Writing articles based on the "Least Publishable Unit"

To summarise what's in some of the comments... this term is usually used in a cynical, sardonic or derogatory fashion, to describe the practise of "salami-slicing" research into lots of papers, each of which has the minimum amount of content necessary to get published. The aim of this approach is to maximise the number of publications that can be obtained from a given piece of research.

Some believe that this approach is encouraged by hiring practises in universities that depend upon the number of publications a researcher has, rather than their quality.


Footnotes: is there any 'rule' on how to use them?

The rules will depend on:

1) Your chosen citation style

Your citation style will determine how you use footnotes. Some citation styles use footnotes as citations, where you'll find instances of Ibid and so forth. Others that utilise in-text citation state that footnotes are to only be used to add additional information not relevant to the main discussion (no citations). Your citation style will also indicate the formatting preferences.

Regarding how many footnotes, I'm not sure what is the norm for a science-based paper, but generally for a social science stream you don't want to have that many footnotes.


Should I submit my paper to a journal that accepts papers quickly?

Quick acceptance (a month) is pretty surprising for many disciplines, but that's not necessarily a bad thing in itself. But if the journal "guarantees quick acceptance", you should be very suspicious, since reputable journals do not bother with any rhetoric in that direction.

Being listed as a predatory journal is a very negative indicator... though, if we are scrupulous, we should note that those lists do not pretend to be infallible.

On the whole, I'd be suspicious. Better to go with well-known journals that do not promise such stuff.


What do co-supervisors get out of a PhD?

Co-supervisors play different roles, which may vary from individual to individual. Sometimes they are there as a backup, either in case things go wrong with the main supervisor, or if the student needs someone else to talk to. They can read the papers (and eventual thesis) of the student and may even participate in the research, adding a different perspective. In some cases, they can be more active than the supervisor (this is often the case if the co-supervisor is a post doc). Often they will be a part of the committee assessing the thesis in the end.

What does the co-supervisor get out of it? Well, a tick on his/her CV. Publications. Experience dealing with students. Contacts. Ideas. And work. In any case, it is part of what an academic is paid to do.

The real question should be: what do I, as a PhD student, get out of having a co-supervisor?


Is it okay/common/good to mention the submitted papers in my phd thesis?

Yes. It is both OK and common to mention them as Articles Submitted, or as Manuscripts Under Review, or in case you have any (e.g. arXiv) preprint, Article Preprints (with the appropriate arXiv identifier).

It might be relevant for me to point out from personal experience, that the only instruction from my department in this regard was - "Everything mentioned in the list of publications in the thesis has to be either published, or submitted for publication. There shouldn't be anything in the articles to be submitted category, because that category could be inflated as much as a person desires". The last part may be field and institute-dependent, but I think this conveys the basic ideology. Articles submitted are safe in terms of inclusion.


Having the knowledge of a graduate student but not having the degree requirements for graduate school?

If you're asking about graduate school in the US, probably the single most significant thing you can do is to take the GRE subject test for math (not the math section of the general test!), and score well on it. This test covers a broad spectrum of material that is taught in a typical undergraduate math curriculum, and so if you get a good score, it strongly supports your claim that you have the level of mathematics knowledge required to enter grad school. Without that key piece of evidence (i.e. a good GRE subject score), graduate admissions committees are likely to look at your statement that you have the knowledge to take graduate courses, contrast it with your lack of an undergraduate degree, and conclude that you're full of hot air, so to speak.

Now, of course there is more that has to be done to actually get yourself admitted. In my own field of theoretical physics, even a 990 (the top score) on the GRE isn't enough to get you into a good grad school by itself. I would imagine the same is true for the top schools in math, though perhaps at a less competitive school, it might be. But I think to be safe, you should assume that you'll have to present some other sort of evidence of accomplishment that could be viewed as equivalent to an undergraduate transcript. You'll also need recommendation letters and various sorts of essays and forms. But a lot of that can vary from school to school, and is more likely to be negotiable if you talk to someone in the department. The GRE subject score is the one thing you really need to get your foot in the door, so to speak.


Including "Best in show" type award for a conference paper on CV

It's common to have an "Awards" section on an academic CV; you could put it there.  Give the exact name of the award, identify the group that awarded it, briefly explain what the award was for, and list the date.

See also How much detail to include for an award listed on a CV.


What changes should be notated in a journal resubmission?

An editor once "requested" that I submit a "tracked changes" or latexdiff version of my resubmission if I wanted him to deal with it in a timely fashion. Since then, my strategy has been to submit:

revised manuscript (no annotation);
latexdiff of revisions against version submitted last time, to highlight every last comma changed;
cover letter, describing all scientific changes plus any major textual changes ("we substantially rewrote the methods section in an attempt to improve its clarity"). I refer the editor to the diff for minor textual corrections.

No editor has complained yet... ;)


Do presentations given during interviews count as invited talks?

I disagree with Dave.  An invited talk is, by definition, a talk that you've been invited to give.  Yes, interviews count.  (More-or-less inviting yourself is not necessarily different than a non-interview invited talk.)

I agree that you shouldn't reveal which of your invited talks are actually interviews, but that's only an issue if all your invited talks happen in the last semester before you submit your thesis.  (And maybe you should wait until after interview season is over to add them.  The people who are interviewing you are desperately curious about where else you're interviewing.)


How to obtain a readable format of an article?

You have two options. Either you try to locate a paper copy (or a copy thereof) of the journal issue via your local library and if necessary via the interlibrary loan or you contract the vendor of the digital copy (sciencedirect in your case) and complain about the quality of the digitised paper asking them to upload a better-quality version. I tried this with another publisher (degruyter) and it took a couple of months before they updated the digital copy of the paper on their website.


Download full journals from IEEE as pdf (ebook)

I believe that violates the terms of use for IEEE Xplore.  I don't know if you are an IEEE member, institutional subscriber, etc., but the terms of use for institutional subscribers states the following:

Institutional subscribers are NOT permitted to do the following: [...]

Download or attempt to download an entire issue or issues of a publication contained in IEEE Xplore.

You should first view the terms of use for IEEE Xplore at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/termsOfUse.jsp, and if you have questions contact Xplore support via the contact form http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/techform.jsp.


In my cover letter, how many faculty member should I list as people I want to work with?

At least in mathematics, I would recommend something like:

"I am especially interested in working with X, as her research in Y overlaps with my interests in Z and W. I would also look forward to interacting with V and U, as their work is also related to my interests in T."

This might be different in fields where mentorship is less fluid (e.g., the laboratory sciences, if you would choose one faculty member's lab to work in).

Indeed, in my own postdoc, I learned a great deal from my formal mentor -- and I also learned a lot from his colleagues in his research group.


How big are Mathematics research projects usually?

It's rare for a large number of mathematicians to collaborate on a single project.  The vast majority of mathematics papers have 1, 2 or 3 authors.

Using the techniques described in Getting a dump of arXiv metadata, I downloaded metadata for all the math preprints on arXiv, and had a script count the number of authors.  I got the following results:

251459 papers
0 authors:      1 papers         0.0004%
1 authors:      101926 papers    40.5338%
2 authors:      89630 papers     35.6440%
3 authors:      43290 papers     17.2155%
4 authors:      12555 papers     4.9929%
5 authors:      2949 papers      1.1728%
6 authors:      700 papers       0.2784%
7 authors:      216 papers       0.0859%
8 authors:      102 papers       0.0406%
9 authors:      40 papers        0.0159%
10 authors:     14 papers        0.0056%
11 authors:     9 papers         0.0036%
12 authors:     7 papers         0.0028%
13 authors:     4 papers         0.0016%
14 authors:     2 papers         0.0008%
15 authors:     3 papers         0.0012%
16 authors:     2 papers         0.0008%
20 authors:     1 papers         0.0004%
22 authors:     3 papers         0.0012%
23 authors:     1 papers         0.0004%
28 authors:     1 papers         0.0004%
37 authors:     1 papers         0.0004%
60 authors:     1 papers         0.0004%
67 authors:     1 papers         0.0004%

I took a look at some of the outliers.  Some are ordinary papers but some are other kinds of collective works.  Note that some appear to be cross-listed under other arXiv sections.

0 authors: arXiv:1005.0836 (placeholder for a preprint deleted because it was a duplicate)
20 authors: arXiv:1011.1764 (regular paper)
22 authors: arXiv:1403.2953 (review article)
22 authors: arXiv:1501.02155 (regular paper, computer-aided proof project)
22 authors: arXiv:cs/9909001 (report on the results of a workshop)
23 authors: arXiv:quant-ph/0701168 (regular paper)
28 authors: arXiv:1009.4134 (regular paper)
37 authors: arXiv:1001.4737 (regular paper but seems closer to physics)
60 authors: arXiv:math/0406190 (list of open problems collected from a workshop)
67 authors: arXiv:1410.0719 (extended abstracts from a conference)

To the asker: There may be some ambiguity here based on what we think of as a "project" and "people involved", and how research is conducted in our fields.  As a mathematician, I think of a "project" as a concerted effort by a researcher, or group of researchers, actively working to resolve a specific mathematical question.  If this effort is successful, it normally results in one or more published papers (sometimes three or four, but usually not dozens), and all the researchers who significantly contributed to the solution will be authors of those papers.  If it's a two-author paper, then there really were only two people working on that project.  (Of course, there could have been other unrelated groups working on the same question, or something closely related, but they would normally publish separately.)  So to me, there is a pretty close correspondence between "project" and "paper".

You might also find this question interesting: How do mathematicians conduct research?


Do I add an acknowledgement upon initial submission? (to an anonymous review)

Personally, I only add acknowledgements after the paper no longer requires blinding. Acknowledgements add nothing for a review, and "Thanks to [blinded], supported by grant [blinded] from [blinded]" always seemed too silly to bother with.


Is there any evidence of a benefit to students answering questions in front of the whole class?

There is an actual benefit of asking questions for students to answer openly in class, even so most of the times it definitely is a recipe for awkward silence.
There is a list of ten benefits from "Uses for Participation." (The Teaching Professor, 23.9, 2009, 4)
Personally, I think the benefits 9 and 10 are most important:

Participation can be used to develop important speaking skills [...]

Participation gives students the opportunity to practice using the language of the discipline [...]


You don't first co-author a paper, you first collaborate on a research effort. Then, if said research effort leads to interesting results, you co-author a paper. So you need to look for someone doing interesting research that you think you can contribute to. Talk to professors in your department and ask about the research they and their students are doing.

Of course, since co-authoring a paper is important to you, when you find the opportunity to be part of a research project you should ask the professor: "Do you think this is likely to lead to a paper before I graduate?" Nobody can promise you a paper (even if you do everything right, the nature of research is that we don't know everything in advance). But he/she will probably have some intuition about it. You should also ask what you specifically need to do to merit co-authorship credit on the paper that comes out of the research.


Is it common to have no MathSciNet version of a paper in Mathematics?

Technically speaking, the answer to your question is that no, it's not common for a paper not to be indexed. MathSciNet indexes almost all reputable math journals. And I say almost because like all good mathematicians I don't want to make an unproved universal claim, but I don't have any example of a non-indexed reputable math journal in mind.

What is happening here is that the paper you have linked has not been assigned to an issue yet. It is an "advance article", it's available on the publisher's website but it has not been published in print yet. MathSciNet does not index such articles and waits until the paper is formally published to index it. Basically math moves faster than publishers. There is nothing out of the ordinary here.

Since it's been almost two years that the paper has been published online, one can hope it will be formally released soon. From my experience it's a bit long. IMRN has quite the backlog and their oldest advance article is apparently from April 2018. My guess would be that in June the paper will be assigned an issue and that a few weeks/months later it will appear on MathSciNet. Whether this is good practice on IMRN's part is another discussion.

As for your question on how to cite it, you can write the .bib yourself. It's really not complicated. Another option in this particular case is to click the "Cite" button on IMRN's page. They provide a bibtex file. There are no page numbers, of course, since the article is not part of any issue yet.


You should openly discuss your concern with the co-authors. As a matter of fact, all co-authors have to agree on the author order before submission. Nature Physics requires a statement of authors's contributions and this the ground you can use to initiate the conversation. According to what you wrote, you deserve to be the first author and the postdoc should be the corresponding author, which is often regarded as equally important as the first author. Your PI should be the one who makes the final decision. Also, he does not neccessarily have to be the last author, if he did not make substantial contributions to the project. For your situation, the reasonable author order that would make everyone happy is: you, everyone else, the postdoc. There might be political game involved. In that case, be prepared to fight for your rights.


Can I get admitted to Master in mathematics program if I only have a medical degree?

The question is whether you have enough background to be likely to pass the first-semester courses in such a program.  For instance, if you have never studied real analysis, complex analysis or differential equations at the level of a senior undergraduate course, you may find yourself completely lost in graduate courses.  I think it will be very difficult to convince an admissions committee that you would survive the first semester.


My PI assigned me to a direct supervisor who is academically incompetent. What should I do?

They are supervising you. You will be 100% sure they are wrong and you are right only after external independent confirmation, which you can obtain by attending conferences/workshops, and publishing a paper or two would be the definitive seal.
However, by that time, you may realize why your directly supervising PhD/PostDoc is working that (inefficent) way ...
So, it is better to show some independence and get -intensively- in touch with the PI after a couple of weeks.
With the PI, it should be possible to have an honest discussion, even regarding the point "the supervisor you assigned me cannot help me because of lack of time/needing some time to freshen up his/her knowledge on the Stat-of-Art of Science and Technology on my specific topic".
If it's not possible to be so open and clear with the PI, well, the issues are way larger than the supervision from said PhD/PD ...


Dedicating PhD thesis to my Dad who recently passed away

I had a dedication page in my PhD thesis, to my recently deceased grandparents. I kept it short, with a line that basically translates to:
"To my grandparents, in loving memory."
The things you suggest to include and to reference will make it more personal, and more appropriate for you. And that is all that matters: write it such that it represents well how you feel.


Include code snippet which is licensed under the MIT License in a paper

The MIT License is very permissive. You can certainly do what you suggest.

Quoting:

  Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:


Do universities keep records/a database of student assignments from the past? Or is only Masters/PhD work kept to publish in journals?

The rules of different institutions vary, so there's no one-size-fits-all answer here. However, plagiarism detection software like Turnitin does store copies of papers indefinitely:

  Our database contains 58 billion web pages, 570 million student papers and 150 million articles from academic books and publications.

They also store archived web pages no longer available on the Internet. Other plagiarism software likely works in a similar fashion.


Do graduate schools pay attention to joining Phi Kappa Phi or other honor societies?

As I understand it, eligibility for membership in Phi Kappa Phi is entirely determined by grades and class rank.  If so, it won't help with grad school applications, since the admissions committee already has access to far more information about grades than they would learn from knowing the applicant is a member.

Some fields may have honor societies for which membership conveys more information, but I do not think there is any widely known, field-independent example in the U.S.

In my experience on graduate admissions committees in mathematics, I've never heard anyone discuss honor societies at all.

I joined an honor society as an undergraduate, not because I saw personal benefits to it but because my parents would have been disappointed if I had declined membership.  The only consequence for me has been that they occasionally send me a newsletter, but I'm told some people do find membership to be useful or meaningful.


Some economists seem to have a second PhD from a U.S. institution, conferred one year after their European PhD. How is this possible?

Note that both professors have their European degree from Bocconi. Double degrees appear to be a Bocconi (and some other universities') special. For the MSc level, it's explicitly mentioned on their web page as a highly selective option; see, e.g., here. But you also find an economics PhD program in which you spend a year abroad participating in a partner university's course work and studies, the AEEP. It is not explicitly mentioned that you'll get two PhDs - and you probably won't on a general basis -, but if you get close to a professor abroad during your year, and start your research with them, it doesn't seem a stretch to think you can negotiate two.

Note that one of the current partner institutions is Northwestern, as in one of the examples you linked, while the other (Berkeley) is not mentioned. This might be due to changes in times, or simply to the professors linked not having been part of this particular program. But as Bocconi is apparently very active in these international cooperations, it seems highly likely that both were part of one of them.

The bottom line is that, in my opinion, it will be very unlikely that you'll find a U.S. institution at which you can get a second PhD in only one year if you haven't been part of such a program, where the second degree is a natural and fairly minor extension of your work predominantly in Europe.


Letter of recommendation from a professor who barely knows me

Days ago I contacted a professor from one of the universities I am going to apply, sending him my thesis and asking to work under him in some project he may assign. He turned me down, [...]

I'm not surprised.  It's rare for a professor to assign or supervise a project for a student who's not already enrolled at the professor's university.  They already have plenty of other work to do, and working with outside students isn't part of their expected duties, so there's no real incentive for them to take on such a task.

  Should I contact more professors?

It's unlikely to be successful, for the reasons I just mentioned.  So I don't think this is a good approach.

  I mean if he accepts me, gives me some project and ultimately I do not go to his university, would it make him angry?

This isn't the issue.  First, it's unlikely that any professor would accept an outside student for a project in the first place.  But if they did, they realize that students have many factors affecting their choice of graduate institution, and are not likely to be angry if they go somewhere else.

  And is the chance of I having a LoR from a famous professor in this way high?

No, it is not.  This is not an effective way to get a letter of recommendation.

  This leads me to another option. I can go to my current university and strengthen my research with a professor there to get a stronger LoR. One drawback is that he is not as good as professors I may contact via email and he works in a different area, so basically I have to learn from scratch (my area and his are both algebra, though).

This is a much better approach.


What's the correct order of writing for a MSc. and a Dipl.-Ing. degree? (e.g. on a business card)

You should notice that in Germany academic titles such as Dr., Dipl.Ing, Mag are writen in front of the name, whereas titles such as M.Sc., B.Sc., M.A., etc., a written behind the name (see here). So if it all I would say the correct order is

  Dipl.Ing (FH) Firstname Lastname, M. Sc.

However, I would just ignore the Dipl.Ing (FH).


The broadest survey that I'm aware of across many disciplines in the US is the CUPA-HR (College and University Professional Association for Human Resources) survey.  Some summary data is available for free from their web site.  However, you'd have to pay for access to the full survey results.  Colleges frequently make use of this survey in setting salary targets.

The Chronicle of Higher Education also hosts a database that has salary data for faculty at many individual institutions in the US- I'm not sure of the sources of this data.

Many individual disciplines have salary surveys that are done by professional societies.  For example, in mathematics, the American Mathematical Society has an annual survey of salaries of mathematics faculty in the US with extensive results that is freely available on the web.  The survey breaks down positions by type of institution (bachelor's granting, master's granting, and three classes of PhD granting institutions.)  It also has data for new assistant professors, all assistant professors, associate professors, and full professors.

At many public institutions in the US the salaries of faculty are a matter of public record and can be obtained by doing a simple web search.  In negotiating an offer you might find this data useful.  However, it's quite common under these circumstances that the institution simply won't negotiate much with respect to salary to avoid upsetting the faculty that already work in a department- they're generally aware of what their coworkers make.

At private universities in the US, the salaries of individual faculty are generally kept secret, except in cases where faculty members are among the most highly paid employees of the institution whose salaries must be reported as part of the annual report to the IRS (typically the five highest salaries go to football and basketball coaches and top administrators, but you sometime find medical school profs listed in these reports.)


"COE" most likely means Coeditor. I would expect that a decision about desk rejection is performed within 2 weeks or less from submission.


Advice with letters of recommendation etiquette

The usual process is that you actively approach those that you think will write you the best letter. In practice, you will want to engage the advisors that are the best trade-off between the following, sometimes conflicting, criteria:

Prefer people that know you, your work, and your skills in detail over people that you don't know that well. Specifically prefer people that know you from research projects or other "outside the classroom" activities. Letters that only say "ASimonis01 had an A in my class" are not worth much.
Prefer people that are willing to write you a very strong letter over people that may write a more lukewarm recommendation. This should be obvious, but keep in mind that everybody does that, so the overall level of enthusiasm in letters is very high. Even a well-reasoned positive-ish letter with some negative aspects may already be a kiss of death for your application.
Prefer people that are in a position to write a plausible recommendation. In practice, this usually means that more senior and/or more well-known recommenders are better than less experienced ones, simply because a statement like "among the best student I have had" means much more if the writer is a senior professor than an assistant prof. in his first year.
Prefer people who know how to write a recommendation letter. Especially if you are currently located in a different cultural region, it is well possible that your letter writers are not overly familiar with how a recommendation letter is supposed to be written. The end result may be a letter that is meant to be positive, but which is perceived as lukewarm or unprofessional. In the same context, avoid like the plague people that you suspect may just submit a stock letter.
Prefer academics over pretty much anybody else. That is, don't get recommendations from your boss in industry, your coworkers, or your childhood friend. The reason is the same as above - you want letters from people that are able to judge whether you will be a good grad student. Your boss in industry can't do that. Researchers in industry research labs may qualify, but I would still prefer a professor in almost all cases.

Also note that at least in the US one generally does not get to see the written letters, they are uploaded by the recommender directly. This means that you need to be very careful in your selection, as you cannot pivot after receiving a suboptimal letter from one of your references.


Etiquette for contacting a corresponding author?

Ask your advisor. In this context I think it's more important to show you have some forethought to realize the situation could be potentially tricky and that you know when to ask for advice, versus showing your initiative/independence. You're a second year graduate student.

There are several issues that your advisor will know more about than you regarding your relationship with this other lab, in terms of publication strategy, any personal contact they already have, avoiding your request sounding like an accusation or making you look foolish, etc. Your advisor might also know about the reputation of the other author: maybe this is someone who would be responsive to a student email, maybe it's someone who would ignore you and your advisor needs to intervene on your behalf. Your advisor can also give you recommendations on your own work and help you discover if there are other causes for your inability to replicate results so far, and save you both from some embarrassment if the problem is your own.


Ask an advisor (co-author) to contribute to manuscript other than just critiquing

Is it OK to ask my advisor to contribute more to the paper (other than just critiquing)?

Yes, I think so.

  If so, how does one go about doing this without insulting their mentor/boss?

When I was in similar situations in the past, I asked my advisor specific questions about what it was that I needed help on, but I did not necessarily try to sugarcoat the request or anything like that. For instance, if a paragraph needed rewording, I would email my advisor something like "Paragraph Y seems a little wonky to me. While I work on Section X some more, can you come up with a better explanation for Paragraph Y?"

I found that the success rate of the above varied depending on how busy my advisor was. My advisor seemed to "get better" (from my perspective :) ) the more times I asked for specific help. Also, I wasn't afraid to speak up when my advisor offered general tips rather than the specific help/contribution I was after: I would reply and ask again. If on multiple iterations I did not get what I was looking for, I would piece together what they did give me and work with that. That's life.

As a side note, I personally found that trying to word emails etc. just so to avoid coming off as "insulting" etc. required too much effort on my part for little/no gain (you don't even really know if your "properly" worded emails come off the wrong way, so what's the point?). In the end, I came to the conclusion that my advisor and I were two adults working on a research project together. I like to think that our advisor/advisee relationship could be described as direct and respectful, and I think that should be the goal.


Although I live and work in Berlin since 6 years I don't understand much about these matters, but, while doing a PhD in Biology here (so 6 to 3 years ago) I was paid at a rate called "BAT IIa/2" which left me (once the taxes, the charges and the insurances were removed) with ca. €1100 a month to live.
Now a BAT IIa/2, as the name indicates, correspond to half a BAT IIa, which is said to have been replaced in the current scale by TVL-E13. From that I gather that a 75% TVL-E13 should end up leaving you with a "Netto" (i.e. tax-free, charge-free, insurance-free) salary of ca. €1650 per month.
And indeed according to the website http://oeffentlicher-dienst.info/tv-l/, it should end up in this range: i.e. an annual salary of ca. €31k (gross) / €20k (net).

The exact sum will change according to many factors, including in which region (Land) you end up in, etc.


Do any schools maintain records of when instructors arrive and depart the classroom?

I thinks it depends if the instructor is Tenured, part time or a contract instructor. For the later two, I would believe that the school would have some time sheet system for payroll purposes. Its becoming common.
Temple university has a template for time sheet for instructors
http://www.temple.edu/cjtp/pdfs/Instructor%20Timesheet.pdf

Also, check out this link

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/02/kean_university_now_requires_f.html


Can international students in USA intern in summer in industry?

Yes you can, and this is exactly what CPT is for. (assuming you get paid for the internship. If you are not being paid - I'm not sure what the rules are, but it might be easier than CPT)

You can do it for up to 12 month (not necessarily consecutive) during your degree. Check again with your international Office for the exact rules (you might still need to be enrolled to 12 units if not summer quarter/semester).


What should you do if coauthor refuses to work on paper and refuses to consent to submit it?

No, you probably can't just submit it yourself if the prof is validly a co-author. You need his permission, just as he needs yours.

But I suggest that you let the two professors fight it out among themselves. That could result in a good result for you, and probably not a worse one. Professors sometimes don't mind behaving badly in front of students, but are less likely to with colleagues. Collegiality is still valued in most places. If it needs to get escalated, let the new advisor do it also, on your behalf.


Use paper as master’s thesis or sign up to a “direct” PhD program (and use the paper for this)?

Given how hot the computer science field is and will remain, I think you should get the M.Sc. Let's say something happens to you and you can't complete the PhD, at least you'll have the M.Sc. It seems to me that a lucrative job will be waiting for you even if getting the PhD via this route takes a little longer. It sounds to me like financial success is easily in your future with or without the PhD or the time it took to get the PhD.


This journal is in Beall's list of predatory journals, which is a strong indicator that you should not publish your work in this journal.  (This question and its answers explain what a "predatory" journal is.)

You might also be interested in the answers to this question, which describe how to evaluate the quality of a journal.


Is it possible to have a career in academia and not be confident in their field of research?

This is very possible. Many people in academia struggle with impostor syndrome and find themselves on the "I know how much I don't know" side of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
While this is common, that doesn't mean it's a good thing - it makes you miserable and so it's worth doing something about it. There are a number of things you can do:

Check if your university has counseling services. This is something they'll have experience with.

Having the occasional honest talk with your peers. It can take a big load off your shoulders to find out that other people at your level also aren't always confident. One of my professors noted that a lot of academics like being a "magician", able to conjure amazing results seemingly without effort. But most magician's tricks take lots of practice that you never see.

Teach or coach students at a lower level than your own, like Masters or beginning PhDs - you have a lot to share with them, and it can help ground your confidence to see just how much you do know.

Find colleagues you can trust to occasionally talk over your work with. They don't have to be exactly in your precise field, but close enough that they can ask critical questions. It can boost your confidence to know that you do have a backup that helps you avoid missing "the obvious".

To summarize: what you're experiencing is not unusual, it's a normal result of being smart enough to know what you don't know, but you don't have to suffer. Help is available.


The concept of solid when it is used about the contribution of a paper

From Merriam-Webster, meaning 4:

  of good substantial quality or kind

It's synonymous of sound.

Apparently, the reviewer thinks that your paper is good, constructed on "solid" grounds.


Is it common to cite the numbers of results a search engine yields as evidence for the prevalence of something online?

Do not do this. The "approximate" number of hits Google reports is completely worthless. To see why, look at this number on both the first and the tenth page of Google hits:

First results page

Tenth results page

When I just did this, I got "approximately 9,010,000 hits" reported on the first results page... but only "approximately 48 hits" on the tenth page.

Your results will probably vary, depending on your search engine bubble (another reason why this number is useless).


Only the editor who rejected the paper can respond to this. But before you send it, be sure that you have somehow addressed all of the objections and improved the paper based on any helpful reviews.

You don't have to actually do what a reviewer would like, as you still have ownership of the work, but you do need to consider them in any revision. But don't just put in "a few lines" out of context or in rebuttal. Weave any updates into the text. I doubt if you have done this, but including a comment in a paper like "In response to a reviewer we would like to add..." is awkward. That stands out both for the editor and later the reader.

You can send the editor your best version and ask for reconsideration, but it is up to him/her. If you don't get a positive response, consider submitting elsewhere.


Tips for making online presentation over Skype

The question asks a number of things. I am going to focus on interviewing over Skype/video conferencing since it is extremely difficult to do correctly. The issues associated with interviewing is very different from presenting.

Some things to consider when doing a Skype interview

Location: You need a private setting, a good internet connection, a backup landline, good lighting, and good acoustics. I suggest investing in a off white sheet to use as a backdrop. It is also useful for the camera to be directly in front of you so that it appears you are looking at them when you look at the screen. Make sure you have your notes and a drink within reach.
Timing: You need to know when the interview is happening including the timezone and who is initiating the call. You also need to know what happens if there is a problem. You do not want to lose your valuable interview time to technical problems.
Attendees: Once the interview starts, you need to know who is in the room and where they are sitting. If there are people you cannot see, ask them to move. Ask each person to introduce themselves and make sure you can hear them. During this stage you need to get a baseline read on their facial expressions. You also need to know where they are sitting so that you can "look at them". The slight eye shift required to look at them on the screen is likely not exaggerated enough. Practice this.
Control: Make sure you know who asks each question. Ideally use peoples names so they know you are talking to them. If you don't hear the question, ask them to repeat it. Check that they can hear and see you frequently.
Gestures: You need to minimize your gestures, pointing, and figitng. They are really noticeable on Skype.


Yes, it is ok to ask and to say that you really need to know how you are doing. But, I'll guess that  you won't get a specific answer, or, at least, not as specific as you like.
It may be that the "scale" is really just "preponderance of evidence" for the various grades. After all, the grading system in the US is fairly crude with only about five levels of grades. So, since you don't have a percentage score recorded at the end or a total this might be adequate for purposes of grading.
I would hope, however, that the instructor gives you some written feedback on what you write as well, so that you can see how you might improve.
But, yes, you can ask, and it isn't rude.


Is it rude to forward an email message to the original recipient if they did not respond?

On the whole, I'd say "yes, this is a rude way to send a reminder to a non-peer."

The premises are tricky: what is "prompt" to one person is not to another, and not everyone checks (work-related) email at every available opportunity. E.g., some seem to only go through email once a day, on weekdays, or even less often.

There is the other issue about acknowledgement of receipt, even if one's response will be delayed.

But/and if one is teaching a course with 30 or 100 or 250 students, individual responses to daily can be a time-consuming occupation... so that "acknowledgement of receipt" becomes unappealing and an arguable waste of time... if a proper understanding can be reached.

I've tried to cultivate in my students a sense that emails should have a "greeting", a "body", and a "closing", much as old-timey paper letters did... if only so that one can tell whether a thing was mis-sent and/or truncated, not to mention some overt acknowledgement of the identity and dignity of the recipient.

So, if I were to receive a fowarded copy of an email that had already been sent to me, I would consider it quite rude, yes. I do attempt to respond within a few hours of receipt of all email, even if only to acknowledge receipt. Whether or not I had done so, I'd view a merely-forwarded email as uncivil, apart from issues about peer-or-not.


What are the chances of degree revoke if an unrelated plagiarized paper was published during the course of Phd studies

It can happen.  But it would depend a lot on the policies at that institution.  As reported in the New York Times, consider the case of Senator John Walsh (D-MT), whose master's degree from the US Army War College was revoked when it was discovered that he had plagiarized a paper he'd submitted in partial satisfaction of his degree requirements seven years earlier.  They even ground his name off the bronze plaque listing the school's graduates.


Dealing with dismissive reviews as an editor

I believe that you could: a) Explain to the reviewer that you find his or points valid but would like him or her to rewrite the review so that it is more constructive for the authors and therefore more likely to turn into meaningful edits, or b) find a new reviewer. Either way, I would discourage using this reviewer again, because authors find dismissive reviews discouraging and would especially discourage junior scholars who may have very significant research, but new to writing.


As a PhD student in Germany, would I retain student status for tax purposes?

I'm not sure where you get the idea that a CS grad student in the US makes more than a CS student in Germany. If you get a full TV-L position (100%), which many CS positions are, then your net pay after deductions starts at 25,000 € per year (roughly $34,000), and goes up from there. I know of very few US graduate students whose net income is that large—most of them may get that much as a gross salary, and are then responsible for paying taxes and health insurance out of that sum.

If you aren't trying to raise a family, or have exceptional financial circumstances, the graduate salary (it's a salary, not a stipend—as it usually is in the US) is probably more than sufficient to live anywhere in Germany. (Also, you receive full social benefits, including retirement and health insurance.)

So, salary considerations shouldn't be a significant part of your decision-making process—at least not in the sense of "can I afford to be a graduate student?" You can ask if that's a lifestyle you want to be living, compared to what's possible if you go into industry.


My adviser is leaving: what should I do as a third year PhD student

This situation is very tricky.
It is not clear what is your current school level, if it is above or bellow NW (NW is a decent school, but definitely it is not say UChicago).

If you are from a bellow or comparable level school, I would say to go ahead with the transition.
The tricky thing in that case would be to get admitted, but as your advisor is moving, unless it is a very steep jump in the rankings, most likely she can talk to the co-director of graduate studies and pull some strings.

Regarding the formalities you've mentioned, in my experience, there is a big difference between plain rules and practice. There is a chance that NW thinks highly about itself and formally will not recognize your credits (again, it depends where you are moving from). Nevertheless, you might get over that. Most likely your studies will be expedited, you will be able to retake generals pretty soon (if you even have to, maybe they'll just setup some committee and you just need to give a short talk to present your research, as you already do research probably), so nothing will be from scratch and your studies haven't been in vein, the nullstellensatz is the same no matter if you are in Chicago,Boston,Princeton or Palo Alto. and you will have the bonus of graduating from a better school, which is a huge aspect if you are considering academic career. GRE should be extremly easy for you by now, and if you are able to do proper TA job, you should pass Toefl as well, those should be very minor problems from your perspective (how did you got into grad school without GRE?).

If you are from a better school, this is kind of tricky, maybe there's another prof. who can step in to be co-advisor? You are only 3rd year, not  4-5th year, probably you invested less than 1.5 years in research so far. Being stuck without funding for the next 3 years (either way, NW or staying, you will probably finish up in 6 years, maybe even 7, sorry about that, not fair, but that's life, this is a major implication over your studies).
I don't understand your relationship statement, you didn't know that your advisor is considering moving? The application process for academic jobs usually takes more than 6 months

All those hopes about your advisor funding in NW is wishful thinking that can have really disastrous outcomes. The startup grant most universities give to incoming profs are usually for moving, setting up office and some research visits, those are not in the level of NSF grants (or better - Simons/ERC). NW is located on Evanston - affluent suburb of Chicago, cost of living there is not zero (that's not CAL, but still not epsilon, 1 bdroom can easily go for $1800+), and considering this moving situation, are you sure she will commit so much of her own funds to bring you over? I guess support from your home institution is not a possibility as this are planning on terminating your TAship. Regarding the other funding options, some NSF stuff have strings attached (RTG, or supporting only students from their own school), it is too risky to consider this, especially as you are speaking about events which are probably 2 years into the future.

I believe that for the time being, you should continue with the application procedure to NW and if and when the admittance letter will come, set up a conference call between NW director of grad studies, your advisor and yourself and try to setup a better plan for you. If NW decide not to admit you, all those talks are hypothetical, either you will have funding for a visit or not, but you will need to stay in your own school.


Style of Publications chapter of PhD thesis

If the guidelines are flexible and your advisor has not provided you with specific guidance, then I think you can conclude that it really does not matter.  Including a list of your own publications is not a universal requirement for a thesis anyway.  Look at some past theses from students in your program, and  do something similar.

The reality would seem to be that it doesn't much matter how you format things.  If the thesis examiners want to look up your original publications, any format that makes them clear should be fine.  I have never had trouble looking at a student's original research papers, with or without a dedicated section listing them.


Should I change the format of preprint before publishing it as a working paper?

Personally, I wouldn't bother changing the format.  As a wise colleague once told me, if you aren't getting some papers rejected, you aren't submitting to good enough venues.  If you're proud of the work, there's no need to try to obfuscate where it's been submitted.


How to parse "$70,000/yr for 9 months' employment payable over 12 months"?

Option B.

Typically this confusing language reflects that you only have to teach for 9 months, and your salary is tied to your teaching responsibilities. So the university gives you $7777/month for 9 months and $0 for the other three. You can then supplement your income for the remaining three months. In particular, many research grants allow you to cover part or all of your own summer salary at your usual rate -- so if you win such a grant, you can actually gross $7777 every month and end up making a total of $93K per year.

In your case (perhaps because it's a teaching college and research grants are unusual?), they will "pay the salary over 12 months," which works out to $5833/month. This will save you the trouble of having to set money aside during the year and use it during the summer.

Note, your college may still require you to be "productive" over the summer (for certain values of "productive"). For that matter, they may provide the opportunity to take on additional paid work (i.e., teaching summer classes).


How to ensure that putting a product's photo in a paper does not violate copyright?

Photography and other creations carry copyright by default

The answer to your part 1 - the exclusive copyright of a photo belongs to someone from the point of its creation, even if no explicit copyright note is attached.

If you had made the photo of that product, then it would be an entirely different question, but redistributing a photo someone else made is legally almost exactly as redistributing a Hollywood movie.

Available for free doesn't imply a permission to redistribute

If something is freely distributed by it's owner, it doesn't come with an implied permission for you to do the same thing. Unless it comes with a licence that explicitly allows you to do so (e.g. the various Creative Commons licences), you don't have a permission to copy that image further. Citing the source doesn't change that.

Lack of response means lack of permission

If you don't have an explicit permission, then you don't have it regardless of reasons - if an author chooses not to communicate with you, then tough luck. It also may be that the company doesn't have free hands in licencing the image - it's quite possible that the copyright is owned by some photographer, and the company has a licence to use it in their website but not in print.

The journal may want clarifications

The journal submission documents will likely include either a statement that all images are your own, or that you have licenced them appropriately. They may leave the licences as your responsibility or require you to send them the documentation.


Pedagogical pros and cons of requiring undergraduate students to follow open/reproducible research practices?

I applaud your willingness to further your student's contributions to open source.

There are lots of pros:

Build student's reputations (ancillary to professor and institution)
Create value for society
Students will have an even greater stake in code they know will reflect on themselves, and as a result will go to greater lengths to ensure they demonstrate learning and excellence.

Con:

Students (and stakeholders) may not wish to publish because of fear of negative impact to reputation.

Well, masters' theses and doctoral dissertations are, in most institutions that I'm aware of, are all supposed to be bound and stored accessible to the public, even if the public never reads it.

In all likelihood, the bad stuff will get rarely read or used. The good stuff will never get enough attention, but it will get far more than the bad.

Conclusion

It's a risk worth taking, but bounce it off your department head and be certain that they agree. They may decide that since they're undergraduates, it's unfair and not proportionate to require them to publish. Or they may insist that the requirement appear ahead of time in the course catalogue description.


Should you hide that you are already enrolled elsewhere when applying for another PhD?

I answered a similar question here: No, you absolutely must not hide it.

The application will request your complete educational history, with official grades and records from each institution.  At the end, you will be asked to sign a statement that everything is true and complete.

Submitting an application that is false or has significant omissions is considered completely unethical.  It's very likely that the institution where you're applying will eventually find out, and there can be extremely serious consequences.

If they find out while reviewing your application, they'll reject it immediately, even if you would otherwise have been accepted.

If they accept you into the program and then find out while you're enrolled, they may kick you out of the program, even if you're doing well.  With a record of dishonesty, you will probably not get into another one.

If you enroll in the program and finish your PhD, and they find out about the false application years later, they can revoke your degree.  You will almost certainly be fired from whatever job you have at that time, and you will not work in academia again.

So you really do need to include your current institution in your application.  You'll probably also need a letter of recommendation from someone at your current institution.


Can a professor force you to buy a book, for use in his exam?

As user2768 already pointed out in a comment, the question is not whether the prof can force you (no, they can not), but if it is reasonable / fair to require a specific book for an exam.

The answer can depend on many factors:

Is the professor the author of the book? If yes, I would see an issue because this would boost their personal income. This does not seem to be the case in your situation.
Can the exam be completed without the book? E.g. in technical fields, it might be helpful to have a formulary, in languages a dictionary, etc. In most cases, it it just reasonable to use such a book because otherwise you would have to memorize too many facts / formulas, etc.
Is the book a pre-requisite for doing the exam? I did not study law, but from my understanding, one of the natures of law is to derive conclusions based on written text (especially laws). Therefore, it is impossible to do the exam without access to the original law text. So in your specific case, I would say the professor has to require the book, otherwise it would be impossible to do a proper exam.
Is the price / effort unseasonably high? In your case the short answer is "no". In fact it is extremely cheap.
Are there reasonable alternatives to a printed book? Electronic versions of the text would provide an unfair advantage over students using he paper version since they are searchable, in addition it is difficult to guarantee the sanity of the device. One solution might be to provide each student with a computer holding a local copy of the law text and having the internet connection disabled during the exam. The university would need a tremendous infrastructure for that.

To make a long story short: Buy the book. And don't throw it away after one year ;-). Maybe you can hand it over to a student next year.

One additional idea: If you are having some sort of students association: Ask them to organize a bookshelf for such kind of literature.


How much of my ongoing unpublished research should I disclose to others?

Great question! I found myself in similar situations as a student and likewise as a mentor for other students when talking with people working on similar topics.

A favourite quote of mine is from George Bernard Shaw:

  “If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.”

I believe this is an ideal philosophy for research in a sense that ideally, everyone should gain from the free exchange of ideas.

However, as you gain experience, you realize that it can be just an ideal.

My first experience concerning the cost of openly sharing results was when I was a PhD student. Early on, I had the basics of what seemed like an important result for the community and had some initial results. My supervisor urged me to try and publish but the paper was borderline rejected from the conference with comments like "nice idea but still too early". I thus published it as a poster in the informal proceedings. In the meanwhile, my supervisor and I had been in conversation about how to progress further, get more results and mature the work. He presented the poster, spoke with various people and told me that he had had lots of interesting conversations: lengthy conversations with two senior researchers in particular.

I continued working on the problem. My supervisor and I had some difference of opinion on the direction the work should go in (theoretical vs. applied CS basically). We got bogged down in some theoretical questions where I felt the impact could be on simplifying the problem and working on the applied side. I missed the next deadline for the conference in our area but lo and behold, two papers were published that pretty much had developed the applied side of the idea. I read the two papers and realized that both had, in parallel, at the same venue, developed the ideas I had been working on ... with one or two interesting side observations. Both works were from groups of the two senior researchers my supervisor had talked to. One cited my informal/preliminary results as an inspiration, the other didn't cite it at all.

Four years later, the first paper now has 175 citations in Google Scholar, the second paper has 100, my paper has 41. I published a later paper on the topic that's doing a little better, but for sure, the early birds had taken the worm.

In part I'm happy that the idea was developed and they did add new ideas, and I've worked on various things since, but I honestly still regret not having formally marked the idea further before my supervisor exposed it. I also regret not being more urgent in getting the full work published.

This is not to suggest that you should stay tight-lipped at conferences or turn down all collaborations, but if you're worried about someone entering into competition with you, you might want to listen to that concern. I don't think it's at all unreasonable to not share every idea you have when you attend a conference. There are plenty of anecdotes of tight-lipped researchers: for example, nobody knew what Andrew Wiles was working on for several years while he was working towards a proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.

If you think the person is someone you can trust and someone who could help in a collaboration, listen to your gut. Test the water and see how knowledgeable they are or how they could contribute. Be careful if you have co-authors, not to talk about their ideas. If you want to collaborate, perhaps publish a technical report or a pre-print to mark your ideas first.

If in doubt, you don't have to tell them about your ideas straight away. Maybe stay quiet for the conference and email them later if you think you want to work together or to tell them about your ideas.


Are appendices included in the maximum page count for conference papers?

Are appendices included in the maximum page count for conference publications?

In my experience from CS, typically yes. That is because the page limit has (at least) three purposes:

To ensure everyone gets the same space to make their point (whether that increases fairness or actually decreases it - different topics may require different amounts of space - is a different question).
To limit the amount of information/contributions per publication, lest the conference talk be just an exemplary excerpt that fails to encompass the entirety of the paper.
To actually limit page size in printed proceedings. I base this on the observation that I have come across conferences that would charge authors for extra pages, and even a few that would charge authors or put a (lower-than-total-pages) limit on pages with coloured content.

It is for the latter point that "bonus material" such as appendices also counts towards the maximum paper length.


What factors does an admissions commitee use when considering a non-degree candidate in grad school?

Not typically identical to MS or PhD but some level of relevant competency is expected of you before admission can be given in that field


Contacting potential PhD advisors while not knowing research topic?

You definitely don't need super specific research topics to reach out to potential advisors to gauge their interest in working with you. When I first applied to PhD programs, I also got in touch with potential advisors beforehand to introduce myself and tell them about my research interests just to see if they would be responsive/be interested in working with me should I be admitted. At the time, I had a couple of ideas about what I wanted to do for my dissertation, but they weren't fully formed at all. Still, I did get some positive responses from several professors which encouraged me to apply to their programs.

At the end of the day, they know that most students don't join PhD programs with well-developed research agendas, that research interests change, and even that the person you wanted to work with originally might not be the person you end up working with in the end (the last scenario happened to me in some very ugly turn of events). Point being, I wouldn't worry too much about presenting developed research questions in the initial emails to faculty. If anything it's just a good way to get an idea of professors' availability and responsiveness, and to narrow down your list of schools to which you're applying.

And actually, given the above reference to my own negative experiences post-admission, I would add that it doesn't hurt to look for programs that have at least a couple of potential advisors to choose from.


How will be determined the format of manuscript before submission to journal?

Usually, the journal's typesetters will get your manuscript into that "final form", so you don't have to do it yourself.

The sentence is saying that you should have all your content finalized before submission. Once the paper is communicated, you can't make any more changes.


How to represent a tensor/matrix/vector/array in blackboard?

The following are the notations I've seen most along the years (I don't think there's a winner).

Vectors:

Matrices:

In my experience, unadorned symbols are preferred by mathematicians; the arrow is preferred by physicists; and bar and underbar (and double underbar for matrices) are preferred by engineers.

Even though I don't have to write many vectors and matrices (in my classes I deal mainly with scalar quantities), I usually employ underbarred symbols for four reasons:

Of course, I'm an engineer!
A bar is faster to draw then an arrow.
My handwriting is awful, and I think that simpler symbols improve readability; at the same time, though, I don't want to abandon the categorization of quantities through different symbols.
The interpretation of underbar is frequently that of bold, and I prefer bold symbols for vectors over symbols with an arrow.


Should one add the 4th LOR for the admit panel (PhD CS USA Fall 2022)

If the fourth letter will strongly support your application and is from someone who can fairly judge your work, then it would be better to send it than not. But a lukewarm letter won't help you and might dilute stronger letters. You have to judge that.
The letter readers will be looking to make a prediction of success for accepted candidates.


If a paper is accepted as a poster, must you attend the conference?

A paper submitted to a conference can be accepted either as an oral talk, a poster talk, or a short demo/industry track, with variations (small talks, long talks, plenary talks, e-posters, etc.). In some fields, the poster is considered less important, and will not be published as a paper in proceedings. In others, they have the same importance.

Conferences have two main purposes (I forgot about vacations in paradise places):

present your paper, either talk or poster,
attend other talks/posters, meet people.

To me, "submitting a paper to a conference implies a moral obligation for one of the authors to present the talk or the poster, if the paper is accepted". If one does not attend, the submission should be withdrawed, for different potential reasons:

you (and your co-authors) do not need, or cannot afford a poster presentation,
the conference program is not good enough for your purposes,
you should not fool attendees with papers that will not be presented.

In the conferences I do summit to, both oral and poster are considered even. I now do:

prefer posters when I present, as I have more time (1h-2h vs 15 min-20 min) to present, to talk with attendees, adapt to their background,
prefer attend to posters than to orals, except when I spot a specific point for a given talk.

Plus, I do bring along with me small copies of the poster, copies of papers that are related to the work at hand, that I can offer to attendees. Reminder of the root: a "publication" means: make a research "public". Posters are a good vector for that, and bring you more feedback (very few questions asked in traditional oral sessions). Sometimes, somebody who cannot attend your allotted slot can propose a specific meeting. I should admit I even went to a person presenting a poster, to ask him about her/his previous work.

In those conferences, poster chairs spot "no shows": poster panels without posters, posters without presenters, posters with a presenter who is not a co-author.

  Example: No-show papers are defined as papers submitted by
  authors who subsequently did not present the paper in-person (no
  videos, no remote cast) at the technical meeting. Presentations by
  proxies are not allowed, unless explicitly approved before the
  conference by the technical co-chairs. No-show papers that were not
  withdrawn and were published in the Proceedings must be identified as
  "No-Show" in the files submitted to IEEE for further publication (IEEE
  Xplore). No-shows will not be available on IEEE Xplore or other public
  access IEEE forums. IEEE will maintain an archive of no-shows.

Authors of "no show" are sometimes blacklisted, and can be banned of publications in the scientific organization places (future conferences, even journals) for a couple of years.

So it will be perceived poorly if you do not warn the organizers and withdraw the paper, is unethical to other attendees,  and involves consequences for you and your co-authors.


Switching field of study from computer science to GIS in the post graduate level

I can't comment with authority on your specific case, but some GIS masters courses may not assume much GIS-specific prior knowledge. You should probably have an interest in mapping, cartography or spatial data, and - since you are coming from a CS direction - in databases or spatial computing; but interest does not necessarily mean in-depth knowledge.

I think my advice would be "find a course that interests you, and discuss it with the person in charge of admissions".


Is it normal for things to be so cutthroat, and what to do about it?

Reality is very complicated. It is not one way or the other, often a mixture, and lots of judicious decision-making is required. Some environments are nicer than other, some people more trustworthy than other. If atmosphere disturbs you, choose your environment and the people to suit your taste, there are more pleasant subfields than others.

Careers do depend on individual success, so you cannot just plainly discount people trying to keep their ideas for themselves until they are ready to capitalise on that - success, as measured by hiring committees, is individual, not collective.

Yes, a fully open community is a bit like communism - great if it works, but usually works only to a commune of a limited size, or if the work to be done cannot hope to progress more than differentially faster than the community as a whole  and also if there are no "bad apples" who do not play ball and prey on the goodwill of the group.

That being said, you can encounter very friendly communities, but if that is a priority for you, you need to include that into your criteria for choosing a research topic.


Dealing with listening/talking to researchers with difficult accents

I'm not a native English speaker but I do understand your frustration. Here are some of my experiences:

Embrace the elephant in the room

Time to time I found people around me are too "polite" to not tell me that they don't understand what I say. I have had a course evaluation saying that "the instructor is great but time to time I had hard time understand some words he said. For example, it took me a few weeks to realize he meant 'result' when he said 'ray-sult'." I was actually amazed by how much money this student spent to be confused.

Now, at the beginning of the course, I surrender myself and introduce the elephant. "I have accent, and if any of my pronunciations is off, you're more than welcome to correct me. Your input will help me to become a better speaker." Then move on.

I think the situation is the same in the native speaker's shoes. If you have trouble understanding a colleague. Tactfully ask for a few repetitions in an informal conversation, and then confess that you sometimes may not catch the full gist of the speech, and proceed to ask for a blanket excuse in the future should you need another repetition again.

"Fully understand" is likely an illusion

Your point about missing important materials in conference is well taken. Here are two reflections I have: i) realize that even you get the whole sentence, it's still a foreign language to the speaker and there will always be some loss in translation. ii) In a conference, it's probably hard to pick up all the little bits of information. On this point, you can Zen that over like watching a firework; let that go. Or if the curiosity is killing you, approach the speaker after the talk and clarify. If the conversation goes well you can consider exchanging business cards, and ask for a copy of their presentation over the e-mail.

Hold on to an ad hoc interpreter

When I teach in foreign countries, there would be English speakers whose speeches are beyond my cognitive reach. This is how I deal with it: i) Keep smiling, and rephrase the question as best as I can, and I know I'd fail, then repeat step i) for a few more times and keep calm and smiling, ii) eventually some participants who are more proficient would volunteer to translate. If no one does, embrace the elephant in the room and say "I guess I'm a bit stuck here, would anyone tell me what I missed in the question?" iii) once the question is clarified, answer it, facing the original questioner. For myself, I prefer to slowly pace up to the board, and write down my talking points. I think this would enhance the questioner's understanding if he/she has trouble listening to my speech.

Often enough, no one would help. And the questioner may just wave his/her hand and give up. Don't be frustrated. Invite the person to stay and talk, and perhaps then you can employ things like paper and pen to better understand each other.

Use writing

When communicating with colleagues who have heavy accents, I'd also rely a bit more on writing. Using e-mails, or using a white board in a meeting may help. On that note, I also bring a stack of index cards with me to meetings and classes.

Use international "language"

Smile, drawing, ... etc. are always good substitute or supplement to verbal communication. Avoid using very specific body gestures because one friendly gesture here may deem insulting in another culture.

Learn some foreign languages

It's actually quite interesting that comparing to my colleagues who are native speakers, I actually have an easier time filtering other countries' accents. I attributed to the fact that when sitting through English classes, our teachers put extra emphasis on highlightin how our mother tongue may cause some English words to be mispronounced. Then in university I picked up a couple foreign languages, and then now I have virtually no problem listening to people from those countries speaking English.

It may actually be impractical to learn all the languages. Here are a couple tricks I have used: First, just learn their basic pronunciation system first and if you have time, figure out how to say some basic general words. In the process, evaluate how the system may work if it's used to pronounce English. For example, Japanese system does not differentiate r and l, so you may expect hearing "running" and "learning" or "lighting" and "writing" pronounced identically. Mandarin does not have the -th and Th-, so Mandarin speakers may compensate with -ve and F- (e.g. A "fief" instead of a "thief".) On the contrary, Mandarin has an elaborated series of s or s-like sounds: si, zi, and ci, with different tongue-teeth positions and amounts of air blowing through the lips. So, you may expect emphasis on some syllables that would have been only lightly pronounced if spoken by a native speaker. Italian speakers, on the other hand, tend to clearly pronounce syllable-by-syllable and attach an -e or -a after some words. Once we put the same nouns spelled in English and Italian side by side, the reason would become apparent.

Second, read some books on how to get rid of accents or how to speak in British and American accent. Most of these books would have a chapter or so dedicated to explain major mistakes made by speakers from different systems. For example, Japanese speakers may have an extra "-gu" after all words ending with -ing; Chinese speakers may not distinguish clearly between -s and -th. These tips are not for native speakers, but by learning some major traits, native speakers can quickly filter the noise and get to the content.

Make an effort

It takes time to understand accents. But as you speak to a certain foreign person more and more, you should be more at ease. This is particularly important when dealing with your colleagues. Keep talking and keep categorizing their speech traits, and you'll get better at talking to them. Most of these advices may make you feel vulnerable or even stupid, but as an ESL and also a foreign language learner, when it comes to language, I think we cannot be overly reserved.


Profs who have done a full year sabbatical overseas with a family: How did you make it work?

I've taken two full-year overseas sabbaticals, each on my half-salary plus a small ad-hoc stipend from the host institution, the first with just my wife and the the second with my wife and our two small children.  Fortunately my wife's job is flexible enough to allow for occasional leaves without pay.

We rented out our house (at a slight discount, because the renters also took care of our dog).  We lived like students in a small apartment.  We took public transportation everywhere.  During the second sabbatical, our kids enrolled in the on-campus kindergarten; that was one of the key reasons we went where we did.

We also burned through several thousand dollars in savings and racked up several thousand more in credit card debt, which took a couple of years to pay off, but the experience was worth every penny.  We're looking forward to doing it a third time in a few years, despite the extra complication of older children.

The most important thing I can suggest is to forget the idea of making up your and your wife's missing salaries, or even a significant fraction thereof.  It's just not going to happen.  You just have to live with less and make it work.

The other important thing is that it has to work for your entire family.  No matter how good the experience might be for you professionally, if you aren't visiting a place where your family can actually enjoy living, you are all going to be utterly miserable.  I strongly recommend making connections with the families of your colleagues at your host institution, well before the final planning stages.


Why do graduate programs have comprehensive examinations (comps)?

The question is about exams taken at the end of a master's program. I have given such exams. In my mind, they make the candidate prove that they have mastered the material of the courses, which is a form of quality control. But the exams also have a few secondary goals in my mind:

By studying for the exams, students gain more understanding of the material, and come away better educated. The actual taking of the exam is less important, in a sense, than the time spent studying. If a student studies well, they should pass the exam.
The exams keep the faculty honest when teaching, because the faculty know their students will have to pass exams that will be seen by other faculty. Exams within a course are often not seen by other faculty, so the instructor is not as publicly accountable.
The exams help the faculty see what the students know, all in one setting. We can use this to revise courses at the departmental level if we find that many students have the same gaps in their knowledge.


Would leaving my current PhD program ABD be a red flag when applying to other universities?

The first order of business is making sure that you cannot graduate. If you have more than 10 papers published in non-predatory journals, you are objectively ready to wrap it up. I would suggest contacting former PhD students of your advisor to know how they "escaped".
Assuming you will not be able to graduate, look at your exit options. Your division of the job market between academia and "regular 9-5 job[s]" is to black-and-white.
Most large companies and some midsize companies have R&D laboratoires where research jobs is at least as intellectually stimulating as in academia; compared to academia, you trade some freedom, both intellectual (the cool topic you worked on is not funded this year because of company priorities) and physical (you need to be on premises at fixed hours, and you might even need to follow a dress code) in exchange for better working conditions (on average a better salary, better work/life balance; in experimental sciences you have a better-equipped lab with dedicated workers). That might or might not suit your taste.
For whichever position you end up pursuing, I strongly advise you rehearse what you will say at an interview. You will have to "badmouth" your current advisor; hop over to the Workplace stackexchange and read a few questions on that topic; the quick summary is to keep it as factual as possible. For PhD positions any reasonable interviewer would think that you should have defended with that number of publications, so I would point at that and say you disagree with your advisor's decision not to let you defend; avoir bringing other concerns if not asked. For industry positions the interviewer might not be familiar with PhD programs, so I would rather say something vague about an unsound work environment.
For PhD positions, your CV will probably be tossed out without an interview a few times because it is atypical, but if you get to the interview your chances look better than average since you demonstrated an ability to do research, write papers/grants etc.


Pros and cons of CV and cover letter for Ph.D. position in the same document

Separate is the most common thing to do in general (for graduate programs, jobs, etc), probably because it is the most convenient for applicants, who will often have only one CV but different cover letters for different applications.

Also, you will keep updating your CV throughout your career, and use it for many things, whereas cover letters are position specific.  This makes it somewhat more covenient to keep your CV separate.

The only pro I can imagine to keeping them in the same file is that it will take whoever's looking at your application one less click to see your information, but it seems unlikely that the person receiving this will care very much whether they get one or two pdfs (if they do, they should say what they want in the instructions).


How to deliver google scholar alerts at specific time

Create a filter to add a label to the emails.

Then every Friday you can read all the emails marked with that label!


Are industrial bachelor/master theses worth it?

This is a common and healthy practice around the world. Companies are usually facing difficult problems that can potentially have many different solutions and are looking for the most innovative and efficient ones. Offering these projects to masters and PhD students saves money for the company and helps make the student more experienced in solving real-world problems. In addition, if you do a good work in your masters, it's not unlikely that the company may offer you a scholarship to do your PhD in the same field, which is extremely important. Not to mention that you can establish contacts with people from the industry.

There is really very little difference between what you call "industrial" theses and "academical" theses. In both cases, you have to do literature review, problem motivation, implementation, and evaluation. All of that has to be in the thesis. Also, both pave the way to do your PhD in the same or similar fields.


Switching from PhD to MRes, taking a Leave of Absence, or dropping out of PhD due to mental health

There's a very clear difference between the three options that you've listed- depending on your long-term goals, the right option should be easy to determine.

If you still want to ultimately complete the Ph.D. program but know that because of your health you simply can't be successful as a student now, then you should try to take a leave of absence for however long it takes you to recover your health. It's a bad idea to try to work through your current problems- you might do so poorly in your studies that you'll be asked to leave the program.

If you've changed your goal and decided that you'd like towards a master's degree, and if you think that you can be successful in the master's program without taking a leave of absence, then you should ask to switch to the master's program.  If you don't think you can be successful as a master's student right now, then you might ask for a leave of absence first.

If you've come to the conclusion that completing a graduate degree isn't one of your long-term goals, then simply withdrawing from your graduate program is probably the appropriate path.

Of course you may not be sure what your long-term goals are.  Figuring this out while dealing with a serious mental health issue is very difficult.  Requesting a leave of absence might provide you with the time you need to figure that out.

You should certainly find out what the consequences of a leave of absence would be for your scholarship.  You'll need to discuss that with the scholarship sponsor.


How to set up lab rotation when commencing a PhD?

Have you even shown up to orientation yet?  I think you're getting ahead of yourself.  But if you're already in the department wandering around lost then my advice is:

It obviously varies by department but there should be some sort of form you fill out with your top picks.  You have a few options:  contact your graduate advisor and ask; go talk with a perspective PI and bring it up during your conversation; or ask the other students in your program if they know what to do.  The third choice is by far the best.  It seems like you're just sitting there in a vacuum wondering what to do.  You will quickly die if you do that.  You need to meet the other students and you need to work with them to make it through.


Confirmation review (upgrade from MPhil to PhD) chair can ask a lot of questions

The point is: Who asks the questions really makes no difference if your friend doesn't know the answers.

You seem to make the inference that the process was unfair because the wrong person asked the questions. But that's the wrong attitude. The process would have been unfair if your friend had been well prepared, had known the answers, and was rejected nonetheless.

Let's assume the chair had only taken the role of the moderator. Then there are two outcomes: (i) The other members had asked more questions and would also have found out that your friend did not know the answers; in that case, they would probably have come to the same conclusion. (ii) The other members had not asked questions, it would not have been as apparent that your friend did not know the answers, they may have admitted your friend to the PhD program, and she would struggled a lot because she is not well prepared.


Appendices to other people's papers - what's the incentive?

1) The results of an appendix are usually much less significant than the results of the main paper.  It usually would not be within the cultural norms to produce a joint paper, because the authors of the appendix did not actually contribute to the important parts of the paper; in mathematics, a 3%-5% contribution doesn't usually warrant adding an author to a 2 or 3 author paper.  It would be possible to publish the appendix separately, but only in a bottom-tier journal that accepts any contribution that is correct and not plagiarized (or at least a much less well-regarded journal), at which point the appendix may very well get more attention attached to a somewhat important paper rather than buried in some obscure journal.  Also, producing a separate paper is more work, because the authors would need to write an introduction, set notation, restate the results of the main paper, and so on.

2) Only idiots care about these counts.  If an insignificant contribution of the kind you would put in an appendix actually matters for your career, you're doing quite poorly as a research mathematician.  (Exception: sometimes a top mathematician will write an appendix whose contents would be considered significant if produced by me but are still rather insignificant in the context of their work.)  If your university gives you a raise or a bonus per paper, they are idiots, and you should discuss with your dean beforehand how an appendix will be treated.


Can someone continue her education in Germany if the first university degree is not recognized?

If her high school degree is not recognized, then there is the possibility to apply to a Studienkolleg. They generally offer one- or two-year programs that teach German and enough other subjects to be accepted as an Abitur or Fachabitur. Then she can start a bachelor's program. Most universities have a quota for taking in students from foreign countries, this is generally 5 % of the places to study. But enrollments are down in Germany at the moment, so there are good chances of getting a position. Check the enrollment dates: usually July 15 for the winter term, January 15 for the summer term.


Motivation for getting good grades in graduate school

You are confusing cause and effect.  Good grades should never be a motivation for a truly good student (in graduate school or elsewhere).  Rather, good grades are a byproduct of engaging deeply with the material of a class.

When I was a graduate student, there were some classes that I was quite happy to get a B in, because they were far outside of my main area of work and taking them really stretched my mind; the B was a good reflection of the reality that I am not suited to be a theoretical mathematician, but that I had learned well from them regardless.  There were other classes that I would have been frankly ashamed to get anything other than an A in, because they were totally in my wheelhouse; if I had gotten even an A-, it would have reflected a real waste of my opportunity in that class.

In short: forget about grades in graduate school, except insofar as they are feedback on whether you are screwing up your education.


There isn't generally much of a barrier to making a small change of field after an MS. But there are two issues you may need to deal with. I suspect that for Stochastic Calculus a lot of background is needed in basic Analysis. Perhaps you have that already, but it might take some time (coursework) to get up to speed in that.
Projects/research in your background is good to have, but probably not the most important thing of all. Many people enter doctoral programs with little of that, though mostly from bachelors programs rather than masters.
The other time issue is that you need to pass comprehensive exams (qualifiers) in most math programs and they generally cover a fairly broad range (analysis, algebra, topology, ...) and you may need coursework to get ready for that.
But, changing to math from a field with similar research methods is not going to be a big issue, though you need a strong application generally as does everyone.


Difference between criterion validity and reliability equivalence

Criterion validity concerns with measuring the right thing. For instance, GPA is likely to have criterion validity to measure a student's academic understanding. While the change in weight in the last semester has much less criterion validity to measure the same trait. Basically, if the measurement you use and the trait you want to measure has a high correlation, then there is likely criterion validity.

Reliability concerns mostly with measuring the thing right. For instance, if GPA can measure a student's academic understanding, and percent attendance can also measure a student's academic understanding, then GPA and percent attendance should correlate, aka, they are reliable. Before subjected to reliability assessment, the tests are usually checked if they are criterion-valid. However, it's possible to have two tests that are highly correlated (reliable) but invalid. Such as using dietary fat intake and serum lipid to predict a college graduate's earning potential.

Notice that there a few different types of reliabilities, the one you cited is more about alternate forms reliability, there are also test-retest reliability and inter-rater reliability, etc.

Practically, they are not interchangeable. Validity happens between the true trait (or behavior) and the measurements. Reliability happens between two measurements (or modes/instances of measurement.)


Citing a 'co-student's Bachelor's thesis

Of course it is acceptable as long as you know what you are referencing.
So as long as you have read her thesis (or the part you are referring to) and you think it belongs in the literature review of your thesis: Do it.

However, if you want to use a result derived by her, I would advice against it, as you can not be sure if it really is correct. If it is not possible to avoid using it you should talk to your supervisor about it.

For the proper form:
@masterthesis (as @Wrzlprmft already pointed out), @thesis (with type = {Bachelor's thesis}  or @unpublished could be an option for you.


Does your Alma Mater and U.S. News Rankings Really Affect Future Job Opportunities?

Here are a few points.

1. Industry Jobs

IMHO, "brand" is more important in the industry than in academia. E.g. in general, the HR department is more likely to forward a CV with Harvard on it. Also, people in the industry are probably not able to understand the academic content of your program.

2. Similar Questions

How does the ranking of a university relate to a future career in mathematics?

University rank/stature - How much does it affect one's career post-Ph.D?

Although these are for PhD programs, there might be interesting bits in there with regards to industry.

3. Look

It might be helpful or informative to look at the CVs of the companies or positions you are interested in. This might give you a clue if only the "branded" universities are hired or if there is a wide range of backgrounds. E.g. with regards to mathematics departments, if you look at the CV of professors, a lot of them are Ivy League or MIT, Stanford etc.

Personally, I would pick the most "branded" program I can get into.


Unlike PubMed, many of the discipline specific indexing and abstract services tend to be run as proprietary services:

For Engineering there is Engineering Village
For Chemistry there is the Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) SciFinder
For Theology and Religious Studies there is Index Theologicus
For Philosophy there is The Philosopher's Index and PhilPapers
For Geology there is GEOBASE and GeoRef
For Economics there is EconLit and RePEc
For Mathematics there is Mathematical Reviews and zbMATH (hattip Dave Renfro)
For Electronics and Computer Science there is IEEE Xplore
For Agriculture there is AGRICOLA and AGRIS

Wikipedia has quite a full list that might be of further interest:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_academic_databases_and_search_engines


How do search engines calculate citations when both a preprint and a published journal/conference version of a paper exists?

This obviously depends on the indexing service used. Typically, the records for different versions of the same paper are merged, and the service will provide the sum of the references.
For example, on google scholar, you can click on "all versions" to see all versions of a paper included in their record. For example here are the 222 versions of the LIGO GW150914 discovery paper, included in Google's record.
(I am not sure how the extremely rare case that a single work references multiple versions of the same paper is handled. But this should indeed be very rare.)


Are there tools to find a subset of references shared by two or more publications?

The process of finding the intersection of the references in a given set of papers is known as bibliographic coupling and was first proposed by M. M. Kessler in 1963 in a paper that sadly remains locked behind a paywall 52 years later. Kessler was thinking about doing this for pairs of papers but of course you could do this for an arbitrary number. What might also be interesting would be to look for the set of papers reachable by following citation trails backward in time through any number of steps.

I am unaware of any on-line tools that perform this type of comparison for you, though it would not be hard to build such a thing if you had access to a big enough citation graph.


Would it be ethical for a computer science PhD student to hire an assistant (programmer)?

I don't think it is inherently unethical to do this.  If all relevant parties know about it and you scrupulously acknowledge this other person's work, then I see no specific problem.

Whether it is advisable is a different question...and one you should certainly ask your advisor.  I have to say that it does not sound like such a good idea to me.  Your thesis work is for you to do...almost by definition.  It is perfectly fine to get help from others on your thesis, and some people are better programmers than others (even in CS, I imagine), so getting some pointers from a friend is actually a good idea.  But paying someone to do a part of your thesis work just doesn't sound good to me.  Either the programming is an important part of your thesis or it isn't.  If it is, you should do it yourself.  If it isn't, maybe you don't need to do it at all, or don't need to do it to the degree that an outside professional would.

There is also the issue of the impression this subcontracting would make on others.  Perhaps the cultural norms in your field are very different from mine (again: ask your advisor), but I would have a rather negative impression of a PhD student who did this: they don't seem to be very committed to their own work.

Added: To be clear, I am interpreting the question as meaning that the doctoral student himself is doing the hiring: i.e., that this is his idea and he is using his own funds.  (If his university is giving him funding and simply asking him to pick someone to work with, then even asking the question "Is it ethical?" becomes less plausible.)

In terms of suspecting that this is not a good idea, I hope I was clear that this is my personal opinion, with experience from a field (mathematics) which is rather closely related to CS but is not necessarily identical.  As I said, the OP should consult their advisor about this.  However, for what it's worth I find it hard to believe that the reaction will be "Sure, spend your money."  While not unethical on the OP's part, it seems, shall we say, suboptimal if both advisor and student feel that this is the best way to proceed.


Regarding withdrawal of a paper which has not been registered for conference

Some conferences will publish even without registration / payment (exceptions, special support, considered worthy etc), so you have to contact them to properly withdraw the paper.

You must properly withdraw the paper before you submit it to another journal as you cannot submit the same paper twice.


What is research, specifically in Computer Science?

[This answer is colored by the fact that I'm a theoretical computer scientist.]

As an undergraduate, you are (usually) given crisp, well-formulated problems with definite correct answers that you can reasonably expected to discover in a relatively short time period, using only a very narrow range of knowledge and skills.  If you get stuck, your instructor can give you useful hints, because they already know how to solve the problem.  Moreover, the instructor can probably explain the complete solution to you fairly quickly (in, say, less than a week).

Research involves vague, half-baked, open-ended problems that may resist progress after months or even years of hard work, regardless of how many classes you've taken or books/papers you've read.  Nobody else knows the answer to the problem you're working on (or it isn't really research); nobody can even give you a hint how to proceed.  Nobody has a clue what other results or techniques will be helpful, or if you're just going to have to make up a completely new technique on the fly.  You don't know if the solution you're aiming for is actually useful or interesting, or even if the problem is formulated so that it has a definite answer.  Still, you'd better find something interesting, or you'll never graduate.

If that sounds like fun, research might be for you!