What are the academic career prospects for someone in their late 30's starting a PhD?

I think the answer here is that it depends on a lot of factors, but that you'll generally do better in the Machine Learning field than you would in many of the older, more established fields.

For starters, there's just not that many people out there with PhDs in Machine Learning.  I'm an economist, but I've spent a lot of time working around the edges of machine learning and data science.  Many of the faculty in that area have degrees in different but related fields.  Econ, stats, math, and computer science are common.

Machine learning is also an incredibly hot field right now.  Before I went back to academia I worked in applied research, and finding an experienced person with a "data scientist" title in their job history was a nightmare.  Private sector jobs are common, and the salaries are high, which pulls people away from academia.

So while being an older graduate hitting the job market may be a challenge in academia, I think the shortage of talent available in this field will offset it.  Especially if you have relevant work experience in data science, research, and/or machine learning from before now.

On a side note, unless your goal is specifically to do PhD research (i.e. are you interested in applying ML in teaching or research, or are you interested in working on the mathematical underpinnings?) in the field and earn tenure, you can accomplish a lot, even in academia, with a master's degree in this field.  Might be something to explore if you decide not to go the whole way.


Scholarship effects on later applications

Your situation describes a situation that is relatively common here in Germany, with the choice between "fellowships" at Gradiuerterkollegen and traditional degree programs within faculties and departments. If this is in fact your case, I don't think I would make too much of a difference between the statuses—they are both graduate degree programs, and would effectively carry the same weight. It's largely viewed (correctly) as just different means of internally financing graduate studies. Thus, it would not really make a big difference on your later career.

What can make a difference, however, are the duties assigned to the different programs. Scholarship students may have a substantially reduced set of responsibilities, particularly with respect to teaching and other non-research activities. This may mean that you finish your degree program more quickly and efficiently than someone who has to do substantial teaching as part of the standard graduate program.


What to do if a conference rebuttal is closed before the specified deadline?

There's always a person, and they're usually reasonable. Just contact the conference chair or program committee chair and ask them to let you know how to send in your rebuttal.
In short, talk to people.


Do you need to define standard abbreviations like "EEG" and "fMRI" in the abstract?

Yes, define your abbreviations as per the instructions. Each reader may be familiar with all, none, or some of the techniques you mention. There is certainly a set of acronyms and terminology which readers in your field will be familiar with, but anything you can do to help your reader understand your material is potentially beneficial.

You can also use the other published abstracts in the same journal as a guide: note how this one defines otherwise common acronyms like EEG (but, as pointed out below, does not define some other terms).

Or, if you're worried about abstract length, avoid discussing every individual technique in the abstract and save it for the body of the manuscript.


Is it legal to upload CC BY papers to academia.edu? Terms of Use are vague on this

If you own the copyright of the paper, which is common for open access papers released under a CC BY license, then you can do whatever you want with it, provided you haven't signed any separate agreement not to do that.  The Creative Commons license is irrelevant, because it's not exclusive: you can distribute the paper under other licenses as well, so there's no legal obstacle to giving Academia.edu whatever non-exclusive rights they want.  (I would never give them the rights they ask for, but that's a personal decision.)

If you don't own the copyright, then you are stuck.  The CC BY license requires attribution for derivative works, and the Academia.edu license does not, so they are asking for more rights than the CC BY license guarantees.  Unless you are in a position to grant those rights (as the copyright holder or through some other agreement), there's nothing you can do.


Recommendation letter for application to CS graduate program from professors in math?

When applying to graduate school (either PhD or Masters level), it helps to have letters from any past research supervisors or graduate programs. The fact that your advisor at Dept A refused to write you a letter means that you probably do not want that letter. Letters from people who only know you from class or teaching are not as useful as research letters, but they can still be helpful.


Is it unethical to interview at a more prestigious program while currently enrolled in a PhD somewhere else?

No, there are no ethical issues. There is nothing unethical neither in keeping it confidential until you are officially admitted at University Y (and I think it's advisable).

The only not-so-good thing could be that if you built a relationship of trust with your current supervisor (but I suspect you haven't since it hasn't been long), this person might get disappointed to hear you leave. But generally, people understand the argument of higher reputation of the program.

Consider however, that University X might not reimburse the tuition you already paid and that you might encounter other administrative inconveniences.


Use of bolded variables in conference paper

For textbooks and self-published material, it is very good practice to follow a convention such as that proposed by Di Carlo, which is widely accepted as the general convention in mathematics.

However, it sounds like are talking about a submission to a conference to be collated and published as conference proceedings. This would typically have a review and editing process like submissions to any peer-reviewed journal would.  In this case, especially since they don't stipulate any conventions, it matters less because they will likely edit your notation where applicable so that all the submissions to the conference proceedings are consistent in notation and formatting.


Are Stack Exchange sites good pedagogical tools?

as a teacher I might select one or several recent good questions from an on-topic Stack Exchange site and have students actually submit their answers on Stack Exchange

In the following, I will assume that you imagine this in a way that a teacher assigns a certain question to all students, and each student (or each of several teams of students) has to post an answer. As I will outline below, finding suitable questions could prove difficult, so using each question only for one student/team of students would probably be too uneconomical.

I would be opposed to this procedure:

For a homework question, submitting what you think could be a valid answer, if you are not reasonably certain, is fine. After all, you're "entitled" to an attempt at solving the problem. Actually, if you do not have any idea how to respond to a question, even an almost random guess is OK as a response to a homework question, if you see a small chance it might be at least partially true. And likewise, a partial answer is totally fine for a homework question, as you have to use your chance to show even the partial solution that you have found, if you cannot solve the whole task.
For a question on a Stack Exchange site, submitting any of the aforementioned "non-perfect" answers on purpose (especially on questions for which various more valid answers do exist) is unacceptable. Unless you are reasonably convinced that what you are posting is, in your opinion, a valid answer, you should not post it on a Stack Exchange site in a way that pretends to be an answer. Each posted answer takes time to read, and posting an answer that you know is quite likely wrong or incomplete (read: insufficient for the question) is simply disrespectful to all the people who take their time to read, evaluate, comment on, vote on and edit answers.

There are some further issues with your suggestion:

Stack Exchange answers are public. As soon as one of the students has posted a good solution, nothing will stop other students from copying any information from that answer. You may still be testing your students' skills, but not the skills at solving the problem, but the skills at individually presenting a ready-made solution they found elsewhere.
While votes on the Stack Exchange network indicate quality of the answers to some extent, there is no guarantee that this measurement works reliably for each answer. In particular, when there are many answers, my hunch is that most of the lower-ranked answers will never be read, while the top-ranked answers will be read repeatedly and receive ever more upvotes. To some extent, the same applies to comments, where the Nth answer is less likely to receive any helpful coments than the first one.
Many Stack Exchange sites are not friendly towards duplicate answers. Exact reactions vary from site to site, but on various of the sites, the answer that proposes a certain solution for the 5th time might get harsh comments and even receive downvotes simply based on the fact that their answer does not contribute anything new.

Therefore, I do not unconditionally agree with the statement

  It's sort of a free peer-review system.

It is a free peer-review system in the context of people voluntarily submitting posts for "peer-review" who want to submit something based on various preconditions (perceived good ideas, ...). The "peer-reviewers" spend their effort because they expect to read posts by exactly these people, people who thought they have good enough ideas to post.

If you remove those preconditions, you are, in a way, abusing the system. You are adding considerable workload for the peer-reviewers, who will have to dig through loads of submissions by people who did not think they have a good enough idea to post, but who posted primarily because it is their chance for completing the homework task. This, in turn, might reduce the willingness of those peer-reviewers to invest much effort for the respective Stack Exchange site in the first place and thereby worsen the experience for all users of the site.

After talking about the answers, I also have some thoughts about the questions. You wrote

  as a teacher I might select one or several recent good questions

and

  For more advanced students I might have them find good questions on their own.

Both of these can be problematic, as they are not guaranteed to yield good results. This is largely coupled to the fact that various Stack Exchange sites have strict policies against duplicate questions. These are fitting to build a consistent core of Q&A-shaped knowledge on each topic, but it also means that sooner or later, the less exotic (read: case-specific, or otherwise unusual or not too generalizeable) questions on any given topic will all have been asked. Asking new questions on the topic that are comparable without getting closed as duplicates can be come nearly impossible, whereas the task of finding interesting questions gradually gets reduced to checking a ready-made list of core questions on a given topic that gets circulated among students.

In summary, I think it is not a good idea to use any Stack Exchange site for "free peer-reviews" of student submissions. What is realistically feasible, though, is to use questions from a Stack Exchange site you deem appropriate and ask students to submit their own answer to you, and then check all the submissions. This will still preserve the real-world connection by the actual Stack Exchange question without burdening the users of the Stack Exchange site in any way.

As another note on this topic, from a privacy-related perspective, I am very skeptical of requiring any student to use a third-party service outside of the university's realm of control as a part of taking a class. Asking them to register somewhere (possibly, if they so choose, with a fake address, etc.) to retrieve software required for the class might still be OK, but I would never require a student to register with a third-party site (even one that I personally quite fully trust, like Stack Exchange) to upload anything that sheds a light on their performance as a student.


When applying to a Phd in Physics or Math , do grades in unrelated courses I took have any effect on my admission?

If you are applying to programs in the US, more important than your grades in English classes is your performance on the TOEFL. Many universities have a minimum TOEFL score required before the department can even consider your application, and these rules are often difficult or impossible for the department to bend, even for an exceptionally attractive candidate.

There is more information in the answers to this question. (For example, someone there mentions that the minimums at "Yale and Stanford are about 100, Harvard is 109" -- out of 120 points total.)

Given the quality of the English in your original question (before it was improved by helpful editors), I don't think you can afford to blow off your English classes if you have any hope of studying in the US.


Is it normal for an advisor to expect >80 hour workweeks from PhD students, and threaten them with dismissal?

I'm sure some advisors do act this way.  I don't think it's very common, but it does happen.  It's more common for advisors to expect certain results than a particular hourly commitment, but all these things are a matter of extent.

However, in trying to figure out whether to switch advisors, I think you're asking yourself the wrong question.  The right question is:

  What type of advising relationship works for you?

If you feel energized, motivated, and happy under your current conditions, that's one thing.  If you feel overburdened and miserable, then you should probably look for a different advisor.  Even the most competitive Ph.D. programs have faculty who are not so demanding.  You have to figure out what type of style works best for you and try to find an advisor who is a good match.


Personal web page vs Academia.edu vs ResearchGate

As soon as you have even a single preprint, people will begin searching online to find out who you are and what else you have done, so you must have a web page.  It doesn't have to be elaborate, and it's enough to start with a few lines of professional contact information and a list of links to papers, but you have to have something.

I think a generic web page looks more professional than one created using a social networking site, but perhaps that's because I'm old.  However, there is one absolutely critical issue: the page must allow visitors to download any content without logging in.  At least one of the social sites lets visitors view papers on the site, but insists that you create an account if you want to download anything.  This is terrible!  In my experience, nobody's going to create an account unless they really, really want that paper, and either way they are going to be unhappy at the imposition.  Offering access to papers and then harassing anyone who tries to download them leaves a very bad impression.


Which are the most popular cartoons on academia?

xykademiqz

Not to be confused with

xkcd

Both very good. This is one of my favourites from xykademiqz:


Does a bibliography-only citation count like a regular citation for the author?

In the main text, you could also mention the authors by explicitly stating what their tool helped you with, for example:

  Our approach was projected/tested/verified using toolbox Foo (Foosmith 2015) and later ported to C++ for performance measurements.

Apart from thanking the authors, this could also be interesting for the reader.

As the other answers mentioned, a bibliography-only citation counts the same as a regular citation, but such a citation is quite unusual and generally not recommended.


How should we sort the names of the authors of a paper (with two authors) when they have the same contribution?

The most common is to list in alphabetical order (in fact you can decide whatever you want) and then write a statement in the acknowledgement to the effect that "both authors have contributed equally to the paper".

In one (odd) example I know of names were listed in reverse alphabetical order. The "first author" was the senior and the second his (in this case) graduate student. They then stated in the acknowledgement that contributions were equal. So in this case the senior scientist wanted the publication listed under his name although it would have been more logical with the students name first. So it is obvious there may be several "reasons" to list other than alphabetical but I think alphabetical should be the way to go. At least in my subject order typically signifies contribution and an inverse order would be a very strong signal.

I have also seen authors who have taken turns to be first when they frequently publish together. That could be a reasonable (fair) alternative when it happens.


How to handle pressure from collaborators when life circumstances make it impossible to get work done?

I've been on both sides of your dilemma, both as the slow and unreliable collaborator and as the person dealing with a slow and unreliable collaborator, and I deeply understand your dilemma and your pain.

The first thing to understand is that this is not an unusual situation, and you aren't a bad person for having it happen to you.  In fact, this is a fairly normal situation of life for most people pursuing post-Ph.D. research careers.  The basic problem is this: collaborations, grant proposals, professional service, and many other aspects of a scientific career all have long time horizons and high uncertainty associated with them.  That means that you often have to make a time commitment without really knowing how large it will be or what it will be competing with six months, one year, three years down the line.  What that means is that, no matter what approach you take to personal time management, you are likely to be frequently faced either with significant unfunded gaps, with majorly overloaded periods, or even both in oscillation.

At the beginning of a Ph.D., most people do not have this problem, because they have precisely one research project, and they can work consistently on just that project and their courses (and maybe TAing).  This situation sometimes persists to the end of a Ph.D. or through a postdoc.  As a person moves towards independence of a researcher, however, they start to have more opportunities and more choices, and are faced with this dilemma of planning under long-term uncertainty.

Unfortunately, under the current organization of academia at least, there seem to really be only two solutions to this problem:

Be low-ambition as a researcher, ensuring that you are never overcommitted but greatly decreasing your chances of obtaining a tenure-track position at a strong research institution, or of making tenure once you have one.
Triage and honesty.

The best advice that I have ever seen about the second path is in this blog post: "The only "balance" is in choosing which ball you are going to let drop today and deciding not to drop the same ball repeatedly."

Now, as to what to do: first, you need to be honest with your collaborators about the change in your life circumstances.  Having a child radically changes your life and your available time: as a parent of a 2-year old, I have about 20 hours/week less for work than I used to, and that's despite making compromises I'm not entirely comfortable with in the amount of time I spend with my daughter.  Science will expand to fill the time allotted to it, so the first thing you need to do is to decide how much time you are setting aside for family, and guard that time with your life.  Practice saying things like, "I'm sorry, I can't meet with you then, I have to be parenting then," and "I'm sorry, but this weekend I have family commitments." and spend the time you need to spend with your partner and your child.  Second, you also need to take care of yourself: if you aren't sleeping well and eating healthily, your research productivity will drop even as you spend more time working and your stress level rises.

Now, if you do this, it means that you are not going to be able to follow through on all of your commitments to your collaborators.  There simply aren't enough hours in the day.  And that means you're going to have to triage.  In my experience, the most important thing here is honesty.  In my collaborations, I can plan how to manage a collaboration in which somebody tells me, "I'm going to need to put this on the back burner for a couple months," or "I'm going to be able to spend only 4 hours a week on this," but I can't plan how to manage a collaboration with somebody who tries to conceal their overcommitment or who repeatedly promises things that they cannot deliver.

You need to figure out your priorities for investment on your projects, not for all time, but at least for a few months.  You can reassess afterwards.  Talk it over with your advisor, to make sure they're OK with it, and then let your other collaborators know that you've had to reassess your commitments and what they should expect from you.  Be explicit about the fact that it is becoming a parent that is driving this change: any collaborator that is worth continuing to work with will understand and respect this fact and be willing to work with you on this.  Anybody who doesn't is somebody that you want to be very cautious about continuing work with in any case.

And make sure that you have enough space to enjoy time with both your child and your partner.  Our time in life is far too short and precious as it is.


Citing an article that the journal serialized

The general rule is to always, always cite material as it is published, even if that somehow looks weird to you. This monograph has, for reasons we all can only speculate about, been split into 5 papers, so you cite it as if it were 5 papers. You do not pretend like it was somehow a single virtual paper. Even if the papers have partially the same name, at least the volume or issue number should be different. Yes, this will look like you have a duplicate entry in your bibliography to the casual observer, but I am afraid this can't be helped.

Further, note that you probably only need to cite a subset of these 5 installments. Again, treat them as different papers, and only cite the subset that actually contains arguments that are relevant to the article you are currently working on.


Are there any resumé revision services available for PhD applicants?

Yes, literally hundreds. Have you googled something like "professional resume for phd application" or "professional resume writing services"? You are bound to find something near where you live, including quite possibly your undergrad university.

The big question, I think, is whether for a PhD application you should be supplying a resume or a curriculum vitae? CV's are usually more common for academic and research positions. If you are unsure about the differences, here are a couple of useful links.

Good luck with the application.


Are all master degrees fully funded for North American universities?

Most master's degrees are not fully funded (or even funded at all) in the United States. Funding varies by of study field. Some fields, such as business, will rarely offer funding, while others are more likely to.

Perhaps you have been looking at PhD programs in math and science - these do tend to offer funding. But that is the exception, rather than the general rule.  At the master's level, funding is more rare even in these fields.


Plagiarism from preprint of paper (from the Arxiv)

But while testing plagiarism using free sites we found that results were showing 83% plagiarism from our paper only which is posted on Arxiv.

Two questions:

Why did you test your paper for plagiarism in the first place?  I have submitted about 50 papers and have never done this...partly because I never thought of it and partly because I know haven't committed plagiarism because I wrote the papers!  Were you in doubt whether you plagiarized or not?  I don't get it.
If I understood you correctly, you seem concerned that a plagiarism detector found your paper on the Arxiv.  But that's super weird – a paper cannot plagiarize itself, and you are not the first or ten-thousandth person to post their preprint on the Arxiv.  Why would that be a problem?

Based on what you said, it is surprising that you only got 83% plagiarism.  I guess the reason that it's not 100% is that you did make some nontrivial modifications in your paper (and neglected to mention that in your question).  OK, so...I recommend that you post the updated version on the Arxiv.  Then the plagiarism detectors will either figure out what's going on or report that you have plagiarized 100% from a preprint with the same authors and title...a puzzle that even the most harried conference editor should be able to sort out.

Finally, since the question was originally posted on Math Overflow, let me say that in mathematics it would look absurd for a paper to cite its own Arxiv preprint.  If that is actually a halfway standard convention in other fields, I would be very interested to see examples.


How should I facilitate a panel discussion?

Moderating a panel can be a lot of fun!

First: are the panel members already chosen, or do you get to choose them?  If you get to choose them, then look for a group of people with diverse backgrounds and viewpoints.  For example, different camps of scientific thought, different career stages, academia vs. industry vs. government, different subfields.  Try to pick people who you think will both have interesting thoughts to share and who will be willing to stop sharing them---one blatherer who insists on telling a ten-minute anecdote every time they talk can ruin a panel.  Also try to look for panelists who will be respectful to one another, even when they violently disagree: a fight might be "fun" but it generally less productive and interesting than a respectful argument.

It is also critical to be aware that due to the availability heuristic, your first thoughts on who to invite are likely to be biased towards socially dominant groups (typically: white men from Europe and America).  To avoid being racist and sexist in your picks, also make a list of people who are not members of this group, and ask yourself who in this list would also be a good panel member.  You may be surprised how many qualified people there are with more diverse backgrounds than you thought of at first.  Then, from your set of qualified people, pick a mixture that is significantly closer to the diversity that you want there to be in the field, rather than its current average.

Once the panel is running, as moderator, you have three responsibilities:

Get the panelists to start talking about the subject at hand.
Keep the discussion at least vaguely related to the subject of the panel at least much of the time.
Make sure the talkative panelists don't keep the less-talkative panelists from contributing.

A good technique to support all three of these responsibilities is the prepare a list of open-ended questions related to the panel topic.  You can start things off by throwing a question out to the panel to break the ice.  If the panel starts running down or (badly) drifting off course, you can feed another question into the mix to keep things going on track.  Let them drift a while first, though: the purpose of a panel is interesting scientific discussion related to a topic, and drifting a bit may get you somewhere important. Finally, if somebody on the panel isn't getting enough chance to talk, you can inject a question targeted to them: "The next question, I want to start by hearing from Prof. Quiet."

Some panels also are expected to start with mini-presentations, in which case you also have a session chair job, to make sure that the panelists keep their presentations short enough that there is time for a good discussion.  If they are giving slides, collect them onto one machine beforehand, so that you don't lose time to A/V changeover.

As for the benefits: sure, you can put it on your C.V. (it doesn't count a lot, but it doesn't hurt).  The primary benefits, however, are exposure to the audience,  networking with the people on the panel, and the fun of running a nice event.


How to handle multiple versions of a paper (e.g. conference and journal version)

You can change your workflow slightly:

Write a paper with full proofs, polish it, and upload to arxiv.
Prepare the conference version (fairly late). You will use version 1 as your starting point, but you can edit it freely. You can remove proofs and refer to the arxiv version. You can polish the story, introduction, etc. You may spot typos in the arxiv version, but do not worry about those too much. There is no need to revise the arxiv version yet if the typos are minor.
Prepare the journal version. The key thing is that you will use version 2 as the starting point, not version 1. Of course you will now copy-and-paste the full proofs from version 1, but the rest of the text comes from the conference version. Therefore the main matter has already automatically gone through all the revisions that were related to the preparation of the conference submission(s), addressing conference reviews, preparing the camera-ready conference paper, etc.

Now you can simply revise your arxiv submission by replacing it with the journal version, whenever the journal version is ready.

If you follow this approach, there is never need to maintain parallel versions. You will never need to worry about updating version x when you fix typos in version y. People interested in your work can read the first arxiv version early, and your final arxiv version is as well polished as the journal version.

Note that you can start phase 3 as soon as you have prepared the final camera-ready version of the conference paper. When the conference version finally appears, you can already have a preliminary draft of the journal version written, and you can use it to revise your arxiv submission if it seems to be a good idea.


How best to increase the reach of conference proceedings / papers?

Realistically, the main thing to increase the probability of the papers coming out of your conference being taken seriously is to:

Convince a professional organization such as ACM, IEEE, or USENIX (to provide some examples for Computer Science, your field will surely have similar organizations) to print the proceedings and include them in their digital libraries (if existing), or
Partner with a reputable journal to print your proceedings as some recurring special issue, or
Have a really high-prestige organizing committee back your conference and vouch for the quality of papers.

In short, you will, unfortunately, need to piggyback on the prestige of some other entity (a publisher, a journal, or a bunch of well-known individuals) to get your proceedings off the ground.

To answer your specific suggestions:

  Would it help if we assign DOIs for each paper and/or the conference proceedings? Does it matter which?

DOIs are cheap, and even many spam- or borderline-spam journals happily assign DOIs. I can't imagine this being seen as a seal of quality.

  How do we improve search rankings on google scholar?

IIRC search rankings on Google Scholar are a combination of citations and match of the paper to the search query. I don't think there is much leeway to game the system (aside from citing previous papers in the conference, of course - but thinking this thought through to its natural conclusion quickly ends up in rather unethical practices).

  How can we get the proceedings included in scopus?

I have little knowledge about Scopus given its low relevance to Computer Science in my area, but to the best of my knowledge they don't index proceedings at all?

I should also say that nowadays the barrier for national conferences (and if I understood your question correctly yours sounds like a national conference) to be taken seriously as a prime publication venue is extremely high. There is an abundance of international meetings to choose from, and most researchers choose those to publish their novel and exciting new results. National conferences are really meetings, first and foremost, not places to publish new results. Some of the more prominent national meetings in Computer Science have moved away from printing proceedings altogether, and focusing on what a conference should arguably be about in the first place - to present and discuss ideas and previous work, not to publish new results.


In the example given, you are citing the specification, not the device.  The same is true of the Ferrari.  You are going to say something(s) about it, such as horsepower or wheelbase.  So, find and cite the specification(s) needed.

Edit: For the TrueRNG, you cite the web page, if that's the best information available, using whatever your discipline's citation style requires for a web page.  You're still citing the source of the information, not the physical object.

If you actually examine a physical product, e.g. reverse-engineer TrueRNG, then you describe the object you examined and the findings of your examination.  So, "I disassembled TrueRNG model ABC, serial number XYZ, and measured the actual entropy generated by the frammistan module using Someone's Method and determined..."  Similarly if you measure the acceleration of that Ferrari.  (I don't think that's the question you're asking, but that's what the title implies.)


Academic fair use and using publication images in your thesis

You probably have a fair use right in the US to use images from copyright-protected works without permission from the copyright holder since you are using them for a critical purpose. But, -BUT-, fair use is a defense to a copyright infringement lawsuit that is not guaranteed to be successful. If you are sued by one of the copyright holders, you will have to assert this defense to them and probably also to a judge or jury in a court of law. This may cost you (or your institution if they choose to defend you) a large sum of money to take to court. $100k would not be unheard of. Given that, unless you have this kind of money just sitting around, you would be well served by asking the copyright holders (not necessarily the article authors, more likely the article publishers) for permission to use the images. It is usually granted.


Is there a way to submit privately to claim intellectual property

Please note that this does not substitute proper legal advice. In the US, I believe that patent protection falls under the 'first inventor to file' rule. So it is not relevant who the first inventor is, but who the first inventor is who files for patent protection. So if you want to claim IP protection in the US then the only relevant place to file is at the USPTO. This is indeed private at first, since patents are made public a year after filing.
Also, please note the publishing your data before filing for a patent may constitute 'prior art', which could mean that any future attempt at filing a patent in the US would be denied.
The safest (and possibly only) option for you to protect the IP for your idea is to file for (and get awarded) a patent.
Renewed disclaimer: This constitutes my personal opinion and should not be taken as legal advice.


Yes check with your universities Student Services Department. Most of the universities also give you scholarships provided you have some good scores in GRE/TOEFL or whatever they require. Banks also give Student loans to International students provided you have a credit-worthy US-Citizen as a Co-signer.
But most of the international students are eligible for scholarships.
Good luck.

http://www.edupass.org/finaid/loans.phtml


Different fields have different conventions. I am a mathematician, and my advice reflects what I know about publishing conventions in that field. So please take this advice with a grain of salt.
This said: Echoing the comments of m123, sleepy, and Lewian, I would advise you to ignore Elsevier's guidelines entirely. Submit your document in any format which looks attractive, is normal for your field, and is convenient for you to prepare.
You can worry about their guidelines once your paper is accepted, and maybe not even then. My own opinion is that if Elsevier charges $4,034.00 for an annual subscription to this journal, then perhaps they can afford to employ staff to do their own formatting work.


Yes, there are such studies. Here is the result of one. The Economic Laws of Scientific Research by T. Kealey.
His basic thesis is that private firms must find out how to motivate researchers. Only part of this is money. It also includes many things that come under the heading "academic freedom." Freedom to publish, to exchange ideas with colleagues, to be or host a visiting speaker/lecturer, to go to some lab or archive or special site with special resources, etc. etc. etc.
If government takes money through taxes and gives it out, there are many downsides. The persons in government don't usually know what is "good" research. Their motivation is to stay in power rather than doing what is, in any sense, the best thing with the resources. Governing persons do what they calculate will keep them in power. Period. Because anybody who does not do so is soon not in power. Sometimes this results in good things. Usually, mostly always, it results in mediocre things at best, or horrors at worst.
In addition, operating the government funding agencies and tax machinery uses up a non-trivial portion of the total money. And applying for grants uses a non-trivial portion of the university people's time.
Consider a company such as an electronics firm. They want some research done, but don't want to buy a complete specialist lab as they only want it once. So they go to a university that has such a research program. And they must find a way to get those university people to agree to do the research for them. So they drop a stack of cash on the research lab. And another stack of cash on the university. And the only restriction is that the research be held back from publication just enough, and just long enough, so that the electronics firm can commercialize the results.
As to how the lab and the uni spend the money, they literally do not care. The lab can buy new equipment, pay post-doc salaries, buy journal subs, whatever they like. The university can use their cash any way they please. The money can stay in the same department as the research was done. Or go to overhead. Or be used to subsidize some other department that does not have corporate clients. Or be used to fix up the landscaping around campus, or whatever the uni decides.
The important thing is, the uni and the researchers get to decide how to spend the money. The electronics firm gets their research and goes away happy, not placing any restrictions on the  money. And once they have commercialized it, the researchers can usually publish the results, possibly withholding certain details such as detailed measurements required for the commercial process. And even those are usually available to researchers on a non-disclosure agreement basis.
The net result Kealey found was this. Private research funding winds up producing roughly 50% more money for the universities. And the restrictions on how they spend it are far less with private money. And research of every kind is funded more. Not just "practical" things like making better electronics. But abstract things such as philosophy, art theory, linguistics, etc.
What does it mean? It means that, by treating research as a human activity that needs to be negotiated for in the same way as any other good, service, or commodity, you wind up with more and better results. And so, university research can get on the slope of The Most Important Graph in the World. The application of freedom to human interaction results in exponential expansion of human knowledge. That in turn results in exponential expansion of every other measure of human well being. A free market for research is objectively a massively preferred choice.


English and other translation within single paper

I would think it is probably a mistake to do this. While it is possibly convenient and makes the paper more widely available, it will cause some problems for reviewers. Most of the available reviewers will speak one language or the other only and will either have to trust that the translation is adequate or find some other means. At best this will slow you down. Math especially may be a difficult field in which to do this as machine translation is likely not as good as for (some) other things.

The big issue is, do the two halves, really say the same thing. That can be a bit subtle. It isn't impossible to deal with it, but it would be a strike against the paper in the minds of editors, I think.

Probably not a good idea. Publish in the language you are most familiar with and provide a translation separately.

Carefully mark the translation as a translation and reference the original version within it.


Are you sure that you pressed the "submit" button? Usually it is a draft before submission.

Otherwise it might mean that some sort of manual approval of an admin person of the journal is needed before the submission is further processed (e.g. it is not "fully" sumitted until they have checked that you are within a certain wordcount/format/etc).


Should postdocs work only on the projects they are hired for, or can they work with other people in the same research group on other projects?

Since the supervisor got the grant, he is ultimately responsible to the funding agency for the research that was funded and for any results. So the postdoc should definitely talk to the supervisor.

Actually, this would be a great opportunity for the supervisor to help the postdoc grow academically, since postdocs are of course expected to take on more responsibilities than Ph.D. students, and start making their own reputation in a field, not stay in the supervisor's shadow. So the supervisor should certainly understand that the postdoc will start flexing his wings and be interested in other topics - it just needs to be commensurate with the goals that the supervisor got the money for.

If, conversely, the postdoc got his own grant, he should first of all look through the paperwork he presumably got, signed and returned before the money started rolling in. It is quite possible that an expectation of the funding agency as to the amount of work the postdoc should be spending on this particular project is already somewhere in the paperwork. Of course, even in this case, it makes a lot of sense to discuss this with the supervisor, who presumably has a lot of experience in this field, and possibly with this particular funding agency.


What kind of citing permission do I need for a research project (not a master thesis) report that I am writing?

I think you are mixing two issues up with each other: Copyright and Referencing/Citing sources. The first one is a primarily legal topic whereas the other one comes from scientific integrity and proper work.

Copyright prevents you from directly using material without permission. For example, I cannot simply take an arbitrary figure from another paper or the Internet and publish it in my own paper. Therefore I need to get permission to reuse such a figure in a publication. But mostly not for personal use and stuff which will not get published or spread around.

Referencing and Citing is required in science. This means that you have to give the source of any ideas, equations, figures, ...  which you have not developed and created on your own. Even if you were allowed to reuse material from another paper, you still have to cite it correctly.

For your research project, you should talk to your supervisor. Since it does not get published I assume this is far less critical from a copyright point of view. For example, if I collect information for an internal summary on a topic, e.g., by summarizing the work of other researchers, I do not obtain a permission for these figures since this is way over the top and takes away to much time and resources. Copyright is most important if you want to publish your work. I do not think that your research project requires this, but talk to your supervisor.

Nevertheless, you WILL have to cite all your sources correctly independently from how you decide to handle the copyright.


Professor wrote me a recommendation; I need another one with short notice but he hasn't replied

Speaking as a professor who writes a few dozen letters of recommendation a month (it seems like that, anyways), I would suggest that he is not ignoring you; he might be behind on his e-mail or simply preoccupied with other matters.

I would recommend sending another polite follow-up e-mail, and barring that, drop by his office hours.

Usually, the first letter of recommendation is the most work. Sending a second one is a lot easier, as your professor should hopefully just be able to make a few minor alterations and send it off to this opportunity.


Found an error in my published conference paper

The reality is that the best answer is simply "get used to it". It is sad that this happened to you in your first conference paper, but things do get published with mistakes, and there is really nothing very much anyone can do about: you can proof read papers as often as you want, and there will always be mistakes. I'm not saying this because I am a nihilist but simply because I'm pragmatic: of course I want papers to be perfect; it just isn't practical.

The interesting question is only: how severe is the error. You don't answer this in your question above, but if it is really only a typo or misspelling, then it would not be worth your sleep. If it is a mistake that a reasonably educated reader will be able to understand as a mistake, the same would probably apply. If you submitted a proof that has a mistake and upon further thought you realize that the whole theorem is not true, that would be a separate matter -- but you wouldn't introduce such an error while dealing with the final version of the paper.


any limit of putting too many videos/animations in presentations

If you have "too many", then, of course, it's "bad". This is more or less the definition of "too many".

How many is too many, is dependent on the situation and who you give a talk to. I have seen good presentations with videos illustrating a point and also short animations/memes which made the audience laugh and gave them time to breath after a long and heavy theoretical slides. (I don't like memes, but nevertheless I enjoyed those animations).

(Keep in mind that here are many mathematicians and a typical math talk has no animation/video, so you will probably get a lot of answers/comments  similar to "I've never seen a good talk with animations in my life". It would be best if you would write your field.


Can PhDs legitimately claim to be doctors?

In the modern USA the title of doctor is valid for both medical doctors and holders of PhDs in the US, but particular customs may vary by institution. The general rule of thumb for etiquette is to refer to someone however they wish to be referred to. If you have a PhD that insists they be referred to as doctor it would be very impolite to not do so. Likewise if you have an MD who insists that you do not use their title it would be similarly impolite.

In situations where it is important to avoid confusion it is common to spell it out explicitly. Rather than using the honorific use the explicit degree, for example it is very common for email signatures to look like:

John Doe, Ph.D. in Computer Science

instead of

Dr. John Doe

Similarly, an MD would tend to say:

Jane Doe, MD, Cardiologist

or even

Jane Doe, MD, Ph.D., Cardiology

I suspect that your question has another component, which is essentially whether or not it is "fair" for a Ph.D. holder to refer to themselves as doctor. This requires an assumption that the MD is more challenging to attain than a Ph.D., and that calling oneself a doctor is somehow illegitimately taking the status of a medical doctor. Let me just say that the people who have earned these degrees are generally less concerned about this than those who have not, and that the title someone puts after their name doesn't tell you very much about their individual ability, dedication, or experience.


Is it "pestering" to email a professor for a recommendation after no response the first time?

It's not pestering. Professors are busy people and he probably just forgot. One polite reminder email will not go amiss.


Is it acceptable to criticise papers when writing a related work section

Think about relevance to your results

Is the particular criticism relevant to the point of your paper ?

For example "The method described in paper X works only in dry conditions, so for researching dolphin behavior it's not useful and we used a different approach described in chapter 4" is a relevant criticism and should be included.

"Paper X is a very poor and ambiguous description of the method using obsolete terminology, I had to read it five times and refer to a Klingon-English dictionary before understanding how it works" is not relevant, as most likely none of your conclusions would be based on such a sentence.    It would be relevant only if your paper is a meta-study on the readability of scientific articles, or if your paper is about historical changes in commonly used terminology in your subfield, where the faults of other papers is the topic of your research.


Is it appropriate to underline key words in an exam answer?

I do not believe that there is a strong consensus on use of textual emphasis in scientific writing.  In publications, I have often seen people use italics (and done so myself) to designate the first use a word in its definition; I have rarely (but occasionally) seen them used for emphasizing a key phrase.  Typically, in scientific writing one is expected to make the key phrases clear through prose alone---but of course, there are tricks to improve the visibility of key phrases in prose, such as use of lists, position of a phrase within a paragraph, etc.

In an exam, since things are handwritten and there is little chance to revise, I would expect standards to generally be more flexible.  Certainly I personally might find it a bit odd, but not at all problematic, for a student to underline words or phrases.  Your professors may or may not agree with me---as I said, I do not think there is any strong consensus.


What is a good checklist for last minute changes before submitting a PhD thesis?

First, if you've already proofread it recently, a second try will most likely not help. You won't see the typos and weird sentences anyway :)  I'll advise to focus on specific short parts that can make a difference in the reading. It's also the right time to get someöne else on board to give these specific items a second look (with fresh eyes).

Without further ado, I suggest you limit yourself to checking the following items:

Text

The main check here is not really for typos (although be sure to fix those you will see), but rather for clarity.

General introduction, general conclusion
Introduction and conclusion of each chapter
Summary/abstract, if one is included (sometimes it's written in 10 minutes in a haze, in which case it's worth extra checking in the end)
Acknowledgments, if it's already present (some people only include it after the defense is over). Make sure you're not forgetting someöne important, like your wife or your bonsai.

Figures and figure captions

Quality of the graphics
Do color and symbols mentionned in the caption match the figure?
If you intend to have black and white figures in print, are the figures understandable in black and white? Do the captions make sense for both version (color and B&W)?

Equations

Check your equations. Again. Typos there are typically hard to find.

Numbers & tables

All tables, all inline numbers: make sure they include units, make sure the number of significant digits displayed is reasonable and consistent.

Bibliography

Do not care to much about the formatting: if most of it is okay, noöne will really complain about one or two missing page numbers or lack of italics in one title. However:

If references are hyperlinked (using DOI number), click on each to check that they match the right online paper
If a paper is “in press” or “accepted for publication” or something else, check if it has been published since and update its status

(The starting point for this was my answer to “Examining paper proofs”, but it is now significantly different)


How to know if I satisfy an equivalent 3.8 US GPA?

The difficulty of achieving a 3.8 GPA varies widely in the United States, both from university to university, and even from program to program within a single university.

This means that the 3.8 GPA standard is not an absolute measurement of academic excellence.  Instead, it is a measure of your academic dedication relative to your peers within your program at your university.

In many American universities, an A is the highest possible grade, and is worth 4.0 towards the GPA.  An A- is often worth 3.7, a B+ 3.3, and a B 3.0.  (Some American universities ignore plusses and minuses for purposes of GPA calculations.)

A generation or two ago, it was common for a 3.8 GPA to only be achieved by a small fraction of students (much less than 20 percent).  In the past generation, there has been considerable grade inflation.  I have heard of highly regarded programs where As and A-es are common, and grades lower than A- are unusual.

Is your quantified average grade higher than 80 percent of your classmates?  If so, this program might deign to consider your application.


Active or Passive Voice in International research journal, within the field of microorganism?

The choice between active and passive voice is mainly a matter of taste. As a writer, you are entitled to a certain degree of liberty in your stylistic choices. Even within the generally tight constraints of scientific and academic writing, there is no established dogma on passive vs. active voice, and you will find people advocating (some very strongly) both for and against the use of the passive voice.

Duke’s Graduate School Scientific Writing Resource has a good summary of the pros and cons of passive and active voices. In particular, it lists the position advocated in some high-level style guides, editorials, and other essays of note.

I think the current trend is toward a diminution of use of the passive voice. The reasons are summed up nicely by Randy Moore (The American biology teacher):

  Most scientists use passive voice either out of habit or to make themselves seem scholarly, objective or sophisticated. Scientists have not always written in passive voice. First-person pronouns such as I and we began to disappear from scientific writing in the United States in the 1920s when active voice was replaced by today's inflexible, impersonal and often boring style of scientific writing.

The main argument used in favour of passive voice is that it promotes objective statements, rather than focusing on the actor. However, removing the mention of the actor in the text does not actually prevent subjectivity in the experiments: even if I write “the sample was smeared until it reached a thickness of 1 µm”, somewhat actually did smear the sample (and could have screwed it by going too slow or too fast). So the counter-argument is that passive voice does not promote objectivity, but only the appearance of objectivity.

The main argument in favour of active voice is that it makes for shorter, clearer, less boring text.

I love that anecdote from Rupert Sheldrake (School Science Review):

  “The test tube was carefully smelled.” I was astonished to read this sentence in my 11-year-old son's science notebook. At primary school his science reports had been lively and vivid. But when he moved to secondary school they became stilted and artificial.


What is the meaning of "Manuscript submitted"?

Analogy: I went to the grocery store yesterday.  I was "in line" for 10 minutes, while two customers got checked out.  Why was I not "with cashier" immediately?  ;-)  Capisce?

They also may run some sorting process ahead of time (e.g. which editor gets it).  Or maybe it's a poor paper and they let it sit for that reason (even though the status doesn't say that).  Very hard for us to guess.  Every journal is different, and even different experiences may occur at same journal.

By the way, some journals do emphasize a more caught up workflow.  At least getting it out to first review ASAP as this is next bottleneck (or desk rejection if not meriting review).  But you will have to learn from experience how different journals in your field behave.

P.s. The answer to your title question is "manuscript submitted" just means "manuscript received".  It's just acknowledgement they got what you sent.


Can I upload other peoples old tech reports to ResearchGate?

No, it's not OK. You are not legally allowed to distribute these reports if you don't hold the copyright and haven't been granted the right to distribute by the copyright holder.

To add a non-legal reason: You don't know if the authors would like to see these reports on ResearchGate. They might be embarrassed by what they wrote in them, they might want to update them, they might want to publish them as a journal article, they might boycott ResearchGate, ... It would not be polite to upload them without their permission.


Is it a good idea to convert from a percentile GPA to a 4.0 scale GPA?

To raise a 93% to a 4.0 is being slightly dishonest especially if you have a more specific metric. You can always list your GPA out of 100 -

GPA: 91.55/100

Most employers/colleges understand that not all schools have a grading system out of 4.0


Is it fine to contact a conference organizer for references to prepare for the conference?

I would recommend against this. Not that it is wrong, but that it is unlikely to get you anything you can't get yourself from a literature search. Most such conferences are recurring, perhaps annual. Find the proceedings of the conference for the previous few years and see what you find. The abstracts of articles may be enough to see what the landscape looks like, though a more careful reading is needed for methodology and such.
But the organizers are busy enough without doing a literature search on your behalf and would probably also suggest looking at previous proceedings.
Read widely to discover the terrain, and deeply to discover the gems.


How does peer review detect cheating when replicating a study isn't an option?

I take issue with your first statement, that for a "...study to be accepted as "truth" the standard process is peer review". The purpose of peer review is not to be the judge of what is true or not, but to evaluate (simply put) whether a study is well-conducted, is using adequate methods, is acknowledging relevant previous research, and if the conclusions are supported by the data and analysis. Another way of putting this might be that peer review is about validation of the claims made, but not about validation of truth. Some other thoughts and guidelines on the purpose of peer-review can be found here; on scope and responsibilities, from PNAS (see "Peer Reviewer Instructions" and "Reviewer responsibilities), and a relativly clear statement on the scope of peer-review, from The Royal Society (see "Reviewing instructions").
In a scientific context, "truth" is something that follows from repeated studies that confirms previous results, and is based on a network of theory and observation that is (to a large extent) congruent. However, generally, I would say that it is more appropriate to define the scientific method as a way to search for "truth", than a method to determine what is "true" (opinions will probably vary on this though).
When it comes to cheating, especially with regard to data, the possibilities to detect this during peer-review is limited, even in the ideal situation when data has been made fully available. If researchers for example fully fabricate data, or tamper with raw data, this will not be caught in peer-review, since only the modified data will be avaliable. Add to this that the time available to peer-review is very limited, so a full statistical re-analysis of the data is not possible. This is also one of the reasons for the need of replicated studies and other studies with supporting evidence before results are accepted as "true".


As Brian says, professors aren't likely to give you a bonus point just so you can take the next class in the series. After all, there has to be a cut-off somewhere. As an anecdote, I have laughed with multiple graduate students about silly grade-grubbing attempts they're sent.

Most universities let you bypass prerequisites with instructor permission. Since you were so close to the cut-off; and it looks like the cut-off changed in the meanwhile, you might have better luck asking next quarter's professor if you can take her class anyway. In my experience, you might have to register later, which could be difficult if this is a popular course, but I would say you have a better chance with that then getting that 1 point out of the other professor.


Is it necessary to have many slides when presenting in conference?

Slides serve the following purposes:

If the title of your paper is too long, you don't have to write the title on the board, losing time.
They keep the audience up-to-date. Gives an idea on what you are doing now, what you are going to do some time after.
Contains hard-to-draw figures. Therefore, you are able to talk to-the-point without losing time on drawing figures.
Contains experimental results. These, if extensive, literally cannot be drawn accurately onto board in about 10 minutes. Maybe they can be, but then there is no time to talk.
May serve you as reminder cards, therefore you don't forget what to talk about 2 minutes later.
In the Q&A session, if someone asks you about a table, a figure or a graph, you don't have to draw them again. Rather, you can just go back and answer the question.
If you are a junior researcher, you are able to write your name and affiliation on the slides, and avoid the awkwardness of writing your name on the board as if you're an instructor and if audience consists of students.
You can always support slides by using the board, and explain your points better.

These being stated, I think slides are crucial for a presentation where the time limit is considerably low (10-20 minutes including Q&A).


Can cited works hold grammatical positions in sentences?

Conceivably the reviewer objected to the non-mention of peoples' names, thinking that should write "guided by J. Doe [12]" or "guided by [Doe12]" or "... by [Doe2011]"... Something in that direction would be my preference, also, since numbers in a bibliography are completely artifactual, not really adding any information. Names are far more informative.

But, still, it's possible that the objection was completely stylistic, so ... "it's just a rule"... which means rational discussion of it is presumably out-of-bounds. Such things seem silly to me, but I am acquainted with people for whom such rules are the only defense against Darkness and Chaos, etc.

I'd not comment on such things in any review/referee-report I wrote, but I can imagine some might. The operational point probably is that if the referee chose to mention it at all, it means they do have that particular fetish, so just comply if you want approval. But don't "pass it on", if you were to ask my opinion... :)


How to ask PhD advisor to work remotely on thesis for extensive periods?

I think you should aim for a shorter period at first, to show that it doesn't affect your productivity.  My wife and I aim to both work remotely 25% of our time, to address the two-body problem.  If each of us works remotely for two weeks every two months, that aim is fulfilled.  A colleague of mine just returned from a 10-week remote work trip.

Six months, however, is very long to work remotely in one go.  It is of course more expensive to work remotely in shorter segments, but if your advisor doesn't know yet whether it will work out, six months is too long.  Explain that you are ultimately interested in working remotely up to half of the time.  Propose to work remotely for 3-4 weeks first.  Be available at any normal local time for your supervisor, even if that might mean inconvenient times on your end.  After the remote work trip, return and evaluate how it went.  Then propose to plan a longer remote-work trip, perhaps 10 weeks, and return again.  If all goes well after a couple of 10-week blocks, you could bring up the idea for an extended six-month period.

The worst that can happen is that they say no, and you may have to find a different way.  Perhaps they don't agree with 6 months in one block, but are fine with 3 2-month blocks spread over a year.  It will cost more money, but it is safer in many ways too.

Good luck.


Advisors asked for a complete draft of the thesis - should I include the acknowledgement?

Different universities may have different rules on this. At my university, there is no policy that prevents including it with the draft.

Can you include it?  Yes, unless there's a local policy in place.

Should you?  Up to you. I didn't - I didn't include the Acknowledgements until the final version (which they still see and approve).


Are there any language requirements for citizen applicants with low English skills?

Usually, universities set the requirements by native language and/or educational experience in English. If you have a bachelor's or PhD from a US university, they usually waive your language testing requirement because (1) you probably have already passed one many years ago and (2) if you're not good enough at English you probably would not have received your degree.

But if you're just an American citizen, no. They don't usually waive TOEFL just because of your passport. There are many Americans out there who don't even speak English. Of course, if you're an American citizen whose native language is English, you would most certainly not be expected to tale the TOEFL.


What are some innovative publishing layouts to depict a scientific debate?

Some of my work involves development of international standards, on which it can be quite valuable to record the debate leading to a decision.

Originally this was done in a very ad hoc fashion, via mailing list archives and notes from meetings, then attempting to write "rationale" into the standard.  We are now trying to be more intentional about recording significant debate by using a bug-tracking system on Github.  The jury is still out as to whether this will really work or not, but it seems to be an improvement over not having any system in place.


What is the difference between part-time and full-time study in postgraduate courses?

I don't have any private job experience in Scotland or Netherlands and I don't know your conditions as well, so I don't really know what suit's your conditions indeed. I am focusing on your first question here.
Full-time learning is mostly suitable for the candidates who are not aiming to work outside the university. For instance, students who are able to stay full-time in the university and do their academic chores are more encouraged to apply for these discipline. Part-time learning is more suitable for those who want to work outside the university as well as attending their classes and conducting their research at the university. This type suits the people who work outside academia and are not willing to be at the university all the time.
Please note that, some universities hire or pay their research students while they are studying at the university. This does not mean that those students are part-time students because they are simply working or hired at the university. These are full-time students who are doing academic work. These are different that part-time student who works in industry.
As you mentioned in your question that you are interested in several courses, it comes to my mind that it does not make any difference to you to study in a specific area; so this eases your way to find a program for yourself. As an instance, in a university, one department may not offer part-time degrees to the applicants while the other department may offer various taught and research part-time programs that the prospective student can easily choose one for himself.
However, as far as you are seeking for a degree with the insight to your professional career, I encourage you to choose the course and degree which helps you with your professional responsibilities and your interests.
Don't run, Walk! Please choose a part-time program wisely;

Please carefully read the regulations of the programs you are applying to and check the minimum requirements for part-time degrees at the university where you want to study. These programs may require some extra application process, interviews or documents for their applicants.

The duration of the part-time degree is longer than a full-time degree. For instance, a masters part-time degree will have two year duration compared to one year full-time study. Please note that the duration of the degrees varies from one department to another and one country to another.
If you are going to do research in your part-time program, please note that some part-time degrees require their students to do full-time research during their studies. I mean, you have applied to a part-time degree. Although you are allowed to study for a longer period of time (for instance part-times may take classes in four semesters while full-times are allowed to finish their classes in two semesters) but the course requires you to spend two semesters full-time research as well. So, please check whether these conditions exist or whether you are eligible for such programs or not.

You may need some scholarships/funding to support your studies financially. Then you should double check whether the scholarship covers the part-time degrees or not. To my best of knowledge, some scholarships require the students to attend only full-time courses.

Check the cost of the program you are applying for. Although it seems that the full-time students will pay lower fees compared to the full-time students, but, keep in mind that the total payment of both disciplines may be the same and only the part-time student may pay lower amounts of money in each semester. On the other hand, there may be some part-time degrees which are due to higher educational fees. As far as the rules are different in different countries and departments, please check the financial part carefully before you apply for any degrees.

Check the accommodation and housing for part-time students as well. Although it seems that you are staying with your family; if you are seeking to stay in another city where you are working and in this city, you are seeking a part-time degree; please check whether they offer housing to the part-time students or not.

Part-time degrees may only allow you to work inside the city where the university is located. So, if you are working outside the city, check the regulations of the university and see if you can manage to attend your classes regularly or not.

Part-time learning differs from distance learning and online degrees. These disciplines have different regulations and their degrees may have lower or higher values in the industry you are working. As far as you need your degree for your professional career, make sure which type suits you well and do not think these degree-types are the same.

Pay Attention to your studies too. Please don't think that because you are working and you are a part-time student; you are allowed not to study and not to attend your classes and fail the exams. Your role at the university is studying and research, whether you are a part-time student or full-time student.
But, as a part-time student, you will have less credits each semester that you will be able to study besides to work. So, still pay sufficient attention to your courses.

Also, please check the visa type you are holding and whether you are basically allowed to work or not. Some international students are allowed to work a limited amount of time each month or each week. If you are thinking about working in another country and studying part-time there, please think about such things too.


How to ask an editor to exclude a reviewer when the reasons are personal

There is often a standard statement/option on submission which offers the opportunity to declare possible "Conflict of interest." (CoI); not only for yourself, but also reviewers who might have some with you. To my knowledge this formulation intentionally leaves open whether the CoI derives from possible favouritism, antagonism, competing funding/research interests or other.

In my opinion as editor, I prefer actually not to know what the precise nature of the CoI is. As long as the author doesn't exclude a larger number of people this way, declaring isolated CoIs are perfectly in the remit of a typical researcher's career and should not count against you.

In rare cases, the editor might not have a choice but to take that reviewer on board, in which case they must take the CoI flag into account - sometimes you see reviews which are clearly not objective (biased in one or the other direction, doesn't matter); the review may still be informative, if that baseline bias is taken into account.

However, I think an isolated CoI should, if at all possible, be taken into account by a serious editor, because many things can be at stake, such as funding, priority, plagiarism accusations and more. If they do not want to do that (for inscrutable reasons), you might consider changing publishing venue.


On the use of grant funds for extracurricular research

I've also been funded by NSF's Division of Mathematical Sciences, so I can respond personally.  To first-order approximation, the only resources that research grants in mathematics (and similar fields, like theoretical computer science) provide is money to buy food to supply brain cells.

If my brain cells (or my students' brain cells) produce research results during the active period of a grant, I always acknowledge the grant in the resulting paper and I always list that publication in my reports to NSF.  It doesn't matter whether the work is directly or even tangentially related to the research outlined in the proposal.

If that seems inappropriate, consider the alternatives: (1) Shut off any part of my brain that is not thinking specifically about the proposed work.  (2) Allow myself to think about other stuff, but don't acknowledge the grant if I actually make progress.  The first alternative requires irreversible  surgery that I am unwilling to perform on myself, and the second is completely unethical.


Following up with professor after PhD rejection

I know being rejected is extremely disappointing but be careful to not read too much into the situation. It is quite possible that this person does not remember that you applied to the program, did not review your application at all (even though you requested them as a supervisor), or wanted to admit you but could not because of funding limitations or departmental politics.

Keep in mind that the fact that you know that this one person has viewed your LinkedIn profile is, honestly, a little creepy. The fact that you are reading so much into the "sudden interest" that comes from visiting the website of a person you see presenting seems to be a little obsessive. It is totally normal to search for more information about people one sees presenting work.

If you are honestly interested in knowing how you can improve your graduate applications in future years, and if you think that you might learn things that you will actually be able to improve your application, emailing might be helpful. That said, if s/he doesn't get back to you, keep in mind that it might just be because s/he is busy or flaky and responding to the students one has not admitted is often a relatively low priority item on a very long list of more urgent things.


Would it be impolite to ask the time of selection decision, although the information is available online?

I would not suggest to write an email that does only ask for the status of the application before the announced time of selection is over—even when the email is totally calm and polite. The program has a schedule, the applicants are supposed to know the schedule.

However, you may have some other good reason to write an email. As Thomas commented to another answer: A good reason to ask for the status would be an offer for another opportunity. You could also try to find another good question to ask (but be sure that it is not already answered in the FAQ or wherever). Also, you could provide some new relevant information, if there is any (e.g. some new grades, completed projects,…).


Confirming the Identity of a (Friendly) Reviewer After the Reviews

No, this is why the review process is anonymous...

Any "reaching out", while you say it is only to find out if they did or did not review your paper (and others will think "well that's because they want an inside track"...) will put the reviewer in a difficult position whether you intend that or not.

The reviewer's reputation with the journals they work with is important to them, so while you might be curious, don't go there.


Are there any research databases that accept submission of published articles?

From Wikipedia:

  The Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is a website devoted to the rapid dissemination of scholarly research in the social sciences and humanities.

SSRN allows you to submit full text papers (for example preprints) and abstracts (for example of published and paywalled articles). Setting up an account is free and requires only an email address and password. I am not aware of any API for mass uploads.

In my experience, papers on SSRN are quickly indexed by Google Scholar.


While not in the field, I see two options.  Even if none of them is giving a doi, either:

A) Consider runmycode.org as a deposit for your code. It is backed for example by the French CNRS, the nation's largest body of public research, the Alfred Sloan Foundation, and Elsevier as a larger publisher. One major axis of action actually is to preserve code used in journals.  The service is for free, and all languages are permitted.  Consequently, Elsevier's Journal of Computational Science encourages authors to do so:

  You can enrich your online article by uploading relevant computer code and data to the RunMyCode repository. Once published, your article on ScienceDirect will be linked to a dedicated RunMyCode companion website via the "Data for this article" application displayed next to the article, in the right hand side panel. This linkage will allow readers to access your code and data via the RunMyCode companion website. To create a companion website, please go to: http://www.runmycode.org/home

(source, accessed on June 30, 2017)

B) Secondly, lesser for the intended publication in a journal than for broader re-use of your coding by others, there is a dedicated CRAN website here to submit R packages to their servers.  Obviously, to be checked with the policies of the targeted journal.


From a financial standpoint, how much more can I expect to earn after my degree?

Pursue the dual major because it interests you and this is your opportunity to do  it, not because you expect a higher salary, because the higher salary probably won't happen.

I spent a long career in industry in engineering before coming out of retirement to teach a few years ago.  In my experience, hiring managers generally don't care that someone was a dual major.  Part of this may be a reflection of the fact that managers tend to hire people who "look like them".  Not very many managers were dual majors, so they don't value it.  But there's a practicality to it as well:  If they're hiring you to be an engineer, it's probably because you are an engineer, not because you're also a mathematician.

What hiring managers do value is the master's degree.  Again, this may be in part because so many hiring managers have master's degrees (which many of them may have earned part-time while working).  Hiring managers tend to have master's degrees, so they like to hire people with master's degrees, and they will pay more to get them.

If your concern is best financial return on any additional effort beyond what it takes to get a bachelor's degree, I recommend going for the master's over the dual major.  Many universities have programs that allow students to go straight through to their master's, double-counting some of their credits and earning both degrees with just one more year of coursework only, no thesis required.  For example, here at University of Michigan in computer science, where I teach, it's  called SUGS (Sequential Undergraduate/Graduate Studies); to be admitted to the program you need to be a junior or a senior with a 3.6 GPA.  Your school probably has a similar program.

If your objective is a career in industry and you're concerned about "bang for the buck", the master's is the way to go.


Thesis defense months after thesis submission

In my culture the thesis defense is just a formality. Basically when the supervisor allows the thesis submission he is sure that you had produced more than enough to receive the title (publishing papers, attending to conferences, etc).

Thus, even if you are not at the best shape for the oral proof, probably it will be enough to be approved. However, slipping the answers of one or two questions could be the difference between the top qualification or the second best.

In my university we have three qualifications for approved theses: "Cum laude", "Magna cum laude" and "Summa cum laude". And it is attributed the status of "Approved by unanimity" or "Approved by the majority".


Sharing a master thesis with a third party before the final exam

The detailed specifics of this will likely depend on her university's policies.

In most situations I am aware of, the student retains the copyright of her thesis. She should be allowed (from a legal perspective) to distribute her work in whatever way she sees fit. Likely the best thing she can do in this situation is speak with her advisor. If her advisor is desiring to publish any papers from the thesis, he/she may not want the work shared with a third-party.

It may also be possible that the student in question here only send a portion of her thesis to the third party. A pre-print, if you will. It should be sent with a note specifying that the thesis has not been defended yet and is subject to final revisions and review. Open and full disclosure is the best option here.


Authorship allocation - is it common to grant equal credit to two last authors?

Is it possible to write both of them in the last place as co-last authors?

No.

As expected, an author list is not a tree or a weighted graph, but a simple flat (one-dimensional) list.
There is exactly one last author. Possible solutions or mitigation of the issue include:

Alphabetical author list. This happens in some field, and is totally unheard of in some others (including chemistry and biology, which is your field, so this might not be a possibility).
Having two contact authors, or have the professor who is not last author to be the contact author. In the past I have used this as a way to “pacify” a co-author who wasn't happy with his spot on the author list. (Needless to say, it's a perversion of the system, and should only be done if the author can actually act as contact author.)
Have a statement indicating the contributions of each author (“X and Y contributed to this work equally”). Some journals require such statements, some will refuse to include them, so your mileage may vary. I doubt this will pacify your reluctant supervisor, though: people who are worried about their rank in the author list are most probably thinking about how it looks like on a publication list or CV.
Have the head professor take responsibility for the final decision (as senior professor and project instigator). That's the most sound solution, but it does not mean it's an easy one.

Good luck with your negotiation! And remember that they're not yours to handle (see my last point)!


I peer reviewed a paper and found it to be sound - technically and language-wise. How should I write the review report?

Just being well-written and correct is not enough. Why should someone read the paper? What are the new things that we learn thanks to this work? Why is it exciting, interesting or useful? Why should we care about it so much that it should be published in a journal? How is it advancing science? What was the state of the art before this work, and how did this paper change the world?

In your review, you should explicitly recommend either acceptance or rejection. If you recommend acceptance, your review has to convince the editor that the paper is indeed worth accepting. (Similarly, if you recommend rejection, you will need to convince the editor that the paper should not be accepted.)


Should I take credit from the idea that I have initially suggested?

EDIT: the original title of this post was "is this plagiarism?? what should i do now??"

To answer the original title question: this is not plagiarism. Plagiarism is presenting another author's ideas, text, etc as your own.
Since it seems from your description that you are still involved in the described project, no such thing has happened.

It seems more that your professor has taken the leadership of the project (which is not strange for a project running in his group), and taken decisions that make you feel less comfortable.

Your fear is that you will not receive (enough) credit for suggesting the original idea. I think that it is best to address this in an early stage (i.e., now) to your professor. Most likely he will assure you that you will receive credit for the original idea. Write down any verbal guarantees that he might give to you in an email to the professor. Then during the execution of the project, make sure that any senior project member is aware of any agreement between you and the professor (e.g., by forwarding the email).

Try to do this in a graceful and polite manner, and try to avoid appearing (passive) aggressive.


Is it appropriate to use the word “like” in a research paper?

The word "like" is perfectly OK, but your use of it in the example sentence is wrong. It should be "as" [[because the clause "Like in Eq. (2)" modifies the verb phrase "will substitute" and thus functions as an adverb.  "Like" produces adjective phrases and would be correct if you were modifying a noun.]]  For example, it would be correct to write "This simplification is like the one in Eq. (2)."

EDIT: What I wrote about the example sentences is right, but the reason I gave, now in brackets [[...]] above, is wrong. In particular, a "like" phrase can function as an adverb; "he sings like Caruso" is correct.  The difference between "like" and "as" (when they express similarity --- both words have several other meanings) is that "like" is a preposition and "as" is a conjunction. So "like" should form a phrase with a noun, e.g., "like the one in Eq. (2)", and "like Caruso".  "As" should be followed by a whole clause, like a sentence, but much of that clause is often omitted. Thus, for example, "As in equation (2), we will substitute ..." is an elliptical form of "As we did in equation (2), we will substitute ...".


How Scopus CSAB plan to evaluate a submitted journal's citedness in Scopus?

For Scopus, like for any organization, if you can't find anything out online and aren't getting information back via email, then the next step is to call them on the phone and be persistent in finding the right person to talk to.

Beyond that, they are a private organization owner by Elsevier (a for-profit company), and there is no mandate that requires them to have either a transparent or a sane process, and there is likely little more advice that anyone outside of the organization can give you.


How do you find out what conferences are in your field?

Another thing that you should do, and it will help with this issue is to join a professional organization in your field. I'll guess that most fields have one or more such organizations, and I'll also guess that most of those have a special rate structure for students. This is true in Mathematics and Computer Science, for example (each of which as two or more such). The ACM (in CS) also has Special Interest Groups (SIGS) for subfields that you can join.

And then, the problem will go away as your email inbox will be full of announcements. Likewise, the "journal" that is distributed to all members will also be full of announcements of conferences, even those not formally sponsored by the organization. The SIGS will also send you lots of enticing ads.

But, you should probably join for a lot of reasons, not just the email "enhancements".

And, of course, those same societies normally have web sites, and their conferences are usually promoted there. They are likely to be some of the top conferences in that field.


Conflict of Interest from previous employment as a graduate student

Specific requirements for conflict of interest vary by publication. I think the situation you describe would be considered a conflict according to some but not all medical journal requirements, for those that give detailed requirements of what to report. Others give less guidance; in which case you should typically err on the side of caution and report it (all this assumes your employment was at least somewhat relevant to the area in which you are conducting research).

In any case, this is typically not a big deal. You won't have to do anything beyond reporting the conflict of interest, and it's unlikely to cause much concern. With pharma companies extensively involved in research, this sort of thing happens all the time.


The total score (which ranges from 200 to 800 in 10-point increments) is a scaled combination of the quantitative and verbal scores.

There is no official "right way" to calculate the total score because the official conversion scale has not been made public. You can find various unofficial (estimated) conversion scales around the Internet - e.g. here, here, and here.


What is the optimal way to publish the first scientific article?

I'm a doctoral student as well with a few articles under my belt. Here's my take on your questions, but first let me say that I would expect your advisor(s) to be able to answer those better than me, and they should have a voice in the process as they are likely to be your co-authors.

A-B) You should aim to publish your articles in journals that are on-topic. You can find good, on-topic journals by inspecting your references, since what you reference should be typically good, on-topic articles. The submission process varies but is usually well-explained on the journal website

C) It depends on your level of proficiency in English, but I'd say to ask your advisor to review it and trust his/her judgment of it.

D) Usually a review cycle takes anywhere from 1 to 4 months. A polished manuscript can take only one review cycle, most articles will take 2 or more. My articles have taken between 9 and 12 months from submission to acceptance.

E) Open-access is nice, but will almost always cost you a fair bit of money (in elsevier journals it's around 2000$ i reckon). What i advise is to submit the pre-print to arxiv (which anyone can access) when you submit to the journal, so you get both exposure.

F) Normally in 'closed-access' journals the publication will be free except for over-page fees (when your article is too long) or to have the article in color in the paper version. Over-page fees are a few hundred $ per page usually

My general advice is to take your time to find the right journal, and don't aim for super high impact factors. It's better to find the perfect (but small) audience for your paper than a lot of people who aren't interested in it. Give it to a lot of people in your research group to read and get feedback. Any criticism you address before submission will shorten the time to publication a lot.

Finally, consider if a journal is the right type of publication. In a lot of fields, conference papers/proceedings are a strong way to show your work and do networking.

Good luck in your research!


Should one offer to take over a lecture that the lecturer is struggling to teach?

Perhaps the best approach would be to ask leading questions that helps the lecturer head in the right direction.  Or, offer an answer to a question that wasn't going well.

I've taught classes (especially ones that use complex libraries, such as parts of a game engine, that I wasn't a seasoned expert with), and have had students who had more experience with a specific topic chime in to the discussion with details I didn't know.  It was great. I've also had students who were aggressive and conveyed arrogance and had them derail the class by setting up a me vs them dynamic.  Not so great.

The most important thing is classroom dynamics:  let the lecturer retain control (ie. facilitate the discussion) but you actively participate. The lecturer should be there to create a learning environment, not bestow knowledge on the class.  You can make it clear you know the topic, and let them have you participate as much as they are comfortable.

Asking to "take over" would not go over well;  offering your knowledge on bits and pieces and nudging the lecturer in the right direction through questions would be better.


As a letter writer, I either email the PDF directly to the hiring department or I use a letter service such as Interfolio. I never give it directly to the student.

I also insert both a scanned image of my signature as well as a digital cryptographic signature embedded into the PDF, with a note that the digital signature can be authenticated through Adobe Reader.


The Professor-Postdoc Relationship in Research Supervision

Based on comments, I'm going to guess that "yes" he is exaggerating but also that, based on his experience you should consider his advice.

But that doesn't imply that you need to take all of the advice, any more than you need to take any particular bit of advice from a formal reviewer after paper submission.

I'll also guess that his intentions are good, even if he is a bit overwhelming, and that you should just try to make it work between you. You won't be in this position forever and will want his good will when it is time to move on.

I think that the opposite would be worse - no real comments.

Resist if you think he is wrong, of course. But think long term about your career. Learn what you can from him and then go your own way.


Should you ask for recommendation letter from the professor of a class you didn't get an A in?

I think there are two questions here that help determine whether or not you should ask this person:

Do You Have An Alternative? : This may seem like a simple question, but if this is the only person who you've done relevant coursework with, etc. you might not genuinely have a choice.

Can They Speak to Your Abilities? : While in the United States letters of recommendation often contain positive comments, they don't have to strictly be about people who are unalloyed perfection. What is important is that the person be able to speak to your abilities as a scientist, your probably success in graduate school, etc. "Merely" getting an A- in their class might not mean they don't think highly of your ability to think critically about the subject, etc. - just as getting an A is not a guarantee that they do.

For reference, I ended up looking back at the people I had write my letters of recommendation - I had taken classes with two of the three, and I had gotten A's in neither class.


How will the COVID-19 pandemic affect graduate admissions?

I am not sure anyone here is going to be much help for your specific situation. There should be someone at your university you can talk with, a study counselor or someone similar. They can better gauge the current situation, especially at your own institute. And a bit more general advice: these types of situations can be very stressful, and I would advice to talk to someone about it. Just getting it out of your system can be very beneficial.


Resources of APIs for automated paper citation aggregation

The name for the type of research related to your question is referred to as: Bibliometrics or Scientometrics.

That being said, the answer to your question is not simple since it depends on a few factors. You could be lucky and have a service such as this available that has a lot of the data available for you:
http://www.scimagojr.com/journalsearch.php?q=22078&tip=sid&clean=0

There is also a whole host of tools that can help you parse the files without using an API:
https://www.mat.unical.it/ianni/wiki/ScholarHIndexCalculator
https://sites.google.com/site/hjamali/scientometric-portal

In my case they did not provide all the information I required and ultimately I had to write a few tools of my own. The problem with this approach is that most papers are only available in PDF and requires PDF text extraction. Plenty of frameworks available to assist with that, but the structure of the document needs to be customised for each source of information since they are not all the same. Long story short, the following API's helped me a lot.

A list of scholarly APIs that can assist:
http://libguides.mit.edu/apis

Text extraction for individual files:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/itextsharp/
https://pdfbox.apache.org/


Industry value of Doctoral degree when compared To a PhD in Computer Science

[a] DCS is not considered equivalent to a Ph.D

So, a job posting seeking a candidate with a PhD in computer science is only seeking (2), candidates with only (1) should not apply.

  will the company treat both the doctoral programs equally or does one have edge over the other?

PhD has the edge over DCS.