Why do some publication venues prefer TIFF over some vector formats?

TIFF is the preferred pixel format for print due to being able to use CMYK (the colour format relevant to printing) and being lossless in typical use (using lossy compression cannot happen without clear intention in most programs). Moreover, this was already the case long ago, when formats such as PNG and PDF were only beginning to emerge or not even created and creating a good vector graphics was not feasible for your average scientist.

On the other hand, today where online publication is standard and graphics software has advanced a lot, TIFFs cannot really compete with vector graphics for most applications. Either the TIFF is of good quality, but then its usually huge, which is not desirable for online dissemination. Or the TIFF is reasonably sized but rasterisation shows. Moreover, almost all problems in vector graphics can be easily repaired by the production department, whereas repairing pixel graphics can be much more cumbersome. There are some exceptions where a TIFF is the best choice but even this requires, e.g., that the authors and their programs are CMYK-aware to gain an advantage over formats such as PNG.

So, I cannot imagine that any reasonable production department would prefer over TIFFs over vector formats in most cases, let alone allow TIFF as the only format. Thus, the reason, why the journal is preferring or requesting TIFFs is probably is probably one of the following or somewhere in between:

It was a reasonable requirement twenty years ago, and they never changed it.
The person making the specifications asked the production department which format they prefer for graphics, and they answered with TIFF. The actual question, namely which format they prefer scientists to use for submitting graphics, would have probably received a different answer, but was never asked.

Note that the specifications you linked seem pretty reasonable to me at first glance and also marks EPS as a preferred format alongside TIFF. Moreover, it mentions embedding fonts, which only makes sense for embedding text as a vector object, which is not possible with the TIFF format at all.


The good chalkboards appear to be made of porcelain enamel fused to a steel core. See this site for more details on the manufacturing process. As JeffE mentioned in a comment on another answer, cheaper chalkboards are made by painting wood or chipboard with a special chalkboard paint. Although these are good for crafts, they are NOT the kind you want to have in a classroom. They have to be primed with chalk before the first use and after being cleaned with a damp cloth. Also they will often have to be given another coat of paint after being used for a while.

For non-squeak writing, break long pieces of chalk in half--this will usually take care of the problem! I have noticed that regular, i.e. daily, sponging with an all-purpose cleaning solution also helps to prevent smearing while writing/erasing.


Why doesn't arXiv have a comment section?

Comment systems cost money to develop and moderate.
Some people may not want their preprint commented on.
You can comment by submitting your own preprint.
Third-party sites provide this service.
Journals do not not have comment sections on their websites.
I doubt many people are asking for a comment section.


Try this: "Professor Smith, I'm glad we met the deadline, but I think I should tell you that I ended up doing all the work myself.  I had asked Bill to get up to speed on the drawing tool so that he could jump-start me when the time came, but he didn't.  Perhaps next time, you could ask us to develop a plan for partitioning work, which you would then approve."

You've let him know what happened.  More importantly, you've suggested a way to prevent such problems in the future.  It's a solution that doesn't require much of the professor's time, either.  (And, if the "approved plan" doesn't work, at that future time you could suggest progress reports from each team member.)


Preface requirements concerning acknowledgement

The acknowledgments part is the only place where you are completely free to write whatever you want. You are not legally or morally required to write anything unless you agreed to previously. Some funding entities, generally private companies may require you to do so (e.g. NVIDIA gives free GPUs to researchers with the condition they acknowledge NVIDIA in papers).

I've seen people in this site mentioning that they acknowledged God, a fictional dog and non-existent people. Just write what you want.


In a PhD dissertation, can one copy the structure of the acknowledgment section from their own or from someone else's prior work?

First, throw away everyone else's acknowledgements sections. Ignore them.

Second, think of all the people to whom you feel grateful, and write down your thanks in whatever way feels natural to you.

It really is that easy. There's only so many ways to say something, so if it sounds similar to someone else's, so what? As long as they are your own heartfelt words, no one will notice or care.


What rights do students in the U.S. have re gender pronouns?

I think another answer here is misleading, so I am writing to clarify what federally protected rights transgender students in the U.S. can reasonably expect at this time.

As things currently stand:

The federal government is not allowed to pursue Title IX investigations that interpret Title IX's sex discrimination prohibition to include discrimination based on gender identity.
The Department of Justice and Department of Education have rescinded guidance (issued by the previous administration) that instructed schools to treat discrimination based on gender identity as a Title IX issue.
The U.S. Supreme Court may indicate later this year whether Title IX protections apply to transgender students who face discrimination based on gender identity.

Previous federal guidance in the Dear Colleague letter of May 2016 considered discrimination based on gender identity to be sex-based discrimination. According to this interpretation, Title IX protections would then apply to transgender students who are subject to discrimination because of their gender identity.  This would certainly not have required school employees to use gender-neutral language as a general rule, but that letter did support e.g.

a student's right to ask school employees and contractors to use pronouns consistent with their gender identity,
the school's Title IX responsibility to mitigate (to the degree that they can) the harassment of students due to gender identity. There is legal precedent (see footnote 9 in the document linked above) to suggest that persistent misgendering can be considered sex-based harassment if it is severe or pervasive: "Persistent failure to use the employee’s correct name and pronoun may constitute unlawful, sex-based harassment if such conduct is either severe or pervasive enough to create a hostile work environment"

However, this interpretation - that Title IX protections apply to gender identity - was challenged in the courts in Texas v United States. An August 2016 injunction bars the federal government from enforcing the interpretation of Title IX put forth in the Dear Colleague letter:

  Defendants are enjoined from enforcing the Guidelines against Plaintiffs and their respective schools, school boards, and other public, educationally-based institutions. Further, while this injunction remains in place, Defendants are enjoined from initiating, continuing, or concluding any investigation based on Defendants’ interpretation that the definition of sex includes gender identity in Title IX’s prohibition against discrimination on the basis of sex.

The U.S. Department of Justice indicated an intent to appeal that Texas decision, and in November 2016, asked for a partial stay on the injunction, arguing that the injunction should only apply to the states involved in the lawsuit. A hearing on that motion for a partial stay would have taken place in February 2017. However, the new administration's Department of Justice withdrew that motion just before the scheduled hearing, noting that the "parties are currently considering how best to proceed in this appeal."  Shortly afterwards, the Department of Justice and Department of Education issued a new Dear Colleague letter withdrawing the guidance in the May 2016 letter.

Meanwhile, in March 2017 the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a related case, in which they may decide whether Title IX protections apply to gender identity. This case, too, is complicated by the withdrawal of the May 2016 letter, a move that has been communicated to the court.


What tense to use when writing a thesis?

The answer to this question varies across disciplines. Your dissertation presumably falls within some academic discipline. Look at other papers in the same discipline, and see what tenses they use. For example, unlike your suggestion, in math papers the abstract is usually present tense.

If some of the premier journals in your discipline have a style guide, look at these style guides and see what they say.

The journal Nature, in which the majority of articles are in the  sciences, has the following suggestions for verb tense (I've left out a few of their examples):

  Past tense

  Work done

  We collected blood samples from . . .
  Consequently, astronomers decided to rename . . .

  Work reported

  Jankowsky reported a similar growth rate . . .
  In 2009, Chu published an alternative method to . . .

  Observations

  The mice in Group A developed, on average, twice as much . . .
  The conversion rate was close to 95% . . .

  Present tense

  General truths

  Microbes in the human gut have a profound influence on . . .
  The Reynolds number provides a measure of . . .

  Atemporal facts

  This paper presents the results of . . .
  Section 3.1 explains the difference between . . .
  Behbood's 1969 paper provides a framework for . . .

  Future tense

  Perspectives

  In a follow-up experiment, we will study the role of . . .
  The influence of temperature will be the object of future research . . .


When do I need permission for translating scales to my native language?

It depends on how the scale is disseminated and applied. Most of these tests can be used as is, but some tests are on a fee per use base. You will need to check how it is administered.

Do not use "did not say anything about copyright" as the benchmark. The authors might not be aware of it, but they can still own the right.

I am not sure what is the custom in your field but I would at least e-mail the authors to inform them. If anything having own's work adopted elsewhere is a great recognition. They may also give you advices on validating the translated scales. And of course if you go on to publish it, citation of their work will be expected.


Searching for collaborators in a specific university

Web of Science can do this to some extent.

Go to Web of Science and search the keyword in "topic".
After getting results, refine by funding agencies and look for the institution you want.

I'm not sure how comprehensive this is, though.


Is there any good reason to write "it is easy to see"?

Mathematical papers, especially, and many others, are not written for the complete novice with no understanding of the field. One tries to tailor the explanation of a new concept to the general level of understanding of the audience and tries to avoid being overly pedantic giving every detail and argument back to Euclid.

College lecturers often use such phrases, knowing the level that their students should have attained and, thus, permitting the lecture to flow more smoothly and be less boring.

But writers do the same thing, envisioning the reader of the paper, or perhaps just the reviewers. If I say such a thing and the reviewer calls me on it, then I know I have to say more. But I trust that the reviewer can validly stand in place of the audience and will be able to easily fill such gaps.

When such a phrase is used (we can conclude X) it implies that X flows from the previous statement(s) and isn't just an unsupported statement inserted into the flow. It indicates a hopefully simple, but unstated, argument.

The alternative of including the complete argument is longer, more pedantic, more boring papers.

The other alternative of starting every sentence with "Therefore,..." is also stilted and, eventually, boring. Some variation of phrasing makes the reading more pleasant. Writers, in general, like to have a repertoire of, more or less, equivalent phrases to help the flow.

On the other hand, it has happened that the statement is used incorrectly when it takes a lot of argument and deep insight to go from point A to point B. Sometimes the author just doesn't notice the width of the gap. But, for the most part, it seems to work out.


Novel-like writing style often sacrifices clarity and accessibility, is it ok to use it in scientific texts?

Keep in mind that the goals of a nice fictional book are not at all the same as of an academic paper or a thesis. The former is primarily about entertaining or stimulating the reader. The latter is about providing a certain information (the research result) in the clearest way possible.

The "many things one can do to make the text better" that you mention are geared towards making the text easier to read and less of a chore. While this is certainly also valuable for an academic text, being "easy to read" is ultimately a nice-to-have, while clarity and non-ambiguity are absolutely essential. If you keep in mind that clarity absolutely should not be compromised, you will get an impression why academic texts are written the way they are:

  avoiding repetitions

As you say yourself - if you strive for clearness, having multiple names for the same thing is not good at all.

  avoiding passive voice

Academic texts tend to prefer passive voice mostly because the "story" of an academic paper isn't about the writer, it is about the effect that is observed / described. Writing the paper like you are telling your mother what you did the lest 5 years would put the emphasis on you and your experiments, rather than the data and the observed effects.

  breaking down long and complicated sentences

Yes, do that. Even in academic texts. It's just not easy for those of us that don't have English as first language. In German, for instance, you are taught from very early age on that short sentences "sound stupid". This is hard to unlearn.

  letting the reader to think for themselves

You will never want to "let the reader think for himself" in a paper. It's not a piece of art. You want to present the facts and what derives from them as clearly as possible, not write your paper in a fluffy way so that every reader can come to the conclusions that are most suitable to her/him.


Is it illegal to share publications not in the public domain with collaborators?

So is any of this legal?

Unless your sharing falls under fair use in your particular country (and with the Internet, sharing online is a tricky business anyway), you should not share the papers.

If you want to share the papers, linking to the original source is the best option, and Google Scholar or other online repositories can get you pretty far with a lot of material.  If you can't find an online source, you are limited to providing a cite and hope that whoever wants to find the article can use their library to source it.

  If not, what are the possible repercussions for me personally, and for the people I sent it to?

Practically?  Unless you are sharing the files openly to a broad audience (i.e., so they are available online), no one is going to track you down to sue you.  I would avoid linking directly to articles that aren't behind a paywall, but emailing them to people you are collaborating with is unlikely to cause you any trouble.


PhD application interviews on same day for different programs

It's common. Departments aren't naive enough to think that they are the only place you've applied to. If you email them in good time and explain that you have another interview, I'm sure they will happily arrange alternatives. This could be a visit at a different, mutually convenient time, or perhaps a Skype interview.  Just phrase your email a bit more professionally than "yeah sorry I'm interviewing elsewhere" (but I'm sure you know this).

I would sincerely hope that no university is petty enough to put a black mark next to your name simply due to a clash of schedules -- but if they did, you don't want to work in such an environment anyway.


Will consistent good work as a referee for a journal make it likely to become associate editor?

Based upon my own experience as reviewer (i.e., a sample of n = 1), yes.

Here is my experience: I review for several different different journals, but have reviewed extensively for one journal. This journal has acknowledged me as an Exceptional Reviewer and I have been asked to apply to be part of the Editorial Board. For this journal, the editors vote on membership to the editorial board. Additionally, editors are usually selected from the board.

The answer to your question depends upon your subfield and the journal for which you are reviewing (e.g., is this a commercial journal or a society journal; also what is the journal's organizationally structure and how are editors select?).

I would suggest focusing your reviews on this journal (i.e., decline reviews from other journals and accept reviews from this journal if you are limited for time) and possibly dropping the Editor-In-Chief (or head editor) an email expressing interest in joining the editorial board. If it is a societal journal (i.e., published by a scientific society), I would also make sure my membership was current and possibly start raising my profile in that society (e.g., serving on committees, networking at their meetings, etc).


Is it possible to work full time and complete a PhD?

I am doing that right now.  I have a full time job and am working on a PhD in Computer Science.  It is definitely possible, but has been the hardest experience of my life.  I am past the hardest part and am wrapping up my first publication.  I've also been at it for 3 years (already had my masters degree), so it's taken me much longer to get to this point than it would be for a full time student.

It has been extremely stressful and you can kiss your life outside of work+school goodbye.  You will also need to be very good with time management and be aware that over the course of several years, there will be life events that pull you away from school.

When I was deciding whether or not to do it, I vastly underestimated the amount of time and energy required.  I'm very glad I stuck with it so far, but I have to say, if I had an accurate picture of the workload I probably would have opted against it.

You need a huge amount of dedication to the goal in order to pull this off.  If you have only a casual interest in the degree, then you will probably fail.  I think I remember somewhere that the graduation rate for PhD's is around 50/50.  Add a full time job on that and the odds are against you.  But it is absolutely possible to overcome that with enough effort.


Is it okay to paraphrase other authors' literature reviews?

Though it is a subtle difference, it seems that you might be rewriting sentences in your own words rather than paraphrasing authors’ ideas. It is difficult to assess your work without specific examples, but it sounds like it is bordering on plagiarism. Others may or not consider this plagiarism, but either way it is bad practice.

Since it is certainly easier to accidentally plagiarize using your method, I recommend taking notes on the pieces you are reading (rather than taking direct quotes/sentences) and paraphrasing your own work. Not only will this lead to a greater understanding and coherence of writing, it will also negate (most) plagiarism concerns.

And as always, cite, cite, cite.


What's the expected level of paper for top conferences in Computer Science

What's the expected level of paper to be submitted to top level conferences in theoritical computer science (FOCS/SODA/STOC)?

Top.  The top level.

My experience on program committees for STOC, FOCS, ITCS, SODA, SOCG, etc., is that there are FAR more submissions of publishable quality than can be accepted into the conference.  By "publishable quality" I mean a well-written presentation of a novel, interesting, and non-trivial result within the scope of the conference.

For example, I was on the STOC 2013 program committee.  We accepted 99 out of 361 submissions.  Program committee members were specifically instructed to limit the top rating to only the top 20% of the papers we reviewed; at least for me, that meant some very hard choices.  Most of the discussion in the last week of the review cycle revolved around papers that were clearly very strong, but were not obviously "competitive" with other papers that were already accepted.

There are several questions that come up over and over in the FOCS/STOC review cycle:

How surprising / novel / elegant / interesting is the result?
How surprising / novel / elegant / interesting / general are the techniques?
How technically difficult is the result?  Ironically, FOCS and STOC committees have a reputation for ignoring the distinction between trivial (easy to derive from scratch) and nondeterministically trivial (easy to understand after the fact).
What is the expected impact of this result?  Is this paper going to change the way people do theoretical computer science over the next five years?
Is the result of general interest to the theoretical computer science community?  Or is it only of interest to a narrow subcommunity?  In particular, if the topic is outside the STOC/FOCS mainstream—say, for example, computational topology—does the paper do a good job of explaining and motivating the results to a typical STOC/FOCS audience?

As a general rule, for a paper to be accepted to STOC/FOCS, at least one person on the program committee must be willing to pound on the table and demand that the paper is accepted, with strong answers to all these questions.  Which means that as a minimum, the authors must have compelling answers to all these questions, even if professional modesty forbids writing those answers into the paper.

Specific criteria vary between different conferences, and not only because of the obvious differences in topical coverage.  A well-written paper that combines existing techniques is a surprising way to obtain an elegant proof of a novel and interesting result, but does not introduce new techniques or require much technical sophistication, is much more likely to be accepted at SODA than at STOC or FOCS.  (I've seen more than one paper rejected from STOC and accepted to SODA with precisely that review summary at both conferences.)  ITCS favors conceptual contributions — new approaches, new models, new problem areas — over technical difficulty.

But at its core, conference reviewing is a random process.  (As Baruch Awerbuch put it: "...whose expectation depends on the submissions, and whose variance depends on the program committee.")  Every submission is a gamble.  Your chances of winning the lottery may be small, but they're infinitely larger if you actually buy a ticket than if you don't.

Write the best papers you can.
Keep your target audience in mind when you write.
Especially if you're submitting to a conference for the first time, get feedback on your paper from a community expert well before you submit.
If you believe you have a reasonable chance of acceptance, submit it.  Be respectful but brutally honest with yourself.  Do not listen to the Impostor Syndrome.
Regardless of the outcome, take reviews and other feedback seriously.  Don't just revise your paper; also revise your writing habits and your mental model of the audience for future submissions.
Rejection is not the end of the world.  It's only one paper; you'll write dozens more.

  Actually someone can try to send the paper to the FOCS/SODA/STOC and see if is rejected then send it to some other conferences, but IMHO this is not appreciated.

It's a bit more subtle than that.  Submitting a paper that might get in is fine.  What PCs really don't like is being asked to review submissions that are clearly below threshold, especially papers that were previously submitted to comparable conferences but were not updated to respond to previous reviews.  (Even when a paper is submitted to several different conferences, it's not uncommon to have overlapping sets of reviewers.  I've been asked to review four different submissions of the same paper.)


When does one / who usually anonymizes data?

All aspects of the privacy and data security of the research are the ultimate responsibility of the PI.  (Though of course, you should not take this to mean that you have no responsibilities yourself!)  In your case it would be a good idea to report your concern directly to the PI for the study, to ensure that it is known.  It is fairly common for research work to be undertaken without anonymising the data, unless this is required for the purposes of blinding protocols in the study.  However, if there is a reasonable prospect of researchers accessing sensitive data for people they know, then the PI should really be applying some anonymisation protocol to prevent this.

As a research assistant for the study, you have a responsibility to maintain confidentiality of the information you access, and you should also avoid specifically accessing the data for a person you know, other than for bona fide research purposes.  In the event that there is a data breach in your study (e.g., a research assistant disclosing data outside of the team), your PI could definitely find him/herself in hot water.


What is the best way to decline an interview after applying for it?

Title
Name
Address

Dear University B -

Thank you very much for notifying me that I am on the short list for position W at University B and for scheduling me for a first-round interview on February X, 2015.

I have recently been notified by University A that I am a finalist for a position at Lab A and they want to schedule a second-round interview, also on February X, 2015.

As the Lab A request is for a second-round interview, I feel that I must prioritize this against first-rounds, even though I am still very much interested in pursuing the position at your lab.

Would it be possible for us to reschedule my interview for Feb (X-7)?  I understand that this may raise logistical concerns and appreciate your consideration.

Sincerely,

User34154


Is it considered offensive to address one's seniors by name in the US?

No, in the US, it's usually not rude to address people you know more than in passing (e.g. are colleagues, classmates, or in their class) by their first name. NB: The question isn't "How should I address a professor?" it's about general rules and behavior, especially (my interpretation) the same university.
In the US, professors, staff, and PhD students would address everyone on their own "level" by their first name. In every department I have encountered, anyone in any of those groups would address each other by their first name, but as others have pointed out, occasionally Master's students maintain a bit more formality.
Occasionally, some professors prefer their undergraduates (especially in large classes) to use their title, whether "Professor," "Doctor," or "Mister/Miss/Mrs."
All undergraduates would use first names, and would almost always use first names with staff and graduate students they are familiar with.
However, it's typically considered polite to start using the title (for faculty, and maybe staff) and to only use their first name when invited, which most people in academia in the US do right away. Often, the convention is people sign their emails how they want you to address them. In my experience, it would be a raised eyebrow to use a first name where it was "incorrect," but would really only elevate to "rude" once someone has consistent disregarded someone's expressed wishes.
In regards to your example, it would strike me as incredibly rude if  a professor took offense at another professor by using their first name.


How to publish an academic book but make the PDF freely available online?

Cambridge University Press allows authors to freely distribute electronic copies of the books that it publishes, at least in mathematics and computer science.  (Of course this has to be explicitly negotiated into the publishing contract.)  Two good examples are Allen Hatcher's Algebraic Topology and Steve LaValle's Planning Algorithms.

You could also just release the book on the web, let people create their own physical copies through a book-printing service like Lulu or Blurb, and rely on the quality of the text to bolster your reputation instead of a traditional publisher's imprimatur.  See, for example, Pat Morin's excellent Open Data Structures.  However, I don't recommend this route unless (a) you write an amazingly good book, and (b) you already have tenure.


Need suggestion on simultaneous submission in journal and conference

It sounds like you've gone in the wrong order, here.  In computer science, it is common practice to initially publish a work in a conference, then the follow it by an extended version in a journal, which is more thorough and takes into account all of the feedback from the conference and advances during the time since the conference version was completed.

Going the other way, however, strikes me as unethical and a form of self-plagiarism.  You have already produced a journal-scale paper, and mining a smaller conference paper out of it is just double-publication.  Now, in certain cases a conference might accept this if explicitly declared (there are some conferences that have a special track for reports on journal publications).  If the conference expects original work, however, you cannot ethically submit your paper to the conference.


For some departments, reaching the candidacy stage means you have earned a degree (often an MPhil, but it varies). If your department gives a degree when you reach candidacy, then it provides a nice break point to leave. Industry might be fooled by it, but PhD programs often know the difference between degrees that you were intending on getting and those that signify a departure from original plans. A degree might have some value Thor industry and PhD admissions, but in general, people are interested in what you have done and can do, and not in pieces of paper. If there is no degree, then reaching candidacy, doesn't really matter for industry or PhD admissions.

While it might not help for getting a job or another PhD, reaching candidacy might give you a sense of closure and/or accomplishment. The value of that is deeply personal, but a lot of people describe themselves as being ABD even if they have no intention of finishing. You need to weight the value of being ABD against the cost of getting there. Often reaching candidacy means taking qualifying exams. Quals can be really hard and if you are not 100% committed you could fail! which might be worse for your psyche. I am not sure anyone goes into quals thinking, I am going to pass and then quit. Did I mention quals are painful. I have since forgotten all my coursework scars, but my qualifying exam scar I think is with me for life.


How can I narrow down my CS research interests when my undergrad institution doesn't have a large CS department?

I'm in an analogous situation. I'm one year out post-undergrad, and am applying to programs this month as well. I also came from a relatively small program, and didn't have a great idea of what direction I wanted to go in.

What I did (and this is perhaps not the most efficient), is I went to the webpages of some schools I was considering, and looked through all of the CS faculty's personal pages. Be forewarned, many of them are badly designed, but a lot of them also have a short description of what the professor's research is about, in their own words. From these descriptions, I started to get a better idea of what did and did not interest me, and it gave me specific people to mention in my applications.

Of course, this approach relies on you having a relatively small list of schools that you're considering. If your list is more than 20 or 30, I could see this becoming too much, or if you have no idea where to start, it might also not be great.


Still no response from potential referees... Suggestions?

Should I interpret their silence as a discreet 'No' or am I to assume
  that they've probably forgotten or the email slipped through the
  cracks, and send them a second email to remind them?

I think you should send them a polite follow up email. Even better, talk to them about it face to face or on the phone so you can get an immediate answer (and one that will be more likely to be positive). I had the same experience when I was looking for a reference. I didn't get a response but then when I followed up on it, it was all good. More generally, I find that busy people, such as academics, frequently let things fall between the cracks and that one shouldn't be too quick to assume the worse.


Applying for grad school without undergraduate background

I agree with the other answers — admitting a student without formal academic background is very risky.

As a first step, I suggest contacting graduate programs asking if they allow non-degree students to take their classes.  If so, taking classes as a non-degree student will let you build up a formal academic background and strong recommendation letters in your chosen field, making your case for admission much stronger.  And if you're admitted to the PhD program at the same university, you may be able to use the classes you've already taken toward your degree.

Taking classes will also give you a sanity check on your self-assessment.  From personal experience, it can be really hard to spot gaps in the knowledge you build from self-study, simply because you don't know enough to ask the right questions.

But once you get your foot in the door, do not just take classes; do whatever you can to get involved in research!

One significant downside to non-degree classes is that you'll almost certainly have to pay for them out of your own pocket.


Legal framework for academic recruiting in UK

I am not a lawyer, but as I understand it, the main legislation that must be followed when hiring in the UK is the Equalities Act 2010, which states that Direct discrimination, Indirect discrimination or discrimination by association is illegal if the discrimination arises from a protected characteristic. The protected characteristics are: age, disability, gender reassignment, married or people in civil partnerships, pregnant people and those on maternity leave, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation.

Beyond that Universities, like all private employers are free to set their own guidelines for recruitment. Most universities do have pretty strict codes for recruitment however, both to ensure they employ the best person for the job, but also to guard against the possibility of a case being brought under the above legislation (if you hired your white sister, rather than a black person, that might be a case of race discrimination).


Can a professor force me to submit my incomplete paper to a journal?

I find this highly annoying that a professor would assign something like this. Submissions take time, time the editors invest, time the reviewers invest. To have student papers submitted that are perhaps not exactly the highest quality is a waste of resources. Journals should record only the best science, not be considered a machine. Did the professor stipulate the journal? There are many journals out there that offer pay-to-publish, and then there is another potentially sub-standard non-peer-reviewed paper out there for search machines to find. I would submit a written complaint about this to the dean.


Accepted by European university, rejected by all American ones I applied to? Possible reasons?

It is sometimes difficult for admissions committees to evaluate applicants coming from universities or university systems that they don't have direct experience with.  This is especially true if they also don't know your letter writers.  It can help to apply to universities where someone in the dept. has some connection to the country you're applying from.  Since someone at Frankfurt knew one of your letter writers, that person may be better informed about your letter writers, the quality of your school, and the meaning of your grades.


Peer-reviewer asks the author for the manuscript to be reviewed by two other experts

Without seeing the actual text, I would guess you are mistaken or the review has a confusing grammatical mistake.  The peer reviewer normally addresses the review to the editor, not the author.  The reviewer is telling the editor that they should select other reviewers.  It is possible that the editor has already done this.  (Did you receive more than one review?)  Probably there is no need for you to do anything.


Acknowledging funds from an award tied to a specific individual

I have seen this kind of acknowledgement. It was phrased something like "We are grateful to Prof. X for supporting the conference through his Andrew W. Mellon Foundation funding.".


Correctly formulate Figure caption: refer the reader to the web version of the paper?

Do I understand correctly that you just want to tell the reader that the colored figure is available online (in case they printed it b/w)?

If so, then the usual approach is to do the following:

  Figure 1: (Color online) This is the caption and there is some stuff here.

This may depend on your field, but the American Physical Society (APS) recommends this.


Single application for several postdoctoral positions

I don't think you can assume that one application is okay.  I can certainly imagine situations where the lab would want a separate application for each position.  Maybe they are going to be reviewed by different people or committees.  Maybe they have complicated HR procedures that you don't know about.  Maybe when reviewing applications for position X, they want to see an application that specifically addresses your qualifications for that particular position, and doesn't mention other things that are only relevant to position Y.

So the safest course of action would simply be to ask.

  Dear Professor MMM,

  My name is NNN, and I am a graduate student at UUU, working with professor SSS.  I see that your lab has some postdoc positions open; I believe that I could be a good fit for any of the positions XXX, YYY, ZZZ.  (Briefly explain why.)  Would you prefer that I send a separate application for each position, or a single application addressing my qualifications for all three?

This could also get you other useful information, such as "I think you would be a better candidate for XXX; for the YYY postdoc we are specifically looking for someone with expertise in BBB."


Is Scimago a good way to rank conference impact?

No. It isn't.

At best, Scimago is a good way to obtain a modified "PageRank" of a publication in the graph of citations between Scopus-indexed publications in a three-year window, with each citation weighted by the similarity of the citing and cited publications, as measured by their common citation profiles.

Even if you accept that Scimago's abstruse formula is an accurate indicator of "impact"—which is debatable for numerous reasons—neither the raw citation data nor the precise definition of "cocitation profile" (on which the formula depends) are available to independently verify Scimago's rankings.

In particular, a few spot checks suggests that Scimago's coverage of major computer science conferences is spotty, and that the data it extracts from those conferences (even for relatively straightforward things like "number of citeable documents") is not particularly accurate.


Is it generally allowed to send a published paper to another conference but in a different format?

Most computer science conferences do not allow this, look for the conferences' dual submission policy.


Switching research areas & PI expectations

My two cents based on this part of your question:

  On one hand, I am very interested in the research we're doing. The 6-months would be a chance for my first not-nth-author publication and could be fun. And my PI seems genuinely disappointed/hurt when I do research elsewhere, which is actually a big influence.

  But I don't want a lack of relevant experience to hinder my graduate school application. I could use that 6-month period to work with a computational lab or a hospital or industry.

You need to decide which option is most valuable to achieve your career goals between a published paper in your current field (be aware that staying 6 more months might not be enough to get the article published) and some experience in a complementary field. You must absolutely refrain from basing your decision on your PI's emotions: of course, all PIs want to keep good lab members as long as possible (and it is flattering to get such recognition), but this is about your life and career, not your PI's, and if you think it is time to move on, that is your decision.

If you're concerned that leaving would be detrimental to your professional relationship with this PI, then you should think about ways to tell them your decision in a professional and non-emotional way. If they cannot accept your rational decision without drama, it is a good indication that you should not spend more time working with this person.


What are the subjects that one must learn while an undergraduate to pursue an academic career in Biophysics?

Specific biological domain knowledge will be something that you will learn in the course of doing research, and can be hard to predict at this point in your studies, because you have no idea what kind of graduate program you'll be admitted to or the specific research field of your prospective advisor.

Therefore, while all of those directions sound fine and won't be wasted if you choose them, I would lean towards the more foundational topics, i.e. Chemistry or Computer Science, that you could use no matter what direction you took in the future. Another option would be statistics, since nearly any biophysics research involving experiments will need a very solid understanding of stats to design experiments with high statistical power, and to make sense of the resulting data without getting tricked by spurious correlations.


(copying from my own comments above with some tweaking)

Lecturer is primarily a teaching position and is not tenure track.  Tenure track comes with research responsibilities.  Entry level on tenure track is assistant professor. If you publish and do well, you might be promoted to associate professor and gain tenure after perhaps 3 to 7 years. It's very unlikely you would "join" with tenure.

If your objective is simply that you'd like to teach at a university because you think it would be rewarding (it is) and you're not so interested in research, you want to be a lecturer, even though it will never get you tenure. And you may be able to do that now with only a master's. These positions often require PhD but not always. It depends on how the search committee decides to write their ad.  You might also consider teaching as an affiliate lecturer.  These are part-time appointments that don't require a competitive search, usually only a faculty vote.


I have been accused of copying two lab reports from the previous year even though I had done everything by myself

In this kind of hearing, evidence will be paramount. "I know I did not cheat" isn't sufficient - that's just a denial. You need more, e.g.:

Can you show that you could not possibly have known about these 2 reports?
Do you have drafts of the report, preferably with time stamps, as you were writing it?
Did you work with anyone else? If so, can they vouch for you?

Offering to redo the reports won't work unfortunately - at this point, it's about academic integrity, not about the grade you get. It's likely advisable to get advice from someone familiar with your department and the academic integrity process, e.g. a faculty member you trust, or student counselors if available.

You might be interested in related questions such as this and this.


I don't see this question as being definitively answerable without a lot more information, both about your background and qualifications and about where you are applying.  Grad schools differ enormously in their approach to admissions in unusual cases.  Some lower-tier schools are eager to take a chance on smart but nontraditional applicants who will be rejected by more prestigious universities.  Others have established rigid rules after having had bad experiences with admitted students who had inadequate backrounds or didn't understand what they were getting themselves into.

Regarding grades, keep in mind that the world has seen a lot of grade inflation, and there are startlingly large numbers of applicants with nearly perfect grades.  You generally cannot impress an admissions committee by having excellent grades, although poor grades can hurt your chances.  Math departments typically care a lot about grades in mathematics and heavily mathematical fields (e.g., theoretical physics or CS), a little about grades in other scientific or engineering fields, and not at all about other grades, except that exceptionally poor grades in any field suggest the applicant is not good at getting things they don't care about done (which is not a good omen for their career).  I.e., math departments don't care if you get a B- in history, but getting an F in history could be a problem.

Recommendation letters are absolutely crucial.  In my experience they are by far the most important factor: other aspects of the application could hurt your chances even if you get good letters, but those other aspects cannot get you admitted by themselves.  If you can't arrange for enthusiastic letters that the admissions committee will trust, then you have no chance at all of being admitted at a higher-ranked school.  It's possible that a lower-ranked school might take a chance on you, but as I understand it every graduate program cares a lot about letters.

As for math papers, it's unfortunately not hard to write a near-vacuous or unoriginal paper and get it published somewhere obscure, and carefully evaluating a paper can take a lot of time and effort (refereeing is hard).  If you simply list a paper in your application, with no evidence of its quality, then it's unlikely anyone will have the time to investigate carefully.  The important thing for graduate admissions is not the publication per se, but rather the research experience that led to it, and you need a letter of recommendation that talks about this research and vouches for it.  (In fact, having such a letter can be very valuable even if the research did not lead to a published paper.)  This means you need a letter from your supervisor or mentor, or at the very least from someone who has read the paper and knows something about how it came about (for example, someone who can single out your own contribution if you had coauthors).  In principle, if you publish in an especially prestigious journal and without senior coauthors, then the journal's high standards might serve as enough of signal of quality by themselves.  However, this very rarely happens with undergraduate research.

So in short:

Bad grades could hurt you but good grades won't serve as a strong argument for admission.
Recommendation letters are crucial.
Research experience could help you get great letters but is very difficult to judge except through the letters.

However, as I said in the beginning, there are a lot of graduate programs out there, with different approaches to admissions.  If all goes well, you'll get strong letters from math faculty and will be admitted in more or less the usual way.  Otherwise, you may have to find a school that is willing to take a chance (usually because they have trouble attracting strong students with conventional backgrounds).


(European professor with hiring experience here.)
A month and a half is not a significant delay, but a quite moderate one. If the professor wants to hire you, it's rather likely that they would be happy to have you already one and a half months after the planned start date! So I recommend to not address it before you have an offer or they ask.
More generally, it's understood that people take a few months to start a new position, even more so in academia, where people typically move between countries for a job. That applies even stronger in the times of a global pandemic, where visa issues alone can defer the start date by many months.


Are there widely accepted rules related to union officers being on faculty senate?

Many faculty senates agree to be governed by Robert's Rules of Order. Buried in it is this clause:

No member should vote on a question in which he has a direct personal
or pecuniary interest not common to other members of the organization.
For example, if a motion proposes that the organization enter into a
contract with a commercial firm of which a member of the organization
is an officer and from which contract he would derive personal
pecuniary profit, the members should abstain from voting on the
motion.  However, no member can be compelled to refrain from voting in
such circumstances.
Citation: http://www.cityethics.org/content/roberts-rules-has-conflict-interest-rule-local-governments-no-conflict-provisions

Note that it says that members cannot be compelled to abstain and so there was no violation per se. So in your case, I think the best thing to do would either to work within the Senate to all for an inquiry possibly leading to an impeachment or vote of no-confidence in the leadership.
If you want to avoid direct confrontation, you could leak this to the administration which would be happy to do the inquiry for you, but this would be seen as highly uncollegial and quickly make you unpopular.
How about asking the Chronicle of Higher Ed to look into this as a third alternative?
Edits: Clarifications and obfuscations.


Yes, you could ask your question, but you could also ask a different one as well. "What do these dying cells really tell us and can we gain some scientific insight from that?"
I suspect that you could formulate it better, but the idea that a "failed experiment" yields nothing is false. Negative data is still data. The fact that something doesn't work is still, in some cases, valuable scientific information.
I can't say for sure that this is the case here, of course, but it might be worth exploring it with your advisor.


The unfortunate case of a paper with extremely slow review process

I suggest just sending another email to the editor, and also send an email to a different editor just in case the first editor is on some kind of weird long sabbatical (it happens). With regard to the paper, your revisions didn't take that much time. After all, it took even longer for them to review it. If you still don't get a response in a month, I'd consider sending an email to this journal to cancel the submission process and then just submit it elsewhere.


What are some way to give praise to a professor without resorting to flattery?

After I finished my undergraduate degree I wanted to thank those professors who were the most influential to me and my studies over the past years.  In particular, those who wrote all my graduate school letters of recommendations and took the time to help me through the process.  I thought about getting them a gift, but felt it was inappropriate.

What I ended up doing was typing a letter to them which thanked them for all they did to me and provided a specific example in which they were influential to me that helped steer me in the direction I was going.  I then mailed it to the department so they received it unexpectedly.  All of them emailed me to thank me for the nice letter and that it was their pleasure.

This would be a really nice thing to do that isn't flattering and full of praise, but what you actually got from them that was beneficial.

Hope this helps :)


Is there any particular date when math postdoc results are typically announced?

I believe that in math the first round of postdoc offers usually go out shortly after the NSF announces who will be receiving NSF postdocs. This usually happens in late January. After that, offers tend to go out when (or if) previous offers were declined.


Transferring math graduate school to another country

I think that definitely it is possible to do a "transfer", although that probably would imply some extra overhead to deal with the requirement fulfilling of your destination university.

I started my PhD in a European university, to move to a US one. I said this because I was in a similar situation and I think that talking openly to your advisor is a key thing. You said:

  My relationship with my advisor is excellent.

I think that if this is really the case, you should openly talk to him for the following reasons:

If your Prof. is reasonable (I am sure he is given your words) he will understand your willingness and ambition and will be able to recommend you what is the best thing to do. Present to him the reasons as honestly as you are doing in here, he for sure is aware of situation.
He will hopefully help you through the process with strong recommendation letters and with recommendations to european colleges that he knows, increasing heavily your chances of landing in a good program.
Offer to keep him involved. If you consider this is a good opportunity for you, it may involve being a good opportunity for him too. Try to keep him in the loop -- maybe he can be your PhD co-supervisor?
Talking to him, if you do it carefully, does not mean burning your boats of staying in your current institution. Once again, assuming he is a reasonable and wise person, if you tell him that this thing is going in your head, that this idea came to your mind and ask for his opinion he will most likely do not consider it disrespectful (in fact you are being honest with him) and he will in my opinion do not prevent you from staying if at the end things do not work out.

Best of lucks!


funding for current Master's students in the USA

In many (I daresay most) departments, funding for Masters students is fairly hard to come by, especially for students in Masters-specific programs (rather than students who are in programs that are expected to roll into a PhD).

There are a number of reasons for this, ranging from Masters students being unlikely to produce much in an RA position before they move on to Masters students actively being used as an source of income for the department (this is especially common for professional-type Masters programs).

It may still be possible to find funding - I occasionally hire Masters students for short term projects etc. but it's definitely more difficult.


Should I submit a mixed theory-experimental paper to a computer science conference where most papers do not appear to include experimental results?

Different communities mean different things by "application."  In a very mathematical community, "application" may mean "figuring out what relevance this idea might have to something in the real world.  In a very industrial community, "application" may mean "has been deployed at industrial scale."  The relative scale of theory and application is also nicely illustrated in this XKCD comic.

I think that you are doing the right thing by looking at past proceedings and asking, "Are these people interested in talking about work like mine?"  This is important not just for getting your paper accepted, but also for the value that you will get out of the meeting, both in terms of the feedback you get and also in terms of what you can learn and the connections that you can build.

For a more efficient route to finding a good community, you can also talk to your advisor or other mentors you may have, who will likely know the communities better and readily be able to provide good suggestions about where to send your paper.


Split paper into two, one was accepted, is it fine to negotiate the rejected paper to be accepted?

Now, can I write to the conference and tell them to review the paper or argue with them that the paper could be accepted based on points made by the two reviewers?

You can try, but what do you have to tell them that they do not already know? They have already read the reviews, thought about them and reached a decision. Unless you can think of a compelling argument that invalidates or rebuts the criticism of the unfavorable review, your chances of success are essentially zero.


What would I need to show to change fields and get into a physics PhD program?

Seeing as nobody else has answered and this is judged not to be a duplicate of this question, I'll quote my answer from there (except with "math" changed to "physics"), which also applies here:

If you're asking about graduate school in the US, probably the single most significant thing you can do is to take the GRE subject test for physics and score well on it. This test covers a broad spectrum of material that is taught in a typical undergraduate physics curriculum, and so if you get a good score, it strongly supports your claim that you have the level of physics knowledge required to enter grad school. Without that key piece of evidence (i.e. a good GRE subject score), graduate admissions committees are likely to look at your statement that you have the knowledge to take graduate courses, contrast it with your lack of an undergraduate degree, and conclude that you're full of hot air, so to speak.
Now, of course there is more that has to be done to actually get yourself admitted. You can't get into grad school based on even a 990 (the top score) on the GRE alone; you'll probably have to present some other sort of evidence of accomplishment that could be viewed as equivalent to an undergraduate transcript. You'll also need recommendation letters and various sorts of essays and forms. But a lot of that can vary from school to school, and is more likely to be negotiable if you talk to someone in the department. The GRE subject score is the one thing you really need to get your foot in the door, so to speak.

Beyond the GRE, probably the best thing you can do to increase your chances of getting into physics grad school is to have some physics research experience, with a good recommendation letter from your supervisor(s), although strictly speaking this is not necessary. However this might be somewhat difficult to get given that you're not currently an undergraduate.
I don't think there's much to be gained by using a masters program as a stepping stone, at least not among US graduate schools; in fact, there are not really many masters programs in physics at all. People who go to grad school in physics typically go straight from their undergraduate career into a PhD program, without a separate masters program in the middle.


Should I accept an invitation to give a talk on dated work?

I'm a physics PhD student, so our culture is a little different, but I've seen people give talks that were primarily about work published multiple years ago. So if math culture is anything like physics culture (and what I've heard suggests that the time scales are even longer for you), I don't think it's a bad idea. Especially, considering the fact that you have been invited to give this talk, it seems they want you there despite knowing that your work will have been out for a long time by the time the conference happens.

If you want to inject something new into it, you could consult with some colleagues in subject Y and ask them what the relevance of your counterexample is. Then you could finish your talk with an overview of what they tell you.


Being under age (< 18) means all kinds of hassle in Germany for employment or similar situations, and university administration will want to avoid this additional complexity for research interns (which are anyways organized in a very different fashion in Germany compared to what I hear of the US).
However, there are research institutions (and universities) that offer Schülerpraktika, i.e. internships for 10+th graders. These internships are usually organized by the school, though. So totally different logistics. Also, they usually take place during the term and are therefore much shorter (e.g. 2 weeks) than what you are likely looking for.

many have excused themselves with COVID-19

Which is likely a very valid excuse:

many universities and research institutes are rather closed down wrt. physical presence for months now, and have announced that they will continue like this for the summer term. Also larger scale politics seem particularly unpredictable right now.
The professors will have to put an emphasis on their already existing students who are hampered in doing the labwork they are required to do by their curriculum first. Volountary internships will have to wait until other things are working smoothly again.

There may (will) be additional hassle, e.g. with accomodation since you are under age, and e.g. you may be required to quarantine on arrival in Germany. But unlike an adult student who can legally be told to organize themselves beforehand how to handle this, you are under age which would put additional legal and moral duties to the professor.
E.g., right now, I don't think the regulations would grant you an exemption if you're already vaccinated. I certainly hope they will by summer, but I wouldn't bet too much on this seeing that right now not even closed groups of vaccinated inhabitants and staff of old age homes are allowed to meet...

OTOH, you could learn a whole lot about the cultural differences between Germany and the US right now...

All that being said, I'm not a professor but I've been at a research institute (doing statistical data analysis among other things) that regularly offers Schülerpraktika. I have no idea about their Covid policy wrt. internships, but you may contact me (see profile) and I'll have a look at your application and see whether/where I can introduce you.
All in all, I think you may want to postpone this till next year, or at least wait and see how things look wrt. COVID-19 in a month.


What's the best way to inform a supervisor of collaboration on papers with a different professor?

In some cases, a supervisor will be happy to have a student work on independent projects as well.  In other cases, the supervisor will be happy for the project to happen but want to be involved themselves as well.  In yet other cases, the supervisor will feel the project is a distraction or problematic for some other reason and strongly advise the student not to take part in it.

Which case you are dealing with depends critically on the details of the people and projects involved, and the best thing to do is for the student and supervisor to talk.  Don't make it a big scary deal, just let the supervisor know about the opportunity, say you're interested, and ask what their opinion is.


Is it OK to use fonts, i.e bold, italic, in an email to a professor or to any other academic?

I think this cartoon answers best your question

In summary, unless absolutely necessary, use a plain text. I you feel you need to organise your text it means your email already too long. If it is a draft of the paper, use an attachment.


In general, CPD is for activities where you are being taught. So while we learn in while teaching and doing research, they generally do not qualify as CPD. In the UK, new faculty need to complete a Post Graduate Certificate in Higher Education (PGCHE). This is a taught course on teaching at the university level. A common form of CPD in my field are one day workshops on good clinical practice and courses on workshops on working with special populations (e.g., children and people with hearing loss). In addition to these practical CPD type things, conferences sometimes have special session CPD workshops which provide tutorial introduction to a field you may not normally stay on top of.

In Applied Physics I could imagine course/workshops either virtual or real on things like laser or radiation safety or proper use of large equipment (e.g., telescopes and particle accelerators). Obviously, they will depend on what you research is, but they might not be things you think of as CPD.


Can my undergraduate research thesis be published in a scientific paper? If so, how should I go?

If your work is good enough, it deserves to be published. It doesn't matter if it is the result of a hobby, undergraduate studies, or your main job as a researcher.

Summarizing it to make it fit into the space allotted in a journal or conference proceedings will be a daunting task, ask your advisor for guidance and help.


My paper is not shown in my Google Scholar profile

Google Scholar's automated indexing algorithm makes mistakes.  It can overlook some of your papers and it may also list some papers in your profile that are not yours.

To add a paper, press the "+" button and select "Add articles" to add articles off a list of possible matches Google found.  Or press "Add article manually" to enter title, authors, journal, etc., manually.

To delete a paper that's not yours, click the checkbox beside it and then click "Delete".


Can someone clarify Hamming's notion of important problems in relation to modern academia?

What are the important problems in my field?, how should I expect to get an answer to this. Is it by deeply diving into literature and finding loopholes that exist. And even if I do find something worth working upon, how do I know it's an important problem of the field or a trivial subset of some other large problem?

I would interpret this statement not so much as trying to look for "loopholes" in the literature, more as trying to identify what the core problems are that are holding back further advancement in your field, and what would need to change in order for them to become tractable. This requires you to deeply understand the existing work, so as to learn what exactly needs to change for your field to really jump forward.

However, I should warn you - Hamming’s approach is certainly a high-risk-high-reward one. If you implement this, you will almost certainly have to invest quite some work detailling and understanding a large number of difficult problems that you will in all likelihood make no progress on during your lifetime. Really important problems invariably don't have a straight-forward solution (or, in many cases, no solution at all), so even if you bring yourself into the best position to attack them in the right circumstances, there is little guarantee that these circumstances ever come to pass (or that you are the first to recognize if some recent development in the field makes one of "your" open problems tractable). That said, if you manage to address even one really big, important problem, your impact will indeed be higher than what you can achieve in decades of incremental research.


When are there reasons to cite more or fewer sources?

Assuming you want to be helpful to the readers (without regard for pleasing the authors of the cited articles), this depends on whether you are writing a guide to the literature, or merely explaining facts and results.

A guide to the literature should include many sources, while saying something useful on these sources. An explanation of facts and results should include as few sources as necessary for the reader to understand.

Not all articles need to include complete guides to the literature. It is not very useful to write a half-baked guide with many sources but no precise hints of why these sources should be interesting to the reader.


How to implement flipped classroom for 18 year olds?

The underlying idea of a flipped classroom is that you use face to face time for things that require it and nothing else. You don't "present" or "cover" material when face to face. This requires a number of things, but it will probably require buy-in from your colleagues as well.

I used to teach an entire degree program with these ideas. As you note, you need a way to keep the students engaged in the course when not face to face. There are a number of ideas for that, some of which require you to change work habits a bit.

It is possible to make the course "round the clock" so that a student can always get a question answered. One vehicle for this is a class wide email list to which everyone, teachers and students, is subscribed. People submit questions to the list and other people, including students, answer the questions. Teachers need to at least monitor to make sure that incorrect information isn't passed around. When I did it, no questions were off limits as long as they were course related. Code couldn't be submitted to the list under our rules, however. I've also used wiki software to the same end, with the advantage that wiki posts can be preserved for future offerings of the course.

To do the above, however, requires that you teach the students that their learning is a group and cooperative effort, not something done in isolation. The core of this idea is that the facts and skills don't flow from teacher to student, but all around the group.

For the content of the course, you can use readings (preferably short) and videos (also short). Don't rely on just video, however, as it has a down side that the audio quality can disadvantage certain students. And if the video is more than a couple of minutes it is easy to lose track an/or miss some things.

But you also need to assure, at least a bit, that students actually do what you expect when not face to face. For this you can include a few fairly easy questions that students must submit to you as their "admission ticket" to the next face to face. You don't need to have a "pop quiz" in the classroom for this, but just a hand in "homework."

You also need to run the course expecting that, at least at the beginning, students won't do the readings very faithfully. So expect a lot of questions, perhaps on the mailing list, to which the answer is "go watch video 83".

The face to face "classroom" sessions should also be cooperative. Teams are good. Pair programming is one of the best ways for beginners to learn to program, but you have to use it properly and faithfully. It isn't just one person programming and one watching. There are other questions on CSEducators that have resulted in detailed descriptions of Pairing. Two people participate in creating a program, but in slightly different ways, with roles switching frequently (minutes). Test first development also integrates well with pairing.

If you use a cooperative learning environment then grading is an issue that you can solve with peer assessment. There are ways to make this valid and non-threatening, largely by making it positive. Partners and team members detail both their own contributions and the positive contributions of peers. You can ask "who were the top contributors and why?" for example. You can ask for the main contribution of yourself and your partner to a pair project.

Note also that short quick questions can be answered on the mailing list. An advantage of this is that every student sees any student's question as well as the answer. During face to face sessions you can also have longer discussion, say about testing strategy or the difference between for and while if many are confused. But try to spend as little time as possible on such low level things, deferring them to the readings/videos and the mailing list. Use the face time for active, rather than passive endeavors.

Don't lose track of the fact that people learn by repetition and reinforcement. In a normal classroom that is usually provided via homework. With a flipped classroom that flips also. The little quizzes (tickets to play) are a minor part of the learning, though they should be a (small) part of grading. The repetition and reinforcement comes in the face session.


What are the effects of not taking any humanities courses?

What are the potential ramifications of this assuming the college is one of the prestigous ones like Harvard/MIT.

I don't think I've ever been in a humanities courses that had more than 30 people in it.

It is likely the professor will take attendance or require participation to ensure that coursework is being done. In most cases, you have to get a certain minimum grade for core as well.

Looking at Harvard's core in Computer Science as an example:

You have to take 7 of these types courses, and receive a passing grade in each of them.

Foreign Cultures
Historical Study A
Historical Study B
Literature and Arts A
Literature and Arts B
Literature and Arts C
Moral Reasoning
Science B
Social Analysis

So if you decide to just skip them entirely, that will be probably 7 x 3.5 credits = 24.5 credits worth of courses. Let's say you pass with a D, a fantastic 1.0 for GPA calculations.

With an estimate of 120 credits for graduation, and As in every other class (95.5 credits), you'll end up with a GPA of 3.39, which is likely to impact graduate school or professional school applications.

If you AP out or something, and end up with only needing 90 credits for graduation, it becomes a 3.18. I'm pretty sure it's all but impossible to get into any sort of graduate program with a GPA that low.

I'd also like to point out that writing skills are typically looked upon positively as well, in both research and academia.


Meeting with Professor for letter of recommendation

You can expect questions about your plans, your interests, strengths you want the letter writer to focus on, any weaknesses in your application you may want to assuage, etc.

In other words, this sort of meeting is designed to allow the recommender to write you a better letter. This is a very good approach by the recommender - a professor who knew you more closely might not need such a meeting, but all this professor has to go by is your participation in his course, which may not be all that memorable. He may come across as "rude and angry" but in this context it seems he has your best interests in mind, so you should be very thankful. An alternative would be to write a curt, impersonal recommendation ("Of all the students I had in my Important Studies 301 course, my records show Luqman Saleem was one of them.") that will do you little good.

It may be helpful to bring along your CV as well for the professor to keep, if he has not asked for one already. Be ready to answer questions about why you want a PhD, your research interests, etc, and have a good reason for why you bothered to ask this particular professor - what skills or abilities are they best positioned to write about that will be important for the programs you are applying to?


There's no strict hierarchy. Every degree has a specific purpose or meaning, so sometimes a degree will completely eclipse another, but this is not always the case.

The PhD is a research doctorate. It specifically means that someone has performed some worthy amount of original academic research in their field, and would be qualified to conduct further academic research on their own. This requires a high level of general understanding in the field, and in fact most degree programs will require students to have the equivalent of a master's degree before they propose their dissertation. For these reasons the PhD eclipses earlier degrees like the BA, BS, and MS.

Professional degrees are a good example of degrees that are orthogonal to the PhD. For example, the MD specifically prepares someone to practice clinical medicine. Another, the JD specifically prepares someone to practice law. There are lots of people running around with MD-PhDs and JD-PhDs. Sometimes the PhD is a PhD in Law or a PhD in Medicine, but often it is not- someone with a JD and a PhD in Chemistry or Computer Science could make a very good living at the frontiers of intellectual property law.

Someone with a MD-PhD doesn't have a "higher" degree than a PhD, they have two separate degrees that each describe a single specialization. There are people with PhDs but no MD who do research in medicine, but an MD-PhD brings together the medical training and the research training in one person, and hopefully better understands the medical issues presented than the only-PhD does.

Generally the PhD is a terminal degree in any field in most countries, meaning there is no degree that builds upon the PhD the same way that an MS builds upon a BS.

The UK is notable for having a system of "higher doctorates" and "junior doctorates" though I'm not sure exactly how the system there works in practice (I'm from the USA). Every country does things a little differently based on tradition, but the UK seems to do things a little differently a little more than most.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctorate#Higher_doctorates

Some cursory Wikipedia browsing suggests that the UK's higher doctorates are somewhat honorific in nature, and would be considered equivalent to a PhD in the US system.

There are lots of US universities that offer oddball degrees, like an S.J.D. in law, but most of these are designed to be equivalent to a Ph.D. in practice. My guess is that they keep the old degree titles out of a combination of tradition and uniqueness.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_Juridical_Science


What happens if the second reviewer for a conference proceeding keeps missing their deadline?

This is not your problem but the conference organizer's one. They have to ensure a proper reviewing process.

Usually, they are contacting the reviewer and apply some pressure. It they still get no review, they acquire a third reviewer as replacement (or a program committee member does it by themselfes).


What should I do to maximize my chance at grad school (mathematics)?

If you are a second year student in the US looking to go to a PhD program in math, here is a list of some "standard" things to do:

Take as much math as you can, and excel at it. You should aim to not only have As, but high As, in many upper level classes.
Cultivate relationships with professors for letters of recommendation. This could involve research, but it could also involve class interaction, or attending appropriate seminars, or other ways of interacting with your professors.
Take the subject math GRE seriously, and study well for it.
Consider applying to REUs for the summer after you junior year. At more selective schools, many of the U.S. applicants will have gone to REUs. At the same time, the value of REUs is highly debated, with some favoring them and others suggesting that other kinds of preparation could be equally valuable, if not more valuable, in their opinion. In any case, you would apply to REUs in the fall or early winter of your junior year. Similarly, you could consider semester-long programs like the Budapest Semesters in Mathematics, the Penn State MASS program, or similar.
Begin researching graduate programs early; you will apply in the fall of your senior year, and the deadlines always seem to approach too fast.
If there are extracurricular activities you enjoy, continue to participate in them, but avoid getting too busy.

Other than the standard things, do what you enjoy. If you want to go to a PhD program in math you need a very strong track record in math. But that does not mean you need to be one-dimensional. Many of my friends at graduate school had other hobbies that they took very seriously.


I don't know what is right for you, but I'll tell you that there is little in life that is worse than a career in something that you don't care about while having unfulfilled dreams.
I suspect that you are early enough in your studies that a change won't cost you much, and spending a year now to avoid 30 years of boredom might (might) be a good investment.
There are a lot of people in the world who don't get a chance to choose. If you do, then, perhaps you should look for an optimal path and see if you have a way to follow it.
Changing fields after a doctorate is not impossible, but hard since you need to perform in the old field while preparing for the new. That takes time also.
I can't answer the specific question about balancing MS degrees and such since I don't know your goals for a "job".

Your life isn't a "dress rehearsal" for something else.


Buying a gift for my PhD student after his graduation

I don't see any problem with this. Something from your own country would be appropriate, as would a book that is important in your field. Even a tourist souvenir from your country as something to remember you.
But not too expensive or elaborate.


Lack of letter of recommendation due to long-term research experience

If you have two strong letters of recommendation for research work, that's already quite good.  I would think that "this person is a strong student" letter filling out the set will be just fine---after all, somebody has to testify that you're good outside of the lab as well!


Should I take courses that are not directly part of my research topic?

I don't think a "definitive" answer is possible, but the following is based on personal experience and observation of many other students.

If your advisor is okay with it, take as many courses as you can in things that interest you and are in the realm of your discipline.  As an applied math grad student, one of the best things I did was to take a graduate course in optimization from the CS department, even though I thought it had nothing to do with my thesis (in numerical discretization of PDEs).  It ended up being crucial and allowing me to publish at least one paper that I never would have written if I hadn't taken that course.  I also took courses in things like astrophysics, quantum mechanics, and turbulence; I don't use those things much but I can converse with scientists in those fields, which is often useful.

Of course, I didn't take, say, philosophy or Italian or business management courses -- stick to courses related to your field.  And make sure that whoever is paying you is okay with it.


Is it ethical to have results in your PhD thesis that are not strictly yours?

It may be good to report results that is connected to your reports in your thesis even if you did not directly contribute to it as long as you attribute main contributor of the result from an ethical stand-off. But this would not be applicable if the concerned result is to play a major role in your dissertation. I which case, IMO, you try to do something more or different to make up for the major result.

Apart from my views, the your thesis advisor ought to be the best person to clarify this particular doubt.


Going to a different University for part of my PhD

As Tobias Kildetoft pointed out in a comment, in some places it is quite common -- and sometimes mandatory -- for a PhD student to spend a period in another group, possibly abroad, frequently paid by the home university (e.g., "study abroad" at my university). The visit period is usually from few months to one year, six months being probably quite common.

I personally consider such an experience an important part in the formation of a researcher.

There's usually no need for a framework. On the part of your home university, what counts are the regulation of your PhD programme, the opinion of your advisor and, sometimes, that of the PhD programme committee. The opinions of advisor and PhD programme committee usually depend on how much the activity in the other group is related to your current one or, more generally, to the topic of your PhD. On the part of the other university, the opinion of the group leader is usually the only thing that matters, especially if funding comes from the home university.

From your description, I think that you can certainly propose the visit to your advisor with chances for a positive outcome. You didn't provide enough details for us to tell you whether your university regulations allow this activity or not, but it's easy to check this with the university administration. Do this check before making the proposal.


Which problems would a blind person have when applying for a professorship?

Here is a very interesting 2002 article on blind mathematicians from the Notices of the American Mathematical Society.  Some quick highlights:

1) Although Lev Pontrjagin is the best known blind mathematician -- and was a wonderful mathematician; "who made important work in topological groups and control theory" is quite true but may be an under-sell -- there have been others.  If we count mathematicians who were blind for a substantial portion of their professional career then even Pontrjagin gets outclassed: there is, after all, Leonhard Euler.  And there are more contemporary examples, such as Bernard Morin and Lawrence W. Baggett.  Both of the latter are still living but retired (on the other hand, the article is 12 years old).  It would be interesting to have even more contemporary examples.

2) Being a blind mathematician is rare but not singular.  In fact there are enough to notice that blind mathematicians tend to specialize in geometry and topology.  This is very surprising, as these fields are thought of as requiring visualization skills beyond the norm (I for instance have felt a little locked out of certain parts of geometry and topology because of my limited skills in this area....though my vision is fine).  The article really shines in the way it addresses this point: the insight it offers goes far beyond, um, sight.  At the same time there are blind mathematicians in other fields: e.g. Baggett is an analyst.

3) Blind mathematicians must in many ways work harder than sighted mathematicians.  But of course mathematics is hard for everyone, and much of being a successful mathematician is embracing the struggle and continually pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and beyond your current range.  This is a key point of Terry Tao's career advice.  For that matter, I am suddenly struck by Andrew Wiles's famous description of mathematical research as exploring the rooms of a dark house one by one: you spend almost all of your time in the darkness; when you find the light switch you flip it and go on to the next room.  (I don't mean to trivialize the challenges of literally living in the dark, just to indicate that the experience of dealing with and gradually surmounting challenges that to a static observer seem totally insurmountable is a somewhat familiar one.)  Reading this article made me wonder about the OP's assertion "this person would probably need an assistant for continuing doing his/her research and for giving lectures at some extent."  Some might need or want a formal assistant, but some might not and might be self-reliant and of course reliant on the informal assistance of colleagues, friends and family...as we all are.  The mathematicians featured in the article are much more independent than one might have assumed possible.

The question was not specifically about blind mathematicians, but that was the example given, and I am a mathematician, so I ran with that.  Off the top of my head I would suspect that blindness would be less of an issue in mathematics than most other academic fields...but as a sighted mathematician, how the heck could I possibly know that?!?  I would be very interested to hear about blind academics in other fields and what challenges they face.


To determine the relevance of a textbook for future reading, you have to extrapolate your past field of study and interests, based upon which you bought the textbooks in the first place.

If you intend to remain in your current field, keep the books immediately pertinent for that discipline. Otherwise, keep mainly the textbooks on reusable skills, such as math and statistics, computer programming, foreign languages, etc.

You may also want to ask senior students/researchers what books they kept on their shelves.


For the abstract just state you did a masters without a thesis. Universities are used to the fact that not all applicant followed a standard model for their prior studies.
As for research interest I’m unclear what the challenge is? I would pick a topic that is not too general (cell biology) so that the interest is hard to elaborate on or too specific (Actin-related protein 2/3 complex subunit 1B) as to suggest hyper-specialization. Make sure you pick a topic that can be studied in the program you are applying to and explain why it is interesting to you.


UK university salary scales confusion -- advertised job pay seems very low, any ideas why?

In post-92 universities, Lecturer and Senior Lecturer together form the same salary range as a Lecturer in a traditional (pre-92) university. A Principal Lecturer in a post-92 university would have the same salary as a Senior Lecturer in a pre-92 university. Some universities in the UK also operate Assistant and Associate Professors, which further complicates matters.

A more meaningful description is the Grade:  Grade 7 for entry-level Lecturer, Grade 8 for more experienced, Grade 9 for Senior(pre-92)/Principal(post-92) and Grade 10 for Reader.


Why don't most academic conferences make their budget publicly available?

I don't think there's any universal policy behind this.  One reason is lack of interest: in many cases I'd bet nobody involved has thought much about the issue, the world isn't clamoring for the budget, and publicly releasing it would take at least a little work.  Inertia is a common reason for not doing things.

Another reason is to avoid arguments.  The main thing people would do with a publicly available budget is criticize it.  Some criticisms would be based on ignorance of the options and constraints, while others would amount to saying "more should be spent on my favorite things, and less on the things I don't care about" (which is not so useful if there's no consensus as to which aspects are more valuable).  E.g., is money for snacks essential or wasteful?  What if they are overpriced hotel snacks, but there's no other option without moving to a venue that is worse overall?  What about a reception with alcohol?  Basically, imagine repeating every discussion the organizers had about the budget, but with an unmanageably large group arguing, and with random trolls from the internet chiming in.

In general, I would assume it's not an attempt to preserve secrets or disguise unpopular spending.  If the conference is funded by a grant, then the funding agency saw a budget.  If it's funded by registration fees, then participants at least know how large those fees are and can compare them with other conferences.


Substantial changes to manuscript in the revision process

You appear to be asking about making substantial unrequested changes to a manuscript after review. If it's because you have realised that the paper can be improved, without making it a totally different paper, then this may be a reasonable thing to do - but ultimately the judge must be the journal's editor.

What is vitally important is that you talk with the editor about it, and are clear about the scope of the changes. It sounds as though the changes are big enough that, if made after review, they should probably trigger another review. The editor may agree with you that the changes are worth doing and that it is worth waiting for another review - or they may not be prepared to do this, in which case you will have to decide whether to leave it as-is or to withdraw and start the process again.
Either way, it's likely to involve a substantial delay in publication of your manuscript.


Mentioning resolved illness to statement of purpose?

I wouldn't put it in writing as it is too easy to misinterpret. If someone thinks that the condition might return it won't work in your favor. Other people have situations that make it hard to study also, medical and otherwise.

I would be less concerned with mentioning it in an interview if it would be a natural part of the conversation, but even then, will require explanation and possible misinterpretation.

Represent yourself as a hard worker who gets things done and performs at a high level. The rest is unimportant.


How do I start a new peer-reviewed open access journal?

You shouldn't do this alone if you want to have a respectable open access (OA) journal in your field. The first time after launching a journal is critical: You need a good editorial board and a sustained amount of good submissions until you achieve a good impact factor. This is pretty much impossible without the help of an organization or a professional publisher.

You are probably a member of some kind of scientific society which is active in your field. I suggest that you get some other members on board with this idea and lobby for the society starting an OA journal. There are quite a few OA journals that have been started like this. An example from my field are the EGU's open access journals, which are a huge success.


Complete financial statement as the part of scholarship application

No. They are asking about your current financial situation, as ff524 implied in a comment.

What is required in this situation is a relatively detailed budget listing current sources of income, and current spending. Since you are applying for the scholarship, no one will be surprised if this budget reveals a gap between the income and the projected expenditure--this is your financial need, and the whole purpose of applying for the scholarship is to have the funds needed to 'fill in the gap'.


Is it necessary for a journal submission to include the names of the authors' departments?

Strictly speaking, it is usually a written rule, as journals have written rules governing what they expect from submitting authors, and this usually includes information about their affiliation. It is an unwritten rule in the sense that tere is no rule that all journals should follow the same format, but it is very common to include the authors' affiliation.

Sometimes this information is helpful as different departments belong to different "schools". So knowing the department alone can sometimes help you "place" the article in wider debates. Sometimes, it helps disentangle people with the same last name and the same initials. Regardless, this information only helps when you are an insider to the (sub-(sub-(sub-)))discipline discussed in the journal. However, those insiders are a legitimate audience for a journal, so I don't see a problem here.


Splitting publication fees among coauthors

I think your question is a little backwards: All ways of splitting the publication fees are acceptable. You might run into some problems with your grant officer about transferring money around, but in the end they will get over it.

The more important question in my opinion is: What behaviour is acceptable from you and your co-authors. I believe the answer is to be nice since these are your co-authors after all. I wouldn't be too put off if a co-author refused to contribute to open access fees or if I was asked to contribute 1/N of the fees for an N author paper where I was a tertiary author and currently under-funded.


How to proceed when advisor asks you to resign?

This is a difficult situation. Regardless of the facts of the matter, there appears to be have been a breakdown of trust/communication: either the advisor has been sending signals for a while that the person didn't pick up on, or the advisor is indeed pulling this out of the blue, which also signifies a breakdown of communication.

Probably the best first thing to do is for the student to set up a meeting with the advisor to understand the advisor's reasons. It's possible that a face-to-face meeting might allow the advisor to express their underlying concerns in a more productive way that could lead to a concrete plan for activities.

If that fails, or the advisor refuses to meet, the next person to involve is usually the chair of graduate studies at the department (or the equivalent). There is usually someone whose job is to oversee the graduate program and manage conflicts like this. They might be able to mediate a rapproachment between the advisor and student (or even find another advisor for the student). I've had to do this in the past when I served in this capacity.

Bottom line: if the facts are as you outlined, then I think the student deserves a more reasonable explanation from the advisor as to why they're being terminated. Sadly though, in my experience  I've often found that students ignore signals being sent to them, and that advisors are unwilling/unable to give direct and clear feedback.


TOEFL is only good for 2 years, your current 106 has already expired in 2017 September.

When you apply, ask the admission office what are the criteria for a TOEFL waiver. Ask if a 106 in 2015 (not a bad score itself) and a Master degree in UK can fulfill that requirement.


How much freedom do mathematics ph.d. students usually have in choosing a topic for their thesis in the U.S?

There's a good deal of variation.  Sometimes students are assigned a very specific problem ("try to prove this conjecture"), sometimes given a slightly less concrete direction in a narrow range of a field, and some students do pick topics basically on their own.

Some of the variation is based on the individual professor, and some on the student - many, maybe most advisors are willing to give a fair amount of leeway to an exceptionally strong student, and will push more structure on a student who seems slightly weaker (weaker being quite relative).  (For example, I did my thesis in proof theory on a series of problems suggested by my advisor directly extending some of his previous work; my academic twin did a much more independent thesis in model theory on a topic my advisor had never directly worked in.)

So the answer is that you definitely can't count on a set theorist, or especially a non-logician, being willing to supervise a thesis in type theory unless you've communicated about that in advance, but it is sometimes done.  Also, people do occasionally have informal advisors, or even official advisors or co-advisors at other institutions; the logic community is small, so it is conceivable that if you get into a school with a good logic program and are really interested in a different area of logic you could nonetheless be at least partially supervised by someone at a different institution.  But, again, it's risky to count on this happening.


I forgot to rename the school when applying my SOP to another school. How bad is this?

As a long time graduate program director, I've read thousands of these essays; this mistake happens in maybe 1 in 50 or so. I have already seen one this year, for example.

Here's the deal: If it's a generic statement of purpose that is not tailored to the school in question, yeah, it hurts a bit. It's an added signal that you're not all that serious about this particular school. If your statement of purpose is well tailored to the program -- or if you've created other contacts there, e.g., talked extensively with a faculty member interested in recruiting you -- the harm should be minimal.