursue a degree in theoretical physics in the EU. Bad idea?

There are three things the cost of tuition means here, and they give you information about whether or not taking out the loan for a theoretical Master's degree a good idea.

It is expensive to train someone in this work, and someone has to pay for the training. The way that academia has developed, it is usually the sponsors of later research who pay (government, universities, private foundations). (In contrast, professional degrees are often paid for by individuals themselves, although it varies by country and profession.)
Financially, unless you are independently wealthy, you need to check how easily you can pay back this money after you graduate.

I'd suggest researching the pay levels of various careers that you can pursue with that Masters degree. If you want to immediately work in an industry that pays well (e.g. designing infrastructure for the advent of quantum computing??? at a government laboratory???), and grads from that program have a reasonable shot, then it is not unreasonable to take a loan.
However, if most related jobs do not pay well or require a Ph.D., then you are unlikely to get your money back (soon) by working in the field. You might then be forced to work in, say, software to pay the bills, if your programming skills are transferable enough.
This recent question seems to find it is rare for academic positions to be offered to Masters graduates in theoretical physics.

The cost of the program to you (that is, the absence of a scholarship) may be a signal about where you would rank.

Funding is certainly a signal for doctoral programs, in my (U.S.) experience. I had several doctoral acceptances where I was told I wouldn't be funded in my first year, but that I could probably find a teaching position; I was one of the more borderline candidates they decided to accept, apparently, and when funding is limited schools tend to invest in the strongest students first, to attract them to the school and make sure that they have the best chance of success. This also told me I might have trouble getting professors' help at those schools, because their time is a limited resource, as well.
If this is true in your case (i.e. others have funding for the same program, and thus you have information about how you compare), then use the information to further inform your actions. It might mean you must be at the very top of your Masters program to have a strong shot at becoming a Ph.D. student. It might also mean that you should in some way improve your application to be more competitive for scholarships or funded programs in the future.


Are universities strongly associated with ethnic minority groups a thing outside the USA?

As universities in England were originally based on training religious folk for the priesthood, they did not accept other religions or non-religious persons, so alternative learning places evolved, which are now full universities, but the female/male divide was strong in learning establishments until recently. Imperial College, London was specifically created to allow Empire students of a non-UK-religious background get a university education in UK. They might be non-Christian, Non-Believers or even 'pagans' or even "Scots Protestants" but Imperial College was open to them while the older English religious founded establishments were not.


What is a reasonable reimbursement time for conference travel from a department?

Just my two cents.

Departments pay after they receive the necessary invoice from the student. So, they cannot pay hotels before you return from the conference.
In my department, buying the air tickets is not enough. I also have to provide the boarding passes that I actually used the tickets. That means you can only get the air tickets money AFTER returning from the conference. This makes partly sense, because if you got sick and cancelled the trip they would not have given any money to you in advance, so you would not have to return them back.
In many conferences (for CS), you get the registration invoice at the desk and not when you pay online. Again, this invoice is needed for getting back the money you paid, since most institutions cannot provide funding without invoices.
Logistically you might make a reservation in 2014 and the trip is going to be in 2015. Institutions cannot pay money in 2014 for an invoice issued on 2015. This might also occur for smaller logistic periods (every 3 or 6 months) as well, depending on the country's tax laws.

Bottom line. You should start counting time AFTER coming back from the conference. Expecting to be paid in advance without providing the proper invoices is simply not possible. After that, it depends on each department's bureaucracy on how soon you will get the money. And believe me six weeks does not seem that far fetched too.


How to politely decline a postdoc after the interview, when another postdoc is maybe still in game (same institution)

You should be honest, or at least mostly honest, with them.

Let them know you are also waiting to hear back on your application to another position at the same institution. It's up to you whether or not you say you would favor that position, but I think that is not necessary (hence the "mostly honest") - you can simply approach it as wanting to know all the options available to you before making a decision. This type of request is quite reasonable.

However, there may also be time limits: the group currently offering you a position may want to offer it to another candidate, or at least continue with more interviews. In stating that you would like to delay making a decision, you should also ask about any time limits on acceptance. If they give you some limit, you will then have to decide whether to take the job once that time is expired.


Hired as a research assistant and told to track working hours for payment, is this normal?

From my experience doing research assistant work at a state university in the US, and from speaking with peers in both "hard" and "human" sciences this is par for the course. A tiny bit of paperwork (a signature or two), and away you go. Though I'm assuming by "she will be paying me" it will be through the university rather than out of her own pocket.

Do the work (well), do not understate your hours, and enjoy the paycheck when it arrives. I can almost guarantee the researcher is concerned about getting things accomplished in a timely manner, and that the cost of your time is minimal compared to theirs and the other costs associated with the research.


Some students giggle at me while I teach!

In my experience, there are some students who just cannot take class seriously. They may not even be laughing at you. Rather, they may be talking with a classmate and find what they are discussing amusing. They may not be paying attention to you at all. When they take a test and do not do well, they may react by thinking that is funny. If it bothers you enough, you should talk with the students after class and explain that their behavior is distracting to you, and probably to their classmates. This might appeal to whatever sense of fairness they may have. If they continue to be a distraction for you, a pointed remark about immature behavior may be appropriate, again after class. You may, if you wish, indicate that their behavior shows a lack of respect for you, the course, and their classmates.

I would not call the students out in class. I would also consult the department chair for suggestions on how to handle the situation.


How to make a 40-minutes presentation about a research paper I've read?

The most common mistake I observe in the presentation of mathematical work is for the presenter to try to cram in too many definitions, equations, derivations, etc., and then rush over them to try to make their talk fit into the allocated time.  Occasionally a misguided student will also decide that it is impressive to show off vast tracts of complicated algebra.  This often makes it difficult/impossible for the audience to follow, even when the audience consists of mathematically-literate professionals (e.g., professors in the faculty).  This error is ubiquitous among students, even at graduate level.

The general problem that occurs here is that students fail to simplify their presentation to a level that allows it to be presented clearly, and they also massively underestimate the amount of time required to explain a single equation/result.  As some general rules for a mathematical presentation, I would suggest the following dos and don'ts:

DO put the problem in context: Put this problem within the context of the broader subject.  Use the literature review in the paper to get an idea of where this work fits in, and what it is adding.  Give a clear statement of what this paper adds, and its limitations.  If it is a small part of working towards a larger theoretical goal, explain the larger goal, and explain how this paper adds to it.  If you found the paper particularly interesting, say why.
DO simplify the problem, then simplify it again, then simplify it again: You should present the problem in your research paper in its most fundamental simplest form.  Minimise the number of variables you are dealing with and minimise notation.  (It is generally best to be consistent with the notation in the paper, but you can still minimise this.)  Present the problem clearly, with a small number of mathematical statements and lots of intuitive explanation.  You do not have to present every equation describing the problem/model used in the paper.  Make professional judgements about which parts need to be shown as mathematical statements, and which parts can be described in general terms without mathematical equations, and which parts are side issues/distractions that you will ignore.
DO obey the crow epistemology - people can remember three things: Do not burden your audience with remembering lots of variables outside the context of their equations.  Pick no more than three important variables in your problem and drum their meaning in with repetition.  Assume your audience will forget the meaning of every other variable.  Definitions should generally be on the same slides as the first statements they appear in, so people don't have to remember them.  I like to give equations with arrows pointing to the variables with their meanings, and I back this up by talking about each of them, and giving reminders.  Some people like to colour-code variables, or use other memory aids to help.
DO allocate enough time - Presenting unfamiliar mathematical statements = 5+ min: If you present a mathematical statement that is not common knowledge to your audience you must stop, and patiently explain the statement, including the meaning of each variable in the statement.  Give an overview of what the statement is saying and what each of the variables is.  You must do this slowly, possibly with repetition to stress key points, and you must give your audience time to "mull" over it, before you proceed.  For every statement like this you have in your presentation, allocate at least five minutes to talk about it; don't rush.
DO allocate enough time - Presenting familiar mathematical statements = 1-2 min: If you present a mathematical statement that is common knowledge to your audience, you will still need to stop, identify the statement, and explain the meaning of each variable in the statement.  If it is a standard statement with variables in standard notation you can probably do this pretty quickly, but you should still allocate at least a full minute to describing it.
DO show graphs (if relevant) and explain them clearly: If the paper presents some of its results graphically, this is usually the simplest tool for presenting the results in a simple manner, that can be absorbed by the audience.  Use your judgment here, but as a general rule, graphs are good.  Again, you must stop, and patiently explain the graph, the axes, the lines, etc.  Explain the intuition of what the audience is seeing.  Tell them why this line goes this way and this other line goes that way.
DO leave time for interjections/questions: Make sure you have left enough time at the end for a reasonable amount of questions.  You may also get some interjections as you go through your presentation, so make a time allowance for that too.

DON'T show a long list of definitions: Under no circumstances should you present a notational slide with a long list of definitions.  If you have a slide like this in your presentation, I am not bothering to read it.  Instead I am watching "Heat" in my head and wishing I could get out of watching such a shitty presentation.
DON'T show a wall of algebra: We get it - you're very clever and you can do algebra.  Unless the derivation of a particular equation is the whole point of the paper you're presenting, we don't want to see that shit - get rid of it.  If you have a slide like this in your presentation, I am not bothering to read it.  Again, I am watching "Heat" in my head and wishing I could get out of watching such a shitty presentation.  Instead of bombarding me with a wall of algebra (which you don't have time to explain), explain the methods and the results (e.g., "To get to the next part, we need to complete the square in this exponential and then use the law of total probability to simplify.  After you do that, you get this next result").
DON'T be a flasher: Whoa!  What was that slide you skipped through in two seconds?  It was your list of references?  If you're not going to take me through it, why flash it up there at all?

I hope some of this is helpful to you.  As a general rule, the quality of student mathematical presentations is so woefully bad that you have a low bar to reach.  If you're the guy people can understand, and you are not rushing them and throwing walls of algebra at them, you will emerge as champion.


Should I quote an anonymous review on my CV?

No, and no.  You should not try to hype up yourself with subjective comments in your CV or elsewhere in job applications, say.  Other people don't do this, and if you do you will seem strange and possibly desparate.  Your CV should be a list of objective information.  It is the job of your references to compare your work to other people's and say how impressive it is.

About the most you can do is keep the review in a personal "feel good" folder and look back at it when you need self-encouragement.


How many emails do professors get every day?

i get well over a hundred emails per day despite fairly intense efforts to unsubscribe from lists and block spam.  Some are from students, some are from faculty colleagues, some are from research colleagues at other institutions, some are marketing junk, and lots are from administrators at my own institution.


My advisor wants me to reinvent the wheel

The issue seems to be that your advisor isn't willing to acknowledge that the problems he's attempting to work on have been solved. I would recommend bringing the relevant papers to him and discussing with him how his proposed projects differ from what already exists in the literature. This way, either (1) he'll clarify how his projects are different from the literature, or (2) you may be able to demonstrate to him that the problem is indeed solved.


Should I include reference section on a conference poster?

Biologist here.

I tend to be more careful to cite methodology on a poster rather than things that belong in an introduction or discussion section, and especially anything derived directly from a particular paper, such as an equation that is on the poster.

Sometimes there is a particular key reference - either a review or highly relevant original paper - to cite for background. Otherwise, if you find yourself citing a lot of things you probably have too much text on the poster.

(to be clear: if it needs to be cited, it should be cited; it just turns out that the type of content that needs to be cited should be at a minimum on a poster)


What makes a good engineering PhD topic and is this one?

How does one do a PhD where the goal is to make something?

This is country specific, and needs approval from your PhD advisor.
But the lab I am working in at CEA in France has several PhD candidates working on Frama-C. In the UK see also this.
You could also continue or take advantage of my work on Bismon (funded by CHARIOT & DECODER projects; see this DRAFT report). You may consider (with approval from your PhD advisor) implementing your ideas as a GCC plugin, or as an extension of the Clang static analyzer, or something generating OpenCL.
Of course, the ongoing Brexit is adding issues at end of 2020 (e.g. end of Erasmus, no more European funding to UK research labs)

From a more mathematical perspective could a perfect algorithm/model be devised ?

Probably not a perfect one. Be however aware of Rice's theorem and of the Halting problem.
Read also J.Pitrat's last book on Artificial Beings - the conscious of a conscious machine, which is closely related to your topic. Also become familiar with abstract interpretation and type inference techniques. Consider generating C code.


Is it possible to do good research on a certain area through self-learning the state-of-the-art of the area?

At some point in a research career you will need to learn directly from papers. Even as a practical programmer, when I wanted the absolute state of the art in an area, I would read academic papers, not wait for the material to show up in textbooks. A researcher often ends up knowing more about their topic than anyone else in the world, not just in their university, and must learn by means that don't depend on access to more knowledgeable people.

That does not mean your proposed course is a wise one at this stage in your career.

As I see it, student research has three objectives:

Learn how to do research
Collect evidence you can do research, in the form of degrees and letters of recommendation.
Contribute to the collective body of knowledge.

You need to decide the weight of these objectives for yourself, but generally the earlier you are in your studies and career, the greater the importance of the first two objectives.

The risk you are potentially taking is sacrificing the first two objectives at a relatively early stage. If your professors do not understand the subject of your research, they may be less able to guide you. It may also be harder for them to judge the quality of your research, which they need to do in order to grant degrees and write recommendation letters.

If you already have really good research skills, the first objective is unnecessary for you. However, if you had that much research experience I doubt you would be asking this question.

You might consider a compromise: Pick some research direction that fits with the research at your university but moves in the direction you want. For example, do a theoretical modeling project that models something your professors do know about.


If the purpose of a registered study changes, is it still a registered study?

First off, as you state it your worry is as follows:

Given the divergence of purpose, should the paper make the claim that the trial was registered?

Unpacked and clarified, I think this worry contains the following assumption:

A paper should only claim that it is a registered trial if the purpose of the trial that is registered and the claim that the paper looks at are closely connected.

I think this assumption is basically false and misunderstands the purpose of registration.
Looking over clinicaltrial.gov 's explanations of why and when to register trials, they suggest five benefits of registration and five benefits of the data, one of which is:

Facilitate systematic reviews and other analyses of the research literature

Several of the other things they state are similar in function. (There's also public benefit, ethical review, avoiding bias in the use of the data, and other features).
The data from Clinicaltrials.gov is free for anyone to use subject to these terms and conditions. The relevant item is :

In any publication or distribution of these data, you should:
Attribute the source of the data as ClinicalTrials.gov
Update the data such that they are current at all times
Clearly display the date the data were processed by ClinicalTrials.gov
State any modifications made to the content of the data, along with a complete description of the modifications

Thus, if you use data from Clinicaltrials.gov to produce research, you must cite that you took it from there and presumably should say which trial you are working from.
The specific method to correctly cite would be a conjunction of these terms and the journal's policies for citation.
On a general level, there's nothing ethical wrong with saying where the data came from. In fact, it's an obligation.

Returning to your final question, I think we can nitpick them for their English a bit. The authors might be better suited using a different phrase than

This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT00080171.

which they use in this paper and another publication where in the full-text they state:

Data for this trial (NCT00080171) were obtained from the Osteoarthritis Initiative (OAI) database.

This leads me to believe they are using "trial" in a somewhat odd way (at least from the perspective of a native AmE speaker who works in the humanities).
Something like:

This research is based on the registered trial NCT00080171 from clinicaltrials.gov.

seems better in both instances.
But while nitpicking for English, I think that they must state that trial they used is registered but shouldn't make it seem like this was that trial's purpose.


Can I be admitted to a master's in the USA after a 3-year European bachelor's program?

The answer to your question is yes, no, and maybe. It all depends on where in the US you want to go.

As Brian indicated in his answer, these are some universities that don't accept a three-year bachelor:

San Jose State University
University of Idaho

However, there are certainly universities that do accept a three-year bachelor:

Stanford University
University of Minnesota
Columbia University
New York University (Wagner)
Almost all business schools accept a 3-year degree (including Harvard, MIT), source

And then there are who evaluate the three-year bachelor on a case-by-case basis:

University of Michigan (Rackham Graduate School)
UNC Charlotte

Certainly, this list is incomplete. So, do your own search if you like to apply in the US, and if a university does not state anything about the three-year bachelor, ask their Graduate Admissions office.


What should a polite reminder email look like?

While the comment of Solar Mike is correct (patience), and you don't want to be a pest, there is one thing you can do that would be useful in any case.

Send a mail asking for any help on getting an early start. Are there papers you should read, for example? That keeps you in the mind of the professor, advances your cause, but also gives you something to do that can increase your knowledge.

But "nearly a week" is a nano-second in academic time.


That is indeed a messy situation. The bad behaviour notwithstanding, I think there's no reason to not honour the initial agreement.

You should retain him as co-author on the intial two papers, without doubt. First, he made the data available to you, and without that these two might not have happened. Second, an gentleman's agreement is exactly that; you don't default only because the other person defaults.

About subsequent papers, I think you should be firm and say no, but also convey and convince X that he is an integral part of the first two papers; that won't change.


Is it okay to use students as a reference when applying for a teaching position?

I don't see why you couldn't do this, as long as you made it clear what you were doing, but I think it would probably be a mistake unless it is in addition to the usual documentation (teaching evaluations, teaching letter from a faculty member).

At the very least, you would have to choose an unusually thoughtful and articulate student, someone who could discuss what's distinctive and valuable about your teaching.  Even if you did that, there would be some concern that the student is not someone with a letter writing reputation they have an incentive to protect, or that you may have chosen a student because you couldn't find faculty willing to vouch for your teaching.  However, I think there's a more fundamental difficulty.

Any half-decent teacher can find at least one student every few years who really thinks highly of their teaching.  Maybe it's because the teaching style is a perfect match for the student; maybe it's because the student deeply loves the class material and is somewhat awestruck by the professor.  However, there's always someone, so getting a great recommendation from a student or two tells little about how the other students felt.

If you have broader evidence too, such as strong teaching evaluations from your students overall and a positive letter from a faculty member, then this would not be a difficulty.  (However, if you have these things then the student letter would probably not be needed.)


Can section, subsection, or sub-subsection headings be formatted as questions in a master's thesis? (not all of them at the same time)

This likely a matter of personal taste. There is no definitive rule or style guide that applies to every Master's thesis written in the world. Your department or university may have its own guidelines, but I doubt the formatting you suggest would be prohibited.

Write the section titles as questions and send the draft to your supervisor. They might recommend you change it, but if they're not in the same university as you they will probably also tell you to ask someone local who will know if there are any guidelines that you should follow. That person may be your personal tutor, department head, course director, librarian, or academic skills tutor.

Often this type of information is also available on your institution's website or virtual learning environment.


Does a chapter published in a book fit as part of a paper-based dissertation?

While regulations may differ from place to place, I find it highly unsurprising that a book chapter would not "count" for a paper-based dissertation.  The reason is that book chapters are typically peer reviewed lightly, if at all.

As such, if your dissertation requirement is effectively "N peer-reviewed papers," then this book chapter is highly unlikely to be peer-reviewed in a manner consistent with the expectations of the university.  Just in the same way, your professors would probably not count a paper in a predatory journal as helping to meet your dissertation requirements.

Note, however, that this doesn't mean you should not write the chapter, if it is a good publisher and a work you would like to create.  Book chapters can be a good way to organize your thoughts and put together reviews, and in some cases can actually be quite highly cited.  Likewise, the text from the chapter may turn out to be useful as part of your dissertation (depending on university regulations about copyright and theses, of course).  It's just that it's probably not a peer-reviewed publication and will thus likely not count toward the number of such that you need for your dissertation.


Terms for an PhD grant that covers everything

You can just say/write 'funded PhD' or 'fully funded PhD' to avoid any ambiguity that may cause for any resume reviewer abroad.


Although it depends on the particular institution, it can have a positive effect. If you do mention a faculty member as a potential adviser, be sure to briefly state why. Usually your explanation would be that you fancy the idea of doing research in XYZ and she is an expert in that area, or that you've read her papers about XYZ and you find them exciting.

Some research departments look beyond your academic qualifications, and "fit" is one of the possible criteria. Knowing that you've actually taken the time to look at people's research agendas and that you've concluded that there's a couple of faculty members you'd be happy to work with is a good sign.

Be mindful not to elaborate on things you don't have a good grasp on in an attempt to impress, as this can have the opposite effect.


Should an Editor in Chief publish in their own journal?

There are of course no laws against it but as Editor-in-Chief (EiC) myself I would never do (or at least think twice about doing) it, particularly not as first author. My reasoning behind this is that it could reflect badly on both me but particularly the journal and send signals that all is not necessarily well. I have to point out that in my case we are two and we have an agreement that we do not touch manuscripts from our own spheres of influence (basically departments). Nevertheless, what actually happens within a journal and how people perceive it are two different things and it is my opinion that as EiC one must safeguard the journals reputation as objective. So if the community expresses some form of trust in the editor to publishing in their own journal this could be perfectly fine.

So when an EiC publishes in "their" journal it is not wrong but potentially "dangerous" and can be perceived as poor judgement. They would jeoparize the journals reputation. So even if thetre is no legal problems there are ethical problems. I doubt anyone would have second thoughts about the quality of a journal if the editor does not publish there, after all if the editor has a solid reputation, associating with a bad journal would jeopardize that.

Can I see any exceptions? Well, co-authorship may be less serious but in the end even that should be avoided. I also think that if an editor publishes a single paper in a thematic issue of the journal (where someone else has suggested a theme) and this is the only paper by that editor in the journal for years, I would not think much about it. Obviously frequency of publications is also a factor.

So, in conclusion, I consider it unwise under most circumstances.


I don't think it disappears: it's probably just ranked low in the general query results.

If you restrict the search with keywords "political determinants fiscal transparency" to "results since 2017" (https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2017&q=political+determinants+fiscal+transparency&hl=en&as_sdt=0,33) (note the "as_ylo=2017" in the URL), your paper is ranked first.


Information to be included in brochure about new undergraduate programme for admissions committees

Look at how similar programs describe themselves publicly (web pages, ...), that should give a pretty clear idea. Perhaps ask around several of the interesting schools to see what they'd want to know about the program applicants went through.

If there is some suggestion of curriculum in your area (like e.g. the IEEE/ACM proposals for computer science and related fields), it would be useful to mention your program adheres to them, and perhaps highlight differences and rationale for them.

An overview of the faculty and their curricula, a general look at the school as a whole (what makes it stand out, is it research or teaching oriented, number of students, ...) is mandatory.


Is it plagiarism to publish a table that was published earlier in a different journal?

The fact that you deal with the same study population means that you have the right to show information about the population just as much as in both studies. To cite the other study, particularly the table, is perfectly fine. But, if the table is key to the paper, for example, in the methods section, it seems more appropriate to include the information in your new paper. It is also perfectly fine to reproduce the table just as you can reproduce a figure from another paper but then the table might include or lack information that is superfluous or needed, respectively in your new study.

I would therefore suggest that you create your own table and format it to suit your purpose best. You should also cite the other study and state that your new study is based on the same study participants as the previous study and then also refer to both tables to indicate the kinship. That way it is obvious that you are not trying to conceal that the tables contain the same information but that the information is key for both studies. It should be clear to the reader that there is a common basis for the two studies.


Missing ECTS requirements, still trying to apply, should I mention it on my motivation letter?

Call them beforehand by phone and ask if you are formally allowed to apply if you are missing the credits and explain your situation. There is not much point for a full application if already the admin people would put it on the "no" stack without a real decision maker even seening it.
If you get a "go ahead" via phone then state this fact in your letter.


Should I Consider Publishing in a Brand New Journal?

I get the same emails as well.

Things to consider when looking at a brand new journal:

As Anonymous, Charles and JeffE commented, make sure it is not a scam and that the editorial board are well respected (well-published) academics in your field.
Make absolutely certain that the journal caters to your exact research field - try and find, or ask, what their focus is.
Find out about costs if any.

If the journal is legitimate and relevant, then consider publishing a smaller paper first, publish your main papers in well established highly ranked and highly distributed journals (especially if you are starting out in academia).


How to find a new PhD advisor by my research interest?

For the first part of the question on how to find a PhD advisor, you will find quite a few ways on a standard lookup. The most standard way is to go through professors' research profile and bios and see which one fits to your interests and mail them to see if you interest them.

This post ought to be of help:
How can I find a second supervisor?

If your actual question is on whether your current supervisor influence your prospective supervisor, then there are two cases you ought to look into depending on your intentions.

A new institution/department. @JeffE's comment would come into play here. As long as the new professor is in no positive relation with respect to your former advisor, the former advisor's opinions shall not interfere with your prospective advisor's decision.
The same department. This is something you might have to worry about. There would be a greater chance of interaction between the prospective advisor and the former one. This might not always be the case, but this has happened before.

Although not directly related, the following post ought to help you: Changing PhD programs: should I submit a recommendation letter from my old advisor if it's not purely positive?


Lack of motivation for self-study during the semesters

I do think that your perception is shared by many students, especially when they are passionate about their field of study. I can think of several undergraduate students (former colleagues or under my supervision) who fit your description, across several countries. I would not be surprised to learn that this perception is much less frequent among graduate students, because curricula and self-interests tend to align with each other over time.
At the undergraduate level, self-motivation is wholesome and certainly improves your chances for academic success. Nevertheless, curricula are designed by professors who do know best.
Even when a class seems dull or irrelevant, the decision to include it in the academic requirements for your degree is the result of a consensus selection made by your professors. They are in a better position than you are to weight-in certain factors, such as the difficulty of the material or its usefulness as a foundation for more advanced and exciting stuff.
TL;DR: Not many people enjoy studying pendulum problems. Thankfully, some trust their instructor at this stage and access broader horizons as a reward.
Not finding the time or peace of mind necessary for self-studying is a sign that the expectations of your curriculum are catching up with your work capacity. Then you are making the right choice of prioritizing the mandatory coursework.


Is it possible to study an MBA as a Bachelor in Computer Science?

There is usually no specific subject requirement for a MBA. However, MBA programs usually require a few years of work experience (on average candidates have 5+ years). Often you will also need to get a good score on the GMAT test. But this is stuff you can study on your own, you don't necessarily need to take any courses.

I would think if you were interested in an MBA then you would probably be pursuing more management related opportunities anyway. But these could certainly be obtained by starting in a software engineering role and working your way up. Obviously you are not going to get a management position fresh out of university, everyone needs to start somewhere.

The company you work for may even pay for your management training if they believe you have promise.

You can read about the requirements and admissions process at various top MBA schools:

Cambridge Judge Business School

Harvard Business School


How unusual is getting a Masters degree in a slightly different field than Bachelors?

This depends on where you are. In the US, this would generally not be too difficult, particularly if one uses elective courses at the bachelor's level to take some of the courses in the "new" field.

Here in Germany, it would actually be almost impossible to switch as you've suggested. The reason for this is that the "prerequisite" for enrolling as master's student in a particular field is usually taken to be the bachelor's degree in the same field as taught at the university!  This is known as a "consecutive" degree requirement, and makes life very difficult for people coming from outside Germany.


My PhD advisor was already retired when I started my PhD. He is in his 80s now. One of my collaborators is due to retire soon; the other is in his 90s. All I can say is that everyone of them has had a tremendous impact on me. They have been the most brilliant people I know.

So I don't see any problem at all with very old PhD advisors. In fact, my experience suggests that you should consider yourself privileged to have an old PhD advisor. A few reasons stand out, at least from my experience:

They have a wealth of experience.
Old professors are usually kind, generous, and so eager to share with you what they know.
They have nothing to lose. They don't have issues that younger professors face such as getting promoted, tenured, or the pressure to publish.
Retired professors don't have as many responsibilities as they used to, and so can devote more time advising you. Of course, they probably have other interests they would like to pursue now that they are retired, but research will always be their main interest.

All I wanted to say is that age doesn't matter when it comes to choosing an advisor. Passion is more important. Some professors manage research; some others do research. Choose the latter.


You have made a scientific contribution, which (generally) merits co-authorship (unless it was a particularly small contribution).


Role/importance of letters of recommendation for PhD-applications in Europe?

We can distinguish two different kinds of doctoral graduate studies in Europe:

Programs through "graduate colleges" and "graduate schools" with centralized admissions policies
Individual PhD positions in the research group (or institute, chair, etc.) of an individual professor

In the first case, everything is essentially along the lines of an application to a US-based graduate program, and letters of recommendation still carry the same weight.

For an individual position, letters of reference may be important, but as you suggested, it depends on the individual professor doing the hiring. For some research groups, the posting of an application is a formality, as they're only interested in hiring "internal" candidates (that is, people who have already worked in the group as bachelor's or master's students, and who thus can be "directly" evaluated). For people doing real searches, however, letters of recommendation are also important, because they can provide information about a candidate's research abilities in a way that is not possible just looking at a transcript or set of certificates.


If that's your plan, I don't see why you can't say that. I think that you institutions know that not everyone who does a thesis has to work in Academia!

If you are worried that mentioning that would hurt your chances of being accepted/getting funded, then I can see that some schools/faculty might shy away from your application (although in theory, they shouldn't! [depending on the institution]).

Remember, people change their opinions with time! Maybe after a while you want to work in Academia! Maybe someone who stated that they wanna work in academia in their SOP, decides to not do that few years in their program. This is why I'm saying it shouldn't matter that much ch.

Once you get your degree, you can anything you want!


If the page was up for a while, you can probably obtain a copy via the Internet Archive.  Once you've got that cached version, you can host it yourself, with appropriate attribution (i.e., the fact that the original source is missing, its original location and authorship, time that the snapshot was taken by the Internet Archive, etc.)

This could be a problem from a copyright perspective, but if the original material truly is abandoned, then you've got nothing to worry about.  If the owner does contact you, then either they'll likely be willing to post a copy (or its equivalent) again, obviating your need to host your own copy.  Only in the rather unlikely case they both want the material taken down and are unwilling to repost it themselves will you lose the source.


How should I credit the advisor's help in my thesis?

Clearly your advisor thinks well of you and thinks you are ready to move to the next level professionally. You both missed the issue at an earlier stage. Had he found it then he might well have pointed you to a fix rather than providing it.
He is probably as pleased as you are that a fix was possible.
So thank him for support and guidance (perhaps "particularly on Theorem X") and move on. Remember this incident when you advise your own students.


It sounds like your advisor is right, and your situation is a turn-off.  He wants you to succeed to improve his own track record, as he is at least by reputation partially responsible for your success or failure.  And other potential advisors don't have that motivation.

Since you're both in this together, and since you have so much to lose relative to him, I think you need to come to a plan together, and you need to listen to him very carefully and be as cooperative as you can muster yourself to be. He wants you to complete. He wouldn't have had that blunt conversation if he just wanted you to flounder. You need to now cast the past into the past and move forward with whatever you choose to do.


It has nothing to do with Medicine or Surgery.

This will come as a surprise to the large number of medical students, medical and surgical interns, etc. who are interested in getting some experience in research, either to broaden their base of knowledge or with the mind to transition toward academic medicine.

  How can one think of submitting a paper like that (to such a journal)?

You think "Here is a pressing question some people in my field have encountered..." and, for something like this, you likely contact the editorial office to make sure it's of interest. Or you submit to a journal that has a consistent track record of publishing papers on the practice of their subject.

  How can one accept a paper like that?

Having been a reviewer on similar types of papers - once the editor has decided it may be of interest you read it over, make sure you think the content is accurate and it will be of interest, make any comments you might have, and submit your review. Other times, the review is internal.


What journals should I submit my paper to?

Check this site on Elsevier to find relevant journals for your work,
Elsevier Journal Finder.
Also, Springer publisher have this one,
Springer Journal suggester.


When and why should you write numbers less than 10 in words?

Many style manuals will have specific requirements regarding when to express a number as numerals or in words.

APA Style

The APA version 6 style manual has an entire section starting from 4.31 on how to present numbers in text.

The manual does include a general rule that numbers 10 and above should be expressed as numerals, but there are a wide range of exceptions.

Should be expressed as numerals

Any number in an abstract
Any number immediately preceding a unit of measurement  (e.g. 3 kg)
Any number representing a statistical operation (e.g., 4 times as many people)
times, dates, ages, scores, and points, exact quantities of money, numerals as numerals
numbers that indicate a place in a series (e.g., page numbers, Table 1, Table 2, etc.)

There are also further exceptions for when numbers should be expressed in words

Numbers at the start of a sentence or heading
Common fractions
Where the usage is common

Why have the general rule to express numbers below 10 in words?

Compare the following:

I had 2 apples.
I had two apples.

and

I had one-hundred and thirty-two choices.
I had 132 choices

A few possible principles:

Numbers less than 10 are easy to read as words; Large numbers are difficult to read as words and easy to read as numerals.
In general, conventions make life easier for writer and reader.
There may be a slight disruption to the look of and reading of prose when interspersing numbers with words.
A few numbers, particularly "1" (which looks a bit like "I") might introduce slight ambiguities.


How to write a good essay for phD application?

First, I would recommend reading some of the requirements from schools you intend on applying to. Most schools have very similar requirements, but it may be worth looking at the schools that you are most interested in attending before you get started (page requirements, etc. can deviate from school to school).

Since you are applying to PhD programs you will want to be addressing the questions of "What makes you an individual well suited to research in computer science?" and "Why should institution X accept you?"-- this will involve talking about your past achievements, what made you want to pursue a PhD in computer science, what type of research you want to do, etc.

As far as definitive strategy goes, there are numerous routes you can go (I will leave a couple of links at the end of this post). One that I would recommend is to write the majority of the statement such that it can be sent to any institution (i.e., is not institution specific). Set it up (as far as continuity goes) so that your last paragraph is why you want to attend institution X. This way you will only need to re-write the last paragraph for each application you send out.

Here are some helpful links I found:

Sample Statement for MIT

A post on SoP w/ Example

An article with some examples

Hope that helps!


Faculty criticizing students in front of other students

The answer to your two question are:  YES! - Faculty members should have the same code of conduct towards graduate students? Why should an undergrad be treated with any less (or more) respect than a grad student.

And...

NO! It is not appropriate for a professor to discuss negative intellectual or personal qualities of their graduate students in front of other graduate students?

This all falls under the realm of basic human decency.


Do any academic institutions publish objective surveys of alumni satisfaction?

Yes, here is an example.

A quantitative assessment of the 'long-term costs and benefits' is complicated by the subjective aspects of many parameters. For example, some individuals value salary over independence, other don't. But my alma mater, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) does objective surveys and statistics on alumni employment. These numbers should be interpreted knowing that answers are given on a voluntary basis and, the EPFL being modest in size, n is small.

Some examples of the results (for 2011):

"One year after graduation, MSc graduates who did not start PhD studies are employed at 90.9% by the industry in Switzerland. It took them an average of 9.5 weeks and 12 job applications to find a job (less than in 2010). Their average entry-level salary (in Switzerland) was CHF 77,967 in the private sector and CHF 76,591 in the public sector (slightly more than in 2010).

One year after PhD graduation, 90.5% of graduates have a job. However, finding a job was harder: they needed an average of 14.9 weeks and 19 job applications (significantly more than in 2010). Salaries are also lower than before, average entry-level salaries were CHF 93,716 in the private sector and CHF 82,720 in the public sector."

They also asked PhD graduates if they think their degree is 'useful for their careers':

29% said it was mandatory,
29% that it gave them significant advantage over non-PhDs,
40% that it was sometimes an advantage, sometimes detrimental depending on the employer,
4% that it gave them no advantage
whatsoever, and
1% had no idea.

Some more data on work satisfaction of PhD graduates:

                    very high    high    average     low     very low
overall sat.        21%          54%     23%         1%      1%
interesting job     19%          51%     24%         4%      1%
adequate training   22%          41%     22%         14%     1%
degree recognition  24%          38%     28%         9%      0%
salary              8%           29%     51%         10%     1%

Here is the link to the original document (in French).

Notes: translations are mine, 1CHF=~1US$, the MSc is considered the 'undergraduate degree', global unemployment in Switzerland is <4%, PhD studies are funded with a salary of roughly CHF 50'000 with negligible tuition, these are numbers for PhD in sciences and engineering, numbers for humanities are very different.


There are a couple of major dangers in asking a graduate student for a letter:

A typical grad student has never actually read a letter of recommendation and has very little idea of how they are written or what the standard of comparison is.  It's easy to completely misjudge the style or miscalibrate the letter, in which case a letter that's intended to be helpful can turn out to be useless, or even counterproductive.  No inexperienced letter writer should ever send a letter without first running it by a mentor, so you would need to make sure the grad student plans to do that.
Graduate students automatically write from a position of somewhat less credibility, just because they lack experience.  Someone with more experience can compare a student to past students whose later career trajectories are known, but grad students generally can't do that.

One possibility is for the grad student to write a letter jointly with his/her advisor.  That may or may not be feasible, but it's worth checking.


Is taking a sentence in English language and reformulate in french, a plagiarism

Yes, basically taking someone's language, thoughts, ideas or expressions without correct referencing is plagiarism...

Edit based on comments:

If you reference the material correctly, even though you translated and / or paraphrased it, is fine.


How do graduate admissions committees view taking a lighter courseload in your final year of undergrad?

It's normal for seniors to take a lighter course load in order to work on their senior research project. Most universities have a "senior project" faux course at the 400- level to indicate this. Some do not.

As far as how grad admissions will view this. As long as you can show that you weren't slacking off your senior year -- perhaps by showing your senior project results in your application dossier, or alternately asking your research supervisor to write for you -- you should be ok.

If you do feel burnt out, I would take a gap year -- either between junior and senior years -- or right after college. Grad school is a long haul.


Yes, it is probably best to be a bit formal in acknowledgements. The difference would be two or more true peers, in which case they may collectively decide to be informal. But if you are a student, then it is wise to err on the formal side.


Your collaborator is a jerk.  Don't listen to his nonsense about you being naive; that sounds more like he's trying to justify his bad behavior to himself.  You are quite right that this is not appropriate professional behavior.

However, I don't think it rises to the sort of ethics violation that could threaten a career.  Now that you have a proof of the results and (presumably) have updated the arXiv preprint, the scientific record has been corrected, so I think you're back on firm ground.   Besides that, I'd recommend:

Don't do it again.
Don't work with that collaborator any more.
When you mention this result in your future work, always cite the other group together with your own.  Don't bring up the issue of who was "first" - even if you had been legitimately first, it just seems like bad manners to brag about it, as your collaborator seems to be doing.
If you see other authors citing your paper, contact them to suggest they cite the other group as well.

I don't think it is worth bringing up to an ethics committee or trying to "whistle-blow".  I'd just treat it as a learning experience: there are jerks in the world and you don't want to be like them.


What does it mean if the "upload updated article" feature is still active four months after submission?

It probably means nothing. Many journals and editorial management systems allow you to update your article at almost any time, usually issuing a warning that you probably do not want to do this, as it will delay the process.

An easy way to test this would be to click on the button¹: If a warning as described above is issued, this should tell you, that everything is in order. If not, you can only know for sure if you ask the journal.

¹ Unless the editorial management system is very bad, you should not be able to destroy anything this way.


I don't think you can ask to move the start of your lab section. As in the other related question about class times, those times are fixed by the university and not really movable without lots of notice. Your best bet is to get together (physically or virtually) with the other section teachers and find someone willing to switch with you. Then you can propose it to the lab organizer.

Outside your university, you might see if there's a friend or neighbor you trust who can drop your kid at school or a way to arrange with the school to drop your child half an hour early. It can't hurt to ask them.


Techniques to "digest" large amounts of textual data (academic papers, books, etc)

Speed reading techniques can, for some people, greatly increase the amount of text that you can cover in a given amount of time.  If I am reading for a big picture vision in a not-extremely-technical subject, I can routinely read at 500-1000 words per minute, far faster than speaking.  It is, however, very important to know when you're reading something that requires time for reflection; you have only the most immediate reactions to work with at such rates.

Anyway, there are a variety of speed-reading books out there--I have one by Tony Buzan that seems decent as long as you don't believe too fervently that he always knows what he's talking about.  (Peter Kump's book is better with exercises.)

There's also a speed-reading app by Spritz, which I have not tried.  Other fast readers I've talked to have given mixed reports: it's definitely fast (it forces you to be!) but since going back is difficult it tends to limit comprehension in those spots where you need a little extra focus.

Also, you don't necessarily even need to read everything you're supposed to read.  Various sorts of skimming can let you pick off the key ideas and decide whether you need to go into more detail: look at chapter headings, read the first couple and last couple sentences in each chapter, glance through for any graphs or tables or sidebars.  You might take an extra 10% time doing this sort of thing, but more than 1/6th of the time you'll find that you don't need to do any more at all, saving you time overall.  And if you do have to read the whole thing, it's easier to remember when you've already had an overview.


Confusion - “CV including a summary of teaching experience”

Besides asking them about more clear instructions, I would suggest having two separate sections in your CV:

Teaching Experience
Work Experience

from that, it would be clear which positions are the teaching ones, and which are research/other.

For this type of applications, it might not hurt to expand the Teaching Experience section with slightly more details on the courses taught, like

title
graduate/undergradute
approximate # students
whether you developed the course content/course materials

Your teaching statement is a separate document.


As faculty, can I bring about changes in our outsourced campus bookstore?

While there may be some excuses this fall (2020) in the middle of a pandemic that supply chains for books are messed up (as they are for many other things), here are a few things that you could do.

Choose textbooks and materials that are readily available through other outlets, even suggesting places they can be found. (Neither of my kids generally buy their textbooks from the campus bookstore anymore - just easier to order from the comfort of their dorm/apartment and have them show up in a day or two.)

Prepare and teach your course such that any of several recent editions of the textbook could be used. This way it will be easier for students to find a used copy that would still apply. (One of the organic chemistry profs at the local university does this - organic chemistry texts new are ~$400, used are ~$50 since new editions come out nearly yearly in an attempt by the textbook publishers to destroy the used market.)

Provide much of the material yourself in the form of lecture notes, with pointers to material on reserve at the library (wait, is that a thing anymore?).

Work with your department to apply these suggestions across more classes. Talk to colleagues in other departments as well. They likely have similar frustrations.

In summary, I think local, then grassroots, efforts are likely to be more impactful than trying to fight city hall.


Can we upload an unfinished paper of theoretical nature to arXiv where the theory has been established, but illustrations are still to be added?

I suspect the relative merits of different approaches depends on discipline and maybe geography, but in my area (interdisciplinary with applied mathematics and business most prominent, North America), a preprint, on ArXiV or elsewhere, should be essentially complete within the scope the authors have chosen for it to have. So you could upload a preprint which just doesn't discuss those areas of your research you have not had time to complete, and which does not have all illustrations you might ideally want for the best possible exposition. A preprint may well end up significantly rewritten and expanded as part of a journal's peer review process, and it is only slightly disingenuous if you know fully well you're actually going to do that soon anyway.
However, importantly, your preprint should be complete enough you believe in good faith it could be publishable somewhere as-is, even if you are aiming for something better. We're not talking about a missing methododology or results section, or text that references still-nonexistent crucial figures or tables, in a way that can't be edited out without affecting the completeness of the paper.
If there are significant gaps which make this approach inappropriate, you have a work-in-progress draft, not a preprint yet. There is nothing precluding you from thoughtfully sharing that with colleagues, by email or even by say posting on your website, with all the pluses or minuses that entails. So if you want potential employers to have access, why not refer to it as work-in-progress or working draft and put a link to it stored on your research website for now?
Of course, in this case, you won't get credit for it as a "completed publication". But it is an option if it is unfinished but still interesting.


Could it be possible to answer a new research question with the help of literature review? Could this be published at a symposium?

Actually, for most things you need a literature review, since you need to know what has been done already. But if the complete answer shows up in the review then there is nothing left to research there and you need to move on.
I hope you have an advisor somewhere, or access to some sort of academic guide. You seem to be unsure about how to handle things, and a guide can help get you on the right track.
And doing a good literature review can also help teach you common techniques that you will need to answer your question.


What is an “invited submission” to a journal?

An invited submission is as the name implies, something which the editors of the journal invited. You have probably seen this kind of invitation email - "we would like to invite you to write something on [this topic]. Are you interested?"

It may or may not be related to special issues. Special issues are entire issues formed around that single topic (or conference). If the journal is inviting for a special issue, it will say so in the invitation - "we are publishing this special issue and you're an expert on the topic, so we would like to invite you ...". However it's also possible to be invited for regular issues.

A journal invites submissions for several reasons:

If the journal can get big names to write for them, it raises the profile of the journal as well as (hopefully) generates citations. Other researchers are more likely to submit if famous researchers also submit to the journal. This is the most important reason.
The journal may lack papers. The big journals may receive more papers than they can publish, but there're also a lot of small journals that struggle to fill their issues.
The journal may want to expand. This could be its author pool (invite people who've never published in the journal before), its author country pool (invite people from countries who rarely publish in the journal), or its issue count (increase in issue count is a reason to charge higher subscription prices).

Finally, in principle, invited submissions are more prestigious than regular submissions. That's because the author can safely say that someone out there thinks they're an expert in the field. It's especially good if the invitation comes from a famous researcher. However: many poor-quality journals will also resort to invitations to solicit papers. Their aim is merely to get papers, and they don't really care who is writing or even what topic the paper is on. You will have to use your judgment. In my experience, a personalized email coming from an established researcher in your field is the best kind of invitation.


Is it really the responsibility of a conference organizer to provide the necessary letters to the participants for their visa processing?

Is it their responsibility?

Yes. I've run into this issue before, but I have never had a conference organizer demur on writing the letters. Not only is it the responsibility of the conference organizer, strictly speaking they are the only person who can provide you with the appropriate letters, since the letter is the justification for your attendance. Someone else cannot write you a letter saying "Tod is attending because of some other conference."

What should you do?

Don't go. On the one hand this is a moot point, because if they don't write the letter, you won't have the visa. On the other hand, the unwillingness to write a letter leads me to believe that this is not a genuine conference. There is an industry of essentially fraudulent journals and conferences. Many of the conferences are held in places like China, I suppose so that people have an opportunity to travel there and because it is relatively cheap, which require letters to travel. Not getting a letter is a huge warning sign.

It is undoubtedly disappointing, but if the conference is not going to do the absolute minimum required, and it sounds like you are paying, you are almost assuredly better off not attending.


Is there a website that will tell you what class number on one campus is equivalent to what other class number but on a different campus?

My department has a transfer credit evaluation committee whose job is to decide which of our requirements are satisfied by classes taken elsewhere (usually other universities, not just other campuses).  On that basis, I guess that your department has a similar committee. If you had not bothered to check  for equivalent courses but had just taken one and thought it would be equivalent (not a recommended course of action) and had then come back to your home campus and announced "I've fulfilled all the requirements; give me my diploma," then there would be some person or committee whose job is to say "Whoa; who says that this course satisfies our requirement? That's for us to decide, not you." I suggest that you ask enough questions (of your department chair, or dean, or secretaries) to find that person or committee and then ask them what courses would satisfy the requirement. In other words, get an authoritative answer from someone who has the real authority to approve (or disapprove) using a course from elsewhre to fulfill your requirement.


My master thesis is going in the wrong direction

As a researcher, you should expect to fail.

In general, you will frequently finding yourself coming up with ideas that don't pan out, results that suggest that what you did previously was wrong, or that a particular problem can't be solved yet (you need to do time-consuming step X before you can tackle interesting problem Y). Encountering these situations doesn't mean that what you've done is wrong, it means that you're doing research. (If everything you do is always successful, I'd argue you're doing development, as opposed to research.)

Success as a research comes from learning to cope with and overcome adversity. So I'd suggest that you use this as a learning experience. Rather than be depressed about it, try to work around your problems. It will be a valuable tool that will stay with you for the rest of your career.

Now, with respect to handle the master's thesis itself, this is something that you need to discuss with a number of people: your Betreuer (the person in charge of the thesis), as well as the head of the institute plus the person in charge of supervising students in your department. This is particularly important because your Betreuer is not normally allowed to grade your thesis, unless the Betreuer is a professor. Therefore, the people doing the grading may not be aware of the issues you had in the process. However, I would advise you to frame your questions in a positive way: that is, ask

  What can I do to make sure I end up with a successful thesis?

rather than

  How do I get myself out of this problem?

The former is much more likely to result in a satisfactory resolution than the latter.


How to specify in presentation that permission to use a particular image is taken?

You can cite it a number of ways. I usually do this:

Right below the image, (Smith et al. 1998) if it's a paper where the image comes from. Then at the end of the presentation, you can have a slide called "References", there you can list the paper in the reference style of your choosing (e.g. APA). This way it's very clear where the image comes from.

I don't think the phrase "used with permissions" is necessary in a presentation. But I'm not certain. I'm sure others will comment on this. However, that phrase IS necessary if you were to publish the slides of your presentation, or if you will use that image in a paper.


How can I tell who would be interested in my research?

First of all:

In other words, I think I need to get someone on the faculty to be enthusiastic about my application.
It seems that it is not enough to just do good research to stand out. I have to persuade the faculty that I should be hired over everyone else.

Yes. That is literally the definition of a job interview. If you get the job, then nobody else will. So you do have to convince the deciding people that you should be hired before over anyone else. You do not earn magic job-points when you do good research that you can cash in at your local university to get a free job. You have to convince the hiring people that you should be hired. I do not understand why you would state this as if this were some terrible hidden secret about academia. It works like this everywhere. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but you are going to have real problems getting a job if you keep this attitude.

But sometimes I don't know who the faculty are, I've never met them at a conference, etc. My feeling is that if I work on something that none of the faculty are particularly interested in, that will sink my application.

The onus is on you to get yourself informed about who the professors at that institution are. Why are you applying there at all? There must be a reason. If this is a personal reason rather than an academic one (e.g. "it's my hometown", "my fiancée works in this city", "I like the beach"...) then this will definitely be a hindrance unless you can find a way to turn this into a positive.
Not knowing anybody at the institution will not necessarily "sink" your application. But it will handicap you, for sure. They don't want to a complete stranger that will do research that doesn't interest them. They would much rather hire someone to whom they can at the very least talk to about research.

Actually some of the job descriptions explicitly say that they prefer candidates that match the interests of the department. Why would a department hire candidate X, who works in some out of left field area, when they can hire candidate Y, who works on something that interests faculty there?

Why indeed? If even you cannot answer this question, there is a real problem.


Assistant Professor vs Assistant Teaching Professor

"Assistant Teaching Professor" isn't a very common title, and the meaning of the title could vary from one institution to another.  However, I would assume that an "assistant teaching professor" was a position for someone whose responsibilities included only teaching and perhaps some service but no research.  In that case, it would most likely not be a tenure track position.

The two important factors here are whether the position has both teaching and research responsibilities and whether or not it's a tenure track position.


Five handling editors changed in a span of 1 month. What could be the reason?

Most likely it means all the editors invited have declined to handle it. For example, the person most appropriate declined for whatever reason (too busy, sick, etc), and all the others don't feel confident enough to handle it.
In any case there's nothing to do except wait.