What are the various designations/stages in the academic career of the person

Like EngergyNumbers said, you should tailor your classification to the culture of your targeted audience. This list of academic ranks for various countries might be helpful for that.

Also, "Scientist" and "Researcher" doesn't really mean anything. A postdoc, assistant professor, principal investigator, or someone doing research in the commercial sector can be a scientist or a researcher.

I think you know this but just in case: "postdoc" is an (often) temporary job that people take up after obtaining a PhD, and not a qualification. Some people do not do postdocs, and go directly into teaching, industry or become assistant professors after getting their PhD.

Finally, "Post Grad" can refer to both masters degree or PhD students. It is common to say "applying to graduate/grad school" to when referring to applying to a PhD course.


How to cite from a book with more authors?

Remember the guiding principle of maximum ease in following a reference. If you don't know which author, cite primarily to the book.

  From "Book title", by x,y, and z

In fact, even if there is only one author, it is good to cite the book.


How specific does a "Work Package" in a grant proposal need to be?

Try to look at it from the view of a reviewer. You'll have a limited amount of time to estimate whether

the research will have a good chance of success (knowledge generation is success, so negative results are allowed!)
the applicants know the field well enough to work on the topic without stumbling about too many obstacles (e.g. you should say which methods you are using and why)
the work load is managable
the project is well managed.

Every reviewer knows, that you can not predict the future. If you could detail the research you want to do in three years, it would not have been research in the first three years! But you should make clear you know of the risks of your proposal and demonstrante, how you will handle those uncertenties.


While the comments already provide some advice, let me add a bit with some possible options. First, you should be properly compensated for your efforts. Sometimes that can include course credit. Sometimes it can just include relationship building with a professor - looking toward the future. Compensation need not be monetary in all cases. This is likely why you did the project in the first place. So, you might examine what it is "worth" to you to do a favor for the university, or just for this professor.

But there are other options. Telling the professor what your normal rates are for such work is valid. If you need that income to live and the time the project would take would lower your income if not compensated, then he needs to know that.

But there might be a possible way to just step away from the project. For example, you could suggest that some other student(s) might benefit from carrying on the project and may not need to be compensated financially for their work. The experience itself can be valuable for them, where it is less so for yourself.

But, if the university really needs professional level work done on this project, then they should expect to pay professional rates to get it done. The fact that you are also a student, in addition to being a professional, shouldn't give them reason to exploit you.

I'll add, however, to address your main concern, no ethical person would blackmail you into doing something by holding grades over your head. If that is how the university behaves you should work to step away as soon as possible.


Waiving library costs if the student has own access

I have never heard of such a thing.  Such access is always made available to all students, and any associated fees would be mandatory.  They might be waived on the basis of financial need, but not on an "opt out" basis.

With a policy like you suggest, I'd be worried about students opting out to save a little money, and then discovering they needed access more than they thought, with an adverse impact on their studies.

Also, on a practical level, these systems are usually not designed to be able to grant or deny access to individual students, so they couldn't easily restrict access to those who had paid.  Often access is on the basis of IP address range, so that all you need is to sit down at any computer on the campus network, without any further authentication.


The fact that to a seasoned programmer the work is easy doesn't have anything to do with it. As you describe it, this is work that's required for the publication. Without it, you don't have a paper. With it, you do. Therefore the programmer contributed significantly (critically) to the paper, and therefore the programmer should be an author.

The fact that it's quick and easy for a programmer simply means that programmers have spent significant time and effort learning skills that you don't have. If you consider the work trivial, then go out and learn the skills yourself, and do the work yourself. If that's too much work, then put an appropriate value on that work and offer authorship.

An example in my field is histopathology. I can take tissue slides to an expert who will look at them for five minutes and provide an interpretation. That expert becomes a co-author, not because of their five minutes of work but because of the decades of experience behind it.

Collaborators shouldn't need to run a bloody gauntlet and engage in hand-to-hand combat to become co-authors. If they provide a skill that contributes significantly to the paper, that should be enough.


How can I introduce a fourth reason after having stated that there are three main reasons?

I did not simply use "First,... Second,... Third..." because there is some distance between the arguments.

I suggest that you open with:

There are three main arguments for why X is not Z: A, B, and C.

Then, rather than First, .... (of medium length)
The second argument is that ... (a bit long)
The third and most important argument is that ... (longer), you can use A, B, and C as section/subsection/paragraph headers.

  Now I have realized that I have to make one more argument. And I want to start with "A fourth argument is that ..." after the third one. Is it a problem that I stated in the beginning that I will give "three main arguments" but I give four? I don't want to say "four main arguments".

That's a problem, just write There are four main arguments for why X is not Z: A, B, C, and D. and use D as a heading.

  The three main arguments are widely discussed by experts in the field. The fourth argument is something that has only been pointed out (in two lines) by one author.

You could revise the opening as:

The literature agrees upon three arguments for why X is not Z: A, B, and C [1,2,3,4,5].

And follow that with:

A fourth argument has also been identified: D [6].


(Psychology) Mismatch with Advisor's Research Interests

One statement in your question stands out: "I can tell my advisor wants me to pursue my own interests and is trying to support my ideas". That alone would suggest that, under certain conditions, it might be wise to stay. You have other supporting statements as well.

Some students can carry on their research with only minimal advice from advisors. Others need more continuing support, and even the ideas about what to study. You seem to be more in the former group than the latter, but you need to judge that.

If your advisor were hostile, or even indifferent, to your research goals, it would be better to leave, but in this case, perhaps staying is the best option.

But an advisor can be helpful to you in many ways other than just basic support. S/he can help with process and with keeping you within ethical norms of the field. They can probably also make a fair judgement about when you are done and ready to write up your findings. The general support also implies that they will sign off on the work and write good letters. That alone is enough, provided that you are self driven enough, and with enough ideas, to carry through the research relatively unguided.

You need to judge this, of course, but I would be hesitant to make a quick decision to go elsewhere, either at the same university or at a different one. Imagine what your situation would be if it were completely reversed: a hostile advisor who was very knowledgeable in your specialization.

Think before you jump.

However, there is also an opportunity to get the specific guidance you may want outside your institution. It is harder, but not impossible, to keep close contact. In the long term, you do want external collaborative relationships to support your future career and it isn't unreasonable to begin to develop them now. Your current advisor may even be able to put you in contact with a few people. Conferences are also good for making contacts in some fields.


Can I submit a paper to an IEEE/ACM journal even if a similar paper is already published by someone else recently?

If you have done your research independently, then proving that your work is not plagiarized from the other paper should be almost trivially easy. While some of the core ideas or themes may be the similar, there are so many possible choices in how to go about implementing and testing ideas that the details of your work will almost certainly be quite different --- certainly enough that there is no reason to fear accusations of plagiarism if you didn't plagiarize.

Now, as to whether you can publish or not: the key question here is whether you make any significant contribution in your paper that has not already been made by the other paper.  Since you are aware of the other paper, you must certainly put it in your related work section and discuss how your work is similar or different.  If you can explain a difference that you find to be genuinely significant, then there is a good chance that the reviewers will agree with you, and that your paper can be published.


How to start an official email to a professor

Congratulations on finding a PhD position :) When sending an acceptance e-mail to a professor, I would say the "general" rules of communicating with professors via e-mail apply.

Be polite, and extend thanks when appropriate, but don't overdo the social pleasantries.

The polite part basically holds for any e-mail and live correspondence.

I would say that "I hope you are keeping well" would be a bit unnecessary.
Be short and to the point. Respect the professors time.

Professors receive many e-mails a day, and are usually very busy. Saying what you want to say clearly not only shows respect for their time, but also makes it more likely that everything written will be carefully read.
Do at least a basic spellcheck.

Especially in the beginning of a communication. It doesn't cost much time and effort, but could leave a bad impression.
Do not attach big files unless explicitly asked for.

Anything larger than a few MB should not be sent unless asked for (e.g. sending all your credentials / application papers when first contacting somebody is bad), and especially not to somebody who you are not collaborating with at the moment.

Beyond this, there is not much else. I already feel like it's hard to call any of these rules, they're just guides based on common sense. Just say what you need to say. I put and extended the comment by @user11259 here as an example:

  Hello Dr./Prof. Brain,

  I gratefully accept your offer of admission and research assistantship, and I look forward to working with you.

  (Please let me know about the next steps in the admission process I need to take.)

  Sincerely,

  user11259


Cover letter clarification for a lecturer position

Yes, you should paste the headings into your coverletter and format them as headings.  If they are numbered, keep the numbering.

Probably the hiring committee will need to rate your responses to each heading.  Format your letter to make it easy for them.


Why are some highly-cited papers shown by Google Scholar arXiv preprints?

I may throw some insights in the fields related to computer science and machine learning. Nowadays those fields witness an explosion of advancement: numerous international conferences and workshops are hold every month. With such a rapid speed of development, it is a common practice that the authors upload their preprints to arXiv even before their work is accepted, just to establish their progress.


Does waiting a few years before pursuing a PhD affect chances of getting admitted?

Waiting can negatively affect your chances of admission if you aren't doing academia-related things: for example, if you quit to join industry for 3 years, then when you get around to applying your letter writers might not remember you that well anymore (they might even have died/retired/resigned), which will have a negative impact.
What you are doing, on the other hand, will not negatively affect your chances - in fact you are likely to improve your chances. You are after all getting more/better letters of recommendations & publications, two key aspects to an application.


Are people who left academia happy with their decision?

I believe some of the national longitudinal surveys would cover this for the US.

For instance, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 cohort started tracking "middle school" age students in 1979 and is still tracking them. They have hundreds to thousands of attributes including education and many measures of health and happiness (though not all are updated every year).

Another example is the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health).


Can an article include "A Comparative Study" in its title if its main purpose is not comparison?

In many ways, the title of a scientific work can be thought of as a super-short abstract. In other words, it should tersely summarize what a reader is likely to find most salient in that work.

Thus, if you are a reviewer encountering a title that you find misleading as relates to the content, then it is entirely reasonable and appropriate to suggest that the title be changed.  As flaws in a paper go, however, I would find it pretty minor from a reviewing standpoint, since it doesn't much affect the content and is very easy to fix.


What are the aspects associated with working in a 'liberal arts environment' in academia?

There is an important distinction to make between a "liberal arts college" and a liberal arts environment in general.

The former indicates a particular kind of school, normally without graduate schools and professional degree programs, which specializes largely in undergraduate education. While faculty and students do participate in research activities, they are not nearly as extensive or as important as at research universities.

The liberal arts environment, on the other hand, is the tradition in which essentially all modern Western university operates.


Even if there are services computing them, the impact factor for a preprint repository would not be useful.

Impact factors represent how many citations an article gets on average within a certain period of time. As such, they are supposed to be a rough metric for the selectiveness of a journal. If a journal is highly selective, then only highly impactful articles should (in theory) make it in, driving the impact factor of the journal up.

Now a preprint repository is explicitly designed to not be selective - Every paper gets in (possibly under some conditions that are hardly comparable to peer-review). As such, the impact factor of such a repository would not measure anything of interest.


Where is the best places to find faculty job postings in physics?

If you're a member of the American Physical Society (APS), I would recommend looking there first (http://www.aps.org/careers/employment/index.cfm). Many universities will post here, as it's the official representative of physicists in the United States.

In addition, I recommend looking at university department webpages. If there is a certain region or state you'd like to work in, narrow your search to universities there.


How do I communicate my research with a general audience more effectively?

Try lots of different things. You've tried one thing, and it hasn't worked.

Treat it like any other kind of experimental research. Try new things, monitor the results, adjust your approach accordingly.

Some things that can work:

use specific examples: identify a very specific problem that they can understand, and show how you're trying to address that problem
use analogy and metaphor: find out something about what interests them, and draw parallels between that and what you're doing
be passionate: talk about the aspects of your work that you really care about, and why you are passionate about them; even if they don't understand the words, they'll understand your emotions.


When to approach my dissertation supervisor?

Guidance is typically provided on when you'd be expected to come up with your research question and your nomination of supervisor. Follow that guidance. If you haven't been told yet, then at least wait for the induction week to find out how things are organised. To kick off on choosing a dissertation topic and supervisor before induction really would be too early. Indeed, it would just look silly. So at the very minimum, do at least wait for two weeks.

On our (UK) Masters courses, the selection of thesis topic and supervisor doesn't happen until the second term. That's because the taught modules in the first term gives the students the grounding in research skills and research areas, and an introduction to the staff, that enables them to make better decisions.

If a student approaches a member of staff earlier than that, then a common response would be to note the interest, and to invite them to come back in the second term if they were still interested, but that there's no commitment to do so, as lots of things change after the first term.

An early approach does not necessarily make a good impression. It can look hasty. It can look like you're not expecting to learn anything in the first term.

And we don't really do reserving of research-questions, as such. At least, merely being the first to propose a research question for your dissertation doesn't give you priority in doing it. We work with students to get the best match of question, student skills, and supervisory support. If student B provides a better match than student A, then we'll recommend that student B does that dissertation, regardless of whether A or B proposed it first. In recent cases where we have had overlaps between particular students, then the research area has has sufficient open questions that the students have each been able to do a distinct dissertation within it (and indeed subsequently co-author papers together). So I don't really recognise this notion of "missing out on a topic".

It takes quite a bit of subject familiarity to understand where the open questions are, and that's one of the reasons why we wait until the second term before we get to topic and supervisor selection.


Is just after your PhD a good time to switch your research area?

This decision requires a fair amount of courage and planning. In short, yes, it is very much possible to switch your research area. Whether or not such a switch is successful depends on how well you plan it, and on the supportive nature of your future employers. You should be upfront with your postdoc advisor about your intention to switch. Because of the learning curve associated with the new area, expect a reasonable amount time (6 months or 1 year) before you can hope to produce research output in the new area. They should know this in case they are hiring you with the intention of fulfilling some funding obligations/deliverables in short time frames. My suggestion is to see if you could try to find a link betwee your current and intended area. If so, you could use this link as a bridge to move towards your new area, instead of all at once (which can be very overwhelming).


As a postgrad student, is it appropriate not to add my supervisor's name on publication?

Since you haven't explicitly mentioned which academic discipline this concerns, and as EnergyNumbers mentioned in the comment, different disciplines may have different conventions, I'll answer in terms of my discipline, (Theoretical) Physics. I would be horrified if it so turns out that things are any different in any other scientific discipline (at least).

Whenever an article gets submitted for publication, one has to''accept'' a declaration that all those people who made significant contributions were (at least) offered co-authorship. If they decline to be an author, that's a different story. As PVAL mentioned above in a comment, it is academic dishonesty if someone is sitting in the author list without having contributed anything significant to the investigation. Even if you discount the ''politics'', as you mentioned, the other team is frowning because your supervisor is ''not involved in the project''. If that means that he only offered occasional advice, perhaps born out of his experience with doing similar things, (''have you tried ...'' variety), then the right place for him is in the acknowledgements section. Just mention, ''we thank [his name] for helpful discussion/ inputs ...'' etc. But if it means that you want to include his name only because ''what I learned came from him'', I'm afraid I have to point out that authorship is not a Christmas card. (By the same token, why not include your parents, or your spouse, or your high school teachers - you owe a lot to them also :P). It is WRONG to include any person who didn't contribute TO THE INVESTIGATION, howsoever highly regarded he may be in your personal life.

But having said that, here's some seasoned advice - Go and talk to your supervisor in private and explain the situation. Ask him whether or not you should include him in the list, fighting opposition from the other co-authors. It is possible that he may have been in this situation before (whichever side), so he will show you the light. One-to-one dialogues go a long way in resolving these sort of harmless dilemmas.

Besides, that will serve another purpose - you will show him that you ''respect'' him so much that you want to gift him authorship in an investigation that he hasn't contributed to at all :P. (I expect that any sensible man would decline in this situation).


Choosing a degree program with 'low academic standards'

Since the sentiments already appear in your question, let me make this extremely clear:

Modern university degree programs serve at least two distinct purposes: education and certification

I entirely agree with you that a if you already know the material, for the education purpose of the degree it seems redundant to take a course on a subject you have already mastered. But as you have already indicated in your question, employers, graduate schools, and other agencies may choose to use your university transcript as evidence of said mastery. (Though, in some fields, the professional society provides their own certification function. For example, the society of actuaries have their own pathway toward membership. Those fields may be more "friendly" to someone without a formal degree.)

But I do wonder how you came to the assessment that you already know most of the material in offer for the degree programs. The Dunning-Kruger effect is a well-documented phenomenon in which practitioners of low expertise tend to overestimate their competency. While I am not saying that this necessarily apply to you, frequently in a classroom scenario one of the most difficult things is to first break down the students' existing misconceptions before actually teaching the material.

That said:

From your post I gather you are based in Britain. One option for you is to pursue a degree outside the United Kingdom. The liberal arts type education in the United States, for example, give greater flexibility in the choice of coursework toward a degree program, and frequently you can make special placement arrangements to participate in higher/graduate level coursework in lieu of the introductory courses. Additionally, given you interest, maybe you should investigate degree programs in mathematical biology. Modern math bio tend to combine theoretical and computational mathematics (which involve a good deal of programming and simulations) with life sciences.


How to make a software documentation "officially" citable?

There are about as many approaches to citing software (and making software citable) as there are software packages.

One way is to create a DOI for your software via Zenodo. This DOI can then be updated for each version of the software. Another way is to write a paper about the design and features of your software and see that it gets published somewhere. There are numerous journals for this -- for example, SoftwareX or, for mathematical software, the ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software. (Disclaimer: I'm a co-Editor-in-Chief of the latter.)

There are numerous other projects that have guidelines of how to best do this. You may want to take a look at the Force11 project, for example, as well as the outcomes of the WSSSPE series of workshops.


Difference between special issues and regular ones

Different journal may put different meaning into "special issue" It could mean that papers have been invited around a certain theme, it could mean papers come from a workshop or symposia, or that the journal have decided to gather papers around a specific topic for some reason. The point is that a special issue differs from a regular issue in that the papers constitute a collection around a theme or coming from a specific group of authors or event. Such issues can either be a decision by the journal or a request from a group of scientists to publish around "their" proposed theme. There may be additional cases but these are the ones I am familiar with within my field.


Large, non-random proportion of students not invited for evaluation of a course

If you can prove that 38% of the students where not even invited, you should go to the relevant committee and challenge the evaluation. Demand that they either invite the rest of the students as well (if it is still possible to reach them and the evaluation is not too long ago) or that they declare the evaluation null and void because it was not done properly.


Do I have to change the article name when it is the extended version of my published paper?

Usually, there is no formal requirement that the title has to be changed. In fact, if the journal paper is just the long version of the conference paper, I would recommend not to change it, so that the connection between the two papers is obvious to people who see the paper in a list of references.

As soon as the journal version of the paper has appeared, it is generally assumed that this is the version that should be read and cited, rather than the shorter conference version. By keeping the title unchanged, you tell readers that there is no need to read the earlier one as well.


Thoughts on if it's possible to succeed in math @ PhD level w/o natural ability in quant reasoning?

To know whether you can do an applied math PhD, the question to ask is: did you succeed in difficult math, science, and computer science courses in undergrad, and do you have professors in relevant fields willing to write you a strong recommendation? General aptitude tests are dramatically less informative. This is not to say that, if you’re correct that you have average quantitative reasoning ability, a math PhD might not be the wrong choice for you. It’s just that you have other, much more refined and relevant, information available to judge by.

EDIT: Based on your edits, I’d say an A in Calc III at Columbia is more informative than the IQ test. That said, you have few advanced courses-only one, once you finish real analysis. So there’s not much evidence yet of your prospects. You’re in a plausible position to apply to master’s programs, and if you get into a good one, you’ll a get a much clearer idea of yourself there.


Is there an official, widely used subject classification?

In addition to the ones @Coder suggests, perhaps the library classification systems:

Library of Congress
Dewey Decimal
Universal Decimal Classification

might be useful?

As @tonysdg says below, there are a variety of other system, too.


Does citation count include cites from arxiv

Google scholar counts any citation from anything their algorithms identify as a technical document. These are not limited to "known" or approved publications. Thus these include citations from papers on arxiv.

I don't know about researchgate.


Am I naive to think I can focus on professional programming and still be active in the field of CS as a whole?

I am a professional programmer with a PhD.

I have had a colleague, who was working as a programmer and continued even publishing in his unrelated field (chemical engineering/textiles), so if you are dedicated, it is even easier for you to do, since your area might be related, but still it is not a light undertaking. But if you can find a more research heavy R&D position in the industry, of course that would make it easier.

I am personally planning to teach adjunct classes, to keep me fresh about theoretical basis.

Hope my two cents helps.


What is the best way to list code snippets in a undergraduate thesis?

Listing is another word that gets used sometimes. It sounds a bit unnatural to me though; maybe it is in wide use just because it is used in a certain Latex package.


I don't necessarily know that I agree with your advisor's perspective, but the way you could do this is having "baseline" be 100%, and the changes between method A and method B being deviations from 100%.

So for example, rather than 5% and -7% you'd have 105% and 93%. This, to me, seems entirely stylistic in many cases, however may be consistent with things in your field. For example, relative risks in epidemiology implicitly use a scale somewhat like this.


Online "database" for mathematical conferences?

The American Mathematical Society has a calendar of conferences: http://www.ams.org//meetings/calendar/mathcal

As does the Mathematical Association of America: http://www.maa.org/meetings

And the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics: http://www.siam.org/meetings/


Does job experience matter for graduate school admission?

While I cannot answer the question for your particular cases, job experience does indeed matter for some graduate school admissions programs. For example, many Masters programs in Public Health or Health Administration have started to require some job experience in their admissions.


How should I ask what degree abbreviations an academic wants to come after their name?

[Expanding @Thomas's comment into an answer, so the question may be resolved]

The best way to figure out how a person would like their name listed is to simply ask them directly, as opposed to attempting to infer it from their biographical information.

Thus, when you are putting together the program, name tags, etc. let the form have a blank saying something like:

  Name, as you would like it to appear in the official conference program

Note that sometimes people want something different on their badge and on official listings, so it's worth having two blanks if you are asking about badges as well.


Re-using literature review ideas in another assignment, paper, etc

The answer to this question is very simple: Fully explain the situation to the teachers of BOTH classes and ask what is acceptable to them. Transparency is the key to avoiding almost all kinds of perceived inappropriate behaviour, and this is definitely such a case. The only right answer in your situation is what both teachers consider acceptable.

Believe it or not, standards of what is or is not plagiarism can sometimes be quite subjective, and in my experience, no area is more subjective than when it comes to questions about multiple submission and repurposing your own previous work (which some people call "self plagiarism", but I hate that term and so I avoid using it--I prefer to describe the behaviour rather than making the ridiculous suggestion that you can plagiarize yourself). What is acceptable to one teacher is unacceptable to another, and not only that, a teacher can change their mind on a situation simply because you take the time to openly explain what's going on.

Often, if you are transparent to both teachers about reusing material across classes, they will let you do it as long as you are very clear to them what is new and original in each submission. (At least, that was my experience in university when I used the same subject for an English paper and a Public Speaking speech, having fully informed both teachers of what I was doing.)


Should I bring up minor writing errors that I noticed after submitting revised version?

You should ask the editor who approved your paper about what to do. Resubmitting a new version might speed up their process or might make no matter. And, not all journals/conferences will have a copy editing phase in any case.

But leaving it unstated is just sloppy work and if it is recognized you might actually face rejection since the acceptance seems to have been conditional. Make your best effort.


Is an author allowed to use the same figure in different papers without citation?

Unfortunately there's no easy general answer to the copyright question, since it depends on the terms of the copyright assignment the authors signed with journal X, as well as the complexity and originality of the figure (you can't easily copyright an image of a triangle, you might have more difficultly with an image showing e.g. multiple stages of an algorithm). If the image was created programatically, then one possible solution might be to redraw it with slightly different data and new labelling.

It's also important to note that just citing the original source doesn't automatically make the copyright legal issues vanish. While the journal's home jurisdiction (or the authors') might grant you fair use rights/a fair trading defence, these each have their own restrictions, based on how much of the original the figure formed. Many academic publishers have a web portal allowing authors to request permissions to republish. These frequently (but not always) give reductions/waivers on fees to the original authors, or to articles submitted to their own journals.


Does the choice of programming language affect paper acceptance in mechanical engineering?

The short answer is, no.  I've never experienced or heard of a reviewer caring about what language was used for code in a science or engineering paper.

In any case, I don't think Python is "unconventional" in 2015.  Here are some well-known and widely used codes that can be used for CFD with Python front-ends:

http://pyfr.org
http://fenicsproject.org
http://github.com/clawpack/pyclaw

Note that all of these use Python in combination with lower-level languages for performance.

I'll also mention the educational course CFD Python.


Tips & Examples for Academic Video Making in CS and Related Fields?

SciFund ran a class last summer on making academic videos.

Some tips from that course that I found helpful:

Start with a "hook" to grab viewers' attention, use dramatic tension to keep it. See e.g. this video. (From Week 2 of the course.)
In your script, emulate the way people speak, not write - it will sound much more natural. (See Week 3 of the course.)
When you record your voice-over, use good equipment (you can get a cheap lav mike that works with a smartphone and has pretty decent quality), record in a quiet place, keep your tone level. (From Week 3 of the course.)

All of the class materials are available online:

Week 0
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5

As for examples of good science videos, Vox has some nice examples of videos that are both appealing and informative. See e.g. this one, or this one. Although theirs are for a general audience, not a specialist audience, a lot of the principles are the same, and I personally find it useful to note things that I think they do well (production-wise) that I can emulate.


Double marking has many roles, but mostly it is to ensure accuracy and fairness. The main way of achieving this, and avoiding the statistical anomalies alluded to in the comments is to produce an effective marking scheme, so that academics with sufficient background can grade the exam and produce virtually the same grades. Easier said than done.

More details can be found on the Internet, for example, on Swansea University's website.


I can only muse about the inner workings and motivations of Google, but:

Google Books is for all kind of books, not only scholarly books. And since deciding whether a book is scholarly is something that cannot be automatised just like that, it is arguably less bad to miss some scholarly books which are in Google Books than to have all of Google Books’ books in Google Scholar.
As already indicated this answer (hinted at by mhwombat), being categorised as citation in Google Scholar essentially means that the only trace Google Scholar has of this work (in a scholarly context) is that it is cited by some other work. In particular, Google does not even know that this piece of work is a book and not any other type of publication (e.g., if you export such a citation to BibTeX, its type defaults to article).
Google could link its databases and include all books in Google Books in Google Scholar if it manages to match them with a citation, but this might not be such a good idea either as non-scholarly publications are also cited sometimes – just look up some random, very popular pieces of fiction and see whether they got cited.


Any ethical problems with dating a former student?

I don't see any inherent ethical problems here: the key word is former student, so there is no present power dynamic, conflict of interest or anything like that.

However, you should be prepared for those in your department to find out that you are dating a former student, which could create a certain amount of push back.  For instance:

The one year gap between the student being in your course and your romantic relationship will not be apparent to all who know about the relationship.  Even if you tell them, they may not believe it.  Even if neither of you expressed an interest in dating until recently, people may still suspect that you had romantic feelings for one of your students while they were your student.
There is presumably some age differential.  If it is small enough, people will probably ignore it.  If it is large enough, a lot of people will try to figure out "Why is s/he dating him/her?" This will motivate them to find out that your romantic partner is your former student.
If you date more than one former student, people may view you as using your classroom as a hunting ground for future romance.  If this sentiment is held widely, it could make your future students uncomfortable.

I hasten to add that none of these point to any clear ethical lapse or mistake on your part.  In particular, the idea that it is disturbing for a much older (adult) to date a much younger (adult) may be more of a societal taboo/hangup than anything that can be rationally justified.  It is also true that most romantic relationships come with a certain amount of push back, and some kinds of romantic relationships still get a lot of push back for things that many/most of us feel strongly are absolutely unproblematic: e.g. inter-racial relationships, same sex relationships.  (In fact, I am very sorry to say that if your relationship is not inter-racial or same sex, any push back you get will probably be mild compared to that, and if it is, that will increase the push back considerably.)  I recommend weighing the possible costs of such a relationship against the possible benefits.


Is it appropriate to use a previous (recent) letter of recommendation for a different application?

I do not think you should reuse the letter as is, for two reasons:

The letter writer did not intend for it to be reused, or else it would have been written more generically.  It's generally not reasonable to use such a letter outside of the circumstances envisioned/authorized by its author.
You would have to explain that there's no realistic way to contact the writer, and that is itself a red flag.  It looks suspicious to say "here's what Professor X would say if you could contact him, but you can't".  A letter isn't worth much if the committee couldn't in principle contact the writer to confirm or ask further question.

Certain rare cases might merit an exception, such as reusing a letter from someone who has since died.  (Where the death is a matter of public record, everybody assumes that of course the writer would have updated the letter if death hadn't intervened, and they are inclined towards flexibility because of the difficult situation.)

How hard would it really be to contact the letter writer?  If it's inconvenient but not impossible, then it could be your best option.


How to convince the faculty search committee to select/short list me at a place where my research interests are already actively being pursued at?

That is essentially not something you can do. Whether or not a department wants an additional faculty member in an area is something the department needs to figure out. As I mention, "The research topics are extremely complicated" is something that every researcher can and will (correctly!) say about their own research area, and having another colleague in their area will help them as well. As a consequence, if you claim that hiring you will be good for the research group then that will likely not have much of an effect -- the search committee members will know that this is true for a hire in any area already represented in the department.

In practice, figuring out in which areas a department wants to hire is often a difficult and contentious process. Everyone wants more faculty in their own area. An outsider will not generally have a voice in this process, and so you trying to convince them of something that they need to figure out themselves seems to me like a futile thing. Focus on making your application look good by having lots of publications in good journals, writing proposals and getting them funded, etc. What you can do is point out that your research would have natural connections to researchers already in the department, and who this is.


Classroom manner: is it polite to chat during a lecture in Canada?

I think these are just Canadian kids who are just being rude--sometimes younger students will test what they can get away with. I cannot imagine any situation where treating the lecturer like a TV would be acceptable. Tell them you're trying to listen to the lecture and not to them.


Should I contact professors in Europe to enquire about PhD positions given the ongoing pandemic?

It is always good to send inquiries and applications for positions, in consideration of the pandemic, you need to think about transportation, amount of time you can potentially wait until the position must be filled, and whether you are qualified enough to be worth the inconvenience of what was previously mentioned. Many airlines are open, so I don’t suspect transportation will be an issue, and with the vaccine rolling out in Europe, I don’t suspect they will be too picky about foreign hires, the main issue arrises on how long you want the institution to wait before you will start in your position, as applying with the hope of waiting out the virus most likely will end up with you not landing the position; otherwise, it’s a great idea to apply to the institutions that meet your standards and vise versa.


What does "pers. commun" stand for in academic papers?

As said by Thomas in a comment, it means personal communication.

Under this phrase, there can be any kind of communication: a discussion (in the university corridors, at a conference, before a couple of beers etc.), an email or whatever.

The communicated piece of information might be something already published, something that is going to be published, or something that will be never published but it is related to the communicator's experience.

For instance, while doing a certain research, I might stumble across some curious phenomenon of which I don't know the origin: the phenomenon might be totally secondary with respect to my research, but I'm curious and I ask someone else, maybe an expert in another field, the origin of this phenomenon. Then, while writing up a paper I might say: you see that bump over there in Figure 2? Well, it has nothing to do with what I'm saying here, but it's due to this and that, Jack told me (tacitly: I'm writing this in the paper because then you, reviewer, will not ask me: hey, what's that bump in Figure 2?)

In your examples, instead, the personal communications are really more related to the research described in the papers.


Is it appropriate to phone a researcher/academic? (Germany)

I don't appreciate being called; it imposes your time schedule on me. Others differ. However, I suspect that email is your safest bet.

The practical problem is that many universities in Germany have been closed due to COVID-19, and the numbers listed will be the work numbers. Either you are calling an empty office, or your call is forwarded to the persons home adress, which may not be what you want.

@MassimoOrtolano makes a good point in emphasizing the unannounced part of a phone call. You could sent an email to make an appointment. I would be fine with that.


Biographical Sketches in NSF Postdoc application

I would follow the specific directions.

Trace the links back and you get to a full description of what they want.  It's on pages II-14 and II-15 of this document:  https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/policydocs/pappg19_1/nsf19_1.pdf

Give them exactly what is asked for, in order, and matching the directions.

No, not your CV.


Logos can be protected by both copyright and trademark. This is entirely orthogonal to the issue of citation. By academic convention, you are required to cite any work which contributed intellectually to your work. If I base my work on a paper from the 1800s, I am still required to cite it, even though it is likely to be long out of copyright. This is not a legal requirement, but a question of academic ethics.

Whether you are required to cite these logos will depend on whether they make an intellectual contribution to your work, and the common practices of the field in which you are working. It does not depend on whether the logos are under copyright or trademark.


Good things rarely come to whistleblowers. Most of the time, absolutely nothing happens [to the accused] and occasionally really bad things happen to the whistleblower in the forms of retribution, blacklisting, defamation/slander lawsuits, etc.  Laws protecting whistleblowers tend to be ineffectual at best.

You need to evaluate the benefit/risk ratio yourself.

That being said, if you were to whisteblow, there are several levels you can do it at:

University office of research integrity/ethics. For example:  http://research.ubc.ca/ethics/british-columbia

** While this involves a private company, the PI may  also have an affiliation with a university
National office of research integrity. For example in the USA: http://ori.hhs.gov/

**  In Canada: http://www.acaho.org/?document&id=164
Funding agency whistleblower hotline

** Canada: http://www.rcr.ethics.gc.ca/eng/policy-politique/framework-cadre/

Good luck.

[That all being said: the situation you describe is likely to yield at most a   reprimand from the funding agency if the girlfriend  was actually  working while receiving a salary (and thus it wasn't embezzlement only nepotism). I'm assuming the company already knows -- private companies tend to be more lax about these things compared to public (and even private) universities which receive a majority of the funding from the state.]


What to call someone that is currently studying for their PhD?

The title would likely be "Mr." / "Mrs." / "Ms.". There is no prepended academic title that means "will likely have a doctorate at some point".

In other news, a PhD student is probably not a good reference in the first place. You should look for somebody who has been in the game a bit longer and provide a reference that more plausibly compares you against a wider range of previous students.


Any ideas behind my former advisor's behavior?

Maybe he is a bozo. Maybe he had a bad day. Maybe he misunderstood the situation. What does it matter? You have found a new advisor and moved on with your life.

I would have just voted to close ("help me guess what he was thinking" questions are off-topic here), but I think there is a real issue in your post, and I think it's this line:

  I asked him when I would be graduating since I was genuinely curious

You should not be "asking" this question! As you've discovered, advisors make mistakes all the time -- it's very common for undergraduate students to stay longer than they expected (and pay extra) because their advisor made a mistake. Instead, you should look up all the classes you need for your major (including gen eds) and make a plan for when you will take each of them. Your advisor (the good one) can help you with this, but any mistakes will hurt you, not your advisor, so it's on you to get this right.

Good luck!


Is there a standard mapping between "English" and "Latin" honors?

In general, it's always best to report things as they were received. If you received "highest distinction," right that, not summa cum laude. Let the institution receiving the application handle the translation, unless they explicitly tell you otherwise.


What does YEAR: NNff means in research papers? eg 1965: 47ff

"ff" stands for "and following" so in your case it is page 45 and following pages that are indicated. It should be used when no stop page can be given. The abbreviation comes from the latin for page foilum plur. folia. Originally one would write page 45f to indicate just the following page, i.e. "45-46". The two f's indicate more than one page so "45 and on".


How to cite uproot and awkward arrays (by Jim Pivarski)?

You can cite the paper using the arxiv number and add a link to the github repo in a footnote. As a basic example:

Methodology
In this work, we make use of the uproot package* for array
calculations [1].
* www.github.com/scikit-hep/uproot
Bibliography
[1] Pivarski et al., "Awkward Arrays in Python, C++, and Numba",
arxiv: 2001.06307


Do I have to be affiliated with an institution to publish on arXiv? Is arXiv the right place to put it?

Independently of whether you need an affiliation, this sounds like a well-known representation of trig formulas (Euler's formula). There is quite some theory involved with this, including and up to Galois theory. You should check with someone knowledgeable whether you indeed discovered anything new.

It's fun to discover new stuff, and it's a cool feeling to recover things that very smart people came up with, but, once you are there, you have to give it the reality check, which is the ultimate hallmark of the scientist.

Perhaps some friendly mathematician from the local college is happy to spare half an hour with a talented high schooler to give you at least an idea how novel the idea is or what else to try from this point on?


How should an administrative assistant reply to student addressing them as "Professor" or "Doctor"?

In the U.S., I think just don't bother to directly respond.

Your email signature probably accurately indicates your position, and if people don't understand the hierarchy of universities, it doesn't really matter. Their respectful form of address is just recognizing that you can give authoritative opinions on things... whatever your precise title/degree...


Worries because I'm slow in understanding course materials and my mind goes blank in exams

No. You are definitely not retarded.

You mention that you spend a considerable amount of time going into deep research on every subject. Indeed one of the skills you develop (or should strive to develop) during the course of your studies is to adopt a more pragmatic approach and understand when do you need to understand every detail and when do you need to only understand things at a high level. I had a similar experience to yours so I know that this might sound to you like cheating/impostering, but the reality is that with the sometimes overwhelming load that you are faced with during your studies (and will keep facing in your future academic or professional life) you routinely need to evaluate if the gain in your overall performance from this additional rigorousness will indeed justify the amount of time you will invest in it, often at the expanse of other tasks.

Two things that helped me personally to control this tendency are:

Studying with other students. This can help give you some feedback on whether it is indeed vital to go into that level of detail on that particular task.
Deciding in advance how much time I'm going to dedicate to a specific task. This is indeed challenging and might also be stressful at times, but knowing you have this time constraint can help you to prioritize what are the most vital elements of each task.

Another equally important point: from your description it sounds possible that you might have ADHD or some other learning disability. I recommend that you will approach the unit in your university in charge of supporting students with learning disabilities. They will be able to advise you how to optimize your learning process and help you get additional assistance that you may be entitled for.

Last but not least, have faith in yourself! the fact that you are taking such a challenging program and are studying diligently and the very fact that you asked this question shows that you are capable!


If a reviewer makes significant contributions to improving a paper, may he/she suggest becoming a coauthor?

At this point, I wonder what the best way to proceed is. Should I just submit the report with these suggestions?

This is indeed the high road to take here. As a reviewer, you explain your ideas on how the paper can be improved. The authors will or will not take all or some of them into account.

Asking for co-authorship in return for your service would likely be perceived as very cocky and unprofessional. I doubt that either the editor or the authors would be pleased about this or seriously consider taking you up for your offer.


Are control theorists considered mathematicians?

I don't have references on the demographics but, traditionally, many and probably most control theorists are engineers by formation and it's in the field of engineering (electrical, mechanical, aerospace, etc.) that most of control theory applications reside.

However, control theory is really a broad interdisciplinary subject comprising engineering, mathematics and, to a lesser extent, physics. For mathematics, topics like algebra, graph theory, dynamical systems theory, optimization theory, and functional analysis are fundamental for the development of control theory, and mathematicians have provided outstanding contributions, as Dan Romik well explained.

My interpretation of your question, however, is whether a control theorists who is engineer by formation is considered a mathematician. I don't like barriers between disciplines, and exceptions always exist, but in my experience engineers are seldom considered pure mathematicians, and their contributions to mathematics are usually far from the mathematics of interest to win a Fields medal.

Thus, there's no Fields medal for control theorists, at least in your probably intended sense, but IEEE awards prizes (e.g., the IEEE Control Systems Award) for outstanding contributions in the field.

But you don't choose a field for the prizes, right?


UK Postdoc - Is salary negotiation even possible?

There is no reason why a post doc cannot be appointed at a higher point on the spine if there is money there, that said, rarely is there money available. The number of people doing multiple post docs in the UK is smaller than in the US, and they usually stay at the same school. That means they often can be appointed to a higher grade. Therefore grants for post docs usually budget for the lowest salary and normal progression. A school or university funded postion would have more flexibility, but the head of school is not going to authorize more money from their budget.

I would not bring up the salary until after an offer is made. Once an offer is made, it cannot really hurt to say "hey, I deserve to be at the top of the scale since ...". They will then laugh and say you are right, but that is all they can offer.


Etiquette: senior and junior professors co-advising

The emeritus professor might not be allowed to advise any students officially because of his retired or semi-retired status, so talk to the Prof B first and discuss with him that you'd like Prof A to be involved. You can work with him to figure out how to approach A and in what role he can "legally" act under your university's regulations.


Is it a good idea to do Masters in multiple subjects rather than doing a PhD?

This depends on your goals, so doesn't have a definite answer. For industrial work, another masters might work, as would some actual work experience. In fact, for some jobs a doctorate might be viewed as a negative: "We want do-ers here, not just think-era".

But if you want a successful career in academia, then you really need to get a doctorate. You would be very limited there without it. Hard to get a job, hard to advance.

Examine your goals and then find a path to achieve them. In fact, many paths might be followed to the same goal.


Citing oneself in PhD application documents: Good or bad?

I find manner in which you frame your question quite interesting. To address your question, if you have published work then why not cite it? Of course it may reveal your identity but that can only work to your advantage in the long-run. If the professor doesn't like the applicant for personal reasons the applicant probably wouldn't want to do a PhD with that particular professor anyway. 4 years or even 3 can be a very long-time if PhD and supervisor are not on the same wave-length.
Moreover, if you do not cite your own published work you might be plagiarizing yourself.

If the work is not published at all then I would probably not mention it in a PhD application, because it can have the opposite effect. The reviewers may think that the applicant focusses too much on his/her own work and opinions and is not flexible enough. After 1.5 years of PhD I can safely say that flexibility is a key ingredient to a successful PhD journey. Therefore, show off your knowledge when your present your argument and ideas.

If the work is published, but not a in a peer-reviewed journal, then I guess it depends where you are applying to (university, department, professor).
Good luck with the application!


Not getting along with Spanish professor. Professor is condescending, and picks favorites. I feel I have enough evidence to do something

Others may disagree, but I think you should go over her head. When she's outright admitting that she plays favorites with the participation grade, her department should know. What they do with that information is hard to predict, but if such complaints become a pattern with this teacher, they (hopefully) have to do something about it. Plus, complaining now could put you on slightly firmer ground if she gives you a grade for the course that's low enough for you to want to challenge it.

If there's someone with a title like "Director of the Undergraduate Spanish Program," that's the person to complain to.


How much information should I reveal in a postdoc interview, when I am also applying for a fellowship at a different institution?

They will probably ask you if you are applying or evaluating other positions during the interview, if they don't you don't have to bring it up.

But if they do ask, just say you currently don't have any offer in hand but that you are applying to other positions. When and if they make you an offer, at that point you should decide to accept it or not, or to ask for extra time to make your decision. But switching post-doc half way will not be good for your CV or your research, but that's another question.


Principal investigator requests transfer of GitHub repository with my code to his account

The PI asked me to put the algorithm on Github. Accordingly, I created a repository on my personal account and later added the PI as a collaborator. I am a Github novice user but my understanding is that this would be sufficient to push/pull the repository and generally make modifications to it.

It is. The problem is that a personal account is, well, personal, and not overly suited for professional activities, such as research projects. To this end, GitHub uses the notion of "organizations", which can also own repositories. AFAIK there is very little practical difference between having a repo owned by a personal account and an organization, only that having it under your personal account gives the impression that this is a project of yours (as opposed to a project of your lab).

  However I was very surprised that my PI specifically requested a Transfer of Ownership of the repository from my account to his account.

From your personal account to his would be a little weird. From your account to an organization with the name of your lab sounds like entirely fair game to me if for no other reason than to maintain the "corporate identity" of your lab.

  The other solution is to fork the repository onto his account, but the PI doesn't like this solution on the basis that it makes it harder for him/her to maintain a copy in their lab.

Well, if you end up having to maintain both forks your PI is correct. Forking is easy, but keeping two forks up-to-date is unnecessarily cumbersome.

  Is the request to Transfer Ownership a fair request? My rationale is that since I created the code, it the repository should be on my personal account!

... and since you likely created it on grant money of the lab, having it under the account of the lab is at least equally fair.

  How will transfer of ownership affect my future career prospects and search for Assistant Professor jobs, especially as my field (bioinformatics) is heavily dependent on coding and algorithm development?

If bioinformatics isn't completely unlike any other computer science field, then very little people in a hiring committee will care about code in the first place, and nobody will care about whether the repo that contains the code is yours, or the one of your lab, or even the one of your PI where you committed a lot to.

  What other Github alternatives are there (besides forking and transfer of ownership), which would still allow me to keep ownership of the repository and have any changes directly synced to a copy on the lab account?

You can set up a Git repo with two origins, and you always push each change to both origins. However, that seems somewhat cumbersome for rather questionable gains.


'Corresponding author' (coauthor) is irresponsible regarding submitted paper. Should I step back from the collaboration?

You're overreacting.  Good collaborators are hard to come by, so do not do away with a collaborator unless you have an issue with the academic side of collaborating with this person, not if you have an issue with a journal.

First, if you want to establish priority, send to arXiv or an equivalent site.  Next, simply tell your collaborator that unless he/she contacts the editor or the journal very soon you will do it yourself.  Your collaborator may be corresponding author, but it doesn't mean you cannot yourself ask for clarifications from the journal.  Lastly, you will achieve nothing by removing yourself as an author.

Now... you are in a frustrating situation and maybe you are just looking for an excuse to pull out or stop collaborating with this person, but that's another problem altogether.


Why do we cite books with publisher and city?

Versions published in different countries can differ - it's not uncommon for books to be published in one version in the US/Canada, and slightly differently elsewhere. Even a minor difference like binding could conceivably affect page references, so it's important to be clear in that sense. There's also a wider principle of redundancy; if the author does get some part of the citation wrong (say, misspells the author's surname) the more information included in the rest of the citation the better the reader has a chance of recovering the actual item.

With regard to why we use human-meaningful information rather than details like an ISBN, I would venture that dense information like an ISBN is actually quite difficult to read for a human; it's easy for the author to mistype the number when producing the bibliography, and then easy for the reader to mistype it when looking up the reference. It's comparatively harder to get details like publisher name and city wrong. If I'm looking through a bibliography or list of references I much prefer to see information I understand than a collection of opaque numbers.

Having said the above, I'm sure to a large extent it's an historical tradition that has persisted. Certainly before the development of international reference standards like the ISBN system the above arguments held even more weight, and in the days of much less extreme globalisation the various global offices of major publishing houses were much more autonomous. It might conceivably have been quite a different undertaking to be published by, say, Oxford University Press in Oxford rather than Oxford University Press in New York.


My supervisor accidentally forwarded some private e-mail communication to me. What to do?

This happened to me on two occasions, one of which would have been personally and professionally embarrassing to my advisor, or worse.

I had a pretty good relationship with him, and it was very clear the content wasn't meant for me, so perhaps my situation was slightly different, but I said something to the effect of:

'Woah, looks like the horse left the barn on this one. Glad it was just to me!'

In doing this, I admit I understand the embarrassing/sensitive material, but make clear that I appreciate it was a mistake, and also give him piece of mind that I am a safe confidant that can keep something to himself.


Workshop(s) for application to Marie Curie postdoctoral Fellowships (formerly IIF, IEF and IOF, now just IF)

Typically, universities organise these workshops (training events) for their own faculty, possibly in collaboration with commercial companies that provide this kind of training. This is the case not only for Marie Curie fellowships, but for all kinds of EU Horizon 2020 funding opportunities.

Contact the research support people from your own university and ask if they are planning to organise such workshops. Most likely, it would be free for you. Your university would cover the expenses.


Is it appropriate to apply for the same job twice if it's re-advertised?

Give them a call. Only they know if/why they rejected you the first time or simply didn't get to your application.
It might be good to consider the channels through which you've seen the application both times. If the first time was through the institute's official website, and the second time through a third party source, it may be that the third party didn't know the job ad was filled.


Undergraduate thesis quality in research field

In undergrad research, how you did it is more important that where you got.

If you did your research properly, that is: adequate bibliographical revision, adequate problem definition, reasonable approach and a proper interpretation of the results, that is an excellent thesis, IMHO. Even if your conclusion is "these methods are terrible for this", which, if true, is a valid contribution.


After what period of time does a PhD position count towards the two possible attempts in Germany?

I don't think this is quite true in Germany either - or at least not in the generality that I read into your question.

Here is example 1 (Promotionsordnung (PhD bylaws) for psychology and sport, Muenster), and another randomly selected example 2 (Promotionsordnung math, Bonn).  Both stipulate much more restrictive conditions that relate to your question. They somewhat overlap, but not completely - so there is also no uniform answer for Germany. Simply stepping away from a PhD early on would not be a problem in either case. The restrictions on the number of attempts to be successfully awarded a PhD are as follows:

Example 1: you get one and one only attempt to resubmit a declined thesis, and to re-take the oral defense each

Example 2: no restrictions are mentioned on the number of failed thesis attempts. You get one attempt to re-take a failed defense

In particular given that even these two sources don't agree, you just need to pull your program's Promotionsordnung, and confirm which rules apply to you.


What is total number of PhDs globally? How many graduate each year?

In this document you can find some data for Europe and Asia. In particular, it appears that [linked document, p. 47]:

  In 2010 an estimated 125,000 doctoral degrees were awarded in the EU alone (out of a population of 500 million), compared to 70,000 in the US (with a population of 300 million) and 16,000 in Japan (with a population of 130 million).

Probably from the EUROSTAT portal you can find other data for Europe.


Maximum number of citations per sentence?

The short and somewhat unsatisfactory answer is: enough. There is no formal limit but obviously too many becomes impractical. If you can reference a huge number of references for a single statement (sentence) it is normal to pick one or possibly a few by using a format indicating these references are just examples:

(e.g., Smith et al., 1943; Turner and Anthony, 1963)
some statement by, for example, Smith et al. (1943) and Turner and Anthony (1963)

I am assuming Harvard style formatting in these examples.
Exactly when it is reasonable to show examples and when one actually have to show al references is a matter of context. If you, for example, have a series of references that together build up some matter and where none is more important than the other and none summarize the other, it could be necessary to list them all regardless of how many there are. I suggest you try to look at a number of different papers of a similar type (literature review) to the one you are writing to see how others handle such instances. You should also look at other masters thesis if you have the possibility.
The main point of this is to know when it is sufficient to list only (good) examples rather than all possible references. This is of course a matter of training and learning to assess when which format is appropriate. It is therefore necessary to assess when papers simply duplicate each other (from whatever view point you reference) or when  they each contribute something unique that merits their reference.


When changing fields, should I focus more on describing past research or connecting it to the new area in my statement of purpose?

I am going to focus my answer on your original question statement (but without getting involved in editing the official title of your Question):

When changing fields, should my past research be written in a way that brings out the maximum relevance to the new area?
In my current draft of this part, about a half is about this the problem and the result of the work, another half is for my contribution and what I've learnt.

Good.  This is exactly what they're looking for, in that section of your essay.

Having said that, should I focus less on describing the work and leave space for the thing that will be useful for the next research?

No, you can let the "previous work" section stand alone.  That's the section where you show the committee that you have done good science, and that you can speak about it in an understandable way.
Just to make sure we're on the same page -- your essay is going to have another major section, where you get to be imaginative about what you would like to do in the new field, right?


If it’s of theoretical interest, go for it. Maybe don’t tell everyone you meet that you want to do this because of the anime, but I also wouldn’t shy away from saying that it was inspired by something you saw on TV. Focus on the research problem first and the inspiration second and you’ll be fine.


Can something published on arXiv or optimization-online.org be mentioned in my CV?

Putting non-peer reviewed publications on your CV is perfectly fine, but you should be aware that for research-oriented jobs and admission to academic programs you will be primarily judged by your peer reviewed publications.  I have seen CVs that separately list peer-reviewed works and non-peer reviewed works, and sometimes the non-peer reviewed works are simply listed as "technical reports."

If you believe that the papers you write are worthy of being mentioned on your CV, then list them.  But don't think that by putting a bunch of low-quality non-peer reviewed works will do you any favors when looking for work or when applying for academic positions (whether graduate school or employment).  Obviously, you should avoid putting them on your CV if you are doing so simply to demonstrate that you can write a paper.


Does ACM have a style guide for authors?

You should take a look at the format that the ACM template gives to you, but there is no straight answer for an specific format. Try to focus more on the content (like they have advise you on one comment) that in the format. Actually I have seen in some ACM published papers that they put things like (considering your example):

In Equation 5... or
In Eq. 5 ... or
(put the variant you think here)

Consider that is one of your least worries, if you had some problem with the format the reviewers will point to that, but if the content is good is what really counts.

Good luck!


Is there a website where people around the world can discuss research during writing?

In the 20th century newsgroups like, e.g.,

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/sci.physics

were perfect for this, they still exist and you can narrow down the scope and audience of such a group by creating one on your own. Nowadays probably more scientists in such a field post and read on bulletin boards like

https://www.physicsforums.com/

or

https://physics.stackexchange.com.

But, professional scientists don't have much time for long discussions. I think this is also the reason the Q&A format attracts much more then bulletin boards or formerly newsgroups. Academia is about asking the right questions, if you have the question, you have to work on it based on scientific rigor and methodology. There is not so much to discuss publicly before or during doing this work or writing papers and hypothesis. Science is about coming up with a way to solve or answer a question and comparing/commenting on that. The aftermath, discussions come afterwards, when work and answers have been published. So my experience is with disccusion formats you attract in best case undergraduates and early PhD students still learning. Professional scientists mostly have private or public discussions on conferences.

So the best option you might have to discuss with experts on your topics online are virtual conferences where maybe a chat or comment app is attached to each talk. I'm wondering myself how easy and cheap web-technology has become here as I'm now registered for a big conference in my field which will not be canceled with respect to corona virus due to organization cost but many presentations will be shown online after remote registration.

Researchgate I think also can work for this if you have enough followers reading your posted questions. Online, the question is always how do you advertise your post to readers and commenters you are looking for.


How to react once you discover someone plagiarized your call for papers?

The call for papers is normally written by the guest editors of the special issue, so they are probably the ones at fault here.  If, as you say, that other journal is reputable, then its editor (i.e., the usual editor, not the guest editors of the special issue) probably doesn't want to be seen as complicit in such a disreputable activity as aping another journal's special issue selection and plagiarizing its call for papers.  I'd fire off an e-mail to them describing what has happened and asking politely but firmly for an explanation.  If they shrug you off, then the journal is obviously not as honourable as you had imagined, and you can then decide whether to drop the matter or to escalate it (for example, by getting in touch with the journal's publisher, or by publically naming and shaming them).  If you do choose to escalate, you might want to first discuss this with the editor and/or publisher of your own special issue's journal.


Graduating a year early and applying to a philosophy PHD: looking for advice!

Talk to your current professors.

Assuming US, it's too late to apply for most good PhD programs this year.

The academic job market in philosophy is worse than abysmal.  You should assume you will not find a permanent academic position.  Moreover, the data suggests that your chances are even worse if you do not attend a top program - though it's not at all clear that there is a causal relationship.


How to check citations and references match in a manually prepared document with APA author (year) citations?

In the "old days" this was what had to be done manually. I simply printed the reference list (one-sided print) and went through the text and checked the references I passed in the text and checked the corresponding one in the reference list. This would take maybe 20-30 minutes(?). It is clear that this is easier to do on paper than on screen but it is a very safe way to do the checking. In the end you will (hopefully not) end up with references missing ticks in either the text or the list.

So considering, the time it takes, doing the manual check on paper copies, is perhaps boring but not a terrible loss. Sometimes you pick up on other errors as well. Although one should not rely on external help to solve ones own problems, many journals use copy-editors that check for inconsistencies so there may be a back-up for the stray miss.

As for software, I cannot point at one directly. It would have to be able to match first author name and the year between text and the reference list. I does not sound like an impossible task but I would probably just do the job the manual way in the few cases where this is necessary. You can also ask your collaborator to do a separate initial check (as "punishment" for not using bibliographic software). In addition, if you author in LaTeX then writing the bibliography directly with \bibitem and using \cite (or natbib cite commands) commands will at least do half the job.


Write a reminder about a possible undergraduate project

I'm not in the best position to advise you, but, perhaps, he/she hasn't answered you back, because he/she was busy to do so.

Thus, you definitely should e-mail back. Quoting a professor, maybe something like this:

"My e-mail server has been acting up lately, so I'm not sure whether my previous message was delivered properly; here it is again, just in case. Thank you!"

Read the following before:

Email Writing Tips
Read This Before Cold-Emailing Me
Examples of Good and Bad Cold Emails

Best of luck!


Is experience as a Lecturer in Europe/UK considered relevant in Indian inst. (IIT/IIIT/NIT) for Assistant Professor positions in CS?

In the UK, a Lecturer position is approximately equivalent to an Assistant Professor position in the US, with the exception that in the UK it is usually a permanent position, while an assistant professor in the US needs to get a tenure before becoming a permanent faculty. (On the other hand, the UK system doesn't have tenure at all.)

The 2nd paragraph of the OP is unclear.


How to deal with an inappropriate greeting in an email?

Personally, I would address it in a friendly way, but one that makes it clear that you think it's a bit of an odd form of greeting. It doesn't sound like it was intended in an unfriendly or disrespectful way (and I definitely wouldn't characterise it as sexist), but it does sound inappropriately overfamiliar (it would be a bit like one of my students starting an email to me with "Dude! ...").

The easiest way to deal with it, to my mind, is just to send a fairly normal-sounding (but obviously more formal) email back, and mention it in passing in a friendly way at the end. For example:

  Dear <name>,

  Many thanks for your email - really glad to hear that you've been
  learning a lot from the course. It's been good to see the improvements
  in your essay structure since the start of the course - I'm hoping
  that you'll be able to solidify those improvements over the next 8
  weeks.

  Kind regards,

  <name>

  p.s. Just a friendly piece of advice - whilst I'm not generally too
  fussy about people addressing me formally, I think I should probably
  steer you away from things like "my dear lass", not least because some
  people if addressed that way might take it the wrong way and get
  offended. I'm fine with people calling me by my first name (if the OP
  actually is), but I think that's stretching things too far.


What happens when two papers prove the same result?

This situation is by no means "hypothetical". If you are not alone to be interested in the range of problems you are working on, it is pretty much
guaranteed to happen to you sooner or later.

The answer to the question as posted is "on a case by case basis". No general rule applies and no universal attitude exists. You can meet everything from bitter rivalry, fight for priority, and open hostility between the "groups" (or individuals) in question to a gentleman's argument of the kind "you go ahead and publish now and I'll hold my opus for a while".

The simplest and easiest to handle case is when the proofs run on drastically different ideas and employ nearly disjoint sets of techniques. Then one may, of course, try to squawk that he was there a few days earlier but everybody understands that the real test is whose approach turns out more viable and useful on the long run (and quite often they both survive, just lead to different developments). There is no question about the possibility to publish each of them either.

The worst case scenario is when the proofs are nearly identical or one is obviously superior to another, so once you see one paper, there is no reason to look at another one anymore. If the authors know each other and are on friendly terms, they can usually figure out some reasonable strategy (combining everything into one article under all names is the most common way out). Otherwise pretty much anything can happen.

Most situations are somewhere in between. So, just apply your common sense, remember that good relationships are more beneficial on the long run than establishing priority, don't think that you (or anybody else) may really own a mathematical statement or its proof any more than one can own the wind or the light or that one can carry any "credit" beyond the grave, enjoy other people successes as your own, and you'll be totally fine.

If the question is just about "how to cite properly?", when in doubt, cite both works and abstain from any judgement about priority, etc.


Should cheating be expected to be more common in Universities in India, and if so, how could any provided credentials be evaluated for authenticity?

This particular incident doesn't happen to be an university examination. This is the final grade 10h school exam that was conducted centrally by the government of state of Bihar, India. BSEB. The given situation is being highly criticized by Indian media and Indian people as well.

Coming to the question, Yes there is a lot of widespread corruption and malpractices prevalent in India. I can't guarantee you that there had been no cheating involved in passing a student in regard to any examination. However, in Indian universities especially the top ones, the aforementioned phenomenon is quite rare. Moreover, the admissions to these  top universities is quite competitive and often based on entrance exams. You can cheat to pass an exam but you can't score enough to get a rank under 25k out of 1.4 million candidates. (AIEEE)
That said, there are various other parameters to judge a candidate as well. Even let us suppose that a student has been able to cheat his/her way throughout, there is always an interview round to any job or any position.


Is it tough to apply for a CS PHD degree after several years in industry?

It sounds like you have many industry experiences that would look really good on a PhD application. To be blunt though, your GPA is pretty bad. If I was reviewing your application, I would worry that you are one of those students who is very capable, yet also not very focused. Experience has taught me that students who show immense promise (publications, awards, test scores), yet have really poor GPAs, rarely amount to much as graduate students in the modern system.

While this may or may not describe you, students with low GPAs tend to also be the students who struggle to get to their teaching assistant duties on time and who cause administrative nightmares for the graduate committee. (E.g. failing all classes, but arguing that they should still be retained as a graduate student because they think they have a great dissertation). I'll admit that I personally only recommend PhD applicants below a 3.0 GPA for further review by the graduate admissions committee under very rare circumstances. (E.g. they overcame cancer or something). When I am reviewing applicants, low GPA is one of the easiest metrics to immediately discard an application.

What to do:

Your industry experience should be emphasised as an indicator that your GPA is not reflective of what type of PhD student you will be. Your letters of recommendation need to speak to your work ethic and dedication specifically. These are the very best things you can do. I would be much more willing to overlook a poor GPA if everything else was very promising for the applicant (GRE, publications, letters of recommendation, industry experience, in person interviews).

If you have external funding, some programs are much more willing to take you on. (If you are willing to pay the tuition, why would they turn you down? It's low risk for them).

I would also consider applying for master programs as a means of "proving" yourself to PhD programs down the road.


What to bear in mind while publishing a research article in SCI journal?

(Originally this answer presumed that by "SCI journals" OP referred to journals published by the Society of Chemical Industry. OP has clarified that they meant journals indexed in the Science Citation Index, I have modified this answer to reflect that.)

Cite articles on scientific merit and relevance alone. You should have a good idea which journals are accepted authorities in your field. You will, naturally, find yourself citing predominantly from these.

Authors, editors and reviewers will often use the reference list as a shortcut to assess whether a particular paper is suitable for submission to/acceptance in a particular journal. They're not necessarily only looking for their own journal, but looking at the fields and pedigrees of the journals cited helps them quickly estimate the field and importance of the manuscript. As an author, you can use this to help you decide which journal you wish to submit a manuscript to; although it will only work if your citation are genuinely made on scientific merit, not on your subconscious desire to submit to Nature! This technique should also help you avoid submitting to predatory journals.

As for citing from dubious journals, this is a thorny issue. One the one hand, one doesn't want to associate oneself with them (or appear to endorse them) and the papers may not be very robust; on the other hand, one does have an ethical obligation to cite relevant prior work - especially where it something you build on or advance past. Various questions on Academia stack exchange deal with this issue, for example:

Is it a good idea to cite paper from publisher listed in Beall’s list?
Possibly fraudulent journal: cite or not to cite?

This paragraph that was included when assuming SCI referred to a publisher. Less relevant to the clarified question, but still relevant to the question of what to cite:

Citing publications from a particular journal or publisher is never a requirement for publication in a legitimate journal. Journals that engage in such practices risk getting themselves lots of bad publicity and removed from indexing systems. Equally, you should have absolutely no hesitation in citing papers from legitimate, non-SCI journals.


Is it appropriate for assistant professors to supervise PhD students?

Isn't it wrong that an inexperienced assistant professor (who is not far from his PhD studentship days) can take control of one or several PhD students? Don't it reduce the education/research quality?

For certain institutes I've been in, I would find myself asking the opposite question: isn't it wrong for senior professors to supervise students when they have little time for them?

Of course it is not always the case that full professors have no time for their students, but I have seen it happen many times: I've seen cases where students were meeting their official full professor supervisors once a month (or less frequently) and putting names of supervisors on papers that the supervisors had never read. This seems to me to be prevalent in research institutes where the hierarchy tree has a high branching factor to get value out of available funds (few Full Professors, lots of PostDocs / Assistant Professors, even more PhD students and Research Assistants, etc.); in such cases, the priority for senior professors is getting funding for and managing projects. In my case, when I was a PostDoc in such an institute, I was doing the day-to-day supervision of a number of students whose supervisor(s) had no time for them.

Of course it varies from place to place. But my hypothesis is that by the time you reach the Assistant Professor level, either you will have the necessary skills and personality to be a good supervisor, or you will probably never have those skills.

In summary: I don't believe that seniority amongst professors is a good predictor for quality of supervision.


Repository or university working paper series

People actively follow arXiv. They subscribe to the RSS feeds, mailing lists, Twitter bots, etc. that inform them about recent relevant preprints that appear on arXiv. Google Scholar finds new papers on arXiv quickly, and this way the authors will get quick notifications when something that cites their work appears on arXiv. ArXiv papers are also indexed in other widely-used databases (e.g. DBLP in computer science).

I don't see any reason to use a local working paper series. In terms of visibility, it doesn't sound much better than e.g. simply hiding the paper somewhere on your personal home page and hoping that Google will eventually index it and someone will accidentally find it that way.


How do I encourage learning to an underprivileged group

You have a program that sounds almost too good to be true (e.g., free classes, free software, free books, no contract).  And your biggest challenge is that you cannot find new students, right?  Well, two things come to mind.  First, there is a "catch" -- that is, when it is too good to be true, it probably isn't true.  Are there any hidden costs or problems with the program that you have not shared or identified?  Second, what is the extent of the mismatch between the objectives of this program and the needs, values, and interest of your target group?

My recommendation would involve careful analysis of both questions.  You are likely to find a lot of good information by following up with those who have dropped out. Ask them why they dropped out.  Barriers to attendance?  Then you need to figure out why more people aren't signing up.  Consider surveying individuals who were provided the information but chose not to sign up.


Is it worth it to self-fund for research experience post undergrad? Is it possible?

Labor laws are changing, particularly in the United States, and many are interpreting what you would be proposing as an unpaid internship, which is becoming harder for schools to "get away with." For example, if I want to bring someone into my lab to do research, they are supposed to be either paid or receive course credit for their work. But what I can't do for potential grad students is let them work for extended periods of months on a research problem and not compensate them for their work.

So you may find that many people who would be interested in such an arrangement in principle may be hamstrung by their universities' policies.


How to get good recommendation when working under a phd student as an undergraduate

As O.R. Mapper notes, this may vary by country. Undergraduates will usually have much less contact with professors than graduate students, because of the sheer numbers of students involved - professors don't have infinite time to meet with each undergrad for an hour every week.

That said, even German professors write letters of recommendation for undergrads once in a while (e.g., for student grants). Usually, they will get their information from the graduate students that do have a lot of contact with the undergrad. For instance, they may ask the grad student to draft the letter of recommendation, then review, improve and sign it. That way, the undergrad gets a recommendation written by someone who actually knows him and may have more time to invest in the letter than a busy professor, and the grad student gets a little experience in writing letters of recommendation (which is a good preparation for later academic life), and everything is done under the supervision of the professor.

Bottom line: your situation is routine. Don't worry. Just do a good job, and your letter will be fine.


Is it typical to use an uncertain affiliation within a paper?

No. There is no bullet to be bitten. Whenever you submit a paper, you just list your current institution as your home institution, no matter what you want to put here.

The affiliation on a paper has two purposes:

to allow others to contact you - nowadays it's mainly a disambiguation in case your name shows up multiple times on an internet search, but in former times, the institution information was necessary in order to send the author a letter or in order to call him/her;
to assign credit to the institution that supported you during your research.

The Canadian university did not do any of that (yet), so they should not be listed. Note that if you already started at your next institution when the final version of the paper is due, then it is entirely reasonable to update your affiliation then, just as you would update an e-mail address that expired. However, for reason number two from above, you would add a footnote stating that the work was carried out while you were still at your former institute/university.


What should a work supervisor put in a recommendation letter for someone applying to statistics PhD programs?

The readers of such letters will normally be looking for predictions of success in the academic program and thereafter. The past is less important (what you have already done) unless it supports that prediction of success.
If the letter writer understands that, and they are supportive, then you should be fine. But a "bald" statement that "I predict the success of this person." is too easy to discount. It needs to be a bit more subtle than that.


Submit a new version of my paper if my supervisor only commented on an old, very different version?

Ask your second supervisor to talk to your first supervisor about it -- they may be able to agree between themselves that the feedback from your second supervisor alone is enough, given the time constraints.


What is the weight on the applicant's personality for tenure?

This is a really contentious issue (typically referred to as "collegiality" in the context of tenure decisions), and there's no clear standard for what to do.  There have been a lot of opinions, such as this one from the American Association of University Professors, but there is no universal rule.

On the one hand, it's outrageous to deny someone tenure just because you personally dislike or disagree with them.  That's an abuse of the tenure process.  The goal is to end up with a good colleague, not a friend or sycophant, and other considerations are not relevant.  Furthermore, there's a danger of discrimination if the current faculty prefer to be around people like them, which just compounds the individual unfairness.

On the other hand, how someone acts can be a fine reason to deny tenure, regardless of how good their research and teaching are.  For example, it would be a mistake to tenure an abusive jerk.  Being a good colleague involves treating people decently and participating successfully in committees or other administrative tasks.  If you behave poorly enough that you can't do that, then you shouldn't be a member of the department.

Of course the difficulty lies in distinguishing between these possibilities.  What one person sees as courageously standing up for their beliefs in the face of opposition, others can see as being rude and disruptive.  It can be difficult to tell whether someone is behaving in a genuinely objectionable way or you just don't like them.

I'd recommend extreme caution in these sorts of cases, since there's great potential for unfairness and poor decisions.  (When these issues come up, it's a good time to think about implicit bias.  Maybe this behavior wouldn't have bothered you if it had come from someone else?)  At the same time I can't endorse a policy that says it doesn't matter how you treat your colleagues, so the best I can say is "it depends."