How to Use a Result Already Under Review in Another Paper?

There are a couple of ways.

Upload a pre-print of the paper under review to ArXiV. Then you can cite the ArXiV version. This is commonly done in many fields, but typically happens at the time of submission to the journal. Check if this is actually allowed after submission to the journal by your specific journal.
As a less preferrable variant, upload your paper to your webpage (or to Dropbox or an alternative service) under a non-public link. Cite your paper under review in the new paper with the note "under review" and the link under which the paper can be obtained.

Variant 2 is common in case ArXiV cannot be used for copyright reasons (some journals do not accept papers that have already been published in any form). Note that some journals allow to submit supplementary material - it makes sense to include a PDF of the paper with the result that you want to use then. The non-public paper link is not necessary in this case.


Curving grades without creating competition among students

I think you're onto the right approach with the idea of a curve that only helps.
Based on your description, it sounds like you are in the United States. If so, the simplest way to do this would be to compute twice:

Use the standard US metric of A=90%-100%, B=80-89%, C=70-79%, D=60-69%, F<60%.
Apply the curve.
Give the student the maximum of the two grades.

If you put together examinations that are far too difficult, then you may still have a problem. No matter what, however, a curve can only do so much to save you from this mistake, however, since overly difficult exams will also tend to increase the arbitrariness of assessment.
One other thing that may help in setting the curve is a trick I learned from the professor that I TAed for while in graduate school. When determining the curve, he also included all of the students who dropped the course. In a big undergraduate course, there were always a decent number of these, and they would generally be doing worse than the students who at least stuck it out to the end. The dropping student thus generally absorbed the failing grades at the bottom of the scale (except for a few deserving cases) and took the sting out of the curve for the students working hard but struggling in the class.


How often are authors not allowed to send their paper by email upon request?

I will speculate (and I'm guessing that a speculative answer is the best you'll be able to get to such a question) that the answer is effectively never. Specifically, I have never heard of a journal attempting to impose such a draconian restriction on authors, and moreover, I can think of two quite strong reasons why they would not do so:

Any journal that attempts to impose such a restriction is very likely to be blacklisted and boycotted by authors.
The restriction is unenforceable, since email communication is private and therefore a violation could never be detected by the publisher. In the world of dealmaking, savvy dealmakers know* that it is completely counterproductive to insert unenforceable clauses into a contract, since they will surely be ignored and their only effect will be to antagonize your counterparty and drive them to deal with a competitor instead.

* Okay, I don't actually know for a fact that "savvy dealmakers know ...", but since I know it and I'm not a very savvy dealmaker myself, I expect that it is even more obvious to savvy dealmakers than it is to me.

To summarize, if there is a journal forbidding authors from sending their paper to colleagues over email, it's a reasonably safe bet that the journal is a nonentity and can be safely ignored.


does prestige of university where I will be getting my Master's degree matter?

Go for option 2.

When it comes to an MSc the role of your supervisor is less important than that in a PhD. Yes, you have to do some research (not always) and working with a "great guy" if far better than working with an "OK guy", but remember you are doing an MSc and planning to go to industry. People will care more about your grades than your research potential (short-sighted but true in my experience).

In addition, being in a more prestigious institution opens you more avenues; it will be a better selling point 5 years down the line and the top-ranked US university will probably have a better alumni network than a mid-rank public university.

In general, MSc studies are a way to buy some credentials to use either in the job market or as stepping stone to move to a better institution for your PhD than the one you are already. Get the best possible.


How to find universities helping commercialization of research

All research universities in the United States have "technology transfer" or "commercialization" offices. They will help you patent your invention, license that patent to licensees, and/or help you set up your own company to commercialize the invention.

Of course, all of this is subject to an assessment that what you think is a commercializable idea is really worth the university's support.


Is it appropriate to use active and passive voice together in abstract?

I don't think there is any inherent problem with mixing active and passive voice.  However I would offer the following suggestions:

The passive voice is certainly unnecessary here, so you might as well avoid it.  You could simply say "We have also obtained some new results."
I think most people prefer to write abstracts in the present tense.  "In the present paper, we prove theorems... We also obtain some new results."
The last sentence "obtained some new results" is so vague that it doesn't tell the reader anything.  Either add more details ("We also obtain some new results on the reticulation of splines") or just omit the sentence altogether.


Can I adapt to learning Artificial intelligence in MS easily

I don't know about the US, but in some schools in Canada you can be admitted to a CS Graduate degree without prior background in an interest area. You'd have to take background courses to get yourself up to speed, possibly in excess of the bare-minimum program requirements, but it should be doable.

For AI specifically, ensure that the schools you're applying to have enough background in the topic, and that there are supervisors and supervisory capacity for you. Look for undergraduate courses in topics that interest you, as they may form part of your background studies.


As a double major if you do reasonably well in only the second major will it affect your chances of getting into a good grad school?

If your second major (economics) is not related to the graduate program (pure? math), your performance in the second major will be viewed the same way as your performance in elective courses.  It is not that important but it will count towards any GPA cutoff.
If you were applying for a graduate program in economics with an intent to do quantitative research, bad math grades would be more important because math is used in some economics.
I would not recommend retaking a specialized course you do not plan to use for anything unless you would enjoy it.  It would be more efficient to take a course that is useful and also increases your GPA.


What is the industry standard for the level of technical detail when writing about machine learning for a paper in a science journal?

The following is the standard for deep learning literature as far as I am aware:

  Should I include every model we tried including those that we didn't?

No, only include your best model (or at least, the ones you want to show). Journal space is limited, so people generally don't include unsuccessful attempts.

  Should I include hyperparameters for gridsearch or only the best hyperparameters?

Only the best hyperparameters. If one of your model's selling points is it's resilience to different hyperparameters then you might include a diagram showing how the different hyperparameters affect the results. If not then the worse-performing hyperparameters are irrelevant.

  Should I include every method of feature engineering we implemented?

Yes, this is important for reproduction.

  Should I include examples of the data's structure?

That would be nice, but perhaps not necessary. Perhaps include it if your data is very non-standard.


Capitalisation of "Section" and "Chapter" in a Ph.D. Thesis

"In Chapter 3, it was shown that..."

This seems correct. "Chapter 3" is the name of the third chapter. Names are capitalised.

  "In the previous Section, a method was presented to..."

This seems wrong. "Section" is not referring to the previous section by name, therefore no capital.

  "The graph in Figure 3 shows..."

Correct. Same as the first example.

So the rule (I use) is, if it is a proper name, then use a capital. This means, if it is of the form "Section $n$", where $n$ is a number, then it needs a capital.


Is it normal/ethical for student grades to be assigned according to quotas?

Unfortunately, the universities and colleges are run by managers and not only by academics. In ideal world, all students' work should be marked according to its merit; for example, if all mathematical problems are solved correctly, then the paper deserves 100%. Academics usually understand and share this view (apart of a few strongly believing that "no work ever deserves 100%").

Unfortunately, people who manage universities, are not always guided by common sense or mathematical reasoning. They seem to invent some obscure metrics and force them on the rest of academic staff. Academics do not think it is correct, but they have to play by the rules which are set by non-academics.

Unfortunately, students become a collateral damage in a clash of two cultures: academic and management. If you want to query this, best ask not your professor, but a Dean (anonymously or as a part of larger group). The misguided policies arrive from the very top; your professor has not much power against it.


Status regarding co-authorship for a computer science research paper

To answer your questions:

Based on what you say, it does sound like you were treated unfairly.

Leaving you out from the paper given the circumstances is at least unethical. I don't know about legal.

Your collaborators don't sound like nice people. Unfortunately, this is not uncommon in academia, where abuse of junior people is certainly not uncommon, though for obvious reasons statistics are hard to come by.

An obvious option is to write to the journal's editor explaining the situation. If you have contributed significantly to the paper, you certainly have a claim to be considered a co-author. Obviously, make sure you have documentation backing up your claim. If you don't, it is just your word against theirs, and you will quite likely get nowhere. If you have good documentation, it will be more difficult for the journal to ignore your claims, though it is obviously hard to predict what people will do. Given that you were on the first submission attempt, I think that first submission should count as part of the documentation, and should really help your case if you appeal to the journal. It would be easy enough to compare the two versions of the paper. In the first submission, is your contribution described? Also, were the two submissions to different journals?

It is not completely clear from your posting whether the paper has been officially published. If it has, it may be too late to add your name to the list of authors.

Bear in mind that your collaborators will quite possibly try to find a way to get back at you, for any number of reasons. People who behave in the way you described can get extremely petty and unpleasant when they perceive you as "going against them". They also have a remarkable capacity for not taking responsibility for their own actions, and in their own minds will find a way to blame you for the situation. This is not meant to discourage you from standing up for your rights, but just pointing out the reality of the situation.

Personally, I think people should stand up for their rights, but at the end of the day it is your decision.


Is it okay to incorporate a block of citations from a review paper into my own paper?

You must cite your source every time you use someone else's intellectual contributions.

A review article contributes curation of sources (among other things) as its intellectual content. If you use that intellectual content, you must cite the review paper (in addition to the individual sources). Otherwise you are misleading the reader into believing that you've done all that work (reading very broadly in the literature, identifying the most relevant and useful sources) yourself.


Why do US/Canadian universities make you do master even if you have a first class honours from Australia?

The principal difference between degrees in the US and Canada and those obtained in other countries is that the bachelor's degree in the US typically contains fewer "technical" courses than a comparable bachelor's degree from other countries. For instance, a student in economics may only have twelve courses total across four years that are economics courses; the typical international student may have twice as many. This is because most US and Canadian schools incorporate a "general studies" requirement into their degrees, which reduces the amount of credits available for the major.

Consequently, the coursework phase of the PhD program is to bring everybody up to the same level—also a necessity, given the diversity of undergraduate curricula—before moving on to the research phase.

Also note that this is not a universal requirement. Some programs will admit directly to the PhD with only a four-year undergraduate degree, with no expectations or requirements of acquiring a master's degree. (This is my case—I have no master's.)


Looking for sources of online graduate-level education

A few points:

What subject are you looking at? The answer varies significantly if you are not looking at science/math/engineering.
Define 'graduate level' because the Khan Academy (Not Kahn) is far from graduate level.
This is a very good link. I'll paste an excerpt here:

  MIT OpenCourseWare : undergraduate and graduate subjects taught at MIT.

  Open Yale Courses : astronomy, biomedical engineering, history, economics, English, philosophy, physics, political science, and
  psychology.

  UC Berkeley Webcast : biology, computer science, electrical engineering, physics, political science, and psychology.

  Stanford Engineering Everywhere

  NPTEL basic undergraduate science and engineering courses. The courses include biotechnology, civil engineering, computer science,
  electrical engineering, electronics and communication, and mechanical
  engineering.

  McGill Univ. COurses OnLine (COOL) : chemistry, biology and computer science.

  UCLA BruinCast offers some free audio/video lectures for certain undergraduate courses from the University of California, Los Angeles
  (UCLA).

  Open Learning Initiative | Harvard University Extension School brings free audio/video lectures on topics in computer science,
  English literature, history, and mathematics.

  Video & Audio | University of Cambridge offers free access to audio and video lectures from the University's institutions including
  the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences and the
  Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy.

  Podcasts from the University of Oxford provides free access to certain course materials and audio/video lectures on a variety of
  subjects, including chemistry, engineering, humanities, life science,
  medical sciences, physics, and social sciences.

  YouTube - UHouston's Channel (University of Houston) contains lots of video lectures on various subjects: anthropology, chemistry,
  English literature, history, philosophy, and psychology.

  nanoHUB Courses contains free educational materials about nanotechnology. The courses cover the following subjects:
  nanoelectronics, NEMS/nanofluidics, nanomedicine/biology, and
  nanophotonics.

  Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) provides a large number of free video lectures on a variety of subjects in mathematics
  and mathematical sciences.

  CERN Document Server provides a huge collection of text documents and video lectures in particle physics and related areas.

  Department of Mathematics, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs offers free video lectures on mathematics including
  calculus, discrete mathematics, linear algebra, differential equations
  and mathematical statistics. Registration is required to access the
  lectures.

  Indiana Multimedia Distribution System offers free audio/video courses and lectures in business and management from Kelley School of
  Business, Indiana University Bloomington.

The pasted website has links to all the places, alternately, you could simply google the words in bold.


Do I need a mathematical background to study astrophysics?

Speaking from my experience of doing an astrophysics degree in the UK, I would say that you don't need to do a transition year beforehand.

University lecturers are aware that students will be coming from a variety of backgrounds and structure the course to accommodate that. In particular, there will be at least one or two mathematics courses in the first year designed to get everyone on the same page mathematically. For example, in the first semester of my degree I had a module called "Algebra and Calculus" which covered things like set theory, matrices, differentiation, integration etc. Then we had "Further Algebra and Calculus" in the second semester and "Mathematical Physics" (this was about modelling heat transfer, waves on a string etc) in the second year.

Furthermore, if you've already been accepted by a university, then they clearly think you are mathematically prepared enough. If you're still not sure, get in touch with a lecturer or two there and ask about suitable preparation materials; for example, a textbook or old problem sheets you could work on over the summer. If you're in the UK, take a look at the A Level Maths syllabus. This will give you an idea of the typical maths knowledge a first year physics undergrad will be starting with.

Also note that unless you go into very theoretical parts of astrophysics, you won't need that much complex mathematics, and certainly hardly any pure maths, so I wouldn't recommend studying too much of that beforehand, it's not necessary. If you can differentiate, integrate and know what a Fourier transform is, you're basically set.

One caveat: don't go into an astrophysics degree expecting every lecture to have an astro angle. The first half of my degree was almost purely maths and "classical*" physics-- you need that solid foundation before moving on to the specialised topics. Having said that, it makes it all the more worth it when you get there.

*Thermodynamics, optics, lab work etc.


Can I ask a reference letter from my Operating Systems professor while applying to Machine Learning programme?

A good recommendation is one that highlights your potential as a researcher and your related technical and interpersonal skills. If the mentioned professor knows you and can vouch for your potential in these areas, the recommendation will be beneficial. Recommendations are not focused on what courses the professor teaches. A good recommendation can even come from a non-CS professor (but preferably in a related field like EE) whom you have worked with and knows you personally.


Letter of recommendation from professors without prior contact

Yes, it is silly. Boneheaded, actually. I assume that they don't want many applicants and I wouldn't put a lot of hopes on this position.
But you might ask some of your current colleagues for advice. It might be that your work has been shared with other German scholars who might be able to provide a (mild) recommendation based on your published work.
You could also ask for an exception, explaining your situation. Some other arrangement might be made to happen if you, otherwise, seem like a good candidate.
Good luck and keep looking.


What to do when a professor hasn't uploaded course content for an online class?

What does the syllabus say about when the lecture will be posted? It should say something like "Lectures posted every Sunday", etc.
What you should do is copy and paste the discussion board items where students complained, and his response that he acknowledges that he missed his own deadlines, and email it to the Associate Dean (or Dean if there is no Associate Dean). One of the duties of the Associate Dean is to help students with these type of problems.
In your email to his "boss", be professional and fact-based. Merely state that the professors has not posted the lectures (fact), and you wish to have them so you can keep up (the impact to you). Don't say it so negatively that the Dean feels he has to stick up for the Prof (i.e defend the university).
Remember the goal is that you want the lectures posted. No matter how pissed you're at the Prof, don't try to "take him down". You just want the lectures, but at the same time you don't want a angry prof who'll nitpick your Final Exam answers? You can achieve your results with politeness and tact.


What does it mean that a conference is sponsored by ACM or IEEE?

In part it means that the conference organizers have access to the conference administration tools and resources that IEEE, ACM, or the like provide. Having been around some IEEE-sponsored conferences, that can mean things like payment processing and credit card handling; access to a journal special issue for proceedings; conference organization website for registration, submissions, and reviewing; and registration discounts for members of the society.

Access to these features doesn't come for free. The professional societies charge for their use and stand to make money on them. As such, while you have to propose the conference and get it approved, after that the oversight is less. The quality of a conference comes down to the Organizing Committee and it's technical/content/papers committee. If you've never heard of any of the members of these committees, or many of them appear to have low-quality papers, there's a good chance that the conference isn't all that great.


Do I need to send two official copies of toefl/gre scores to a US school?

Send the e-mail directly to the university asking for the related problem/confusion.
Every university is ready to help with these type of queries.
Send one email to admission director, or call their admission office. You will get the best clarification directly from the source because admission director will be the person reviewing your application!


Erroneous paper published and reviewed on MathSciNet

(Disclosure: I review for MathSciNet.)

  how much of the responsibility lies on the MathSciNet reviewer who "validated" the proof?

In my view, very little if any, and by using the word "validate" I think you overstate the case.  Reviewing for MathSciNet is not meant to be like refereeing, and reviewers are definitely not asked to check the correctness of a paper as they would for a referee report.  The purpose of a MathSciNet review is mainly to summarize what the paper contains, so that prospective readers can quickly tell if the contents of the paper are likely to be of interest to them.  I don't think you should take the existence of a MathSciNet review as any sort of "seal of approval" on the correctness of the paper.

The reviewer is certainly allowed to mention errors or shortcomings in the paper if they should happen to observe any, but this is not a requirement or an expectation.

And keep in mind that unlike an referee report, MathSciNet reviews are public to the world and signed with the reviewer's name.  If a reviewer says something negative about a paper, especially a very high-profile paper, they might face blowback in a way that an anonymous referee wouldn't.  Maybe you think they have an obligation to do it anyway and face the consequences, but it's a significant ask.

Useful reading is the Guide for Reviewers that MathSciNet points reviewers to.

  My understanding is that it is their duty to reveal the mistakes in the published article, so that the other authors do not base their work on it.

I would only agree insofar as to say that if the reviewer is actually aware of a specific mistake in the paper, they should mention it.  Even so, that would only be out of a general civic duty to the community, not any responsibility explicitly laid on them by MathSciNet. And for me, a vague sense of unease that something is not quite right with the paper would not rise to that level. If the reviewer does not happen to find a specific error, I do not think they have a responsibility to go looking for one.  Certainly in my time as a reviewer and in talking to others, I've never had an impression that this was expected.

  Is there a way to "nudge" the reviewer to make amends to the review?

Their name is attached to the review, so of course you are free to contact them and say something.  But as I mentioned, I think what you're asking is beyond the scope of what's expected of a reviewer.  If you think the reviewer actually knows of a specific error and has covered it up, that would be another story, but as I said I don't think they have an obligation to carefully check a paper in hopes of finding errors.

Moreover, MathSciNet doesn't really encourage reviewers to revise their reviews after initial submission.  There is no automated system to submit revisions.  So even if the reviewer wanted to make changes, they'd have to contact the MathSciNet editorial staff and convince them that changes were warranted.

  Now some other articles (published in first-tier journals) use this questionable result.

Well, it's the responsibility of those authors to satisfy themselves of the correctness of results that they rely on.  They cannot reasonably take the mere existence of a MathSciNet review as positive evidence of the paper's correctness.


Should I justify the organization of chapters and sections in the research paper?

If I take your question correctly, it sounds as if you don't know whether to refer to the styleguide that informed you to structure your thesis in a certain way. So, in your introduction, you have a section such as:

  The next chapter of this thesis describes the background literature. Chapter 3 outlines the methodology and so on. Chapter 4 presents the experimental design, whatever … Finally, chapter 7 concludes and provides further possibilities for research. This structure is suggested by Cresswell (19xx)

If that's what you're thinking, then I would say no; don't reference the styleguide that you based your thesis structure on. Just like you wouldn't cite, for instance, the AP styleguide for your spelling conventions.


What qualifies as a research publication?

Your criteria are close, but (at least for computer science) not quite right.

Research: the paper must describe a novel contribution to some field of inquiry.  Whether a paper makes a novel (and correct and interesting) contribution is often determined through formal peer review, but not always.  Peer review is almost always a formal requirement for a paper to "count" for purposes of formal evaluation for promotion and tenure, but not necessarily for building one's reputation as a researcher. (It's quite common for breakthrough results in theoretical compute science to be announced and discussed in blogs months before they undergo formal peer review.)
Publication: The paper must be, at least in principle, accessible to the public.  Two reasonable prerequisites are that the paper has a DOI, and that it is published either in a serial with an ISSN or in a book with an ISBN, but one could make a reasonable case that PDfs on researchers' personal web pages, blog and newsgroup posts,  and even StackExchange answers are "publications".  (Certainly there are fields, like chemistry, in which journals will not publish anything that has previously appeared on the web, on the grounds that it is "already published".)  There is absolutely no requirement that the paper be printed on dead trees to be considered "real".

In particular, I would classify most ArXiv preprints as "research publications", despite the lack of peer review and the absence of dead trees.


Review time is usually time from submission to final acceptance (ready to print).  After you submit most journals will assign your submission to a group of reviewers based on their specialties.  Those reviewers will read your paper and write up any comments, questions, or concerns.  They also typically issue a recommendation as to whether the paper should be 'accepted', 'provisionally accepted', 'changes requested', or 'rejected' (my terms).  All of that is uploaded to a central website, and when everyone has responded those comments are sent back to the authors.  If it wasn't accepted outright, you'll usually have a chance to address comments or concerns by making modifications (clarifying graphs, numbers, etc.) and resubmitting for reevaluation.  This can go on for a number of rounds of back and forth.  If your paper is eventually accepted, you are notified and sent a proof of what it will look like printed.

Now sit back and watch the citations roll in.

IEEE's TVCG process may differ a bit.  I'm familiar with publishing CS papers, but most of my publications are in Bio.


How to let a journal know that its submission process is very painful?

You may get the best response by using informal channels.  If you know the managing editor of the journal (my field is small enough that I often do), you might send an informal email, or even just express your concern in person.  As Ben Norris mentioned, the key is that you communicate in a calm, rational, and deliberative way.


What undergraduate work stays on a CV once you start graduate school?

If you are considering writing and publishing something in an undergraduate publication -- don't do it for the sheen it might add to your CV.  If you do it, do it because you find the subject matter interesting and you think you can write an article others would enjoy reading.

Note, the more you write, the better you get at writing.

(Separately, after publication, you could ask for guidance about what to include and what to exclude from your CV, if the existing Q&As here have left this an open question.)


What to keep and what to say in a 5 minutes power point presentation?

Watch 3mt(three minute thesis) competition on youtube it will give you a very nice idea. If you want to add the title you can use it hanging behind you while you introduce yourself.


Book recommendations for information visualization?

The preeminent author on this topic is Edward Tufte, who wrote "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information". He has a few other books also available on his site (see previous link) that are worth checking out.


I can only speak for the UK, but in my opinion there's no issue about applying for a second master's degree. I knew two people on my MSc that had already "completed" a master's degree, and for one of them it was his third.

The personal statement is always the best way to express how you feel about the course you're applying for, but if your first degree is good, and you don't need to mention your previous masters, I wouldn't bother.

If you're genuinely anxious, you could contact the course convener and ask him/her some questions about the course and then simply ask whether your undergraduate degree is sufficient qualification. (I think you should have no problem with a data science degree if you have a physics degree - just make sure you are no stranger to coding.)


Is it ethical to watch recreational videos or listen to music on a portable work computer bought from a research fund?

Unless explicitly stated in the rules that they should have told you when you got the computer, you can do whatever you want that doesn't damage the machine or compromises your work. Common sense applies:

Playing a CPU intensive game at the same time you are crunching some numbers you need soon will slow your computations, so it isn't good. Playing the same game while the CPU is doing nothing else, should be OK.
Storing music or films in the hard drive is fine, but if you are running out of space for your data, they should go away.
If the university is providing some backup service, make sure you are not bloating it with gigabytes of your personal stuff. A few megabytes of configuration files of your own programs and other small things shouldn't be an issue.

One can argue that just by using it you are wearing off the battery, and that is costing your university money; but on the other hand, a new battery costs around one salary day, and if that is what it takes to keep you happier and more productive (even a tiny bit) for years, I think it is well worth it.

If you were to need the help of IT support (in my university is as good as nonexistent anyway), they may delete your personal files and programs if they think they are related to the problem, as  Todd Wilcox pointed out in the comment. If they were less understanding, you may even be told off for installing software that they don't know (mind you, it may even be research related!).


How to Constructively Deal with Email Invitations to Scam Conferences or Journals?

I am going to focus on your point 1:

What arguments can I make to my academic institution's IT department that blocking these emails should be a priority?

Please don't.
If you manage to convince your IT department to make it a priority to block such emails, then it's quite likely that there will be false positives across your institute. You say that it is straightforward to identify these scam emails, and I have no doubt that as a human, indeed, you can. But there will also be humans writing invite emails on behalf of legit conferences or journals. Those humans may not have English as their first language. They may inadvertently use turns of phrase that you find characteristic of spam invites. As a consequence, some legit invites will be discarded along with the spam invites. The cost of these discards is asymmetrical: the cost of manually discarding spam is a slight annoyance, but the cost of having a legit invite discarded could be a missed career opportunity.
Ask yourself: how many colleagues missing out on legit invitations is it worth for you to no longer have to manually discard the spam invitations?


Am I rushing to get into a PhD program, and should do a Masters first?

I am a PhD in the US and in my field Master's is completely useless, basically, a waste of time. You will still need to take classes in PhD, do TAship and many other things that are basically mandatory distractions and a Master's do not waive any of them.

I would recommend skipping Master's and go with a slightly less demanding university/group for a PhD. In a Master's degree you more often than not don't get a chance to do research. However, Master's also sets the bar higher, so simply doing any research in Master's won't substantially increase your chances of getting into PhD. You can still consider a Master's degree if you can find a research program, not a taught one.

In addition to the previous point, a high-ranked university does not increase your chances of being a successful PhD. PhD is more about your qualities and habits than the rank of your university. What a high-ranked university does, though, is imposing additional stress and competition, often putting you in a situation where you struggle to even be average.


Does it make sense to get a PhD if a person does not want to be in academia and prefers to stay in business?

Ultimately no one else can make this decision for you. At best we can give our biased (after all many of us here will have taken the PhD/academic route) opinions.

First of all doing a PhD for financial or career reasons is not, in general, a good idea. Yes we all know the story of google, but Larry Page and Sergey Brin didn't go into the PhD planning to make it big and it was their passion that produced google. A PhD is a long and sometimes painful process taken on because the individual gets a buzz from the challenge, the field and a desire to push it forward. There will be weeks if not months when nothing is working or making sense. I think it was Boot and Randall, after having developed the high-power magnetron for radar at Birmingham university and giving the allies a much needed early warning system, who attributed their success to something akin to "the one day in which all the equipment in the lab happen to work". Tongue and cheek and modesty no doubt, but it serves as a good antidote to research life - very few things, codes included, work first time! Its the burning passion that keeps you going time and time again until you get results.

Second, a PhD is not taught (Not sure where your from but the USA and some European PhD's do have a taught masters in the first year, but this is not the norm in Europe). Classes to a large extent are not an efficient use of time, they serve to give a broader overview of the field but will certainly not be anywhere near enough to get you through a PhD. If its being taught in a class its not research! And its certainly not going to be a novel idea for your thesis. At the end of the PhD you should be the world expert on the niche area of your field, there are no (or few) textbooks on the subject - because you have written them yet!

When reading papers, even the most experienced academics, are unlikely to understand everything first read, the specific technique maybe, the unique application? probably not. As a research you don’t want to waste time absorbing every little detail, just the bits relevant to your research. You simply don’t have time.

Research does teach you a certain set of skills, first is how to deal with failure and keep going - Persistence. Project management (3 year long project after all) skills and of course critical thinking and problem solving skills, particularly in the  technical areas.

Now, none of what I said should be taken as trying to put you off but rather help you make an informed decision. You could possibly look at a research masters, known as an MRes? This may be the best of both worlds. Good luck with whatever you choose to do and remember you don't need PhD's or degrees to continue learning, someone above mentioned online course and these open access avenues are a great way to expand your knowledge.


Should you revise a manuscript when only two of the three reviewers provide a positive review?

To add to the other answer that has been posted so far (from @mgbdog), I will add something from the perspective of a past editor in chief and frequent associate editor, in the field of computer science.

Generally (look at the various posts about journal workflows) the reviewers provide their feedback, an associate editor recommends, and then the editor in chief either accepts that recommendation or pushes back in some fashion.  So the comment about the editor wanting to proceed is accurate in the aggregate but it really refers to multiple people as a rule.

But the key here is that when one reviewer recommends rejection, and other reviewers were more positive, I assume that the OP received a "major" revision that means it will be returned to the reviewers.  Two already liked it so probably will be in favor of the revision.  The one who didn't, if they were negative enough, may actually not be willing to review it again (after all, the editors didn't listen to them).  I have encountered that several times as an associate editor.  If they do review it again, hopefully they are professional about it and read it with an open mind, and you get your opportunity to improve the paper and respond to their criticism.  So hopefully they are convinced to accept.

If they don't, there is indeed a chance the paper will be rejected after revision.  Just because the editor said to give you a chance to fix it doesn't mean in the end it is fixable.  I once did a journal article that got back extensive comments and a very specific warning from the associate editor that we should not assume that the major revision we were doing actually would result in acceptance. We must have worked on it for another year and with a second minor revision after that, but it got in.

But just because it may be rejected doesn't mean you shouldn't try.  With 2/3 favorable, you seem well positioned, as long as you believe you can either fix what #3 complained about or make an argument in your response that they have it wrong.


Astrophysics after Aerospace Engineering?

It's doable. Won't be easy, but doable. Get as much background in physics as you can during your undergraduate studies. You probably won't be able to take e.g. Quantum Field Theory, but it doesn't sound like you're aiming for these theoretical branches of astrophysics anyway.
Example from the MIT Physics PhD webpage:

Must I have a degree in physics in order to apply to this graduate program?
Prior to starting their Physics doctoral studies here, our successful applicants generally hold a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics or have taken many Physics classes, if they have majored in another discipline. The most common other majors are astronomy, engineering, mathematics and chemistry. Bachelor of Science degrees may be 3-year or 4-year degrees, depending on the education structure of the country they are in.


What is the most an international student could earn at a US grad school?

I can't answer your question directly (probably no one can), but I have some first and second-hand knowledge. This applies to CS/engineering in the US:

I've had several friends that went to Cornell, Princeton, and Stanford and they have told me that they make around $28,000-$34,000 for a 12 month salary. However, the cost of living in places like Stanford is very expensive, so you need to adjust for that (there are calculators online).
You can do an internship at a company or lab and make around $30,000 in a single summer.
Most funding agencies and departments won't allow you to double dip. So receiving external funding (e.g., a fellowship) would replace, not supplement, your assistantship with your department.

In ideal circumstances, this means that you could make 25k (9 month salary) while at university and another 30k during the summer, for a grand total of $55,000 before taxes.

Of course, you have to be careful because internships aren't guaranteed and you may have to relocate to another city/state for them (often paid for by the company) which might pose another challenge for your family.


2nd-Year PhD student. PI is taking a new job. Will I be able to transfer?

As others have said, it is difficult to predict. The factors include:

Where your professor's funding is coming from. Presumably, your salary and tuition (after the first 1-2 years) will be paid by her Government grant. Those may be to her directly (and therefore be likely to move with her) or they may be to the university (in which case she will be reliant on startup funds until she wins new grants).
Your professor's startup funds at the new university. These may be sufficient to pay you while she waits for new grants to come in, or not.
The other university's process for admitting transfer applicants. They may give faculty in this situation permission to circumvent the normal PhD application process; or, they may require you to apply and be accepted. (I imagine this would be more difficult if she is moving from a less competitive to a more competitive school).
How far along you are. If you are ABD, it probably makes more sense for you to be advised remotely while you finish; if you are brand new, it probably makes more sense to find a new advisor at your current school. Depending on your field, second-year seems like you would be just finishing coursework.
Your professor's preference (and your preference).

Good luck!


What can be done to possibly avoid corrupt practices in the blind peer review process?

There is not a lot that you can do change the system. However, there are certain things you can do in the various instances you describe:

  being asked to include a particular new author in order to be accepted

If the person has no good claim to authorship, I would politely refuse such a request and explain why this person is not an author. If they refuse to publish your paper, then submit elsewhere.

  being asked to cite articles with no apparent link with my article

If there is no apparent link, then you can't cite it. I would respond with something like "We do not see how this article is related to our work. If the reviewer wishes to explain the relationship, we can include a citation."

  being told by the conference TCP (one of the top conference) to reject all the articles I review

There is little point in reviewing the papers if the decision has already been made. You can politely refuse the review request.

  In one unique case, I reviewed an article and recommended strong rejection, it was subsequently accepted without revision. Reviewing the authors profile and handling editor, I found one of the author is an Associate Editor for another journal. It appears that both help each to publish articles in their journals.

It's up to the editor to make the accept/reject decision, not the reviewer. Sometimes reviewers get it wrong and the editor has good reason to ignore their recommendation. However, it sounds like you believe this to be a case of corruption. There is little you can do about this other than refusing to have further interactions with these journals. You can tell others about what you have witnessed. Presumably others have witnessed it too. If news of this spreads, then it will (deservedly) harm the reputation of the editor.

  All the above experiences were observed in well-reputed journals and conferences.

This is unfortunate. Such behaviours should bring journals and conferences into disrepute.

On the individual level, you can choose where to submit your articles and which review requests to accept. There are many factors to consider when choosing where to submit. Of course, prestige is a big factor, as publications in prestigious venues helps advance your career. However, you can include reviewing practices as a factor. You can also refuse review requests from venues that you believe will ignore your reviews. And, if there are venues that you believe are doing a good job, you can support them by submitting and reviewing.

If enough people begin to avoid venues with questionable practices, then that will have an effect on them. Likewise, if people support venues with good practices, then those will go up in the prestige rankings.


How to deal with student's feedback about tutor

No, don't mention the student by name when speaking with the tutors. Yes, the professor should be made aware that there are issues, but that you will work to resolve them. The professor might need/want the name.
You may need to speak to the individual tutor to get their feedback on why they are doing what they do. There may be a good explanation that is actually student focused. Or not. But you need this feedback.
However, you need to spend some time with your group of tutors to make sure that they treat students in a uniform way. All of them should use the same criteria and the same policies. If that isn't happening then some students are being advantaged or disadvantaged over others. This, I think, is the most important element here.
But if you think a reprimand for the tutor is necessary, the professor needs to be involved in that as well.
And, it may also be necessary to reassure the student in some way that their concerns are being addressed. How you do that should also involve advice from the professor.


Would transferring to a better school in the middle of a graduate program irreparably hurt my professional connections and academic reputation?

This is fine. Don't feel guilty at all. I say this as a math professor at a mid-ranked state school, who has written rec letters for students who, for various reasons, wanted to transfer out.

Be sure not to speak ill of the place you're leaving, but you owe it to yourself to seek out the best opportunities available. Good luck!


How to politely negotiate PhD funding offer?

You can always ask, and the polite way to do it is simply to ask politely, while indicating that you have a strong interest in enrolling in the program.  The best circumstance is that you have a financially superior offer from another program which is of equal or slightly better quality.  Then the graduate program in question may see a small amount of additional funding as a reasonable expense to ensure your enrollment.  (If the other program is more than a little bit better, then everyone will be expecting you to go to the better program...unless you have personal reasons to want to go to the less good program, in which case you do not need a financial incentive.)

user45756 "guaranteed" that such a request would not lead to summer funding.  Of course no one person could possibly make such a guarantee, and I have very occasionally seen additional funding given to graduate students to help attract them to a program or keep them in a program.  But user45756's answer is still accurate in spirit: in the overwhelming majority of cases you get what you get.

However the expression The squeaky wheel gets the grease is very applicable to academia: people who ask for a little bit more* tend to get a little bit more.  Your request for summer funding is unlikely to magically result in a higher starting salary, but it may well result in your being placed higher on lists for various summer funding opportunities.  I think it is a good idea to say something like "I understand that additional funding may not be possible, and I very much appreciate your offer.  However, I am sincerely concerned about quality-of-life issues while enrolled as a graduate student, and I would very much appreciate being told of any other funding, scholarship or teaching opportunities that are or may become available."

*: It is true though that people who don't know the culture well enough sometimes ask for a lot more when they think they are asking for a little bit more, and that often causes them to be taken less seriously or ends negotiations.  (Imagine if you had an assistant professor job interview at a public American university and, after shaking hands with the department chair, told them that you were holding firm at a $100K starting salary.  It is more than likely that you've just talked yourself out of any possibility of a job offer.)  There is a real art to asking for something in a way which makes clear that you will be grateful for any response that you get, not that you feel absolutely entitled to getting your precise demands.  A graduate student asking for extra funding should make extra clear that they are "just asking" and will be grateful for any response they will get.  I remember one long-ago friend who was hoping that the MIT mathematics department would "get into a bidding war" with some other department of comparable quality.  Of course that didn't happen, and though he did start a PhD program somewhere quite good, I could tell from this behavior (I was a first year graduate student at the time) that he didn't quite get the academic culture.  I believe he dropped out within a year.  (And then I lost touch with him, but I am willing to guess that he now makes much more money than I do...)


How can I overcome academic "researcher's block"?

Forgive me but I'm going to just wildly speculate here and hope that you find a bit of value in it. Perhaps you are just the sort of thinker that thrives on the synergy of working with others and getting ideas bounced around and reinforced (or shot down). That doesn't make you less of a mathematician, of course, but just represents one way of getting all of the pieces together.

It seems like you thought of yourself up to now as the 'junior' member of your circle and now the others have died or retired and so you are left 'alone'. In fact, IMO, you are left, now, as the senior member, but you don't need to continue to be the 'only' member.

Try to build up the circle again with new junior members with whom you can interact, building up their ideas as well as your own. It will give you that synergy again, if this is indeed the issue (like I said, speculative). A local circle is best, of course, but today's communication resources give additional options if learn to use them intensively.

And you have the opportunity to become the master that those younger scholars look up to and revere as they grow into the profession. Very cool.

One additional factor might be at play. When a person tries too hard for too long at intellectual activity, the brain sometimes rebels and shuts down. A break is called for, especially a break that gets the blood flowing, such as physical exercise. Physical exercise that also engages the brain but in a different way from the normal research mode can be helpful. I use Tai Chi for this as it is a mind-body fusion exercise, though not aerobic. When younger, I used cycling and x-c-skiing and such though they didn't have the same mental component. But an hour or so break for physical exercise can sometimes invigorate you.

And since the mind works subconsciously as well as when forced, sometimes insights magically appear during or immediately after a break. Even a sleep break.


A professor commented that my research is too simple as compared to my colleagues. What does that mean about my future prospects?

Perhaps the best route is to split the difference. Note the concern of one professor, but take heart from the support of your advisor. There are a lot of possible explanations.

Perhaps the professor making the comment is overlooking some aspects that are harder than they think. Some things that look easy from the outside are harder when you get into the details. And, perhaps, that professor is just so brilliant that the crux of your problem seems obvious to them. There are such people, of course.

Perhaps your current research really is simpler than that of others in their circle. But you are still early in the profession. You will probably do better work as you advance. The dissertation shouldn't be viewed as your life's best work, only the first.

There is no real reason to worry at this point, and certainly not to panic. But long term, consider the advice you were given. Perhaps a bit more experience will help you judge its merits or lack.


Do I need second master's degree or not?

There is usually not a formal requirement for PhD candidates to have a master's degree in the subject of their PhD. Indeed, having a master's degree from a field different to that of the PhD is very common in some disciplines.

The main thing to bear in mind is that applicants for a PhD programme must convince the admissions committee that they have the skills and academic potential that will be necessary to successfully complete the programme. When completing your PhD application, think about the kinds of skills and background knowledge that will be important for your PhD and explain why you have those skills, or why the admissions committee should believe that you are able to quickly acquire them


Corrigendum for wrong reporting of results

Write a letter to the editor, stating that in your paper so-and-so, table 5.7 should be replaced by [insert corrected table]. Use the format for the journal, so they can publish it as a corrigendum in the next issue. Perhaps add also a corrected version of the paper, to be archived instead of the erroneous one.


What kind of papers do economics and finance students write?

Economical Writing is one standard reference for economists. An economics paper usually has a lit review, an economic model, analysis of what this model predicts, and how the data supports this model. A great outline is provided by the Toilet Seat Equilibrium paper.

Your students might want to look at the Research Papers in Economics archive, pick some papers there, and critique them from the intensive writing perspective. This collection has both published and unpublished versions, so with some luck they might be able to trace as the paper is getting into a more publishable state as it moves between versions and revisions.


Doing research, outside of my specific interests, for a MS program

You shouldn't say that you want to do something you're not interested in just to gain admission. It will end badly for everyone.

If you're just not certain you're going to like an area, that's a different story. There are a lot of programs where you have the ability to be "matched" with an advisor before or after admission. In such cases, the key is to finding a match you're happy with.

But if you're asking if you need to change research focuses as an undergraduate to align with programs later, the answer is that you don't. It's understood that people are likely to change issues early on. (After all, faculty members do so regularly; why can't students do so before joining their group?)


How much of a paper does a reviewer fact-check?

I'm afraid there is no one-fits-all answer to your question. It highly depends on the tier of the conference. There are some that examine more into the work than others.

However, the level of scrutiny in CS conferences are generally less than that of a journal of comparable reputation. This is because, such journals go through multistage reviews and edits before the final print is published. Most conferences look only into the conceptual matter and usually have insufficient time to exhaustively implement and test the proofs of each of its candidate papers with limited reviewers.

Having said the above, there are some journals that scrutinize lesser than some conferences. Like I stated before, it all depends on the tier and reputation of the publisher.


Doctorant (PhD student) vs doctorant contractuel (contractual PhD Student)

In France (like other countries), there are several ways to fund a PhD student.

A doctorant contractuel is a legal designation used to refer to someone who has signed a specific job contract called a contrat doctoral. This contracts allows universities to hire PhD students and describes the working conditions of the PhD student as an employee of said university.

Note that, in addition to this contract, a decree (2009-464 in the Wiki link) can also modify the working conditions by stating that a PhD student funded with such a contract must spend 100% of his/her time on research activities. As a result, an additional clause must be signed to be allowed to do teaching activities. From what I know, this is the one crucial point to be aware of when proposing or signing such a contract.

A doctorant is a just a term used to designate a PhD student, without any distinction regarding the nature and source of the funding.


Can a new paper be published with only slight modifications to a published paper?

In computer science, papers are published in archival conferences, which makes things a little confusing. (In many other fields, papers are published in journals, and conferences are just for giving talks -- you can only publish a paper once, but you can give a talk about it many times).

a) It is unethical, in violation of the rules of the venue, and an incredibly stupid idea to publish the same paper more than once in an archival conference. This is self plagiarism, and is a serious academic offense.

b) On the other hand, in computer science there are also non-archival workshops to which people are invited to give talks. (These are more like the "conferences" in other fields). It is fine to give a talk at such a venue about a paper that has been previously published elsewhere.

Your question seems to be whether you personally should commit unethical and stupid act a). I would advise against it. (It is unethical for obvious reasons. It is stupid because anyone who seriously considers your publication record will be sure to spot such a move, and you will not be able to get a reasonable academic job).


What is the Latin term "pace" used for when referencing other scholars?

So I checked with the author and he explained it as similar to option 3: He used it to indicate that he respects the arguments cited by Smith, while he gives more weight to other evidence leading to different conclusions. Since it is in part subjective to what evidence is given more weight, both positions are respected.
However, I can imagine that some authors simply use pace for variation from contrary to without this particular nuance. (As may be clear from my question, this was in the field of linguistics and written by an author with an exceptional sensitivity to the finer nuances of language.)


Should professors intervene if a student is wearing offensive clothing in their classroom?

I'm a bit disappointed at the number of comments from people who say they need to know what the exact statement on this particular T-shirt was so that they can judge whether it was truly misogynistic before answering the question. The question is clear: What is the appropriate response given that a student is ``wearing clothing that is likely to be offensive and hostile to other students''? Debating exactly what constitutes misogyny (or any other form of hate speech) is not the point here. Surely a question about whether a particular slogan is offensive would be too localised for academia.se, whereas the question of how the role of professor and/or TA affects how/whether one calls out offensive speech/behaviour/etc is excellent.

A couple of the other answers express surprise/concern at the OP's comment

  I don't feel comfortable (or safe, for that matter) as a woman
  confronting a male student about an item of clothing that is offensive
  to women.

Many of the comments on this page illustrate why it can be so hard to call out misogyny as a woman. Women who call out misogyny are regularly accused of being "too sensitive" and told to "lighten up". On this page we've seen people who think they'd be a better judge of whether something is offensive than the person who actually experienced it, suggesting it may have been all in her head, refusing to trust her judgement, and claiming that no young people are misogynists. All this just from outlining a story that inspired a general question about calling out offensive behaviour. Is it any wonder that women may find it difficult to confront the person who's actually wearing the offensive T-shirt?

Finally, to actually answer the question:

Most universities should have something like a code of conduct which forbids discriminatory harassment. The one quoted in the question certainly seems to apply to a T-shirt with an offensive slogan. In this case the professor (or any student in the class) would be within their rights to object to the T-shirt. I might say something like "that T-shirt seems to be in violation of the code of conduct; please don't wear it to this class again", ideally in much the same tone as I would say "If I don't have your homework by tomorrow you will get a zero", but I'd say it loudly enough that anyone paying attention could hear. As with any instance of calling out something offensive, I would only do this if I felt safe enough: you should try to create a safe environment in your classroom, but not at the expense of your own safety.

If you don't feel safe or comfortable enough to call out your student (and I can see this happening especially if that student is also your peer), there might be other people you can talk to, for example the professor of the class you're TAing, or the head of the graduate program in your department, or the student's advisor. This might also be helpful if the student does not respond well when you first address them.


Should I accept review requests from dubious journals?

You have no obligation to accept reviews from any journals.

In the long term, you should of course accept review tasks, since the review system is built on everyone doing their part in return for the reviews you get on your own papers. But if you think the journal is not serious, there is no need to waste your time on a review.

The problem will lie in identifying what is real and what is not. Apart from researching the journal yourself, as you have done, you should also ask more senior scientists of their opinion.

Edit: Following up on the request for additional input on whether reviewing for dubious journals could be harmful in some way:

I think the greatest risk is that you may provide legitimacy to a journal that is not legitimate. It may be harmful to you if the journal in some way represents, let's say, creationism, in that you may become associated with something you really do not support.

I do not see any clear problem for the authors whose paper you review. Their greatest problem, assuming they are common scientists, should be that they submitted it there in the first place.

Personally, I delete all e-mails with requests from journals I do not know of. I know the journals in my field, and the new serious journals that have sprung up have a firm basis in the community, so they are also "known". I do check on some of these unknown journals occasionally, out of curiosity, and I particularly check the sort of papers they publish and the editors of the journal. That usually tells me if the journal is of interest.

Some of these journals may be legitimate, but they end up being extremely narrow regionally in terms of the origin of their authors and editors, and thus probably also their readership. A new journal is a difficult thing to get accepted unless you start with a wide base in the community, so some of these journals may be very legitimate but still have to prove themselves somehow. The problem is how to distinguish good from bad, and that is truly not easy in many cases.


Is tenure also meant for becoming an assistant professor?

Japan's academic system is still closer to the continental system where there is only full Professor (教授） in a department and several assistant professors (助教授）and a mixture of adjunct and full-time readers/lecturers　(講師）. The assistant professors can be tenured.

Some schools in Japan are moving to the American system where there can be several full professors in a department and there are now some colleges that are introducing the category of associate professor　(准教授）).

Japanese labor laws tend to protect full-time faculty, so you can assume that you have lifetime employment if you pass the first employment review -- if and only if you haven't been hired as a part-time (非常勤) or otherwise term-contract employee (非正規雇用).

In this case, it sounds like they want to emphasize that you are NOT being hired as part-time  or other non-tenure track (such as the new "jokyo" 助教 which is not the same as a tenure-track assistant professor 助教授).


What do you call a person with a bachelor's degree?

There are several ways this can be translated. Some of which I have seen are:

Licensed Dietitian
Licensed Nutritionist
Has a BSc in Nutrition

To my knowledge, there is no legal requirement in the United States that one of these be chosen over the others and in my personal opinion either of the first two are sufficient.
In the United Kingdom though, a Dietitian is someone who advises someone on their personal diet and diagnoses issues related to malnutrition while a Nutritionist gives general advice on how to eat.


Can I exclude papers from my CV/Google Scholar when my contribution was marginal?

Can you? Yes. You are free to curate your Google Scholar page as you wish, and you can easily re-title the "Publications" section in your CV as "Selected Publications".
Should you? This is probably the more difficult question. I don't think your case is that unusual: I can think of a few people who have publications from 'a previous life' as a scientific software developer or lab technician before they started their PhD. I don't think anyone is misled by their publication lists - there's usually a fairly obvious transition into a more focussed area around the time they started their PhD. This is all the more true in the case of a CV, where (presumably) your pre-PhD employment is already itemized. I think people are far more likely to wonder why you have omitted certain papers than wonder why you kept them in.
I would argue that you should keep everything on Google Scholar. It is fundamentally an interface to a search engine, and users landing on your page may come with a variety of motivations. People can always 'sort by year' if they want to find your recent work. The only people who would seem to be seriously inconvenienced by you keeping everything are those who want to judge you solely based on your citation statistics - and do you really want to make their lives easy?
For a CV, the obvious choice is to explicitly divide your publication list into two sections: pre- and post- PhD commencement (or perhaps "Publications in < main research area >" and "Other publications", if that's a neater division). This would seem to strike a good balance between completeness and offering an acknowledgement that not all your publications are equally relevant to your current career. In circumstances where you need a 'short-form' CV, you might then compress the "Other" section to a brief summary sentence, perhaps with a link to a full listing on your website.


In my (rather extensive) experience with graduate admissions, admissions committees understand that people have semesters in which life interferes with school. If you've retaken the classes and received high marks in them, this very clearly signals that something was interfering with your performance during those two semesters and that the bad grades have nothing to do with your underlying ability. Those grades won't go unnoticed -- but nor will they hurt you the way they would had you not repeated and aced those courses.

It would help further if you have a trusted mentor who could mention and--to the degree that you comfortable, explain--this issue in his or her letter of recommendation.

Don't count on cruising through the application process, but also don't lower your ambitions based on these grades.


It's indeed an interesting question that I have wondered about myself a few times. In my case it is even worse because I am currently teaching a course that has lectures twice a week, so the scheduling gets even more annoying.

I am not sure if there is a silver bullet. My default nowadays is Option 2 - I publish homework before all relevant topics have been covered in class, just because otherwise it feels like the homework is ages behind the lecture. Another problem of your Option 1 is that the last in-class topics basically cannot be covered by homework at all. With Option 2 you only have like one class that can't be part of the homework anymore.

Of course, the ideal schedule in my opinion is Option 3 - publish all homework at the beginning of class and give students agency over how they schedule their own work. If you worry that students get confused because they don't know whether they should already be able to solve a given assignment, you can always note which lectures it refers to.


Our instructor threw together freely available YouTube videos and Wikipedia articles instead of lectures. What should I do?

As a student, you are paying for the tuition (teaching). Teaching is an activity designed to help you learn and acquire new skills.
Teaching materials (books, slides, video lectures) can be good, bad or ugly, but they are only a (smaller) part of the whole picture. They are not an activity. Arguably, they matter less.

What matters more, in my opinion, is the opportunity to obtain constructive feedback from your tutors. Not the grade for your submissions, but actual analysis of your work, explaining its strength and weaknesses and providing you with some ideas on how to improve and what to work on. Not a general piece of information, but something unique and produced specifically for you.

I have rarely seen online courses where students have enough personal attention and receive more than just a few lines of personal feedback. Honestly, the situation with many traditionally run courses is largely the same. Being massively oversubscribed and under-staffed, many Departments are not able to provide students with sensible feedback on their work. As a (pathetic) attempt to compensate, they sometimes claim that they provide exclusive teaching materials, which, however, tend often to not really be any better than standard textbooks.

My suggestion is: don't be obsessed with materials you are provided with, but look at whether you're receiving enough attention and personal guidance from your tutors. If you're not getting enough feedback - it is probably time to raise your concerns or maybe even look elsewhere.


Convince my supervisor for me to switch my research field to his major area halfway in my PhD

Overall, I think your best argument is switching fields would be better for both you and your supervisor because you're likely to be more productive. But remember that your PhD is yours, and a good supervisor shouldn't have you do work you're not passionate about.

Maintaining motivation in a PhD is maybe half of the job. And doing research by yourself can be pretty demotivating—because, indeed, you can argue it's pointless. Arguably, part of the supervisor's job is to deal with that.

You need to decide whether the answer is to try harder or whether that's a waste of time. If further mistakes are likely, for instance, because you're unsupervised, so that the project is likely to fail, stopping might be a good idea.

Furthermore, you accepted your topic assuming collaborations would arise. These things are often intrinsically uncertain; but you can use this as an argument.

  However I know my supervisor would like to develop this field as it is more commercial viable.

First let me answer to you.

Since you're investing years of your life for research to be published under your name, your PhD should serve your goals.

This has to be balanced with external constraints such as funding. But unless you're being paid by a project forcing you to work on your old topic, constraints are only up to your supervisor.

And especially, even if he's interested in developing a new field, that doesn't mean he has to force you to work on it.

On the other hand, a PhD is also a collaboration where both parties have interest. Talking to your supervisor, again, I'd emphasize that you're likely to be more productive on the field you want to switch to, than on the field you're working on right now.

You also have alternatives to convincing him to switch right now. Since you've already spent time on your current project, and your supervisor suggests you to work on both fields, you might want to give it a try. Try to negotiate focusing on the new field for a while and revisit the issue. At that point, if you're actually making more progress (even just in learning), you might still want to switch and have a stronger case because you're making progress. Or you might realize that after all the old field was not so bad (as they say, "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence") and decide to work on both projects.

Relatedly, even though that's not your core question: If you have a short time limits on your PhD (3-4 years), you have a bigger problem and more motivation to get something out of your current project if possible. But if you have a more open-ended PhD (5-7 years as common in the US), changing topics after 2 years shouldn't be a big problem.


Let me answer the question in the title.

  Should I keep generic reference letters from my supervisors?

No.  You should not keep copies of reference letters, generic or otherwise.  Your supervisors should send whatever letters they write directly to the jobs to which you apply.  Those letters should never pass through your hands at all.

It's entirely up to your references what kind of letter to write.  You should always ask for strong letters individually tailored to each position you apply for, but there's no way to make anyone do that, or even to check whether they have.  Ultimately, you just have to trust the people you ask to do a good job, which implies that you should only ask people you trust to do a good job.


Choosing appropriate words for lay summary of a health research project

Ways of finding out whether the words and phrases you use in a lay summary are appropriate to the public audience:

One approach is to put your text into something like simplewriter.

http://xkcd.com/simplewriter/

It highlights words which are not part of the most commonly used 1000 words in English.

That specific program is a little bit limited, more for an audience of children but there are similar text editors which can highlight complex or rare terms.

If you limit it to the 20000 most commonly used english words things should be readable by most laypersons.


Grad student asking department for increase in stipend

Yes, you can certainly ask that the department reconsider the amount of your stipend. However, you should also prepare for the case where they do not adjust it.

Normally, I would start by talking with your advisor, as she will most likely have to be on board for any increase to be successful. Then, I'd approach either the graduate student advisor orthe graduate student administrator for the department. There may already be rules and policies in place for how to request a stipend increase. If that doesn't work, the next steps are probably to contact the chair of the department and the dean for graduate students (or other appropriate officer at your institution).

However, depending on where your funding comes from, it may or may not be possible to get an increase. For instance, NSF or NIH stipends are normally set at a uniform level across a college or university. It's also possible that the students with higher stipends have outside funding which reduces the actual cost to the college. Finally, your advisor may not be able to afford a large stipend increase.


By what title should I greet assistant and associate professors in emails and letters?

Assistant and Associate Professors in the US can be formally addressed by "Professor" or "Doctor/Dr.". There should be no offense given with either salutation, and either is appropriate.


You should use the date conferred. Universities will have an official date where all degrees for the term are conferred on everyone. This is usually not the same date as the graduation ceremony as there can be multiple graduation ceremonies across multiple days, but trying to keep track of all of them would be confusing. It's much simpler to just pick one day after all the ceremonies and say all degrees are official as of that date.

That being said, I've never heard of an employer (or anyone) who really cares about the particular date as long as it's clear that you've already met all of the requirements of graduation.


Is it really necessary to have letterhead for recommendation letter from employer to apply for US universities?

Letters of recommendation should be in business letter format, which contains all the information of letterhead.  Letterhead, while it makes a letter look more official, is usually not necessary (in fact, for some applications, you just type the "letter" into a text box on a website).  (Occasionally applications will specify something like the letters should be on department/university letterhead, which presumes the recommender is an academic.)  A former dean of admissions at Chicago Law school concurs.

For sending printed letters, letterhead does provide a layer of authenticity, but if you can't use it, then you can't use it.  However, nowadays, most letters are sent electronically, with the writer's email address or the like providing the requisite authentication.  I don't usually bother with letterhead for e-letters unless it's specifically required.


If I publish my Master's Thesis in a journal can I still write a book my topic about later?

Publishing a book that incorporates and expands on previously published work in a journal is common in academia. You will have to cite the previous publication properly.
If you want to directly quote the previous publication or include it as chapter you may need permission to reproduce.


How to know whether a Faculty member has done good work or not

The institution and the advisor give you very limited information. Of course, a very bad person would not be admitted at a very good institution, but even god institutions and great advisors have mediocre students. The same goes for journal names. All but the top 10 journals sometimes publish mediocre papers, and some great papers appeared in middle ranked journals.

A better way to judge people is by looking at the reviews of their papers in MathSciNet or Zentralblatt. Citation numbers are easy to manipulate, so having many citations does not necessarily mean that you are good, but few citations are a bad sign. A good indicator is by how many different authors someone was cited. If you have many citations by few people, something seems fishy. You can also look at their most cited papers. If many of them are surveys, books, or pose many open problems, the citation number is exaggerated. Worse, if there are many self citations. Next, you should read the reviews themselves. Since you want to know what the faculty members are doing, you should do so anyway. The personality of the reviewer plays a role, but I would expect that every decent advisor has some papers that are praised by the reviewer. If all reviews are short summaries of the main results, the reviewer was either lazy or didn't find anything important in the article. Articles without a review are usually worse.

A big red flag is the use of predatory journals. Some people might be too innocent to see through this scam, but every half way decent research can be published in a real journal. Not necessarily a good one, but one which has actual peer review going on. On the other hand, publishing in a little known journal, or conference proceedings is not a bad sign, unless it is always the same journal/conference, or more than a quarter of all publications are of this type.


Dealing with students who sent email with empty body but the homework attached

I don't really think this is odd: they have been asked to send the assignment by email and they did.  There isn't really a need to say anything further and they didn't.  Maybe it would be slightly more courteous if they were to add a couple of words of greeting, but your job is not to be Emily Post.

If the assignments were submitted on paper, and they left their assignment in your mailbox, would you insist that they include a note wishing you a nice day?  No, that would be silly.

There isn't anything you need to do about this.


What is the status of foreign cloud apps in German universities?

It not surprising that there is little good information on this issue available.
As has already been written, this is all about the European data protection directive GDPR ("DSGVO" in German). It contains a number of measures that should enable users to protect their personal data.
The law defines some guidelines that include the right of users to only have their necessary data processed. As a relatively trivial example, it would be problematic to require students to submit their date of birth with their exercise sheet solutions. The law also defines minimum requirements for offloading data processing tasks to subcontractors and the right of all users whose data is being processed to demand to know what data of them is stored. Also, data needs to be protected according to the state of the art. In case of violations, fines can be issued by federal(?) authorities.
Now while these rules seem useful, they are highly problematic when requiring students to use certain services: There is normally no contract between the university and doodle.com about data protection in place, so asking the students to use doodle.com is probably problematic....but I'm not aware of any court ruling on this. Then, the Safe Harbor agreement between the EU and the US is not currently seen as sufficient to guarantee that the European rules are met. Oh, and is data protected according to the state of the art? That's pretty hard to tell.
All in all, the situation is complex enough such that universities try to insource as much as possible, at least to DFN level (German research network - essentially the network service provider of the universities). However, when other options proved to be infeasible, some universities decided to use Zoom and the like anyway, which bears a certain risk. The Microsoft Cloud may be unproblematic, depending on what level of data protection Microsoft guarantees.
In a less-than-100% legally clear situation when there is a lot at stake (Corona led to a need for teleconferencing/lectures), some may decide to take some risks when the alternatives do not seem to work. And this leads to a very fragmented landscape.


Can good letter of recommendations offset bad GRE scores?

Disclaimer: I am a current graduate student and my experience is limited to being the student representation on the graduate admissions committee of my program.

One of my advisers always reminded me of the following principle:

  GRE scores will not get you in but can keep you out

What does this mean? GRE scores by themselves will never get you admitted into any program worth its salt. However, they do act as a nice way of filtering candidates, especially in schools which received hundreds of applications for its programs every year.

Once you make the initial GRE/TOEFL filter, you are good. Your application will then be vetted on the basis of academic achievements, research, statement of purpose and letters of recommendation. Ergo, if you are removed at the initial stage by virtue of your GRE scores being rather low, then chances are, that nobody will even look at the rest of your application.

However, if your GRE scores are bad (but not that bad) then your good LORs might serve you better in the later rounds.

Of course, for quantitative oriented programs (like math), you might be expected to get a perfect (or near perfect) GRE Math scores and respectable Verbal scores.

I hope this makes the process a little clearer.


This is how you can do so in the APA style:

APA Style Blog: How to Cite a Mobile App

If you were to translate the citation to another citation style, the pieces of information that you need are the author, name, and version of the application, and the operating system it was written for. You should also include where the app was downloaded from (in this case, play.google.com). Make sure any links are permalinks.


Is it unfair for paper circumstances to play a role in the review of the paper?

No, your review should not change based on knowledge of the authors' circumstances. Your role is to give the editor an objective assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the author's submitted manuscript. However, you can still help less advantaged authors. Write your review to focus on the strengths and weaknesses of their work, and leave the authors to choose how they wish to address these.

To take your example: suppose that the authors have developed a new algorithm for X, which you consider to be a worthwhile contribution to the field. However, they go on to claim that their algorithm outperforms the current standard, based on only one test-case.

An unhelpful reviewer might write:
"This paper has potential, but it cannot be accepted unless the authors run more test-cases". A more helpful review would be: "The algorithm in this paper appears to be a useful contribution, and it is deserving of publication. However, I do not feel the authors currently have sufficient evidence to support their unqualified claims regarding performance, and this should be addressed before acceptance."

By doing this, you leave the authors with a choice: they can either run more experiments, or they can put caveats around their discussion of performance. (Of course, you should only do this if you feel the paper is publishable in such a form.) A wealthy research group will likely choose the former option, a less well-off one might settle for the latter. However, both have been held to the same standard of scientific correctness.


Is it appropriate to apply for assistant professor positions a few months before obtaining my PhD?

In most biology/biological sciences departments in the US and Canada it would be unusual for someone to be hired into a tenure-track assistant professorship immediately following their PhD; most candidates would have at least a year or two of postdoctoral experience. (This may be different in biomedical and/or clinically oriented programs). If you have a spectacular research record that could make you an exception.
Postdoctoral experience is less expected in math (although 1-2 years is probably still the median), and even less in statistics; this is probably also the case in other fields such as engineering where people with a fresh PhD can get well-paying jobs in industry.
It doesn't hurt to apply for such positions, but I would say if would be safer to at least consider a few post-doctoral positions as a backup plan.
Finally, as with most questions like this, you will get the most relevant advice from your supervisor and colleagues in your lab/program; they know the most about the norms of your particular sub-field and geographic region. Unless you have some particular reason not to, you should probably ask them.

Here is some data from a reasonably recent survey of (mostly North American) ecologists (note, this paper was contentious because of the way it handled gender and informed consent of respondents):

Recently hired TT assistant professors of ecology typically were about 4 years post-Ph.D. at the time of hiring (mean 4.2 years, median 4). 69% had anywhere from 2 to 6 years of post-Ph.D. experience, with a range from 0 to 11 years of post-Ph.D. experience. The majority of ecology faculty job seekers also are 2–6 years post-Ph.D.

These data are consistent with a job market in which most hiring institutions prefer applicants with at least a year or two of post-Ph.D. experience. But once you have a few years of post-Ph.D. experience, the marginal value of additional post-Ph.D. experience appears to be low at best, though it's hard to say precisely based on the available data.

Fox, Jeremy. “A Data-Based Guide to the North American Ecology Faculty Job Market.” The Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America 101, no. 2 (2020): e01624. https://doi.org/10.1002/bes2.1624.


Humorous or famous dictum as motto for a scientific text - is it appropriate?

In a thesis the appropriateness depends on the style guide of the university in question.  This should be posted somewhere (probably on the university library or graduate school website).  When I wrote my dissertation, such a thing was allowed.  I did not use one, but I knew people who did.

For an article published in a journal, it would depend on their style standards.  You should be able to ask an editor if it is allowed.


What is the purpose of the centralized CollegeBoard instead of individual universities giving their own entrance exams?

Applicants to a particular school may be widely dispersed geographically, which makes it infeasible for all of them to be at the university in-person to take the exam (appearing in person may be particularly problematic for foreign applicants), and at the same time infeasible to find space and proctors to give exams in every combination of (student location, university).  Besides, trusting a local party to administer it would eliminate most of the control you propose to give a university over their own exam.  As well, different degree programs at the university would probably want different exams.

Besides that, there's the cost of so much redundant exam creation.  Do you think individual universities would have the resources to normalize year-over-year difficulty of an entire suite of exams?


Is there an advised, reliable way to find and cite the data? Only from
a certain list of websites?

A quick one would be Google Dataset Search.
A more 'community'-led one would be DataCite whose stated aim is to provide DOIs for research datasets.
If you need data owned by the public sector (governmental data), so-called Open Data Portals are the way to go. For instance, this one by the EU.
However, the whole area of research data management (RDM) remains underdeveloped. Thus, do not be surprised if you do not find what you are looking for.


Is it acceptable to write that you are getting a "Ph.D. in [area]" (rather than name of department) on social media?

I believe it makes sense.
The PhD education is a very narrow education which will give you very specific knowledge regarding a specific aspect of a research area.
Therefore, it makes completely sense to be a bit more specific rather than general. PhD in computer science sounds very broad and not much descriptive.


Are the Survey rankings for the National Research Council really more objective than the Regression rankings?

No, both rankings are basically nonsense.  Even if you agree with the NRC's choice of a single "quality" model across all intellectual disciplines, the rankings are based on horrendously incomplete and incorrect data.  This is especially true in computer science.

Also, the claim in the blog post is an obvious joke.  The S-rankings are "better" because  writer's home department's S-ranking was better than its R-ranking.


How can I get a postdoctoral position in neuroscience after completing my PhD in Mechanical Engineering?

I have the same issue, I recently completed my Ph.D. in computer science. Accordingly, I have applied several times for post-doc positions around the world and I was able to get only three interviews. Unfortunately, none of them was willing to give me the post-doc position.

Based on my short experience, it will be better to submit your application for a Fellowship with peer review process such as Marie Skłodowska-Curie programme. Open up to the world (China!).

Best wishes.


Are TOEFL requirements waived for foreigners with US bachelors degrees?

I was in this position - as an international student applying to US graduate programs after being a US undergraduate. I contacted the graduate programs I was applying to to ask if they would waive the TOEFL requirement, and they all did (i.e. I didn't have to retake it). I heard recently that the requirement for a waiver (for my current university at least) is for an applicant to have been at a US university for four years.

My backup plan if the graduate programs had seemed unsure about a waiver was to call someone on the phone and essentially demonstrate that I am fluent in English.

(The TOEFL is expensive!)


A way to search for journals that are in a similar area to a given journal

The Scimago Journal Rank does this reasonably well for journals in specialized fields (example). However, if you look at a given journal (example) there can be many subject areas listed, so unfortunately it isn't a great tool for finding similar journals that cover multiple areas.

Just don't rely too much on such lists. They're good for exploring what's out there, but the various scores it provides should be taken with a grain of salt. And as D.W. wrote in this answer,

  There is no shortcut. If you are knowledgeable about your field, a random webpage is not going to know your field better than you do. If you are not knowledgeable about your field, then the first thing you need to do is to fix that.


Structure of a dissertation with two (fairly) disjoint topics

My recommendation is to consider "parts" as an auxiliary notion. The thesis should make sense to the reader even if he ignores the division into parts.

That's fairly doable with your proposed solution, it just needs clever organization of introductory and preliminary texts.

Actually, I don't think you can do much better if your 4 chapters are too long to become 2 chapters.

The only alternative I can think of is the following:

Ch.1 - Introduction (discussing general structure & motivation)

Part I - Theme 1

Ch.2 - theme 1 - deeper introduction & preliminaries
Ch.3 - theme 1 - topic 1
Ch.4 - theme 1 - topic 2

Part II - Theme 2
Ch.5 - theme 2 - deeper introduction & preliminaries
Ch.6 - theme 2 - topic 1
Ch.7 - theme 2 - topic 2

Ch.8 - Conclusion

Appendices and References

Also, as a last remark, if you realize there's nothing to put into the conclusions, I'm quite sure you can create the thesis without them, but better ask your supervisor.

Actually, have you discussed this with your supervisor?


Commission an animation to explain a scientific concept?

With such a small budget (less than 1000 US dollars), you're unlikely to be able to commission professional work.

You have three options that I can see.

You might be able to find someone who's just trying to get established as a provider of such services, who might be willing to do the work in exchange for publicity which you'd have to drum up. Your project, and your department, would have to be seen as endorsing this person's services. That can all be rather tricky. If you're lucky, one of your recently-finishing students might be trying to build their business in this area.
You might be able to learn the skills yourself, or get someone in your team to do so. Some data analysis packages do have the means to create animations from sequences of charts - Matlab has this, and I'd expect its peers such as Mathematica to be able to do that too.
The sort of thing that's been done in a department closely related to the one I work in, is to hold a competition, with the prize being the funds you've got available. It can be open to anyone, or to staff and students, or just to students: that choice may not make a big difference - most of your submissions might come from students anyway. Be careful with the competition terms and conditions: pay close attention to the ownership of the intellectual property of submissions (to ensure you can use submissions without restriction); and with how the prize is described (because of potential tax implications). Your library staff may be able to help with the first of those two issues, and the finance team should be able to help with the second.

What you're after - the skill of creating high-quality data visualisations - is just the sort of skill that we look to encourage and develop in our students, so I'd have no qualms in running this as a competition for the students. The tricky question is around extrinsic versus intrinsic motivation: should they be doing it for money, or for the intrinsic reward of developing excellent data visualisation. You might want to discuss that with the tutor who takes lead responsibility for the students' academic development. It will depend, to an extent, on how close your subject matter is to their areas of study.