Asking search commitee for a specific teaching topic

If the search committee has decided to assign you a topic, you should teach the assigned topic.

If they ask you to choose a topic, then you should choose.

The committee makes the rules, not the candidate.


Why retract a paper for intellectual property protection?

My answer is based on an understanding of UK patent law. The UK Patents Act 1977 is based on a "first-to-file" patent system. This means, in part, that an application for a patent may only be validly made if that invention was not part of the state-of-the-art at the time of filing. State-of-the-art includes any information made available to the public as of the priority date of the application, which is usually the date of filing.

If confidential information regarding an invention is made available to the public without the consent of the inventor, before a patent for the application is filed for it, then under UK law the inventor may still make an application for a patent without the prior disclosure - the unauthorised release of confidential information - rendering the application invalid for lack of novelty.

In this case, if the journal published the confidential information before the inventors/authors authorised the release of the information - presumably before a patent was filed for the subject matter of the paper - then the retraction of the paper may indicate that the journal is acknowledging that they released the information inproperly, i.e. before an agreed embargo date set by the authors. This may add weight to the inventors' argument that the prior release of the confidential information was made without the consent of the authors and that the authors, as inventors, may still validly apply for a patent.

I am not a patent lawyer. This is not patent advice. My comment is written from a UK patent law perspective.


Applying for graduate programs in different subfields?

The main problem you'll face is the increased workload you'll face in preparing your application materials. Depending on the programs, you'll often be expected to identify faculty you'd be interested in working with, and you'll be expected to succinctly show why your research interests fit with that person. The statement will also be viewed as a whole, so you will inevitably need to either focus a single application around certain aspects or be clear that you are open to a range of sub-fields within a given discipline.

Some people like very focused statements, while others are still welcoming of more broadly stated interests, so one is not necessarily good or bad. That's part of your unique situation and interests, but the advice I've been given is if you really do have broad interests, express that because it will attract advisers and programs that value that. But if you really only want to study certain things, say that because that too attracts you to the right people you're more likely to be happy with in the long run.

Most people (all I've talked with, anyway) find preparing multiple drafts of all the materials stressful as it is, so having to prepare multiple versions with very different tones and a different focus likely will take you some more time and effort to do well. So if you are applying to only one sub-field per application you can still focus your statement on that field and just the right people to work with in that field - but you are going to have to create at least 2 sets of very different personal statements, each of which will be customized per program.

As long as you are OK with the extra workload, I am not aware of any other downsides beyond application fees if you are applying to more programs in total. Applying to programs with different sub-fields is fine if you really interested in both, and will not generally make you a less attractive candidate because no one but you (and maybe your letter writers) has any idea you're applying to a variety of programs.


Would you recommend internship, or more courses, for preparing for a PhD in Applied Math?

Having been on the grad student selection committee of the departments I was in for the past 4 or 5 years, and having read hundreds of applications, here are the things that really make an application stick out (in roughly this order):

Having research experience
Doing well in senior-level and graduate-level courses in the area you
are applying for
Experience applying your knowledge outside an academic setting.

So, if you have the opportunity to do an industrial internship, then you're satisfying the last point and, if you get the internship in the right environment, then also the first point. If that means dropping one of 5 senior/graduate-level math courses (or a non-math course) you were going to take before applying for grad school, then that's a worthwhile trade off. On the other hand, if that means that you're not going to take any advanced courses, then that's not a worthwhile trade off.


Which LaTeX template to pick if I want to write a paper that will stay unpublished?

Virtually all templates available as packages on the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network (CTAN) are free to use, regardless of whether or not they're intended for submission to the journal for which they were created. If there are any specific restrictions for their use, they would be indicated somewhere in the package information.


What should be included on the title page of a conference presentation

I usually include:

Title of talk
Name of presenter (me)
Names of coauthors
Date
Name of conference
Title of conference session (if applicable)
City of conference
My institution's name
Maybe my institution's logo

I don't include the coauthors' affiliations.


Getting a recommendation letter when applying for a job before finishing graduate program

Sorry, but your problem is overconstrained. If you need two references, and all your potential references are professors, well, obviously at least two of your professors will know about your application. You could ask them not to tell others, but that's about it. In case you don't get the job you'd have to rely on them being professional about it. I'd generally expect them to be, but you know your professors better than we do.

Basically, you'll have to decide what you want the most - the job or no one to know that you're interested in the job. Alternatively, see if one or two constraints can be relaxed, including the constraints you haven't mentioned explicitly. For example, would the company be interested in waiting to hire you after graduation? Can you graduate earlier than planned? The latter is done every now and then when people are leaving for postdocs, so it's not out of the question.


Would most PhD supervisors stop working with a student who was unproductive due to clinical depression?

Good PhD Advisors(tm) would first of all talk to the student about the issue. Large-scale depressions need to be properly treated and respected. The important thing is to find out if it is the academic work that causes the depressions and to take counter-measures if it is.

Now if the depression lasts, is properly treated and puts obtaining the PhD at >90% risk of failure and all possible measures have been taken to help the student (both on the professional level and as far as applicable and feasible, on the personal level), then the student is wasting time in academia. And nothing is more depressing than that. So a Good PhD Advisor(tm) would help the student with establishing a new working life that makes use of the degrees already obtained as much as possible. This is basically the best the advisor can do to pave the way to a happier life for the student. I wouldn't call that "firing" someone.


Apple or Thinkpads, buying for department

I think that in most conferences/project meetings I attend, there isn't an overwhelming preference on one side or the other (I'm working in computer science, in case that matters). In other words, there are many academics happily working with linux, and many academics happily working with mac (some are even working with both), so in your case, there is no real wrong choice.

From what I've experienced, in some places, there could be a preference for apple computers because of the way some universities order their hardware: if you ask for a PC, you might not be able to choose which one exactly, and you might end up with a low quality, cheap product, whereas if you ask for a mac, the quality is better (at least, that was true a while ago). But  I don't think it can explain why the proportion of apple laptops in the academic world is higher than that of the general population.

In any case, I don't think that working within on environment will prevent the students to switch to another one later one if they need to.


Trouble finding good letter writers for math grad school due to switching programs

I think X, Y and Z with both X and Y strong will be just fine. Few undergraduates have had enough contact with faculty to generate three strong letters.
The work you did with A and B  will be on your CV and you can discuss it in a cover letter.
Good luck.


Know how academically successful and respected A professor is

Since there are no answers yet, I'll try to combine the excellent comments into an answer.

First of all, someone speaking highly of themself is a bit suspicious.
You should read their papers - if you are unable to judge whether they are relevant, check how often they are cited.
You could check the H-Index, but since most indexes accumulate points overt ime, older persons are having an andvantage

Most probably, it does not make too much of a difference how good the reputation of your professor is as long as you are getting good guidance. Ask former students how good the support was and how interesting the topics were.


Do you keep your study notes publicly available?

Is this a good idea? How do professionals in academia and PhD students organise their notes?

Personally, I think this is a great idea. More routes for the sharing of knowledge do good for society as a whole. Often, notes taken by students become the definitive resource for other students.
Academics who have extensive material typed up in notes tend to present it in a low-tech way. In lieu of elaborate web design or a flashy interface, there's usually just a list of PDF files written in LaTeX, often on a site made from bare HTML. Here are some physics examples for inspiration:

Ian Lim has graduate Cambridge physics notes
Jeff Dror has particle physics notes
Flip Tanedo also has particle physics notes
my personal site has general physics notes

And for math:

Dexter Chua has general Cambridge math notes
Qiaochu Yuan has general math notes
Arun Debray has general math notes
Evan Chen has general math notes

All of these notes were taken as undergrad or grad students.

Also, should I keep my notes publicly available?

I don't see why not. There are occasionally people who express fears that, if it becomes known that they made a single typo while an undergrad, their scientific career will be over. This is ridiculous!
Most people who see your notes won't read them, most of those who read them won't do so in enough detail to spot typos, most of those who spot typos won't be evaluating your career, and in the absurdly tiny chance that a professor thought it was worth their time to comb your personal notes for mistakes, any they found would be completely understandable.

Edit: I feel like I should address some of the objections posted.
The first is the notion that a student will just be adding "noise" unless their lecture notes are better than all others available. This is an impossible standard to meet, and not a useful one. More takes on a given subject can be useful, because they'll be pitched at different levels and from different perspectives. To see how unrealistic this standard is, note that you could apply the exact same reasoning to professors: why should they be permitted to teach anything at all, when better, publicly available notes, lecture videos, and books by other professors certainly already exist?
The second is that public notes could reveal secret information of military value, such as on "rocket navigation". While it's certainly true that secret information exists, it obviously isn't going to be taught in university classes!
The third is, in full, "Who are you?" I don't understand the content of this objection. Who are you?
The fourth is that taking notes could be stealing intellectual property. Of course, this could be a real possibility depending on the context, but in the fields I'm familiar with, it would be implausible. For example, suppose you learned Einstein's "train" thought experiment from a professor, establishing the relativity of simultaneity. There is no reasonable way one can call this the "property" of the professor. It's a simple and beautiful argument that has been passed down by oral tradition essentially unchanged since Einstein gave it. Again, one can see how ridiculous this argument is by repeating it: if you're stealing from the professor by learning and repeating the argument, then the professor is stealing from whoever taught them in undergrad! The only person one could plausibly say "owns" Einstein's thought experiment is Einstein himself, and we do acknowledge that ownership, because we refer to it by his name.
In fact, usually a professor's own lecture notes will themselves be "stolen" from a variety of sources. For example, they could use notes from previous versions of the course as a base. Very often, they will follow an existing textbook and only slightly tweak the presentation. This is fine: if everybody lecturing on relativity had to create their own novel explanations from scratch, universities would grind to a halt -- and the explanations would be much worse, too.
Admittedly, the concept of intellectual property could apply to specific novel things. For example, the professor may draw a diagram in a particular way, so perhaps a lawyer could say the professor "owns" the reproductions the students make. I've never seen a case where legal force has been applied this way. Feynman didn't copyright his diagrams, he showed their utility by demonstration. He gained in reputation by people learning and using his methods, not by suing anybody who tried.


Incentives to read for seminar/discussion course

Any student that takes a course should be prepared to do all the course work in the way that the instructor lays out the course.

I had a science course in which I was told "In order to pass this course you will need to study 12 hours between each class" this was a twice a week class.

The entire course was pretty much homework based and do-it-at-home. The professor didn't need to motivate us to do that work because we knew that we could not easily pass without doing it and we paid a lot of money to take the course in the first place.

As a student and someone who is finishing up their first course that they are teaching: You can't force someone to do something to help pass the course. You can stress how important it is to do the homework and that it would be a waste of their money if they think they can do well without doing the homework. Remind them of the best practices to use when working on the homework and how long it should take. If you notice a student not being able to keep up talk to them about their homework habits.

In the course I mentioned above most students who did poorly had a lot of personal responsibilities such as a job or children. The amount of work required outside of class shouldn't be so heavy that people with other responsibilities than school just can't complete it all.


scholarships/fellowships/funding not available to Masters in the US and UK

Depending on what program you are looking into, the universities (at least in the US) should have grants and fellowships predominantly based on merit. (Some grants may be issued by the university based on proven financial need, but it is often not much and there does need to be a need). Your best option is to see what fellowships are offered by the university and apply early on, as most deadlines for the fall are early January.


Getting published in a course-based grad program

The best way to get started doing research is to find an experienced advisor to guide you. Also, if you would like to apply to a PhD program, you will need strong recommendation letters from faculty who can speak to your ability to do research (and not just your ability to earn good grades in your coursework).

Talk to faculty in your department (ideally, those you've left a positive impression on as a student in their courses) about participating in their research.


Using Google Scholar is usually discouraged as your primary database in systematic reviews because the searches are not reproducible (recommended are databases that provide reproducible searches such as Web Of Knowledge, if you have access, or CrossRef). Using it as one of the secondary strategies, is not necessarily problematic but the issue of reproducibility still applies.

The reproducibility of your search strategy is important because it is your method for the systematic review (in your case a meta-analysis) and determines which effects are included.

Also note that if you already consider your literature to be scarce, Google Scholar might make it more difficult to find sources, because of the low specificity of searches (Google Scholar tends to have way more results than are relevant to the search on the later pages).


Can I get a masters degree if I drop my PhD?

My field (economics) in the US generally works the way you're describing - you can quit in the middle of your PhD and leave with your masters.  At my program, once we completed some number of graduate credits (I think it was around 2.5 years worth) we simply filled out an application on the student management portal for a masters, and they awarded it.  It was like five extra minutes of work, so I think all of my classmates did it.  They called it an "incidental masters degree"
That said, PhD programs frown heavily on entering a PhD with the goal of leaving in the middle with a masters degree.  They offer funding to PhD students with the goal of putting quality applicants on the job market, which masters students can't do.  Conversely, students who enroll in a masters program not only aren't funded, they usually pay a lot in tuition.
It does make for a nice consolation prize for the few classmates I have who never finished though, since they at least come out of the program with a masters.


How to reach out for research collaboration?

Wide circles of discussion and collaboration are a good thing in academic research. If your research is close to that of some distinguished "elder of the tribe" then it is fine to reach out to them.

But, it might be better to go about it a bit indirectly. Introduce yourself with a few words about your research, and the new idea. Ask the person if they are interested in it and (most important) are there others who might be interested enough to collaborate going forward. You aren't directly asking for the professor's help/collaboration, but are seeking to build a circle of interested parties, a research group. It may be that the professor will suggest themselves, but they may also suggest others, even their own students.

That may not be exactly what you want, but in the longer term might be quite valuable. You seek to become part of their circle so that they think of you when new ideas arise. And introducing you to others is less of a commitment on their part and so might be more likely to be treated positively.


I will be assuming that you are a member of a university or an academic society hosting the conference and you don't have access to a conference organising group (whether in-house or private).

First, and rather importantly because it is often overlooked, I would recommend that you review whether the university or society has restrictions on the receipt of sponsorship monies. For example, some groups have strict rules about receiving money from tobacco companies or pharmaceutical companies because it would jeopardise existing or future grant opportunities. You have to be careful about this. You don't want to receive GBP5,000 from Marlboro Cigarettes and find out that your lab is now ineligible to submit grants worth millions of pounds over the next two years.

Second, if your society or university has a marketing unit, I would contact them. They have great contacts and often receive unsolicited offers of support from other groups or charities. They might be able to provide leads, introduce you to corporate sponsorship officers or even take on the role of fund raising from your hands.

Third, if this were a recurring event -- say, it's an annual meeting -- then I would pull up the program from the previous year and note the sponsors. I would seek advice, too, from the previous organisers.

Fourth, there's no harm in writing to potential sponsors. For small companies, you would write directly to the CEO or managing director. For larger companies, you might try writing to the director of sales and marketing. You would lay out your needs and invite them to support you. In general, you will need to work out a sponsorship agreement or contract laying out these details. Some companies have such agreements already in place, or your university of group may have its own. Regardless, you need to be aware of the statements and conditions in these agreements.

Finally, most sponsors do this for advertising. Some will want some outrageous things. In one sponsorship deal, we had to mention the name of the company five times during the night of the Gala Dinner. Try as he might, the MC had a hard time working in jokes about a new colorectal cancer drug while people were queuing for the buffet. Some will want time to conduct "continuing education sessions", which are generally closed door meetings about an area related to the company's area.

Good luck.


Papers about raising awareness within a domain about open source technologies

Just to get the ball rolling.
I do not see any major problem if you:

Significant contributed to the software;
Enables new research challenges to be addressed or address research challenges significantly better (e.g., faster, easier, simpler).


Are communicability and verifiability the only reasons to prohibit other true results?

First you need to remember that science is not the only form of research. Second, subjective results come in all sorts of flavors. If I ask one person person if they like A better than B, that is a subjective result. If I ask 1000 people, and do statistics, is that still a successful subjective result? Someone else could ask a new group of subjects the same question and verify my results.

Now consider an objective measure of a one time event (e.g., the amount of snow that fell during a storm). No one can verify the measurement, but it is still objective.


How marketable is a BS in Economics for different Masters degrees?

As a general rule, your exact undergrad major is less important than having strong letters of recommendation, high GRE scores, a high GPA, etc. Of course, an admissions committee will want to see that you've taken some relevant coursework and that you've done well in it. See the web site for the programs to which you intend to apply: most will spell out both the minimum preparation they expect and additional coursework they would like to see. (For example, an economics program might require that you have taken intermediate level micro and macro, calculus, and statistics.) If you are a strong candidate in other respects, you may even be able to make an argument for admission despite some missing prerequisites.

I'd suggest that you might want to focus on what you hope to do with a graduate degree and then work backward to which degree to pursue, rather than casting about for a degree to pursue. Unless the subject is wildly-unrelated to your course of study so far, you can probably add coursework to make yourself a good candidate for the degree you need.


How does already having an academic scholarship affect graduate school admissions?

Having your own funding may help, e.g. if you are a good match for a faculty member who has an interest in supervising a PhD student, but does not have enough funding to support one at the moment. But no department wants to waste time and resources (e.g. supervision resources, for example) on a student that is not capable of meeting standards in the department. And given that a department's PhD students represent its "brand," no department wants to admit a student whose work will reflect negatively on the department.

So yes, even if you have your own funding, you still need to show the department you're applying to that you're capable of meeting their standards.


Can I get into an Australian PhD program in computer science without a masters degree, with a dual BSc degree?

I am an Australian PhD student. Most of my fellow students do not have a Masters.

My university lists the requirements for a PhD here

Of particular note:

  1.1.4 To be eligible to apply for entry to a Doctoral program, an applicant must demonstrate the capacity to undertake research at the Doctoral level by the attainment of at least one of the following:

  (i) A Bachelor’s degree with at least Second Class, Division A (Honours) in a degree program that included a total of at least a semester of supervised project work, the results of which contributed to the Honours grade;

  (ii) A postgraduate qualification which included: (a) supervised research component(s) of at least one semester or equivalent and resulted in the production of output(s) graded at the equivalent of Distinction or better, and (b) at least one research methods subject;

  (iii) A Research Masters degree, where at least two thirds of the degree consisted of a supervised research component and resulted in the production of a thesis or equivalent;

  (iv) Enrolment at this or another Australian university in a higher degree by research for the equivalent of at least 0.5 EFTSL with demonstrated satisfactory performance in the supervised research component(s);

  (v) A combination of qualifications, research training and experience, considered equivalent to the above by the Responsible Academic Officer in the Enrolling Organisational Unit, e.g., senior authorship of at least one peer-reviewed publication plus completion of an appropriate research methods subject.

Most of the time people who get in appear to have either first class honours or some published research. I have seen domestic students with a lower GPA work with a supervisor to publish some research in order to be accepted into the PhD.


Can members of the Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study supervise PhD students?

Are you a Princeton graduate student already? If yes, ask someone local about both the rules and whether that person takes students regularly.

If you're at another nearby school (Penn, Rutgers, Columbia, etc.), then usually you also need a local official advisor in addition to an outside advisor.  Again, seek advice from someone local who works in a similar area.

If you're not already enrolled in grad school then don't worry about this yet.  It is very unusual for people to pick an advisor before going to grad school in mathematics.  I certainly wouldn't bother someone at IAS if you haven't gotten into Princeton yet since most people don't get in anyway (eg me).


What are the "acceptance rate" for journals in computer science?

While I do not have the numbers, there are generally three types of submissions to CS journals.

Invited papers: these are conference papers that were fast-tracked to appear in the journal, usually via some deal between the conference organizers and the journal. The idea is to give the authors of good conference papers an incentive to publish a complete set of results to the journal, and to improve the community. These papers almost always get accepted, unless something dramatic happens (e.g. an unfixable bug in a proof).
Full versions of accepted conference papers: these also usually get accepted, but at a lower rate. If the original paper was sufficiently extended upon, and the journal the authors aim at is not too far away from the original conference (e.g. IJCAI/AAAI submissions -> JAIR/AIJ journals is a common route) then one could reasonably expect the paper to accepted after minor/major revisions.
Direct journal submissions: these are less common, and face a much higher rejection rate. Some editors outright discourage such submissions (this is personal knowledge, not official policy). The reason is that it is often the case that these are papers that were either rejected repeatedly from conferences, or that they are submissions from someone outside the community.

Thus, it is generally not easier to get your paper accepted to a journal before a conference. Also remember that journals' turnover rate tends to be very slow, as compared to conferences.

EDIT: I was curious and asked around. Turns out that overall acceptance rates are about 30% in AI journals. This is over a very bimodal distribution though: papers of type (1) are rare, but type (2) have a high acceptance rate. Type (3) contain a lot of random spam submissions hence the low acceptance rate. Bottom line: if you have a paper you’re proud of, get it accepted to a conference. If you have some interesting extensions or not all got into the conference version, submit to a journal.


Seems to me like a long shot. There are a lot of obstacles. But first, few secondary schools require a doctorate to teach. So, what is your real goal? The doctorate? Secondary teaching?

Next, you won't have much of a life if you try it. Think 80 hour weeks for a couple of years. A doctorate doesn't often get easier after you pass comps.

Just the scheduling will be an issue. If you are taking courses in two departments, they won't coordinate class times to make it easy for you.

But, perhaps, the biggest obstacle is fining an advisor who thinks it is a good idea. "Where is your commitment?"

As for being competitive for admission, I think it might be a minus. Again "Where is your commitment?"

Costs might be an issue or not. A doctoral student in the US normally has funding sufficient to live, but it normally comes with duties that take time. Tuition is normally waived. But it might not be for the other program.

But, it may be possible (just) if you want to completely set aside all other concerns for a couple of years. Hard, though.

Most secondary teachers with degrees in field, get their education credits over time through continuing education. It is the normal practice in the US. Finding time for a course or two in field-related pedagogy is a more modest goal, and more feasible. But still not essential, as few people actually do that in the US.


What are some good project-management tools for academics?

I have been using a mode for Emacs called Org-mode to track my research and do project planning.  See my answer to this question for some of the other capabilities of Org-mode for research.

Org-mode has a number of features that are useful for project planning.  You can set headings as multi-state TODO lists and set scheduled start times or deadlines.  You can also set effort estimates for tasks and generate text based reports via tables or the agenda view, all while inside Org-mode.  The Org-mode manual covers the customizations to these areas and there are a number of tutorials discussing the customization of Org-mode for a variety of tasks.

To generate graphical reports, Org-mode has an export feature for TaskJuggler.  TaskJuggler takes text-based inputs and generates a number of different reports including Gantt charts and resource allocations.  If you do not wish to use Org-mode as the source of your planning, TaskJuggler has its own native format for the text files, highlighted in the manual.

All the tools listed are open source and are actively being developed/maintained.

A potential downside to these tools is that they are primarily text-based.  If you are a visual person who wants a GUI approach to planning/reporting, these tools are probably not suited for you.  Additionally, Emacs has a fairly steep learning curve, so if you are not already using it and do not have the time to become familiar with it, other tools will probably be better suited for you.


Using a number of equations from a paper, how to mention it in my paper

I'm not sure about the common practice in your field, but, as a mathematician, I feel that you have approached this thing from the wrong direction. You don't reuse equations from another paper; you reuse theorems. A theorem is a statement like

  If A and B and C are true, then equations D and E hold, where the symbol F is defined as... and G is defined as...

Maybe the authors of the other paper did not formulate their result as a theorem, but it is one. It is a sloppy but common habit to throw the derivation of a result in front of the reader directly, instead of first stating it then proving it.

Another important point to note is that there are hypotheses and assumptions under which these equations hold; if you focus on equations rather than on the whole 'theorem' package, this information can very easily get lost.

So, my suggestion is: reformulate those results as theorems. It could be a single theorem with 14 separate equations as the thesis, if they are all related.

If the word theorem sounds too pompous, use proposition. If your result seems too simple to deserve this name, use lemma.


Is the phrase "thanks, but no thanks" appropriate in an email sent to a supervisor?

It sounds extremely rude, I am afraid. I would assume mitigating circumstances for a non-native speaker, but the "no thanks" permits "thanks" to be interpreted as substantive, and thus has a highly dismissive connotation which should never be used with your superior, and neither with a friend you would like to keep.

The connotation that shines through (at least in the UK) is a sarcastic "Yeah right, you think you do me a favour? In future, please spare me your ideas."


Personal qualities required for a career in academia?

Required is a very strong word. There are a wide variety of people in academia, generally believed to be a good thing.

But some things are valued and more useful:

A love of ideas is usually preeminent. If you don't value ideas over money or status or material things, then you would probably be frustrated in academia.

An ability to think long term, rather than short. This is especially true in research fields, where results may take a long time to mature, or even to originate. Likewise a minimal, at least, tolerance for frustration when things don't go as planned in a research program.

Some minimal comfort in dealing with people in a cooperative way. Some, of course, can do without this, but collaboration is pretty highly valued today. But those with conditions such as autism can also do well, provided that they can learn to work with others effectively, even if not comfortably.

A work ethic that you can sustain. Reading, Reading, Reading. Making notes. Discussions with colleagues about ill-formed ideas. Long hours. Irregular hours. Dealing with interruptions.

Speaking ability is a big plus, and for many it needs to be learned as it may not come naturally. Along with it is an ability to organize ideas so that others can grasp what we want to convey.

Sensitivity for the fact that others, especially students, probably aren't like you and don't learn in the same way that you do. Undergraduate students, especially, are often less engaged and especially less engaged in the ideas you feel are most important. So, patience.

An ability to accept setbacks without losing hope or direction. Research often doesn't pan out. If it always did, it wouldn't be research. And then flexibility in finding new ways to truth when the ones you tried are failing.

In many fields, an ability to value nuance and the fact that others hold contrary opinions just as strongly as you do and the fact that the truth may fall outside your strongly held opinions. This is less needed, of course, in fields like mathematics where the standards of truth are clear. Philosophy, Literary Criticism, ... Nuance rules.

(Stopping for now. Some other ideas may induce me to extend this.)


What is the meaning of “Review process will be blind to review”?

This sounds like it means double-blind review, but it is not really clear; the phrasing is not standard nor grammatically correct.  If it is important to you, you should contact the conference organizers and ask for clarification.


Negotiating boundaries with a conflict avoidant advisor

We all initially learned boundaries as children by testing them individually and then receiving feedback when we crossed some imaginary line. You can learn your advisor's boundaries the same way - by generalizing rules based on specific interactions. Every time something comes up where it seems that your advisor is angry, ask him directly if x behavior of yours was a problem, apologize if necessary, and ask if he would prefer you not to do it again. As you do this over time you'll get a more solid map of what is and isn't acceptable to him. You already have the beginnings of one based on what you already know about him and the advice given in the comments, so you are off to a good start.

(I'm assuming here that you've already tried multiple times to have a general discussion with your advisor about boundaries and it didn't go well. Depending on the situation, you might be able to arrange a meeting with your advisor to talk about the problem the way you would with a manager. Because he's your advisor, it would be best to frame it as you humbly seeking counsel from him on how he would like you to behave, rather than as a mutual problem for both of you to solve.)


Potential academic career in very different fields

This isn't impossible, but would be very difficult to manage. Trying to earn degrees in two disparate fields at the same time would not really be possible for anyone unless they have an exceptional mind and drive to match. This might be you, of course.

However, assuming that you have the credentials it might not be very possible to actually pursue matching positions in academia. Academic couples usually have a problem finding work at the same institution just due to a mismatch in the needs of various departments over time. One member of a couple might find a great offer while the other can't find anything at the same or nearby institution. That won't be exactly your issue, of course, and you might be able to get one good position in either of your fields and then use that position to make contacts to get something in the other. But I think that depends a lot on individual circumstances.

Your suggestion to pursue one now and the other later seems like a good one. Hopefully you can choose one that (a) is feasible to enter now and (b) will satisfy you if the other options fail.

All that doesn't imply, of course, that you don't have a worthy goal. People who know a lot of things and can write and do on a lot of topics are worth having, though the academic establishment in most places isn't especially well set up to reward them properly. There are a few exceptions, perhaps. Oxford (UK) comes to mind with their college system rewarding diversity of thought.

Perhaps a way to think about it is this. Which of these fields cannot be done without a credential? Can I pursue the other, independently for now, uncredentialed? If that is the situation, it might be a solution. Similarly, in which of these is it more important that I build a reputation? There are plenty of academics in various fields who are also novelists, for example. Not the same thing, I realize, but different mind sets for the two activities.


Can I fix error in submitted conference manuscript after submission due date

These things vary with the conference, but it is likely that you can make the change now if you contact the program chair or other conference official. There will usually be a later date at which final versions are required for accepted papers.
But if the paper hasn't been accepted yet, then contacting them might prevent a rejection. In any case someone like the "program chair" will give you the necessary feedback.
You might help yourself a bit if you prepare an explanation of where and why a change is necessary so that if a paper is already with a reviewer then they can quickly catch up to the current version.


Should I suggest my sources as reviewers?

The fact that you cite their work, and that you use their work to inform your work, does not present a conflict of interest, and it's fine to suggest them as reviewers. Doing so might even be a good idea, since they might be naturally qualified to assess your work.

An exception might apply if your work stands in some way in direct competition to their work -- for example, if you developed a technique for addressing the same problem, and you claim that your technique works better than theirs. I've seen a few listings of conflict-of-interest criteria that include a conflict type "competitor", and other listings that don't. If this applies, I would recommend to look for the conflict-of-interest criteria of the target journal/conference. If you can't find anything, you might want to contact the editors/chairs.


Are distance degrees from US universities worth anything?

Whether an online degree program can give you what you need depends strongly on how you want to use it.  A university degree can typically provide three key assets:

Skills: the technical foundations for professional success, particularly in STEM fields like computer science.
Network: connections with fellow students in your cohort are an excellent way to bootstrap one's professional network.
Prestige: the reputation of a school for achievements in its graduates, typically closely tied to skills and network.

An good online degree program can provide you with valuable skills, but is unlikely to give you much network and is definitely lower in prestige, even for the best programs (though these are slowly gaining in respectability).  If that is enough for your goals, then an online degree program can definitely provide it---and the better US distance learning programs are often explicitly intended to serve people in situations like yours.

It is important, however, to make certain that you pick a good, accredited program, or else your degree certainly will be worthless.  Many rather nasty for-profit organizations have gotten into online education and are essentially ripping off their students.  There are some good guides online to help you figure out the difference, however, such as this one.


How to list a paper in a CV that has been presented at a conference and submitted to a journal?

A common approach is to have separate sections in your CV listing academics works by type. I.e., thesis, peer reviewed journal articles, peer reviewed full text conference proceedings, book chapters, books, conference presentations, etc.

Particularly for early career researchers, it is common to also include journal articles that are under review. These should be presented in a section distinct from published journal articles and should generally indicate what stage of review they are in (e.g., submitted, revise and resubmit, etc.). It is also often useful to make each section a numbered list, so readers can quickly ascertain how many works you have of each type.

Using this approach you would list the journal article under the journal article section of your CV (or in the "submitted journal articles" section as the case may be) and  list the conference presentation under the conference presentation section of your CV.

Typical readers of an academic CV will know how to interpret this.
In general (and this may vary by discipline), journal articles (and other full-text works) speak to your lasting academic contribution. In contrast, conference presentations show that you are actively presenting your work. Typically, people evaluating your CV (e.g., for a job, promotion, grant, etc.) would give different weight to different sections. Thus, organising your academic output by sections makes their job easier.


How to not fall in love with my co-author?

I'm afraid I can't answer your question about how to suppress romantic feelings you have for another person, for the trivial reason that humans have been grappling unsuccessfully with this question for thousands of years. The attempts to answer it have led to some wonderful works of fiction though, so I recommend that you do a "literature search" on the problem (pun intended) and maybe find some of the answers you seek.

What I can also add is that one of the most romantic love stories I'm aware of in science started off in a situation pretty similar to yours. It involved the meeting and eventual marriage of the mathematicians George Szekeres and Esther Klein. They were married for around 70 years and died of natural causes on the same day - see here, here and here for more details. So maybe falling in love with a coauthor is not something that one should categorically rule out. Of course, only you know your own circumstances and can decide whether this lesson is applicable to your situation.


Is concentration an extremely important working habit?

As a mathematician, this is a very personal matter. Some people work 9-17; some have very irregular working times. Some have a habit of always going to the office to work, to help mentally separate 'work' and 'time off'; some work from home when they have no teaching or administrative tasks to do. Some people listen to music, some don't. Some check their Facebook at work, some don't. Some work in long streaks, some prefer to have a quick pause every half an hour or so.

Do whatever works for you. At this point in your career, you have been a student for at least 12 years; you should know yourself and be able to evaluate your productivity objectively.

This is even more true for a mathematician: mathematics is mostly a mental endeavour, and it is easy to start thinking about your work in your head when you are engaged in other activities, such as walking, driving or showering.
Sometimes your best ideas will come when you are not actively working/studying. Of course, you can't do everything like this, but the important ideas often strike at improbable times.

If you are a student starting out with maths, the only advice that I can give you is plan ahead, and recognize when you are going to be late if you don't increase your productivity. Many students can't tell when it's the moment to really turn off your Facebook and start studying until it's too late. Poor midterms should be taken as a big warning sign.


Can I claim to have completed my degree on my résumé, prior to convocating and receiving the physical diploma?

You can use the formulation

  Degree to be conferred MM/YYYY

to indicate that you have passed all degree requirements, but are waiting for the degree to be officially awarded. This occurs fairly frequently, particularly for PhD students, who may finish at any time of the year, especially if their university only confers degrees once per year.


It might be good to consider a broken y-axis. See this example. In your case, you only apply it to bicycle-only and bicycle-car.


Where can/should I, as a high schooler, publish a paper regarding the derivation of a formula?

The big question here is whether what you've done is new to the world - whether it's a genuine new advance that nobody in the world has done before, or whether it's something known to the world that you, and perhaps your teacher, have not seen before. Without meaning any disrespect to you and your friend, the second option here is more likely - but the first is of course possible.

If it's genuinely new, you can look to publish in a scientific journal. If it's not new (but perhaps still unusually advanced for a high school student), you should perhaps look for other types of publication, which could still be good for your resume. The difficult question is how to tell which category your work falls into.

My suggestion is to speak to your high school teacher about this. They have seen a lot of different students' work. If they think that it may be a novel development, then either write, or get your teacher to write, to a professor in a relevant subject at a local university. See if they will look it over and advise you.


Why do professors list current position of their students on their webpages?

In my case at least, I provide this information mostly for the purpose of recruiting future graduate students. By demonstrating that all of my former PhD students and postdocs have landed in desirable positions (be they in academia or in industry), I am able to make a strong case for the value of a PhD obtained as a member of my group.

In my opinion, this is extremely important information for a student when choosing a graduate program and choosing a specific research group. What has happened to previous students? How many have finished? Of those who finished, where are they now? Unfortunately, this information can be quite difficult to obtain unless the professor is willing to provide it. And one needs to know what happened to all of the students--knowing that a couple of students are now successful is not that useful unless you know how many others went through the group as well.


Ownership of equipment purchases during Marie-Curie Individual fellowship

In my experience, this depends on the rules of the host institution. Some institutions will allow researchers to keep the equipment purchased (as well as books etc.), while others want to retain it for themselves after the end of the fellowship. This can be the case even if the equipment in question has lost most of its value over the duration of the fellowship, or the institution already has the books in their library etc.


Which math departments in the U.S. have people known for their contributions to Lie-admissible algebras?

You can try searching for "Lie admissible algebra" on MathSciNet and the arXiv.  There are a few papers each year that mention this topic, but it doesn't seem to be a major research area in its own right.  If you are thinking about topics for graduate school, this seems to me to be way too specific to narrow down to before choosing an advisor.  (I assume you aren't already working in this research area yourself: if you did, you'd have more information about who else is.)

As for math departments in the U.S., two of the authors of references in the article you linked to (Benkart and Osborn) are emeritus professors at Wisconsin, and Myung used to be at Northern Iowa but has since died.  You could try looking up the authors of papers on the topic that excite you, but this won't give you a wide range of schools in the U.S., especially now that Benkart and Osborn have retired.  Instead, I agree with Chris C that you'd be better off considering a broader area.


What are good periodic color scales for density plots of angle-like function values?

As you note, there are problems with the typical rainbow colour map.

Kovesi has done some work on perceptually uniform colour maps. Code is available here: https://peterkovesi.com/projects/colourmaps/index.html

In my work, I replaced the rainbow map with the Kovesi's first cyclic colour map for the angle values, and used either saturation or intensity (multiplication) for the modulus. In hindsight, it would probably make sense to map the raw modulus values to saturation / intensity using one of the perceptually uniform greyscale linear maps as well.


"Brain doping": Can drugs compensate a lack of concentration while learning?

The available evidence certainly supports the view that Methylphenidate/Ritalin boosts cognitive abilities while being somewhat safer than amphetamines. Note that if you are caught in possession of this drug without a prescription you will suffer considerably more than the consequences of the drug itself in most countries.

Personally, I doubt that the boost given by Methylphenidate/Ritalin can be significant enough to make a difference in your grades. Note that it will do absolutely nothing to cure your lack of interest in the topic. If you aren't studying enough hours, you won't make it no matter how hopped up you are.

This probably doesn't help much, but my own strategy as an undergraduate student was to simply neglect studying those topics I was not interested in, and simply take the hit to my grade.


Can I tell my PhD supervisor honestly why I want to leave him

My suggestion is that you talk about all of the reasons you are moving to the other university, as opposed to leaving the current one. These reasons could be to do with relationships (e.g., family) or future opportunities (e.g., a postdoc) or being paid whilst you are currently unpaid. If you have to give a reason why you are leaving your current position, the least-harmful choice seems to be to mention that his lab will close and that you chose to study with him in the hope of staying within his wonderful group.

The choice comes down to the problems of being honest (which does not imply you should be dishonest). If you are honest, then because he will retire even if you magically changed his world-view, then the impact would still be negligible. However, you may burn bridges and although a small probability, the professor may take retributive action.


In biology papers, is it standard to to list names of people who contributed to code tools, but did nothing else towards a paper?

The Council of Science Editors has published a White Paper on Promoting Integrity in Scientific Journal Publications that gives a summary of research on authorship and attribution in scientific journals (see section 2.2 of the report).  I recommend you begin by reading this material, to get an idea of the general principles for authorship and the required contributions.  One of the things that the white paper is designed to address is the practice of "ghost authorship" where a contributor fails to receive authorship credit despite making a substantial contribution to a paper.  It also recommends that if someone contributes to a paper, but not enough to receive authorship, then they should still be listed by name in the "Acknowledgements" section.

There is no universally agreed set of rules for the requirements for authorship, but the general view is that a person should be list as an author on a paper if they have made a "substantial contribution" to the paper.  You can also find a set of recommended principles for authorship (in the context of medical journals) published by the ICMJE:

  The ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on the following 4 criteria:

  Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
  Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
  Final approval of the version to be published; AND
  Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

The above principles are written by a well-reputed body of medical journal editors.  I do not have any source material from editors of biology journals, but hopefully there is a reasonable correspondence in approaches.  In any case, whether or not your coding work constitutes a "significant contribution" to the work depends largely on the magnitude of the contribution relative to the overall paper, whether any customisation or innovation was required in the coding, and whether you made a contribution to the actual design of the study you were coding, or just coded a set of methods/procedures that were already determined by others.  On its own, coding the analysis for a study would not usually constitute a "significant contribution", but it would usually constitute enough of a contribution to warrant acknowledgment.  (Although it is for a different kind of contribution, you might find it helpful to read Parker and Berman (1998), which sets out recommendations for authorship credit for statisticians working on applied research.  This is a different situation, but it may have parallels to someone doing coding work on a research project.)

The main problem you will encounter in this case is that you have not negotiated any credit on the paper prior to doing the work.  In future, when you are asked to contribute in some way to an academic paper, it is a good idea to have an initial discussion with the principal author, to make agreement on what your contribution will be, and what acknowledgement (if any) you will receive.  You can certainly try to negotiate this post hoc but you might find this more difficult, depending on the attitude of the main authors of the studies in question.  In any case, if you feel that your contribution warrants a formal acknowledgement in a paper (or even co-authorship), I recommend you contact the principal author of the paper to start a discussion about that.  The best way to do this would be to frame your request in the context of the authorship principles set out in the above documents (or other similar studies), so that you can point to an external objective source to back up your request.  In the absence of some more direct document, the ICMJE principles should be applicable to the world of biology papers.


Points to consider when deciding whether to get married during a PhD

If you've found the right person to marry in graduate school, what's the alternative?  Getting married as a postdoc or tenure-track faculty member is also difficult, since you still have a lot of career pressure and uncertainty.  It won't go over well to say "I love you, but let's wait until I have tenure to get married," since that's way too far in the future, and I don't see any real advantage to saying "let's wait until I'm a postdoc."

Before marrying a non-academic, it's important to make sure they understand some of the basic parameters of academia:

The job market is incredibly competitive.  Harvard probably won't hire you even if everyone agrees you're really smart, and getting a job at a less prestigious university is not a form of career failure.  Indeed, just the opposite is true: any career progress in academia is a success that should be celebrated.
There is a national, and even international, job market with universities in many locations, but that doesn't mean you can choose where you want to live.  Instead, it means you need to apply everywhere and take what you can get.  Unless you are really lucky, having an academic career may require living somewhere you do not consider desirable, and you won't even be able to predict in advance where that might be.
Having a successful research career requires a lot of work, but it's a little different from many demanding jobs because the work is mostly self-imposed.  You need to do it, but nobody is specifying what, when, or how.  This can lead to resentment since everything you spend time on seems like a choice, rather than an externally imposed requirement.  So you need a partner who is not inclined towards jealousy over time commitments.

If these issues are not an obstacle, then it's reasonable to get married whenever seems appropriate.


How can I prove that I didn't plagiarize?

There are a few steps you can take, but the specifics depend on the individual institution and its procedures:

Find out what evidence is behind this accusation. Presumably when you talk to this "academic integrity team," they will tell you more specifically why they think you cheated. Once you have a chance to find out what their evidence for this accusation is, you will be in a position to show them how they made a mistake.
Find out what the institution's official policy is for appealing accusations of academic integrity. This depends on the individual institution's policies. When you speak to the "academic integrity team," you can ask them directly what the appeal procedure is.
Find out what the general grievance procedure is. If you don't have a good experience with the "academic integrity team" (e.g. they did not give you a fair chance to appeal the accusation), you should find out what procedures your institution has in place for voicing grievances in general, and you can pursue these if necessary.


The right page number to use is the formal page number in the larger volume, even if the actual PDF that anybody will ever download is only a few pages long.  That is because a citation is intended to give the "coordinates" of a document in an absolute and access-independent reference system.

Thus, if you are referencing an article that was published as page 374-382, then its 2nd page is page 375.  You can also refer to page ordinally in prose, however, in which case you make the reference point explicit and can start wherever you want, e.g., "the third page of the article", "the second page of Section III".


Should one apply for tenure track positions below current rank?

Contact the department/institution. If a department is hiring an "Assistant Professor", they have been granted a tenure-track slot (by the Dean or Provost depending on institution). In some cases they may be willing to hire at a higher rank than advertised if the applicant already has tenure elsewhere. Some advertisements are explicit in this offer, but the possibility may be there even if it is not explicitly mentioned.

Otherwise, the person needs to do what makes them happier. If moving closer to family is more important, then the person should apply. If the option to be hired at higher rank is not possible, then the person should probably indicate that he or she is willing to be hired at a lower rank/salary for personal reasons (however, it is unethical for the potential employer to ask what these might be).


Proving authorship when name in publications does not match name in passport

Arguably, you did the right thing.

In my experience, too many names tend to confuse people. I have 2+2 and I saw my name being cited in lots of different ways, without any consistency.

One thing that really helps to prove that you are the same person is to set up an ORCID and use it in the publications.


What to expect from a Skype PhD interview in physics?

For a specific position, their interest will be in making a determination about your "fit" for that position. I doubt that they would reasonably expect you to be already "custom made" (bespoke) for the position, but want an idea about how quickly you will come up to speed with their main project(s). Few people are productive immediately, but it is an advantage to get someone who quickly groks the main line of inquiry.

So, I wouldn't expect something like a final exam or a tricky gotcha question romp. But more along the lines of your intellectual curiosity and the dedication you can bring to academic pursuits.

Your masters research is probably a plus if it gives you the background to move quickly to a new project.

But it would be a big mistake to use this to ask about other opportunities. It wouldn't be rude, but you would be harming your own case.

Their needs are pretty specific and I would guess they will be focused on that.

However, note that I'm not an Austrian academic and certainly not one of the people interviewing you. So take this as general, not specific, advice. In particular, I have no way of knowing how formal it is. But use proper titles of address, I suspect.


In case I have to take a gap year before MS, what can I do in terms of reading and independent study to prepare for graduate school?

Try to get a lab position in your field as a tech - this will allow you to build exactly the type of experience that graduate schools will want, show your dedication and interest in the topic and give you the opportunity to build the type of relationships that lead to convincing recommendation letters.


What questions to expect from Skype chat with potential supervisor for a Masters in Neuroscience?

Ok, my interview has already taken place. In case anyone has the same question, it was a very relaxed interview ( even though I was obviously very stressed).

The researcher asked me why I chose to contact him, what I wanted to focus on ( based on his previous projects), when I would start, how I was going to finance my studies and how long would I be willing to stay at his laboratory, etc.

I wasn't asked about neurobiology, physiology or any other scientific knowledge.


Are search committees often interested in someone who will add to their department's expertise?

Not at all. I'd wager that a majority of hires are replacements to, or additions to, existing interest-groups.

In mathematics, anyway, there is a substantial scientific conservatism, in the sense of caution about change, as well as extreme uneasiness about "new things one is unable to expertly appraise". I guess the good side is that people are wary of being bamboozled, wary of semi-cranks, wary of flash-in-the-pan fads, ... but, also, it creates difficulties in hiring outside already-established expertise.

Another point would be that a hire outside existing areas would not add to any existing area's "turf", so only the altruistic entities would be in favor of it, barring some deal-sweetening arrangement. A similar mild negative would be that it would effectively reduce the weight of pre-existing turf-areas' "vote" in policy and other matters. Who would vote away the strength of their own vote? :)

And it is my observation that this sort of realpolitick would outweigh impulses to "get on the bandwagon", although perhaps not so hugely but that it could still happen.

But, then, if the "new" field is not a "hot new thing", and the given department has no one in that area, I'd bet that there's essentially zero motivation for them to make a hire in that direction. "Can't do everything." ???

So, probably the answer to the question is "no", in most operational situations.


How to choose the appropriate graphic representation (plot) method for the results?

Data visualization is an entire scientific field of its own. A good introduction to the basic principles can be found in the works of Edward Tufte, whose book on the visual display of quantitative information is a classic in the area.

The basic principle, however, is that you want the important information of the chart to leap out to the eye, and as such the dimensionality of your presentation and the dimensionality of the presentation method should be matched as closely as possible.  Likewise, the features of different elements of a graph should be adjusted to put the emphasis on the most important ones, while not concealing the others.

For a simple example, consider a simple one-dimensional data set, where there are a set of conditions, each of which produced some distribution of values.

If the conditions are qualitatively different or vary along many dimensions, the data should probably be presented as a bar graph
If they are quantitatively arranged along one dimension they should be presented as a line graph.
If they are arranged along two dimensions, the should be presented as multiple lines on a single graph.

The type of error bars also depends on the nature of the distributions:

If the distributions are small compared to the effect size, such that they do not significantly affects interpretation of the data, then error bars should be made small and subtle, so that the information is present but the eye is drawn to the means.
If the distributions are large but regular, they can be presented via visually prominent error bars.
If the distributions are large and highly irregular, then a more complex representation like a box-and-whisker graph is better.

This is just scratching the surface, of course, but hopefully gives an illustration of the principles of how to think about data visualization...


When to answer and when not to answer a brief e-mail from a busy academic?

My own busy-person email triage has three tiers:

No response needed = near-zero cost
Minimal response needed = minimal cost
Response with significant thought and care needed = significant context-switching cost

A brief "thank you" email would go into category #1: no bother or burden, but noticed and appreciated all the same.  In other words, send the email: it's not a significant nuisance, and it's nice to be appreciated.


Rescinding or deferring admission over a break up

You don't need to give them all the details. Say "Some personal issues have come up, and I'd like to know how viable an option it would be to defer beginning my program". If they want more details, they'll ask for them.


In-major means classes related to your major. In your case, these would be all the Computer Engineering classes you have taken as well as any major requirements from outside the department. These do not include classes required by the school (e.g. writing requirements) or high level classes from outside the department that do not related to your major.


What are the main factors that mean Humanities PhDs get published as books?

Are there other factors unique to the Humanities that mean the book is a preferred publishing route?

The boundary between Humanities and Social Sciences is fuzzy in many places, and indeed the phenomenon of theses commonly being parlayed into books happens in some social sciences as well: e.g. history.  But there are some factors common to these disciplines as opposed to non-STEM ones, yes.

The length of the thesis.

Average (in any of several senses) thesis lengths vary widely by discipline: see here for a nice treatment.  Theses in history (the longest) are almost three times as long as those in mathematics and bio-engineering (the two shortest).  (Note that history is followed by anthropology and political science: all social sciences.  English comes in at sixth longest in the list of 50 disciplines.)  In order to have math theses average about 100 pages, they must be counting pages with respect to the spacing one uses in the officially submitted copies.  So when math theses are single-spaced -- as they would be in any published form -- the average is more like 50 pages.  See here if you don't believe that a math PhD thesis could be much shorter than that.

Anyway, the moral is clear: in some disciplines a perfectly good PhD thesis has length closer to (or equal to) that of a journal article than a book.

The independence of the chapters of the thesis.

It is my understanding that in many STEM disciplines, a perfectly good PhD thesis is several independently written articles stapled together.  (This is less true in math but not unheard of.)  But in the humanities a thesis is usually one long, sustained argument such that it would detract from it to publish it in parts.

The prior publication status of the work of the thesis.

It is my understanding that in many (most?) STEM disciplines outside of mathematics, the sense is that a PhD thesis should contain some already published work!  Whether the work got published in a reasonable place becomes part of the committee's evaluation.  Clearly this works against publishing as a book.

The amount of time that one spends doing the work and writing of the thesis measured as a portion of one's academic career.

In the humanities and many social sciences, postdocs are no longer unheard of but are still quite rare.  A lot of STEM PhDs are awarded to people in their mid to late 20's at the point where they have demonstrated that they can do one novel, sufficiently substantial piece of research.  They then go on to 2-5 years of temporary faculty positions where the real work is done.  In the humanities (and...), getting a PhD much below the age of 30 is pretty rare, and most tenure-track jobs -- even very strong and research-intensive ones -- hire straight out of PhD programs.  One might say that a PhD in the humanities is more like a European Habilitation in the sciences: it's just a more mature, substantial piece of work.

The feeling that someone outside of academia might just possibly be interested in buying a copy.

I have actually occasionally read and even bought books that I presume originated as a humanities / social sciences PhD theses.  Though I am having trouble thinking of a truly gripping read, some of these books certainly make more of a concession to the general reader than STEM theses do.  I have never bought a book describing five experiments the author did in someone else's lab...


Should a TA be doing software development for the professor?

It sounds to me like you have unusually advanced skills for a TA, and the professor is quite rationally trying to allocate the resource he has control over (your time as a TA) to its maximally productive use. That sounds pretty reasonable from the professor's point of view. Whether he has a right to assign you this particular sort of work would depend on your institution and department. At my department, TAs sign a contract at the beginning of the quarter which includes a list of the types of work they will be expected to do. If the professor wants to add something that isn't on the standard list, that needs to be discussed prior to that stage. The contract also specifies the number of weekly hours the TA will be working, and obviously the professor needs to respect that limitation as well.

Now let's think of how things look from your point of view. I'm not exactly sure why you feel taken advantage of for being asked to work on the software project, except for details that sound irrelevant to me, such as:

that the professor has previously paid someone for a similar service (maybe he did not have access to a TA with such qualifications as you);
that you would have gotten a higher salary for doing similar work in industry (but you willingly chose to go into a graduate program and subsist on a grad student stipend for a few years);
that you are not paid directly for being a TA but through some kind of indirect funding arrangement (but you are still committed to doing work as a TA for X hours per week, so I don't see why that should matter).

If I make the reasonable assumption that the high-value software development work is more intellectually stimulating than other duties the professor can be assigning you as a TA (grading papers or other boring gruntwork), are you not yourself better off working on the software project? In that case, could it be that the feeling of being exploited is simply regret for choosing this particular academic path when you could have stayed in industry?

To summarize, my feeling is that unless the work the professor is assigning you is completely outside the scope of work that a TA in your department could be reasonably expected to help with (which may be the case if you are, say, in a humanities program), you are probably not being taken advantage of. But perhaps I misunderstood the situation or your reasoning for being concerned; if you care to clarify any of the details I will reconsider my position.

Edit: I'm sorry if the OP finds my answer a bit tone deaf. I'm generally quite sensitive to and concerned by the phenomenon of exploitation of graduate students in academia, as can be seen by perusing my SE history. I think it makes sense to revise my verdict slightly: Jack, you are not being taken advantage of any more than TAs are typically taken advantage of. That is, I don't find anything unusually exploitative about the software development being discussed here, but the whole system of employing graduate students in academia as cheap labor (whether it's calling them TA's, RA's or something else) does carry with it an unpleasant whiff of exploitation. This is well known and recognized by many people (and has provided fodder for many a web comic). So you are right to be at least a little concerned about that -- how much exactly depends on your school. But I think that is off-topic given your specific question. Bottom line is, be aware of your rights, and if your contract says you should only work X hours per week, insist on following that to the letter.


What do I do about an unfixable F when I am applying for a graduate program?

Computer science professors don't care what grades you got in philosophy. Even more so because this was an advanced philosophy class, not an entry-level course. And even more so because this was 3+ years ago before you started computer science, so it doesn't show an inability to reason or communicate or manage your time.

Better yet, you have a very clear narrative. When your application isn't perfect, it's nice to have a simple, clean, verifiable reason for the imperfection. In your case, it's very simple: you were terrible at philosophy, you're great at computer science. This is a great narrative, and the F only adds to it.

You should focus on computer science. Here's what's going to happen: the committee will look at your transcript and very quickly figure out that you were terrible at philosophy and good at computer science. Then they're going to want to know how good at computer science you are -- merely average? Or amazing? This is where your research, publications, letters of recommendation, advanced coursework, etc. comes in. Further, you should be very careful when writing your statement of purpose -- you'll need to address your previous major, but there's no need to make excuses for it, just say that it wasn't a good fit and then focus on your current work.

Even if you could retake that class and get rid of the F, you shouldn't bother. It just doesn't gain you anything, and there are better uses for your time.


Regarding changes in the accepted manuscript

Typically, journals will send you page proofs after your manuscript is accepted and before it's published.  A limited number of changes for clarity is usually fine at that stage (especially if it would have to be printed as errata later).

If the journal is not intending to generate page proofs (e.g. it's a rapid electronic publication format), or if there are more than a handful of changes (six or so), or if they are large enough so they might change the layout of the whole paper, simply contact the editor as soon as possible explaining exactly what you wish to change and why.  Assuming all the changes are minor and make the paper better, the answer is usually that it's fine.


How to deal with procrastination and delays in final assignment of undergraduate class?

If the students were reasonably expecting the option of a recovery exam, it seems unfair to deny it for the current run.

In future, you could offer the recovery exam only to those who tried to pass in the regular way, i.e. handed in an essay on topic (but maybe bad and hastily written - so more unpleasant grading for you).

Generally, I would suggest talking to some students to figure out why they didn't hand in an essay. Maybe it was plain procrastenation, maybe it was wise prioritizing because they had other, more important deadlines in the way, maybe they found the course not that interesting and decided not to complete it. In my experience, undergrads often have more self-awareness of their learning process than we would expect :)


What computer specs should be included in numerical results section, when, and why?

First, some (hopefully) obvious remarks:

you only need to present CPU specs if you are going to publish CPU timings
CPU timings depend on variety of factors, including hardware specs, OS, drivers, libraries, software, configuration of this software, etc. It is unlikely that the combination of all these factors will be reproduced exactly.
Even a very detailed list of hardware specs that can be published in an academic paper is likely to be incomplete: for example you can say that CPU is i5, but will you mention the rev? will you mention the microcode version? will you mention how well the CPU is cooled and how recently the thermopaste was changed?
The same is probably true for the software: it is unlikely that one can report versions of all drivers / libraries / software involved in the process.

It becomes clear that any publishable list of specs will not be sufficient to reproduce the settings. In my opinion, the exact reproduceability is not achievable and hence is not the aim.

I always provide and use the CPU specs as a rough guide that helps me to understand the behaviour of the CPU timings reported as a function of problem parameters. Can this slowdown be due to the data falling off the CPU cache? Can it be due to insufficient memory and hence disk swapping? Does this software allow to use all CPU cores or is only one core active? Can we (roughly) compare the timings reported in this paper with the timings reported by competitors, or are the setups too dissimilar?

At least once in my own experience I encountered an example of scientific fraud, when the reported timings could not be achieved on the declared CPU due to trivial complexity estimations — it could be easily shown that even at 100% efficiency the stated CPU could not perform the calculations needed in time claimed. In this case the details of the setup were handy to make the case.

Final note: reporting CPU specs is important, but making the code available is far more important and I wish people in academia do it more often!


Why do professors take on service duties?

Most professors are required by their departments to do some sort of service to the university and department. It's a duty of their job, often assigned by their department chair, and may be required as part of their tenure case. Someone who is actually a professor may be able to say more.

Paper reviewing, and the peer review system as a whole, is a cooperative system. Profs need peer-reviewed publications to get tenure, so someone has to do the reviewing. Nobody gets explicit points or credit for  reviewing, but if everyone tried to free-ride, then no papers would get reviewed, and the system would collapse. As a non-professor, I don't do as much reviewing (dozens of papers a year) as my professorial colleagues (hundreds per year, often, depending on field), but every time I submit an article to a journal, I'm asked to do a review by the editor, which helps keep me involved in reviewing. I suspect that people also don't want to develop reputations as free riders, so when asked to review, within reason, they do it.

In addition, sitting on a program committee for a conference involves a lot of reviewing, and it can be a great way to meet and network more closely with more senior or more junior researchers depending on your own level, both of which have their advantages. Doing both kinds of reviewing and doing it well can help one build a reputation as someone who supports the system. Besides the general benefits of a good reputation, it may lead to program committee chair positions, other conference organizing positions, and journal editorships.

In the end, having a bad reputation for not reviewing and not doing other kinds of service could seriously affect one's tenure case or future job prospects.


Is it plagiarism if I use a text I wrote myself but put on the internet before?

I think this is an interesting question that depends on separating three concepts that sometimes get intertwined:

plagiarism
copyright
legality

Plagiarism refers to using something without properly indicating its source.

Copyright refers to having the right to use material elsewhere.

Legality refers to whether you're violating a law or committing a crime by doing something.

If you've posted something anywhere (and especially to an openly editable place like wikipedia or SE), then there's possible issues with reusing it on each of the fronts.

With respect to plagiarism, what matters is if the prior posting counts as "published" or "submitted" for the purposes of the item in question. (The former being the standard for journals and books; the latter being the standard for classes -- though I suspect most classes would care if you submitted something you already had published).

For copyright, you may not have the legal right to use something in its entirety even if you're the one who wrote it. This would depend on which copy rights your retained from your first publication. If it's SE, for instance, you're under Creative Commons. Wikipedia seems to have their own thing (I'm not a lawyer and can't entirely parse their policy).

Finally, none of this means that you're doing anything criminal, but if you were publishing for money, you could have liability if you violate the copyright.

Two confusing issues are that copyrights can speak as if they create citation obligations (they don't) and act as if their violation is a crime, but at least in the US its only a crime when done for profit.


Request for high res figures: what should I be mindful of?

if you write a review with 5 figures from someone else, it's either a very long review, or you may simply not be the right person to write it, it seems to me.

Or you just think that person has amazing figures.  :-)

If the author's university and the journal publishing the review are both reputable, then I doubt you have much to worry about.  If they aren't, then it is more worrisome.  If the author hasn't already specified where the review article has been submitted, then that's strange in itself, although it could be awkwardness rather than dishonesty.

There seem to be two issues here:

Will it be a mediocre review article?  There's not much you can do about this: you presumably can't stop the article from being published, so the only question is whether the world would be better off if it didn't include your figures.  (That outcome would be worse for you, and I can't see why it would be better for the rest of the world, so I'd be inclined to give them the figures.)
Is there no actual review article, and this is just a setup to get copies of your files for use in plagiarism?  It would seem crazy to draw your attention if there's plagiarism involved, but sometimes people are crazy (or it could be someone using a fake address or hacked account).  I wouldn't worry about this too much: the chances of plagiarism are not so high, and the chances the plagiarizer will actually get away with it are even lower.  Besides, you might end up with an amusing story about the time a plagiarizer asked you for copies of your figures.

  Remind him that he needs copyright permission from my papers' publishers, in addition to my files.

Definitely, and you could even cc the permissions e-mail addresses for your publishers, to help speed the process along and make sure the author doesn't forget or lie about it.


Any disadvantages of having a PhD supervisor who is working only part-time at the institution?

The most important at this stage is to obtain as many guarantees as possible in writing:

from the academic
from the head of department
from the local graduate school

Essentially, academics are meant to dedicate a proportion of their employed time for supervisory duties, so that all academics have supervision workload fairly spread across a whole department, also variegated depending on the role of the academics (lecturer, reader, professor).

If the academic is employed in the UK higher education institution for 50% full-time equivalent, then their supervisory duty should be halved by comparison with colleagues.

If he said that you will be 'that I would be the only PhD student he will be supervising during that time', that's probably what's behind the statement.

However, it does no harm to have this employment arrangement confirmed by the head of department and the local graduate school who ultimately have to agree to such arrangement. So you can make sure the academic understood well.

As Captain Emacs points out, then, there is a lot that boils down to your own expectations and needs in terms of supervision. There are bound to be pros and cons. Simple basic question: is the academic very IT-literate or does he do everything from print-outs? If he's constantly travelling between job places, that might become inconvenient when drafts need careful attention in a reasonable turnaround period.

The more you discuss and nails the practicalities of the relationship at an early stage, the less likely it is going to go bad.

Last but not least, if you get funded with a local scholarship or a grant from one of the big funding councils and charities, your supervision is more likely to be successful, because the funding set up will create an additional level of accountability for both you and supervisor.


Trauma affected my grades while in undergrad, how will it affect me getting into graduate school?

I'm going to make this an answer rather than a comment; I hope others will react to it, especially if I'm wrong.  (I'm a teacher, not an admissions officer.)

From what I understand, you had good grades at the start of your college career.  Your grades declined for external reasons.  Your life is back under control and your grades are back up.  You have a little more than a year to gather good grades on your transcript.

Go for it.  Apply to the schools you'd like to attend, but apply to a couple of Plan B schools as well.

Here's the part that may be controversial:  You might want to include in your cover letter something like "You may notice that there was a slump in my grades during my time as an undergraduate.  That was due to a difficult personal situation, now resolved."  (Thanks, Nate Eldridge, for the fine phrase.)

The other choice would be to mention the grade slump not at all.  In any case, don't make a big deal of it.


Do people feel free to review a Festschrift as any other book?

A festschrift is there to celebrate the person in an academic way, so they are typically treated as such.


International Student applying for a PhD in a university in Taiwan

I know there are many international PhD students there. I think you need not to worry about English use in the classrooms. However, you will need to learn Chinese to some extent in order to live in Taiwan. Not knowing the local language would cause you a lot trouble.
There are quite a few vegetarian food only restaurants available in Taipei. But, they are not cheap and may be some distance away from university campus.

Talk to the university about 3 & 4.

(I am local in Taipei)


When are usually the applications deadlines in United States for a Computer Sciences graduate program?

There are official dates, set by each program.  Most of those are in the winter prior to the autumn in which you hope to start.  Of the timelines and deadlines I'm aware of, it's too late to apply for starting fall 2016 at most schools. Especially if you haven't yet taken the TOEFL and GRE, you should be targeting next year's cycle (assuming you still want to apply then).  It takes a while to get those tests scheduled, taken, and graded, and you generally have to have scores in by the application deadline.

A quick survey of Masters' application deadlines for schools in the first page of Google results:

Stanford: Dec-08
Columbia: Feb-15 (but may accept some late)
Chicago: Feb-01 for international students
Brown: Mar-15
Carnegie Mellon: Dec-15
Georgia Tech: Feb-01
UT Austin: Dec-01
Illinois: Dec-15
Michigan: Jan-15

Look for programs that are of interest to you and then check their application deadlines for a specific answer.


Zoom Presentation where I share screen but can annotate or scribble via my tablet

Log in to the zoom meeting both from your laptop and from your tablet. Then use the annotate function on your tablet to annotate the slides which you share from your laptop.

(You have to allow the tablet user, or generally other users, to annotate the slides, of course.  I'm not entirely sure whether you can restrict this possibility to a specific user - though you might want to try with making the tablet user co-host or the like - but on the other hand, it might have advantages if also the students can annotate your slides, e.g. in case they want to ask a question about some specific point.)

(Also, I believe you cannot log in twice with the same account - but you don't even need an account on the tablet, or otherwise you can create a second account.)


Asking University to reimburse renting a car

Yes, this is acceptable.

At many universities, adding a few days stay at your conference location in a far-away country (using your own accommodation arrangements) is allowed and sometimes even encouraged. Especially when this allows you to take cheaper flights. This would be something similar, using the car because it's required anyway, and adding a few extra recreational km you'd pay for yourself.

Renting a car might be an issue for some European universities, as they have rules to encourage public transport usage. The 1/4 share of the car is something you'll have to discuss with your administrative staff. They might want to reimburse 1 person for the whole thing, or split it over multiple projects. Just ask to clarify, they'll also be happy to know exactly how and what they're reimbursing.


How much value is given to a recommendation letter written by a foreign professor? (Grad school/math)

The letter being from a foreign university will not itself be a big problem.  I think there's always some difficulty switching systems.  The most important qualification which might not be obvious (I treat a general high profile and knowing you well as obvious) is that they should be able to convince the reader that they have a good sense that they know what it takes for a student to succeed in the program they are applying to.  On average, professors in France are less familiar with US or UK graduate programs than US or UK professors are, so they have a bit less authority on that topic.  That's not a huge problem if the letter is otherwise good, though.

I'm actually much more concerned by you saying that they haven't published in a decade.  If they really are unknown to the admissions committees that is not good.  You might actually ask them if there are any places in the US or UK where they know people well, and where previous students they've written letters for have gone.  You don't have to go to those places (though it's worth thinking about), but if the answer really is that there aren't any, that's a big red flag, and you might think a bit harder about the professors at UPMC (which does have a pretty high international profile).


Arranging a visit to a professor you do not know yet

There's no definite answer to any of your questions. All of these details depend a lot on the professor, the circumstances (e.g., funding), and you:

  How to approach professor X to ask if I can visit him and what sort of information should I provide?

I would assume a mail is sufficient. However, if you don't know the prof personally, and you are not overly well-known in your community yet, it may be better to ask your advisor to establish contact. Professors get many mails from prospective students on various levels, with various intends. Those mails tend to get discarded quickly and unceremoniously.

I don't know what information would be required, initially probably almost none, except who you are and what you would like to work on with the professor. At a later point, details of how this visit would be funded may become an important discussion item (e.g., who pays your travel? who pays your hotel / apartment? if you are an university employee, who pays YOU during your visit?). Don't expect your host to arrange funding - this is something that you / your advisor will need to arrange, and just agree with the host.

  When PhD students visit academics, what happens usually? I mean, would professor X become a sort of supervisor for the time of the visit, or would it just be that me and professor X would mostly be in the same place at the same time and able to chat a bit if the opportunity arises?

I have seen both happen. Clearly, in the second case, the visit is often close to worthless. However, in most cases, the truth is somewhere in the middle. The prof meets a few times with the visitor, and "appoints" one or more of his own students with a matching profile /research interests as a contact point and collaborator for the visit. You should not have too high expectations of how much time your host can really invest into you (and not into, say, his own students or his own research).

  How long do visits last, usually? Would I be a student at professor X’s university during the time of my visit? Would I have any academic requirements (e.g. to give talks at seminars, etc.)?

Depends. I have so far done two research visits, one as a short as 2 weeks, one for 6 weeks. I know of others who have done visits for up to 6 months. You usually have little academic requirements, and you are not usually considered a student of the host institution (at least for visits that are shorter than one term). Giving a talk is sometimes necessary as part of your funding arrangements. For instance, in my second stay, my travel was funded by the host institution over the vehicle that they officially invited me as an expert speaker for their seminar series (so that they could formally pay for my travel, which they could not do for a visit). In my first visit, the expectation of the funding source was that at some point a paper would be published related to the visit (clearly not within those two weeks, but at some point). Further, I had to write a brief report.

  Professor X is in a different country than I am. Are professors based in a different country than a potential visiting student more reluctant to let students visit them? If so, why?

Not typically, however, finding funding may be even more difficult. However, both of my visits have been cross-country, in one case cross-continents, so it definitely can be done.


Is there any benefit applying before the deadline?

Surely country dependent. For Germany: There is no difference in applying early or just in time. The review process for all applications does not start before the deadline is passed. I you are one day late you may or may not be considered - I think more often than not you application will not be considered if too late.