How does academia handle bookbinding in the US?

There are two main academic tracks I'm aware of that care about craft bookbinding, in a way that is beyond hobby: fine arts, and "library and archives".

In schools of fine arts it is not uncommon to have "3D design" classes that can include craft binding concepts and techniques as an option. Other classes can focus on leather-work, print-making, binding, embossing and imprinting (often used with book covers), etc. Depending on the size of the school and the local area, they may have occasional seminars specific to book-binding, and some will even be open to non-degree seeking students. So if you have a local arts program, it may be worth a visit/information/tour, and you can ask them if they may have any programming or faculty with experience in your area of interest. In may indeed just be a single person and you could try to take a class with them, or they may even be willing to work with you directly in a helper/apprentice/tutor role. You might also be interested in fine art restoration and preservation, though this is a not a program universally available at all art schools.

Artists are the primary 'consumers' and practitioners of modern craft book binding, because they care about one-offs and details in a way that commercial printers just don't (and can't) care about in the same way. Some commercial shops, especially serving high-end marketing/promotional companies do still buy craft binding work, but it would be hard for someone just with an interest in the practice to connect through this route.

The other main academic track is in library and archives, specifically in the sub-areas of preservation and restoration. This usually isn't focused only on books, though there are book-preservation specialties - but most people in the area will study a broad array of document preservation, from arts to historical documents to books and other artifacts. This will get you much closer to book illnesses if there is also a need for restoration. This is more of an academic path, as I don't know that they are as open to non-degree seeking students who just want to learn as book binding - but it might be a lead you can try to follow.

There may also be hobby-focused classes offered at community/trade schools in your area, as Buffy mentioned - which are also definitely worth a check, and probably your first point of contact if you are mostly interested specifically in learning how just to work with books.


A private, third party wants to fully fund one's PhD studies. How would one mention this in an admissions essay?

You would say, at most, that you are not requesting financial support because you have an independent source of funding.


High school summer research in fields other than biology/medicine

This is not really a proper answer, but rather more like a stretched out comment. In the field of biology, lab hands can be relatively quickly trained. Now, they probably won't understand much of the science that is going on behind the scenes, but doing some of the routine tasks of "pressing buttons", they can free the more senior researchers to do the more challenging parts of the research.

Mathematics, on the other hand, often requires several years of training before you can start contributing in any way and there is no good way to avoid this. A beginning university student might have heard of the concepts that are being researched in some lab, but it is unlikely that a typical high school student can do much. This is all something that you already mentioned in your question.

Having said this, many things in the field of computational science (be it physics, mathematics, astronomy, biology, sociology, or whatever) are rather mundane and could easily be done by someone with a limited knowledge of the field (and I remember there being a recent example in astronomy where a high school student coded up an algorithm to find some shapes of galaxies/starts/something, and it worked so remarkably well that it ended up being published, but I could not find the reference right now). If you truly are motivated enough to contact and seek advisers in your area yourself, I am sure that many would be happy to show you the ropes. Don't be too discouraged, though, if some refuse (or do not even respond), as they might be too busy doing their own research to train new people who will shortly be leaving the lab, anyway.

EDIT to reflect the revised question: I want to point out that earlier I suggested computational science, but there are also experimental physics (for example) labs, which might also have something to do for an interested high school student.

There is no separate department for computational science, because it is not really a study of its own; rather you can use computers in any field (for the sake of completeness, there sometimes might be a department called computational science, but its scope is usually more limited than my definition here). Suppose you were interested in physics at institute X. Go to the website of the department of physics of X and see what the groups are working on. Find the homepages of the individual groups (professors) and see if they seem to be using computers (it will usually be more or less obvious from the types of figures on the website, or they might just explicitly mention it) and if their research appears to be of interest to you. See their publications, and while you some of the papers might be behind a paywall, try Googling the titles and you might find them on arXiv.org or similar free to access preprint servers.

Now the publications themselves are often quite technical, don't get disappointed if you don't understand much, but the introduction section should often be more or less understandable. One of the things you might want to look for is to see whether the group is using some software package (they should cite it if they do), or if everything seems custom made. In the former case, a considerable amount of the work might be in preparing files for the software and with some training could easily be done by a high school student.

As for approaching a professor, and I am hoping that other users on SE might comment more on this topic, the best way, I think, is to have read a paper or two by the group and to point out in your email that you have a rudimentary understanding of the science and the scope of the work. I, and I am not even the group leader, get emails from students (often from other countries) looking for a position (bachelor's thesis or something similar) at our lab because they are 'engineers'. Being an 'engineer' hardly qualifies them for the rather specific work we do and shows that they have not done any research as to who to send the email to, nor to what the group is working on (as they never, ever, specify what they want to do or why they want to join our group, in particular). These types of emails probably never get a reply from anyone (although a high school student just might, for their lack of knowledge as to the specifics would be more understandable). Essentially the more specific you can get in showing your knowledge and asking some questions, the better.

Much of what I write about is a lot to ask from a high school student, and might not even fully pay off in the end (i.e. you might get rejected). I hope that in any case this gets you interested in reading academic papers and gives you a better understanding of what it is that scientists do.


Specific Weakness in GRE Quantitative Section - Looking for Advice

I struggled with the GRE Quantitative section several years ago; my first attempt was over 100 points less than the required score for my graduate program. I found the GRE test-prep books (Kaplan, Princeton Review, Barrons, GRE for Dummies) to be very helpful. I picked up a handful at second-hand bookstores, and then spent a few weeks drilling math problems, which helped me answer questions more quickly. Even though I knew how to do the problems before, they became more automatic with practice, which did make things easier and faster the second time around. Those books also offered time management strategies for taking the test, though you may need to purchase (or rent from the library) newer books which will describe the revised test (books prior to 2012 won't have guides for the new GRE). It was very boring working math problems 1-2 hours a night for a few weeks, but on my second attempt I achieved the score I needed. Best of luck!


Using color in figures for economics journals

Read the author guidelines for the journal you intend to submit to.  Within any field there is variety.

But always assume the paper will be read in B&W, and make it fall back gracefully.  This may be by the reviewer, or it may be by a reader who prefers to work on paper and has easier access to B&W printing.  This also goes quite a long way towards making it accessible for colour-blind readers.

"Helpful but redundant" is a good description of what the colours should be.  Note that if there is a print version with monochrome figures, the journal will probably require that it's useful n that format; I've never come across journals that will accept two versions of the same figure (but I'm in a different field)


Admissions committees have been in the business of matching grad students with classes and advisors for a long time. To provide the best fit, they have asked students for their specialization preference knowing that while some students are sure of their path (pure, applied, or statistics), others will change their mind with a broader exposure. Listing a second option should increase your chances of acceptance, for it gives the admissions committee more options.

While I cannot imagine an admissions committee penalizing students listing a secondary option, they will likely be displeased with wishy-washy students calling to change minor application details.


Is there a dataset, database or API as large as WorldCat that allows for search by library of congress call number?

WorldCat has two different interfaces. One allows you to search by LC Classification and one does not.
The first interface is the public one you get from https://www.worldcat.org/ :

This interface's Advanced Search does not have an option to search LC Classification or call numbers:

The second interface, OCLC FirstSearch, is available through subscription via your local academic or public library. You will need to access it from your academic institution or public library and log in with your institutional credentials or your library card:

This interface's Expert Search has an option to search the Library of Congress Call No.:

Type Q179 into the "Search for" box, select Library of Congress Call No. from the "Indexed in" dropdown, and click Search.
Results:


Combined degree in the UK for a US Student

In the UK, a bachelor's degree lasts three years, and the there are some undergraduate masters degrees available that last four years.

If you complete a year of study at a US university, some UK universities may accept this as enough experience to let you transfer into the second year of a UK degree.  This depends upon how closely aligned the two courses are, and how well you performed in the first year.

The other option to consider is that many US degrees include a year of study in another country.


Should a review paper contain any original (previously unpublished) research?

I believe that such an approach is indeed fine. I have seen some examples of review papers in my field (example this one : http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0009250904009492 ) which are by construction review papers, but which add some news results or complementary results at the end.
Furthermore, I have seen review papers where new results were produced in order to establish, say, a comparison between various modeling approaches or etc.

Consequently, yes. I believe it should not be the core of your paper nor its most important aspect, but I do find it highly pertinent to briefly add new results or non-published results in a review paper. The key word here is to introduce them briefly.


Question about unpaid presentations to organizations

If it's a conversation, I agree with Najib -- no, don't include.  If it's more like a seminar, then you could include it.  But there's another approach possible.  You might want to join a Board of Directors or Advisory Board of a relevant nonprofit.  Either as a regular member, or as a technical advisor.  That would definitely be appropriate to put in a CV.


When reapplying, does it pose negative effect in the admission process if you use the similar personal statement?

No. It is unlikely that anyone would have the ability to discover this repetition (at my institution we don't store applications from previous years), and even if they could there is no reason they would look at your previous application.


How to protect your authorship when trapped in "collaboration"?

how can I...keep the credit for my method if I disclose it in a paper with other collaborators?

You can't: Credit will be shared between all collaborators.*

  Will I be able to also put these results in my Ph.D. thesis and safely
  be recognized as its single author?

Yes.

*In some sense, you can get credit, since the result appears in your thesis, which suggests that you are primarily responsible for results. But, your published paper is more likely to be considered the primary source of the results. (I suppose you could submit your thesis before publishing the paper, or you could release a preliminary draft of your thesis before publishing, then you could cite your thesis/draft thesis in the published paper, which may give you slightly more public credit.)

  should I disclose the new results already and publish those in the paper we are preparing or should I keep this and prepare a new one?

This seems likely to produce opinion-based answers, which are off-topic here.


Can I Request Presenting a Different Paper at a Conference?

At humanities conferences it is normal for people to give papers that are nearly unrelated to the abstracts that they submit. Few people who change their paper topic bother to notify anyone about it. I admit that I've done this a few times. It would certainly be polite to notify them that you are going to speak about something different, but there's no need to feel bad about it or be apologetic. This is a normal thing. No one will mind.

As an aside, you'll soon notice that many senior academics provide extremely vague abstracts to conferences. This is because they don't know what they want to talk about, won't know until they make their presentation on the plane there, and want to leave their options open.


What rate of faculty turnover is healthy?

Reasons for faculty turnover are more important than numbers.  For example, in the late 90s, CS professors were leaving their positions to start companies.  I also know of professors who left otherwise ideal positions to solve a two-body problem (move near their spouse).

One important component of faculty turnover is tenure denials.  If you are a serious candidate, you should ask why your opening exists and the outcome of recent tenure cases.

Another component is faculty taking advantage of early retirement offers.  If a school is offering sweet deals for retirement, it may not be at its most financially secure.  (On the other hand, if they're doing a tenure-track search, that's a positive sign.)

If you can contact faculty who have left through your social network (e.g., if one of your committee members knew them socially), you might be able to get the dirt on the department.

It also doesn't hurt to look at the student newspaper, now usually available online.  At one school at which I interviewed, my host stopped me from picking up a copy.  I did so later and read about major problems between the faculty and administration that involved a lawsuit, the AAUP, etc.


What are effective strategies to work through 'drafting fatigue'?

Having similar experiences, the only approach I have found effective is to leave it alone for an extended period (week to a month typically - with fresher eyes the longer I wait). You can dig into another project for that amount of time, so it isn't wasted doing nothing.

The bullet points jive with my experience as well, e.g. reading the same draft over and over again makes one less likely to see grammer mistakes, minor supervisor input is annoying, and you always want to do alittle more (like add in another figure).

For copy-editing sometimes I will ask my wife or a friend for a look over, which is nice because it gives you alittle respite from the draft as well.


(Canada) How likely/unlikely is it to get accepted to a direct entry PhD program?

Is there any reason you're not considering a Canadian Master's program? They're usually funded, and doing a Master's is pretty standard before doing a PhD in Canada.
What do you mean by "direct entry"? If you mean starting this September, then your odds are quite low. If you mean "straight from Bachelor's to PhD" then that's a different story.
What are your grades like? Do you have any undergraduate research experience? Skipping the Master's is generally reserved for "exceptional students" in Canada, so your odds depend on how your Bachelor's went.

I know some schools have a "PhD Track Master's" where you start in a Master's and transfer to PhD after a year. Maybe that's for you?

Graduate studies is a long haul. Don't be in a rush to start it if it doesn't work for your life.


Is it advisable to use a URL link shortening service when writing an academic article?

You should never offer a link shortener as the only option in an academic paper, for two reasons:

It's adding another point of failure: if the shortening service is down, then the link cannot be followed.  This is a particular worry over time, since the service may go out of business.
One of the big reasons why link shorteners are so popular is that they keep track of usage statistics.  I'd be offended if I thought an author was using this to monitor when the link was followed, where the people following it were located, etc.

So if you offer a shortened URL, it should only be in addition to the real URL, not in place of it.  However, I'd tend to avoid even that.  It doesn't look professional to me, and I don't think there's much savings for the reader.  (Online papers should have clickable URLs, or at least ones that can be copied and pasted, so this only arises for someone who has a printed copy but no online copy.  That can happen, but it's hardly a major issue.)


May I publish the slides from my presentation that use figures from published papers as examples?

Yes, it is legal to reproduce and legal to use exact figure if it is not copyrighted.

If you refer to the source, you can reproduce the data. Which means you cannot use the figure by taking a screenshot, but rather reproduce the result by yourself. Data and equations are not copyrighted.

If the article is in open science or creative commons license (most of them are nowadays) you can take screenshots and use them.

To avoid complications, why not make your own figure of the data? It is pretty simple. After taking a screenshot, using plot digitizer you can get the data. Use your own plotting tool to make the picture.  This is a problem if your picture is an image from the experiment. Then you need to obtain permission to use that image.


Making time to catch up with people at a conference

Skip the talks

Except for meals, most of the time at a conference is taken up by scheduled talks. Don't go to them.

Ok, go to some of them. But if you want to get some work done, catch up with a colleague during a coffee break, take a look at the schedule, find a session (or two, or three) that seem extra boring, and agree to skip them. Use that time to go to a coffee shop, or sit in a quite space in the conference center.


How much of a "personal touch" on dissertation is OK?

This probably depends a lot on how things work at your university.  In the cases I'm familiar with (U.S. math departments), there are only four types of people who have an opinion about your dissertation:

You.
Your thesis commitee, particularly your advisor.
The bureaucrat who measures the margins and decides whether your paper is fancy enough.
Family members and friends who will want to take a look at the nicely bound volume and make polite comments.

Nobody else will pay any attention to your dissertation, unless you do an inadequate job of publishing its contents (in which case someone might be forced to look it up), you become very famous (in which case it will be an interesting historical document), or you do something so weird in it that people pass around copies for the amusement or shock value.

The painting on the cover might fall into the last category if it looks pompous or strange enough.  However, most personal touches are not a problem if the four groups mentioned above don't care.  Furthermore, the bureaucrat won't care unless you violate a known rule or do something so awful that they feel the need to dig up an obscure rule, and your family doesn't get a vote (you'll just be embarrassed if they think you've done something silly).

So the short answer is "ask your advisor".


Students who did poorly on the final exam

Apart from the natural response of blaming someone else for one's shortcomings (as students often do), it is difficult to see where the problem may lie. I have studied under a summative system and always found my grades were very clear and understandable to me, particularly if I understood why answers were graded as they were. Now I usually did not question someone's judgement unless I felt it was absolutely necessary.

Now, many years later, I am teaching in a system where courses are set up with learning objectives. At first I found this quite strenuous since each objective must be underpinned by clear grading criteria for each of the grades A-E and F. Note that the major difference is that the learning objectives means you do not grade on a curve but in terms of how students fulfill the goals.

Working with goal oriented criteria demands a lot from the teacher in first setting up the appropriate goals and then to make sensible criteria for how to judge fulfilling them. At first it seems tempting to describe the fulfillment as good, better, much better and outstandingly good or something of that sort but the point is to pinpoint what characterizes the standard for the specific grade. Since many criteria make up a final grade one must also explain the ways in which the different criteria are weighted together but that is a only a minor problem reminiscent of the summative system.

What I have found in the end is that not only should the criteria give the students better ways to understand where they stand but they actually provide me with more fuel to explain why they got the result they did. I now have a thought-through list of arguments for a specific grade which is not relative to others but relating to a set of goals and how to fulfill them.

If this is manageable everywhere is beyond my horizon to speculate on but I must say that after battling with the system (after it was imposed on us) I have found that it actually works in my favour—and hopefully also the students'). It makes the grading transparent. It is also possible to stake out issues that may reduce grades such as spelling errors in essays or missing labels in graphs or whatever details may matter.

Now so far this concerned the setup of the course in terms of grading. It is of course necessary to also add structure to a class that forces students to work with the new knowledge during the course. This could of course be any activity that makes students read the literature and reflect on its content. As an undergraduate I was in a system where studying was mainly done during a few 24-hour days before the exam. Once it was passed most was forgotten. As a graduate student I was in a system with lots of homework and other activities and I found that I really did not have to study that hard for the exam. So activities may play a role to help students reflect on the material. Exactly what activities can and should be used depends on the subject but the main objective should be to have students digest and reflect on the material.

A final issue concerns examination. Does the examination reflect the type of knowledge in the course? This is a big question and one which needs thought. There are many alternative ways of examining apart from written exams and since I hate correcting exams I try to test other ways. Again, what works depends on the type of course but look into other ways of examining the course to see if that will help.

I do not know if this is helpful as an attempt to answer your question but the topic of learning outcomes is difficult and whereas the learning at university level really IS the student's responsibility, it is the learning activities and assessments we make that can help them reach results.


Is it appropriate to ask one of my thesis-committee members for a postdoc position?

I don't see any reason not to ask. I think that any "conflict" because he will review your dissertation would be minor. A post-doc position is a two-way affair in which you both give and get, so it isn't like pandering on the one hand or asking a favor on the other.

If your general relationship with the person is good, and you want to work in that area, then yes, ask. But be sure, before you ask, that you wouldn't be rejected out of hand. You need at least to know that you would get serious consideration even if you aren't accepted. An informal explorative meeting might be one way to broach the subject, followed up with a more formal (CV, SOP, ...) application.

On the other hand, there is also something to be gained from working at a different institution, with new colleagues and new ideas. Don't neglect to look for alternatives in other places.

But also note that this answer may not apply universally. My experience is in the US in mathematics and CS.


Does a college have a legal obligation to offer advertised courses?

Disclaimer, I am not a lawyer.
If the college/university doesn't offer advertised causes, the obvious law it could be breaking are those related to false advertising. US false advertising laws say that for a successful case, one needs to prove five things:

The advertiser made false statements of fact about its product;
The false advertisements actually deceived or had the capacity to deceive a substantial segment of the target population ;
The deception was material;
The falsely advertised product was sold in interstate commerce;
The party bringing the lawsuit (plaintiff) was injured as a result of the deception. Injury is construed as a likelihood of injury, rather than actual injury.

#1 seems trivial given the assumptions in the question. #2 should also be trivial. #3 reads rather vague to me, but if it means (as another source says) "the company lied about something important", then the plaintiff must show that they went to the university because of the advertised courses (or perhaps they can show that the courses available are a big part of the reason they went to the university, as opposed to say convenience). IANAL, but this seems pretty trivial as well since it's hard to argue that a university's courses aren't important in the university experience.
#4 deals with "interstate commerce", which means "any commercial transactions or traffic that cross state boundaries or that involve more than one state". If the college/university only took students from its own state, it should be fine. For every other case this should be trivially satisfied. Finally, #5 says the plaintiff must show that they were hurt by the deception. If one were e.g. hoping to become a particle physicist and it turns out the particle physics course was not offered, then this should be clear.
So yes, if the college/university advertises a course they have a legal obligation to offer it.
The scenario you described is different. Does "offering" a course mean they have to physically offer a course as opposed to arrange for students to take it from another university? One can certainly argue it doesn't - after all instruction is still being offered. Some advanced courses will even say they are only offered subject to student interest. Further, unless the university actually advertised the courses as being taught on campus, their advertisement wouldn't even be wrong. There are laws against misleading advertisements too, but it is not clear that courses have to be taught physically. Certainly during COVID many classes are taught online, and if false advertising claims have arose from this I'm not aware of it. It is possible one could still argue hurt because one has to pay cross-registration fees, however.
tl; dr: IANAL, but I suspect if the college makes arrangements for its students to take the advertised courses either online or at another university, they will be in the legal clear.


Can I put a postdoc as one of the references in my CV?

This depends on what is available to you. Yes, institutions value the opinion of well established researchers (professors), but they also value the honest opinions of people who can speak about your likelihood of success and how you "get along" in the research environment. The best are people who can do both, of course.

But you don't want lukewarm praise from top people. So think about who you have as possible recommenders and what they might say. Then just make a decision. I doubt that it will matter in a critical sense, actually.


Is my Major Professor Counted as a Co-Author?

Using "we" as you suggest is fine.  As to the APA, I say a mathematician needs a guide to psychology writing like a fish needs a bicycle.  We with a single author is good enough for Terry Tao 1,2 so you can do it as well.
There are many specific style issues in mathematics.  There are many guides. Here is one 3.
By the way, the best time to discuss authorship issues with your professor is back when you started this project.  The second best time is today.


Does TA experience for wide range of classes improve future job prospective?

All else being equal, then more and more diverse experience is better. The problem is that all else will not be equal.

If you teach the same course over and over again, then that course will become better (up to a point) and you will have to invest less and less time in it. So you will probably get better evaluations and have more time to do other stuff like research, at the cost of having experience teaching a narrower set of courses. If you teach more diverse courses, you will show a more diverse experience at the cost of getting somewhat worse evaluations and less time for research.

However, in my field the differences between the two aren't that big: if you are new to teaching, you'll spent a lot of time preparing regardless of whether you teach that course the first, second, or third time. The improvement in quality will be there, but that does not necessarily mean that that will translate in better evaluations. The extend to which a more diverse experience pays off depends on what is expected in your sub-sub-sub-discipline. The person that is in the best position to advise you on that is your advisor.


Do non-ACM events/conferences publish & index their final proceedings in the ACM digital library?

Yes, but there are rules.

There are three ways for conferences to have their proceedings published in the ACM Digital Library.

What most people mean by an "ACM conference" is a conference that is sponsored by ACM or one of its special interest groups.  Proceedings of all ACM-sponsored conferences are published in the ACM Digital Library.  ACM sponsorship must be advertised in all conference publicity, including the conference web site and call for papers.

Conferences can also be held in cooperation with ACM.  In-cooperation conferences can apply for their proceedings to be published in the Digital Library, but not all such applications are approved.  Cooperation with ACM must be advertised in all conference publicity, including the conference web site and call for papers.  In particular, in-cooperation conferences cannot claim to be sponsored by ACM.

Conferences can also apply to publish their proceedings in ACM’s International Conference Proceedings Series without sponsorship or cooperation.  These conferences are allowed to use a special ACM-ICPS logo on publicity materials to advertise the publication agreement, but they cannot claim to be sponsored by or held in cooperation with ACM.  This is the agreement advertised by ICCBDC.

Nothing on the ICBDR web site suggests that their proceedings will be published in the ACM Digital Library, so they almost certainly won't be.

(Indexing is a separate question.  A very small number of proceedings series like VLDB are indexed in the Digital Library even though they are not published by ACM.)


Expressing Interest for Waitlists on more than 1 program (Ph.D Admissions in STEM)

They are using this question to find out if you have already accepted another offer.
If you say you are interested, what you would be implying is that if this is the only additional offer you get, you would seriously consider attending. There is nothing wrong with being interested in more than one program.


What to do about a student whom I suspect of having plagiarized but who claims not to have?

Inform the student of the school's official procedure for appealing an accusation of plagiarism, and suggest he follow that procedure. (Also see: How can I prove that I didn't plagiarize.)

Policies and procedures are there exactly for situations like this one.

Generally if the student chooses to appeal, the procedures involve other parties (a dean, or a committee dedicated to such matters, for example) evaluating the student's side of things and your side of things (your reasons for believing that the student plagiarized) and then deciding on next steps according to school policies. (Here's an example.) So if you think the student is likely to appeal, you can start to prepare your side of things - the "evidence" - in the meantime.  (Personally, when in this situation I also like to let the department head know that this appeal might be coming.)

Note that you don't need to have caught the student on videotape, or anything like that. You'll tell the committee what you know, they'll make the decision as to whether it's enough evidence, and they'll make the decision as to whether the consequences you have imposed should stand. Deciding whether your evidence meets "standards of proof" for an appeal according to school policy is their job, not yours (they have much more experience than you in this matter.) Assuming you made your accusation in good faith, you don't need more evidence for an appeal than you did for the original accusation.


Found published work that doesn't reference previous related work

Realistically, there is nothing you can do to change an already published paper. There are some options for extreme cases, but they are unlikely to apply.

What you can do is try to have the record correct in future publications. Unless you have hard evidence to the contrary (and usually even then), it is best to communicate on the basis that this is not an act of malice. You can write the authors of these papers (and authors of preprints on the topic) a polite email stating that you liked their interesting work and have done related work that you think might be of interest to them. What they do with that information is up to them then.


What's the difference between a Doctor of Computer Science and a Ph.D. in Computer Science?

This is the first I've heard of a "Doctor of Computer Science" degree. Not having a dissertation requirement is a clear sign that this is different from a "standard" Ph.D program. A Ph.D (in any discipline) requires you to produce an original piece of research that you defend to a committee of experts. In addition, most Ph.D programs will have course requirements, residency requirements and so on.

Update: Some googling led me to the Wikipedia entry on 'professional doctorates', which most closely match the nature of the degree the OP describes. As Austin Henley points out, this is close in spirit to an MD (USA) and JD.


Is there an English Proficiency Test with lifetime validity?

If you obtain a degree from a country where English is the official language, then nobody will ask you for English proficiency tests in later applications. This is especially the case if you are applying for a postgraduate degree in North America or Europe.


Academic rank equivalence between the UK and the US systems

From the wiki pages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_ranks_(United_States) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_ranks_in_the_United_Kingdom:

Entry level position

UK: Lecturer
USA: Assistant Professor

Mid-level

UK: Senior Lecturer
USA: Associate Professor

Upper-level

UK: Reader
USA: Professor

Highest level

UK: Professor
USA: Endowed Chair/Named Professor

Note 1. that in the USA, ranks #2 and higher are normally tenured. Tenure is handled different in the British system.

Note 2. The American rank of a named chair (aka named professorship, endowed chair) is distinct from the administrative head of a department, who is also often called the "Chair."


Can the graduate school administration change graduation dates?

John Nauhaus' extensive comments in response to your related question apply here as well. However, there is a direct question that needs a direct answer and an emotional core to your posts that deserves more direct attention as well:

[Could] the graduate school administration change [my] graduation dates?
Is there a valid reason the graduate school would be unable to back-date my degree?

Your graduate school's administration cannot and will not change your graduate date if your request does not come with the support of your advisor and your department. The graduate school and the university may be "higher ups" in terms of a traditional administrative hierarchy, but in academic and curricular matters your department has absolute primacy. Any effort by the administration to "force" a graduation date on your department would be seen as an encroachment on their academic freedom, and that would get the attention of outside faculty and peer institutions in a tremendously negative way.
This may be unrelated to the harm that has occurred to you, but it is a valid reason for the graduate school to deny your specific request. If you still have any credibility within your university's administration, you could get more traction seeking other forms of redress.

Subtext: Does the department get away scot free?

You will not get what you decided to ask for. This does not mean that your efforts have had no impact. They have cost your department in at least two ways: First, to the extent that you still have the sympathy of anyone in the administration the dispute has cost your department credibility and administrative reputation. As you press the matter in increasingly intrusive ways, this cost will decline and eventually flip into sympathy. No program wants to be pitied, but it's better than being disliked. Second, if you've reached the point where a dean refuses to meet with you then you've earned the "problem child" achievement regardless of the merit of your complaint. Your graduate program admitted you, and will therefore be seen as bringing a "problem" (that would be you) to the university's doorstep. The administration—even the sympathetic administration—will call your department's judgement into question because they vouched for you.
Your department has paid and will continue to pay for what you went through.
None of this will be visible to you. That is what professionalism looks like from the outside: calm seas and a gentle wind, nothing happening here.

More subtext: Why should the department's error cost me?

This is the most important part of your question. As a student and teacher (can't and won't speak to this as an administrator), I have seen graduate students throw away their professional futures over pride and pocket change. It may not look like pocket change from the perspective of a graduate student's meager income, but you need to review your relative costs in terms of a tenured professor's considerable income.
Based on what you have written here, it looks like you are burning your professional future to ash over four years of lost pay. That "problem child" tag you've earned is sticky, and it will follow you. No faculty wants to hire a colleague that brings trouble, and no faculty wants to hire a colleague that escalates trouble.
Here are two ways to overcome this tag that I am aware of:

Be at the very top of your field. If your scholarly stature outweighs your immaturity, some good university will accept the latter's cost. This is emotionally easy—everyone would happily be the best at what they do—but it is intellectually difficult. Are you capable of being that good? What would achieving this cost you elsewhere? (It will cost you a lot. For example: Ever looked at the divorce rate for professors?)

Demonstrate a "newfound" maturity. If it looks like you learned from the experience, this will slowly offset the negative reputation you've acquired and allow faculty search committees to review your applications on scholarly merit. This is easier intellectually, you just need to be an employably strong scholar. This is very difficult emotionally because it requires an extraordinary humility. That's uncommon in academia; it can work against the strength of will and self-confidence needed to succeed as a professional scholar.

Deans, directors, and other professors may sometimes look like colonoscopy bags full of "pomp and disregard," but the attitudes that give you this impression are the same ones that got them through a dissertation, tenure probation, and other indignities of the profession. You seem to have that attitude in larval form, and it seems to be acting out. These "dismissive" deans and directors have learned to channel their attitudes into socially acceptable forms, and search committees will be looking to hire only those professional scholars who have learned to do the same.
John Nauhaus' comments elsewhere are going to be more valuable overall. The answer to your question about what the graduate school can do is little more than a footnote to his discussion of what you can do, and of what you need to do to recover personally.


Let me react to some specific comments

I don't have much of a background in this field. I feel like I'm struggling when I do research in this field, and I'm not sure how effective I would be if I went into this long term. (I don't think I'm playing to my strengths if I entered this subfield).

If you're just starting your Phd, I'd be surprised if you were an expert in the field, no offense. There is much to learn, and most early grad students - good and bad - feel they're struggling. The important question is are you struggling because it's complicated (good!) or because you don't care about the topic (bad!). If the latter, consider switching.

I feel more comfortable with other subfields and I think I would be playing more toward my strengths even in certain other subfields where I have less of a background.

One's comfort zone is seldom where significant progress is made. Again, if it's an interest issue, consider changing, but if you just feel overwhelmed by a new research area, consider embracing it - you will learn a lot. Moreover, perhaps you can bring your 'other sub fields' strengths to bear on your current subfield. Some of the best students I've known have used analyses and thought processes foreign to their immediate field.

The labs in other subfields are more popular amongst grad students, and I suspect each student gets less attention than they would with my current advisor.
Any advice on whether to stay and switch? Is it best to wait and switch, or switch ASAP.

If you're set on switching, do it asap. Just make sure your motivation is sound. You want to be able to stand out, for sure, but every field is going to have difficulties. It's a Phd.  If it were easy, everyone would have one.


I think it would be ok, if done in passing; less than a sentence, perhaps. I think it would be much better, however, if one of your letters of recommendation mentioned the earlier (successful) student instead. I once benefitted from just that situation.
But, a word of caution. Make sure that your SoP is forward looking on your own plans and goals and how you intend to meet them. Don't get side tracked from the fact that this is, perhaps, your most important application document. Having someone else say certain things gives you a few more words to make the most important points.


Research institute reluctant to provide recommendation letters. Should I persist asking them?

Professors are very busy. I wouldn't take "no reply" as "don't want to do it", your email may well be sitting in a folder labeled "look at these later" somewhere...

Send both professors another email, and begin the subject line with "Time sensitive" to get their attention (eg. "Time sensitive: Letter of recommendation"). You might also try calling, although if all you have is an office phone number, many profs are even worse with their office voicemail than they are with emails.

When you email, include your CV, and a separate document with some bullet points about yourself and your achievements (both during your time with them and since your graduation if applicable). The less work they have to do to write the letter for you, the more likely they'll be able to fit it into their busy schedule.

Keep trying -- but do NOT worry too much if you can't get a letter, that does NOT automatically disqualify you. Unlike with a PhD advisor, who only works with a few students and works with them for several years (it would be weird not to get a reference there), a masters' thesis advisor works with many more students and for a shorter period of time, so it's not that unusual to not be able to get a reference (especially if it's been a few years - mine barely remembered me when I contacted him for a reference three years later).


Are learning by reading from a textbook compared to listening to lectures different roads to same goal

You are operating on the false assumption that class time equates to "lecture". There are other things to do with class time, which may be valuable to the book-learner.

In the lecture-based undergrad classes I teach, I do not take attendance (which becomes impractical anyway as class sizes increase). Students are paying for my time, and they can do with it what they want. They have assignments that need to be completed by certain due dates - some online and some that need to be submitted in class. If they are earning good grades, I let them do whatever. If they are doing poorly, I intervene, but one-on-one.

If the course in question is discussion- or activity-based, then the students should not be excused. These types of courses are not content-based (think General Chemistry), but issue-based (Racial Inequality in American Politics) or skill-based (Introduction to Public Speaking). Again, I would not take attendance, but a majority of the students' grades will be for in-class activities - discussions about case studies or issues, group presentations, individual presentations, peer-lead team learning, active and hands-on learning, demonstrations by students, etc. In these cases the student is heavily penalized by not attending class. In the class on public speaking, perhaps each student is graded as follows: 1) three short in-class oral presentations (20% of the overall grade each); 2) a written critical reflection on their presentations as a final paper (20% of the final grade total); and 3) critical analysis of presentations made by 2 classmates (10% of the final grade each). This student needs to be in class, or he/she will be unable to do 100% of the graded work!

In all cases I firmly believe in placing the responsibility on the student. Just as the student needs to be responsible for the assignments, for studying, and ultimately for earning the final grade, the student needs to be responsible for the decision to come to class. If the student wants to skip class, the student can skip as long as the student knows that there will be real (missed assignments) and implied penalties (missed opportunities to comprehend the material better). The instructor's responsibility is not to ensure that students learn. It is to create an environment where learning can happen and to provide guidance and feedback about how successful that learning is.


Professor didn't acknowledge a late hand-in by email. Is it appropriate to follow up?

It depends on the procedures at a particular institution, but using email as a delivery vehicle for assessed work is so unreliable and untrustworthy that at many places it is prohibited. You should consult your local rules.

Email is unreliable because, for the sender there is no guarantee that anything arrived. It could have been blocked by various spam filters on the way because of content, type of attachment, or originating domain. Did you use the institutions own email account to email from, or an outside one?

Email is also unreliable because the time in transit can be variable. It is also insecure as the message could be tampered with in transit as third parties are used for delivery.

You may not be aware of the recipients mailbox situations. It could be overflowing with messages. You do not know the message delivery rate; how many are received per day. You have no knowledge of what the situation looks like from the other side.

For the recipient is is untrustworthy as they have no assurance of authentication, that the sender is who they say they are.

These, and many other reasons, are why many places use a VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) for the submission of graded assignments.

For you, however, without contacting the person directly you have no way of finding out if the work was received, and when it was received, and whether your email would be acceptable.

However, if email is an accepted or required form of submission, you could not expect an acknowledgement either. It would be quite time-consuming to individually reply to each message that was an assignment submission.


What is the difference between repeatability, replicability and reproducibility?

The American Statistical Association (ASA) has developed Reproducible Research Recommendations. The purpose of these recommendations are to create transparent science that can be recreated independently of the data creators and analyzers.  These recommendations have been motivated by several high profiles examples of studies being either retracted or not repeatable. The ASA includes definitions for Reproducibility and Replicability:

  Reproducibility: A study is reproducible if you can take the original data and the computer code used to analyze the data and reproduce all of the numerical findings from the study. This may initially sound like a trivial task but experience has shown that it’s not always easy to achieve this seemingly minimal standard.

  Replicability: This is the act of repeating an entire study, independently of the original
  investigator without the use of original data (but generally using the same methods).

I do not know repeatability fits into these definitions or if it has a formal definition. Also, this hierarchy seems to differ from yours. Reproducibility is using exiting data and recreating the same results using the described methods. Replicability is conducting a new experiment and reaching the same conclusions.

On a personal note, I have tried to reproduce studies while working with a statistician and most life science journal  articles do not include enough details to exactly recreate analysis unless they include their script (e.g., Python, SAS, or R code used to analyze the data). We were trying to recreate simple linear regressions and ANOVAs to find case studies for undergraduate stats courses, but often got different regression coefficients and test statistics. For example, people often make assumptions about NA values or transformations that are not described in their formal writeup.

For examples of replicability problems, search for psychology reproducibility problems. Also, notice the inconsistent use of the r terms here.

For examples of reproducibility problems, this lecture describes how a forensic statistician uncovered the Duke Cancer Scandal a few years back. Although outright fraud was occurring, there were other serious issues with the data analyzes.


How to argue against questionable research practices such as P-hacking and Harking?

This sort of thing happens in both the social sciences AND physical sciences.  For instance, often a scientist will collect data to test a theory but will also collect lots of extraneous data.  Analyses on these extraneous data often should be considered exploratory and labeled as such (because significant results could be due to the multiple tests)  [As another example, you don't want to know how often chemists repeat an experiment until they get a good yield, then stop and report that yield without mentioning that that was the best in 20 experiments!]

The fastest solution is to agree to do the multiple analyses, but then tell what you did in the methodology section.  If you say that you analyzed it several ways and one way showed significance, readers can decide whether or not to believe the result.  Just tell your co-authors that not mentioning that you did multiple analyses is leaving the research improperly described.

However, you can (occasionally) save the day.  If, for instance, you did 10 different analyses and picked the best one, you'll be ok if the result would hold under a Bonferroni correction (i.e. instead of requiring significance at the 0.05 level, you require significance at the 0.05/#tests level).  So it the final test shows a p-value such as 0.000001, you probably are on safe grounds.

Another approach is to a priori decide that some tests are obvious (confirmatory) and some are just searching around the data (exploratory).  Then you can demonstrate the confirmatory results, while labeling anything interesting among the 'exploratory' results as 'needs further research'.  That is, you can mix well-founded tests with 'data dredging' as long as you acknowledge the difference between the two sets of tests.

But if it isn't possible to rescue the result, I'd go with insisting that they describe what they did, with the comment that if they are embarrassed to describe it, they shouldn't have done it.  :)

You might also add that it is often obvious (at least to statisticians) that a researcher has pulled this trick.  When we see a test in isolation that would not occur to us to be the obvious approach, or a hypothesis that we'd not choose a priori, it looks suspicious.  For instance, I recently read a paper that claimed that a certain group of people tend to commit suicide more often if they were BORN in the Spring.  It was clear that JUST testing the effect of birth in Springtime was not something that would occur to anyone, without testing the effect of birth in other seasons.  So they probably had a spurious result due to multiple comparisons.


This is a good question, but I don't see how anyone other than you can answer it. You write that you "[love] the institution ... [and] do not like the situation I am seeing." You also write that "I am very active on research and I would like to continue in this way." You have to ask yourself (i) whether you have the capacity to address both of these things -- some people do, and (ii) if not, which is more important to you. In other words: Would you be happy 5 years from now knowing that you did the best research possible but that you let your environment fall apart? Would you be happy 5 years from now knowing that you tried your best to make your university run well, at the cost of answering the research questions that drive you? Some people would answer 'yes' to the first question; some 'yes' to the second. No one but you can answer this.


Is it OK to send another reminder after prospective research leader stops responding to my email?

You can wait for another 1-2 days and send a reminder again. In the reminder, ask if there is any change in the prospect of the planned collaboration. You can also offer yourself to help with the situation, if they see you fit for this (even if the chances are small that you can actually help).

Of course, keep being polite (but do not over-do it).

Good note from @user2912328 in the comments: verify the correctness of the e-mail address of the PhD guy.

Note from me: please also verify the SPAM folder of your email. A friend of mine found (by mistake / luck) no less than 3 messages from me hidden there - while I was worried that he might be upset with me or something.


What is the point of listing 1000 authors for a single scientific paper?

The "point" of 1000 authors is to recognize that 1000 people contributed to the paper at a level sufficient to be considered authors, according to the standards of that particular field.

In some fields (including high-energy physics), large numbers of authors are not unusual. See e.g. the 2015 paper estimating the mass of the Higgs boson with 5,154 authors. This kind of research often involves very large teams spanning multiple institutions. Typically papers published as a result of a collaboration are credited to all members of the team.

For more information see Report by the Working Group on Authorship in Large Scientific Collaborations in Experimental High Energy Physics.


How broad should the research Interests of an undergraduate applying for grad school be?

I personally make it a little more specific to the department. Something like, "condense matter physics, in particular, the faculty Prof. A and Prof. B looks interesting in that (etc)."


Is asking for the syllabus as a student before class starts frowned upon?

It should be perfectly acceptable (nearly) everywhere. You may not get it, for a variety of reasons, but it is fine to ask. Note that some places have it online, so you might look there also.
Even an older syllabus might serve your purposes.


Is there any established database schema to store references?

If you would consider an approach of storing bibliographic information in XML format, either directly (as XML files), or indirectly (via serialization or XML-to-RelationalDB conversion), you might find the following resources of interest (some of the resources are general and/or database-focused):

Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS) by The Library of Congress (USA);
Standards at The Library of Congress page lists a host of relevant information;
Apache OpenOffice bibliographic implementation and bibliographic database information;
development documentation for any other open source bibliography management software (JabRef, Zotero, etc.); for more information, see this list;
Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI);
List of citation standards, which might be used to store bibliographic metadata (by DCMI);
Finally, for the NoSQL way of doing things, consider using BibJSON schema and, for the linked data emphasis, consider using JSON-LD (also see this relevant article).


Why is peer-review for journals free of charge but not for other academic documents?

BUT funding agencies pay for the same peer-review (of research
  proposals).

Not necessarily.

  OR universities pay the external referees for reviewing PhD
  dissertations.

Not necessarily.

  My question is: if peer-review is voluntary and a professional duty,
  why isn't it the case in other reviewing processes?

Because compared to a journal article, those are much more intensive. It may require travel, and almost certainly involves several days of work. Therefor those types of activities are disadvantaged in my considering of "Do I have time for this?"

The way to address that? Incentives. Including monetary ones.


Is it normal for professors to twist the truth about their labs?

I think your perception of twisting the truth is correct, but I wouldn't call it lying if this is your interpretation. The twisting of the truth is more produced among professors and group leaders by students that don't know exactly what topic they are interested in exactly and should pursue for PhD work. I think you are a in a minority, burning for a exact topic. At least when you don't have to pay for your PhD work, but have a salary, my impression is many PhD students choose their department/group/topic rather based on criterions like salary, infrastructure, need to move, location and culture than topical or research-related criterions.

Group leaders need simply good people to work in their labs, and they are looking for really good people or mediocre with very much hands-on experience for a distinct project. A group doesn't act like a company with very specific job description. You need a team that is able to develop and learn, as science never stands still. Maybe your professor wants to go more into NLP and finance in future. Especially young group leaders have to dive also in new topics and broaden their scope. So this you should discuss with him. But in general his "approach" is right to make you interested in his group and not deliver you reasons on a silver tablet to not join him.

If there is too much truth twisting can and should also be proven by you. Good groups hava a good publication track and often an alumni section on their website. This is something I would always throw an eye one before talking to group leader. What research did he 5 years ago, last year, how much people work on distinct topics and has the group many collaborators and of which quality?

The group may currently not work on your topics, but have a better infrastructure than other groups to work on it. This is something you have negotiate and outline with the professor before starting any contract, in best case by a binding research proposal, so there are no misunderstandings for what you will get your PhD and work on mostly.

That competition and working pressure is really high in south korea is not unknwon, as suicide and emigration rates of academics to have an easier life.

I'm not sure why often professors are here on the academia.se treated as holy cows or responsible for everything. No researcher is trained to become a professor like a surgeon, it's learning by doing and they are humans like everybody else with personal inadequatnesses. They are no own species like it often sounds here. If the truth is twisted a lot, then it is rather a problem of academia at your university or country or the general culture. Of course professors are in competition to get good people, like everywhere else outside of academia.


To whom is title "Professor Emeritus" given in the US?

In the U.S., "professor emeritus" simply means "retired professor".  It's a courtesy title offered to retiring professors to acknowledge their continued scholarly role even after formal retirement.  It typically includes library privileges and a computer account, and emeritus professors may also have offices (this depends on departmental policy and the availability of space).  It's sometimes possible to teach, but this is a special arrangement rather than a job requirement.

At many universities every retired faculty member is offered this title, with rare exceptions for people who committed misconduct or angered the administration.  At other universities one has to apply for the title and make a case for why it is justified.

In particular, professor emeritus is not a higher title or special distinction.  It can be viewed as a retirement incentive: even after retirement, you'll still have a respected role as well as necessities like library access.  However, there's no advantage to becoming an emeritus professor beyond the benefits of retiring from your job (i.e., giving up duties and focusing only on what you prefer).


As a department head, what to do if a professor leaves without giving out grades?

I assume you've already tried to convince/pressure the instructor to provide enough information to assign grades.  Assuming he's not dreadfully ill, it would be incredibly unprofessional for him to refuse, but sometimes people are unprofessional.  If you don't know him well, is there someone else in the department who could try to talk some sense into him?  Was anyone else involved in the course, such as a TA or grader?

Once you've convinced yourself that you just can't get the grades, you need to take this up with the administration.  It's a really awkward situation, and you shouldn't be improvising a solution.  Whatever you do should be discussed with and approved in advance by the dean (or whoever has a similar level of responsibility in your university).  Presumably this issue has arisen before, and the previous decisions will serve as a precedent.  If this is the very first time, then you'll be setting a precedent.  Either way, you don't need to take sole responsibility for figuring out what to do, and you shouldn't.


Accepting An Academic Gift From Supervisor

There is no issue at all in such an offer. Thank them and accept the offer. This is an entirely appropriate sort of thing to do. Especially from an advisor to their first student.

Gifts in the other direction have ethical considerations, of course. Gifts to supervisors can be misinterpreted.

But, as you suggest, it is a gesture of support for your studies and your future.

I would only suggest otherwise if the relationship had some sort of creepy element generally or you thought the supervisor had other than academic interests. You give no suggestion of that, so dismiss the idea, though it may be relevant to others.

Hmmm. I'm reminded by this that I've done the same, though it was a copy of my own book.


Advisor is Moving -- Should I Quit Grad School?

Your advisor may be under a great deal of stress too -- so you may want to take that into account.

You could:

Decide you've gone far enough with your studies (for now, at least), and withdraw from the program, giving yourself a pat on the back for the hard work you've put in so far.
Apply and transfer to the other university.  Many people do this when their advisor goes somewhere else.
Remain formally enrolled in your current university, but do all your practical work in the new place.
Stay where you are but work with someone else.

Only you can decide.


Should I let a bad mark from 10 years ago discourage me from taking on a TAship?

This is ultimately a personal decision for you to make and it's likely that the question will be closed.
I assume that you now have adequate background to be a TA for this course, so you've overcome the difficulties that you had when you first took the course.  Let me suggest to you that your experience in struggling with this course as a beginner is something that can help you in working as TA for the course because you'll understand how the students are sometimes struggling with the course.


What should I do if a paper makes false claims about my work?

That is what the editor or technical chair of the venue is for: to act as an independent moderator. Contact them, clearly and briefly explain the situation and indicate that you previously contacted the authors before publication but received no reply.

With overzealous spam filters, there is always a chance a reply came but was blocked. Start a constructive dialog so that the correct facts can be brought out in the correct publication (maybe yours will be revised to specify clear limits of applicability). It's a slow process to resolve such things, but it is certainly doable.


Submitting two related manuscripts at the same time to two journals

Is it ethical to submit these two papers separately?

Typically, yes. Having a methods papers and one (or more) applications paper isn't at all uncommon.
It's sometimes appropriate to send them to the same journal (or same publisher), but that is more a matter of convenience than ethics. If you submit both to the same publisher, they might ask the same reviewer to referee both papers, for example. On the other hand, if one paper fits better with the scope of another journal, then sending it elsewhere is the appropriate choice. On the ethical side the only potential concern I see is that you might be perceived as "salami slicing", i.e. spreading a small amount of content into multiple papers, but if both papers are "meaty" enough then that shouldn't be an issue.

  How can I cite the papers if they are both under peer review?

In the fields you mention, it is standard practice to put preprints on the arXiv. The best approach for you would likely be to do exactly that before submission to the journals, and then cite the preprints as appropriate.


Firstly, quoting any work, including your own, without explicit attribution of the quote, is going to earn you a very bad reputation for plagiarism sooner or later. Just say no.

Secondly, and to state the obvious, the introduction is there to introduce the rest of the paper. As each paper will be unique, so should the introduction be: the point is to lead the user into the paper, rather than to give a grounding in the whole subject area.

Thirdly, why not wrap up all of the things you want to say in all of the papers' introductions, into a single review paper?  It would contain all of the literature review, motivations, unsolved problems, areas for future research, that you want to reference in your other papers. And then, those other papers can just briefly & concisely properly reference and quote the relevant bits of that review paper in their introduction. It won't be as brief as "for review and motivation, see my paper DOI:ABC.DEF.GHI", but you should be able to distil the review paper down to a paragraph or two for each subsequent paper, and those words will be unique for each subsequent paper, drawing only on the elements you need for that paper.


Giving a test lecture, what should I keep in mind?

Off the top of my head, things that are different about a lecture rather than a presentation:

You're not simply relating stuff you did to your peers : You're teaching people who know less about the topic than you do (even if you only know what you got from the textbook when preparing!). So think carefully about the intended audience, and how to explain the concepts at the right level. This will take time. Fortunately...
You have time. You have an hour or more rather than (say) 15 minutes. This means you need to convey less content per minute, and you can spend more time building understanding step by step. Try to think about helping your students to develop a mental model that they can fit the new concepts into, rather than just telling them facts.
Because the students are having to assimilate completely new concepts, don't overcomplicate - keep the necessary cognitive load to a minimum by omitting unnecessary details. Don't lie to them, but it's OK to say, for example, "this is a simplification, but it's a useful way to think about it at this level. We'll come back to it in more detail later.".
Because you have more time, you'll also need to think more about (and spend more time on) structure. Think about pacing - don't talk for an hour. Instead, especially if you have a relatively small class, try to get some discussion going, or set an exercise. This may not be applicable for a demo lecture during recruitment, though.

If you have a small group (<25 or so, as may happen for postgrad courses) then it's more like a lesson than a lecture and things can be far more interactive.


Asking for a recommendation letter (Post-Doc) when you have Bipolar Disorder

Depending on the level of trust you have, you might consider revealing some of your medical history along with assurance that the issues are under control and won't result in future problems. But you also need to let them know whether it is ok or not for them to pass on details in letters. This is probably not advised. A LoR saying you had previous medical issues, now resolved, that affected performance is about as far as anyone should go. But make sure you set the limits.

However, also consider whether your recent performance, especially with letter writers, is good enough that they will discount/ignore the earlier problems altogether, and only write about your current performance and your likelihood of success.

And, even if you decide to tell some people, it might be best to limit the details. The important message is really only "medical condition", "now resolved". Beyond that may be more personal than you are comfortable with.

You might even consider asking them, provided your relationship is strong enough, whether your past performance would color their recommendation. If they hesitate to say no, then it might be more useful to give them the key message - medical, resolved.


How do I invite an expert to contribute to a review article I'm writing?

I suggest that you contact the other person and ask for their advice on your ideas, but not for collaboration, initially. See where that goes. It allows the person to make a small commitment without feeling any pressure for a larger one.

Your idea for a review or summary article might be a bit unusual, but in many fields these are occasionally needed as the field splits but the different pursuits have some common but unnoticed features. Partly for this reason, I don't think that the other party would think about going into competition with you on the idea, and might want to participate. The advice would be valuable in any case.

If the collaboration starts naturally then you can write a joint paper, perhaps after you complete your degree so that your advisor has less sway. Write and explain your ideas, expanded from what you write here, send a draft, and ask for any feedback that he/she might give.

The other person might also be able to suggest others with whom you might profitably share your ideas.

I mention the competition issue only because you don't really know the person. Most everyone behaves ethically, but not all do. So in some situations it is necessary to be a bit cagey when you are a newcomer to academia. I don't really see it as an issue in this case, however, as mentioned above.


How can a student benefit most from an internship?

A job posting will usually list the Requirements and the Preferences for the position. The former must be met. The latter are used to sort candidates who meet what is required. A job posting will not list COURSES. It will list requirements and preferences in terms of background, expertise, or skills.

As an undergraduate student, you are called upon if not expected to make the match between what is required (or preferred) and the course(s) you have taken or can take at your university as well as the job experience you may already have.

Take the specific example of machine learning. What course(s) at your university has/have a description that covers this topic? When this question is not clearly answered by a catalogue description, you can visit with the department chairman or with other students in the appropriate department, in this case perhaps computer science.

Once you identify the course(s) and their prerequisites, you will have the answer to part of your ending question. The training part comes from prior experience. Again by specific example, have you done any work (other than coursework) in machine learning? Have you gotten any training outside of your university in this topic?

As for the overall question ... How can a student benefit the most ... This question has a broader scope independent of the requirements and preferences of the internship.

You can benefit the most when you learn from the internship rather than just apply (or reapply) what you already know. You can learn new concepts and principles (expand your knowledge), you can learn how to apply them to new types of problems (improve your problem-solving methods), or you can learn new ways to apply them (learn new skills).

In summary, the purpose of a job posting is for the company to solicit for candidates who meet their needs and desires. Part of the process is the expectation that you will research on your own whether you meet the requirements and whether you stand out with regard to the preferences. No one person can provide a full answer to what you need for any one given job because your current situation and your current background and experience set are unique. But, from where you are now, the basis for the research you need to do is easy. Find the courses that contain the terms used in the job description. Track back on their prerequisites. How do you fit within that list?

The next step is a job interview. Should it get that far, the purpose of a job interview is for YOU to determine whether the demands of the job will meet your needs and desires. That is where you will have to prepare the answer to your overall question FIRST before you do the job interview.


Is it possible to become a tenure track Assistant Professor at the same university where I did Post Doc?

I think this might vary by institution, but for most, at least in the US, there wouldn't be any problem with such a move. Of course, you are unlikely to get any advantage in your application and regulations most places will require that you be treated like any other.

I know of one situation like this in which the university really wanted to keep a post-doc so wrote the specification for the tenure track job that matched him nearly perfectly. Nearly everything except the Father's middle name. They sent out the required national search and got back three candidates (among many others) that seemed to be a better fit (on paper) than he was. But he got the job in the end.

So, not impossible (most places) but likely no advantage either.


How to contact professors as a high school student?

I advise you to put yourself in the shoes of the professors reading your emails. Why would they answer you? What's in it for them? They explain mathematics for a living, so your request is a bit like asking a barber you aren't friends with to cut your hair for free.

It's great that you want to learn about math research, but with due respect, you can't understand the specifics of most math research. Not because you aren't smart enough, but because it's written in a language that takes years to learn. It is (or can be) possible to communicate some of the ideas behind a piece of research math to nonexperts, but this is a difficult thing to do, and most researchers aren't inclined to try. This is unfortunate, and it would be nice if there were more resources out there for laymen who want to get a sense of what math research is all about, but emailing professors out of the blue is not the way to go about this.


Is there a rule of thumb for defining the scope and depth of the Related Work section in a thesis?

The rule is to provide more details on those works that are most relevant to yours.  This is especially critical for those that seem to overlap with your work, or conceptually share similarities.  The most relevant ones are those whereby the problem is exactly the same, but your approach and others are different.  That means you need to cover these other approaches in detail.

For other not so relevant, you need to show you are aware of them.  Basically, you state, 'there are also works on blah, blah2, blah3.  However, this work is different because of x, y and z'.   Note that you go as far as providing the reference, and differences.  You might briefly state their aim(s).

Remember, one key reason for a  literature review is to provide evidence that your work fills gaps in the literature.  So present whatever is needed to proof this point.


In creating a Google Scholar profile, should I use my personal email address or my university email address?

Your personal account.
You will then have the option to add and verify an institutional e-mail to it, inside Google Scholar. This adds a text "verified e-mail on myuniversity.com" in your profile.
Not everything in our future is foreseeable, even for those with tenure, and universities are particularly eager to deactivate old institutional addresses, for no good reason in my view.


If I've decided to go to Grad. School for Mathematics... a little late?

The next Mathematics Subject GRE is in April. If I want to get into a mathematics graduate program, have I missed my shot?

Yes, it will hurt your chances for this year, but you might still be admitted.  Admissions committees can sometimes be flexible about requirements like this if you give a good explanation, so it could still be worth applying (but what the chances are depend on the department and perhaps even the specific committee members).

  How viable of an option would it be to switch from a physics grad. program into a mathematics one in the same university?

As a general rule, being admitted to one department does not make it easy to transfer to another.  If you have good interactions with the mathematics faculty, then that might help some, but you would still have to apply in the usual way (and the chances of admission would in general be comparable to what they might have been if you had not been in the physics department already).

[Added in edit:] On the other hand, you may be able to accomplish your goals in either department.  You can certainly talk/work with faculty from both departments, at least informally and perhaps through some sort of formal arrangement.  If you do work in the intersection of both fields, in the long run it won't matter very much which department your degree was from.  Mainly, it's a matter of which requirements you'll have to complete in the short term (will you take more physics classes or more math classes?).


Getting faculty position in the US: after Postdoc in the US or Lecturer in the UK?

Of course it is possible to switch from a UK lectureship to a TT, or even tenured, position at a US Research University. Being at a lower ranked "new university" in the UK, however, means that you likely not get a lot of research support and have a heavy teaching load. Further, the obsession with the UK REF will likely push your CV in directions that are not ideal for getting a job in the US. You don't mention your citizenship, but there is currently a lot of uncertainty regarding immigration and access to funding for non-UK citizens.

Overall, I would say that it will be easier, or more accurately, less difficult, to get a US TT position by spending another year or two as a post doc than as a lecturer with a high teaching load. US research universities just do not care that much about teaching and if you really need teaching experience you can always get a little as a post doc.

While a lecturer position might put you at a disadvantage, assuming it is a permanent lectureship in a UK city that you do not mind living in, having job security is a major benefit.


Looking for specific examples of University spin-offs where the researchers can earn part of the benefits

The policy at my university for managing patent licensing fees and the like, which is somewhat distinct from a spin-off but somewhat conjoined - for example, you could start a spin-off that then licenses the patent, or find a company interested, etc.

Division of Patent Royalties

a) All monetary proceeds from the commercialization of University-owned inventions are the property of the University or its assignee. The University or its designee will collect and distribute royalties, fees, equity interests, or dividends to inventors and the University in accordance with the procedures established by the University.

(1) The University or its designee will deduct the costs of obtaining and maintaining legal protection, for each invention, to arrive at “adjusted income” unless other arrangements, agreed to by all parties that share in the income, are made by the relevant branch campus, research unit or program in advance of the expense and agreed to with the OC. Such arrangements may include contracted marketing, licensing and business development. In such cases, any agreed upon expenses will be deducted to arrive at adjusted income.

(2) The Office of Commercialization will deduct twenty percent (20%) from adjusted income and the remainder will be “net income.” This deduction is directed toward covering the expenses (excluding direct patent expenses) for administering the OC and provides initial funds for patent prosecution for other inventions without obvious commercial partners.

(3) Net income will be distributed according to the following schedule.
University’s portion of the share will be distributed as follows: 30% to the University, 20% to the college and department (or relevant branch campus, research unit, or Program when appropriate) to be equally split between the two

Cumulative Net Income Inventor/Contributor University
$1-$10,000                    100%
Above $10,000                 50%              50%


How to detect cheating when students take online quizzes or exams from home?

I also teach a data and programming course, though I mainly use Python.

Is it possible for you to shift grading away from an exam and toward something else?  A project, for example?  Before going back to academia I spent years working as a policy researcher, and exam conditions simply aren't a realistic test of real-life coding abilities.  For that matter, coding with the internet turned off is also not remotely what real work looks like either.

In my class I like to give a larger project and let them have a few weeks to work on it, but I could also imagine a more simple project that they only have a few days, or even hours, to do.  Real data work often comes with time constraints, but it does not come with a lack of internet access in exam-like conditions.  Just scale the scope of the project based on how long you want them to have to work on it.

There is still a huge advantage to knowing the material, rather than having to look it up.  You can also grade on the quality of code and correctness of results, and allow for creativity with open-ended questions like "summarize this data with two plots".  This way each student is not only tested their knowledge of R, they're tested on their actual ability to use R in a realistic environment.

If you, unfortunately, are required to give an exam, I know there is software available for proctoring online tests.  The sort of thing that utilizes their webcams to make sure they don't leave during the test, or consult other devices, or open other web pages.  I've not used them though, so I couldn't make a recommendation.  I imagine they all require university subscriptions.


No, what you say is not true. There are a number of factors that prevent required background from building up beyond reason. I can only speak for theoretical physics, but most reasons should hold for other sciences as well.

The first reason is scientific revolution. Periodically there will be dramatic paradigm changes that open up huge new areas of exploration. Even well-established facts become fresh again, as scientists need to explain them anew in the new theory. In the 1800's, celestial mechanics was an intensely mathematical field communicated through thousand-page monographs like Delauney's Théorie du mouvement de la lune. By 1920, it was unclear how to even describe planetary motion at all starting from the Schrodinger equation.

The second reason is technological progress. Staying with the example of celestial mechanics, many ingenious and complex mathematical techniques were invented to reduce problems "to quadratures", i.e. to a set of single integrals whose values could be found in tables. Nowadays almost nobody is taught these techniques, not even astrophysicists, because numerics has largely replaced them. The old methods still work, but they're not easier, so they're not emphasized.

The third reason is experimental invalidation. For instance, through the 1990's and 2000's, many increasingly complicated models of low-energy supersymmetry were devised, in the hopes that they would be confirmed at the LHC. They haven't been, and many of them have been outright ruled out. That's a few hundred papers I don't have to read.

The fourth reason is pedagogical improvement. We still teach students the material in Newton's Principia Mathematica, but the core material of this dense tome, once understood by only a few mathematicians in all of Europe, has been condensed into carefully edited textbooks, and disseminated in blog posts and Youtube videos. In general, 90% of everything, even masterpieces, is cruft that can be condensed away. For example, Newton insisted on using pure Euclidean geometry for many of his proofs, many of which are much shorter in modern calculus (which also now has much better notation!).

The fifth reason is increasing specialization. There once was a time when a physicist was expected to be able to understand just about any paper in physics, and that time was over 100 years ago. These days the Physical Review is not one journal, but over ten. The ArXiv has over 25 categories, with most people not even following all the literature in one. This might have been what you were getting at, but the point is that things have evolved gradually to keep requirements reasonable. Nobody requires a Ph.D student to understand every subfield, because that would indeed take forever.

The sixth reason is hindsight. This is related to the other ones, but distinct. Often research is only hard because there's a haze of confusion hanging around a new topic. The pioneers of quantum mechanics and quantum field theory wrote lots of papers that weren't wrong, but were quite confused. (And that's not to insult them; we are still confused now, just about different things.) They weren't sure about many things we take for granted today, and spent a lot of time checking things that are obvious in the modern formalism. So the energy needed to read one of their papers now is quite a bit less than was required right when it was published.

And the final reason is irrelevance. At the end of the day research is a human activity. If your theories become too complicated for anybody to understand, they just simply won't be read. Research is not a linear thing where everybody takes turns putting a brick on top of the tower; it's a branching tree. If nobody wants to build on your theory, if it's too complicated for the benefits it provides, they'll just do something else. (I will not name examples.) Suffice it to say there are many things working against the 'inevitable' trend you see here.


When editor does not respond to the request for withdrawal

what should I do?

Send another email stating that you will consider the article retracted if you do not receive a response within one week.

  Can I submit the manuscript to another journal?

Yes, after one week.

Responses to comments:

  I would likely do this but I am not convinced that it precludes troubles. Imagine the same referee getting it twice. It would be confusing at least. Just to mention one case.

Referees regularly receive manuscripts twice, for instance, when a manuscript is rejected. Admittedly, this situation is different, since the reviewer may not have been notified of rejection. However, such a reviewer will likely assume that the paper has been rejected. Even if they don't, they will likely contact the editor, who will be able to promptly deal with the situation. This could even be pre-empted, for example, an unacknowledged retraction could be explained in a covering letter.

  [this] does not avoid...issues such as when the first journal and second journal both publish it...For all you know, the author may ALREADY have assigned copyright to the first journal.

From the question I assume copyright hasn't been assigned nor is the manuscript camera-ready.


Is giving condolences to a professor socially acceptable?

It's not merely perfectly fine (e.g., in the U.S.), but a very good thing to do. (Conceivably in other cultures it could be construed as too intrusive, we must acknowledge.)


If it is a small quote (1 or 2 sentences) you can put it between quotation marks " ... "

If you want to quote a paragraph, the most used ways is to indent the text you quoted sometimes with or without quotation marks.

However, I beleive the previous two cases are only necessary when you need the exact wording. Although it might be necessary some times but it is usually not the case. You can reword the important part you want and cite the review article. An even better way is to check the original research paper that the literature review cited then you cite that ( unless what you needed was a critical analysis done by the literature review author)


Tenure-track application: how important is the area of preference?

The short answer is that it varies.  In some cases an institution might be quite willing to consider a strong applicant who is outside of the preferred area of specialization, while in other cases it may be very important to the institution and they'll only take someone outside of the preferred area if there are no reasonable applicants in the preferred area.

The one thing that you can be sure of is that there will almost certainly be a substantial number of applicants who are in the preferred area.   You won't get the job unless (1) the department is willing to hire outside of the preferred area and (2) you're a stronger candidate than all of the other candidates who are in the preferred area.  That's a pretty high bar.

My own experience on hiring committees for positions in applied mathematics is that a large fraction (maybe half) of the applications come from candidates who aren't in the desired area.  As a search committee member, I look at their applications and drop them from consideration with no more than a minute or two of consideration because we've always had plenty of good candidates in our area of interest.


What is (S’73-M’76-SM’81-F’87) in author biography?

Disclaimer: I base my answer on my familiarity with the IEEE. Other societies may follow similar conventions.

For members of the IEEE, the notation in your example is a "shorthand" way for indicating when the author achieved a certain membership status within the society. For example,

  (S’73-M’76-SM’81-F’87)

means that A. N. Author became a Student Member (S) in 1973, a Member (M) in 1976, a Senior Member (SM) in 1981, and an IEEE Fellow (F) in 1987.

If you are not a member of the IEEE, then you do not use this shorthand in your biography.


How to highlight a novel dataset creation in a research paper?

Make your paper a data paper, and add in the bit about the simple algorithm into the introduction. That way, you put your data front and centre.

And then see the answers to Data publication basics - where, why, how, and when should I publish my unpublished data? for how to release the data for the whole community to access: doing this is almost always a requirement for getting a data-paper published.


Lectureship application teaching reference?

For Russell Group? Research is king - this is not a teaching post, it's a research position (UK Russell Group lecturer is broadly equivalent to an assistant prof at a US R1 - the job titles are different).

Your CV should mention teaching experience, certainly, but your reference letters should be talking about your research skills, and your likelihood of securing funding. What are your REF 4* papers, what funding do you have – those are what matters.

(Source: I'm an SL at a Russell Group Uni, recently on interview panel for lecturer posts)


Should I choose someone as one of my references while I also have applied to his group?

Since you seem to know him pretty well, you might think about just asking him. He knows you need a position and that he might not be able to give you one. Yet he supports you, I think. You also would prefer to work with him. As long as all of that is clear and in the open and can be stated, it seems fine to ask for a recommendation.

But that is the sort of conversation to have face to face, I think. It might not be possible to do that as he is busy, of course, so you might have to resort to email. But if you do, lay it all out so that he understands you are applying for a "backup" situation in case he can't hire you.

But if any part of my analysis is faulty, you might need to be more cautious and omit him as a reference for now. You can ask again later if nothing current bears fruit.


When applying to grad school, where should I discuss my medical issues that led to poor grades during my first two years?

Medical issues, especially during your earlier years, are worth explaining in your SOP BUT it's not worth making an extra statement/essay.  You don't want to be overdramatic with it, rather maybe a line or two in the sense of the whole SOP/application.  GPA is a bit low, but you have a strong upward trend, plus all the issues were in your earlier years so that will definitely help.
In addition, are any of your recommenders aware of this?  In addition to adding an again, VERY small addendum addressing this, your recommenders could also address it as well, making a small addendum in their letters saying the C's/F's/W's earlier on in your undergraduate are in no way a reflection of your ability to succeed in a graduate program or conduct research.
Remember that GPA is only one factor.  Your experiences as well as your later years and, most importantly, your letters of recommendation all have a significant part of your application package as well.


Should students who copy homework answers from somewhere else state how they obtained the answer?

It is good to be honest in all that you do. You should, of course, ask your professor whether your "researches" are proper or not. I would treat asking someone on math.se for a solution to your exercise as improper, for example.

The reason for that is that you don't learn the necessary lessons by reading a solution that you do by creating it. So it is mostly an educational issue, not an ethical one. But your instructor will give you the most useful advice.

The professor hasn't asked you to solve a problem because he/she needs the solution. The question has been asked because solving the question will advance your  education and finding a solution will be much less effective at that.

Education is about changing how your brain works. In mathematics, especially, you need to do your own work in order to cause the brain to reorganize itself to make advancement possible.

Asking the instructor for help is better in this regard than asking someone else, say on math.SE. The reason is that the instructor can give you a hint that will help you advance, rather than a solution that won't. It may even be useful for  your instructor to know that you are struggling with some ideas. You may get advice that gets you past the block. Math.SE is very unlikely to do that. The answers you likely get there will be too helpful.

Becoming a mathematician is about changes in your brain, not about proofs printed on paper.