Does one always have to present new results when publishing a paper?

Not really. But author or contributors to the publication should present new and valuable scientific things to the future readers of their paper. I can classify these new things in a list bellow:

An old method applied to solve a new problem;
A new method applied to solve an old and a solved problem;
A comparison of different old or new methods to solve a problem and discuss their accuracy or efficiency in solving problems by comparing their results;
A review on different methods to solve problems.

As you can see, there is no need to always have new results in the papers, but papers should have something new for their readers. Of course if your reader wants to read about those two existing methods, he can simply find and read the original papers instead of your publications.

An author may find a newer method to solve a solved old problem but in a more efficient way. Or he may find a very hard solution which may not be that much accurate, but it is a unique and new approach to solve the problem.

In your researches of applying those old methods, probably you did some programming and soft computing or applied some computational methods which may be unique and of value to be published in form of a research paper.

In your case, the only thing that comes to my mind is that you may consult the professor whom you worked with to discuss whether your results are publishable or not. You have some choices of course:

Write a comparing paper on the methods you applied and discuss their accuracies by comparing their results. You may also present the computer programming you did during your research. Also, you can discuss the amount of time each method consumes for reaching same results accessed by applying either of methods. You may also do some statistical calculations on the data you have as a result of those existing methods, which may also be something of value to the readers in your field.
Work some more in the field of the researches you did during your undergraduate years and find some more results and data or find a newer method and publish your whole research in form of a paper.

  [M]y question is that whether it would be possible to publish such
  kind of research project in form of a formal paper or not[?]

If your manuscript is well processed and contains valuable information to be published, it has some chances to be published in a journal or presented in a conference.

But please note that not every paper is valuable for every journal. Some journals are very high reputable and have high levels of impact factors. So, please evaluate your paper and submit it to a journal that publishes the same level of papers as your own paper. A very low quality paper may not always have the chance to be published in a well known and high reputable journal.

Of course anyone may submit his manuscript to a journal or conference, but submitting a paper does not really mean that their editors and reviewers will accept it for publication.

  [W]ould it affect in a positive way my scientific "career", since I
  would be able to say that I started publishing studies early than the
  usual (I mean, my knowledge tells me that publish stuff during
  undergrad means "early")?

Having publications based on your research activities in the undergraduate years is a valuable point in a person's scientific CV, but please note that for applying to some scientific careers, you should have higher levels of research. As an instance, for one applying to a post-doc position, having a good PhD level dissertation and probably one or two publications (depending on the applicant's field) is of course of more value than his early undergraduate level research.

If you are seeking a scientific career after obtaining your undergraduate degree; your research activities may be of value, but it hugely depends on the taste of your employer and their expectations.

As a general answer to this part of your question, having some researches during your undergraduate years is a good point in your CV and will not hurt your academic background. But this is not all for a potential applicant to a scientific career; as you may have some skills, good letters of recommendations, good grades, etc. These are important too.

  Moreover, would it be a positive fact to have papers publicized, even
  if they don't have new results or anything unpublished?

I think that it would be positive to have a publication out of your undergraduate researches, as it may show that you are a potential and enthusiastic researcher and you are so encouraged in doing research.

But answering to whether it is positive or not to publish such results, hugely depends on your manuscript. If you simply copy and paste existing results without any new activities, seems not a positive activity to me. I prefer to read the original papers not a copy of them in a newer paper. If you do something new, even a very small thing is valuable and of course sounds so positive.

(Just joking but I call a person who just published existing results without anything new to read in his paper a professional copy-paster, not a researcher!)


Work on a conditional accepted paper for a 4 stars journal not even mentioned on the acknowledgements

I think you overestimate the value of being listed in the acknowledgements, which is not to say that an apology was not in order (but this is not worth pressing about).  However, there are almost no tangible ways in which being listed in an acknowledgements section of a paper will help you professionally.  The most it will do for you is that your name gets seen a couple of times, which may remind/inform a reader of your existence as a human being.

The ways that you get recognized for work which either does not get published or you do not get co-authorship are:

Appreciation by other researchers who personally know what you did (e.g., your professor).  Consequently they may be more motivated to bring you in on projects in the future, which you might get coauthorship for or at least be in a good position to get a strong letter of recommendations.
(less direct) You gain experience and knowledge from this work, and it may be that you will have an opportunity to share your newfound wisdom with someone in the future, who may be impressed.


Where can i study academic english in an English-speaking country?

I am also non-native English speaker. I also did my Ph.D on social sciences and need to publish articles in English. I first recommend anyone to get online "academic writing" courses. If you search carefully you are going to find that there are Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) designed specifically for that purpose, i.e. academic English and writing. Price to benefit ratio for such a course will be very high too. If you pay, you will also get a certificate too.
Writing an article in another language and seeing your mistake in every aspect requires a lot of attention and some time too. You can learn general purpose English, lets say, in a year but improving your writing to a level where even minor mistakes are rare is something not easy to reach.
Working with editors whose native languages are English can help you to see your mistakes too.
"Interactions with people" may help you to communicate and perhaps to present your article in a conference though it will not help you to write an article without or with little mistakes. You have to spend a lot of time hanging around, chatting with people just to capture a few "academic words" in a daily life.


Is it possible to get a PhD based on research papers I have written?

I doubt that you will find such a thing anywhere. An earned doctorate almost always (I know of no exceptions) requires an official registration and most likely, your presence at the institution for some period of time. There are normally qualifying examinations and often (not always) some required coursework.

Your publication history, however, would be a very positive factor in obtaining admission to a program in most places. You don't say why you are having difficulties, so it is impossible to say if there is some impediment.

But the only way to know about your chances are to apply to a program somewhere other than your institute, and possibly in another country. But a research background would help your chances.


Which is more impressive -- finishing a PhD in 2.5 years or getting more research done?

In my field (computer science, broadly), my impression is as follows.  It is of course an over-generalization.

If you want to go into academia or industrial research, then what you
do during your Ph.D. matters much much more than how long you took,
though if you take more than 6 years to finish it starts to look bad.
On the other hand, if you want to go into non-academic industry, you
might impress people with a fast Ph.D. because you'd show yourself to be the sort of person who can finish big things fast.

If you're only 2.5 years in, unless you have an offer from someplace and need to finish ASAP, and especially if you're enjoying your Ph.D., I wouldn't rush to graduate that quickly.


To what extent can I refer to closed-access reviewer comments in my public task management workflow?

I think the other answer and comments focus too much on the legal aspects involved. There is also a community moral aspect to it. There is a good discussion in the Publons article Who owns the review.
The comments that the reviewer makes are meant to be only for the author(s) and editor. For the editor to help make a decision on acceptance of the paper and for the author(s) to either explain this decision or help improve the paper. Quoting this comments elsewhere isn't really part of the traditional process.
However, the issues raised by the reviewer need addressing in the code and you are following code practice by tracking issues using an appropriate (open) tool.
I think its important that you remember that the reviewers recommendations are just recommendations that you need to interpret in any case before you make any changes. I would recommend to make issues/tasks using your interpretations of what needs to be done. You should be able to state clearly both what needs to be done and why without quoting the reviewer at all.
This way you avoid any problems relating to copyright at all - publishing interpretations is fine. The recommendations are there to be acted on so there's no need to bother a probably already over-worked editor. More importantly this approach makes you think about what the changes are and why they are needed. This will help your understanding of the issues and how to fix them better.


Can my advisor's advisor be a reviewer for a paper written by me along with my advisor

Conflicts of interest have to be determined individually for each author of each work product (paper, proposal, book, etc.). If a person has a conflict for any author, she should not act as a reviewer.

In the case you cite, your advisor’s advisor cannot act as a reviewer for your advisor, and thus cannot serve as a reviewer. If your advisor is not a coauthor, then your advisor’s advisor could act as a reviewer, but I would likely err on the side of caution and not nominate him as a reviewer.


How are papers on NIPS Proceedings licensed?

The proceedings of NIPS is presently published by Curran Associates (2005–present) under the name Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems. So, it follows the copyright and license as per Curran Associates regulations.

Please see the link here: [Curran Associates]


Listing Latin Honor GPA while you are still undergraduate in your CV

I would not include such a statement in your CV, since Latin honors are normally awarded at graduation. Until you have actually received the honors, don't list it in your CV. (Moreover, putting "eligible for magna cum laude" or the equivalent makes it look like you're trying too hard to list extra prizes, which reflects poorly on you.)


Should Professors use COVID as Discussion Board Material?

I think I would avoid using COVID-19 as an example except in situations that are most directly relevant (those involving viral biology or epidemiology, for example), for exactly the reason your student raised.
At the same time, I wouldn't say it is inappropriate, just that it is quite a saturated topic for many people right now. It's also definitely appropriate to open forums for students to converse about managing aspects of the pandemic, especially in their experience as students, on topics like social isolation, remote learning, etc.
I would also encourage students to relate topics to COVID by their choice when there are most open-ended assignments, while also allowing them to use different cases.
Usually there is some benefit for relating content to current events to make the content more salient, but I do think this is a time where there is a bit of overload. Ordinarily, you would do this to make a bridge, where students are now thinking about the material in a relevant-to-them way. With COVID, there is enough going on that instead they might be distracted by other thoughts about COVID (including anxieties about themselves or others being infected, loved ones who are currently sick or have died, general uncertainty and impacts of measures to reduce spread, etc), unrelated to the course material, so you lose the benefits.


How much weight is given to letters of recommentation from developing country for Dphil at Oxford University?

I doubt there are any statistics to support this, so this is my opinion plus some limited experience in selecting applicants to graduate programs.  A famous professor's letter is likely to have somewhat more weight, but not purely because they are famous; more because the fact that they are famous implies that they have more experience judging people.  If someone who has mentored two students says "This is the best student I have ever had", their ranking has less weight than the same claim from someone who has mentored two hundred.

On the other hand, a strong recommendation from someone who knows the applicant well will have much more weight than a vague and impersonal recommendation from someone who clearly doesn't know the person as an individual.  Remember that committees already have much information about the applicant as a student -- grades, C.V., courses taken, extracurricular activities should all be present in the application elsewhere. A recommendation that merely says, for example, "This student received a good grade in my course" is useless; we already can see that, it's redundant information.

A useful recommendation letter adds new information that the committee can't get elsewhere. A student may have received an "A" because they are slow, but diligent; or they may be brilliant but lazy. The student has published a paper -- Did they perform a technical but unimaginative role, or did they conceive of the idea and push it to a conclusion? The outcome will look the same on the other documentation, but the recommendation letter can tell the committee what actually happened. Similarly, committees look to recommendation letters to try to understand the applicants' personalities. Are they cooperative, argumentative, shy, stubborn, agreeable? There is wide latitude for personalities in graduate studies, but there are certainly some people who are unlikely to do well because of their personality, and a recommendation letter can help flag those who are likely to be great fits.

If that new information comes from a famous person who has had the opportunity to compare to many other students, so much the better.  If it comes from an obscure person, it is still far more useful than a mere recitation of the same information that's already present in the CV; and it's far more useful than unhelpful information, no matter how famous the person.

(I have seen cases where applicants included personal recommendations from senators and in one case the US president.  These letters not only did not help, they reduced the ranking of the applicants, because they were inappropriate and reflected poorly on the applicants' judgement and understanding of the field.)


Is it wise for a BPAD (bi-polar affective disorder) recovered student to enrol for PhD?

I'll start with the basics: doing a PhD usually implies a lot of stress, and the process is both very competitive and tense. However, it depends a lot on the environment around the student. Therefore, without knowing your specific medical situation (and not being a medical expert, even if I knew all about you), you may not get a more useful answer than: yes, it is possible, but you have to be very careful about ensuring that this is done in an environment compatible with your condition, and be prepared to quit if you have to choose between your health and your job (recognize early on that failure is always an option). It will be hard, but I don't think it's impossible.

If you are to enroll in a PhD (or graduate program, I don't know the details of India’s graduate-level education system), it has to meet certain conditions:

Make sure that the people taking you on as advisor and department head know of your condition, and wholeheartedly embrace the idea of you having special needs
Discuss it with the doctor that follows you regularly. Also bring into the discussion your future institution's resident doctor, because he is (in most countries, by law) the person who will mediate between you and your institution if problems arise.
Realize that if you love research, it's not only a PhD, but already think of your career ahead.

A last note of hope: in many countries, people with disabilities are allowed by law to obtain work adjustments from their employers. This is more commonly done for people with physical disabilities, but I know at least one person who successfully obtained very specific (and very large) adjustments to his PhD program because of his mental health (this is in France, if it makes any difference).


How to ask someone (outside the department) to be on the thesis committee

From my experience, having cross-department committee members is very common, and can actually be very beneficial to the student, as you gain access to expertise and perspective you might otherwise miss. There's usually at least some connection between the research being done and the expertise of the faculty member. To use myself as an example, my research involved behavioral neuroscience, but I had both an electrical engineering faculty with signal processing experience and a psychology faculty on my committee, and they both gave very useful advice with my project. That being said, I had a committee member who was completely unrelated to my work (my focus shifted midway through my PhD career), and he requested to still stay on despite the lack of direct research connection; he was happy just to give advice and provide feedback.

You can find potential committee members by talking to other graduate students, and by looking at what theses professors have worked on (as you suggest above). I definitely recommend talking to other students; some professors are more difficult to work with than others, and you likely won't get that type of information from your advisor.

Regarding how to go about talking to the professor, I would just send a simple email asking for a meeting about this topic. If they're simply not interested, they'll say so, and you'll save yourself time. If they are, meet to discuss the following:

who you work for
what you're researching (both the ten-year research goal, if there is one, as well as your specific project)
why you think this faculty member can help you
why this person should be interested (this should be tacit; i.e., you shouldn't have to say it explicitly, he should understand it from the above items)


How to ask my professor to write recommendation letter for me?

Your e-mail looks okay as an appointment mail. There are a few possibilities. The professor may be busy with some important things he has to do. He may be on vacation, not available. Please don't lose your confidence yet. You probably should wait a few more days for him to reply.

It is also possible that he didn't think an A in Calculus I is good enough for him to write a recommendation letter for you. He may want to wait until you get another A for Calculus II and then write a good recommendation letter.

However, depending on which field you are going to study in graduate school, the professor who taught you Calculus I may not be a good candidate to write you recommendation letters.

You already have Bachelors degree. I think the recommendation letters written by the professors in the university where you graduated from, who had more working experience with you would be more helpful for your graduate school application.


A text which is not a draft, but expected to be updated - upload to arXiv?

Yes, it’s legitimate. The fact that arXiv has a versioning system tells you everything you need to know: the ability to post updated and improved versions of your manuscript is an intentional feature of arXiv. So your question really amounts to “is it reasonable to use this feature?” - to which the answer is, yes, of course.

Now, keep in mind that the versioning feature can be, and at times has been, abused by people who post way too many versions of their paper with many confusing, incremental updates, usually in an attempt to bring an originally very low quality paper up to an acceptable level. This type of behavior is certainly looked down upon as a form of “noise pollution” and may be seen as a signal of low quality content, so if you think you’ll be posting more than, say, three versions (including the original submission), I’d suggest rethinking your approach. Also remember that the older versions of the paper remain accessible indefinitely. If you care about your reputation, you’d want to make sure that even the original version of the paper is of a high enough quality that you can accept being associated with it far into the future. With that said, your desire to share the work even in non-final form, whether because you think it may be useful to others and/or because you need some feedback to put the finishing touches on it, are quite understandable and acceptable, and shared by many; that is why the versioning system exists. So as I said, it’s totally legitimate.


What is the fate of an accepted paper in Springer conference but not being presented?

The comments above are the answers you want. I am just reiterating them here because I think the question deserves an answer. If they accepted your paper, it means the conference organizers think it's interesting. You should mention to them your inability to attend, and if you can't for any reason publish it elsewhere, you could ask them if they are willing to review your contribution and publish it.
Conference organizers often serve as editors of the conference proceedings, so it's entirely up to them to publish it anyway, or not. And they typically do not have any special incentive to go one way or another, so do try!


Is there any website for announcements of journal's special issues?

No, there is not.

Speaking as somebody who has dealt with a number of special issues on both sides of the editorial table, there is simply too little coherence in how different journals advertise their special issues.  Sometimes it's hard even to find a coherent explanation of how a journal is approaching special issues even on its own website.

Maybe somebody like Google could address this, but it would be a hard problem requiring either serious investment in human curation or serious natural language processing mojo.


Is ever answering "No Basis for Judgement" on a reference request a red-flag

Usually you can supply context either as comments on the form or as a separate letter.  This is where you can explain you “no basis for judgement”.  It is not uncommon (although maybe so for this specific question): you may simply not have the historical pool of students to make an informed comparison.
You can use comments or a letter to simply restate what you just included in your post, and this should be enough to justify an honest opinion AND provide useful additional information for a committee.


Quotation/reference manager for print books

A few notes before I make a suggestion: I don't usually volunteer answers unless I have a very clear, reliable workflow in mind. In this case, it's a bit more of a "workaround", and as such, it's not perfect. It's not going to work 100% of the time. But I do hope that it saves you a few minutes of typing here and there - it all adds up in the long run.

This is a modification of my workflow in undergrad, where I (regrettably) mostly just skimmed books without taking notes and had to track down quotes based on a very limited set of information.

It requires use of Chrome, a Google account, and a Doc designated for taking notes.

Here's how the workflow breaks down:

Search Google Scholar for your print material of choice.
Use the "search inside" function of Google Books to locate your particular quote. Usually just an uncommon word, phrase, or name will suffice. Be forewarned that the part of the book you're looking for will sometimes be withheld due to copyright.
If the book permits highlighting, you're good to go. Just copy the text you need. Unfortunately, it probably won't, so screen capture is your best workaround. I use Fireshot to take screenshots right within my browser without downloading them locally.
Take a screenshot using your preferred method of the paragraph or part of a paragraph that you need.
Now you have an image to work with. If you have the means, invest in an app that will do the OCR (optical character recognition) for you. That way, if you need to use the quote in your next paper, it's ready for you without having to type it all out yourself. Kami comes recommended and integrates with Google Drive, but I don't have any personal experience with it.
If you don't need OCR at the moment and just want to hold on to the quote for future reference, keep the image. You can opt to save it directly to Google Drive OR you can copy and paste it into a Google Doc from your browser.
Take notes, add context, jot down ideas, add more quotes, etc. directly in your Google Doc.

Optional

Use Paperpile to manage your citation information in Google Docs. I started using Paperpile while writing my Masters thesis and become rather enamored with it, despite never having used a reference manager before. Full disclosure: I now work for Paperpile as their Marketing & Community Manager.

From your Google Doc, you can add your own notes and context for the quote along with an in-text citation that links directly to your research library. Paperpile can pull the citation info directly from your Google Scholar search in Step 1. If you don't want to take notes in Google Docs, you can add them directly to the reference itself in the form of a note or attachment. And when you're ready to start writing your next paper, the reference is ready without any additional work on your part.


Where can I find (preferably UK) statistics about where graduate students did their undergraduate course?

The Higher Education Statistics Agency would be your first port of call in the UK.

HESA collects statistics from students across HE institutions and publishes their results.  It is my understanding that all UK HEIs are required to submit data about their students, so coverage should be relatively complete.

Most of the attention is generally paid to what students do 6 months after that have graduated from an undergraduate courses; however, their data appears to be available, so you might be able to do your own analysis looking at graduate destinations>further study>subject studied.  See 'free online tables' on the Graduate Destinations page.

You might need to speak with HESA directly to drill down to institutional level.  They have advice for data analysis as well, so maybe worth getting in touch.


Dear PIs: How can a new hire politely probe you for details?

Just ask, actually. But a good way would be to ask for a list of publications of the group and a list of colleagues you would be working with. You could then introduce yourself to one or more of them and ask for information so that you don't need to ask too much of the PI.

Some groups will have already made some or all of this available on a web site associated with the institution or the project. You could get started there if it exists.

I'm assuming that you already have been offered a position, rather than just being in the application stage.

You could even consider visiting the lab and meeting a few people if that is an option. Speaking with other postdocs might be especially valuable.


Why do papers found online often not say their publication date?

One thing that may be causing the phenomenon that you are seeing is that in fields like computer science, authors are frequently allowed to put preprints online on their website, but not the final "official" version.  Such preprints often do not carry a date stamp, while the official version available from the publisher's website does.


Has there ever been a successful copyright infringement suit against someone using a small amount of a protected work in an academic publication?

One case in a similar direction is Sundeman v. The Seajay Society.  A researcher included quotations from an unpublished work in a presentation; this was upheld as fair use.  There's some discussion of the case and the outcome from the Columbia copyright office (have to scroll down a little bit).  There are some other related cases listed on the same page, e.g. involving fair use of copyrighted images in less academic publications.


Are master's degrees in the US mostly meant to prepare you for a Ph.D?

There are two very different kinds of computer science master's degrees:

Professional master programs involve taking lots of classes, but have no research requirement.  These are almost universally considered (academically) terminal degrees.  The actual degree is usually not "M.S.", but something similar like "M.Eng." (Cornell) or "M.C.S." (UIUC).
Research masters programs require at least a modicum of original research, usually leading to a thesis.  These are generally (but not universally) considered preparation for a PhD program, because of the research component.  The actual degree is usually "M.S."  In some departments, the MS program is equivalent to MCS + thesis; in other programs, the MS program has different (usually smaller but more advanced) course requirements.

It is very important to know which type of master's program you are applying to.


What to do if most of the students did badly in the 1st midterm?

What I usually do, and this would also apply in this situation: I tell the students that if their performance improves significantly in the final exam, and if any of the remaining exams/quizes, I am willing to ignore the grade for the first midterm when I calculate their grades.

But they have to prove that the first midterm was an accident.

This usually motivates them to work harder for the remaining of the class, and for some students a poor first midterm is a good wake up call.


How do I go from Math BS/MS to Exercise Physiology PhD?

The way to get into any PhD program is to apply to it.  If you are interested in staying at your current institution, you can seek out faculty in Exercise Physiology (assuming there are any; I must admit that I know nothing about this particular program, including how common it is) and ask them whether your coursework so far would make you a reasonable candidate for the program, and if not, how much more you need to do.

One obvious question: are you interested in using your mathematical training in a significant way in your future career in Exercise Physiology?  If so, then continuing on to get the MS is math could be an advantage: I imagine that relatively few Exercise Physiology PhD students have that much mathematical training, but like in most academic fields there is always room for people who do have that training and want to use it.

If you are having a real change of heart, I have to ask: why begin a master's program in math if you have decided you don't want to use mathematics later in life?  Why aren't you trying to take courses in Exercise Physiology?  Also, I am a mathematician, so I can say that getting an MS in math is not a triviality: it most typically takes two years, and if your heart's not really in it, it could drag for longer than that and really not be fun.


Normalizing grades across multiple graders

I am not entirely sure if this is an "answer" or a "comment" but I'll supply it as an answer.

First off, I'm answering from the perspective of academia -- not from the perspective of perfect statistical analysis or experiment design or anything like that. So put away any screams that this fails some sort of T test or does not produce a normal distribution -- those aren't the goals of academic work in general.

I think you might be trying to solve this problem the wrong way in all honesty.  You state:

  We also blindly grade a single student submission at a time and re-calibrate the rubric and it's application till we have consensus.

and then

  Last Spring, this led to a significant number of grading iterations for each assignment, and we eventually ended up averaging across iterations, rather then converging to a common grade for each student.

This sounds like an immense amount of work to give students grades. But worse than that, it's clear the earlier work doesn't do anything for you since you had to take the consensus-achieved "re-calibrated rubric" and then if I'm reading correctly redo and jig together a bunch of things to produce grades.

If it seems like an immense struggle to come up with grades, then at least on of the following seems true to me:

You and your team are suffering from a strong case of OCD.
You're probably not achieving real consensus on how to grade things so much as minimal acquiescence on a single answer.
You and your team are fighting against gravity -- i.e. you are trying to counteract a feature of human grading that you should just accept and work around.
A misundertanding of the nature of academic work and grading (for more on that topic see this question and especially this answer: https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/31526/20058).

I see three potential solutions:

Rather than try to QC to perfect grade normalization, accept that individual grading differences are in-eradicable and make it so students' work is graded by a distribution of graders and that grades are not so subject to this fluctuation as to be questionable.  For instance, have each grader look at a sample of 5 "standards" (an A, B, C, D , F) and see what grades they assign to them. Use this to categorize graders as severe, neutral, and soft and make it so everyone gets a fair mix of graders.

And/or make the rubric explicitly clear to the point where individual differences don't matter. i.e.,

"one point for a program that complies, one point for a program that
executes without crashing, one point for a program that produces the correct output, two points for using a recursive function, one point for mentioning "iterative sort" / "iterative sorting" in the description.

And/or figure out where the individual grading differences happen and minimize the importance of these for actual grades.


I'm assuming that you want to stay where you are if accepted and carry out the research remotely from the professor and any of his/her research groups.

Whether reasonable or not, it is possible to ask. But also expect skepticism. If you don't know the person already then it isn't very likely to be accepted, but again, it is possible. But your mail would need to present interesting reasons why the professor would want to accept you.

A professor who meets regularly in seminar with groups of students would have more trouble with such a plan than one who prefers to meet individually. Computer mediated communication is pretty common now and as the field doesn't require lab work, I see no absolute block. But if the research requires working with human subjects then you have to figure out how and where to do that, complicated also by the rules and regulations, perhaps, of two places, not just one. But a lot of small groups work collaboratively while the members stay in their separate countries, meeting only occasionally.

But, it is easy to send an email, a bit harder to make it interesting, and possibly harder still to be convincing. But not impossible.

It is also possible for people working remotely to meet now and again, whether through travel direct to the other place or at a conference or other professional meeting.


How to collaborate with an experienced researcher as a first year master student?

It seems to me that you are looking more for reassurance than advice. There's absolutely nothing wrong in seeking that on an online forum, but you must first speak to your professor and senior students working in the group. The internet is comfortable in anonymity, but you must not develop an aversion to asking people for help in person. That may be far more harmful than being stuck on a research project.

Now, remember you are at the very beginning of a research career. Your professor has spent years and years.  Isn't it unreasonable to expect yourself to generate ideas at the same pace? To answer your question, there is certainly an inexperience component. Whether you are doing something wrong can only be ascertained by your professor. Most likely, you are worrying needlessly. There is, however, always a chance that this line may not be ideal for you- you will have a better idea of that by time your program ends. Your professor will be invaluable here too, but you need to take the first step and open up to him.


How to read papers without falling into a rabbit hole?

Your problem is quite common among researchers. Actually it's not really a problem, being overwhelmed like this is just natural. Me and all my friends and colleagues face it.

How I overcame this issue: I try to focus on one paper at a time. Try starting reading the latest research paper on a particular subject and go back chronologically. Print the research paper in hard copy, leave your computer and cell phone (if possible) behind and start reading the paper. The point here is to avoid internet access. No matter what question you have, do not search it right away. Write it on the side notes and keep reading. Most of the time the answer will be in the later sections of the same article. Even if you do not get the answers, once you finish reading the paper, you can go online and find all the answers. That's how I read literature without falling in a rabbit hole.

Also, reading the Abstract first, then the conclusion, and then the rest of the paper is also effective.

For me, changing place of study also helps to focus and good instrumental music is always a plus.


How to handle colors of photorealistic images in publications

One possibility is to use the colour image, but add text labels for the important elements so the user can understand the image even in black and white. For example, in a picture of a stoplight, I might label the red light as "stop indicator" (or even "red light"), the green light as "go indicator" (or "green light", and so on.

The user will know that the text labels must have been added after the picture was taken, so you will not be misrepresenting anything.


How can I tell if I'm being too picky as a referee?

In my humble opinion, it looks like you are the ideal reviewer actually! You give a lot of advice to improve the paper, and this directly benefits the authors and the journal. And apparently you give very precise advice, which is much more useful and actionable than general or vague remarks.

My main concern as a reviewer is to be fair in my final recommendation. As long as your meticulousness doesn't lead you to reject potentially good papers, you are doing a good job as a reviewer. However the question of whether you are spending too much time on it depends on your priorities, it's important to weigh the benefits and costs for yourself before you accept. It's perfectly acceptable to refuse a review from time to time in order to maintain the level of quality for the ones you accept.


Can I select any of my published paper in journal for book chapter

If they're sending you invitations to contribute to volumes that are completely unrelated to your work, the next step's simple: ignore the email. They're clearly not doing their research and are resorting to mass mailings.


How to label figures in response letter, so as to distinguish between figures in the letter and figures in the manuscript?

I am going to take a contrary opinion to what has been suggested so far, and strongly suggest that you do not put figures in your response letter.

My reasoning is this: as a reviewer and an editor, I often see an author put material into the response letter that would be better put into the manuscript.  If you need to explain something clearly and carefully to a reviewer, you probably need to explain it clearly and carefully to your readers as well.  That goes not just for text, but for figures and tables and references also.  Rather that writing it twice (and typically ending up with significant differences between your two instances, since they're in different contexts), write it once in the manuscript and just refer to it there from the response letter.

In short: if you think it's important enough to put in the response letter, it's important enough to simply put into the manuscript.


Listing expected graduation GPA along with current GPA for grad admission of senior undergraduate

First the difference between a GPA of 3.76 and 3.8 doesn't seem very big or relevant to me. Beyond that, in general I would not put the two numbers in the application. Put the GPA of your already graded courses, so the 3.76 and write next to it that it is preliminary and in particular does not contain your thesis grade yet, which accounts for 20% of the total grade. With that information anyone reading your application can make their own estimate of what your final GPA will be.


Where and how to publish research paper as a non-academic independent researcher

On the first question, you can and should submit to "normal" journals. There is no special publication track you have to use. Independent non-academic researchers are unusual in some fields but quite common in others,

On the second question, see this discussion - in short, you can give your own address, your company (if they're happy with this - ask), or just something like "independent researcher". Do not give a university you attended in the past, as this implies you carried out the work there and could be seen as misleading.


Is it ethical to remove your co-authorship shortly before submission?

Is it ethical to submit the paper as a co-author and wait for the reviews and trying to improve the paper later

Submitting a paper with major errors is unethical, whereas submitting a paper that needs polishing isn't.

  or is it more fair to remove my co-authorship before the submission?

You can remove yourself, but the paper would probably benefit from your continued support.

  A colleaque of mine suggested that I should care more for my own papers rather than the papers of others.

This is one of your papers.


Can I cross-reference thesis chapters in my thesis literature review?

The literature review of your thesis should set the scene that your own research will be taking place in, and should contribute towards motivating the work you do. However, it sounds like you're considering your literature review to be just that, a review of the literature. You really want the reader to reach the end of your literature review feeling that there's a gap waiting to be filled, which you then do.

There may be a small minority of cases where for some reason it makes sense to cite a paper containing thesis work in the literature review, but generally speaking it should describe the literature without the contribution of your thesis.* If you discuss your work in the literature review, then the reader may not feel there is a gap in the literature to fill (or at least, if there is you won't be filling it in the remainder of the thesis).

It's the later discussion/conclusion sections and chapters where you want to fit your work into the existing literature.

* I worded this carefully because the option you describe, reflecting knowledge in the field prior to your thesis, isn't necessarily correct either. There may be relevant work which follows your own work in time, but not necessarily in substance, which you may also want to describe.


Is simplication of known results worth a publication?

In general, this kind of result might be worth publishing, also in top journals. However, it is impossible to tell without knowing the specifics. It might well be something that has been known as a "folklore result" for long in your field.

Luckily, you say that the leader of your research group is the major expert on this. So, ask him and not a random bunch of people from other fields you found on the internet.

If you have already asked and he disagrees, chances are that he is right. But if you disagree and insist that it is a major breakthrough, you can still write everything up, put it on arXiv, and wait for feedback from other researchers.


Supervisor gave my PhD project to another student

If this was really the way you were treated - by which I mean that you have to be sure not to misinterpret statements or promises of your supervisor - then you should run.

A PhD requires trust between the supervisor and the student. After such a breach of trust, you need to find a new supervisor.


Is it dishonest to start a PhD with intent to leave it and transfer to another program?

Is this extremely dishonest to start a phd without the intention to finish it?

It depends if you talk about your situation with your current advisor. If you clearly stated "I'm more interested in another position, but I couldn't get it, and it's likely I'll try next year", then, no, it's not dishonest. If you said you were interested in doing a full PhD there, while you actually were not, then, yes, it's dishonest. You're taking a funding opportunity for someone who would be interested, and in some cases, for instance when the funding is associated with a project, you will leave your current advisor with a partial funding, that cannot be used to hire a new PhD student.

  Will this put me on some blacklist at that university?

Again, it depends how you explained the situation, but I would not hope much for any recommendation letter from your current advisor (which is a shame, because recommendation letters can be very useful later on).

  How should I portray my position in my other phd applications? I was thinking of saying that I was doing a funded student placement program or something?

As I said here, lying is always a bad idea. Academia is a very small world. If you want to change position, then you have to explain why.


"The Immigration Reform and Control Act" (IRCA) for EU applicants

As far as I know, these clauses in application forms, are there for legal and nominal reasons only. The university is legally obliged by law to put this clause. This does not mean the committee will actually take this into consideration, and my experience is that they don't.

You should thus write that you are not eligible to work currently in the US, as indeed you are not. But this should not constitute a cause for concern.


I can't balance your options for you, of course, but I'll give you a couple of things to consider if you haven't already.

One is the time to completion of your current degree project. If it is soon, then staying might be best and then moving gradually into your math studies, either formally or informally.

But another option than the one you mention would be to ask around to see if you can't find an additional advisor in math and work with both of them at the intersection of math and CS which you seem to be interested it. This pretty much assumes that you are not yet deep in the weeds of your CS doctoral research. You might be able to avoid the math qualifiers that way if you have already qualified in CS.

I would guess that there is already some collaboration between the departments at an institution such as you describe. You might be able to explore it painlessly without needing to make an immediate decision or burn bridges.

What would be on your credential when you finish would depend on a bunch of things, of course.


Why do reviews of articles often start with a summary of the article?

Reviews are communications to the editor, and an effective review tells the editor what the article is about (in that reviewer's opinion), using significantly fewer words than authors typically use. If an editor has to process a couple hundred submissions per year, it's not possible for him/her to carefully read every paper, so the editor will especially care if the reviewers agree on what the paper purports to show and whether the paper actually shows it.


Writing as an Administrator:

It is appropriate to use the title when you are a graduate, ie, when the degree is conferred either in notice by letter or by ceremony (which ever comes first).  Prior to that your status is that of a graduand.  If you've been using the work-title PhD Candidate you might consider changing to PhD Graduand to indicate this status: that you're awaiting conferral but you've met the substantive criteria for fulfillment of your degree.  Additional source: Swinburn on Postnominals.

Congratulations by the way!


FizzBuzz for Academia, Questions to Gauge Research Understanding

No, there is no useful research analog of FizzBuzz.

FizzBuzz is a rather limited test of programming ability.  An incompetent candidate may fail at it, but passing this test in no way qualifies someone to work as a programmer.  Some programming jobs attract lots of incompetent applicants, and it's worth filtering them out, but FizzBuzz is just a small step in that direction.  The only reason we've heard of it is because it makes a great story when someone applies for a job but can't pass the simplest test.

For faculty hiring, there's no need for such a crude filter.  The number of highly qualified candidates is much greater than the number of openings, and filtering out the incompetent is not a big deal.  (If you spend a lot of time worrying about whether your candidates are incompetent, then something has gone catastrophically wrong with the search process.)  Instead, the hard part is deciding who the very best candidates are, and FizzBuzz-style questions won't help with that.

For graduate student admissions, competence testing is more relevant.  However, there's a fundamental difference from hiring a programmer.  In that case, you are looking for someone who already has programming experience, and FizzBuzz helps filter out people who are bluffing about how experienced they are.  Someone who fails could still learn to be a fine programmer, but you don't care since you're looking for someone who already knows how.  On the other hand, most applicants to graduate school have only limited experience with research, and that's OK.  You're looking for potential, rather than experience, and that's trickier to evaluate.  I'm skeptical that any simple, clear-cut test can reliably predict research potential.


What to expect from or discuss in a Skype call about the possibility of a research position?

You need to answer two questions here:

What is it that you want out of this?
What can you offer this person?

In answer to question 1, if it's just that you want any post-doc, then this conversation will likely go poorly for you.

The professor "cannot produce an open position", meaning that he is uninterested in working with just another researcher to get more people in his lab.  He has an obvious interest in working with someone, but he isn't sure if it's you.  He'll want to know that you two share the same research interests, that your skills are up to the task, and that you can contribute positively to the field and your mutual reputation as researchers.

In response to question 2: The prof most likely wants to know if you want this specific post-doc position because this professor is a leader in the field that you are in and you will learn a lot from this person, and also that you will be able to make a significant contribution without him holding your hand, but that gets him some recognition.  You need to make sure to communicate that.


How much does the ranking of your Master's program/school matter when applying to PhD programs?

Don't get hung up on the ranking thing because it doesn't really matter when it comes to a PhD admission.  Top things that make your application stronger are

Skills you gained during MS and prior education/work experience
Letters of recommendation (high impact)
Writing sample (usually your statement of purpose/intent)
Willingness to learn new things
Your vision for a future career

That being said, try to find a program (either MS or PhD) that is best suited to your interests and that has the faculty expertise for you to learn from.


Making a Lateral Jump in Fields for a PhD

Sure.  After all many "sosh" and applied math programs take direct BS grads versus masters.

There may be some benefit from your masters econ work, but probably a lot won't carry over and you will need to take the regular grad curriculum for the new field.  I would expect to spend the regular amount of time to get the Ph.D. degree in either field as a direct from bachelors would.

There's also the possibility of some gaps from your lack of a bachelors in either field.  This can often be remedied just by taking the starter grad school classes.  Many other fields get people coming in off-normal track (e.g. physics to material science) and those students get up to speed fine.  Both of the fields you are looking at are reasonably "close" to economics.  It's not like English major to physics Ph.D.  Also, even if there is not a direct benefit from the econ masters, it will help your maturity and push you to get up to speed and done on time.

Note that the two areas you mentioned are rather different in math demands.  Stereotypically, applied math > econ > sosh.  Yes, I realize you said "quant" soc. problems...but still if we are talking a school of sosh, the professors/students won't have the same basic math chops that applied math does. Nowhere near.  Yeah, they have to do some basic stats and read Lieberson's Making it Count, but this is not their total cup of tea.

Conversely, if you are being pulled by the idea of special social problems and fixing society, a sosh department may be right home for you.  Note however, that you can do quantitative sosh analysis/research from many fields (econ, psych, education, jurisprudence, etc.)  So think about what is attracting you and what kind of colleagues you want.

In addition to the fields you've mentioned, I would also consider a stats department IF that is of interest (some places this is separately named, not "applied math").  Super portable degree.  But not the warm comfort of the sosh world solving society.  And of course...much stronger stats!

Finally, worth considering why you want to move from the current program or if you could get an econ Ph.D. and still do sort of problems you want.  Clearly there are social issues with respect to resource use by society.  Also econ at the higher levels can be quite mathematical (if that is more what is drawing you).  Not giving any strong opinion here and you know what turns you off.  But articulating it might be helpful in going forward.

P.s.  I wouldn't mention/worry about the high school grades.  That's ancient history.  It is normal for some bright students to mature later and then do strongly in college, after subpar high school career.


Obtaining abstracts for symposium talks before vs after submitting proposal

Regarding your question:

  How is it best to time the symposium proposal's submission relative to obtaining the full talk details (titles & abstracts) from speakers?

This is specific to each conference. Check submission requirements. It is likely that they will submit abstracts to the conference and your session after your session is listed on the website/conference registration. Additionally, it is likely that what someone proposes to present now (early) may be different from what they might propose in three months when they register or when you, as a group, chat about the content of the session.

I, too, am an ECR, so consider that when reading my answer.

A few years ago I wanted to propose a symposium on a topic at a 'major' conference. I reached out to this professor, whom I had only brief email communication with, to gauge their interest in the topic. I provided a list of potential speakers and an abstract to this person. After some discussion, we concluded that a different, but related topic might be better for the conference. We submitted and it was accepted -- it was great! We recently published a paper which resulted from that meeting/symposium.

This leads me to your question:

  Is there a real career benefit in having 'symposium organiser at
  conference X' in one's CV, i.e. are there real points 'scored' with
  this activity when applying for grants & jobs?

Yes! You will grow your network. You will learn through the activity how to strategically propose sessions, and invite and collaborate with others. You should come out of the session with a new, smaller network of researchers with whom collaboration should be a little easier (now that you 'know' each other). If the society accepts your symposium, it is likely they would be interested in receiving a research article on the topic(s). Organizing a session is also great for working with people with whom you likely wouldn't physically meet otherwise, and for getting out of your daily working area (i.e., invite people from regions/groups different than yours!).

Unless you are making travel arrangements and securing funding for the invited speakers, I don't think there will be much leg work beyond the initial submission, invitation emails, and reminder emails.

Find a mentor and collaborator to guide you through this process, and to help build your network.


Is it legal to run interviews for an academic job when the post has already being assigned?

In many cases, academic institutions will be legally obliged to fill positions according to the procedure you described. This usually requires publishing a call for applications in a suitable medium, and putting together a short list of selected candidates based on qualification for the position and fit to the announcement.

Now there may be the "problem" that the person or group that will select the candidate already has a specific candidate in mind and want to "assign" the position to that candidate. However, simply hiring that candidate without going through the formal process would in fact be illegal. So the typical workaround in this case is to make the announcement so specific that the desired candidate will be the best qualified person for the position. It may be ethically questionable, but I fear it is totally legal.

Still, even for other candidates, this approach seems to be better than allowing the institution to just fill the position without the formal process. Especially if there is a committee deciding on the short list, this may even be different from the group that made up the announcement, and there may be people pushing for candidates they deem more qualified than the originally desired candidate. Chances for other candidates will clearly be rather low, but still higher than zero as in the case without announcement.

As to the question whether it is possible to find out about such a situation in advance, I fear it is not that easy. It works best when one has good contacts to people in the committee, and can ask informally about the situation. Otherwise, a reasonable approach would be to phone a contact given in the announcement and discuss details of the position. In many cases, one should be able to figure out whether the other person is open to applications or not.


Is it possible to get back into academic research after being dropped due to funding problems from 6 year postdoc?

I think that you need to decide whether what you really want is to be in research or to be in academia.

It sounds to me like you right now you are considering only positions at major research universities.  With respect to that, you are indeed in a very bad position: competition is fierce, funding is getting tighter, and if you don't already have a network of people interested in you at this stage in your career, you are likely to find it difficult to secure a position of this sort.

There is, however, a much larger universe of possibilities if you really want academia or you really want research.

If you really want to stay in research, there are often a much larger number of positions in various flavors of government, non-profit, and industrial research, including many that are very similar to academia.  In some fields, the amount of cutting-edge research being done outside of academia is actually much larger than the amount being done inside of academia, if one was to count up the whole bizarre ecosystem of startups, foundations, consultancies, pilot projects, little-known sub-departments in large companies, etc.  Life is typically somewhat less stable in this world than with tenure, but likely no worse than you have known as a postdoc and in many cases much better.  By your user ID and 6-year postdoc (ouch!), I'm guessing you're in a biomedical field, and this is definitely the case for much of biomedical research.
If, on the other hand, you really want to stay in academia, there are a much larger number of positions at institutions whose mission is primarily educational. A key challenge there will be if you have not been doing any teaching at all as a postdoc, but you'll likely be quite competitive in terms of your intellectual credentials.

So yes, your dream of going directly from postdoc to tenure track is likely not going to happen, just based on the numbers and how you describe your current status.  If you step into the demi-monde world at the borders of academia, however, you can likely find a path to continue your research and, if it is fruitful, may even find yourself coming back into traditional academia through a side door.


When applying to a masters program, is your undergraduate school important?

The admission committee I serve has 11 members and there will probably be 11 unique answers to this question. Generally, it matters, but the degree it matters and how much it'd factor into the decision varies member to member, committee to committee.

There is thought such as "A grade B+ in prestigious university is better than a grade A in a so-so university." And there is thought such as "This so-called prestigious university tends to inflate grades, so a mediocre grade is going to be a bad news." The amount of subjectivity and variation can be astounding.

To complicate the problem further, what is "prestige?" Generally, people can name up to 10 prestigious universities, and then the rest are somewhat hazy. Some committees attempt to use acceptance rates as a representation and yet it's far from perfect: program by program the acceptance rates can differ, and such fine information is seldom available.

So, they do care, but it's difficult to predict how much. I'd say don't worry too much about the existing GPAs. If you can improve it, take some relevant courses and get some good grades, if not, then present the best aspects of yours through showcasing your course combination (e.g. did you take more challenging courses over the easier?) and trend (e.g. did your grades improve along time?), clear sense of a long-term plan, a convincing personal statement, and impressive open exam scores (such as TOEFL and GRE in the US) to order to leave a good impression.


Academic or non Academic Journal as a professional?

Research is almost always an incremental venture: current breakthroughs are dependent on, motivated by, and understood within the context of past work and the current state of the field. Good academic journals generally aim to publish articles that are significant and novel contributions to human knowledge, and if you aren't keeping abreast of the research that is being done, then it's very unlikely that you will be able to understand how your research fits into the field and whether or not it actually is new or significant.

If you're planned article doesn't address those concerns (usually through a short literature review and the proper citations of previous work), then it will almost certainly be rejected from most reputable academic journals. You should read papers from the venues that you are looking at to get an idea of the expectations and practices, but it is very rare for someone who is not trained in and/or experienced with the research community to publish articles at their venues.

Note: I am not familiar with those particular journals and the nature of what they publish, so I do not know how "academic" or not either of them are.

To address some other aspects:

  despite it probably being more prestigious than JCGT.

If you aren't and don't plan on working in academia or doing research, I'm not sure why academic prestige would matter to you.

  Not sure if doing research and publishing it in academic journals can likely help one earn an honorary degree or not, but I guess that would be another item to consider, if that's within the realm of likelihood!

It's almost certainly not worth considering. Honorary degrees aren't actually useful in any real sense. They are more like lifetime achievement awards; if you're in a position to get one then you almost certainly have no need for one.

  My main goal is just to explore and share some techniques, and contribute to my field for the betterment of science as well as my fellow game developers.

If that's your goal, then I'm not sure why you care about publishing in a journal at all. Why not just write a blog post or put your work online at some other venue? That's free, open-access, and you retain all the rights to your work if desired.


Do grad schools look at the overall GPA in applications, or do they look at particular courses?

If this is the US, then it could be either, but the grades that are most important are the ones that relate to your background and aptitude for the program you apply to. Some others may also be weighted fairly heavily. For example, if you apply in CS, then your grades in a writing course might be considered significant, since writing is an important part of CS overall.

So, what is relevant and what is not depends on a lot of factors and is probably judged a bit differently by everyone who reads your application. But think broadly about relevance. Just because it isn't your major subject doesn't mean it is not valuable.

But, there is no reason I can see for you to avoid applying now but using additional coursework as a backup. You don't really know how acceptable you are until you get the application in front of some committees. And their view will depend on much more than a few numbers such as your GPA. Letters of recommendation, especially.

The view outside the US might be a bit different.


Advice on conclusion of a purpose statement

What is a good way to end the letter in a strong way?

It doesn't really matter too much as long as it's not too cliched (although even that's probably fine) or overly memorable.  An example is to say something nice like "Given my background and the excellent research faculty at University of State, I look forward to making a contribution to the research program at University of State."

  What should I do? Is it better to have some indication I did my research for this school than to say nothing at all?

It's definitely better to have some indication that you did your homework.  You don't have to have any particularly insightful things to say, just explain why you found their work interesting and why you want to work with them.  Those are questions you should answer for yourself anyways!  Definitely don't make things up to sound smart.

  For one of the schools I am applying to, a big reason I want to go there is due to their well funded program. Should I mention this or will it seem tacky?

Mention it tactfully.  Say something like you appreciate the commitment they make to their graduate students and that it speaks to their commitment to good scholarship.

  What is a "smooth" way of mentioning I want to work with a professor? ... What if this person doesn't have any current students.

There's nothing wrong with mentioning that you want to work with specific faculty; it's expected that you have some ideas of what you want to work on before you get in.  So say who you want to work with, but make sure you list several faculty members who work on things you're interested in.  This way, should it happen that the person is not taking students, your application will still get a fair shake.

This next piece of advice is maybe controversial given how many emails professors get, but after you have applied, you can send a short email to the faculty you mention in your statement of purpose telling them that you've applied, you are interested in their work, and if they're looking for students to keep your application in mind.

  Should I take it that this person is not currently taking students?

Not necessarily but it is strange for an active research professor to have no students.  Ask a graduate student in the department why they have no current students.


Can I add non-cited reference to bibliography?

If an idea or a statement is novel and it's appearing for the first time there is nothing to cite. Anything else needs to be cited. And don't add any citations in the bibliography which you are not citing in the text. Otherwise the reader will wonder why you didn't cite it.


What is the difference between CS and Informatics degrees?

This greatly depends on the country the university is in, and the language spoken there. For example:

In Croatia, informatics and IT are really roughly a same thing.
What you want to study, in the strongest technical uni in the country, would correspond to something maybe best translated as computer studies (with a possible specialization in computer science).

A computer scientist from Croatia speaking with another Croatian might get slightly offended if somebody called him an informatician.
In France, the only term they have to describe computer science is informatique, and the person doing that for a living would be informaticien.

Many French people will be talking about "informatics" when speaking in English.
When I personally speak in English, I would never mix the terms computer science, and informatics. If I wanted to refer to somebody who might not be doing research (any more) I might switch to computing, or be more specific with the field.

I might be biased since I'm Croatian and come from that culture, and I'm not fully sure what the difference between IT and informatics is, but there's a definitive difference between informatics and CS in my mind.

The bottom line would be: don't look at the Universities title when choosing, look at their program instead. Look for classes whose descriptions match your interests and skills you want to obtain. If the program matches with your interests, that that is most probably the right university for you (without talking about the Uni's quality right now).


Is "Assistant Professor Position (Tenure Track) for a female Researcher" illegal in Austria?

In brief,  the job ad in question seems perfectly in line with an official document of the institution, the Career Advancement Plan for Women (see below). If there is any issue it would have to be with this plan, not just the particular job ad, which seems more unlikely.

According to Austrian law it can be legal to put measures into place with the intent of reducing existing inequalities, even when in isolation they would be discrimination. In that sense the understanding of the general principles expressed in the question is correct, except that there is an explicit exception to them if the intent is to reduce existing inequalities.
The most relevant law here is the Bundesgesetz über die Gleichbehandlung [something like 'Federal law for equal treatment'].
It mostly details the understanding recounted in the question, but it also has a paragraph that allows for exceptions of the form mentioned above.

Positive Maßnahmen
§ 8. Die in Gesetzen, in Verordnungen, in Instrumenten der kollektiven Rechtsgestaltung oder in generellen mehrere Arbeitnehmer/innen umfassende Verfügungen des/der Arbeitgebers/Arbeitgeberin getroffenen Maßnahmen zur Förderung der Gleichstellung von Frauen und Männern, insbesondere durch Beseitigung tatsächlich bestehender Ungleichheiten im Sinne des Art. 7 Abs. 2 B-VG, gelten nicht als Diskriminierungen im Sinne dieses Gesetzes. Dies gilt auch für Maßnahmen zur Förderung der Gleichstellung von Frauen und Männern in den in § 4 genannten Bereichen. Der Bund kann für besondere Aufwendungen, die Arbeitgeber/inne/n bei der Durchführung solcher Maßnahmen entstehen, Förderungen gewähren.

Somewhat improved Google Translate's translation:

Positive action
§ 8. The measures taken in laws, regulations, collective legal instruments or in general multi-employee dispositions of the employer to promote equality between women and men, in particular by eliminating existing inequalities within the meaning of Art Art. 7 para. 2 B-VG are not considered to be discrimination within the meaning of this Act. This also applies to measures to promote equality between women and men in the areas mentioned in § 4. The Federal Government may grant subsidies for special expenses that employers incur in carrying out such measures.

The title is "positive measures" and then it roughly says that measures whose intent it is to level existing inequalities are not consider as discrimination and federal government might even fund them.
Now, this does not simply authorize everybody to do whatever they think might be appropriate. But, it admits the general principle, and further laws and regulations can build on it.
Let me now jump from the general to the concrete.
The job ad in question seems to be in line, and likely even motivated, by an official document of the institution in question (or if it is not the institution in question than it is a comparable one). Thus, if something should not be legal it would be this plan. The above mentioned §8 should be applicable to this document.
This document, called Frauenförderungsplan [Career Advancement Plan for Women] contains among other things §6(3) (quoting the English version):

To increase the proportion of women among professors and among young scientists, special measures
shall be taken, for example establishing tenure-track positions and professorships for women.

That the institution has such a Career Advancement Plan for Women is motivated by, indeed prescribed by, the Austrian law that governs the organization of universities [Universitätsgesetz 2002 – UG], specifically §20b.
Also of relevance §41:

§ 41. Alle Organe der Universität haben darauf hinzuwirken, dass in allen universitären Arbeitsbereichen ein ausgewogenes Zahlenverhältnis zwischen den an der Universität tätigen Frauen und Männern erreicht wird. Die Erreichung dieses Ziels ist durch geeignete Maßnahmen, insbesondere durch die Erlassung und Umsetzung eines Frauenförderungsplans, anzustreben.

Saying roughly (my translation) "All parts of the university must work towards achieving equal numbers of women and man employed, for all types of employment. This goal shall be achieved by putting appropriate measures into place, in particular by adopting and implementing a career advancement plan for women.
The respective plans for this and other Austrian universities can also be found on a site of the Austrian government.
Maybe noteworthy, I did not find that explicit suggestions in some others which I looked at though; I did not look at all and not very carefully either.
Another relevant law would be the Bundes-Gleichbehandlungsgesetz – B-GlBG, especially §11. Specifically § 11b.(1) not only authorizes but prescribes the practice described in the answer of rexkogitans for areas in which women are underrepresented. (While universities, I think, are not directly in any case not completely covered by this law, since it is about employment by the Austrian state, which is not anymore the way people are employed at Austrian universities, except for some existing old contracts, explicit reference is made to this regulation in the above mention document as some king of inspiration.)
Further legal explications can be found in the Career Advancement Plan for Women quoted above.
To sum up, the job ad in question seems perfectly in line with an official document of the institution, the Career Advancement Plan for Women. If there is any issue it would have to be with this plan, not the particular job ad.
Yet this plan makes detailed reference to various laws and alike (roughly and clumsily recounted above); certainly people with legal expertise were involved in the creation of that document.
Now, in principle, it is still possible that there is some legal problem with this plan or opposing legal opinions of what is or is not legal, but if there is one it should be rather subtle.
Indeed, there are earlier precedence for this practice. In 2010 an Austrian newspaper reported about some assistant professor positions advertised for women only at another Austrian university. A representative of the university is quoted:

Das stelle auch keine unzulässige Diskriminierung dar, sagt Manfred Rathmoser, Sprecher der Uni Linz. So seien laut EU-Recht „spezifische Vergünstigungen für ein Geschlecht zulässig“, wenn diese zum Ausgleich von Benachteiligungen dienen. Und Frauen seien in der Wissenschaft unterrepräsentiert.

My rough translation:

This is no inadmissible discrimination, says Manfred Rathmoser, speaker of the University of Linz. For, according to EU law "specific advantages for one gender are admissible" if those serve to even out existing disadvantages. And women in research are underrepresented.

However it continues:

So einfach sei die Sache nicht, betont jedoch Bernd-Christian Funk, Experte für öffentliches Recht an der Uni Wien. Funk studierte für die „Presse“ die Stellenausschreibung genau. Sein Schluss: „Ich halte sie gelinde gesagt für rechtlich problematisch“, so Funk.

My translation:

The situation is not so simple, emphasizes Bernd-Christian Funk, expert for public law the the University of Vienna. Funk studied the job advertisement for "Presse" [the name of the newspaper]. His conclusion: "I consider them, put mildly, as legally problematic," said Funk.

It then continues to say that while things like preferential treatment in cases of equal qualification are alright this goes to far and is against European and Austrian legal norms. The advice to men that feel discriminated was to apply and to then go to court.
If you or somebody else wants to pursue this matter seriously it may be an option to contact him (Funk) and inquirer what he thinks about this now, and  the relevant paragraph of the "Frauenförderungsplan" of the TU Wien. It seems he is still active, though at a different institution, and his contact details are easy to find. You could also contact the relevant institution.
Conclusion: The job ad seems to be covered by official documents and policies of the university, which in some detail argue how they tie in with Austrian law. This notwithstanding there appear to be opposing legal opinions, too.


Exposing my writing in a public git repository after publication?

If you're like most people, you probably include comments in your tex files that may not be meant for public consumption: mistakes that you commented out, ideas for future projects that you don't want someone else to do before you, or general remarks that are a little too candid.

Some embarrassing examples are at https://twitter.com/overheardonaph, taken from tex source files submitted to arXiv.


mixed two fields, and now each field thinks you are an alien

Disclaimer: Never been there myself, and I've never been an official reviewer for a journal.

In general, combining different fields is seen with good eyes, and should be done by researchers all the time instead of reinventing the wheel on each field. Terence Tao is well known for combining different fields of mathematics in his research.

That being said, a paper that combines tools and concepts from very different fields, and specially fields that have different kinds of people (i.e. economics often attracts humanities-oriented people, who despise deep mathematical theorems, while pure mathematics sometimes attracts people who dislike subjectiveness). Then reviewing a paper such as yours requires a lot of effort by the everyday referee, who usually only needs to learn about the precise contributions of the paper he/she is reviewing.

By tools you mean mathematical tools? Software tools? Reviewing code is borderline unthinkable for people in several humanities fields, specially more experienced folk who never had to write code for their research before.

On the other hand, maybe if everyone in economics fails to understand (or is not willing to go through the effort of learning) your tools, you might have a very confusing paper in hands that no one believes is worth the effort, so you might actually have a presentation problem: Your paper is hard to read because of style/clarity reasons. So a not-so-lazy reviewer thinks the lack of readability is meant to hide poor content. Thus, he/she concludes it is not worth the effort of taking a course on the tools you've used only to review the paper. Maybe the results you present are also not-so-great, which would make the paper still valid but demotivates the reviewer as well.

The suggestions I can give:

If you are allowed, publish the code for software tools, or maybe for some mathematical tool, publish code that proves them. This improves reproducibility of your paper.
Consider splitting in two papers, and submit each part to a specialized journal. So economics people are referred to the mathematical/software paper they don't want to read, while mathematical/software people are referred to the economics paper they also don't want to read. This way you don't ask referees to evaluate what they can't understand. Maybe also publish a third paper summarizing the joint conclusion after these two base papers are accepted, so that their individual validity is much less in check.


What are your thoughts on epigraphs in theses?

Well-chosen, non-frivolous epigraphs can enhance a thesis.


Should I email a professor during Christmas and New Year Holidays?

Give it a rest.  If you mailed him yesterday, you don't need to mail-bomb him again today.  Wait for him to respond, perhaps after Christmas.


Can the lack of credit based coursework be compensated by published works for faculty applications?

Can the lack of credit based graduate coursework be a huge bottleneck in my future faculty applications? Can it be compensated by published works?

I am not sure about positions at a SLAC or for a more teaching-oriented position, but for your run-off-the-mill tenure-track at a research university nobody will care in the first place what courses you took, or which grades you got. And if the department indeed thinks that specific knowledge is crucial to your position (e.g., because of teaching needs), I would expect that you can at least make a convincing case during the interviews that your published research demonstrates your mastery in this field.

So I would not say that anything related to graduate coursework can ever be a "huge bottleneck" for the kinds of positions that I am familiar with, and even if a specific position requires knowledge that is not visible from your transcript your published research should be a rather convincing argument.

Also, just to echo mmeent's comment:

  "I've never seen a faculty application ever ask for grades or transcripts."

Me neither, and I have applied to north of 50 positions on 3 continents.


How to test students in computer science lecture?

My experience: One thing I do see in your question is a sensitivity to your students work load. In my experience when I have taught courses involving less "homework" the course may be looked at as "easy." In higher education, students expect a challenge and teachers need to bring it. Worry less about their workload and more about what you want them to learn. If all else fails, grade on a curve.
Groups are hard. It's an unpaid environment. Slackers will slack, pushovers will get pushed, and a group of real team players will rarely shine through. If you are going to do groups, let it be a part of the grade, but not nearly the full grade. Information comprehension/retention should be tested individually. Working in groups is a whole other set of skills that some thrive at and some falter at, and that's not the class you are teaching(I assume.)
You should know what your students expectations are and they should know yours. Have that conversation, but come prepared.


Writing recommendation letters for two fellowship candidates, conflict of interest?

There are no conflicts of interest for the letters. Many of us are at large universities where it is very likely that multiple students will ask for letters for the same fellowship/job. As long as you don't say that multiple students are each "the best student you've had in twenty years," you aren't perjuring yourself. You don't have to select a favorite.

Student sponsorship / mentoring-fellowship is more complex. It's often best to have the student write to the search committee and ask. Some places are fine with faculty sponsoring multiple students, others aren't. Some will note this explicitly in their instructions to faculty. It's best to check with the organization.

So I don't think there will a problem with the faculty writing two letters but only serving as sponsor for one student. And the fact they are not  the sponsor for the other student won't be seen as necessarily negatively prejudicial. Students select  their sponsors for a variety of reasons and vice versa.


What are the downsides of using DOIs in reference sections of publications?

To me, the primary reason for not including DOIs in the bibliography is the length restriction of the paper1. The DOI on its own doesn't work as a bibliographical entry, together with the human-readable information, it is redundant, and it adds roughly one line to the paper per entry. Therefore, a bibliography with DOIs is (by removing the DOIs) a welcome source of extra space for content that would otherwise have no space left.

1: In my field, length restrictions are typically tight (8 to 12 pages in two-column formats for "full papers") and to be taken seriously, and additionally aggravated by the fact that papers in my field typically include plenty of figures. Moreover, in my field, bibliographies are normally included in the length restriction or subject to their own length restriction (I have come across rules like "up to 8 pages, or up to 9 pages, if the last page only contains bibliography items").


Does a PhD student and first author choose the journal or their supervisor?

All authors have to agree to the publication of a paper, and any author can veto signing away the copyright.  So, keep negotiating :)


Should I risk being fired to help the students?

If you are fired you won't be able to help anyone.
But instead of being proactive in speaking with them, you can just be vigilant and deal with problems as they occur. If you maintain open communications with those who might be on the receiving end, you will probably hear about issues. If necessary you can take them to the supervisor.
But disobeying a supervisor for a new employee isn't likely to be especially helpful.


Are you unofficially a PhD holder after passing viva voce for PhD?

At my American university, the process of officially getting a PhD was tiered.  It went something like this:

No claim to being a PhD until after successfully defending.
Some informal claim to being a PhD after successfully defending.  The committee members would usually make this explicit by congratulating the successful defendee with "Dr.".
A weird quasi-official claim when the university's official degree-completion tracking system formally acknowledged that the student has officially met all degree requirements and is scheduled to receive their degree at graduation.
Official claim upon graduation (whether or not attended).
Verifiable official claim once you have the piece of paper, which may be several weeks after graduation if not attended.

Folks I knew were reluctant to claim PhD-status until graduation, but I think that hiring managers in academia and industry tend to find the caveat of not having been through the ceremony to be fairly trivial.  Family and friends are especially unlikely to care about that caveat, except as an excuse to talk about how exciting graduation'll be.


Letter of recommendation from professor who is not longer at your university

It's not just a good idea, it's an excellent idea.  Your professor is still in just as good a position to speak to his experience with you and his assessment your abilities as he was before.  You say he has moved to another good institution, so there is no reason for his opinion to be discounted just because he moved---changing institutions is not unusual.  In fact, if he is happy to write you a good letter, it will look even better than if he was at the same institution, because even after changing institutions he still remembers you and cares enough to write.


Is it better to have a single-author paper or a joint-authored paper?

You should really listen to what your advisor says. "...he has been pushing us to combine our results into one paper." That about says it. Your advisor knows what works and what doesn't work as a paper in your field. He also knows (presumably) about the scope of your work and how it fits into what you and the other students have been doing.

There is little downside to this. The importance of the paper to your career has far more to do with how well received the paper is than with how many authors there are. Having more authors means the paper is stronger, means you have a network of people to help rewrite and deal with any negative reviews you may get, and (as suggested in Peter's answers) it shows you can collaborate with others.

It would not hurt to bring this up with your advisor, make your point (ask your question), and see how the advisor reacts.


In The Netherlands, as a PhD Student (promovendus) you will generally be a salaried employee of the University with a 4 year contract (which may be terminated at the 1.5 year mark if things are looking bleak). On the website of the University Association of The Netherlands you can download the CAO which contains information on the regulations under which you'll be working (articles 2.3, 3.1, 6.8 and E.12 are of particular interest). If you are working part-time then the length of your contract would reflect that (e.g. you'd get an 8 year contract if working 50%).

You can also do a PhD as employee of a company (buitenpromovendus) in which case these regulations would not apply. These generally take far longer (as you are performing regular work for the company, and your work on your PhD is tangential to this).

If your tutor has offered you a position, then the application process could be as simple as saying "yes". There is no formal admission process, though you must have a Master's degree in the relevant field before pursuing a PhD (if this is not the case, then it is still possible but more complicated).

In The Netherlands, applying for a PhD is the same as applying for any other job; if your tutor has offered you a position, then all you need to do is accept. If the offer is not yet formal (or contingent) then a normal application process would consist of submitting your CV and then (hopefully) getting a "job interview".


While applying for PhD in a particular topic, how useful is research in a different (maybe slightly related) topic?

The topics you mention (theoretical and computational aspects of high energy physics) are similar enough that any publication you get from one will be equally valuable when applying for the other. In fact, demonstrating that you have experience of both theoretical and computational work can only make your application stronger than if you had experience in only one.

Bear in mind that having a journal publication is not necessary for admission into any PhD programme that I am aware of (certainly not in UK physics). While a publication in either field that you mention would certainly boost your application, don't worry if nothing publishable comes out of your Master's. Just do good, solid work and ensure you have a strong grasp of the foundations of the field.

If you do write a paper, be sure to do it under the guidance of your Master's supervisor. They will help you organise the content and choose an appropriate journal. Submitting to arXiv is fine as long as you quickly follow it up with submission to (and hopefully acceptance in) a peer-reviewed journal.

Your supervisor (if they are active in the field) will also be able to advise you on which institutions to apply to for your PhD. When I was deciding where to apply, I mainly looked at the institutions of the authors whose papers I was frequently citing. That at least ensures your research interests will align, which is far more important than any other deciding factor (including perceived prestige of the university).

Source: I am a PhD student in physics in the UK.


I uploaded my test questions to a website (so I could cheat), but then thought better of it and didn't use the answers. How to proceed?

Interesting. You are actually not asking an ethics question here; that one you could answer yourself, and very quickly.
I think your question has two aspects:

You are asking for psychological advice. You are suffering because your mighty superego just doesn't shut up. If that's any consolation, to me this means you are a good person. But you would like to come clear in order to have moral and mental closure.
You are (that's the on-topic part) asking for academic advice: You are interested in the likely consequences because they play a role in whether you will decide to confess. If it's likely that you'd be expelled you'd rather try to sit it out. If the likely reaction is stern admonition and a grade reduction you are perfectly willing to trade that in exchange for moral and hence psychological relief.

I cannot really answer the academic question; it probably depends a lot on the country, the school and the teacher, none of which you can reasonably disclose.
But if there are clear guidelines — whatever they are — it may not make a great difference whether they find out or whether you confess. Or it may work to your disadvantage: Unless your name or a unique identifier is on the photos you posted (and if you were that stupid you don't deserve your degree anyway) they will have a hard time proving that it was your exam, and not somebody else's. Unless you go and confess! All jurisdictions accept the right for the accused to be silent. No jurisdiction requires you to indict yourself. This is the time to call on this privilege and observe the prime directive for all accused: Do not talk.
My advice: Take this as a lesson. You'll remember it for the rest of your life. Don't go and serve them your own head on a silver platter. We all have done things in the past we were not proud of; we all have probably hurt people emotionally by acting less nicely than we wish we had. If we could, we would go back and fix it. But here, no damage has been done; there is literally nothing to fix here except your future behavior.
Unless you can't bear being a "pragmatic coward", I'd simply live with having been an idiot, not do it again and hope not to get caught this one time.


Can a poster and publication have the same title?

Obviously you should check for yourself with whoever you attempt to publish the manuscript with, but I've never seen a journal state that the title of a publication must be unique, and I have publications which have appeared in some form as posters with the same title.

It actually makes some sense to keep the titles the same. Any buzz that you might have generated with the poster may increase readership of the article. If you have separate titles then potential readers wouldn't have the association.


How can I select the best platform for organizing a book?

If you're the only technically-literate person on a team of academics, I would eliminate the options with a learning curve.  Especially since academics tend to be quite resistant to change (well, most people are, but academics even more so) and you mentioned someone uses WordPad (yikes).

Yes, Git or Subversion or the many other collaboration tools out there would work great, but unless you're going to oversee the training of everyone AND they are motivated to change the way they work, it's destined to fail.  It takes practice to be good at these things.

I would recommend two steps:

Use Dropbox with extended version history that everyone can treat just like a drive on their computer
Split the various parts of the book up into many different files.  This way someone can open the file for chapter 1 and work on it while someone else works in chapter 13.

This way, if there ARE any mistakes, or someone edits someone else's work out of existence, Dropbox will handle version control in the background that allows for recovery.  And most importantly, your collaborators won't really need to change many habits for it to work.  Work in a format everyone knows, like Word, and deal with formatting like LaTeX later when the text is completed.