Difference between Statistics and Machine Learning?

Machine learning is a quickly developing branch of technology, based on some basic statistics but also including elements of computer science, high performance computing, etc.

Unfortunately, ML/AI is currently a buzzword and many departments want to have a course on it assuming it will attract students and bring money. This means that when it comes to taught courses, there is no consensus yet what should definitely be included and how the course can be structured. There are examples of ML courses drawing significantly from the classical foundations of Statistics, courses more focused on use of software, more vocal courses with significant discussion of ethics / legal issues around artificial intelligence. Similarly, a PhD project in ML can be either highly theoretical (e.g. proving a convergence or stability of training), or highly practical (e.g. building 100s of NNs until one of them does better than others for some reason), or whatever else.

Statistics is a more established science, which has many applications. Depending on the area of applications, there may be some variations (e.g. Medical Stats may be slightly different from Statistical Physics), but the core methods are still the same, largely based on probability theory, calculus and linear algebra. I would not expect a PhD thesis in Stats to avoid maths completely  (something which I can not say about ML).


Academic profile seems to have two meanings. An academic profile in the overall field and discipline is the "status" or respectability of the academic in the universe of academics in the area as implied in this other question. However, that definition of academic profile is not relevant in your current application.

Your masters application refers to your academic interest as explained by your past achievements and awards, conference attendance etc. It is more of a narrative and evolution of your work and study history. Your academic profile allows you to include all the evidence to support your interests and passions. Even school related and work related awards and experience that is relevant only adds to the development of your interest. I have seen how people incorporate their activism and volunteering roles into their profile with good effect for example.


I am not a lawyer.  This is not legal advice.  It is how I would look at this agreement, and reflects how I might evaluate the situation.  I have only partial information, and context always matters.  I read many license agreements, NDAs, and other matters that affect IP.

Section 7 doesn't seem to cause a problem.  If you disclose anything to them related to their stuff, they can use it for anything, with anyone, forever.  But, you have no obligation to disclose anything.  If you don't tell them, they can't use it, and you can't sue them for misusing it.

Section 8 could be more of a problem.  The question if how is "relevant" determined, and it seems vague.  Unlike section 7 where there is a full enumeration of all the cases, section 8 is unclear.

In any case, both you and your institution's legal department should be comfortable, and you should have guidelines from your legal department showing how they would interpret the agreement, and what they expect from you as you operate subject to them.

If this is a large enough deal, your institution should support you and may negotiate alternative terms with the vendor.  If the deal is too small for the legal team to engage, then you may want talk with the vendor about changing, or even eliminating, most of the agreement.  Some parts are likely to be non-negotiable (such as limits on their liability, and probably section 7).  Some parts (like section 8) they could be willing to strike.

Section 7 protects their critical interests.  It prevents a customer from suing them for IP infringement, be it intentional, accidental, coincidental, or in any other way.  Section 8 helps them improve their offering.

Whatever the final agreement, if there is any agreement at all it will probably require review from your institution.

Again, I am not a lawyer.  I have not trained as a lawyer.  This is not legal advice.


When should ideas be shared on stackexchange?

There are several points that you should consider in this respect:

Most of the time our novel ideas are not as great as we think and there might be simple answers or counterexamples for what we have in mind. So it is better to think about a question in mathematics for a while and study some of the related literature, before sharing it with others. This has happened to me a lot, just see some of my questions in mathoverflow!
If you have an idea but you do not know how to tackle it, it is a sign that your idea is so raw and you don't own it yet. I experienced several times that a great idea is the one that comes with a clue for solution and extension. Otherwise, it is at most a spark in a well functioning brain of a hard working mathematician. I am being kind to mathematicians:-))
If your idea looks so great that can solve some big problems or answer some famous conjecture and you know how to pursue it, why do you want to share it? Just do it! And I believe such an idea deserves several years of works.
I suggest you ask related questions around your idea without giving a whole picture and what is your ultimate purpose. In this way not only you did not reveal it with every body, but you can also gather lots of valuable insights and knowledge to think about your main idea.
Read related questions and answers on mathoverflow or mathstackexchange. A great deal of wisdom are contained in these questions and answers and sometimes you get a clue about your idea.
Most mathematicians have bigger fish to fry. So, I do not worry to share some of my ideas with them, However, I do not think mathoverflow or mathstackexchange are good places for such interactions. Talking with mathematicians in conferences and/or even sending them emails look better procedures.


How much modification in a manuscript is recommended after a major revision?

As corey979 mentioned in the comments, major may really not be major at all, and it depends on the journal. Either way, when I received review with major revisions I did not entirely rewrite the article, but addressed the concerns that the referees made. A poor rule of thumb I originally was told was to make one change per comment and resubmit.

The take away is that you should now evaluate your work having received feedback. If the edits are indeed minor (spelling, word order, grammatical) fix those and move on. If the major reviews are needed because of missing information that you have or can easily obtain you can add it as supplemental in order to preserve the original article.

If the general problem isn't framed well then maybe rewrite just a paragraph or two of the Introduction and the Conclusions. Often you can make the big picture more transparent with just a few changes to these sections.

It is acceptable to change figure order and sections, but I would caution from departing too far from the original. If it was sent back for revisions then revise, if it was rejected then you may consider rewriting. Remember that you are telling a story, and the ideas need to flow as such.


Is there a manual of how to write an Introduction?

This example is from a Master's thesis, so the total number of pages is expected to be larger than, say, in a paper. Whether or not the length is appropriate depends on the quality of the text but, in general, I'd say it is fairly reasonable to have a 10-page-long thesis introduction (although each field has its own guidelines).


What should I do about my friend who wants me to help her cheat?

Breaking down this wall of text....

  Rome and I started at our new school last year as juniors. We are both now seniors. At this school, we have a chance to graduate high school with our AA degrees. In fact, we are graduating with both our high school diplomas and our AA degrees in less than 3 months. I made the regrettable decision of skipping a few biology classes during my second semester at the college/high school. Rome kindly gave me the notes to which I was very thankful and ended up passing the class with a little bit of extra studying. Due to her helping me, I ended up helping her understand a few assignments for our senior CAPSTONE class (a graduation requirement). This class is a little difficult, so I myself even asked for a few ideas from friends for writing up my final presentation.

So far so good, this is completely normal and acceptable behavior among classmates.

  However, Rome asked for me to send her my ENTIRE presentation slideshow so she can basically write hers up in the same way. Not exactly cheating since she's only copying my format and her topic is different than mine, but still frustrating that she didn't come up with some originality of her own.

Still mostly okay; if you are working on separate topics, hard to see how this could be considered cheating.

  This semester me and her both have Psychology with the same teacher, just on different days. So her tests and assignments are always due the day after mine. She never can remember when the assignments are due, always asking me when mine is due. This is also incredibly frustrating as I have the care to memorize when my assignments are due.

This seems like a very minor, irrelevant point. Either help her or tell her to go away, calling it "incredibly frustrating" seems unnecessarily dramatic. But everything up to this point is really irrelevant.

  Recently she has been asking me for my homework assignments and take home tests for this class. She also has been asking me what will be on the in-class test. I made the unfortunate mistake of helping her the once by sending her the answers for 1 homework assignment and half of 1 of a take-home test.

Here's the problem! She asked you to cheat and you said okay. That makes both of you cheaters. Period.

  I do not plan on sending her any more answers or helping again

Good.

  but she still sends emails asking for my calculator, for assignment dates, test answers, etc. I don't know what to do about her, and I don't want to risk her telling the professor that I have helped her cheat if I do not continue to help her.

Yes, this is the risk you take when you do illegal, unethical things.

The part about the calculator and assignment date is fine; that's just an annoyance that you'll have to address, try asking on interpersonal.SE if necessary
But you need to be sure that you never give her test answers or participate in any other form of cheating ever again.

If she is a close friend, you should be able to just explain that you regret cheating and won't do it again and she should understand. If not, my advice is to do two things.

First, gather your evidence so that you can prove that she is also guilty, and potentially even guiltier than you. Make sure you have enough evidence that she's can't pretend she is innocent and you are guilty.
Second, address the situation head on. You have two options here:

Own up to it. Tell the professor everything, show him your evidence, and take your punishment. Hopefully they will only lower your grade rather than failing or expelling you.
Confront your friend. Tell her (in writing) that you regret having helped her cheat, that you won't do it again, and that you're prepared to take the evidence to the professor and get both of you in trouble if she won't let this go. Don't get drawn into a big fight, just give one-sentence responses (something like: "I understand your position, but I can't keep helping you cheat; we either need to stop this once-and-for-all or else turn ourselves in.")

Some would say the first way is the only way to behave ethically, but the second is likely sufficient if you never do it again. Whatever you do, don't continue cheating or letting her blackmail you. Good luck.


Are there any standard regulations for oral exams for universities in Bologna process?

I don't believe there are any Bologna-wide regulations regarding the conduct of oral exams.

In general, the Bologna process is designed to set up the means of making education "portable," not strictly uniform. Individual countries and schools are given wide latitude for how they internally implement the processes: for instance, just look at the wide of grading systems used throughout the EU.

As a counterexample to your question, I worked as a faculty member in Germany, and the rules varied between faculties, let alone universities. For instance, one or two professors could conduct the oral exam, notes were taken by a recorder, and the exam was rarely, if ever, recorded. The only situation where things got more complicated is if a person could fail out of the program by failing the oral exam, in which case having two professors, one of whom did not teach the subject, was required.


Is it ethical for PhD supervisor to forbid publication in a given topic

Your former supervisor's behaviour sounds entirely unethical. I'm sorry to hear that he is unnecessarily causing you distress. So, to answer the title question: No, it is not ethical to forbid anyone from publishing in a given topic.

The justification given -- that it is better to collaborate than compete -- is entirely beside the point. Yes, it is good to collaborate. However, once the work is complete, it should be published and the authors should be those who contributed.

It is understandable that your former supervisor would have liked to be informed. Everyone wants to be kept in the loop. But he has no automatic "right" to be informed of your activities after you graduate. (I'm assuming none of this work happened while you were his student.) Furthermore, there is no justification for blocking publication because it would interfere with his work.

Moving on to your real question: He has a lot of power over you both because he is senior and because he was your supervisor. Thus you should proceed with caution. Perhaps you can reason with him and seek a compromise. If that doesn't work, you can escalate -- appeal to the other editors of the journal, who presumably would not agree with this behaviour.

In the long term, you should consider slowly moving your research away from his to avoid repeating this situation. And you should work with other people. The situation would look a bit different if you had senior coauthors to fight back on your behalf.


AAUP standards for timing of recruiting/resigning a faculty position: Do they really mean anything?

I have seen faculty leave or take positions at all kinds of times during, before, or after the semester or even right after (or during!) sabbaticals.  The AAUP guidelines are nice, but, ultimately, everything depends on the schools involved.

If you are concerned about ethics, I would recommend being upfront with both departments (the one you are leaving and the one where you will be hired) and coming up with something that leaves both of them satisfied.


You can only put a book or paper in the bibliography if you have cited it in the text, either via a quote or by citing its argument[s], theory/ies, etc.
If it's just generally deepened your understanding and you do not quote it or cite its argument[s] it cannot be included in the bibliography. That said, in such a case it can be very easy to work in a citation from it anyway, even if it's just a few words.


how do supervisors determine that a phd student is not doing great?

As a postdoc, I have supervised only Master's students. To determine how they are doing, I typically pay attention to three different aspects:

Ability to learn. Can students learn new skills (experimental or computational techniques)? The more advanced a student is, the more independence I'd expect here.
Understanding of subject matter. Does the student understand how their research fits in the broader research field, and why they are using the techniques they are using? Can the student come up with better ways of answering their research question/come up with a better question to answer/find the good question to ask?
Ability to prioritise. How easily does the student identify and work on the most important sub-question to answer? As a project comes close to being finished, can the student keep up a strong pace to deliver final results as quickly as possible?

I don't have a rule to determine when someone isn't doing good enough - I have never had to make that decision. Probably that decision would come when I find that, despite feedback, someone isn't improving on these aspects as I think they should.


You should list reviewers (if any) that you think may be unfairly biased towards your science in some specific way. this includes persons with whom there may be a personal conflict that would shadow an objective review or people who have shown an unmitigated dislike for your science or the like. It is not intended to be used to list persons just because they may not agree with your science. In the specific case you list, I can see that such a reviewer may be unwanted but I do not think the reasons are strong enough to warrant signalling the reviewer as unwanted. The chances of the reviewer being asked may be small if there are many others that can be considered useful. Finally, if you were still to receive a review that is as unclear as the one you describe, you should ask the editor to clarify what you should read out from the review. After all, the editor must have read the review and used it to evaluate the degree of revisions necessary of your manuscript. So in short, you should save the nasty for listing as unwanted or non-preferred (whatever the journal terminology may be) reviewer.


How does calibrating syllabus based on the requirements of the industry happen?

Specifically, for teaching computer science, information systems and software engineering you can refer to model curricula provided, e.g., by the ACM. An advantage of such curricula is that they result from a joint effort of the universities and companies. For instance, the Graduate curriculum for Sofware Engineering lists contributors from General Motors, IBM, Lockheed Martin, Ford, Nokia, Avaya and the Department of Defense: http://www.gswe2009.org/fileadmin/files/GSwE2009_Curriculum_Docs/GSwE2009_version_1.0.pdf

Of course, the ACM curricula are but a proposal and every univerity has to try and find the right balance between industrial and academic needs. However, comparing your curriculum with the ACM guidelines can reveal interesting patterns.


Editor said I may apply reviewer's suggestions and resubmit "if I wish", what are the consequences if I don't?

First, a reviewer can only make recommendations for revisions. The editor should make clear what changes should be made but it is still up to you if you see fit to do so. Of course, if an editor says you should make certain revisions and you do not, particularly without indicating any good reasons for not doing so, the risk is that rejection decisions may follow. From this point, you may see that providing good arguments why such revisions cannot be made are necessary.

The fact that revisions take time is not by itself a good argument since it may mean your manuscript is currently sub-par but that is up to you to convince the editor when you submit your revisions. The revision process is in this case a sort of give and take process where any revision not made has to be clearly argued from a scientific point (not from a point of time constraints or other irrelevant aspect).

The comment you quote seems a bit lazy on the part of the editor because I think there should be additional qualifying statements indicating if any comments are more important than others and set the review(s) in perspective. How you should decide to respond is therefore hard to judge since the editor has, at least seemingly, not provided any guidance on what needs to be done. This, unfortunately, opens for decisions in any direction. Your experience with your field, should, however, provide some guidance for what should be expected of a study such as yours and also checking the standards of the journal should add some pieces to decipher what must be done. In the end, you will need to provide feedback on the reviewers comments that allows the editor to understand the scientific reasons and ramifications of your revisions (or lack thereof).


Do I need to keep my high school transcripts?

Grad school applications typically only want your undergraduate transcript since that is your highest level of education (and most recent). This is the system in Canada, and I can't think of a reason it would be different in the US.


Can it be viewed as a negative for PhD applications in the US if I have children?

I doubt that you will find any general problem in the US, though it is possible that some individual professors might take issue. Some labs, for example, expect long continuous hours at the bench.

I don't know of laws in the US governing this, but there may be some.

There are tons of grad students with children. I had two kids in the final years of my doctoral study. But, you don't say if you are a single parent. In such a case, I don't think you would find discrimination, but I do think you would find it hard. But then pretty much anything and everything is hard for single parents.

In many subjects, of course, you can actually work while tending a child. Mathematics, for example, or Literature. Even CS folk can do quite a lot at home on a laptop.

And note that there is nothing special about academia with respect to "giving your all". Many employers expect exactly that.

My suggestion is that you don't mention it in applications, but because there is no need.

And, of course, professors may have kids and are still able to work effectively.


Is it ok to include an epilogue dedicated to colleagues who passed away in the end of the manuscript?

This sort of thing is really up to the editor, not the reviewers. Reviewers are to assess your paper on scientific/academic grounds. The proper position or appropriateness of an epilogue is not really their purview, it's an issue of journal style (though I also don't find it wrong that they commented on it; effectively, they are helping the editor by 'flagging' this for their attention, kind of like is done on StackExchange). To me, the acknowledgment section seems appropriate if it goes anywhere, but I'm not your editor.

If you will be writing a response to the reviewers, thank them for their opinion and inform them you will be consulting with the editor, and do so. The editor could prefer you remove it altogether, place it in the acknowledgment, or suggest you submit a separate entry in some other format, for example to appear as a comment on your paper in the same issue.


Can I avoid having bad grades and a dismissal show on my record if I transfer colleges?

Graduate schools generally ask for all of your undergraduate transcripts, not just transcripts from schools you got a degree from.
Transferring is a decision you'll have to make on your own, but it is probably not a mechanism to clear your record of Ws if that's your intent.
In the meantime, probably best to focus most of your attention on your mental health, followed by graduating itself, regardless of future plans past then.


Transparency about candidates selection for a post-doc position

Rules, regulations and customs vary a lot between different countries and institutions. Generally, candidates are informed that Universities are not able to provide feedback for candidates who were not shortlisted for the role. Candidates who were shortlisted and interviewed can have some feedback, but the quality differs widely. In my experience, the most detailed feedback I received from a nordic University, containing about three sentences from the Panel about each candidate. The least useful feedback I received so far consisted of one sentence:

Unfortunately, you were not successful, because we found a more suitable candidate.

In about 1/3 of cases I received no feedback at all even when I asked for it post-interview.
I have to say that currently the post-interview feedback tends to be rather useless, and in most cases it is a mockery of the transparent approach. I suspect that HRs are just too cautious that a frustrated candidate might submit a legal complaint, and are trying to "protect the University" by not saying anything specific or useful.
My experience mostly covers UK/EU. As I said the situation in the US might be different.


When is it necessary to consult a university lawyer?

Well, first of all it's good to check the license yourself. Here you will find that it says that

  (i) You shall be authorized to use the iBooks Store Products only for personal, noncommercial use.

So, in this case it wouldn't even have been necessary to contact a university lawyer for the simple reason that the license is incredibly clear. In cases where it isn't you should at all times contact a university lawyer or contact the company in question itself, because in general IT and library personnel are not trained in legal matters (I just dropped by the library to ask). Now a valid argument could be made that it's the libraries responsibility to ask the university lawyer instead of you, but that's up to the mechanisms within your institution, the core issue remaining that one should be consulted somewhere down the line.

As to the question of negligence, I think (as a non-lawyer) you might be attributed negligence for not reading the license yourself, but not for not consulting a lawyer and just asking library/IT personnel. Still, it all depends on who was technically responsible for what and how the question towards the library people was phrased.

Additionally for future reference in case people find this through Google, the license also says

  You acknowledge that you are purchasing the content made available through the iBooks Store Service (the “iBooks Store Products”) from the third-party provider of that iBooks Store Product (the “Publisher”); Apple is acting as agent for the Publisher in providing each such iBooks Store Product to you; Apple is not a party to the transaction between you and the Publisher with respect to that iBooks Store Product; and the Publisher of each iBooks Store Product reserves the right to enforce the terms of use relating to that iBooks Store Product. The Publisher of each iBooks Store Product is solely responsible for that iBooks Store Product, the content therein, any warranties to the extent that such warranties have not been disclaimed, and any claims that you or any other party may have relating to that iBooks Store Product or your use of that iBooks Store Product.

So not only would you need permission from Apple, but also from the third party selling every single individual book.


Look for a second advisor while on the first, any advice?

I don't see anything dangerous or necessarily covert about looking for another advisor, and I'm puzzled by things like using a new e-mail account you can deny was yours.  (Are you planning to make contact under a fake name?  Pretend someone was impersonating you if your current advisor finds out?)

You don't need to be nearly so worried.  It's completely reasonable to switch advisors, and I know plenty of people who have done it without any trouble at all.  You don't owe your current advisor anything, and there are no good grounds for anyone to object.

Of course you could cause offense if you are tactless.  Don't tell your advisor "I'm switching because I'd prefer a competent advisor."  But there are plenty of reasonable excuses.  For example, you could say your interests are developing in ways that are a better fit for an advisor with a somewhat different specialization.

Fair or not, your advisor is probably not happy to be working with you either and may actually be relieved when you switch.  In comments on other questions you have expressed a fear that your advisor will badmouth you to other potential advisors.  That's possible, but you could also run into the opposite phenomenon: sometimes an advisor who is frustrated with a student will try to convince other faculty to take on the role of advisor, since then the student will be someone else's problem.  (The less cynical version is that the student may get along better with an advisor with a different personality.)

I'd recommend keeping two things in mind:

You seem very interested in criticizing your advisor.  Now is not a good time for that, whether it's addressed to your advisor or to a potential replacement.
You seem worried that you are doing something underhanded.  If you act nervous and suspicious, people may suspect you are up to no good.  Looking for a new advisor is not doing anything wrong, and you may get a better reaction if you treat it straightforwardly and calmly.


How to find articles containing specific keywords such as "cosmology" in several scientific databases?

ScienceDirect, Google Scholar, and other publisher or database services allow you to save a search and have any new items matching that be emailed to you (though it may not always be within a day - I vaguely recall that I usually knew about PLOS or ScienceDirect papers before I got the email - often via the Google Scholar alert! Still fairly timely, though.)

arXiv allows you to get a daily email with all new papers in a specific subject category. I don't believe it supports keyword searching for alerts - however, one of those categories is cosmology, so it may work fine for you.


Poster session includes a "poster" + "article"?

It'd the best to ask conference organizers for the clarification. Organizers of conferences are usually very friendly and quite responsive, so there's no harm in asking. And they will be able to give the precise and authoritative answers to your question.


Is attending an academic conference beneficial if you are not presenting any paper? Does it reflect well in your CV?

There is one additional benefit of attending conferences: networking.

Networking works best, of course, if you present a paper, because then you are formally advertising your work and yourself. But whether or not you are presenting, you should spend a lot of time talking to other people, getting to know them and getting them to know you. Spread your contact information and your research interests far and wide.

No, this won't show up in your CV. But knowing people and being known is usually far more important than whether a conference or a conference paper shows up in your CV.

Browse the many questions tagged conference or networking or both for ideas on how to go about this. (Hint: start preparing before the conference, by checking who will present and who you will want to meet. Maybe even contact a few people beforehand and set up meeting.)

Whether this is worth the registration fee (in whatever currency), plus travel time and costs will depend on you, your career plans and how well the conference and its attendees match your interests. I certainly have attended conferences without presenting for networking purposes.


is it possible to have different research topics for the MSc and PhD?

I don't see why there should be any problem with this whatsoever. It is quite common for students to move around topics, particularly if you are switching between programs or universities. If everybody agrees that you are a good candidate for the position in question, then it shouldn't really matter too much that the topic is not an exact match.


How to write a proper subject line for a follow up email

You can reply to the email again and change the email body to "Gentle Reminder " with a smiley and you can insert [Reminder] before your previous subject


Is it appropriate to bring to an editor's attention non-ethical publishing that can't be directly proven?

Contacting the editors may not have an effect at all. They simply cannot tell whether your accusations are facts or are just made up.

If you really want to do something about this, you should rather write to their institute or university and inform them about the suspected scientific misconduct. They often have specialists nowadays who will try to resolve such issues. Be prepared to be asked for proof.

Please note, that it might be completely valid to only have these two authors: authorship is not automatically gained by implementation work but rather by significant contribution to the paper. Please check which criteria must be fulfilled in your institute or field to become an author of a paper.


Publishing papers seem natural to many, while I find it really hard to think novel stuff to pursue till publication. How to cope up with this?

For better or worse, number of publications is increasingly seen as a metric for productivity and competence in some fields and countries. Depending on where you are (geographically and discipline-wise) it is more about producing and publishing papers than about having something novel and relevant to show, unfortunately.

As an early career scholar, it is important to find out if you are in one of those places where you should be producing papers instead of producing knowledge. If that is the case, try to learn what are the tricks used by people around you and emulate them. As much as I’d like to tell you to not do that, it may be the only way to stay in the game in the long run. How can you produce good and relevant research if you have been forced out of academia by the “publish or perish” system?

If it is the case that you are in one of those environments/disciplines where publication counts are inflated, you need to play along if you want to stay in the game. You need to strike a balance between doing the really interesting high quality stuff and doing the cookie-cutter low-hanging-fruit run-of-the-mill papers that increase your publication count.

Some people who publish a lot are truly doing cutting-edge research and publishing a lot due to that. Not everyone is that lucky or that good. If you look closely, many of those publishing a lot are compromising in terms of quality and impact. They may have their own tricks, perhaps involving dubious practices like fishing for significance, for example, or perhaps they are just really good at slicing the sausage really thin and turning one good study into a dozen papers. If your discipline in your country is one of those that only care for quantity (some places reward mediocrity in large numbers over geniality), you will only harm your career prospects by going against that system. Learn from how your peers do it, at least for the moment, so that you can get tenure. Once your place within academia is secured, then you can worry about the rest.

Lastly, once you have your research group and your collaboration networks, then you can further inflate your publication counts by co-authoring with your colleagues, PhD students, and post-docs, but that is something further down the road for you.


Blind grading for exams isn't very blind

If I understand this correctly, blind grading is a formality introduced by the University to make students' claims on the biased teachers unjustified. I would say - keep it that way and do not bother any more. You are not going to hate them and give them lower grades, are you? So, it does not really matter that you in fact can recognise the handwriting. If a student is really really bothered to keep their identity secret... well, they could try to write with the unusual hand.

Answering your question formally - to implement a real blind grading system you can swap the scripts between departments, or TAs.


Advice needed for completing my PhD thesis. Which timeline should I follow?

This would be easier to advise you if you told us what field, subfield you are working in.  Give us less scoop than needed to identify you, but the extra info will help with sneaking in tailored advice.  Although much will be general, there can be differences from STEM to "bull", from theory to experiment.  Maybe we sneak you a little domain specific advice along with the general.
My advice is to push for the earlier timeline.  You have the work done (or a decent chunk of it). And you have published before.  Worst comes to worst, you have to delay.  However...I wrote my thesis in 10 days (literally, and not how millenials use literally).  And I am far from a genius.  Yeah, there was a lot of cut and paste.  And my advisor was pissed off (dumped it on him along with the committee).  But I had lots of papers done and a job waiting.  I had really checked the box on doing what is needed for the union card and gotten him lots of ride along coauthors.  It worked out.

No reason to make a big tadoo about the thesis.  WORST comes to worse, you just bail later.  But I would put the pressure on yourself.  Go for April.  That is a ginormous amount of time.  In the corporate world (or God knows as a PI), you will be expected to produce huge amounts of content in much less time.  The "dreamy" part of grad school is over.  Buckle down and get that thesis out and sent to your committee and the "ruler lady".  Do a decent job but really at the end of the day...darned thing is pass fail.  What matters are papers.  If you are a bull major, than maybe it becomes a book, but there is time to worry about that later.
Use MORE chapters than the norm (e.g a chapter per paper plus methods, intro, conclusions).  You will still need to do a little work to format and perhaps abstract intro and methods to separate, joint chapters.  But it is much easier to write a thesis with more chapters and ones that mimic your papers (less synthesis).  [Don't let anyone else know...let it be sneaky advice that I share with you.]
If you are not already familiar with Tex, I recommend to avoid that and use whatever you published the paper in (probably Word).  Same applies to complicated templates.  Write how you did your journal articles.  [The techies here will scream, but anyone to the left of CS/Physics/Math will back me up...don't make your thesis the time you learn to type differently.]
Start a computer file with the name "Thesis rev 1".  Hit save.  Go in and add a title (doesn't matter if it changes later) and add the different sections, chapters (doesn't matter if they change).  Now you are ROLLING!  This is so much easier now with computers than in the day when you hired a typist.  Dump your papers (whole stock) into whichever chapter makes sense.  You are really started now.
Make a schedule and follow it.  Mine was painful (chapter a day).  But you can do a little better.  I guess give your advisor intermediate drafts but don't let the old goat discombobulate your flow.  Push, push.  Imagine you were doing this whole thing on your own.  The cynical truth is you are.

Good luck, peanut.


What does a brief quick referee report mean?

Some years ago, a few of the top mathematical journals began asking for "quick opinions" (or variants of this wording) on submitted papers, and this practice has spread a little since then.  A quick opinion is not a full referee report, but just an indication of whether the paper looks like it could plausibly meet the journal's high standards.  For example, are the main results truly exciting and important?  The idea is that separating the high-level evaluation from detailed examination of the proofs greatly speeds up the time until rejection for most papers.  This is good for authors, since nobody likes to wait nine months to hear that their paper wasn't remotely exciting enough for the Annals of Mathematics to accept, and it makes it easier to recruit good referees (offering a quick opinion is relatively easy, while full refereeing is harder but at least the paper is likely to make it worth your while).

Given that you describe the journal as "a rather prestigious mathematical journal", I'd bet that this is what's going on.  In that case, all you need to provide is a single-page report offering your conceptual evaluation of the paper (interest, importance, novelty) and whether it merits further, more detailed consideration.

However, I'd recommend asking the editor if there's any ambiguity, for example if they used the word "referee" to describe you (which to me would indicate a full report).  As an editor, I'm happy when referees ask for clarification, since it indicates that they are taking the process seriously.  And it's safer to ask than to spend time writing a report that may not be what the editor wanted.


The easiest and most reliable way I've found is to go to the online library of the Mendeley web page, and select the items you want to delete while in All Documents, and choose delete from the toolbar.

This will move the items to the Trash, which you can then choose to manually empty as well.

The trick is that if you select Sync on one of your devices now, sometimes it gets confused and adds everything back to the online library rather than clearing everything off. So I suggest deleting everything from each device manually - uninstalling, deleting the Mendeley folder, and then reinstalling in the worst case.

I went through this once while testing adding entire conference proceedings (1000+ documents with PDFs) , the deciding that was a bad idea and trying to remove them. They proved to be a bit sticky and kept coming back, but after I went through the above they were finally gone for good.


Can you do an AND on Google Scholar alerts?

Yes, all of the typical operators apply.

AND is implicit so your alert query could be "neural networks" "robot navigation"


I am changing your question title from "What to keep in a collaborative presentation?" to "What to keep in a presentation intended towards invited collaboration?"

Note that they already have followed you for a while or probably had an informal chat with you in a conference or meeting. So, they know what kinds of work you are doing. Just keep the following:

Broad topics of research works that your lab is doing
Possible sub-topics under each heading
Recent outcomes under each sub-topics.
Your Lab (research students, post-docs, peers ...)
Your Lab (environment available, required if that university is interested in sending their student for short-term research)

Total 15 slides is good enough. Depends on time they have given you. This would suffice, I guess.


Can GRE scores be sent to different universities at different times?

You can send additional score reports later, but you'll have to pay extra for those additional reports.


In health and medicine, there is a concerted effort to move away from possessive attributive eponyms. Thus, instead of Alzheimer's disease, it's now Alzheimer disease. The same is true of Parkinson disease, Gram stain, Cushing syndrome, etc.


How to write a personal statement for a "PhD orientation program" (in mathematics)?

I speculate as I do not know the faculty and their philosophy.
To my own experiences (PhD 20 years ago, and had some DBA students on my own before I went back to industry), I would suggest you differentiate between research potential and experience against "visiting and orientation". For an orientation program, ...

I would expect people to be open to all directions of learning, in our own as well as in different areas.
The ability to network,
ability for out-of-the box thinking,
ability for telling ideas but also listening.

Think about onion rings around the exploration of your topics.

How do you show those abilities? Examples from your life?


Is "liberal arts" a unique feature of American higher education?

It's probably not unique, but practically yes the concept of a "liberal arts" college or education is specific to North America. Some European countries have a form of "liberal arts" curriculum at the high school level (e.g. the German or Swiss Gymnasium) where a broad spectrum of "classic" subjects are taught with the purpose of allowing students to join any university education.

But (continental) European universities generally have individual programs for math, philosophy, history, science, etc.

It's actually quite puzzling for people who attended university in Europe to hear their US-educated colleagues say "Yes, I majored in physics and medieval music".


Are there enough academic jobs for geometric measure theorists?

I don't know about geometric measure theory in particular, and I'm not sure if anyone on this site does. But I can offer one answer to the more general question "Do math departments still hire people working in Specialty X"? In particular, here's one source of information that might help you answer your question:

Identify the names of the leading geometric measure theorists in the field, and/or the particular researchers you might be interested in working under.

Look them up on the Mathematics Genealogy Project, and find out the names of students they have graduated in the past 5-10 years.

For each student, type in "[Name of Student] Math" into Google; typically, if they are employed in some math department somewhere, either their website or their department's website will be the first hit.

If you know people in the field, you might also ask them directly for their impression of the job market, especially if they or their students were on the job market recently.
Good luck!


Accepting funding from a climate change denier

It is ultimately up to you. However, if you refuse to collaborate with people who have different political, religious, moral, etc. standards or opinions than you, you'll pretty soon find that you are missing too many exciting opportunities. The disagreement over a climate change is a relatively mild one as far as such things are concerned. You do not need to change your position and you can even try to convince your professor that you are right when you have some chat over a cup of coffee, but I wouldn't take the issue too far. After all, from his perspective, he offers a collaboration to a proponent of some crazy politicized hype and does it first. So I would meet an open hand with an open hand in this case, but, as I said, nobody but you can make the choice.


Graduating in 4 years vs graduating in 6 years

From the point of view of a graduate admissions committee*, the undergraduate degree is just one step in the sequence:

elementary school
middle school
high school
undergraduate
graduate
postdoc
tenure-track
associate prof.
prof.
named professorship
chair, dean, provost, chancellor, ...

*although they'll realize that many applicants will want to stop going down this list after the graduate degree.

It's okay to take extra time in any of these, but it does delay moving on to the next one.


Late graduation and prospects of getting into a good Master's degree

The time you take to complete a degree should matter little for the future, provided that it isn't explained by laziness or sloth. There are a lot of valid reasons for taking a long time. Medical issues, including depression, especially if now resolved, are one.

I think you will be judged in any application process just about the same as anyone else would, but perhaps with an asterisk to remind someone to ask you about it. People will want some assurance that the delays of the past won't affect your performance in the future, or will, at least, want to be prepared to deal with that if it comes.

But, I think that this is a case in which your materials other than grades become much more important. Your Statement of Purpose needs to show a strong commitment to your field and your career. But it is the letters of recommendation that become especially important in such a case. But they needn't try to explain the past, but, rather, to assure a reader of your readiness, commitment, and likelihood of success.

And it is worth talking to a personal/professional counselor about your mental state and to learn how to cope when things get tough.


I think it is a common practice as your affiliation you use the one that you had during performing the work. This is especially true when you do not have new affiliation. For example, a PhD student that publishes his/her PhD paper while he/she is already two years into a postdoc. Many people will still leave the PhD affiliation, probably also add new one. Otherwise, it will look weird that affiliation of your and your advisor is different.


Contact Professor before applying for Phd scholarship?

Actually, send three things. The cover letter is introductory and speaks about your desire and basic qualifications for working with that professor. It is a sort of a Statement of Purpose. Also send the CV. But the third document is one that specifically addresses, in order, each item in the stated selection criteria and how you meet that criterion or that you have little to no experience with it. Make it an honest statement, not just empty claims. Point to items in the CV as necessary.

It is probably expected that you meet the criteria in general, but also expected  that each candidate will meet each item differently


How do I tackle the interview question "why join here and not your former college"?

If they ask, be diplomatic. Slagging off your old institution doesn't send a good message. Something like:

  While I enjoyed my time there and feel they helped me to grow into an independent researcher, I'm now looking to gain experience of working in a different department in order to develop these skills further.

might work, if true (or at least true enough for a job interview).

Then expand on this by explaining why you chose to apply to this new institution, rather than elsewhere, by explaining what you see as their positives.


Correction of Diploma Having Two Types of Honors

In my opinion, the most important statement in your question is "I ... am now a Ph.D student."  Assuming that you follow through in your doctoral program, everything about your undergraduate career will rapidly fade into insignificance.  Please understand that I do not mean to downplay your accomplishments in any way: it is simply that you are entering a new realm in which you will be judged very differently on a very different type of accomplishment.

Given that, what's important here is to make sure that nothing on your C.V. could be interpreted as a lie in the unlikely case that somebody bothers to check with your undergraduate institution.  Check what the CS department believes about you, and write that down on your C.V.  You can always update it later if the bureaucracy gets fixed.

Beyond that, it's really more for your own personal satisfaction than for any career value, particularly as regards the pieces of paper that you were shipped.  My own personal experience as a working scientist... I recently rediscovered my degrees while going through a box throwing out old papers, and they have now been relocated from a box in a closet to a box in the attic.


PhD four years ago; can I publish a paper from PhD work without my supervisor's name?

You have left at least two important things unanswered:

Has your supervisor contributed to your work? (How contribution is measured depends on the field you are working in, it could be through "real" intellectual contribution, feedback, funding, ...)

  But now I am in good position in another country so I need to publish
  my PhD work without his name as co author.

Why do you need to publish without his name as a co-author?

  If I publish a paper of my PhD work without my supervisor name, what
  will be happen? Is there any legal problems will raised?

If he has contributed to your work, there may be several legal problems such as   fraud or copyright infringement.

If you are sure that he has not contributed in any way to your thesis (which is unlikely) then you are fine to publish on your own. Otherwise you should talk to him and ask him if he thinks he has made a significant contribution and wants to be your co-author.


How to interpret this rejection email from Journal of American Math Society? Anything to read between the lines?

There isn't anything between the lines.  It's simply a rejection. The editor and reviewers feel that your paper is clearly not strong enough for this journal, and they're telling you so.

Note that JAMS is an extremely selective journal, generally considered one of the top four out of all the many hundreds of journals in mathematics.  It is very very hard to get a paper published there.  Most of the papers they publish will be major breakthroughs in an area, or solve a famous open problem.  The "10%" is actually misleadingly high, because the vast majority of papers are never submitted there in the first place because the authors know they have no chance.

Such journals often do a quick first round of reviews, where the reviewers are only asked if they think the results are potentially important enough to warrant publication in JAMS.  Only if they say yes does the paper go on to a full technical review.  In this case, it sounds like they said no.  You didn't receive a detailed report because they didn't need to do a detailed review of the paper to make a decision.  Remember that their job is ultimately to make the decision; it's not their job to give you feedback or help you improve your paper.  Sometimes that happens along the way, but when the decision is clear, they won't spend time on a paper that, in their view, can't be made publishable in this journal.

The reviewers can, as in this case, make comments about things they happened to notice as they were doing their quick review.  That's why you got the note about the reference.    You'll have to read the reference to determine exactly what was meant here; it may be that the reviewer thinks that paper may already contain your results, or at least that they are similar enough that you need to carefully explain the difference.  But it sounds like the reason for rejection was the overall significance of your paper, and this was just something they noted in passing.

How to move forward: submit to a different journal.  If you want feedback on your paper first, you'll have to get it from someone else, e.g. a mentor, PhD advisor, collaborator or fellow researcher.  Such a person could also help you get some ideas of journals for which your paper might be better suited - where it would have a better chance of acceptance or at least a full review.


Ideas to narrow down a master thesis topic within management scope

I would suggest that you find a paper published within a good journal in your field and use it as a template. The paper should be (i) on a topic of interest to you, (ii) easy to understand (relative to the norm), and, (iii) using methods that you and your supervisor are familiar with, or can easily learn and use in your own research. To use this paper as a template, simply ensure that you are guided by the structures and logic of the paper in how you present your own. For example, if the paper is about how X causes Y explained through theory Z, you can simply reused some of the argument, while changing one of the variables.


Is it appropriate to acknowledge Satoshi Nakamoto in a paper devoted to blockchain?

Why don't you just cite their original bitcoin paper in your introduction? I don't know the history of your field but if that was really a fundamental result it seems completely reasonable to cite it. Whether the author is anonymous or not doesn't change that.

According to google scholar the paper has over 7000 citations so you would have lots of company.

In general I would say a citation that acknowledges the importance of the work is a much stronger form of thanks than a mention in the acknowledgements section.


Publishing a work which is not related to the work done in the company

I used "Independent Researcher" and personal email address two times for my papers: published at good venues without any affiliation-related problems.

And depending on your local laws, the company policies, nature of your research, how you conducted it (normal working hours or weekends, use of company equipment) you may not own the research results and may need to work with the company on publishing it using the company's affiliation.


When should academic papers be censored due to public health/safety concerns?

This is a rising bioethics topic in the area of biosecurity and dual-use developments. Last year there was controversy with H5N1 and censorship.

There is no set policy, though they are being devolped. Most recently there is the United States Government Policy for Institutional Oversight of Life Sciences Dual Use Research of Concern

The IAP Statement On Biosecurity principles state:

  Awareness. Scientists have an obligation to do no harm. They should
  always take into consideration the reasonably foreseeable consequences
  of their own activities. They should therefore:

  always bear in mind the potential consequences – possibly harmful – of their research and recognize that individual good conscience does
  not justify ignoring the possible misuse of their scientific
  endeavour;
  refuse to undertake research that has only harmful consequences for humankind.

The US NIH Office of Biotechnology Activities is often consulted for such research concerns and has a report Enhancing Responsible Science Considerations for the Development and Dissemination of Codes of Conduct for Dual Use Research and has a series of recommendations.

The WHO Laboratory Biosafety Manual does not address publication restrictions/censorship.


My own experience of having an open university degree (computer science) is that "it depends on who you talk to".  Some people value the degree highly, others put it at the bottom of the pile.  I've found that the longer I've held it (ten years now!) the more value it seems to have accrued.  This could be to the fact it becomes less and less relevant where your studied the more experience you build or the fact that it's become a more accepted route of study since I gained it.

Disclaimer: I work in academia, but am not an academic.  I currently work for a big academic institution and they perfectly happy with my degree.


How much of advantage do US citizens have in American academia?

True, some federal funding of grad students in the US is restricted to US citizens or permanent residents, but, in mathematics, most funding of grad students is as TAs (=Teaching Assistant) supporting lower-division mathematics courses.

The question of admission itself is mostly separate from federal citizenship requirements. Let me explain some things an admission committee wonders about, statistically, at least, about international applications, that would not be  relevant to an applicant already in the US and with no visa issues:

It turns out that quite a few applicants simply want to get to the U.S., in effect as informal political asylum, while having limited genuine interest in mathematics, and this creates visa and other complications subsequently. I have no objection to fairly open immigration policies, but I do object to adding that noise to applications to our graduate program.
Given that the bulk of funding is as TAs, problems with understanding colloquial spoken English cannot be taken lightly. This isn't about "cultural bias", but about the practical features of teaching in this environment.
Minimum funding to generate visa papers: The INS (U.S. "Immigration and Naturalization Services", which controls visas of non-US-citizens) mandates that we promise a certain annual stipend for international grad students... ok... except that that number is several thousand dollars above what the university sets as the ceiling for standard stipends. Not hard to imagine the craziness and injustices this leads to.

Edit: Theoretically, the university is not necessarily responsible for guaranteeing the (needlessly high) minimum, but different universities develop policies designed to keep them at some safe distance from "trouble with INS", and sometimes/often such policies create complications not originally intended, and not due directly to INS. (Also, interpretations and policies drift over years, and I'm refering to a situation from a few years ago...)
International students demand resources for their spouses.  We have repeatedly "discovered" that an admitted international student is married, "needs" a visa for a spouse, the spouse needs admission to something, etc.  It is easy to understand the desperation that leads to such situations, but it also corrupts things, and absorbs resources.

Edit: Yes, if things are done right, as noted in comments, it "should not be" the university's responsibility to "take care of" other family members. Nevertheless, for reasons I do not fully understand, it somehow has come to this on many occasions. (The quasi-legal details are mercifully slipping from my mind! :)
Many other college-university cultures have a hugely different emphasis on problem-solving versus memorization, and relation of teacher and student. Thus, although in one sense the U.S. system generates the weakest outcomes in specialty, because of all the other required coursework for "breadth", the balance of demands, and the goals, of upper-division coursework is mostly compatible with what happens at the beginning of grad school. Further, the less structured parts of the rest of grad school have counterparts in some undergrad projects. In contrast, we have found that several other traditions give students not prototype whatsoever for coping with ambiguity, and this can lead to strange crises well into a PhD.

Edit: Again, not to be claiming that all non-USA programs are the same! For this last point, let's say "traditions which emphasize memorization and reciting, of definitions, theorems, proofs, and examples", as opposed to problem-solving as at least a component of activities. It seems that getting into the habit of thinking that there is a "sacred canon" of results, even perhaps including wording, is not a good habit of mind. Similarly, an exaggerated impulse of "following orders" or "compliance", while a habit highly rewarded in some situations, is not so much the desired methodology after the very beginning of grad school. Thus, success in a prior situation may be misleading to a student, when further adaptation and growth is needed.

Don't misunderstand me: I understand how such things come about. Nevertheless, with limited resources, not only money but energy to help people get in sync with their responsibilities as grad students, there is a serious question about how to allocate. Thus, we can capsulize this by saying that grad school applicants from within the US system are more "known quantities", are already fairly in-sync with the system, are cheaper dollar-wise, and are rarely or never under the threat of returning in disgrace to a genuinely dangerous situation in their home country if we stop renewing their TA!

A small further edit: At a university receiving state funds (although this amount is ever-decreasing), the state legislature, and the electorate, take the viewpoint that the university has an obligation to give priority to students from the region, if not literally the state, and to serve the state's and region's goals. This has become less idealistic during economic downturns, unsurprisingly.

Edit: in response to some comments... I certainly do not claim that "all" non-USA undergrad programs are the same, "bad", etc., nor that all in-USA programs are "good". At the same time, I didn't want to single out specific traditions for criticism. And, certainly, applicants in the U.S. can easily "achieve" weaknesses for no particular reason. As I understood the question, it was inquiring about the realities of the situation, advantages that in-USA applicants tend to have over not-in-USA, at least in the minds of admissions committees.

I do not think literal xenophobia or cultural bias plays any role in admissions, in case people wonder. If anything, the generally stronger undergrad prep of people from non-USA programs has created a "bias" against US students on that criterion alone. The practical and prosaic considerations mentioned above diminish post-PhD, so that "nationality" plays no detectable role in post-doc hiring or tenure-track hiring. (For that matter, examination of the faculty at most "research" universities shows a pretty international population!)


Already have a DOI number but can't find it

ACM normally publishes its conference proceedings just before the conference begins.  The default used to be immediately before the conference begins, but at least some ACM conferences have proceedings available a week in advance.

If you want to double-check (especially if the conference has already happened), you should ask the program committee chair.


Why is there a 14-year difference between the submission date of this arXiv paper and the date in the paper text?

The LaTex source code contains the \date{\today} command, which inserts the current date at the time of compilation. That is, the PDF is probably last regenerated in 2013. The arXiv submission history gives a more reliable date.


What is generally expected on language exams for humanities students?

I'll give a sketch of an answer, from the perspective of someone at a top 10 university in the U.S.

Recently, I had a consultation about potentially doing German coursework. It was also suggested I take a course for learning to read German that was intended for graduate students who needed to meet their reading competency requirements, particularly since I had placed (however accurately) into second-year German. The reading course presumes no initial German knowledge of its students. Moreover, the course only takes up the time of a single term. I would be thus inclined to say that the reading exams cannot be possibly so difficult, but I have a lot of trouble reading samples for the German one without more knowledge.

Since the quality of my French is less suspect, I'll use that as an example. Looking at old reading exams for French at my university, I would probably be able to pass (or at least not fail abysmally), and I probably have at least the knowledge of almost two year's of college-level French. But what really helps is that I have a good chunk of knowledge about grammatical forms (so I can look at a verb and guess its infinitive easily and more experience with vocabulary than I do in German.

So perhaps the language competency exams, at least when based on more humanities-oriented texts, really aren't that difficult, but only in the sense that a student who knows a lot of grammar and has some good experience of vocabulary should be able to survive.


How many rejected papers does it take to get an accepted paper?

This varies depending on a huge number of factors.  The venues you select to submit your work, the quality of the work, whether the work is described well or penalized because it is written badly, misses important related work, or many other factors.  And it no doubt depends on field as well.

I would however say that the idea that you submit 7 times for each time you get something published means you're setting your sights too high.  In Computer Science, for instance, probably most conferences have an acceptance ratio of 4:1 or 5:1, perhaps 6:1, at worst.  But then many others have much high acceptance ratios, so I would think the mean acceptance rate is 4:1 or 3:1.  In my own experience most papers have gotten in either the first time or the second.  One took 3, and another time I stopped trying to publish the work, but the average would be around 1.5-2 at most.

Whatever the ratio is in your field, by all means don't get too stressed over your first rejection.  It's part of the process!  And work with your advisor to find appropriate targets that are realistic.


Where to describe the pros and cons of the related work in a paper?

One criterion is how important these comparisons are for understanding your work.  At one extreme, you may be writing a paper whose sole purpose is to address a gap in the literature by doing something in a better way than other papers or using different hypotheses.  In that case, nobody can really understand your paper and its purpose without an explanation of how it relates to these other papers, so you would need to discuss this in the introduction.  At the other extreme, you may be mentioning related work only for completeness or because it might interest the reader, with no necessity at all for understanding your paper.  In that case, you might as well not clutter up the introduction with it.  Most papers are somewhere in between these extremes, in which case you'll have to make a judgment call (and may end up with a compromise, such as discussing some related work in the introduction and other papers in a section of their own).


What is the meaning of Immigrant Background in a job application?

This is part of the guidance for applicants for a specific job at Oslo Metropolitan University.
This particular paragraph is, it seems, intended to encourage applicants who have some non-Norwegian heritage to apply. The original text reads:

... Immigrant background implies that you are born in another country than Norway or have immigrated from another country or that both your parents are born in another country.

If the Original Poster currently resides outside of Norway and was also born outside Norway, then they would seem to automatically qualify as having an immigrant background according to the information given.
By stating that at least one such applicant will always make it through to the interview stage, the University is actively encouraging eligible applicants to indicate their 'immigrant background' status on the form, although as can be seen on the original page, this is entirely optional.
If I were the Original Poster and wished to apply for this job, then I would indicate my so-called immigrant background on the form in good faith in accordance with the guidance.
[And were I called to interview and later it turned out that the guidance had not been explicit enough—and anybody cared—I would not expect the University to hold me responsible for the original miscommunication.]


Would it be safe to assume that TA and tutor are the same thing?

In my experience (at a US school), "tutor" usually refers to someone who gives one-on-one instruction.  Usually this is not part of the course itself, but is something that students who need help seek out independently (that is not to say that the school or department might not have some program for tutoring, but it's usually not considered "part of the course").

In contrast, a TA is someone who does grading, leads review sessions, helps proctor exams, or some other activity related directly to the course.  A TA often also has office hours for one-on-one help, but this is not their only duty.


Turning down a postdoc offer from a committee member. Can that create problem in the future?

A polite rejection to this post doc offer should neither hurt your thesis evaluation nor cause damage to your relationship with your committee member. The rejection email need not (and should not) be long or detailed, but as long as you make clear that you are honoured by the offer, that you have considered it carefully and seriously, but that you feel it is not quite the right path for you at this juncture, they will understand. I would suggest ending with a line saying that you look forward to finding ways to collaborate in the future.

All told, I think this is a positive sign for how this person will evaluate your thesis. They clearly think you are a worthy researcher or else they would not wish to hire you.


Should I include a synonym in parenthesis in abstract of a PhD thesis?

You can always edit an abstract slightly to your benefit using square brackets:

The atomistic [micro-]scale shall be considered.

It's a widely accepted way of editing abstracts to help with context.
For example it's used when written news wants to add clarity to direct quotes.


What is the difference between a "statistician", "applied statistician", and an academic applying advanced stats within their field?

It is always interesting to me to see how different people outside of statistics perceive it. (I am a Ph.D. in statistics who had worked in academia, international organizations, and industry.)

In American academia (I am not qualified to speak for other countries), whenever you see somebody with the title that has "statistician" in it, it probably means they run SAS PROC POWER for somebody in medical school or in agriculture (grant land universities with outreach programs). This is a lowly job, for the most part, and you rarely if ever publish: more often than not, you are an acknowledgement on a paper, not a co-author. Biostatisticians though can often advance themselves to co-authors and co-PIs when a grant/project requires a statistician to be written in as a senior staff member of the team for quality control purposes.

I would have a somewhat difficult time imagining a stat department in a research school looking at somebody whose degree is not in statistics nor mathematics for a tenure-track position. The teaching positions can be filled with the department's own grad students or recent graduates who could not find an academic job. I heard that in some universities (California state system), hiring somebody to teach statistics courses runs into an odd difficulty: statistics is taught at math departments, but math departments are only allowed to hire graduates with a degree in mathematics.

So your hopes shouldn't be very high, and if you are hired into a stat department, you probably won't be given any courses above the first couple of undergraduate intro courses -- t-statistics, ANOVA, regression. A 3+3 load would also leave no time for any work back in biology for you.

Having said all that, I think it would be fair if you were to call yourself "an applied statistician" in your letter. I had called myself a "quantitative methodologist" when applying to quant psych jobs (to no avail).

Your classification is a bit silly, BTW. There are branches of statistics, Bayesian methods or rank methods for instance, that do not think in terms of matrix algebra at all. And, with few exceptions, econometricians or reliability engineers don't have any reasons to call themselves applied statisticians, as it does not give them any promotions or any additional funding. And even if they did, "proper" statisticians (those with PhDs in statistics) may not agree with this denomination (even though a good econometrician knows asymptotic theory of statistics way better than an average Ph.D. in statistics these days).


When should I say I'm leaving my PhD program

This is an interesting question and it’s really more about ethics than academia.

I’m absolutely sympathetic to your position. You started your degree in good faith and have had a change of heart.

If I were in your position I would probably give them notice 1 month before you intend to leave. Is that the ethical thing to do? No. I think, ethically, you ought to tell them now, but as you say it may cause you financial trouble.

One thing you might do to mitigate your sense of taking advantage of the program is to be a good community member for this last semester. Help other students out. Volunteer for things when there is an opportunity to do so (like organizing seminars or even at the university level, like peer counseling) That way you can feel like the university is getting something back.

Another option is to be honest and then if you get cut off just get a job to pay your rent until your lease is up. Your PhD stipend can’t be so high that it would be impossible to find a job of equal pay.


Can you exclude issue numbers in references based on APA 6th edition?

The general rule in APA 6 is that if the journal is paginated by year, then you exclude issue number and just report volume number. From my experience, just about all journals in psychology are paginated by volume/year (and not issue number), so you can almost always exclude issue number.

There is a general discussion here on how to determine whether a periodical is paginated by issue.

However, I honestly can't see myself going through every reference and checking whether it is from one of the rare journals that is paginated by issue. And presumably if there was occasionally a journal that happened to paginate by issue, it would not be the end of the world if the issue information was excluded from the reference. You still have authors, year, title, and so on. So, that's enough to identify the reference.


How to know if I have done and am doing good research?

I think your question has no answer since "good research" is too broad and ill-defined a term. What do you mean by "good research"? Research that gets cited a lot? Research that gets you your next job? Research to be proud of? Research that moves your field ahead?
The answer to your question will depend on YOUR definition of "good research". And since this is really hard to do, I would suggest to reframe the question to something like: Is my research helping me to accomplish my goals xyz?


Bad GRE with an otherwise good record - is it possible my application will not even be considered?

In my experience with graduate admissions in mathematics departments, all complete applications are looked at by departmental faculty (and mildly incomplete ones may be looked at as well, albeit more briefly).  So I think it is likely that your letters will be read.

However, you say that your GRE scores are "much below average".  I will assume that your description is somewhat factually based and thus that they are below the 35th percentile.  In my department -- about the 50th best -- we would like to see higher scores than that, but we can take chances on some applicants for whom that is the only weak point.  Admission to the top 10 math departments in the US is much more competitive than this: they can fill their classes with applicants who are extremely successful according to all the standard metrics.  If they deviate from that then they will do so only for someone who is truly exceptional.

You say that your "thesis features some new results known to experts but not otherwise".  I don't mean to be harsh, but this sounds quite equivocal: to a research mathematician "new" implies that it is not known to experts.  I suppose you would have mentioned if you had published your results, so I will say that it is often difficult to publish such results in a reputable journal.  Anyway "truly exceptional" here means that you have results that were not just unknown to everyone but are actually surprising / exciting to the experts, and that they are eager to build on your work and learn more about your ideas.  It sounds like what you've done is write an ordinarily strong master's thesis, and in my opinion this is not going to offset your poor GRE scores.

My advice is to apply to a lot of departments.  Every individual committee gets to decide how much to value GRE scores; I have certainly met individual faculty members who do not place much stock in them, so while it is unlikely that an entire admissions committee would feel that way, it must happen sometimes.  If you don't get into a good enough department, you should consider deferring for a year, retaking the GRE under better conditions and really nailing it.  If you really do feel that you can do much better on it, then waiting one year and then going to a top department is probably a better career move in the long run.  However, if you wait a year, take the GRE again and don't do better, it will be disappointing, so you should make an effort to figure out whether you will really do better, which may involve taking practice tests but also some soul-searching and personal honesty.

Good luck.  And to everyone else who is reading this: yes, for math PhD students, the GRE is a very serious business.  Please take it seriously and plan to do well, rather than trying to figure out how to paint over this weakness in your application.


What usually happens during the conference peer-review process (technical field)?

This is my experience in software engineering, a subfield of computer science.

  For instance, how many people are usually on the peer-review committee?

This committee is typically called program committee (PC), and the number of involved members differs significantly between conferences - I've seen numbers between 25 and more than one hundred. The PC is usually listed on the website of the conference.

The number of reviewers for any single given paper is usually 3 or 4, and each PC member may be assigned to review a larger number of papers, often between 10 to 25. To manage this workload, PC members may delegate their reviews to colleagues or PhD students. Consequently, the actual number of reviewers involved in the conference can be much greater than the PC size indicates.

In addition, especially at larger conference, there can be second tier of reviewers, called "Expert Review Panel" or something similar, whose members typically review a smaller number of papers. For example, they can be assigned to papers if they are at the borderline between acceptance and rejection after the initial review.

  Are these usually professors or PhD students?

Mostly professors, some post-docs, and, in some rare cases, late PhD students. However, again it's worth pointing out that professors may delegate some of their reviews to their PhD students.

  How do reviewers inform each other about their opinions and comments?

To organize the reviewing process, conferences typically use a dedicated software called conference management system, such as EasyChair.

If you have submitted your paper using some website, it was probably a conference management system - apart from the author perspective, there's also a dedicated perspective for PC members.

  How long does it actually take (during the span of the review period) to evaluate a single paper?

Reviewers are typically given between one and two months. Some conference have a rebuttal system, where there are actually two  rounds of reviews, with an author response period in between. This would then be specified in the call for papers.

  Finally, how are decisions made by the reviewers evaluated at the end?

There are different options: There can be a physical PC meeting where all PC members discuss the papers in the same room, a virtual PC meeting using some online platform, or even no PC meeting at all, but just a discussion period in the conference management system.

In any case, there is a discussion about each paper, and the discussion needs to end with an unanimous agreement between the PC members. Since the discussion is open to all PC members, it can also happen that people contribute to the discussion of a paper that were not originally assigned as reviewers.

  What if there is the same number of people in favor of rejecting a paper versus accepting one?

It all depends on the discussion. It happens that the numerical decision on a paper is actually reversed based on the discussion.


Would showing up only for tests be frowned upon by most professors?

Depending on class size, most professors won't notice if students are missing or not. When I miss someone, then this person has been active before and then I would miss him/her, but if this happens, I usually ask them if there are problems.

The other view on it is: If attending the lecture gives no benefit, then the professor should ask himself/herself why they are teaching like this. For example, I have some of my lectures on video and students can freely decide to show up or watch the old videos. Still, most are showing up and they usually are having better grades then the ones which don't show up. But this is not because I dongrade the others, it's because they understand the topics more deeply thanks to the disussions in the lectures.


Is knowledge of foreign languages per se helpful for graduate applications?

I'd say that if the programme(the course) does not include or require any other language than English, the knowledge of the other languages "might be"(so it does not have too much chance) taken in consideration. This probably also depends on in which country you are going to study your PhD. But they focus on mostly the subjects related to the course, and the degree you have graduated with. But I think it would help you getting a job after your studies. After all, if you learn a new language you don't lose anything but gain knowledge of a different culture (unless you consider the time spent for learning is lost and was not worth).


Journal Club - How to encourage students to ask questions to the presenters (peers)

I have taken part in two journal club formats that work well for maximizing student involvement, although whether they would lend themsevles well to assesement, I don't know.

In both cases the idea is to force everyone to read the paper, and engage with it, and minimise the workload for person "presenting". In neither case is there any powerpoints, or pre-rehearsed talking. The presentor is more of a facilitator.

Structure one: Figures presented at random

In this structure the person who picked the paper gives a brief introduction to the paper and why they picked it (no more than say 5 minutes). They then present the first figure.

Subsequent figures/tables are then presented by people selected at random (we roll a die). When I say "presented" I often mean "leads a discussion" - as there might be things in the figure the person chosen doesn't understand, has questions about, particularly since they didn't pcik the paper.

I find that this forces everyone to read and engage with the paper, but it doesn't force the discussion to go beyond what is in the figures.

Structure two: Everyone must ask a question

Again the paper selector introduces the paper briefly. We then go round the room and everyone has to say one thing they liked about the paper, one thing they didn't like, and one question/discussion point. The paper selector writes down the discussion points/questions, prioritises them and the leads a discussion with this as the agenda.


How to make sure that a conference is not a scam when you are invited as a speaker?

[As per suggestion of user151413, comment converted into response]
A few sanity checks to run:

Ask them who else is in your session and with which topics, if possible.

Check the participant list or the confirmed speakers. I know established researchers that had been taken in by junk conferences. If a junk conference manages to get a lot of good speakers, though, it ceases to be a junk conference :-) Of course, they may lie, but that is usually less likely. If you know one of the other invitees, you could pop them a mail and ask them whether they go.

Check the topics. Does this look like there is a proper scientific agenda or just a jumble of buzzwords? Are the sessions organized by topic (more or less)?

Is there a program committee? Do you know anyone on this list (even just as an author, not personally)? How many?

If you know a person on the PC, 5a) ask them whether the conference is worthwhile (you may thereby find out on the fly whether they actually know that they are listed). 5b) If you don't, check whether the conference is listed on their CV if it is public.

Unfortunately, the often-cited killer criterion whether the conference is at an attractive place does not mean anything. Also good conferences like attractive locations. However, if the conference is running at a nice location while a pandemic situation is still going on, this is most definitely a red flag.

If they claim you are invited, find out whether they cover travel/accommodation and conference fees. If they tell you that you have to pay conference fees, this is a scam. If they say that the conference is free, but they do not cover the trip, it's an orange flag (but not necessarily a scam). Convince yourself that the expense of the trip would be worth your presence. Some high-tier conferences waive only the fees for "minor" invited speakers (e.g. speakers invited to special sessions or workshops, rather than all-out keynotes). For a keynote, you can expect to be fully reimbursed.

Note that sometimes sconferences (scam conferences) adopt names very similar to proper ones, sometimes even copying the precise abbreviation (which unfortunately is not protected, as a number of organisations share the same abbreviation). Some years ago, a sconference hijacked the abbreviation of a quite high-profile conference, located itself in a city in the same or nearby country (I forgot), showed similar-style entry page/photo and managed to convince the search engines for a period to put it on top of the search list. A colleague almost fell for it, but was wondering why all his usual colleagues would not appear.
So the list of invited speakers and PC is one of the best indicators of whether this is the real deal. Of course, if they outright lie, then it's just regular fraud, but usually sconferences live in the grey area of being formally legal, in that they do take place, but are worthless.
Good luck!
[List is extended as additional suggestions are floating in comments]


How should I start Undergraduate Research in Mathematics?

While it is possible for a highly competent mathematician to dole out a doable problem for an undergraduate to solve over the summer, empirical data has proven otherwise - i.e., it's rather hard for an undergrad to prove anything original in number theory if only given a few weeks during the summer.

For an REU in NT, it might be more realistic to expect to read some interesting topics in number theory or perform some numerical analysis. Take it as a bonus if you obtain any original result.

Number theory is known to be a very difficult topic to get into. Before you decide to commit, take courses in complex analysis and abstract algebra. They are crucial if you want to read more advanced texts in number theory.

Good luck!


If I previously failed to follow up with professors, are they likely to remember this and hold it against me if I ask them for advice again?

You should not fear this. Faculty are very interested in students who will learn, do, and advance. However, you must "do" in order for them to believe you.  In university/college, things are earned and not given.

Be at ease with faculty.  Speak with them.
This is school. School is a place for learning. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness; It is expected; It is rewarded.

I have been college faculty (part-time) for a few years.  I know that sometimes student (or anyone) might have a bad day, week, or quarter/semester.  If they are nice, committed, honest, and willing to do something to prove themselves, I'm willing to give them another chance.  (But chances are limited.)

In some cases faculty just plain forget students. Faculty might have a regular FT job external to university (even full time faculty sometimes have FT jobs).  They might have 40 students in each of 5 classes each quarter/semester.  Too many to keep track of.

Faculty might also suggest a student followup with them, but they don't expect it.  For example, you ask for help on a paper, and a different prof gives you help and says "Let me know what grade you get."  They likely will not hold it against you.


What is the relationship between credits and course hours?

In the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) one credit point
equals 25-30 hours of workload and you are supposed to do 30 credits
per semester or 60 per year.

The number of ECTS credits assigned to a particular class is not
directly related to the hours in class but to the total workload for
the class.

For example, the master thesis is worth 30 ECTS in most German
universities, yet there is 0 class time for it. On the other hand, I
once took a chemistry lab course with 6 credits => 150-180 hours
workload of which 120 hours where time spent in the lab, which was ok
because you can't really do much at home except finishing that day's writeup and taking a look at what is planned for the next day.

In your examples, subtract the class time and you're left with around
180-240 hours of self study (reviewing the material, doing homework
assignments) for the first three classes and half that for the last one
- so the 9 credit classes seem to involve more self study and less time
in class.

That's perfectly fine as long as the overall workload is between
25*credits and 30*credits hours.

Since your university is in France, I want to mention that France has
specified the workload for 1 ETCS credit point to be 29 hours.


will a lab feel deterred from hiring me if my undergrad thesis is in a different subfield?

Since you have some history there, it seems very unlikely that such a thing would be a detriment. In fact, it might be viewed as positive that you aren't "too narrow" in your education and outlook.
But, it is up to them and you only learn by applying.
And picking a topic for such a narrow reason as obtaining a short term internship would be, I think, a mistake.


Is it advisable to put your CV, research statement, teaching statement on your website?

TLDR: It may help slightly, but really doesn't make too much difference.

As with many things in academia, and other fields, different people will have different opinions on this.  I, like you, was never one to want my CV or research/teaching statements out there for the whole world to read, and I never did it, though I had the "most important" information from my CV on my webpage already (e.g., publication list, where I did my PhD).

From the hiring side, I occasionally look at applicants' webpages (though usually don't) but I look at things like CVs and research statements from our online application system (in math, we use a central site called mathjobs), so it would make no difference for me reviewing your application.  Part of the reason for this is convenience---it's easier to look at everything in one place, and one of the things I most want to look at are your letters of recommendation, for which I have to go through the application system.

That said, I think there can be a slight advantage for putting your CV and your research statement online, and it is this.  If someone is already looking at your webpage (either because they saw you applied, or for random other reasons), and they want to find out more about you, it's easier for them to look at your CV/research statement directly from your webpage, i.e., there's a higher probability they will look at these things.  So there's a greater chance they will get interested in you as a job candidate.  Potentially, this could result in solicitations for you to apply to positions you aren't aware of/didn't apply to, but I don't know how common this is in CS---in math in the US, most types of positions tend to be well advertised and easy to apply to with mathjobs.

But, I don't think this will affect your odds so greatly that you should feel you have to do these things.  (Also, I don't see any disadvantage to posting them, though probably there's no need to post a teaching statement.)  This is especially true if you have the info you want to advertise to most people on your webpage already (e.g., publications, academic history, maybe a short research blurb, ...).


Tenured professor wanting to go back to school for a PhD in a different field

Tenure means you are set for life. If you have this kind of thoughts, you may not like the way you are set. A tenured professor has a lot of autonomy (especially in US). They have a lot of freedom in choosing their research. Among the things you can do as a tenured professor is switching fields. I'd advise trying to do that rather than get a PhD.

As a professor, people already know you are an experienced researcher and/or teacher, so it would be more likely for them to want to start collaborating with you. Plus, you have access to resources unavailable to graduate students.

What I would do:

Use my contacts (or go to conferences, write emails, whatever) to get in touch with an environmental psychologist.
Visit your new contact and sketch a work plan. Then see how you can find funding for what you plan to do together. You could also be a visiting professor for a while there and start working on a project you find interesting.
Apply for a grant with your friend and if you get it
Hire a postdoc. You can learn a lot by working with the postdoc.

I would add 5. live happily ever after as an environmental psychologist.

I would not do a PhD again if I were you, especially if it meant quitting my tenured job. Your family might not take it very well if you suddenly decide to forfeit your status as a tenured faculty. I think this will complicate things for you so much that it will offset all the advantages of learning the subject in graduate school.


How was higher education done before the university system?

As with many things the history of higher education is not well known since accounts may be scarce or missing altogether. Early evidence indicate that schools existed in Egypt where, primarily, boys would learn to read and write etc. One has to remember that such skills were not for the masses. Religiously connected schools also emerged where religious texts were handled and copied. Theological and medical teaching was also done but very little else. evidence of mathematics have been found so there were also schools, perhaps aiming at architecture, astronomy , etc. relevant for the culture. None of these has a degree at the end but was likely based on apprenticeship and mastery evaluated by the teachers. Similar evidence for teaching exists in all older cultures and seem to focus on maintaining order in the social and cultural basis for society.

There seems to be a big step when considering Greek education which was far more comprehensive than the pragmatic education earlier. In the city states of ancient Greece specialized schools emerged where teaching circled around very specific topics such as the Hippocratic school of medicine on Cos. This specialization seems to have continued with the well known Greek philosophers/scientists such as Aristotle, Plato etc. and teaching progressed in directions envisioned by these founders. In other words, there was no single systematic way for schools to teach and operate.

In the Roman world subjects were ordered in groups that we can recognize today: I grammar rhetoric, dialectic; II geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, music; III medicine, architecture. This was how the liberal arts (defined as theoretical and intellectual activities by the Greeks) were seen. The subjects have of course survived to modern times although organisation has changed. So education became more organised but the education was not open and still served a purpose for maintaining government rule. Out of the post-Roman world came the first universities as stated in the question where education became even more organized and eventually including fixed degrees.

This answer is loosely based on the excellent book: The first universities by Olaf Pedersen, Cambridge UP, 1997. I strongly recommend it!