Who decides the paper acceptance rate at a workshop organized as part of a conference: the workshop organizers or the conference organizers?

This can depend on the conference. My experience (CS, various ACM conferences) is that the workshop committee is responsible for its own papers and agenda.

But the workshop has a limited time frame, possibly determined by the conference committee (time * space = money). This can have an indirect affect on the rate of acceptance since it implies a limited number of papers that can be accepted.

So, it isn't a decision that, say, 10% of the papers submitted will (likely) be accepted, but that there is only room for 10 papers, no matter how many are submitted. Some others might get shunted elsewhere, such as to a poster session.

But I assume that isn't universal and can hypothesize about a number of different possible arrangements.


Re-apply the PhD program that I previously got offer and turned down

To transfer means that you will need to find a new supervisor who is prepared to take you and your project on in the current state.

That might be a challenge and a bigger challenge than you realise, it is not just walk out the front door of B and in through the front door of A...


Would a manuscript be rejected if the cover letter is missing?

It is very unlikely for the paper to be rejected solely for the reason of the missing cover letter.

It is highly likely that you are going to be contacted (using an automated system or personal email) about an incomplete submission or the submission process itself will continue without the cover letter at all.
I would say, missing a cover letter might have an impact on the following:

The potential delay between the journal realizing that the submission is incomplete, communicating that to you, and you resubmitting.

The cover letter can help to assign the associate editor/track editor and, to some extent, select the reviewers. If the cover letter is not present in the submission, it might either take slightly longer or lead to some time/choice inefficiencies that could potentially be avoided.

Sometimes, the cover letter contains substantial necessary information. Say, there was a previous submission to this or another journal some time ago, and you want to inform the editor about that and point out some crucial details that are new in this submission. Or explain why the presence of additional/supplementary materials for your paper is necessary for the review.
In that case, leaving out the cover letter simply does not help to build your case in the best possible way.


An author of a paper included a blank supplementary file. Is it possible to make the journal correct this?

If a file is missing or appears to be missing, then the editor in charge of the paper should obviously be notified, since he or she is the person responsible for managing communications between the authors and the reviewers. (I have done this before when there was an obvious missing document.)


Is there any online tool where students can register for tasks/assignments?

I found the tool "Doodle" (doodle.com) where a poll can be set up with different options to fit my needs. With this tool, appointments can also be arranged.

Here's a link to an example I set up: select architect


Why as the level of a college course goes up, is the course generally more specific and more specialized?

I strongly dispute your assertion that knowledge of the more general subject is not needed for the more specific subjects.  To use your own example, general biology will include general cell anatomy and metabolism and probably some basics of evolution.  More specialized courses like anatomy and endocrinology will make no sense without these basics.

Even when a direct subject material connection is not obvious, in a well-designed set of courses there is often an important dependence in skills.  For example, in the mathematics classes that I took, there was not much direct connection in material between Analysis and some the higher-level subjects like Abstract Algebra and Topology that had it as a required prerequisite.  However, Analysis was the subject where students were expected to learn how to properly approach and formulate mathematical proofs, and the higher-level subjects assumed these skills.  Likewise, many engineering departments have a required "general engineering" subject for freshmen, which drums in the general philosophy of engineering through hands-on applications in various areas: even if an electrical engineer never uses a machine-shop again, the "engineering way of thinking" that they have learned will be critical to their success later on.

Returning, then, to your basic question: there's an awful lot of knowledge in the world, and much of it simply is very specialized.  General classes give the foundation required by many different specialized subjects, and so a well-designed curriculum tends to naturally form a "tree" structure that starts general and becomes more specialized as one progresses deeper into a subject.


How were the figures in old pre-TeX research papers and books created?

This depends on the age in which the papers were developed. In the computer age there have been graphics programs going back to somewhere in the 1950's so it is possible that they were created on a computer. Possibly using vector graphics.

But note that the machines on which early programs ran were large and expensive.

Earlier than that, and overlapping with the computer age, artists were employed by publishers to create graphics using the same sort of tools that architects and "draftsmen" used. The French Curve was common and every student in a course in mechanics (physics) had one to help prepare homework. Actually artists may still be employed, but they tend to use computer tools now, rather than manual ones.

Math and physics undergraduates needed to be quite adept at graphing functions by hand, but these were a bit too crude for publishing. Hence artists.

To extend it a bit, even in the 1970's mathematics papers needing formulae and equations with any complexity were prepared by hand by skilled typists using specialized typewriters. The special symbols, hundreds of them, were on individual wands that were inserted into the typewriter under the striker. The glyph was struck and then the wand removed so the next one could be inserted. The typists worked from hand written papers prepared by the author.

For publishing, pages were prepared in sets of, say, 16 and printed using something like the lithographic process. The 16 (or whatever) pages printed together became a "signature" and these were prepared and the sewn together to make a volume. High quality books often still use sewn signatures, which you can see by looking at a closed book from the top or bottom - the "spine". You can also see the threads used to sew the signatures. See Book Binding for example.


Whatever you decide, humor in academic writing is always better understated rather than overstated. See here:


Should I inform my bosses that I'm about to start doing a PhD research?

Of course you should!

Certain duties such as a committee meeting would require you to ask for a leave permission from your company. If you break it then, you'd be in trouble. In certain institutions, it is mandatory to provide an NoC (no objection certificate) from your company as part of the PhD admission process. You should've done it before, but the earlier you inform him, the better.


How much is an average time of waiting to receive a reply from Professional co-author?

"I want to send an email email asking him for an update about the
status of that. Should I do that or I must wait for his reply?"

Absolutely. Why? Because it has been 1 month and you have not received any communication from him yet. Usually after waiting a full 7 days, it is not inappropriate to send a follow-up email.

"How much is an average time of waiting to recieve a reply from
Professional co-author?"

It varies. Some people reply the same day, some the same hour, but it's also not uncommon for people to take a month or two to reply.
Usually it is not inappropriate to ask for an update 7 days after the first email. Another one after another 7 days can also often be considered okay. It's when you send more than 2 follow-up emails, or when you do not wait ~7 days between them, that it might start to be seen as "nagging", but even then that's not always the case. Please send him a follow-up email and ask us what to do if you still have problems after that. My guess is that he'll reply (since he asked you for the manuscript).


Using previously developed code for research at a new place

1) In retrospect it would obviously have been useful to establish general rules about using the code in advance. Is the code public? Is it available for use by any of the original co-authors without having to include the other authors on future publications? Can it be shared with or without consent from the original co-authors? Any of these rules are fine, they just have to be agreed on in advance.

2) Now that the code was used in a new project I strongly sympathize with the request of your students supervisor. I would be very uncomfortable publishing a paper based on a code that I have no access to. It means that I cannot verify the results in my own paper!

3) In sharing the code with colleagues it is perfectly o.k to restrict future use. You can say ``I'm sharing this code for the purpose of verifying the work on your current project, but if you wish to use it in the future you have to ask permission/include an acknowledgement/add me as co-author/etc. (whatever you and your authors feel is appropriate)".

4) Personally, I am strong believer in open software. If you publish a paper based on a code, the code should be made public. However, this is not a commonly accepted standard, and restricted and proprietary codes are common in many areas of science.


Is it unusual to apply for a degree without finishing your current one?

Speaking strictly from the US, this is defined as a being a "transfer student" and is extremely common. How common? Well, it's a federally reported statistic called "Transfer-Out Rate". I am fond of the CollegeResults.org tool, which defines this stat nicely (emphasis mine):

  The percentage of students who began in the 2006 cohort of first-time,
  full-time, bachelor's or equivalent degree-seeking freshmen at the
  institution and transferred to another school without earning a degree
  at the initial institution. Reporting of transfer data is optional for
  colleges and universities that do not consider preparing students for
  transfer as part of their mission. (IPEDS)

For instance, The University of South Alabama is reported as having about 16% of students transfer out to another institution before receiving a degree. The University at Buffalo (New York) posts about a 20% transfer rate.

So, as the write-up for the statistic suggests, some schools even offer specific degree tracks designed to transfer. In the state of Wisconsin, the entire "technical college" offers such programs. In Florida, these are called "junior colleges" and offer similar tracks.

Even at Universities designed without this as their intent, there is always a percentage of people who transfer in and out at an undergraduate level. As Nate Eldredge points out, this is not nearly so common at higher levels, but it happens often enough and is hardly taboo.

The Upsides

Sometimes it is desirable to plan to transfer, such as getting started at a nearby location while you make preparations/plans to go elsewhere (I did this myself, starting in a tech school and applying to my target University just the next semester once I had family/work preparations in place). Many people spend 2-3 years at such colleges, taking all the classes they can towards their higher target degree (usually called "general degree requirements") - usually because it is more convenient and often vastly cheaper (a person can easily save tens of thousands of dollars in tuition this way). Class sizes are often smaller. The difficulty level of the material varies, but most "introduction" classes look a lot an awful lot alike after a while.

The Downsides

If you are looking to go onto higher degrees, especially to a PhD or competitive Masters program, recommendation letters and research experience (when possible) are highly desirable if not absolutely necessary. If you will only be at an institution for 2 years instead of 4-5, then you have a lot less time to find and build these connections! Surely you can do it, but I know I've personally found it took me about 2 years to find the right connections that seem to have "stuck" and suit me and what I want to do (after figuring out what I actually want to do, naturally). If I had completed most of the degree before coming to my present institution, this might mean I'd have missed out on such opportunities to do some real work with these people.

Most institutions have requirements of "credits done in residence", so you can't just do 4/5ths of a degree at Podunk Clown School Of Higher Learning and transfer into Harvard for a semester and get your diploma. Which is unfortunate, because that sounds like it would make for a great B-movie.

Some administrative complications can come into play too. If you decide to retake a course you did poorly on or failed in a previous semester, the rules about how to do this and whether or not it's possible vary depending on where you took the class. Retaking a class you took originally at School A is not always possible or straight-forward once you are in School B.

How GPA is calculated also differs in this same way, as some institutions only calculate grades earned in residence, others combine them, some don't transfer 0 credit classes (like if you failed a class) and others transfer all grades even if they don't give you credit for the course towards your degree!

The complexity can be a real head-ache sometimes, but they are generally annoyances to be overcome rather than deal-breakers.

Big Warning

Credits earned at one institution aren't automatically accepted anywhere else! Indeed, at some colleges they offer two versions of a class - one that is likely to transfer, and one that isn't; the one that can transfer costs more but is otherwise the same course! This can be a minefield, so if you want to make plans or consider transferring, talk with your target school's Admissions/Registration/Records and whoever would be in charge of a transcript evaluation first!

This process varies hugely by US State and even between institutions within the state (even when they are State schools in the same system!), but suffice it to say that this is an extremely common problem in America and you have to be careful and plan accordingly.

Admissions Considerations

Finally, you asked about how this might effect perceptions of you in terms of admissions or otherwise. The most important thing I've seen is that once you've had a semester or two at any college, most colleges no longer put much weight into your high school grades, SAT scores, etc - if they even require them at all. So it is very common that people will not do great in high school, go to a local or otherwise non-competitive college for a few semesters, get really get good grades, and then apply to more competitive institutions. Most Universities understand that proven experience in a college setting is a far better predictor of academic success than any high school transcript or standardized test can possibly be, and then put little weight into anything they have to say. This can backfire on you, of course, if you didn't do well at your last program but did better in the past.


From an undergrad school of Math to a grad school of Computing just to learn Computable Analysis — What are the consequences?

Computable Analysis as a subject sits on the border of mathematics and computer science, and correspondingly, you can find researchers from this area in either kind of department. There is not much correlation between whether a given researcher works on the more CS or on the more math aspects of computable analysis and what department they are found in. Either kind of grad school will have courses which are helpful in becoming an expert in computable analysis, and others that aren't. As such I would not put much weight on whether a department is CS or math in figuring out whether it is the right place for you to pursue computable analysis as a subject.

As computable analysis is a rather niche subject, you'll only find it in select places. In Korea, KAIST is indeed the place to go for it. If you do want to do computable analysis at a math department, you could eg go to Japan instead. A source for who is active in this area, you can consult
http://cca-net.de/members.php
although this list is not that terribly up-to-date.


Getting into math ten years after a BA in English

If you want to go into math, should you get a BSc?

I'd say "yes". It often is quite doable to pick up a new subject on your own if you have academic experience, but English and Mathematics are so far apart that I'd doubt there would be a lot of synergy. Mathematics has its own way of thinking, which is probably picked up best by going through an undergrad degree.

Should you go into math?

Enrolling for a degree is of course a rather strong decision. In my experience quite a few of those who start anew later in their lifes drop out rather early. Maybe taking an online course first could both be a good preparation if you go through with it, and helpful to figure out if you really want to it.

Can you get in somewhere?

I don't know about your country, but both the UK and Germany often have places reserved for mature students, which have fewer formal requirements. So in those countries, getting into a decent program would be quite doable.

A final comment

For me at least mathematics is great fun. If you believe you'd like it, and you are willing to put in the effort, give it a try.


How do I check the ranking of an engineering conference, and determine whether presenting there will be useful for my CV?

It is a legitimate IEEE conference organised by the local IEEE section in Illinois and its proceedings will get indexed to IEEExplore. Also the University of Illinois is well-known for its Power Engineering - Power Electronics area so you will get to meet some people in the area.

On the other hand, it is not one of the major PES conferences for the year so do not expect many sessions or huge audiences in the conference. you might want to consider that especially if you plan to travel from abroad and need to pay flights - accomodation - registration. Last year's table of contents is available here so you can judge for yourself:http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=7064877

(Probably you should have searched these before you submitted the paper and not after it has been accepted!)


Is it realistic for a postdoc to negotiate for a private office?

The big issue in having a private office is available space.

Most departments have a limited amount of space available, and what is given to any particular research group is correspondingly restricted. There may not be a private office available to the group, in which case it wouldn't be possible to accommodate such a request. In addition, if there's a more senior person, then usually such an individual would have a "higher claim," so you might not get one.

Of course, if you never ask, you'll never know.


Conference management software (preferably open source) with custom fields

According to the developer, the non-free version of easychair can support something like this:

  We have a similar functionality in the registration module (non-free).
  All your requirements are related to conference registration, not to
  paper submission.

However, the "registration module" is very difficult to find.


A research question with subquestions, and all with hypotheses: Numbering schemes?

I can't tell whether this would work, but here's a possible way out:

Number all your research questions, as follows:

Question 1.1 (~RQ)

Question 2.1 (~SQ1)

Question 2.2 (~SQ2)

etc.

You can treat this as a hierarchical outline, for example, within 2.1 you could have (a), (b), etc.


Co-authorship has (almost) nothing to do with conference registration.
Normally, each person who wants to go to the conference has to register for the conference or else, you know, the conference won't let them in. Just like each person who goes to see a movie has to buy a ticket.
And if you're going to present a paper at a conference, then you need to be at the conference, thus you need to "buy your ticket" and register.  If you co-authors want to be at the conference, they have to register too, whether or not their names happen to be on the paper, and if they don't want to go to the conference they don't have to register.
The only way that co-authorship ever connects to conference registration is for certain conferences that require you to pay for at least one registration per N papers (e.g., if N=2 and you're going to present three papers, then one of your co-authors has to buy a registration even if you're the only one going).  I find that obnoxious, but that's the economic model these conferences have chosen.


This is likely to be fine. You should look a the most recent 1-2 volumes of the journal you most want to publish the paper in and copy the disclaimer wording and placement that is used there.


As a copy editor for a professional journal, how far should I go in adjusting the wording of an article?

I think a reasonable rule to follow when editing an accepted manuscript prior to publication is to make the minimum changes required to conform with proper grammar as well as whatever style guide your publication uses. (The latter might include, for instance, citation formats as well as the use of British versus American English for spelling.)

If there is ambiguity in editing possibilities, I would propose the change to the authors, but also, if possible, flag it as an "author query" to ensure that the change is viewed and a consensus reached.


This happens all the time and everywhere.  Strategic decisions about who to interview or make offers to are based not just on perceived quality or market value, but also broader considerations of fit.  It's an unavoidable part of the job market, and I'm not convinced it's even a bad thing overall, since it makes the job market work much more smoothly and efficiently.

This is a tough issue to resolve as an applicant.  There are several reasons why it can be ineffective just to tell the department that you really want to go there:

They may not believe you.  They may suspect you of deliberately exaggerating your likelihood of accepting just in order to get an offer, perhaps so you can use it to help negotiate a better offer elsewhere.  (The academic job market is exactly the sort of high stress, high stakes environment that brings out some people's worst sides.)  Even if they're convinced you're completely honest, they may feel you'll change your mind once you learn more about your other options, or that if you come you'll end up feeling like you made a mistake and they'll have a bitter, resentful colleague who wants to leave.  An applicant who suffers from imposter syndrome may say "Wow, I'd be thrilled to get an offer from University X, which is the best job I can imagine getting" but might not remain as thrilled after getting offers from A, B, and C as well.
Many reasons you could give may be viewed as kind of insulting.  If you explain that you really like the city or want to live near relatives, then it can come across like you are saying "Sure, your department would otherwise be beneath me, but I'm willing to put up with you for non-academic reasons."  The department might be willing to hire you even if they think you feel superior, but they won't be happy about it.  In order for this to work, you have to be very careful about tone.  Two-body problems are widely accepted as an understandable reason, and of course academic reasons can be highly effective, but anything else has the potential for giving a bad impression if you aren't careful.

So announcing your preferences may not always work.  Still, it's really your only option, so it's not worth worrying too much about how it might fail.  To put things more positively:

Try to emphasize aspects of the department that excite you, and not just side benefits such as location.
It's often more effective if you or a mentor convey this information through personal contacts, rather than just talking with the search committee chair.  In particular, hearing from someone senior can add credibility: there have been a number of times I've reassured a department that a student genuinely wanted to work there (and wasn't just confused or suffering from imposter syndrome).
If you already have an ostensibly more impressive offer and can say "I would very likely turn down my offer from University A in favor of a compelling offer from you," it carries a lot of weight.  At the very least, it eliminates the fear that you don't understand your options.  (But say this only if you are quite sure!  If there's even a small chance you would choose A after all, then you should make it clear that you have not made a final decision and might change your mind.  It's unethical to try to manipulate anyone.)


How to turn down a Postdoc scholarship offer after signing a contract

I upvoted both of the other answers, but in my heart I agree with xLeitix: academics live and die by their honor in a much more extreme way than is the norm in the contemporary Western world.  I should admit that my views on this are more absolute than those of some of my colleagues (with whom I have had occasion to discuss issues of reneging on signed contracts).  When I hear people say that it is okay to behave absolutely unethically -- even illegally, but counting on the fact that your former employer is not going to hunt you down and pursue a surely thankless legal action -- because they have to look out for themselves first, it really worries me.  Such a person is baldly stating that ethics can be thrown out the window when the consequences are important...which is of course the time when ethical considerations matter most.

What stops a person who has reneged on a job from reneging on a future job?  What stops them from engaging in unethical academic behavior in any of a hundred different ways?  Beyond the student level, academia is almost entirely self-policing.  In my field, if someone releases a preprint, and I respond by saying that I have independently proved the result but hadn't released it publicly yet, there will be some followup questions and discussion, but unless I give them an excellent reason not to, people will believe me. In science, every time you write a paper describing an experiment you did, you don't submit a videotape of yourself doing the experiment, you submit a written description of the experiment...and people believe you unless they have an excellent reason not to.  Whenever you submit a paper, it gets sent to a referee, whom you trust not to try to steal the work.  And so forth: only a small amount of "justified unethical behavior" brings this crashing down.

Once upon a time I was myself in the position of having accepted -- via an email correspondence, not via filling out a contract -- a postdoctoral position.  Just a few days later I got offered another postdoctoral position.  The first position was a great one, but it involved moving to Canada.  The second position was probably even better: it was at a top 10 math department in the US.  (Financially the second position was significantly better.)  But the first position was one that I hadn't even applied for originally; rather, my thesis advisor had made some phone calls and the offer came quickly: people had taken some trouble on my behalf.  What did I do?  I told the people offering me the second job that I was grateful for their offer but had to turn it down because I had already committed to another.  In retrospect, I still feel like the second offer might have been even better for me.  But a tremendously eminent mathematician went on the line and offered me a job when -- for a few days -- no one else would.  Anyone who knows me knows who this person is.  I can be a prickly person at times -- I certainly felt like the "loud American" during my 2.5 years in Canada -- and I imagine that this guy and most of his colleagues know me as slightly eccentric but professionally reliable.  Having people know you as professionally reliable is really priceless if you plan on staying in the profession: for instance, we later arranged for someone to transfer part of his NSF postdoc from this Canadian department to my own department.

What should you do in academia if you want to back out of an agreement?  It's simple: you immediately contact the party you've made the agreement with, you explain why you want to back out of the agreement, and you see what they have to say about it.  They're not going to be thrilled, but they can convey to you how much hardship they will actually incur by your backing out of the agreement.  If it is only a moderate amount, they will probably give you their blessing and the agreement can be mutually dissolved.  If however backing out of the agreement would turn out to really be a significant, tangible, medium or long-term loss for them, then you should honor it.  The OP has done something in the comments which he surely does not realize sounds absolutely obnoxious to more senior personnel: he's made all kinds of assumptions that his reneging will not be so bad for his employer.  And he's making them in the face of evidence that this employer actually did go to trouble: applying for a fellowship is certainly trouble!  If this is an externally funded position then it cannot easily be filled with someone else, and the faculty supervisor may well already have made plans and committed resources for the OP's arrival.  Or maybe not, of course.  Ask!

Finally, the OP doesn't seem to understand why getting a tenure-track job offer might make a difference.  The difference is that every postdoc wants to get a permanent job eventually, and every postdoctoral supervisor and institution wants that out of their postdocs.  Therefore, if you ask to renege on a postdoctoral job because you'd like to take a tenure track job instead, it is much more likely that the response will be: "Bummer for us, but congratulations for you!" or "Well, can you come work here even for a very short time?  That will inconvenience us minimally, you'll get some further training and experience, and we'll be able to say that we placed our postdoc in a tenure-track job.  It's a win-win!" It is however still possible that reneging on a postdoc for a tenure-track job may be unacceptable to the employer.  If they tell you that, then you go back to the tenure-track job and say "Look, I really want this job, but I have some prior commitments.  I am the type of person who honors my prior commitments even when it conflicts with my short-term best interests.  Surely we can work something out?" It is likely that the position can be held open for an extra semester or year.


I have an (UK) ordinary degree in mechanical engineering. Is it worth the paper it's printed on?

It sounds like you're under the impression that fancy degree = job. That is incorrect. Fancy degree is nice and all but it's only the first cut. You will need to back your degree up with actual job search skills as well as technical skills.

For the former, this isn't the right Stack Exchange (use The Workplace). Read up on all the CV-writing, cover-letter writing, interviewing techniques, etc, that are necessary to get hired. Also be sure to make use of your alma mater's career center, if they have one. They'll have not just job listings, they will usually have counselors who will help polish your CV.

For the latter, I hope you didn't slack off during the degree because there's no substitute for it. If the interviewer asks, "here are two vectors, what is their sum?" you need to be able to answer because if you can't, then the rest of your CV is called into question. Make sure you know the basic coursework, and if you can keep up-to-date with the latest news in the field, even better.

Job searches are not easy. Unfortunately, you'll have to help yourself, because society doesn't owe you a job and nobody else will be able to help you pass the interview. On the other hand, they can be done: after 8 months I'm pretty sure many of your cohort will have found a job, and if they can do it, you can too.


OK, I don't know what kind of answer I can give since this is not really an academic related query.

Three things come to mind - and this is coming from someone who spends quite a bit of their time soul-searching and sometimes depressed.

Get out the house. Spend time away from the internet, the answers do not lie there. Turn your smartphone off. Go to the park, go to a museum, go to a bar, go to the cinema, go to a gig. Yes, you can do all of these things on your own. It's not 'sad', it's fun and kind of arty/Parisian. Just spend time enjoying what life has to offer away from your PhD. If you can, spend a couple of nights away in a different city. It can be close, it can be abroad, depending on what's available to you. Go out with friends, discuss your issues over a few drinks. Spend time with people who care about you and will listen to you.
Escapism through art is a good idea. Watch some films, listen to some music. When I am really down, I find that listening to certain artists remind me what's beautiful about life away from the other troubles that often present themselves [I recommend The Moon and the Nightspirit's albums "Regő Rejtem" or "Holdrejtek"].
Even though this is something of an academic reply, I have been going through similar personal issues recently and I would recommend Ehsan's advice here - he earned his 400 rep points there.

Good luck and try to stay positive.


Does the Editor-in-Chief of a journal usually follow the advice and recommendations of the associate editor/senior editor?

For a journal large enough to have multiple layers of editors, the EIC is unlikely to be directly involved in the processing of most articles.  Depending on the journal policy, the EIC may be formally required to approve all publications, but this would be a pro forma step in ordinary circumstances.  For some large journals, the an article may never cross the EIC's desk at all if there are no problems during the review process.

When the EIC would become involved is if there is a problem.  I think this would normally occur when an author protests against a rejection.  However, it is conceivable that an associate editor might escalate a problem that occurred internally, if there was some peculiar problem with the submission or the reviews.

In your case, if you are not aware of any unusual circumstances surrounding your submission, I would assume that the EIC will follow the judgement of the associate editor.


Can I be admitted into graduate school in the US without undergrad degree (if I have master degree)

The simply fact of the matter is that you have to ask each program you are interested in directly. Some schools have a specific bachelor degree requirement, some don't. Like all bureaucracies the costs of bending this rule can be quite large. Being an international student might actually make it easier since the offices that deal with international students have to do a lot of personalized evaluations anyway.  What all schools do have is a contact address for exactly these kinds of questions usually it can be done by e-mail now. So my best advice is to ask directly the people who make these decisions and not the "internet."

Once you learn whether or not there is a possibility of this plan working then you can worry about funding. The resident versus non-resident price difference only applies to public run universities but can be very significant. It does vary by which state the school is in does really matter. For example in North Carolina I know of a person who work for three years as a sheriff deputy (county-wide police officer) who was not granted in-state status at their universities.


How to apply with past postdoc or PhD positions which did not result in publications or recommendation letters due to conflict with supervisor?

As you may realise, telling the story as outlined here to people asking for references may not be sufficient to convince them. If you know an area in physics where you will be applying for jobs, you can make contact with professors in this area and offer your help in some small project (2-4 weeks). Make sure you do a good job and have a good interaction with them. After you are finished, ask them if they could be your reference. If this area in physics is very close to the tasks in the job it should be a more relevant reference, and therefore it will not be too strange that they are your reference instead of your supervisor from the PhD.


Can I use a publication's accompanying source code in a commercial software?

Said source code has no explicit license.

Let's see what licence means:

  a grant by the holder of a copyright or patent to another of any of the rights embodied in the copyright or patent short of an assignment of all rights

If there is no licence, then you are not allowed by the copyright holder to use the code. It's as simple as that. There is nothing that requires anyone to grant a licence to anyone else to use their code, and if they don't then no-one besides the copyright holder can legally use the code. It doesn't matter if the code is public.

Maybe this analogy will help: imagine I paint something and decide to hang the painting in a public space. Can anyone come along and start copying my painting because "there is no explicit licence"? Absolutely not! I hold the copyright to the painting, and you cannot copy, reuse... my painting without my permission. Well, as you say the code is copyrighted too, and there is no "default licence" that allows anyone to come along and copy the code unless stated otherwise; quite the opposite, actually.

Of course, you can always ask the copyright holder for permission, but check who the copyright holder actually is (it may not be the publication's authors anymore).


Application to create 3D figures for papers

In this Wikipedia link you can find a list of different vector graphics softwares available, giving some details on their use and characteristics.

From your question it is hard to say what is it that you want to do and seems similar to this question. Plus, there is probably not a single answer to this question. I personally use Inkscape, which is quite powerful in terms of possibilities and it's Open Source !


The current structure of your CV looks like an academic CV to me. You put too much emphasis on the academic credentials. You definitely need to rewrite it.

What the industry (not industry research) companies are looking for are your skills and experience. They are not interested in how many publications you have or how many conference talks you gave. They are interested in how much you know about solving problems so that you can help them to make money.

I would suggest you to emphasize your programming skills, the contents of your publications (what kind of problems you solved in those papers), the internships, etc.

Don't under-estimate your teaching experience. Emphasize it. Many hiring managers had told me that they like the teaching experience on my resume. I asked them why. They said I must know how to communicate because I can teach. Knowing how to communicate to others is an essential skill in industry.

Good Luck!


What is the impact of a radical change of opinion for early-career academics?

This is a very good question and one that I have given some thought to when my own opinions changed while I writing papers expressing particular positions.

While there are different ways I could see this playing out, I will focus what I see to be the most probable outcome - that totally changing your position on your core area of research (which for a young academic is probably your only area of research) would be a bad thing to do for your career in academia. I feel that it would be a bad thing to do as it would be detrimental for how you would be perceived, and in turn have implications for your ability to effectively befriend other academics and build networks - something which is very important for career development.

Just to be clear about my assumptions in saying that - I assume that academics are much like normal people, and therefore that success in an academic discipline will be influenced by many of the same factors that lead to success in other social systems. Additionally, I am assuming that what you are doing is contrasted against publishing a paper which builds on the prior paper - probably a more common approach. I am also assuming that what you are interested in here is the likely impact on your career.

Operating on these assumptions and my intuitions from my own experiences over the last 4 years, I think that it is likely that your act of inconsistency, i.e., changing your views 180 degrees, would alienate a lot of fellow academics. As you are clearly being inconsistent - in the sense that you once strongly advocated one position, but now advocate another, you will be seen as an inconsistent person, a personality characteristic that people generally dislike/disapprove of[1]. As fellow academics will perceive you as being inconsistent will it is more likely they will like you less and be less willing to work with you. For example, they will be more likely to think that in the midst of a positive professional relationship, you might suddenly going to decide that you no longer share their beliefs; that you might even turn on them and publish a critique on work that what you have done together. Thus they will percieve greater uncertainty and risk in forming relationships with you. This concern may also be shared by those who are considering hiring you. For instance, when applying for a job the review panel might look at your resume and be unsure if you are going to work well with the ongoing research within the faculty - you are not really

You might also end up slowing your reputation gains. People usually associate researchers with a particular position - i.e., "he/she researches x". The researchers who make it are those who become really well known for researching that area. People say "oh, you want to know about x? Have a look at Y". By being more inconsistent you may slow and weaken that association and become slower at building reputation. For instance, if your second paper extends your first paper rather than invalidating it, then it is probably more likely to build the link between that area of study and your expertise as it will involve you covering new content and further emphasizing that you know a lot about this area. In contrast, if your second paper is saying " you know that things I was sure of last time? Well I think I was wrong about it" then this doesn't really signal that you know what you are doing, or that have really figured the area out. It also begs the question; "if you changed your mind before, then might you not change it again?".

[1] Guadagno, R. E., et al. (2001). "When saying yes leads to saying no: Preference for consistency and the reverse foot-in-the-door effect." Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 27(7): 859-867.


How to include incremental research in the thesis

From the point of view of the reader, jumping to the most sophisticated version of a method can be difficult.  A thesis isn't a textbook, but there are parallels.  A textbook often uses an incremental approach starting with almost a toy model to get the basic concepts sorted, before making it more realistic.  The assumed background knowledge of someone reading your thesis might let you skip the first step but not necessarily (don't write just for the examiners). It also allows you to indicate why you made certain decisions in the final version.


Can I write Research Paper on improving results of a Phd thesis

This is standard practice. Someone does work and publishes it. Someone, possibly same people, but not necessarily, improves on the work and publish that. The fact that it is a thesis should make no difference, so long as the work being improved upon reflects the state of the art.


Abbreviations (abbrv.) in journal (jrn) articles (artcs)

In my opinion the general rule is that abbreviations should be used exactly when they make reading easier; in particular, in some circumstances it will be easier to understand a sentence when a long term is abbreviated (provided the abbreviation has been defined of course). The same rule should apply in abstract and captions, except that the cost (in term of reading comfort) of having to look for the meaning of the abbreviation is usually greater.

The problem comes from the fact that we tend to use abbreviations when they make writing easier (or quicker), and this does not coincide with reading easiness.


Will taking unpaid leave hurt tenure process?

Taking an unpaid leave of absence would often factor into tenure decisions. I would begin a discussion with you department head today. Express your concerns. COVID-19 is a very unique circumstance. Surely they could find a way for you to teach remotely if you start a discussion right now.
If I was a department chair, I would be finding ways to accommodate my faculty. But I would also want to have that discussion as soon as possible.
What you definitely do not want to do is wait until a month into the semester to inform your department that you are not going to be showing up. (We had a professor do this a few years ago and he was obviously fired).


Can the publication conference choice affect one's admission to a new academic job?

I can't comment on whether the practice of explicitly pointing out that publishing in top conferences makes a stronger record is common, although I suspect it is taken for granted rather than spelled out.  But, from the perspective of a hiring committee, being published in a top conference generally indicates that

The research is excellent.
The work has been peer reviewed by other top researchers in the field.

Both of these indicators will give a hiring committee a better feel for a candidate's potential for future top quality work.

By publishing in a lesser conference or journal and without those indicators, a closer reading of the publication would be necessary to make a better judgement.

To comment on your question about whether the conference is more important than the work: for most people, I would assume (and hope) the work itself is more important.  But the reality is that hiring committees need to differentiate candidates, and judging by conference/journal quality is one way to accomplish that goal.  Additionally, trying to read all candidates' papers, and then trying to judge the worth of the research without necessarily being an expert in the sub-fields themselves, would probably be futile at worst, and frustrating at best.

Finally, strong letters in support of the candidate are probably almost as important as the research itself, especially if the letters point in particular to example publications that demonstrate outstanding work.


Can an F1-visa student pursuing masters in US teach in community college?

In the US, F-1 visa holders can apply for an extension called Optional Practical Training (OPT) after their graduation. The default is a 1 year extension, and STEM field graduates have a slightly longer period.

Talk to the people responsible for international student affairs in your school for more details.


What is the best repository for Engineering research work in pre-print format?

Update 2020: There is still no widely used preprint server for engineering articles.

There are (now?) a few engineering categories on arxiv, e.g. electrical and computer engineering. Everything that has anything to do with machine learning or data analysis is a good fit, anyway. I have uploaded a few biomedical signal processing papers on arxiv as well. See https://arxiv.org/ for the list of categories.
Very recently, IEEE introduced its own preprint server, "a preprint server for the global technology community": https://www.techrxiv.org/. I could imagine that with the backing of IEEE, this could become reasonably popular in some time.
Of the three preprint servers I mentioned below in 2016, https://engrxiv.org appears to be the only one that's still reasonably active.
https://www.preprints.org/subject/browse/engineering also appears to be reasonably active.

It appears that there is currently no widely used preprint server for engineering articles. Interestingly, there appears to be a bunch of platforms that have all been launched very recently, and which all target (among others) engineering preprints:

Launched in July 2016, there is now (currently only in a preliminary version) engrXiv, which is a dedicated preprint server for the engineering sciences. It is supported / advocated by the center for open science.
There is the Self-Journal of Science which provides an innovative, open peer review process and also allows for publication of preprints.
Finally, there is The Winnower which also provides a platform for an open peer review process.

Unfortunately, in all of these, activity is currently rather low, probably due to the novelty of these platforms. Time will show whether one of these will become really popular.


Applying to Computer Science PhD Programs

At least in the top-4 (I'm an ML PhD in one of them and helped pre-screening candidates) Machine Learning has become incredibly competitive. We almost always asked for 1 publication (if possible in ML, although not always). Third recommendation letter is probably irrelevant, the two most relevant things were the most informative letter (the professor that knows you best) and indication that you can become an independent creative researcher (1st author papers, out-of-ordinary projects or accomplishments). GPA almost didn't matter. Note that I've heard some of these criteria are different outside top-tier.
Applying to CS will likely increase your chances of getting in. I know many students doing ML in non-ML labs, but this also has downsides and you have to find an advisor that accepts you. Not applying to Reinforcement Learning within Machine Learning will also increase your chances (at least last year).
It's hard to know if you have good chances of getting into top schools, but if you have money and time I would apply widely, it doesn't seem impossible. I applied to 10 schools and have friends that applied to 15. It's pretty stochastic, I got into 3 of the top 4 but got rejected by multiple others.
Focus on doing good research in ML, if possible a workshop at a top conference, and impressing your current advisor.
Best of luck!


PhD theses in mathematics with no "big" results or no results at all

Not all theses are groundbreaking. This is true in math as in any other discipline. Oftentimes, an adviser has a hunch that going in a certain direction might yield something interesting, but that turns out to be wrong -- sometimes because the student didn't work very hard, or simply because there is nothing there. For example, in math, the original conjecture might simply have been wrong; it may have been correct but too hard for even a good student to prove; or, maybe most frequently, it is true in some cases for which it was proven but these cases end up looking rather insignificant.

So, from the perspective of a department, what do you do? The student did work, his work ethic was average, nothing of great significance came of it at the end of 5 years, but it wasn't for lack of trying. Some incremental progress was made, but nothing that looks particularly impressive. Do you kick the student out of the program after 5 years? Do you let them work on this for another 1 or 2 years with uncertain prospect? Or do you simply declare victory, bury the topic, and make sure the student graduates in a reasonable time and everyone moves on with their lives?

You will find that this last option happens surprisingly often. The number of real breakthroughs is, after all, rather small.


Can he/she get admission for Phd in U.S/European university?

It is impossible to say with only the information given. It would probably be difficult, however, but more for low marks that the other facts.

The candidate needs to show, in application materials, a high probability of success. Nothing you state makes that success obvious. But letters of recommendation are also important and there can be reasons for low grades that aren't so much related to ability in mathematics. Even extreme focus on a research topic could cause poor performance elsewhere.

A committee would need to consider the entire package. The competition is also fierce and many in the pool won't have the same negative aspects.

It might be marginally easier to do this in the US than in EU as the doctoral education process can be longer and have more room to make up deficits.

But it isn't promising as stated.


How important is seeing the face of the instructor?

I cannot cite studies, but extensive anecdotal observation (maybe 5,000 undergrad students, 500 grad students) suggests that about 1/4 of students do not need, or do not care, about the person who is the instructor. But a vast majority, perhaps 3/4, do care. There is a sense of needing/wanting reassurance from a person, and caring about the insights of a person. The lack of this need/want comes in (at least) two very opposite forms: obviously the oblivious/incompetent failure to see what's going on, but also the relatively-very-competent student who scarcely needs or wants reassurance and has better ways to spend their time. The middle ground seems not to exist.

So, operationally, for almost all purposes, the person who is the teacher matters, whether or not they are a truly wonderful teacher (as long as they're not completely inert as a human being).

(The "funny case" is the few students, both at undergrad and graduate levels, who for some reason expect/demand the teacher to be an automaton, reciting a text, not looking at students, not caring about students, not contributing, not critiquing, not improving. Yet they come to class rather than read the book? Maybe in anticipation of "books on tape", to have the classic text read to them out loud, in a room with other people?)

(The aspect of trusting in the expertise of the instructor seems, sadly, less relevant than the mandated understanding of their "authority". Tsk.)


Why does editor reject when reviewers recommend acceptance?

First, a note: the editor (or editors, or editorial committee) is solely responsible for the decision to publish or reject a submitted manuscript. Reviewers are often (not always) called in and their reports provide help to the editor in evaluating the manuscript. But, at the end of the day, it is the editor who makes the call, so the situation you describe is possible and not necessarily unethical.

It is, however, very unusual, both for the editor not to follow the unanimous recommendation of the reviewers, and even more so not to explain their rejection any further. You can definitely (and, in my opinion, should) contact the editor to:

express your surprise at the rejection, given the contents of the reviews;
ask whether it may have been an administrative error (with the nice streamlined web-based editor interface, a simple misplaced click might have lead to the current situation);
if the decision is deliberate, ask the editor if he may expand on the reason behind the rejection.

Of course, be professional and polite.

If after contacting the editor you are not satisfied with the answer, the only way forward is to appeal the decision to the editor-in-chief or the full editorial board. Details on how to do so should be found on the journal's website. This should not be done lightly, but if you do not get a decent reply from the editor, it seems warranted by the facts of your case. You may, however, want to consider sending the manuscript to another journal, as it will take much less effort than the appeal…


First make sure that you have read all the regulations for the award (in the case of ACM fellows: http://awards.acm.org/fellow_nom_guide.cfm). You see that the nomination in this case is quite some work. Especially question 3 is already answered there: You need five endorsers. Hence, it is expected that you "convince five people to support the nomination".

For question 2 it seems pretty clear that the ACM fellowship is really very competitive, so not getting the fellowship will not really hurt (not getting the Nobel price is also not a big deal for most people).

For question 1: In my opinion you do not need to ask for permission. The awardees do not have any obligations so they will not have any burden from this award. I also think (but I am not sure about this) that is usual to not inform people that you want to nominate them. However, you need to provide a lot of information to the award giving institution and it is also not unusual to ask the person that you want to nominate "I (better: We) plan to nominate you for this award and would appreciate if you could provide us this and that information to prepare the nomination."


Are GRE scores useful in making some graduate admissions decisions?

ETS has quite a bit in defense of the predictive value.  Of course, take it with a grain of salt.  Still, I think you will find less issues with range restriction in their studies (or studies they cite).

https://www.ets.org/gre/research/validity_evidence_predicting_grad_success

https://news.ets.org/stories/gre-test-validity-putting-it-in-perspective/

https://www.ets.org/Media/Research/pdf/GREB-75-08R.pdf


Would it be unethical to not cite a figure obtained from a Q&A forum?

Would it be unethical to not cite the forum in our research paper?

Yes, of course it would!  Similarly, it would be unethical to use a figure without citation from a student's written exam, a newspaper article, a billboard on the side of the highway, a 3000-year-old clay tablet, or a bathroom wall.  If you do not cite the source of the figure, you are falsely claiming that the figure is your own work.  You must give other people credit for their work, no matter how you find it.

  If we must cite any of the available forum links, how are we supposed to cite the image?

You are supposed to find the original source of the figure, and cite that.  Of course, finding the original source may not be possible, but you do need to make a serious good-faith effort.  (I suggest asking "What's the source of this image?" on the same forums where you find the image.)  If that good-faith effort fails, cite whatever secondary source you believe is most authoritative and/or most likely to be accessible to the average reader in five years.  For example:

[1] Unknown author.  http://three-d-pancakes.ytmnd.com/.  Accessed June 24, 2017.


What exactly is "briefly explain your master research project" in a PhD application? (CS field)

Even before you try to answer this, think about developing an "Elevator Talk" about your research. The idea is that if someone bumps in to you in the elevator and asks about your research you can explain it in the two minutes you have in the ride. Think about the key question(s) you are asking. Think about how you approach the solutions. Think a bit about the current state of it.
Once you have your elevator talk you just want to translate it into a slightly more formal written form. Key Question. Approach. Current state of progress.
It doesn't need a lot of detail and should fit on less than a page.

You might want two versions of your elevator talk. One for professionals in the field and another, less formal one, for other people you meet but who aren't in the same field. The one you want in the application is the formal one, of course.


How to make this attribution without offending anyone or looking unscholarly?

My inclination would be to say exactly (but succinctly) what's going on, perhaps a citation like "[A] (cited from [B] but not found in the published version of [B])".


What to use as a identifier for researchers?

What are the most professional, persistent, and commonly used researcher profiles in academia?

Name, surname and current institution. :)

Everything else is just a new fad that may not stand the test of time. Although, among those that you cite, Orcid has the most potential because:

it is explicitly designed to be persistent and used for disambiguation;
its functioning and access model is more open than those of the competitors, and because of this many independent services have started integrating it;
it is backed by a large consortium of publishers and organizations, including those who make Scopus and Web of Science and most of the other (currently) big players in the publishing business.

If you are worried about proving that you wrote the document and not someone else with the same name, consider including a short bio and a profile picture, like it is sometimes done in journals.


I would recommend sending out that reminder email.  As a prof, I get about about 20-30 emails per day (of course, many people get plenty more than that).  After a week if I haven't responded to an email it is usually not because I am ignoring it. Rather, it has been drowned out by hundreds of more recent notes and messages.  Reminders are welcomed -- in fact they tell me that a potential PhD student is both organized and values knowing about my research.

Perhaps a simple response like  'I am following up on my email from May xx, 2016. I assume you are very busy but have you had an opportunity to consider my request?' with your previous email included within the email as a reply.


As a student, how to deal with low quality tools in lab assignments?

The answer for your question is based on three cases.

Case 1 -- Inadequate instructions: If you feel that you did not have enough tutoring from the instructor. You ought to request for a demonstration of the exercise. The instructor is obliged to answer. Otherwise you could try consulting a peer for help; one who knows enough to do the exercise.

Case 2 -- Defective equipment: Once you are able to follow up with the instructions then you should be able to detect faults, if any, with the given equipment. If defect is suspected, have the instructor inspect it. Then she would be obliged to set you up with a new set of equipment. If such an arrangement is not available, then report to the department regarding the defective equipment.

Case 3 -- Inadequate knowledge: If everyone is able to execute the exercise without any issues, then you want to contemplate on your prior knowledge of the practicals. You should have clarified your doubts in the pre-lab session. The solution: ask the instructor in her free time to catch up with the basics. Although the better option would be learn it yourself if the TA is really not approachable as you describe so.

If your problem is a mixture of the above three cases, then resolve in the order case 3, then case 1, and then case 2.


Plagiarism checker for mathematics paper

As in jakebeal's comment, if there is actual plagiarism, it will be picked up in the text, so you could use a generic plagiarism checker.  Note the arXiv checks for text overlap and picks up quite a few things (the stated purpose is not to catch plagiarism, but it still does, though mostly "self-plagiarism" as far as I am aware).

That said, having done a fair amount of reviewing in math, this is not something that's typically done.  Ideally, as a reviewer, you should be fairly aware of what's already been done in the area, and at the least, literate enough in the area to search for what has been done.  (One tip: look at the crucial references, and check for papers citing them.)

What is much more likely than outright plagiarism is that some or all of the main results are already published, but unknown to the author.   This may be because the results are not stated in the exact form the author is proving, or just the author wasn't aware of the appropriate papers.  (I once pointed out that one of the papers the author referenced contained stronger results than the author proved--the author just didn't realize it!)

In any case, a proper literature search in the process of reviewing will turn up plagiarism almost all the time if it happens, and moreover is important for a good review.  So my advice is don't worry about using a plagiarism checker, just do your homework.


How much work is preparing a MOOC-ish course

I have a couple of strong opinions on this:

Just because many MOOCs are built around video does not make them a good idea. See this article by Lorena Barba for one example. It is hard to use recorded material well, as I've found from my own experience.
Preparing high quality videos is a job for an expert. If you don't know enough about producing the material to estimate how long it will take, the answer is too long.

I have worked on MOOC-like courses in the past and my experience is that they're considerably more time and resource intensive than standard in-person courses. I also believe that the idea that you'll save time through re-use is generally wrong, if you want good engagement with students. I think there is a lot you can learn about pedagogy, presentation and your field by working on and collaborating with a MOOC, but you've got to put in lots of time - my estimate is that setting up a MOOC style course is more than twice the effort of a standard course, and if you're recording video to a decent standard I'd raise that multiplier considerably.


Is it common to feel anxious when reading papers?

It's good to be passionate about your studies.

It's not good to suffer to the extent that you are.

The objective view of the academic problem you described is that getting better at analyzing logical arguments is good training for you in your studies, regardless of which argument turns out to be valid in the long run.  However, it sounds like you have a hard time detaching your self-esteem from the question of which one is valid.

There is a way to desensitize, and develop more detachment.  It's called Exposure and Response Prevention, and it was discovered as a treatment for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.  (Important note: I am NOT expressing an opinion as to whether you do or do not have OCD.)

Here is an interesting quote from an article about OCD by Fred Penzel:

  In the 19th century, OCD was known as the "doubting disease." OCD can make a sufferer doubt even the most basic things about themselves, others, or the world they live in. I have seen patients doubt their sexuality, their sanity, their perceptions, whether or not they are responsible for the safety of total strangers, the likelihood that that they will become murderers, etc. I have even seen patients have doubts about whether they were actually alive or not. Doubt is one of OCD's more maddening qualities. It can override even the keenest intelligence. It is a doubt that cannot be quenched. It is doubt raised to the highest power. It is what causes sufferers to check things hundreds of times, or to ask endless questions of themselves or others. Even when an answer is found, it may only stick for several minutes, only to slip away as if it was never there. Only when sufferers recognize the futility of trying to resolve this doubt, can they begin to make progress.

I'm not sure your particular trigger of discomfort could be found in any of the books on self treatment for OCD.  I used Amazon Look Inside to check one such book with very positive reader reviews and it seemed to me that it would be quite annoying for you to try to work with.  However, the description of the technique and what happens physiologically might be useful for you.  It's in Chapter 4 of The OCD Workbook: Your Guide to Breaking Free, by Bruce Hyman and Cherry Pedrick.

I have written about my family's experience with ERP in this answer.  (But note, that question is quite different from yours.)

Here is your description of what triggers your strong reaction:

  When I hear people talking loudly about things I (like to pretend I) know something about and their opinions sound just wrong to me and it would be inappropriate to go over there and have a discussion. Or listening to authorities on the radio when I disagree with them. I seem to hate disagreeing with people without having a chance to tell them so.

If you want to work on this with ERP, on your own, Step One would be to make a list of situations that make you itch to show someone the error in his reasoning.  It would be good to try to come up with at least ten different situations.  You could write a draft and then come back to it a few times to see if you can add some situations to the list.

The next step, after you have a good-sized list, is to rank them according to how hard it is to keep quiet about the person's erroneous reasoning (or "reasoning" if you will).

It is often possible to do the ranking in one sitting.  However, it's probably a good idea to put the ranking away for a few days before proceeding on to the next step.  The list, with the ranking, is called a "map" or "hierarchy."

To explain the next step, let me suppose that the situation that ranked as a "1," in other words, that caused the least discomfort, is the following:

  I am in at the fish counter in the grocery store, waiting my turn, and the fish counter clerk is telling a customer absolute nonsense about how to cook the fish the customer is buying.

Let's say this is something that has happened to you at least once, and is reasonably likely to happen again, because a particular clerk at your local store likes to shoot off at the mouth, without really knowing anything about cooking fish.  (This is just an example....  Bear with me.)

Now you could structure an exercise around this.  It could be, for example, hang out at the fish counter for a while at a high-traffic shopping time.  Listen to the clerk spouting nonsense.  Write down at intervals how strong your itch is to make a correction.  You could use a 1 to 7 scale or some other scale.  You can find out what a good interval is for you through trial and error.  My son was told to check his "temperature" at one minute, two minutes, five minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes, etc.  But we found the following to work better for him: 10 seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, one minute, one and a half, two, two and a half, etc.  (Those are approximate.)

You have to hold yourself back from making the correction.  As time goes by, you will see the urge to correct subside.  It often increases before it decreases, and sometimes the curve has two humps.  But it does subside eventually.

It is possible to do this alone or with a friend or relative in a "coach" role.  The coach shouldn't reassure you, but it is okay for the coach to help you find something funny about the situation.

You have to repeat the exercise approximately every day.  It usually takes my son about 10 days to get to where the exercise is no longer challenging.

When you're done with Item 1 from your list, you proceed on to Item 2.

You may find it helpful to take notes about your physiological response as you are resisting the urge to provide a correction.

What's going on: your body cannot sustain the high adrenaline response indefinitely.  After some time (it might be five minutes, it might be two hours), your body will stop fighting, you won't feel that strong urge to explain just how wrong the clerk is, and you'll be able to go home.

The key to the whole approach is that you progress through the situations in a very graduated, step by step way.

It can be helpful to use calming breathing techniques as one is doing the exercises.

Alternatively, you could work with a therapist.  The International OCD Foundation helped me find someone in my area.  (There is a shortage of therapists trained in doing ERP.)


Is it possible to contribute to academic research after retirement from the industry?

A non-negligible amount of people start a PhD after retirement from industry. Depending on where you are in the world, if there are coursework requirements, having a master's may exempt you, so this can give you a fairly unrestrictive but very beneficial environment to do research in. If furthermore you have a comfortable retirement package and don't need funding you will be a very attractive candidate.


Do admissions care how close a TOEFL score is to the minimum?

The answer is "sometimes."

Some schools will not care what the score is, as long as you have the minimum requirement that they advertise publicly.

Some schools won't care, even if you don't have the minimum requirement (they may "waive" this requirement routinely).

Some schools will care: they may have one public requirement, and a higher (unpublicized) threshold that they really use in most cases. (Or: the school has one minimum and the department has a higher, unpublicized one.)

Some schools will care: the minimum is required to get your application looked at, but even if it is met they still consider the score in admissions decisions.


I think you will need to provide more information before anything else can be determined. However, a few pieces of advice can be given
First, try to read up on the plagiarism guidelines of your institution. Reach out to teachers and/or colleagues to get a better sense of how plagiarism works where you are. It is essential to familiarise yourself with the system in delicate situations like this.
Secondly, you claim that you copied and pasted a lot. You also claim that even the spelling mistakes that you made were the same as those made by others. This seems like a clear case of plagiarism, although your institution's views may differ a little. From my personal experience, even if there is an open book exam, you aren't allowed to copy-paste answers. You have to attempt the questions yourself, you can just refer to outside sources for help. Copying answers would defeat the point of a practice exam, thus presumably wouldn't be allowed. It would be advisable to admit this to your professor honestly when discussing the issue with him/her. Lying or making stories could land you into bigger trouble.
Finally, you should definitely talk to your professor, and other relevant authorities about this. Tell them the full story, apologize if you did anything wrong and then explain to them your problems with computers. If they understand your problems, you might be treated more leniently. Even if they don't treat you more leniently, it is unlikely that you will be reprimanded for trying to explain the situation.


How to deal with coauthors that have left academia

First of all, it doesn't matter where, how, or even if a person is employed.  Science can be done by anyone, anywhere, "academia" or not. Assuming the person has made significant contribution by the standards of your field, the only things that matter are:

Is it possible to contact them?
Do they want to be an author?

If they have contributed significantly and want to be an author, it is dishonest to not list them as an author.  If they've dropped out of research entirely, you may find yourself doing the writing work without their help, but they still should be an author.  If you can't contact them, err on the side of inclusion.

In fact, this is a place where I disagree with the letter of the Vancouver Protocol, which states that somebody can only be an author if they are significantly involved with preparation of the manuscript.  The spirit of the Vancouver Protocol is to prevent "gift authorship" and other unethical types of inclusion.  Imagine, however, writing an acknowledgement that says: "John Smith did all of the experimental work, but the long hours burned him out, so he left for a job at Netflix and we cut him out of the author list."  To me, at least, this feels like denying credit inappropriately.


In principle, it is possible to make changes up until the point that final proofs have been submitted. However, at a well-run journal any attempt to add an author after acceptance would require approval from the journal's editor, and they would likely require an explanation for why this change is being sought before agreeing.
The reason for this is to guard against various forms of misconduct, especially:

subversion of the review process, e.g. by concealing conflicts of interest;
offers of authorship as a reward/bribe.

If the editor is satisfied with your explanation, they will allow you to add authors. If they are not, the result is likely to be that the paper's acceptance is rescinded, and it is rejected from the journal. Note that many journals require the corresponding author to certify that they have included all relevant individuals as authors as part of the submission process, and admitting that you lied here does not do much for your credibility.


The safest way to express your gratitude is to (hand)write a thank-you-card. In all likelihood that will be appreciated just as much as a gift, and is guaranteed not to cause any trouble.


Should I ask a professor for the third time for a letter of recommendation?

I was in a similar position as you a few months ago.

Given the deadline, it matters that something rather than nothing is submitted before the deadline. Ask asking for extensions is an unreliable strategy.

Send an email to your professor stipulating that you are concerned about the lack of response (which you are) and inform the professor what your plans are (asking someone else).

No need to ask why, be short and to the point.

  Dear Professor X,

  It has been sometime since the last time we talked about you writing a
  letter of recommendation on my behalf. I am concerned that your
  silence is indicative of your unavailability to write a letter. I know
  you are busy and I understand your time constraints.

  In the meantime I’ll be asking [you can choose to be specific or
  vague].

  Thank you for your time and consideration.

  Best regards,

  [Your Name]

Make sure the second letter writer is willing and able to submit in time.


These are a possible recommendation based on your experience. Again, such questions are considered shopping question here in academia.SE. Caution: This is not an optimal set of topics you might be interested in.

Information retrieval (text, multimedia)
Search Engine Optimisation
Database ontology
Information security over the web
Data mining (This is a vast area, converge to something relevant)

Hope, this helps!


What is the effect of choosing the wrong topic(s) during conference paper submission?

Yes, this helps organize the papers for the reviewers and structure the conference. Ticking the wrong box can indeed cause a paper to be rejected, as not all reviewers read all of the papers and realize that it is just misplaces. Do choose these with care.


What should a supervisor do about a PhD student who does not try to improve?

Dealing with wayward students comes with the territory of being an academic. Not every student will be successful and, unfortunately, you have to be prepared to deal with that.

It sounds like the situation has gotten out of hand, as it has gone on for years. Expectations need to be set early and often, so that, if things do go off track, the problems are addressed as soon as possible.

The other answers offer good suggestions, but your comments suggest that you [I'm assuming you are the student's supervisor] are worried about how it affects you. So I will offer a different suggestion:

Involve other (more senior) faculty from your department.

If you involve other faculty, they will share the responsibility for the outcome (thereby reducing the possible damage to your reputation) and, more importantly, they will be able to give you better advice than random people on the internet.

Where I did my PhD, there were established procedures to involve other faculty: Early in the PhD, each student had to pass an oral qualifying exam involving several faculty, which helped identify struggling students and provide feedback. Also, there was an annual student review in which the entire department met to discuss the PhD students one-by-one, which allowed their supervisors to raise issues and get input from others. Finally, each student's dissertation committee was officially a standing committee (although for most students it only convened for the defense). That is, for problematic students, the dissertation committee would convene regularly to assess progress and set goals for the student. The committee thus shared responsibility for "kicking out" students.

Does your department have similar procedures? If so, follow them. If not, suggest that such procedures be implemented and informally approach other faculty in your department for help.

Remember that it is in no one's interest for a student to continue on a bad trajectory (including the student's).


How useful is it to perform a systematic literature review?

A systematic literature review is never a bad thing. At the worst, you have a large database of literature that you can cite in future work. as well as a feeling for where the "low-hanging fruit" might lie. It will also give you a framework on which to build and grow your literature collection over time.

So whether or not you are able to publish it, a literature review is a good thing (within reason—don't spend six months doing nothing but reading literature papers!).


Professor does not provide feedback, grades, or lecture - Do I have the grounds to file a complaint?

Yes, do complain. The value of a teacher is precisely to do things reading books and  watching videos can't do: Answer questions, give feedback, help with gaining insight. If a professor does none of these things, then they're paid for a service they're not providing, and that should concern their employer.

So do go to the department head and complain about it. At the end of the semester, also make sure that you state your complaints in the course evaluation most universities have.


How many on-campus interviews (for a tenure track math position) do you typically need to get one offer?

I expect that conventions for interviewing vary greatly between fields, countries, etc.  I'll answer based on my experience with mathematics in the U.S.

  I was wondering, on average, how many on-campus interviews one needs to get one offer?

At an individual level, you can't say for sure.  Not only is the variance high, but there are also systematic differences between candidates even aside from overall ability: some people come across much better on paper than they do in person, while others interview really well.  There's no way to figure out in advance how many on-campus interviews you will need to get an offer.

However, you can ask how many candidates are interviewed for a typical opening, and that will tell you the average number of interviews needed per accepted offer (just not in a way that says much about individual candidates).  That varies between departments, depending on how decisive they are, how energetic they feel about interviewing, and how much funding they have for the search.  I'd estimate that interviewing three candidates is pretty typical, although I don't have precise statistics.  It's not likely to go below two except in unusual circumstances, and interviewing six people for one position sounds rather high to me (although not unheard of).

So this means that, on average, you won't get most of the positions you interview for, but you have a realistic chance at them.


Do repositories of translated papers exist?

I am not aware of any online repository for translations or even citations to translations, though those certainly are good ideas. The closest existing option would be a translation index, which I discuss below in #4.

For my recent research I've relied on a fair amount of papers written in languages unfamiliar to me (mainly Russian and German), and the following procedure is roughly what I do when I identify a foreign language paper I want to find an English translation of. I figured this out primarily through trial and error because there were many Russian articles I really wanted to read. You may be able to use similar procedures to identify translations to a language other than English as well, though I have not.

Try searching Google Scholar for the author and a rough translation of the article title. Sometimes you can find either a direct link to a translation online or citation information for a translation in print. (This covers a number of databases with a lot of translations too, like the NASA technical reports search and DTIC.)
Check if a regular (cover-to-cover or partial) translation of the journal exists. By now I'm very familiar with the regularly translated journals in my field, so I don't need to identify these any longer. Here are some ideas about how to identify these journals:

Try a Google search for the foreign journal name. This often returns a publisher's website for the journal and/or Wikipedia, either of which often mention a translation journal.
Try checking the catalog of the Library of Congress for the foreign journal, which often mentions the existence of a translation journal. Searching WorldCat for the foreign journal name often can return a translation journal. Also, it's worth looking for collected works of an author on WorldCat, as they'll often include translated articles. And as user1310503 mentions, frequently you won't know the collected works book contains the article you want until you look at the book.

Try searching WorldCat and NTRL for the author and/or approximate translated title of the paper you are looking for. NTRL is produced by the US Department of Commerce, and it lists many translations produced by the US government. It's worth trying variations of the title and/or author's name, especially if the original was not written in the Latin alphabet as transliteration schemes can vary. If you can find the item on WorldCat or NTRL then ask a librarian about obtaining the document (or, if you're familiar with services your library offers, ask the ILL folks or whoever directly). Often you can only get citation information this way, but that still can be helpful.
Citation information for translations produced is often compiled in indices. Typically you look up a journal to see a list of articles translated from that journal. Most translation indices cover translations produced in a certain time period (note the difference with when the original article was written; I can think of an article that was translated about 25 years after the original). Some other translation indices are comprehensive up through a certain date. Below are several which come to mind immediately. Your local library may have one of these or a different series. There is much overlap between these indices, but not enough that you should only check one.

Consolidated index of translations into English. This is typically the first index I check as it is fairly comprehensive. However, it only has translations up through the 1960s in volume 1 and 1980s in volume 2. (In the case of the Smoluchowski paper the original poster mentioned, it's not listed in volume 1. Volume 2 lists translation number 69-16866-07D. As for how to obtain that, your guess is about as good as mine. I asked the British Library and they don't have it.)
World index of scientific translations.
Technical translations. Available online.
Consolidated translation survey. Available online.
Asking the British Library also can be helpful. They seem quite adept at searching through these indices (including their own, e.g., the NLL translations bulletin) and they have a large translation collection themselves. I have emailed them before asking about translations of papers I've had no luck identifying translations for, and been very pleasantly surprised by the results. They have many translations which do not appear to have been indexed publicly, including ones not indexed in their NLL translations bulletin. Obtaining copies of these translations can be rather difficult, though, as they are not always willing to send them via interlibrary loan.
The CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room is a surprisingly good source for citations to translations and also English language abstracts for articles published in the 1940s to 1960s. The CIA seems to have scanned some sort of internal card catalog which had citations for a large amount of scientific journal articles not written in English. Often these citations include information about available translations and English abstracts. Unfortunately the card catalog is often illegible due to the poor quality of the scans. And the search has fairly limited capabilities. Still, I find this is one of the most valuable sources I've checked for translations of articles in the relevant time period simply because it often lists things which no other index has. (Not to mention the translations the CIA made themselves, some of which you can find on the website as is. I also filed a FOIA request for one CIA translation last year and am still waiting for them to finish the request.)
There are also many many other translation indices available. The above was just what comes to mind immediately. Check out some of the links I give at the bottom for more. Additionally, you can often find indices for particular series, and it's not uncommon that these series are not included in the consolidated indices I mention above.

Searching Google Books or HathiTrust can be useful to find citations of translations. Often you'll find the translation indices mentioned above, but not always as for some of the indices, the information provided is rather terse, not including even an author name or title (just the page range, journal year, journal vol., and journal issue!). Try searching for variations of the first author's last name (try different transliterations if necessary), the journal name, the year, and the first page number for the original article. Adding an English translation of the article title may also help. Try both putting the titles translation in quotes and not in quotes.
Some journals specialize in translating selected articles from foreign journals. Presumably these translations are made by request, though I am not certain. One example from my field is Fluid mechanics: Soviet research. The journal appears to now be called the
International Journal of Fluid Mechanics Research
. I've browsed the previous title in the stacks before to look for interesting foreign research, and you might find doing the same for a similar journal in your field to be worthwhile.
Checking articles which cite the article you are interested in. Some of them might mention a translation. Also worth checking are bibliographies for your field. I can think of one translation of a very highly cited article in my field that I was entirely unaware of until I checked a bibliography for my field. (Incidentally, I have never seen any paper cite this translation, or any of the other two translations I identified for this article. On that note, you might find some redundancy in translations.)

Word of mouth can help too. I would not have heard about an entire series of translations had I not emailed some retired researchers about obtaining a copy of a particular foreign paper. To the best of my knowledge this series never appeared in any translation index, and while there is an index of them, it's not obvious how to obtain them. Thankfully one of the researchers I contacted had many of them in a storage unit and he sent them to a university library archive.

If the above fails, you can try checking abstract journals, both in your native language and foreign languages. These depend on your field. Due to the shorter length, it's often fairly trivial to translate a foreign language abstract of an article via Google Translate (few sentences vs. frequently 10+ pages). Frequently foreign abstract journals are translated or partially translated as well, sometimes under a similar name as the original journal, but other times published in an English language journal. For example, old (50s-60s) editions of Applied Mechanics Reviews sometimes have English translations of selected abstracts from different editions of Referativny Zhurnal. For a while the mechanics edition of that Russian review journal was translated as Soviet Abstracts: Mechanics, too.

Another method I've found useful to get some information about a foreign paper is to compile a list of quotes about the paper from articles that cite it. This will often summarize the most important aspects of the paper in a language you understand. Unfortunately, there are some disadvantages. One is that a paper may be commonly cited for one topic, when it actually discusses several topics which are of interest to you. You may never learn of the topics not mentioned in the citations this way. It's also not uncommon for an author to cite a paper without reading it, so some of what is said will be merely rehashing of what others said. The "telephone game"/"Chinese whispers" aspect can come into play as well; I can recall one particularly hard to find paper I tracked down which said nothing at all about a certain subject on which it's commonly cited for. So this may not be entirely reliable.

What can you do if you've identified a citation for a translation but can't find a copy of the actual document anywhere? If you're unfamiliar with obtaining documents from other libraries, ask a librarian as they can help you. You can also search for the translation series on WorldCat and see if you can identify libraries with that series. Often it's possible to buy a translation listed on NTRL (though not always). Sometimes visiting a library with large translation collections can help too. The Library of Congress's technical reports section has proved very helpful to me in this case. Unfortunately, you will not always be successful even if you find clear citation information. It's not uncommon to find out that a translation existed at one point but is now unavailable or inaccessible. Reasons a translation could now be unavailable include it being thrown away, it being misplaced, it being destroyed in a fire, etc. Some libraries do not participate in interlibrary loan, so you may not be able to get copies of anything from those places. A translation could also seem unavailable if few libraries which have translations from a particular series have the one you are interested in. You might have to contact many libraries before finding one with the particular document you want.

After that point, if you really want a translation of the article but have not found one, you could try paying a translator or using Google Translate. I've translated several articles into English via Google Translate now, and while it is tedious and the result often is not ideal, I do find it to be worthwhile for certain articles. As an example, here's a series of three 1938 articles which I translated from Russian and posted to my university's repository.

I am less knowledgeable about finding translations of books. I check WorldCat for the authors of a book I'm interested and sometimes am successful. Sometimes you may find translations of isolated chapters listed in the translation indices. For translations of books to English, contacting the British Library may also be useful as I recall they had a special program for this at one point.

This is a rather large topic, actually, and I certainly have missed a lot, so feel free to ask any questions and I'll do my best to answer them.

Other guides with additional information about obtaining translations:

"How to obtain a translation" by Betty B. Brociner (1977) (Dated, but has a lot of information about how to find translations and also how to request a translation from a translator.)
"Translations of scientific and technical literature: a guide to their location" by Kathleen Wright (1987) (Newer but still dated.)
Caltech
Cornell, another at Cornell
Linda Hall Library


Strict prohibition on overlapping data. Why?

I think you're reading a little bit more into the policy than is actually there - many papers in this type of journal essentially contains data - gels, lab results, etc. That's what they're talking about. What they're not talking about is the corpus of data generated from a whole study.

  Why not?

Because the goal is not to allow researchers to publish repeated analyses of the same dataset.

  What if the two papers analyze rich sources of data that overlap only
  partially?

It's likely not what they're talking about - a rich source of data likely means that the data hasn't been published recently. What they don't want is "The same data as last time, now with a marginally different story".

  What if they have completely different ambitions?

I'd be impressed if you managed to get two completely distinct analyses out of the same data - and indeed, the stance of the journal would likely be that they'd be willing to accept a decrease in salami slicing of papers at the cost of the occasional genuinely novel analysis that's built entirely off previously published data.

  Is the only meritorious activity in science the act of gathering data,
  and to hell with the analysis?

That's reading way too far into the policy - the paper should also contain that analysis. What they don't want you doing is writing four papers on the same single assay or whatever.

  And what does this have to do with ethics?

The idea that a paper should represent a single, stand-alone contribution to science, and that ever more esoteric spins on the same data is a net negative is an ethics in science stance. One you may disagree with, but it is one.


I am part of a “study team” that authored a paper. How do I list in in my CV?

Consortium authors are authors as well, just much less "important" authors than the main authors.  The situation is in fact quite similar to being in the middle of a large author list (e.g., one of my papers where I am 12th out of 32 authors).

As such, you should list the paper in a way that is clear, transparent, and easy for a reader to understand its stated authorship.  Put the paper in your CV with the authors just as they appear in the standard citation, then add a note at the end of that citation that says you were part of the consortium authors.  Following your example:

  Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, John Smith and The ABC Study Investigators, "Totally Awesome Science," Journal of Irreproducible Results, 12(6), pp. 406-453, 2012.
  (Member of ABC Study Investigators)