French master student, equivalent honours in the UK?

I would be careful when trying to make a direct comparison between the grades. Having "honours" after your degree in the UK generally means that you didn't fail any of your courses, so a 1st class and a 1st class hons. are not equivalent. Furthermore, research-based Masters degrees in the UK are generally marked Fail/ Pass/ Merit/ Distinction rather than 1st/ 2:1/ 2:2 etc. The exception to this are so-called "integrated Masters" which are common in the sciences. These are four year courses where the candidate finishes with (for example) an MSci rather than a BSc, and are graded with the usual classifications.

So, I think there is no direct equivalent, so you should simply write your grade as you have it. Understanding a mark out of twenty is not too challenging and chances are there will be academics familiar with the French system wherever you apply, or at least they will have dealt with French applicants before.

One additional detail that would be helpful is to write next to your grade "top 10% in my year" or "one of the top 5 students", if you have that information. You could also ask one of your referees to write that in their reference letter too.


Major Career Change --> Grad School Help?

First, do some research on graduate programs you're interested in, to see what the entrance requirements are. Since students come from different majors, programs want to make sure you have the right background. Anything you don't have, you'll want to take as a course, so it depends on how many holes you have to fix.

Side projects and volunteering opportunity in your area, are great to gain experience and show interest, and ensures your passion is solid. Show you have a good work ethic -- since your GPA is average, find other examples to convince graduate admissions that you work hard. Look at what you've done during college and figure out how show you've developed soft skills (communication, leadership, presentation skills...), and so on.

The overriding theme is you need to convince the admissions representatives that you are as likely to succeed as students who took this as their undergraduate degree and did well. This means you will probably need to get a better foundation, as well as experience in the field to document interest.

You can read other related questions for related advice. For example, check here Is it possible to attend graduate school in pure math after undergrad in CSE?


Double affiliation: is it understood as simultaneous part-time in each of them?

There are many interpretations for dual affiliations. You must explicitly provide an interpretation, if required. You could do so in a footnote on the first page or in the acknowledgements, for example.


is it OK to include own questions on CV?

Ignoring exactly where you would put questions (e.g., CV or SoP), your example questions are inappropriate everywhere. They are such broad, unanswerable questions that they tell the reader little about you. The combination of questions makes the already broad even worse. If you are going to put questions/topics that interest you, they need to be specific enough, and ideally well thought out enough that they tell something abut you.

Instead of "how do we learn", maybe something like "in associative learning how does the saliency of the unconditional stimulus affect learning outcomes", if that is what you are interested in.


What level of sponsor ownership is normal for an industry-sponsored research project?

I would consider this to be generally a rather extreme (and perhaps inappropriate) contract for a university to sign, particularly if graduate students are going to be asked to work on the project.

My key reasons for concern are:

Graduate students need to be able to publish their work openly in order to advance their careers.  An open-ended clause like this could readily become a "gag order" that prevents any publication.  Restrictions, particularly regarding the use of confidential data, may be reasonable in an academia contract.  Such restrictions, however, should have a precise and clearly delineated boundary, and it sounds like this one does not.
A contract that says "the sponsor gets all the IP" is rare even for companies doing contract research.  More typically, at least some of the IP will be reserved to the inventors, while the sponsor will be given some sort of expansive license to the IP.

This sounds like a company that doesn't want to pay the cost of contract R&D and that is instead trying to inappropriately exploit graduate students as cheap labor.  I would strongly suggest pushing back to ensure appropriate education of graduate students and to more equitably divide IP.


Can I hyper link large source data in manuscript?

You should definitely not supply them as a link to your personal page.  One reason is that it looks suspicious, since you could try to identify anonymous reviewers based on server logs.  Another is that if these equations are important enough to supply to the reviewers, then they need to be made permanently available to all readers.  If you feel they are too long for the main text, you could include them as an appendix.  If you feel they are too long for an appendix, you could include them in a separate file of supplementary material (submitted together with the main text of your paper, and permanently archived by the publisher).  Either way is much better than a personal web page that will not be permanently maintained.


Is publishing papers before the evaluation of thesis a good idea?

Four reasons why it's generally a very good idea to publish papers before you submit your thesis:

The earlier you publish, the less likely it is that your idea will be scooped [1], i.e. that someone working in the same area actually publishes the same idea/result before you.
Once ideas are published, they are not stolen: they are used, built upon, with proper attribution (usually in the form of citation). This is not theft.
The goal of an academic is actually to disseminate new knowledge, not to lock it into your desk drawers.
Having papers published (or at least accepted for publication) is very very important for your CV. It may also be a requirement (formal or unspoken) for defending your PhD.
If said publication includes peer review, the peer review is likely to improve your work, both by vetting it thoroughly and giving you new points of view on your arguments. (I edited this in after reading gerrit’s answer; it is an important point.)

In some specific cases, good arguments can be made against publication before thesis submission. Most are actually not specific to the thesis itself, but generally apply to delaying publication of a research:

If research is performed as part of a contract that requires an embargo on publication (say, imposed by one industrial partner). This is a very awkward situation, but it does happen in some fields.
Sometimes, a delay in publication is necessary to protect intellectual property, e.g. in the case of delaying publication until a related patent submission is complete.

Ref. 1:


Convention to denote author who left the research group?

From your question, I am concerned that you have not talked to the "author" about the manuscript. You must get permission from all authors prior to submitting a manuscript. It is not acceptable to submit a manuscript without permission from all authors nor is it acceptable to leave an author off just because they have left the group.

As for what is acceptable for an email address and affiliation, almost anything goes (as long as it is not misleading). I personally think universities and research groups should give permanent forwarding addresses to eliminate/reduce these issues.

In terms of the affliation, you should also ask the author. It is not uncommon to list an affiliation as the company/university where the work was done and provide a new corresponding address. As for email, it is common to list only the current address. This might be a new corporate email address, assuming it is appropriate. If not, a personal email or a new personal/professional email address is fine. Again, just ask the author and do what they want.


How to address the issues of not including technical contribution

This is a late answer and possibly moot now, but I'll guess that whoever wrote that was concerned that your field is engineering but your contributions are more likely to be pedagogy. Perhaps they were looking for some engineering contribution and, not finding it (or finding in insufficient) made the comment. But it seems not to be a blocking comment as you were passed.
But a "technical contribution" can be to pedagogy as well. How does your thesis contribute to the learning of engineering or some such thing. In particular, since you used an existing model, how does what you did differ in the application from what was known in other domains?
It is just possible, of course, that your results could have been expected from what was known, in which case there is little technical contribution at all. If it was otherwise sufficient, then you have done well, but it is something to keep in mind for any future academic work that you might do. Editors and reviewers of scholarly papers may be more insistent on how "innovative" a contribution is than would be an MS defense committee.


What does it mean if a professor does not respond to an email about research in a week

This is very common. I am a doctoral student and my advisor is the director of department. Sometimes, it took him two weeks respond my email. You can send him/her again with a friendly reminder as start or you can stop by his/her office. The latter one is what I usually do.


Can one hire an illustrator to make drawings for a paper?

It is entirely reasonable to hire a graphics designer or similar artist to make illustrations for scientific manuscripts, and I do in fact know people who have done so. For example, many journals now invite one to submit a "striking image" to be the splash graphic for the paper online, and this is a great place to get an artist involved.

An artist working on graphics for a paper would typically be given credit in acknowledgements but not be a co-author, since they have not made a contribution to the scientific work. There might be cases where "graphic design" might expand to become "visualization and analysis of data" worthy of an authorship, but those would likely be rare and relatively easy to distinguish.

The primary complication that this can add is one of copyright, as some journals require you to note images that need to have their copyright handled separately from the body as a whole. If you make an arrangement where the artist transfers the copyright to you, however, you can likely transfer it onwards to the journal without problem.


It may not be in my best interest to ask a professor I have done research with for recommendation letters. Can this seem suspicious in my application?

the professor has told me several times he would be very interested in having me as a PhD student. So, I guess, he may not appreciate the fact that I have decided to pursue another area with another supervisor

Could be, if this person is vindictive and unethical. But if they are a decent human being they would write a gushing letter about how they would love to have you as a student, and other professors would take this as a good sign.
Unless you have a stronger reason to think this person falls into that bad category, I think they are probably one of your best potential letter writers. Someone who wants you as a PhD student is someone who has confidence in your research potential - that's exactly what you want from your letter writers.


Can I receive both an NSF international postdoctoral award and salary from a foreign university?

There will be rules that NSF sets for these fellowships. You need to look them up and/or talk to the program officer who administers the grant.

My best guess is that you can't double dip. So you will likely have to decline one salary or the other. On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with still listing the grant on your CV -- it is a grant you won in a competitive solicitation, so it belongs on your CV.


I am willing to apply for advertised PhD position in Sweden. Whom should I address my cover letter?

Officially, in Sweden, it's normally the department that hires students. In practice, it's likely going to be the professor that acquired the funding who is going to evaluate candidates and make a decision. Even more in practice, your average Swedish professor won't care the least bit who you address in the letter.
If you feel you need to put in a name, put in the name of the hiring professor. If you get it wrong, it likely won't matter in the least.


Uploading potentially copyrighted material onto Academia.edu

Laozi's work is not protected by copyright, you are free to provide translations. You cannot freely distribute translations of others.

This site here, presents many translations...Seeing as it’s still operating, I’m assuming that [the site] hasn’t violated any copyright protection

Your assumption is false: The absence of a take-down or prosecution doesn't imply an absence of copyright violation.


Difference between “notes” and “original contributions” in journals

I think this is one of those things that "you know it when you see it".

Very roughly, the distinction in my mind is that a full paper ("original contribution") should actually advance the state of the art in a specific, intentional way.  A note is more along of the lines of "I noticed this thing, it seems interesting and I think the community might like to know about it too."  Maybe it doesn't fit neatly into a larger research program, or its implications aren't immediately clear, but you think it is worth having in the permanent literature.

As you've observed, an original contribution can be short, if you have made a significant advance that just doesn't take that much space to write.  So the distinction isn't really about length per se.  Notes do tend to be short, mostly because the author may not want to spend a lot of time writing something massive (thus distracting from their real research program), and also because the simplicity or brevity of the result may be part of its appeal.

I think the distinction becomes more clear with experience.  So if you are not sure about your paper, try showing it to someone more senior in your subfield and asking their opinion.


How to penalize students who copy each other but don't realize they have plagiarized?

Learn about your school's policy. Learn about whether your school has an honor code, defines plagiarism in its catalog, or requires mandatory training such as an online orientation. Many schools have specific rules about what kind of punishments are allowed, and these rules may be based on their own interpretations of local laws or their past experiences with lawsuits. For example, my school's policy specifically tells us that we are not allowed to give a student a failing grade in the course for dishonesty, and it also spells out different levels of consequences for a first and second offense.

Look at your own syllabus to see what you said about plagiarism; usually administrators will support you on anything that's laid out clearly in your syllabus.

Don't assume that administrators will support you. Their priorities may be very, very different from yours.

Once you have done all your homework, talk to your dean and propose how you want to handle the issue. Make sure your dean is on board with what you plan to do. Consider "soft" penalties such as forcing the students to meet with the dean.


How much political influence is involved in the academia in Germany?

The answer is a definite no, none at all. Each open professorship is filled by a committee consisting of students, employees and other professors at the hiring institution.¹ There is no political appointee in those committees, so there is no way for national politics to influence those. There is of course a lot of internal bickering between the professors involved (which is what most people mean if they talk about politics in an university), but nothing to do with any political parties.

Appointments of higher positions such as the rector are a bit more involved and the details may vary a bit more between different universities, but the principle is the same. Normally the decision there is made by the senate (of the university), which in turn was elected by students and employees.

In general, there is a reason for all of this, which is the German constitution, which, in order to prevent history from repeating, in article 5, paragraph 3 specifically states that "science and teaching is free", meaning free of political influence.² This includes all specific appointments. So while some politicians might try to wield some influence, any attempt to actively get a specific candidate appointed for political reasons will be met with strong backlash and a successful challenge in court.

There is one famous exception, which is theology, where an appointment can be blocked by the corresponding church. There was a scandal last year, when a bishop seemingly tried to force his preferred candidate this way, but again this has nothing to do with national politics.

¹Technically they just decide on a list of three people, which then is given to the university administration and in some places to the ministry, but if they cannot state a compelling reason to do otherwise, those then have to take the first person in the list. Except in those rare cases the second and third choice are basically spares, in case the first declines.

²Specifically, this is one of the few unchangeable articles that not even parliament is allowed to abolish. They aren't taking any chances this time.


Why do some departments not offer master's degrees anymore?

Funded masters degrees are getting generally phased out in most fields. They seem to be replaced with unfunded masters' degrees, and/or all students are getting funneled into the funded PhD programs.

The prevailing wisdom (as far as I can tell) is that funding masters students is a waste because as soon as you've trained them to know stuff they leave, unlike a PhD student who you can get a few years of useful work out of. Unfunded programs are great for whacking that international student or trust-fund kid money pinata.


How to decide authorship order in this situation?

If you are performing most of the work responsible for conducting the research (designing and conducting experiments, handling the results, etc., just as you say) then you should be the first author. This makes it pretty easy to handle the problem if the only authors on the paper are you and your supervisor. If this is the case, and there is a debate about authorship, you may even elect to list yourselves as co-authors who made equal contributions, though you will still likely be the first author.

There's been a fair amount of published discussion about this subject, as with this 2007 paper by Tscharntke et al. in PLoS Biology.


How do I use potentially copyrighted images in my course material?

Images found in Google search don't belong to Google.

I can't speak to fair-use under academia, but I can say images aren't fair game just because they're found on Google images

There are, however, places you can find images you can use. Wikimedia has a ton of images that can be used, with a wide variety of licenses for re-use. Flickr is another that comes to mind.

I want to reiterate that I don't know fair use under the realm of academia, but would ask permission and highly recommend captioning photos in order to give credit where it's due.


No one here should tell you whether to quit or not. But you need to find a changed situation somehow. Some suggestions...
Talk to your supervisor about the situation with your project and see whether there is some alternative that will make things better. Another project? A modification of this one? More assistance?
Talk to others in the research group about how they see the project and its likelihood of success. Are they happy or just coping like yourself?
Talk to a mental health professional about how you can arrange things so that you don't fall into depression. Many universities provide professional counseling.
Talk to your girlfriend about her wishes, goals, and plans. Ask her if she has any advice for you.
Find some "escape" activities so that you don't spend too much time working. My escape was bicycling with a small group. It had the advantage of being aerobic, but other things can help. Resting your mind can actually aid productivity.
Think about your goals as well as whatever options are open to you. Options about staying as well as about leaving. What are the pros and cons of each? How can you achieve your goals and stay sane?
The hardest part, as you describe it, is to find the courage to talk to your supervisors. But that is probably the essential step to find a way out of the dilemma. But don't just continue on, hoping for the best. Some situations need to be escaped.

The biggest mistake I made in my doctoral studies was not speaking up for myself at a certain point. In my case it was because I had an unhelpful advisor. But my lack of courage cost me about three years. I was successful after a change of institutions and only realized later how I'd missed the opportunity. There was also the issue of burnout after an intense undergraduate program.


Is it possible to study abroad as a PhD student?

I don't think what you're describing is all that common, and I've never heard of any sort of systematic program, but it does happen.  I ended up spending two months abroad during grad school to participate in a once off trimester program in my area of specialty.  There weren't any standard arrangements in place, though: my home university (very generously) moved things around so I could do it.  I think I've heard of other cases, all similarly involving unique circumstances like faculty moving around or particular personal connections.


Why are many obviously pointless papers published, or worse studied?

Some poorly-run institutions pay people to publish papers.  The pay is not based on the quality of the papers, only the number and possibly other useless information like the indexing of the paper.
Some poorly-run institutions require students to publish papers to get degrees, but the quality of the papers is not adequately assessed.
Some people do not realise their papers are pointless.
Some of the papers that are pointless in your opinion are not pointless to other people.

There are also many good papers.


What is the meaning of this poem on a professor's personal webpage?

This poem was an enjoyable read. I think it certainly does hold some relevance for computer scientists and academia as a whole. In the translation available here, the poem reads
Too bad that, cut out as you are
for grand and noble acts,
this unfair fate of yours
never offers encouragement, always denies you success;
that cheap habits get in your way,
pettiness, or indifference.
And how terrible the day you give in
(the day you let go and give in)
and take the road for Susa
and go to King Artaxerxes,
who, well-disposed, gives you a place at his court
and offers you satrapies and things like that—
things you don't want at all,
though, in despair, you accept them just the same.
You long for something else, ache for other things:
praise for the Demos and the Sophists,
that hard-won, that priceless acclaim—
the Agora, the Theatre, the Crowns of Laurel.
You can't get any of these from Artaxerxes,
you'll never find any of these in the satrapy,
and without them, what kind of life will you live?

The opening six lines describe the feeling that one is destined to be doing great things, but instead finds oneself working away without encouragement or success, and succumbing to bad habits. This could resonate with academics who perhaps entered their field of study dreaming that they'd solve the biggest open questions out there, but instead find that the reality is much harder and far less immediately rewarding.
The poem then contrasts the difficulty of this situation (in our analogy, working in academia) with the even worse choice of giving in and taking the easy option, which in the context of the poem is going to King Artaxerxes and being offered a place in his court. In our analogy, we could see this as leaving academia to work in a stable job in industry, where you will have a good income and an easy life.
The poem ends by questioning us, asking us that if we take the easy option, will we find the fulfilment we sought in the first place? And what kind of life would that be? I think these are questions that many academics have asked themselves.


What is considered credible evidence in computer science?

It depends on exactly what kind of thing you're researching, but the gold standard evidence would be source code. This allows anyone to see your code and run it on their own machine, see exactly how the machine is operating, and they can draw their own conclusions.

If you can't provide your source code for whatever reason, you can still have well thought out experiments whose methodology and results are described in conference or journal papers.

In terms of academic credit or progressing towards your degree, the basic unit of scholarly merit in computer science is the conference paper rather than the journal paper. In many fields it's the opposite, where conference papers don't count for much and journal papers are the goal. In CS we still have journal papers that are often published as extensions to a conference paper, and this is an opportunity to address any initial concerns from the community or extend and round out a contribution. These are worthwhile endeavors, especially if the conference paper is highly regarded, but they're not the norm.

This changes some things and doesn't change other things. For example, I know of colleagues in fields where conference papers don't count for anything, but in those fields the conferences are not peer reviewed and essentially a good enough sounding abstract is enough to get accepted to a conference. They still publish rigorous peer reviewed works, but they do those in journals that are not associated with any specific conference.


Should I include teaching feedback from students in my CV?

I'm sure conventions vary, but I know at my university in Australia, when going for promotion, it is important to show a contribution to teaching. However, they specifically suggest avoiding listing individual student comments. The argument is that any academic can find at least a few students who have said something nice about them at some point.

So in summary, I think that official student rated quality of teaching scores are useful, particularly if the scoring is understood by the people reading your CV. My main point would be that selectively taking individual comments is probably not that helpful.

Better means of demonstrating an achievements in teaching include: initiatives in developing content, quality of teaching scores, teaching responsibilities, teaching awards, etc.


What do potential postdoc advisers seek in research statement letters?

Some of this depends a lot on field and laboratory, and I don't know the customs of physics.  As somebody who has dealt with this question in both biology and computer science, however, let me give you some thoughts:

Since you aren't aiming for a fellowship, you're probably going to be supported by a funded project of some sort.  That means the PI you'd be working for promised their funders they would get somebody do a postdoc-sized piece of work on Topic X.  Their biggest concern is thus likely to be whether you are the person who can do that. Accordingly, when I'm thinking about postdocs, the properties I'm looking for are:

Flexibility enough to shift from their Ph.D. topic to the topic of the project, which is pretty much guaranteed to be different.
Autonomy, creativity, and maturity enough to tackle their part of the project without much hand-holding.
Productivity and responsibility enough to deliver research progress at regular intervals.

Formulate your letter accordingly, showing what you have accomplished, that you are capable of formulating a research vision, and that you have interests outside of your research vision.  The goal is not to sell yourself, but to be interesting enough that it's worth the PIs time to talk to you in person, which is where the real decision will be made.

In fact, however, you are best served if you can skip the letter entirely and approach potential PIs in person at conferences or other meetings.  Get introductions from your advisor if you can.  Practice your elevator pitch (explaining what you'd put in a letter in just three spoken sentences).  Speaking as a PI, a whole lot of postdoc jobs ultimately originated by PIs talking at a meeting and one of them saying, "I've got this great student who's graduating, and I'll bet they'd fit well in your lab..." or the other saying, "I've got this grant starting next year and there's a gap I need to fill..."


I found out that my PhD topic has been done before, what can I do , to make it an original topic without changing the main idea

Ask your advisor. Your advisor:

Is likely to be the person most familiar with the direction your thesis is supposed to take, and therefore able to advise on how to modify it
Is likely to be much more experienced than you and therefore better-positioned to decide what to do next
Is likely to care enough to provide you with that advice
You can't do anything without your supervisor's approval anyway

It's possible you'll end up changing topics (since it's only been four months anyway), you might find that the previous work isn't exactly the same as yours, etc. But this is all speculation. Ask your advisor and figure it out from there.


Can I reuse the title of a previous poster presentation for my PhD thesis?

I did exactly the same thing and am regretting it slightly. No one seemed to care, but for some reason the poster is listed on Google Scholar separately from my thesis but under an identical title. I could have avoided the "disambiguation needed" situation altogether by renaming one of them (preferably by saving the really nifty thesis title for the thesis, and using a work-in-progress version for the poster).


Editors resigning because they published a low quality paper

It's decently common. I Googled for "peer review failure editor resign" and some examples are: 1, 2, 3, 4.

You ask "Why would editors choose to publish [the paper] nevertheless?" There're many possible reasons as to why editors may choose to publish a flawed paper:

Some members of the editorial board approved of the paper and still do, while others didn't (and the ones that didn't are the ones resigning). Journals typically do not get every member of the editorial board to approve a paper before it's accepted.
They made a mistake, but now that the paper is already published, they don't consider the errors critical enough to retract it (or they don't consider it fair to the author).
They realized the paper is dubious but decided to err on the side of acceptance. People who subscribe to this idea think, "referees only give opinions; the real peer review happens after a paper is published".
The journal is currently lacking papers, so they're inclining towards accepting more papers to fill their issues.
Difficulty communicating with the author, e.g. if the author isn't very responsive, then editors might choose to accept "as is" rather than wait several months for an author response (especially if the author isn't likely to make major changes to the manuscript). I also remember reading about a flawed paper that was accepted because the author was from the Soviet Union, and getting the author to correct it through the Soviet censors takes too much time.

In the case of this particular paper, the editorial board claims no knowledge of what was happening. At this point, it's speculation to try to figure out what actually happened. However, I would guess (based on my experience in publishing) that after the journal received the paper the desk editor attempted to find a member of the board to handle it, but everyone contacted either declined to handle it or simply did not respond to emails. In that case the desk editor can hardly let the paper sit there collecting dust, so (s)he did the next best thing which was to DIY, with less than ideal consequences. I've seen this happen and even done it myself quite a bit. I've never actually ended up in the news for doing this, which shows that usually DIY-ing doesn't lead to problems. But if it does, that's when we look at one another and sigh.


How to properly describe experience in exchange program in Statement of Purpose in Master Application?

Actually, the SoP my be the wrong place for this information. The Statement of Purpose should be looking forward to your academic and career plans, not the past. The CV and other introductory material form a retrospective on your past.
Don't waste word in the Sop on things that aren't about future plans. The exchange program would only be appropriate there if it causes some change in your plans looking forward.
But a line or two in the CV would be a better place to mention it, with some simple phrasing (or not).
If you wind up in an interview, you can bring it up then. But give the SoP the impact it requires.


Given only one possible appointment for masters application interview with no possibility to renegotiate date: Is this a red flag or normal?

I think it was perfectly reasonable of you to ask to reschedule.  Of course, it's unfortunate that they weren't able or willing to accommodate you, but that's up to them.

You'll now have to decide what you want to do: interview while traveling, or alter your travel plans, or skip the interview altogether.  It might be worth considering whether an institution that seems so unwilling to accommodate prospective students is an institution that you'd want to attend at all!


Career for a mathematician outside academia

The past few years, many friends, either mathematicians or people from physics/chemistry who knew how to write code, have gone other to various financial companies to do algorithmic trading, data analysis, that sort of things… and some others have joined web startups. In short: their coding, algorithmic and reasoning skills were more valuable than their specific academic knowledge.

What I would advise you to do is to look where alumni from your department have moved. Ask the department for statistics or listings, if they publish them; otherwise, look up people's names on the web or professional networks (LinkedIn comes to mind). See where they are now: this will give you an idea of who is hiring people with your skills (and network).


Is it advisable (or even usual) to invite a foreign member of doctoral jury to give a lecture just after the defense? Or is it inappropriate?

I think it is appropriate to invite an academic to give a lecture on their work at any point, provided the invitation is politely conveyed.  Part of politely conveying an invitation is making the invitee feel comfortable declining it.

I can think of certain situations in which it is arguable that without further personal knowledge of the invitee, the invitation itself exerts an impolite pressure to accept: e.g. if you invite a job candidate to give an "extra lecture."  But I don't see why a foreign jury member would feel compelled to give an extra lecture in this situation.  Unless you know of some specific plausible reason why he would feel pressured to do so, I think it is absolutely permissible to invite him.  Since you are a bit concerned about this, I would mention in the invitation itself that the invitee can freely decline, in a way which suggests that he will not be committing any kind of social error by doing so.  Especially if you know this person, um, in person, I see no problem here.

General tip for dealing with human beings: when possible, try not to assume that they will want to do X or that they will not want to do X.  Develop enough social skills so that you can ask them which one it is.  Of course some exceptions apply...


Do I have to cite the source of my notes based off of a deceased professor's notes,

Ideally,you should track down the original sources for the theorems. However, I realise that might not be practically feasible due to eg time constraints, so providing your own disclaimer and citing the other professor's notes should be sufficient.


Can I contact a professor who works on my same work

You do not "need" to contact them. The fact that your work was on a university website does not mean that anyone has seen it.
Unless there are subtler clues that they just copied your work, you should treat that work as completely independent of yours.
If you email them, do not express any doubts about their honesty, etc. This would in-any-case terminally alienate them. Rather, say that you have similar interests, as visible in your thesis, which actually obtains some similar results.
Do NOT make any remarks about how your thesis was on-line for a year, and "should have been cited", etc. Things don't really work that way.
Again, most often it's not that people are cheating, but that they have similar ideas, due to similar contexts...


Is reuse of "internal" results considered self-plagiarism if used in a later publication?

From my experience, researchers are free to re-use a given dataset as many times as they want in numerous publications. I've been involved in single datasets (which, admittedly, took years to build) that generated dozens of papers, and that is by no means a unique scenario. My understanding is that researchers are to refrain from publishing an identical analysis on an identical dataset in different papers. If you're using a single dataset for multiple analyses, there's no need to re-generate the data.


Assessing a penalty for inquiries regarding exceptions to deadline policy

A colleague had a phrase along the lines of:

"Any email question or request that is already answered in the course documentation will not be replied to".

Seemed to work well for him.

But I would not do any type of downgrading for that.

Students do talk to each other and it soon gets around "well don't send that, as it won't be answered.."

Relevant questions that did warrant a response did get answered to the student and, sometimes, repeated to the class as necessary.


Does gold open-access with article processing charge (APC) really help access to science and save taxpayer money?

I also think that people can go to the library to get access to research.

You're assuming that libraries can pay for access. That's not the case anymore. Even Harvard univerity, one of the richest in the world, can't pay for all the journals its researchers need. I think none of the Universities I know have access to all the journals it needs. So, you can imagine a public library won't grant access to all the existing literature.

That's even worse in developing/not too rich countries. In this case, you can notice that most Open Access (OA) journals adapt the cost of publication to the wealth of the country the article comes from (for example Plos).

It can also be a problem for small enterprises, that aren't very rich, so they can't subscribe to journals and have to pay "per view", but need access to the latest research in order to innovate. So, non-OA journals are an impediment to the technological progress too.

And I will also add the fact that, even in rich countries, it is not always that easy to go to a library. For example, when answering here on Stack Exchange, I try to add links to research articles which can be more precise than my own answer. If the OP is really very interested in a complete understanding of the answer, he could go to a library. But in most cases, if he doesn't have access to an article through the Internet, it will just waste an opportunity for him to learn.

  I published in both OA and subscription-based, and I will gladly submit to OA journals if they end up being the highest quality ones in my field.

However, you're pointing to a real problem here. If the "best" journals are not OA, do you have to compromise your career (or your students') to publish in an OA journal? In fact, some people would answer that the Impact Factor-based ranking of journals doesn't make much sense (see for example this article). And it is one of the reasons for the creation of Plos One, a "mega-journal" accepting articles only based on their scientific value, and not on an estimate of the interest its conclusions might have in the future. But for sure, this is a hot topic.

And another real problem here is money. If the Universities have to pay both for keeping access to non-OA journals, and for publishing in OA journals at the same time, it will be even more expensive. No university can afford it. A proposed solution is green Open-Access, where the articles are just put in repositories, and nobody needs to pay neither for publishing, nor for accessing. With a good post-publication peer-review system, this could work. But it also implies a huge paradigm shift, with new problems.

  Isn't it reasonable to use the options that we have to freely give access to our work (self-archiving, sending preprint to people who ask politely, etc.).

That is in fact kind of green OA. But, depending on the license you agree with when you publish in a journal, that's not always possible.


How to cite and publish unpublished governmental statistics correctly?

I would cite it as "Agency name, unpublished data" in the text. As a made-up example in a list of citations:

US Department of Agriculture, Farm Information Statistics 1999-2015, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA, unpublished.


Uploading a revised version of published journal article on arXiv

This has happened before. Just update the arXiv version and indicate in the "Comments" field and ideally also inside the file itself that the version is newer than the published one. Examples of such updates:

https://arxiv.org/abs/0801.3306v4 (sadly, the Comments field isn't too clear here)
https://arxiv.org/abs/1605.04832v1 (here, the fact that this is a post-publication update has been made clear in the file itself)
https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0602634v4

The fact that I found/recalled these three links within 10 minutes should suggest that this is not a rare occurrence, although I wish that people would make the status of the preprint as being a more correct version of the publication clearer. Either way, the update is highly encouraged from a reader's perspective :)


Another undergrad or a masters degree before PhD?

To switch from CS to math, you have to show you have enough math courses.  You didn't talk about that.

Poor grades in the first two years don't matter very much.

Your grades in your math classes and your more theoretical CS classes will carry more weight than, say, a class in operating systems or a very coding-intensive class.

You might need to pick out the key classes you think support your application the most strongly, and put them in a table, showing the course title, brief description if the title is not self-explanatory, and the grade.

Financial considerations could be important.  If you would have to go into debt to finance further studies, then you might want to get a master's in CS, with a TA-ship, but load yourself up with math and math-oriented courses as part of the master's.

It's not clear to me where you would do the master's.  Are you thinking about doing it in the same university where you're doing the Bachelor's?  If not, moving to a new school brings a lot of unknowns.  On the other hand, if your current university is not a great fit for you, for whatever reason, then it could be beneficial to go elsewhere for a master's.

One difference between taking extra classes as an undergrad and doing a master's is that if you take a 500 level class where both seniors and first-year grad students are enrolled, expectations will be higher for the grad students.  AND note that as a grad student you would be expected to earn an A or A- (or a B in the worst case).

Note that if you want to take more math classes at your current institution, there are two additional options that you have not mentioned:
- just wait to graduate, and take some more classes
- go ahead and graduate, and then take some more classes as a non-matriculated student

If I were going to evaluate your admission application (that is a big if -- I have never sat on an admissions committee), I would want to see that after three years of college studies, you started to take things more seriously, you started to do very well, and you started to take more responsibility and initiative.

Taking the initiative means finding math classes that help you mature as a mathematician.

So, bottom line: I think you should expend your energy choosing classes wisely.  I think that matters more than exactly what your status is when you take those classes.


Pursuing a second masters in a more established school

Contact the department and ask them directly "How many students who applied to the PhD program and were only accepted into the masters program end up graduating with a PhD?" If this number is very low, I'd advise against this. Some professors will discriminate against masters students when looking for students to do research with, and if this is the culture at UoT, you should know about it going in. The worst outcome is you end up paying for a second masters and leave with two masters degrees in computer science, which will look unusual in job interviews. I know of at least one interviewer at a company who said he automatically views two masters degrees in the same subject (or even a highly related subject) as a big red flag.

It might be better to enter a PhD program at a different university or get a job. You can always apply to PhD programs next year. I know of several students with less than stellar academic performance who enter good PhD programs with work experience. As someone who has read a fair amount of personal statements before, those who have been in industry for a few years tend to write better ones. They tend to know what they want and are not going into academia just because it is the "next step" without thinking about it.

Computer science has the advantage that often you don't need a university to do your own research. Start doing research in your spare time. If you find a question you are really interested in and have made some progress, contact professors who work in that area at various PhD programs. You have a much better shot of getting into a good PhD program if a professor has notified the admissions committee that they want to work with you.


Daily Habits to Prepare for Graduate School

To prepare yourself and keep your skills in shape, one idea is to gradually go through advanced undergrad/beginning graduate textbooks, including doing exercises.  (Reading is good, but also doing exercises (both theoretical and programming) is better.)  It might also be good to do a programming project or two, from which ideas might naturally stem out of your reading.  What to go through also depends on your situation (what area of CS, what you learned already, whether you're already programming for work...)

However, to make yourself a good candidate for graduate studies, you'll also want good letters of recommendation, which means you want someone (ideally an academic) familiar with your further preparations.  Therefore you might try contacting one of your old professors or a professor geographically close to you to see if they're willing to help give you some guidance in your studies and/or involve you in a research project.

See also: How to show graduate schools my strong self study background?


Letter to a potential PhD supervisor (mathematics)

I am a mathematician in the UK.  If someone doing a Master's degree in Germany wants to do a PhD with me, I would like them to send me an email of five or six lines, giving a brief indication of what is in their Master's thesis, and a very broad indication of what they would like to do in their PhD (perhaps "chromatic homotopy theory" or "something to do with operads").

I do not expect that applicants will have read any of my papers, although that sometimes happens.  If your supervisor suggested that you should apply to me, then I might find that interesting, but it would not be significant; I would wait for more detailed comments in the supervisor's reference letter.


Is "party ranking" a genuine ranking system?

Universities aren't pleased about ranking highly in such competitions they didn't ask to participate in. That is at least their official position. As it might help with recruiting, some people dealing with attracting students might quietly approve; but in the same way it attracts certain people, others will be repelled. The university in the above link has a great academic reputation as well, and would probably do just fine if it didn't have this other one.

Other than "being known as a 'party school' ", or appearing in 'rankings' such as Playboy's, I don't think there is any publication that evaluates extra-curricular activities. However, schools greatly value to be seen as a good place that people like to spend their formative years at. When I was accepted for graduate school at NYU, I got hardly any information on their academic side, but a beautiful hardcover picture book on Greenwich Village. Places that don't have natural advantages still care about presenting the school and its surroundings as desirable living locations. The tongue-in-cheek "Where the hell is Grinnell?" slogan comes to mind (it's in the middle of nowhere, but both the town and school are rather beautiful). In addition to mere location, social activities on campus are certainly highlighted in information about the school, and when visiting on site.


Is it rude for me to ask professors for assignments in advance of the class starting?

It's not rude, but the professor might want to adjust the assignments later on, in which case he/she won't be able to satisfy your request. So go ahead making the request simply being honest in the wordings, but be prepared to be denied.


Is it normal to reject a paper based on the review of a single referee?

It is normal. Often there is one referee who writes an extensive review, whose judgment weight heaviest with the editor. If there are 4 reviews, 3 are in the "publish" half of the spectrum but are brief (not adequately justifying the recommendation), and there is 1 "reject" review which extensively argues against publication, an editor will either have to apply his/her own knowledge of the field and decide which argument carries the day, or will need to request an additional review. Good editors do not just count up the plus and minus values, they have to evaluate the evidence in the reviews.

If you make the case for reconsideration, I think it should focus on the question of whether positive evidence in the reviews has been undervalued. There's not much you can do if the negative reviewer is (unbeknownst to you) The Leading Authority.


Can a related paper cover the non-thesis master disadvantages for applying for a PhD?

I would recommend the independent research avenue because I always believe you should do the things you enjoy most. It shows strong interest in your future field and you will be better equipped to get your love for the field across when applying for a PhD/other.

Things to consider when making the final decision are:

How much the non-thesis masters is valued in the US compared to the thesis one?
The availability of the supervising Professor B
Your certainty in applying for field B.
The requirements wrt the masters listed on the websites of the universities you will apply to.
The genuine likelihood of publications in your independent research into B
How much you dislike supervisor and topic A.


Do all authors have the right to access LaTeX source code of the PDF manuscript uploaded to a journal's portal by the corresponding author?

Your collaborator seems unnecessarily protective (or maybe insecure) about the TeX source, and I don't really see what they think they'll gain from it. Hiding some super awesome macros, or ashamed of shoddy TeXing? Take your pick.

That said, if you haven't worked on the source yourself or established things clearly beforehand, well, you probably don't have any automatic legal rights to it. You'll have rights to the end product, the words and the figure - at least until those rights are signed over to the publisher - but not necessarily the source. If a collaboration is to be, you know collaborative, they absolutely should share the code. Yet if they don't, it's not really worth pressing the issue. Just label this colleague as difficult to work with and remember that before considering working on new projects with them.


How has the current governmental funding affected NSF GRFP?

There is no final decision yet, but the following commentary from the American Institute of Physics suggests that there might not be major changes to the size of the program:

  Of particular note, the Senate report does not accept the administration’s request to reduce funding for the Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP), and “instead provides the fiscal year 2017 funding level” for the program. The administration has requested to halve the number of new participants to 1,000. It is unclear if the Senate directive applies to GRFP funding allocated through the research directorates or just EHR funds.

It is worth noting that these changes would apply to the next cycle, not the current one.


Best practice when summarizing (not reviewing) research literature

I would let your specific publication needs (from your work) and researches drive the literature research.  Don't try to get a big overview of all research.  Once you have done a Ph.D., you will be the world's expert in your thesis and have reasonable expertise in a growing circle around it.  But don't expect to have encyclopedic knowledge of a whole subspecialty.  Even older faculty have their "spikes" based on their actual research careers.
Don't take so many notes and don't use a note taking system.  Instead use a filing cabinet and paper copies of publications.  Sort them into some category scheme (does not need to be MECE).  If you take notes on a particular paper, just do it in pen on the paper or on looseleaf that you attach.  At the end of the day, don't try to have some perfect retrieval and synthesis system.  Instead read for what you need at the time and then file the paper in your file cabinet.  Come back to it when needed.

[Note that second readings of papers often give different insights.  You are a different person (more sophisticated, better able to extract things) a couple years later into your Ph.D.  Also, you may be looking for different things later.  Don't expect or try for perfect comprehension the first time.]
Occasionally get the references to the refence (all or many of the citations for a journal aticle).  Don't do it all the time and draw the line at some point of moving backwards.  The point is to just get some feel for types of papers (datapoint versus review, technique versus results, etc.)
Become familiar with some encyclopedic references.  For instance in solid state chemistry the following are very valuable:  Wells Structural Inorganic, West Solid State Chemistry, Greenwood and Earnshaw Chemistry of the Elements, Phase Diagram for Ceramacists.  Consider to buy some or get your PI to do so.  Or at least find out wher held in library (ask for them to be pit on reserve).  Note, you won't read them exhaustively.  But you'll likely do more than just targeted searches.  Occasionally wander down into the Mandelbrot.
While SE likes some generality and you will get responses from different fields, it is helpful if you can give a little specifics also.  That way you may get both general and specific advice.  I can't tell if you are doing history or psych or business or physics.  Experimenter or theorist.  Little bit of info/perspective on your situation also helpful (2nd year student in 4 year Ph.D. or the like). Do this in a light fashion so you don't get accused of a too personal question.  And so more general responses are welcome and helpful to future readers.  But still...give some more info so better targeted advice possible.


Is it a good idea to add cross references in conclusion

Yes, if your paper is quite long, that could be helpful.


What are the steps to find a publisher and strike a deal to publish the proceedings of a workshop?

I went through this a few years ago for a conference for which I was the program chair.
Since you want open access, you'll find that the big commercial publishers will want to charge quite a bit (thousands of dollars per paper) to publish your conference proceedings.  For open access publishing, there are a few reputable publishers and lots of disreputable publishers that you'll want to avoid.
One reputable publisher for topics likes yours is Dagstuhl's LIPICS series.
If the society that sponsors the conference has its own in-house publishing arm then that can be a good choice too.


How to increase your academic network through email

First, I would suggest recognizing that a network is not a goal, but instead both

a means to achieving your scientific goals and
hopefully including a subset who you just plain enjoy interacting with

The second part can only really emerge organically, so let's focus on the first part, which is where the sort of "cold call" emails you are talking about come in.  I think that you have correctly identified that "cold calls" are pretty much always ineffectual, because most people worth talking to already have an input buffer overflowing with worthless and impersonal cold calls.

If you approach the interaction from the point of view of "how can I get this person to notice me" then you're pretty much consigning yourself to the same bin.  Instead, you need to have some context in which you have a legitimate reason for contacting the person that is not to be noticed.  The networking and knowledge is then a natural and beneficial side effect, rather than the purpose of the interaction.

Some examples of non-in-person contexts in which such interactions commonly occur:

Volunteering in the organization of a workshop, conference, or other academic or educational event.  Even for students, there are useful roles to play, which will also end up with you encountering a bunch of researchers.
Hosting an invited speaker: "If the mountain won't come to Muhammad then Muhammad must go to the mountain."
Actually doing research that interacts with the other researcher's work, and either asking for their advice, or contacting them to let them know you've built off their work in a way you think they may find interesting.

I'm sure I've just scratched the surface, and there are lots of other things that can help build your network.

Finally, any of these can further be mixed with getting an introduction from a mutual acquaintance, which can help get you past the "crap-filter."  If you do this, however, be aware that you are putting not just your own reputation but that of your acquaintance on the line as well.


Can you be a good PhD student if you hate reading literature?

Interesting question, I have thought about this alot both during my PhD studies and afterwards...

There are some answers and comments touching upon the aspects like why you should be reading, or what it means to read. I will try to give my two cents on the question title, which I assume is what's really on your mind, that is whether or not you're suitable for doing research if you don't like reading literature.

Short answer: It depends...

There's no way of knowing, or objectively guessing, whether or not it will work out fine for you. There are way too many parameters to consider

Long answer: It depends...

I'm sure you've heard, and will hear and see, people reading constantly. They will be telling you what you should read, how much you should read. I know I have...

While I don't doubt the sincerity or the good intentions behind these sentiments I am not sure how accurate or helpful they actually are. Hearing and reading those kind of comments have demotivated me at best, and pushed me further and further away from pursuing a career in academia at worst.

I was super ambitious in the beginning; I highlighted numerous journals that I deemed important in my field, signed up for their eTOC alerts. Read the short abstracts of anything that got published there. I had email alerts for a bunch of keywords, that were relevant for my work. Those articles that matched any one of those would be labeled in my inbox, I'd make sure to go through the whole article, albeit quickly...

About half way into my PhD studies (which is in bioinformatics, for the record) I've realized that there is quite literally no way for me to stay on top of literature, to a satisfactory degree. There is just too many people out there, doing way too many experiments that may be relevant somehow to my work. Also around the same time I started to look at publishing a bit more critically. The way funding and career options look these days, there is tremendous pressure on people to publish.

That has several significant implications, two really significant ones are:

there's an increasing number of publications (and the rate of increase is also increasing, although I dare not say exponentially)
a significant portion of the articles are written to secure research funds, deliver results for a received grant or secure the next position; as opposed to being written to be read and understood easily
stuff that wouldn't normally be published gets published. this could happen for a number of different reasons like the group that wrote the paper is too influential to get rejected or objectively critiqued, or the reviewers are too busy to give a proper review of the work, or the in the worst case of all, there is data forgery committed

So at the end of the day, you start doubting what's actually on the paper, and start wondering about what's been omitted, or how the article was framed in order to get it published.

Added on top of that is the fact that a significant portion of the articles are not read and an overwhelming majority of the articles are never cited. The exact numbers have been a matter of debate (here's one link there are many more) however the fact remains that a significant portion of the literature is ignored at best, treated as garbage at worst.

All of these reasons give birth to a skepticism that is hard to ignore. A lot of my colleagues and friends who've been through my phd studies with me essentially agree. I have yet to meet a PhD student who get invigorated and excited by a pile of articles that s/he needs to read... (Interesting side note here is how majority of the people that will typically talk about how much one needs to read are senior scientists.)

Finally the matter of work-life separation. Many academics would go around saying that being a scientist is a lifestyle not a profession. I have this very close to heart where many PIs I personally know well (including my brother) spend a significant amount of their free time reading articles. For the life of me, I have no idea why... The last thing I want to do when I get home is to read research articles. I think it's healthy to separate work and life beyond work, but I haven't gotten so far into my career, so take that with a pinch of salt.

So, as you can see, I share the same worry (unless I misunderstood the origin of the question) that OP does. I have been worried about this for several years now, am I a bad scientist because I am not interested in reading literature?

I am not sure, I have been getting pretty much only positive feedback on my work and skills, so I am not entirely sure it's that bad as it might appear. While I agree that one cannot completely shut out reading altogether and ignore literature, I don't think one needs to obssess about reading constantly.
I honestly think it's a matter of etiquette, or an ambition to strive towards, even though most sensible people realize that it's not really feasible to constantly stay on top of literature.

I say: do read, at least as much as you need to, about the subjects you need to know about, the rest is optional. Don't worry about keeping statistics or meeting thresholds, just try to stay well-informed about your field.


How can I throw other ideas from my mind while doing PhD?

It sounds as though you are having a hard time finding motivation for pursuing your PhD. You don't mention the focus of your research, but one idea would be to modify the focus so that it aligns better with your addicting hobby of web-development (I'm not familiar with CS, so I have no idea how this would work in actual practice. Others will better be able to advise you on that.)

Become interested in your research. Assuming that you have compelling reasons for staying in your current area of research, you will need to have a genuine passion for the subject, or completing the PhD will become well-nigh impossible due to lack of motivation. See this article by Scott Young on how to learn boring subjects; his advice also holds for renewing interest in something. See the key points below.

Don't pick degree programs you hate. Although there are times when you may have to take courses you don't actually like, avoid a career made up of tasks and information you hate.
Don't confuse boring and difficult. It is easy to avoid something as boring, rather than admitting that it is difficult.
Find the 'real-world' connections. Math isn't boring when you begin to see the connections and overall patterns--ditto for many other subjects/areas.
Discover the context. Take the time to explore the background, and understand why these [proofs, theorems, whatever] are important for where we are now. Young recommends reading Wikipedia articles on lunch-breaks for this purpose.
Make stories and pictures. Learning is a creative activity--the product is the intangible connections and stories in our minds. Mnemonics and stories can be interesting even when the subject is not. (Use this for the necessary but boring parts of research.)
Use the knowledge. Using even part of what you learn in a separate project will help cement the learning, and will also be interesting. (And anyway, isn't this part of the purpose of a PhD, to apply knowledge in new ways?)
Realize that not everything will be fun--more interest is better, even if relative differences still exist.


Why does this US DOI manuscript on archaeological sites have blacked-out text?

The gps coordinates or other similar information is withheld for some sensitive archeological sites to try to minimize vandalism and other issues such as unauthorized "collectors". For example, there is a prehistoric rock quarry not too far from me in New York State, whose exact location is not published.
This seems to be the situation in the paper you cite. Some sites are culturally sensitive. Some are scientifically important. In the age of four wheel off-road vehicles it is too easy to find, contaminate, and even destroy such sites.


Academic writing: Referring again to the works of authors et al. Does date need to be included every time?

This is entirely dependent on the venue's style. It varies not only by field, but also by the particular journal or conference.

Ideally, your venue will have a published style guide.
Or at least a short document with explicit instructions.

Sometimes this will be in the citation style guide, other times you will need to look in the full guide.

Failing that, go digging through other papers published at same venue,
and see what they do.

Failing that, or if this isn't actually targeted at a standard venue (eg for a standalone book). Find a style guide, for your field. Either one used generally used in your field Eg the Chicago Manual of Style. Or choose on from a journal that you like.


Rehearse or memorise to improve my presentations?

It's not "either rehearse or memorize". Also, your sentence "In rehearse, every time I make presentations in front of mirror and observe that I am delivering same messages in a different way in each time." got me thinking that you probably rehearse inefficiently.

The purpose of rehearsal is to improve your presentation. So after every rehearsal you should reflect about your performance, think about points that did not come across right, and about ways to improve the presentation. If you just start over again without reflection and without a new, improved plan, you do a weird mix of "not really rehearsing" and "not really memorizing".

I'd say, a good rehearsal includes quite some memorization for the crucial parts. However, if you rehearse long enough, you may get to some point where do not even memorize your lines, but where the presentation has a natural flow such that your previously memorized phrases come out naturally.

I'd say, bare memorization is ok, but may be dangerous if you don't know the story line of your presentation as a whole. Imagine that you loose you lines and get stuck in the middle of the presentation. So also rehearse to speak freely but memorize some lines that you find particularly good at crucial points. A good structure of the presentation and a good story is very helpful here (and for a badly structured presentation, neither memorizing nor rehearsal will lead to a good presentation, anyway).


What to do if a journal article is too hard to review

Decision based on maths. If an overhaul of the mathematics would significantly reduce the time required for an expert to understand them, then you should state that in your review and that might well be a reason to require major revisions. On the other hand, if such an overhaul would only help non-experts, then that might well merit a mention in your review, but I don't think such an overhaul is necessary for acceptance.

Reviewing. Two weeks is ~4% of the year. Committing that amount of time to a single review (as would be required for you to study the details of the mathematics) seems unreasonable to me. Perhaps you can raise this with the editor. They might well suggest that you disregard the details and focus on other aspects of the manuscript, they can always ask another reviewer to check the details.

Scope. To determine whether the manuscript is in scope, you could compare the volume of material on control with articles published by the journal. If you think it is out of scope, then perhaps raise this with the editor.


How should work experience affect decision to get an MLIS (or another similar specialized Master's)?

I am curious to hear others' answers, especially those specifically about library work.

I highly recommend working in a field before spending your time (and money) training for it. I am extremely glad that I worked straight out of college instead of trying to go directly to law school. Working in a law-adjacent area, I realized that I did not want to be a lawyer, but I enjoyed working with colleagues with Ph.D.s and chose a different path.

If you are going to work while studying anyway, working in the library sounds like a great choice for you. If you were not planning on working, I am not sure whether it would be worthwhile to seek out that opportunity. (For U.S. students who are going to work anyway, working on campus through Federal Work Study is associated with a higher GPA versus working otherwise. However, for the students who were not otherwise going to work while studying, on average working is associated with worse academic performance. (Scott-Clayton and Minaya, 2016) (Working while studying seems to be worse academically for full-time students but not part-time students (Darolia, 2014), and the effect of working may depend on what activities the work time is substituting for (Scott-Clayton, 2011).)

(Pedantic note: Scott-Clayton 2011 is a quasi-experimental study based on the variation in the amount of Federal Work Study funding institutions have available, which means I feel free to use the word "effect" in a causal sense. The other two references address causal concerns through modeling endogeneity and matching, which make their analyses useful but not definitive evidence about a cause-and-effect relationship.)


Is it even useful to report cheating anymore?

In general it is useful to report cheating.  Some institutions require students to report it.
In this case, however, you do not know who cheated and faculty have already made reasonable efforts to make cheating harder.  The information you are providing is not doing anything to reduce cheating, so you can stop reporting it.


Should I mention a discovery was made by mistake? How is this practice viewed?

The paper is not the place to give a step by step account of everything that happened. You should have a research log, or lab log, or some other form of documentation that does that, but that is separate from the paper. The paper is there to present your finding in a clear and concise way. Based on the paper you should be able to replicate the results, but, depending on the kind of research you do, is not necessarily the same as a complete list of every step taken. I think of the paper as the summary for the research log and code.
I can imagine accidents where it is worthwhile to mention that in the paper, others where it can be entertaining and other accidents where it is not appropriate in the sense that it wastes the readers time. It depends on the accident and the style of paper you are writing, where the latter in a large part depends on the journal you intend to sent it to.


Should I supply code along with my paper submission?

Should I supply code as supplemental material?

Yes, but it would be better if you published it in an open access fashion.

  Is this a common practice?

No.

  If so do reviewers pay attention to the code?

Depends on the reviewers.

  Is it worth the time to prepare anonymised and clean code?

That depends, don't do more than necessary.

Also read:

Ten Simple Rules for Reproducible Computational Research
Top Ten Reasons to Not Share Your Code
(and why you should anyway)
Open Source Software Publishing for University Researchers


Is it possible to get into graduate school for math with a non-math UG degree?

Regarding graduate programs in the US: It is possible to get into graduate school for pure math with a non-math undergraduate, but it might not be the best idea if you have the option to change your undergraduate course of study.
In the US, graduate programs in pure math will typically expect you to have taken coursework in differential equations, linear algebra, real analysis, and abstract algebra. They may also expect you to have taken at least some coursework in other upper-division (third and fourth year) topics. Once you've taken all this coursework, you're well on your way to graduating with an undergraduate degree in math!
When reviewing applications, a program wants to make sure that their incoming graduate students have the potential to complete their studies in a timely manner and produce good work. (Graduating in a timely manner ensures that the program's budget stays balanced, and producing good work can help you get a job that reflects positively on your graduate program.)
Your coursework and GPA (and maybe your GRE scores to a lesser extent) reflect on your potential to graduate in a timely manner and produce good work. However, as many answers on this site will tell you, letters of recommendation are one of the most critical ways for graduate programs to get a sense of your preparation and potential. The people who are best suited to discuss your potential as a future mathematician are other mathematicians, so you want your letters of recommendation written by mathematicians if at all possible. This means you should be meeting with math professors and discussing math with them, which will be much easier to do if you are focusing your undergraduate studies on math.
I didn't become a math major until my third year of undergrad, although I did take a few math courses beyond calculus before then. However, the math professors that I spent time interacting with as a math major made all the difference in helping me get into graduate school. They gave me advice, worked with me on reading projects, and encouraged me to apply to schools that were a good fit for my interests and abilities.
I wouldn't worry too much about your university not having a good math program -- a top-ranked biology or engineering degree isn't going to be as helpful as expert advice and support from mathematicians, even if they work in a department that doesn't "rank highly." Even if you can't change your official course of study, I would encourage you to take more math classes before setting yourself on graduate school in math. You might find out that you don't like math enough to spend 5 years on it, or you may find out that you like applied math more than pure math.


What tone to use in the personal statement?

I guess that the guide encourages applicants to not hide behind a neutral tone. You should "be yourself" and write in the way you normally talk to people in the workplace.

You may consider reading your personal statement (or asking someone to read it), and then try to assess the tone and imagine how you could describe a person who wrote it. Can you say something about the author which is not already explicitly mentioned in the text? If you can not see a specific tone and can not guess anything beyond what is already written, then the personal statement is probably too neutral.


Perhaps I may be missing something, but in general, I think something such as "In this work" or "This text" would suffice. The thesis itself will be a form of publication, and you are writing it from that perspective, so it is perfectly acceptable to make reference to specific areas within the thesis, especially since you are likely to have results or new content that may not be found in other publications of yours.

More specifically, what exactly about your thesis are you trying to reference? Is it a result that can be found on a specific page, in a chapter or a particular figure? If so, then I would make specific reference to where exactly the reader can find the information. Maybe when describing results collectively, you could say "the results presented in this chapter" so that it's more clear to what you are trying to refer.

Are you citing some exposited logic or text that was previously introduced or will be further explained later on? Then the common ways of referring to this would be "see above/below", "in the previous/next section", "in the section entitled X", or the Latin equivalents vid supra (v.s.) and vid infra (v.i.).


Extension of international internship in France

You need to talk to your advisor and, perhaps the supervisor, also any department that deals with internships.

Believing a blog, written by someone who is not in actual charge of the internships for your institution, is not likely to have the correct information.

Also, if you have had 3 years of a course then that may well mean 3 * 6 months of internships may be possible... But that is detail to discuss with those who know for your position.


“System”, “software”, “application” or “tool” – which to use in my paper?

Software, system, framework, application, and tool, along with several other words are often used to describe computer programs that accomplish a task. Application tends to be used when it is a standalone program that accomplishes the task, whereas library is more used when the code in question is intended to be used directly by other programs through an API of some sort. Frameworks often incorporate multiple libraries and/or applications to accomplish a broader set of goals. Tools tend to be smaller programs that are sharply focused on particular tasks, though through scope creep they often lose this focus over time. System frequently implies a much larger whole and is often used to speak of hardware/software systems (like a whole computer) as well as software alone.

These words have specific meaning in some contexts, but are often used somewhat interchangeably as well. It would be best to have a native English speaker in your field look over a few sentences that use your preferred words to make sure that they are consistent with your field's use of the terms. You may also compare to similar works, especially those you reference and those in journals or conferences where you'd like to publish, to get a feel for what the norms are.


Responding to an unambiguously wrong referee comment

One is allowed to, and in fact often should, respectfully disagree with parts of a review. However, stay a mile clear from the phrasing "this is wrong". Note that even if the reviewer made an objectively wrong comment, you need to respond with the assumption in mind that this happened due to an honest misunderstanding on his part, and not in bad faith.

Hence, a better phrasing may be:

  We disagree with Reviewer 2 on this comment. While we show that our framework is able to do A and B, it is by design not able to do C. We understand that this was not clear enough to the reviewer, and have rephrased our motivation to make this point more clear.

Note how this phrasing does not "give in" to the reviewer, but acknowledges that part of the blame about such misunderstanding lies with the authors. Also note that you do some text changes based on this review, which I have found to generally be a good idea. I have the impression just saying "the reviewer misunderstood; we are not changing the manuscript" leaves a bad taste in the mouth of many editors.

The reviewer may in theory still insist that without C, your framework is without value, but that really cannot be helped if your system just does not do C.


Recommendation letters: The more the better?

Does the strength of an application get enhanced by containing more recommendation letters?

Not necessarily. Having too many recommendation letters can overwhelm the person reviewing your application and it may leave a bad impression of you in a couple of ways. One example is you do not know if the the reviewer will go through all of the letters that you provided. This may lead to the reviewer not being able to have a clear picture of who you are, what is your work ethic and how driven you are (these are just some general examples of what a reviewer could be looking for). Generally, most applications ask for 2-3 letters of recommendation.

What if the additional letters are coming from less-related (to the field that one is applying for) staff, but impressive enough?

If it doesn't specify what kind of letter you need to submit, the letters of recommendation that you think will help the application the most is the ones you should send. If you are still unsure, you can call them and ask how many letters of recommendation people usually send them.


Is an undergraduate physics degree the same everywhere in terms of coursework?

There are not only differences between institutions, but also within institutions. For example, at MIT "The Physics Department offers two different programs leading to a Bachelor of Science in Physics, giving students the opportunity to tailor their study of physics to their individual career goals. The focused option is an ideal preparation for those students who plan to go on to graduate school in physics or a related field, while the flexible option provides a strong background in physics for those whose career paths may not include graduate work in the discipline." while at UPenn there are 6 tracks.


This is clearly a judgement call and I can only offer opinion. But if you withdraw from the conference at which it was accepted you won't be able to resubmit there if you are rejected by the other. This narrows your future options for this paper.

I'd therefore suggest that you stay with what you have (a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush).

But this is just one paper. Write more papers and expand your knowledge about good places to submit them. One paper is just one paper. It isn't your entire career.


Ugly master's thesis but one great proof

What would be a suitable way to get other mathematicians to know the proof?

Publish it!  Write the proof by itself in a short, self-contained paper, and submit it to a journal.

There are lots of papers in the literature giving "A new proof of ...".  You may not be able to publish it in a very top journal, but if it's really new and significantly simpler than existing proofs, some reasonable journal should accept it.

Additionally, you can post it on https://arxiv.org, so that it's permanently available to the community, whether or not it eventually gets published.


How much research experience to include on a CV?

What you will soon realise is that there is no one CV to rule them all. More precisely, you will find that you need to tailor your CV for each job application etc, by (de)emphasising various parts of it. Getting a summer internship at McDonalds? Emphasise the hamburger flipping. Applying for a grant, emphasise the research.

Thus how much research experience you include in your CV depends what you are planning to use your CV for. If it were to get a PhD position, I would say "Yes".

Publications stay. They always count.

Gradually, the research projects you did as an undergraduate will become uninteresting for your CV, for example, as you start filling your CV with new and exciting activities.  This always happens. When you are starting your research career, you will be asked to review papers. You can list what journal/conference you reviewed for on your CV. Later you will be on conference PCs or journal editorial boards. Then all of the reviewing experience will become irrelevant for your CV.


IEEE rejects my paper saying that it is plagiarised

To answer your question, yes you can and should write back to the editor and request that they provide the information related to this accusation of plagiarism. Such accusations are quite serious and they should not make them without being willing to provide support for their claims. It would be entirely unreasonable for them to refuse to produce evidence.

In the event that they will not detail why they are making claims of plagiarism, and you are absolutely sure you have not inadvertently plagiarised,  I would suggest you bring the matter to whatever office or work group in your University deals with aspects of academic integrity. They may be able to put more pressure on the journal to produce evidence.


Should I provide experimental results for a paper presenting an algorithm?

If your intention is to publish a paper in good journals and conferences then you have to show that your algorithm works in more than one case, just one page is not enough, except if that is the specific intention, lets say, collect data from Google Finance pages about each company.

First prove correctness, which could be done formally, running a good number of different cases or just obtaining results that are similar to other established algorithm.

Also you have to prove the value of the algorithm, which could be done demonstrating his complexity using the big O notation; or benchmarking against other algorithms that solve the same problem. Eventually you will discover that the algorithm is better in some metrics (false positives/negatives, response time, memory usage, power, network traffic, ...) and not so good in others.

I suggest that you verify how other algorithms are presented in the same area, specially in the journals or conferences that are good fit for it, and try to use the same methods and data sets. That will make easier for readers to evaluate how good is the algorithm when compared with others that solve the same problem.


I am assuming you are a US citizen.

The visa waiver scheme would cover a less than 6 month visit to the universities before the final agreement. Once you are ready to come over semi-permanently, you will need a Business Visitor Visa which can last up to a year for academic visitors. The application guidance says

  Apply in the UK: You can only extend your visa if you’re already in the UK.

Switching for the visa waiver scheme to the Business Visitor Visa would not be considered an extension of the Business Visitor Visa, so you will need to apply from outside the UK.

It is worth noting that UKVI could get a bit touchy about you visiting the UK prior to applying for the visa. For example, if you spent 6 months in the UK on the visa waiver scheme, and then immediately applied for a year long Business Visitor Visa after returning to the US, they might reject your application. A week long visit and only applying for a 51 week Business Visitor Visa would probably appease them.


Expressing concerns about an individual starting in a faculty position

Complaining about your roommate to the roommate's employer is unprofessional behavior.  Do not do it.
If you are experiencing domestic abuse, talk to the police or a local victim's advocacy organization.


You are getting an offer from an elite institution in the middle of a pandemic. The job market right now is absolutely awful. I can appreciate that you want only the absolute best for your future, but the way you sketch this situation hardly sounds like a dilemma at all.
Additionally, as soon as you manage to publish a paper or two on the project on which you are hired, it may very well happen that your supervisor rewards your performance by letting you seek out further research directions yourself. Then, you can always steer your trajectory more towards the intersection of AI and cosmology.


Stamp of electrical department on letter head of recommendation letter

Australian universities do not use or expect stamps.  However, they may be familiar with the practices of universities in Asia and notice inconsistencies.  I suggest this is unimportant.


Increasingly, individual universities are requiring students to submit digital versions of theses (particularly at masters level and above). However, as far as I know this is generally organised by each university individually, often under the auspices of the university library. I am not aware of any large centralised databases, though these might exist for particular subjects. A Google search for "student thesis database" or "student thesis < institution>" seems your best bet.

Do bear in mind that different institutions may have different requirements, particularly in the amount of time students are expected to spend on their thesis project: quality may not be directly comparable!


Talking to supervisor about PhD projects

These 13 minutes of which you speak, was that a meeting that you planned in advance? Or did you happen to meet him at a random moment? If it was a planned meeting, you should insist on another planned meeting of at least an hour to discuss this point and only this point. If it was a random moment, your supervisor might already be late for another urgent appointment.


Note: answered before recent edits. I'll clean it up after it settles down a bit. (minor edits made for temporary readability)
In all of these questions, don't try to settle all issues at the outset. Just start a dialog. In the first case, admit that you will need his help on "methods", but that you hope he is interested in moving forward with you on the topic.
In the (now removed) case of a student suggest that you are aware that there are issues about his ability to commit, but let him decide whether to spend the time and effort.
And in the second case of a remote professor, ask for his willingness to give you feedback and perhaps collaborate on a paper.
But the key is to open the conversation, not to write a contract. While the boundaries need to be made clear fairly early in any collaborative effort, it needn't be the initial concern. And, most important, don't make assumptions about what is possible before you ask.


As the name suggests, individual research grants correspond to funding which can be awarded to an individual researcher (often a junior researcher). It usually covers their own salary, possibly also equipment and some travel/conferences budget.

Generally one has to apply by proposing a specific research project in a host institution, and the grant is awarded depending on the quality of the project.


Asking reference letter earlier or later if I need to go mandatory service for my country

I would suggest explaining your situation to the professor and asking him to write the letter now.

Later on, if you do manage to do some extra work you can ask him to revise the reference letter. The revisions will be quick and easy, but writing a reference letter from scratch after two years might be difficult.

The professor should not be disappointed if he writes the letter but you decide not to continue in academia. A good reference letter will also be very useful when applying for other jobs.


How to find the list of universities running a specific program?

The UK graduate schools are officially ranked through Research Assessment Exercise (being currently phased out to be replaced by Research Excellence Framework), so you can get a full list of programs that are of any worth here.

In the US, rankings are produced from time to time by the National Research Council. The most recent set is from 2009. The methodology and reporting format are beyond weird, but at least the list of programs is useful (albeit difficult to navigate in the Excel file format; I found my area, statistics, under "Physical sciences", for instance, which is a very distant shot). The 1995 rankings were done with involvement of real statisticians, so I trust them better.


How do I negotiate an offer for Ph.D. funding?

As long as you are polite and don't come with a list of unreasonable demands, you don't have to worry about seeming ungrateful.

  How should I broach the subject of receiving more funding without coming across as ungrateful

Try this:

"When we spoke last weekend, I got the impression that the level of funding could be negotiable. Is that still the case? I appreciate the 50% TA position very much, but I'm concerned that it won't cover my living costs."

  Is there any way to know what kinds of additional aid the university might have available

Ask them:

"Are there any other kinds of aid (besides the TA position) that I could be considered for?"


What is the difference between "interpreting" and "reporting" research in a scientific publication?

Any skeleton/guideline to follow?

Actually the links you provided are excellent and give a good basis to start with. There's not much to add to it. Reporting styles of results sometimes differ from field to field so I think it's best to examine the style used by some of the papers that you cite that are similar to yours.

  How do you make the difference between interpreting and reporting?

This is usually the hardest part. A good way to start is to simple make a bullet point list of observations only. For example:

This is a green apple.
Each apple weighs 50 g.
Each box of apples weighs 2 kg.
There are 20 boxes.

This is going to be a boring, unexciting list. But this is exactly how it is supposed to be. Once you got the list, you can create a nice paragraph from it. Notice how tempting it is to just make the short calculation noting how many apples there are, but no! This is an interpretation and not merely an observation.

There are, however, some "obvious" one-word interpretation that sometimes can go to the results section. For example, you may point out that the apple is a Granny Smith cultivar. Or you may note that a 2 kg box is a standard size box. These immediate interpretations should be obvious to the reader, so he will not have to ask "why" when reading. The reason for putting these in the "Results" section instead of the "Discussion" section is that they may distract from the main point you are trying to convey in the full interpretation of the data.


Are journals biased towards more famous authors?

Correct me if I am wrong, but your previous experiences with publishing are only the one paper you published before, together with your former advisor? Then, you might lack the experience necessary to know about the typical mistakes that lead to a (desk) rejection. Your results may be very good, but this alone does not make a good paper. Being proficient in scientific writing takes time and requires practice. Your former advisor is a few steps ahead and you might not even have noticed some small corrections from her/his side that made publishing of the previous paper much more likely. Famous researchers usually are particularly good when it comes to presenting/writing about their results. They make it easy for the reviewers to like their work. Beginners often make it easy for the reviewers not to like their work. This does not result from bias, but from scientific writing skills. And the editor also needs convincing, so pay attention to your cover letter.
If you decide to go on alone, you might have to learn the lessons the hard way by facing a few rejections. An experienced person might be able to help.
And please stop making the mistake of calling the replies you get after peer review "stupid". This is also a typical beginner's mistake. Sleep over the replies until you can look at them in a rational (not emotional) mood. In my experience, virtually all replies can be used to improve your work.