How do you get a bad transcript past Ph.D. admissions?

Short answer:

Know what area you want to work in and be fluent with it.
Construct an honest, compelling narrative illustrating your strengths, how you've learned from mistakes or pitfalls, and why you're a good candidate for your chosen PhD programs.
Talk to as many professors as you can about their interests and yours, especially those you'd like to work with.

More details:
There is some excellent advice here and here. Basically, Bradley Voytek (who is now a professor in neuroscience at UCSD) managed to get into UCSF (a top school for neuroscience) with an overall GPA that hovered around 2.5. As Bradley Voytek said, your ultimate goal is this:

  Do everything in your power to leave a paper trail of excellence to
  overcome your grades. Your goal is to make those grades look
  meaningless. Your goal is to have your work speak for you so strongly
  that, when people look at your grades, they feel silly for even giving
  them a second thought.

This was precisely why I was willing to give my unofficial transcript to professors at my school who asked for them (when I needed letters of recommendation). They already knew me well enough to know that my GPA doesn't reflect my true ability.

As another suggestion, if you're applying for a school that puts a lot of weight on a subject GRE exam (like the Physics GRE), you can do your utmost to score obscenely high on the test and still get in. As an example, see this guy who managed to get into Harvard with a 3.1 GPA.

For the record, I'm an undergrad with a 3.16 GPA (with 3 grades of 0.0s and 3-4 courses I retook with grades of 3.0-3.1 on the retake because I didn't even bother going to class on either class attempt). Despite all this, I managed to get into both the University of Chicago and Brown University - both with fellowships for being one of the top applicants. I also almost got into Yale in a year that was unusually competitive for them (they paid for me to visit+interview there) - but there were research fit issues involved at the end (actually - what ended up happening was that I had such intensely-defined research interests - exoplanet climate modelling - that it would have been hard for anyone there to take me individually, and everyone felt that I would be going to Chicago anyways). Click here for a rough profile of my "stats".

You should also try schools that do interviews (especially in-person interviews) before they do acceptances, since the interview is where you have the opportunity to shine (and where they can at least give you a chance). Yale is one of those schools.

You should also look into very interdisciplinary graduate programs that are expanding faster than what their textbooks (and courses) can keep up with. Newer fields also tend to be low-consensus fields, which also tend to be more tolerant to those with low GPAs. The geosciences is one of the few areas where plenty of people with sub-3.5 GPAs often do get into top schools. As the geosciences aren't taught in high school, it's often said that the Geosciences is something that you "stumble" into, and it's actually very common for people to enter the geosciences only after finding that they didn't like another major (this is often true for geoscience professors as well).

Biology is another area that's often tolerant of those with low GPAs, from what I've heard. In both Biology and the Geosciences, research fit often matters a lot more than "being one of the top applicants", so if you have a focused interest that you've demonstrated through research (and that matches the interests of faculty members who are willing to take new students), then yes, they can be willing to take you over people with better GPAs and test scores. The thing in common with the two is that they're so broad that it's impossible to put every applicant through a common set of required courses (or through paper-based qualifying exams), so their quals cannot be based on coursework. In that case, performance in prior courses doesn't matter as much. In fact, some geoscience programs (like Berkeley EPS) don't even have admission committees because the interests of faculty members are so diverse that applicants often only have research fit with a single faculty member - so it then often becomes a single faculty member who decides between applicants.

The MIT Media Lab is the perfect example of this, in fact (though most geoscience/biology programs will have more of a committee than the MIT Media Lab). The tips in this link can be quite helpful to anyone with a low GPA who wants to work with a particular adviser.

You should also look for fields with very low people-to-problems ratios. Many of these fields don't offer courses that are part of the core requirements of numerous majors, so there won't be hordes of undergrads who take their courses. Fields like atmospheric science and various areas of biology are particularly known for their low people-to-problem ratios, and the professors in them can be incredibly accessible (and are more willing to closely look at unusual applicants). More here.

Also, just write 2000-word personal statements. I wrote 2000-word personal statements for all the schools I applied for (they were necessary since I had to do some explaining), and they didn't prevent me from getting in. They can annoy some schools, but that's going to be a matter of fact if you're a highly unusual applicant.

Finally, you can always stay somewhat longer. My GPA would never recover from the early mistakes I made, but I managed to recover by staying longer and by taking a huge number of grad-lvl courses in my last 2 years. When writing your personal statement, you should always put in statistics like last-2-year GPA and last-X-year major GPA in whatever field of study you're in (I put in post-(freshman year) physics GPA of 3.77 in). Be careful not to sound like you're cherry-picking though.

If you need some extra inspiration, you should read about Stephen Smale too.

  He entered the University of Michigan in 1948. Initially, Smale was a
  good student, placing into an honors calculus sequence taught by Bob
  Thrall and earning himself A's. However, his sophomore and junior
  years were marred with mediocre grades, mostly Bs, Cs and even an F in
  nuclear physics. However, with some luck, Smale was accepted as a
  graduate student at the University of Michigan's mathematics
  department. Yet again, Smale performed poorly his first years, earning
  a C average as a graduate student. It was only when the department
  chair, Hildebrant, threatened to kick out Smale, that he began to work
  hard. Smale finally earned his Ph.D. in 1957, under Raoul Bott.

One word of caution: Graduate programs have gotten a lot more competitive in the last few years, so what applied 5 years ago (or 40 years ago, for that matter), may not necessarily apply today.

By the way, elite private schools (for whatever reason) tend not to have GPA cutoffs. If you're a student with a low GPA applying for an elite private school, you probably have something else in you that's extremely unusual, since very few students with low GPAs apply to them. In fact, when I emailed professors, those at elite private schools seemed to be more responsive to my emails (low student to faculty ratio could be a reason behind that). That said, they're not necessarily more forgiving of unusual applicants. It's often the programs that have some "weakness" in their applicant pool that tend to be more forgiving of them.

Also - I would definitely look for areas where the department is trying to expand into, but where the department has no reputation for as of yet (visits/contacting professors can help you learn more about that).

Going to academic conferences can also really help as well - but only when you can make sure that you have useful things to say. The same is also true for visiting schools before applying.


What would be a fair and deterring disciplinary sanction for a student who committed plagiarism?

If you wait until the very end of the program when a student submits a thesis to check for plagiarism, then you've set up a situation where a student can cheat through the program and then gets caught at the very end.
An alternative approach would be:

Teach students about plagiarism and other academic honesty issues early in the program.  Give them fair warning that plagiarism can result in their being expelled from the program.

Include assessments of students writing throughout the program and check this writing for plagiarism.  If you catch a student committing plagiarism on one of these assignments, give them a strong warning and perhaps penalize their grade.

Require students to submit draft versions of their theses for evaluation and feedback from the supervisor. Check for plagiarism starting with the first draft.

Some central office should keep track of incidents of cheating so that penalties can be increased for repeat offenders.  This is particularly important because otherwise a student might cheat in classes with different instructors and receive warnings from each of them.

The basic idea here is that the consequences for misbehavior should be explained in advance and punishments should escalate with each new offense.  If a student has been warned and suffered a grade penalty on the first offense, then failed a course and had to retake it on a second offense, then it should come as no surprise that they are expelled from the program for a third offense.
Since the potential consequences are quite severe, it's also important to offer students a reasonable opportunity to appeal their punishment for cheating.  There might be a committee charged with considering student appeals.
My institution and many others in the US have systems like the one that I've described above.  In my experience, many students who receive a strong warning on a first offense take that warning to heart and have no further problems.  Other students become chronic offenders and suffer the full consequences.


Conference proceeding after journal article

Depending on the particulars of your situation, there are three paths I am aware of for presentation at a conference:

Some conferences have begun to offer "journal first" submission options that explicitly welcome the presentation of an article that has already been presented in a journal.  For these, one prepares a short precis of the article for review and it is explicitly understood that this has already been published.
If you have some new results, you can certainly write a conference paper on these new results as an incremental advance over the prior work. Here, you simply focus on the new results just as you would for any publication building on prior work.  The only question is whether the new results will be considered significant enough for separate publication by your reviewers.
Finally, some conferences don't involve peer-reviewed articles at all, but just have one-paragraph abstracts submitted as "applications to speak", in which case figures and self-plagiarism don't enter into the question at all, since the abstract is not a publication in any meaningful sense.

From what you have written, it sounds like the first or second path would apply for your needs.


Is it normal for math grad students to be required to take summer classes to work?

Having observed several places in several different decades: summer funding is always weird and maybe non-existent or not-a-good-deal.

During the 9-month academic year, in the U.S., yes, indeed, people working as TAs/RAs have to be registered as students (because as other people said, these are student jobs), and this entails fees. Most often, tuition is included in the "benefits", but not invariably.

At every university I've been, grad students registered in the 9-month academic year did not have to explicitly register, nor pay tuition, in the summer, in order to work as summer TAs/RAs. This part is quite anomalous, and looks like a way for some layer of the institution to suck money out of people.

My experience indicates that there's never enough summer support to go around, which effectively creates a labor surplus, which, predictably, leads to certain abuses. For that matter, the usual double-time rate of summer classes is pretty nasty, and not fun to see. A bit taxing to teach, but almost uniformly near-disastrous for the students, who cannot simply "decide" to assimilate things twice as fast.

In some cases, the funding and flow of money for summer teaching/classes is different from the 9-month year, so it is not necessarily deliberately abusive, though possibly irresponsible or negligent, of your dept to not tell you your net pay. If it's really just 600 dollars, it's a ridiculous situation, yes.

But the net pay should be substantial, not next-to-nothing. That aspect strikes me as odd.

In summary, the situation you describe is unusual in that the net pay is so low. Having to sign up for courses and pay summer fees (or, worse, tuition) is unusual. The vagueness is less atypical, since sometimes control of summer classes is not in the hands of the department.


Asking to not present in a conference on Saturday

If your paper is accepted is it perfectly appropriate to ask them to observe your religious guidelines. A lot of people will give special date restrictions when presenting in a conference for lesser things like they need to fly home by a certain date, their funding doesn't cover hotels for the length of the conference, or they just don't have a desire to stay the whole time.

Good luck with presentations!


Do reviews happen more in Holiday season?

Reviewers set their own schedule subject, more or less, to deadlines set by the editor. Some might use holidays to work on reviews. Others might rather avoid anything that looks like work. The "end of January" may be a guess or may be more firm, depending on the deadline request sent to reviewers. Perhaps a reviewer has made a "promise" to be done by then.

And what is "expected" may not come to pass since reviewers aren't employees, but volunteers.


Can I pursue Masters in a field different to the one in which I got my Bachelors degree?

It is not so rare to see people opting a masters programme that is far different from the undergraduate one. So, there is no need to feel out of the crowd. Such people who go after their passion do succeed, but not without the initial struggle to adapt to the new subjects. This would mean you would have to do more homework yourself than others in the same programme.

The masters you choose should depend on the career you are aiming at. If you are highly confident that you will be working in that field then you may choose the field that highly deviate from your undergraduate degree. But be wary of the fact that you might not be able to switch back. This act might belittle your undergraduate degree, so seeking for a job relating to it might have you at a disadvantage in most communities. That is, unless you choose do masters for that degree too.


Which is more important in determining author order: time spent or results obtained?

In my field, this would clearly be shared (first) authorship.

As for the exact positions, in my experience one of A and B would also have been spending a lot of time as a de facto project lead that determines the course of the project and does most of the writing. In fact, in my field this would almost always be B, unless A somehow has the capabilities of effectively leading multiple projects and delegating vast proportions of the work in those projects.

I don't place a lot of value on happening to find the right solution for a problem. The way you describe this, it seems almost stochastic: A proposed four solutions and got lucky, B proposed more solutions but didn't get lucky. Obviously the situation and value of contributions changes if B could not have found the solution, but A (possibly because of greater experience) could have.

Two other considerations: first, exact position on a paper can have very different values for different people. A first first authorship can be absolutely vital for scientists who are rounding off their PhD or postdoc, whereas scientists who aren't rounding off could also obtain this in a next project. Second, maybe there are ways to even out the author contributions? One way would be to do another project together and flip author positions for that one. Another way would be that the person who doesn't get author precedence can present the work at conferences for the first year. And maybe there are better ideas that someone in your lab can come up with.


Is it ok to add a bit of humor and sarcasm to academic presentations

There is nothing wrong with a little humor as long as you can pull it off well.  Lightening the mood is often welcome, especially in settings where the expected norm may be long, dry boring, content (such as a conference where people are attending session after session all day).

Besides making people laugh, a joke or two in an academic presentation can help make you and the audience more comfortable, make your presentation more memorable, and help you come across as a confident, competent presenter.

Of course, there are potential downfalls:

A joke could fall flat, which may be awkward and embarrassing.
Jokes that might come across as insulting can be dangerous (though gently poking fun at your own discipline can be fine--I have no problem with your proposed statement, especially if you make it self-deprecating, such as "I have made this slide extra complicated so I seem important".  I have taken this approach and it usually goes down very well.)
Too much humor can distract from your message.  Use a little humor, and it helps engage people, and they will be paying attention to your serious point.  Use too much, and no one will remember anything but the jokes.

But overall, I say go for it.  Having a boring, forgettable presentation is a much bigger danger than a joke that falls flat.


What are the chances of an abstract being accepted if it is a day late for a conference

It depends on the conference. Some conferences use online systems that stop allowing submissions after the deadline. For these conferences you might be able to eventually get in touch with a program chair or administrator and get your abstract considered, but you may also run into everyone telling you that you missed the deadline. Other conferences you email the abstract to the program chair or administrator. Again, you may be told you missed the deadline or they may allow it to be considered.

It is worth noting that many conferences move the deadline, so maybe you are not actually late. Only way to know what is up is to either wait until you hear something or find someone to email/call.


Term for the opposite of salami publishing

I call it "kitchen sink publishing."  I apply the term to papers which contain redundant methods for determining the result.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/everything_but_the_kitchen_sink


Paper status changed to “Decision in Process” rapidly after initial submission

If there is a decision before it was sent to reviewers, it usually means a desk-rejection.  This is not necessarily a bad outcome! It means you won't waste time on a review process that is not likely to be favorable and you can move straight ahead to another journal.

Other more rare outcomes are possible, though: they could issue a "reject and resubmit" if they think the paper would be a good candidate for review after some major changes were made.  They could also be inviting you to a special issue etc.

But most likely outcome is desk rejection.


Reading material on working conditions of women in academia

The most recent paper to make a big splash on this subject was "Science faculty's subtle gender biases favor male students", by Moss-Racusin et al.  You can start there, and dig backwards through the references - you'll hit most of the major reports on this topic.

A few notes on the topic of this paper itself:

It is the same gender biases that academics have towards their students that they also demonstrate against their peers, so don't narrow your research too much. And if your question is "why are there so few academic women in the sciences?" you need to look at the problem from top to bottom. Women aren't going to want to become professors if they are already noticing the bias in undergrad.


How to silence the voice that tells you you're being financially irresponsible by spending 4 to 6 years doing a PhD?

When you go to the industry, how do you silence the voice that tells you you could be spending your time advancing the knowledge of humanity, rather than devising new ways to make people look at an internet ad, or helping big stock exchange companies aimlessly move money from account A to account B, without any net gain for the world?


What are the expectations of bioinformatics Masters students?

Hopefully I can help - graduated a similar Master's in EU.

At least here, a PhD student is expected to produce 3-4, not 1 paper, so it is reasonable to expect contributions equivalent to one paper from a Master's student. Of course, time is limiting, so students usually finish the actual paper later on (sometimes even during the PhD), but I would suggest working with that goal (i.e. 1 paper) in mind.

Now, as to what constitutes a paper in this field: improving a tool is fine, as long as you provide proof of the improvement. Proof usually comes from simulation studies, or it could be a demo of application using some publicly available data (I assume your tool is somehow connected to data analysis). In my field, this might be one of the best known examples - improving the efficiency of a popular tool from O(n^2) to O(n) is a direct way to Nature Genetics and hundreds of citations.


Where can I download a large sample bibliography collection in BibTeX?

For your purposes, I would highly recommend you to use The Collection of
Computer Science Bibliographies by Alf-Christian Achilles. This extensive collection contains 3M+ references on the various CS subjects (grouped in about 1500 collections) and, besides offering search and browse interfaces, allows one to download the actual bibliographic data in BibTeX format - just select a particular bibliography and you will see the links to the source files - uncompressed and/or zipped.

P.S. Don't forget to acknowledge the value of this resource to the maintainer of this meta-collection (a thank you note will do) and, perhaps, even attribute the source, if your software will be citable.


Travel reimbursement for interview after accepting another position

Both parties are at fault for not communicating the terms of the reimbursement clearly.

It is reasonable for the university to want to reimburse only interviews that were actually attended, and to not want to bother interviewing applicants who have already declined.
It is also reasonable for the student to want to get reimbursed when they have personally expended funds in good faith.

It's a bit difficult to even say what the university's policy for such things should be:

Not paying these expenses encourages applicants to lie, go through with the interview, and waste everyone's time in addition to money.
Paying these expenses encourages people to get an interview, cancel, and then use the free tickets for a vacation (doubt this happens all that often, but it's possible, and can be a major source of scandal).

Regardless: in the real world, I think it's rather unusual for institutions to reimburse interview expenses for an interview that never happened. Given this reality, applicants are the ones that have the burden of establishing the reimbursement terms before shelling out their own money.


Precedent of country (or large institution) that did teaching reform: reducing number of tutors while increasing salaries for the rest

Your scenario is to a large extent ongoing in Russia now. In May 2012 "newly re-elected" president Putin signed a number of bills for the Government to implement in 2012-2021. In particular, Bill 597 says that ...

by 2012 average salaries of teachers should reach the average level in corresponding regions
by 2018 average salaries of teachers should reach 200% of the average level in corresponding regions

The implementation and the effect of this bill is rather controvertial. It seems that the required government funding for the educational sector was not increased appropriately.  To comply with the request, many schools and HE institutions had to reduce the number of posts significantly to report the required increase in average salaries. In practice, many tutors were pushed on 0.5FTE contracts (or less) with increased FTE salary levels, ending up with the same take-home salaries and sometimes higher teaching load. The overall effect on the sector is hard to see at the moment, since it is obscured by other ongoing reforms and political changes.


Which address to state as my own at top of publication?

Many templates include a place for authors to put street addresses, but they aren't necessarily strictly required.

In your case, if you look at last year's CHI proceedings you can see that plenty of papers omit it.

For your submission, communication related to your submission will be via email, not snail mail. You can either omit the address entirely, or put the address of your computer science department, it doesn't really matter much. (In the general case, I think it's likely that if a publisher does want to communicate by snail mail, they will ask for the preferred mailing address in the paper submission process, not read it off the submission.)


Is "How good am I?" a reasonable question to ask a supervisor?

I would welcome such a question from a student I'd worked closely with, but I'd also like a bit of time to consider before answering.

But even better, is to ask - also - what you can be doing in the short term to get even better. Make sure the advisor understands something about your long term goals so he/she can best assist.

However, this implies that you have more than a transactional relationship with the advisor and each of you recognizes and respects the advice of one another. Some people are "brutally honest" and will say things you really don't like  to hear. Others are too "conflict adverse" and will tell you things that sound nice but aren't helpful. You will need to judge for yourself the quality of the advice.

But that is the reason for asking how to improve. It helps you directly, avoids personality issues to some extent, and helps you better judge the "raw" assessment.

In any case, if you are good enough to ask the question, you are probably pretty good anyway, even without knowing much more. I had professors in my background of whom I would gladly ask the question, others of whom I certainly would not, and still others for whom I'd think long and deeply before asking. But that was more personality than anything. If trust is there, it should be fine.

My own background somewhat influences my response here. When I was in secondary school I was told, on the basis of some standardized test, that I didn't have very good prospects and shouldn't set my goals too high or I'd be disappointed. This was largely based on mathematics. It wasn't a request to an advisor for guidance, however. The episode made me so angry that I decided to prove them wrong and later earned a doctorate (among other degrees) in math.


Approach a new advisor in addition to existing one

There shouldn't be any issues with this, but people have different personalities. In the best case your current advisor wants what is best for you. You seem to have that opinion of her.
I would open any discussion with another potential advisor as an "exploration" of the possibilities. You are interested in their field and wonder what problems there might be to work on for a degree. If you have your own ideas about a problem, bring them up, surely, and ask for advice. You could mention this to your current advisor first, though it isn't truly necessary. You are early in your studies and it is a good time to be exploring your options.
If both individuals are willing (and able) to advise you it might be good, but having your current advisor just as a support, rather than a formal advisor, is also good.
These sorts of conversations are best done face to face if that can be arranged safely now.


Participation of multiple researchers in our project

Since professors of CS are often looking for collaborative tools for their students, you might be able to use them as a resource. The ACM has a special interest group for educators, SIGCSE, that maintains a mailing list of members. It frequently gets requests for research participation, so you might try to send a message there, though it requires membership. Other professional organizations may have some similar special interest groups that can be contacted.

Should you find a huge number of collaborators testers of your collaborative systems I wouldn't think that co-authorship would be necessary in most cases, though you might want a fairly long acknowledgement section in your paper. It would depend, of course, on how much they add to your work.


My acceptance to my PhD program was a bit outside this model since I had already done some undergraduate research with my advisor, nevertheless, I think I can fill in a few gaps.

No matter what you do, you will have to apply to a PhD program not a PI directly. For me, at my university, that meant using the university-wide online admissions process but targeting a particular college (the College of Engineering) and major (Aerospace Engineering). There was one process with customizations for each college and department since each had different requirements and requested materials. You generally can't avoid this process. Since these applications are tailored to the college and department, the admissions committees are at the departmental level. You don't necessarily apply directly to a department, but you materials will be routed there. Some universities may use separate processes for each department, but I haven't experienced that. Nevertheless, the decision will most probably be made at the department level.

Now, in parallel with your application, if you can establish a PI that you want to work with and who wants to work with you, you should do that. You may be accepted by the university before or after you are able to establish a relationship with a PI. That's OK. I suspect, though I don't have any direct evidence since I have not sat on any admissions committees, that if you do have a PI that wants to work with you before your application is considered, then they can weigh in on your behalf when the admissions committee meets. Having someone to stand up and say "I have funding and will support this student" goes a long way towards admissions for borderline candidates. For top candidates, it probably doesn't affect the admissions chances much, but it does help the department know in advance that finding them a supervisor will be easy. For borderline candidates, it can make all the difference.

I know (second hand) of at least one candidate that was admitted on their second or third try only after they came and worked for a research institute on our campus and established a relationship with a PI. They were both able to find a backer in the committee meeting and spend some time writing a few papers to improve their CV. This latter model is unusual, but they were determined to get a PhD from our school.


How to find a gap in knowledge, for my PhD?

Ask the advisor.
If he/she is helpful, follow their advice.
If he/she is not helpful, either

change the advisor (which is preferred) or else
find an interesting and open problem in your field (in some areas such as mathematics, searching for "open problem" or similar in recent publications, including literature reviews, might help). The problem should be such that that you should be able to solve it within the time allocated for your PhD studies, including writing your dissertation. Then, ask the advisor again whether the problem is suitable for your thesis. How to proceed from there would be a different question.


I moved from France to the US to do a 1 year-post-doc in Computer Science, with my wife and our two children (3mo and 2yo at the time), so I guess my situation is very close to yours.

I was paid ~$50.000 / year, didn't pay taxes the first year (because of the tax treaty between France and the US), didn't have a car, and lived in a reasonably cheap community (cost of living index ~ 105, for instance, the rent was $800 / month for a very small flat, furnished and including internet, water, some other utilities. It didn't had a washing machine, for instance, so it was a bit rough with two children).
We were not rich, but it was completely doable. It was a bit risky, but we managed to live entirely on my salary, something we couldn't have done in France, so I would think that our situation was rather correct.

Here's what we learned:

Don't expect your partner to bring an income. Day care is rare and costly (it really varies, but $500 / child / month seems to be a minimum for a "full day" care), and your partner probably won't have the right to work before a couple of months anyway. Getting a work permit while on a J2 requires to fill a I-765, pay ~$500, be patient (up to 3 months), and it comes with restrictions (you can't leave the country while your record is examined, if I remember correctly).
Moving is super expensive. Plane ticket + buying basic housewares + rent deposit, etc. is really costly, especially if the dollar is high when you move. The exchange rate can vary greatly, so that's difficult to assess. Of course, you'll be paid at the end of your first month of employment, so you'll have to have some provisions on top of that. Also, you won't be able to bring everything in three suitcase, so there will be some buying to do, and clothes, if the weather isn't the same as where you currently live.
People can be really supportive. We were moving as a family, and everyone, from the PI to my future colleagues (that I never met) to our landlords and even neighbours, brought something, gave us basic silverware, etc. You have to be lucky, but Americans often are willing to help, and have a couple of extra stuff that they'd be willing to share with you.
Check your health care. Your children might be sick due to the travel, the time change, etc. In fact, you should plan that they will be sick, and check how well you're covered before being employed / during the first month of employment. Our health care took a month to kick in, we had to pay for a basic care for our son, bim, $1.000 (yes, health is expensive here).
Papers everywhere. Be organized, a new start requires a lot of papers. Moving in an another country is pretty much starting from scratch: you'll have to open a bank account, get a Social Security Number, get a phone, subscribe to Internet, fill in tons of paperwork for the embassy, your new employer, etc. It is doable, but can be really complex (since your situation will be more complex that the average American), so you have to be super organized.

Of course, it makes more sense to start such an adventure for a 2 years (or more) post-doc.

But moving with kids (in young age) is fun: they'll grasp the new culture super easily, they'll make friends, they'll help you to make friends, they'll make people chatty, and they will break any sense of isolation you could have by moving to a foreign country.

Actual experience may vary: the USA is a vast country, and the salary range, as well as the cost of living, vary greatly. I'm not a super hero, but with the support of your family, you can make it. Tons of people did it in the past ;-)


Should I send professor an email clearly asking if he is going to take me in his group?

I had applied to that school and completed my application. However, after that, he has become reluctant about me and is not telling anything clearly even after 1.5 months since I completed my application.

In cases like this, it is not incumbent on academic staff to pre-empt administrative decisions that are made as part of the normal admission processes of the university.  You have made a formal application for admission, so there is already a process in motion that will lead to an outcome.  Presumably this professor will need to make a decision in that process, and either you will be accepted or rejected for that application.  Sending him an email asking for an answer is essentially just asking him to pre-empt the administrative decision in that process, and he probably will not be inclined to do this.

If you decide to email this professor, a better approach would be to let him know your circumstances and ask him if he has any concerns about your application that you might be able to address with further work.  If there is some reason for urgency in your application, let him know what those circumstances are, and stress that you are happy to work on any deficiencies in your application.  Be careful with the level of persistence that you show here, since your professor is certainly not required to pre-empt the normal mechanism for decisions on admissions, or give any assurances outside of the formal admissions processes.

If you are concerned that this application process is taking too long, and there is some reason for urgency on your side, another option would be to email the relevant administrators at the university that deal with this process and make a preliminary inquiry asking how long it usually takes to receive an outcome for a PhD application.  (You say that you have been waiting 1.5 months, which is about 6-7 weeks.  That is not particularly long for an admissions process for a PhD candidate.)  If the process is taking too long, you can make further inquiries with the administrators, and they will horse-whip the professor into making a decision.  It is better to have this pressure coming from them than from you.


What happens if a professor is unable to get a PhD student for a part of their grant?

The exact rules may differ for each funder. However, typically, the PI writes a brief explanation why the PhD student could not be found. Then they either return a part of the budget to the funder and possibly adjust the project duration / scope accordingly, or as to redirect these funds to support the project in alternative way (e.g. hiring a postdoc instead of PhD).


How do I reply to a professor whether I accept his postdoc. offer?

I think you are thinking of it backwards. You should use this offer to try to get an early decision from the other professor!
You can say that you're very interested in their position, but you also have another competing offer. You could ask them to make a decision, or give you a timeline for when a decision would be made. Then, to the professor you have the offer from, just write a polite e-mail thanking them for their offer. You can be honest and say you're waiting on a competing offer, or you can say something vague like you need a few days to consider, and give them a deadline (probably no more than 10 days) for your decision.


Face-saving way of asking whether audience is familiar with specific topic

When I give talks in similar situations, I typically assume that at least some of the audience members will be unfamiliar with much of what I think of as basic.  Your job is to "remind" them, without spending excessive time on the topic.  A good place to use this technique is with definitions.  For instance: "... a polynomial, for example 3x4-5x2+2x+6."  (The best way to teach most things, particularly definitions and algorithms, is with examples.)  You can do this fairly unobtrusively, so that those who don't recall the definition are reminded, while those who do are still not offended.

Another point to remember is that generally, it's good for some of your talk to be a refresher.  You might say something like "most of you are probably familiar with this, but just to make sure we're all on the same page..."  This material shouldn't be the majority of your talk, but 5 or 10 minutes of this is often very appropriate, say in a 25 minute talk.

In most talks I start by saying: "If you have questions as we go along, please ask."  If you get many questions on material that you think of as basic, be ready to slow your pace.  A variation on this is to have some worked examples early in your talk.  Give the audience time to think about a question, then ask audience members for the answer before revealing it on your slides.  Their responses (especially nonverbal) can give you a good sense of who knows what.  Typically, I talk with slides, but answer miscellaneous questions on a whiteboard.

A final option is to get to the room early, and try to talk one-on-one with the audience members, as they arrive.  If you ask them then, you may be more likely to get an honest answer.  Another version of this is to ask the seminar organizer (or whoever schedule you to give the talk) what knowledge they think is reasonable to assume of the audience.

To summarize,

Make educated guesses beforehand about what your audience knows (typically less than you would think), asking them (or the organizer) if possible.
Make liberal use of examples and "parenthetical explanations".
Plan for 20-30% of your talk to be review.
Adapt the speed of your presentation based on the feedback you get during the talk.


Best practice of presenting running time results?

I'd go for the diagram, supplemented by a short table if need be. But be prepared to have a "full version" (with complete tables as appendices or so) as a technical report or otherwise available for anyone who wants to replicate your work (or use your data for comparison, or whatever).


Awarding Habilitation to senior researchers?

Your question mentions both activities and job offers, for which the situation is slightly different. This answer is specific to Germany, and from the perspective of Mathematics. (The formal structure is the same in other disciplines, but how it is handled in practice can differ significantly.)

Regarding activities: What a habilitation confers is the so-called venia docendi, the right to teach at the university.
The two main consequences are

The right to give lectures at the department.
The right to supervise PhD students in your own name (i.e., not just be co-supervisor together with some other full professor).

While the first line is somewhat blurred in practice (for example, the department can give you a teaching assignment for a lecture even without habilitation; on the other hand, the right to choose your lectures to teach is somewhat less useful if the department decides that those lectures will not count toward your teaching quota, so it would have to be on top of your regular duty of four classes per week), the second to my knowledge is hard.

These rights are automatically conferred to full professors upon instatement, so the practical role of habilitation is a sort of promotion inside a department from postdoc to assistant professor (a role that is supposed to be supplanted by the junior professorship). There is also a formal procedure for transferring your habilitation from one (German) university to another. I believe it's also possible to get a foreign habilitation acknowledged and transferred, but that is more involved.
The rights and requirements for a habilitation and the rules for the procedures are university or department policy.

It also plays a role in appointments for a full professor position.
In Germany, the relevant requirement in job offers  is usually worded as "habilitation or equivalent qualification". The latter option is routinely used for foreign candidates or younger researchers they want to fast-track. If this is done, it is part of the duty of the hiring committee (and in case of candidates that make it to the short list, the external reviewers) to explicitly state which contributions were considered as equivalent qualification. This could be a direct foreign equivalent (such as the French habilitation or the Russian Doctorate), a series of high-impact papers, a published monograph (or particularly nice textbook) or successful direction of PhD students. The requirement is also routinely waived for candidates already holding a tenured position (including junior professors after a positive evaluation), the "equivalent qualification" presumably being having received tenure in the first place. As I wrote above, instatement as a full professor automatically confers the venia docendi, so formally this makes sense (at least within the German system.) The legal framework here is somewhat more difficult; schools and universities are the responsibilities of the state, not of the federal government, and the autonomy granted to the universities differs from state to state. In general, the requirements for a full professor position are set down in state law ("Landeshochschulgesetz", usually in the exact form I stated). The decision of the hiring committee, including the recognition of equivalent qualifications, has to be passed on to and sanctioned by the department, university board and (depending on the state) the ministry.


How should I interpret a promising preprint that was never published in a peer-reviewed journal?

There might be any number of reasons. You might try to contact the author(s) to get more information. But... (not all with the same likelihood)

They might have left academia for various reasons and not bothered. Is the CV also old?

They might have incorporated the key ideas into another paper with a very different title. You search is then fruitless.

They might have discovered errors.

Reviewers might have considered the results trivial.

Their attempts to publish might have been rejected by journals for other reasons.

They might have changed sub-fields. (This one less likely, I think.)

But you should be wary, at least, of following up on unpublished work and, at least, be sure that you can verify the claims independently.


How to inspire people to learn things they don't understand

In my opinion, you shouldn't ever try to spend time educating someone without ensuring that the person actually wants to be educated. There's a difference between, say, "wanting to be a programmer" and "wanting to learn how to program". You could ascribe the first sentence to literally anybody. Who doesn't want a free skill? It's only the people who also fit the second description that you should educate.

The difficulty is that people usually don't know the difference between those two things. I often don't know it: I once decided I wanted to learn how to play the keyboard. Picked one up, played a few tunes, but could never find myself interested in sitting there for hours and playing the same tune over and over until I had mastered it. Turns out, I didn't really want to learn how to play the keyboard: I only wanted to play it.

So, it's up to the educator to help decide whether the person really wants to learn it. There are a few ways to do it. First of all, be honest: don't advertise your education with what the students will learn, but how they'll learn it. Because that's actually what they'll be doing. So when people want you to learn them to teach games, tell them from the get-go what they'll be doing, how terse and repetitive and basic it can be. But then, during the education, ensure that the end goal is always in sight. So if you're teaching somebody to make a game, instead of them applying their skills solving some math problem ("compute the nth prime with property y", e.g.), why not give them a piece of code from an actual game, and have them solve a small, intermediary step - and then show them the result, the before and after effect of their contribution?

TLDR:

1) Students should come to you for how you'll teach them, not for what you'll teach them,

2) During the study, always keep the end goal in sight. Don't let them drown in repetitive theoretic stuff ... let them .... swim in it, I guess, always taking in fresh air whenever they need it.


Getting PhD from average institution (gain experience) before applying for a PhD in top institution?

Terrible idea, at least as far as a life goal is concerned. You will spend 5 years of your life doing something you consider only preparatory, without any guarantee that you will actually be admitted by the MITs and Stanfords of your aspiration. In fact, if we had someone applying to our graduate program who already has a PhD, we'd seriously be asking ourselves why this person wants to get another PhD? So it may not actually be any easier to get into the good institutions if you already have a PhD. Finally, even if you do, you will be 5 years older than everyone else when you graduate, and this will count against you (statistically speaking) when you look for jobs beyond that.

The thing you have come to realize is that everyone wants to go to MIT and Stanford, but only few actually manage to. Make your peace with this -- shoot for the best place you can to get a PhD and then make your career from there. You'll find that with a PhD from a good place in Europe, you will have sufficiently many options.


No.

It's only been four days. In fact it's been less than four days, since 24 Jan to 27 Jan includes a weekend.

Be patient and they'll get back to you in time.


Who are the people reviewing far more papers than they're submitting for review?

I can't imagine it's high-level professors, who seem constantly busy.

If you want something done, ask someone who's constantly busy.

  Nor do I expect it's early-career researchers, because they're unestablished and unlikely to be thought of when editors email reviewers.

I can't point to specific posts, but I've seen enough references on this site to the scenario that I believe it's not uncommon for the editor to ask the high-level professor and the professor to delegate to an early-career researcher in their department.


Is it acceptable to write a scientific paper on an algorithm if better algorithms already exist?

Yes. You can't tell before performing the research if the algorithm will be better than old ones. Now that you've done it and found the answer is "no", that's still a result. It won't be the most interesting of results so you won't be able to publish it in top journals, but it's still something.

As an example, see the iterated prisoner's dilemma. There's a simple, robust strategy discovered early on: tit-for-tat. However, people continued to study other strategies - a close parallel to your situation.


Should I do a PhD in Sound and Music Computing?

SMC sounds like a very interesting but somewhat narrow specialization.  Since it's not likely that an expert will appear to answer this question, here are some comments:

One key question regarding career paths is how bad you would feel if they fell through.  For example, suppose you got a Ph.D. in SMC, tried and failed to get an academic job in this area, and ended up getting a job in industry that was relevant but didn't really require the full Ph.D.  Would you regret having started on this path, or would you be happy to have had a chance to study something exciting and to have developed expertise that might still serve you well in the future?  If you would regret it, then you need to think very carefully about the job market, but if your personality could handle this situation, then this path could be a wise choice.

The big danger with unusual fields is that few people will be specifically looking to hire in this area.  You may get lucky and find someone who is, but you may need to create your own opportunities.  If you have an outgoing personality and are good at networking and making connections, then there will be less risk.

In academia, you'll run into two difficulties.  One is that no CS program will need to have this area represented, so you'll have to make a stronger case for why you would be a great hire.  The other problem is that if a school is open to SMC, then they may already have someone in this area, and it's a narrow enough field that making multiple hires could be a very tough sell.  So you would be looking for the schools that are interested, but not so interested that they have already hired someone.  Of course, it's far from impossible, but some other branches of CS may be a little easier.

As for switching areas, it can certainly be done.  You may run into a little resistance, depending on what you were originally hired to do.  (This could be a serious issue in industry, and even in academia your colleagues may be counting on you to teach the introductory course in your old field.)

If you are equally interested in and talented at algorithms and SMC, then it's probably a little safer to start with algorithms.  However, if only one of them will make you happy and inspire you to do your best work, then that one would be the better choice.


Providing Methodological Support to Colleagues Outside One's Expertise a Career Killer?

I can't think of a case where research or publications outside one's core area would have hurt an applicant, and would think that most departments actually think positively about it. What's important, though, is that the research and publication record within one's core area remains strong and prolific. If you only publish a paper every other year in your own area, but 2 every year with people outside your area, then a department might legitimately question how much you actually bring to their table.


How to teach my students to appreciate all fields of study?

I think a well-known rule of writing applies here: Show, don't tell, in the same way it applies to parenting.  If you want to help change your students' feelings, you need to show them your love for the liberal arts.

One thing you can do is pepper your courses with relevant analogies, stories and quotes from literature, history and philosophy.  For instance, a discussion of Zeno's paradoxes and maybe some things about the ancient Greeks when discussing limits in calculus.  Or some historical context for Newton.  I don't have any good contextual literature examples at the tip of my typing appendages (maybe something in Lewis Carroll?), but it's easy to preface new topics with semi-relevant quotes such as

 The sense of danger must not disappear:
 The way is certainly both short and steep,
 However gradual it looks from here;
 Look if you like, but you will have to leap.
 -- W.H. Auden

Even just displaying some of your favorite pieces of literature in your office can be good.  This has led to a few literature discussions with students for me, and discussing literature with students who are interested in front of students who aren't can help convince the latter literature is interesting.

Of course, you won't be able to suddenly convince everyone that they need to run out and read Herodotus in the original Greek to figure out what history class they should take next semester, but you can make some impact for some students this way.

Incidentally, I personally hated having to take the GenEd requirements when I was in college, because there were loads of Math/Science courses I wanted to take.  But then when I went to grad school, I wasn't in such a rush, and I read a lot of classics.  So many of the students may not be at the right stage of life to appreciate everything.  (Also being forced to do something generally makes it harder to enjoy it---in science or liberal arts.)


Your best bet would be to make contact with the scholarship people and ask (nicely) for feedback as to why you did not get a scholarship. This way, you'll know for certain as to why they did not award you a scholarship.

Often, scholarships are not just based on GPA/GRE scores or any other academic performance, there are often a myriad of other criteria they use to assess an applicant's scholarship suitability.  Did you have to fill out a form with some details or supply a personal statement?

How do you know that they

  just took their time to file it.

If they did (which I doubt), then yes, it could be a factor, but I doubt a malicious one considering the amount of information that they would have to file, collate from the many applicants.  More likely, they filed your additional transcripts as soon as they received it (or very soon after).


Is IEEE author's version the same as the accepted version which can be put on arXiv?

How does IEEE define an “accepted” version?
  An accepted article is a version which has been revised by the author to incorporate review suggestions, and which has been accepted by IEEE for publication. If peer review by a journal or a conference requires no changes for publication, the accepted version is identical to the version initially submitted by the author.
  (Source)

From the link you posted, it is unclear if e.g. the copyright statements at the bottom were already present in the submitted version, but it is likely that the "author's version" is slightly different than the "accepted version". To be certain you are uploading the correct version, use the one you have compiled yourself. (That way, you also have the source files, solving question 2.)


Pros and cons of sharing dissertation on a specialised website?

I doubt there are any drawbacks to posting on such a site, other than the time required.

But I also doubt there are very many advantages.  I don't think very many people will look on such sites for theses.  If I need something from a PhD thesis, my algorithm would be something like this:

Look for published papers by the student which discuss the work.
Google the student's name and thesis title.
Look for the student's website.
Look on the department's website.
Look on the institution's library's website.
Try to contact the student (via website or Google search) and ask if they will send me a copy.
Try to contact the student's advisor and ask if they have a copy.
Contact someone else I know at the institution, and ask if they can find the thesis in their library.
Try to get a copy from UMI (last resort).

Searching other repositories would probably come somewhere between steps 8 and 9.  So if you can try to make sure your thesis is findable at some earlier stage of this process, you probably don't need to bother with much more.


How to ask for an academia-industry collaboration?

There are a few things that appeal to academics, not just money (as a commenter has suggested).

One is access to ideas that might result in publishable research. This is both for themselves and, perhaps more importantly, ideas that students can turn in to theses and careers. This might just be access to data that might be explored.

The second is an opportunity to test out theoretical ideas in a real-world scenario. Academic experiments are often too small to truly give confidence. An industry partner might help with this.

And yes, money is good too. Sometimes the money can release a faculty member from some tasks of a lower priority to them, letting them work on more interesting things. But they also need money to support their work, even if it is just money to travel to conferences and meetings. And money to support students is a positive thing, along with the possible experience those students might get from an industry partnership.

But most academics aren't primarily driven by money. They would have made different choices if they were.


How to cite a drug name in AMA Style journal article?

Usually you cite drug package inserts.
See Chapter 3.13.6 of the AMA Manual of Style (11th ed.):

Package inserts, patient information, and prescribing information (the material about the use and effects of the product) may be cited as follows:

Zithromax. Prescribing information. Pfizer; 2017. Accessed June 23, 2019. https://www.pfizermedicalinformation.com/en-us/zithromax
Azilect. Package insert. Teva Pharmaceuticals Inc; 2014.

The general pattern, as I see it, would be: Drug. Type-of-document. Manufacturer. Date. Optional-internet-access-date. Optional-internet-source..
If there are multiple manufacturers for one drug, you could cite all of them (as long as that seems appropriate for the specific context within your publication).


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

Let me answer as a theoretical computer scientist with former PhD students in tenure-track academic positions and many years of experience on faculty hiring committees.  (However, my understanding is that the selection process at industrial research labs like IBM T.J. Watson, Microsoft Research, Google Research, AT&T Research, etc., is really not that different from academic recruiting.)  As always, take my advice with a grain of salt; I'm as guilty of confirmation bias as any other human being.

Nobody in theoretical computer science cares where you got your degree.  Really.  We.  Do.  Not.  Care.  We only care about the quality and visibility of your results.  Publish strong papers and give brilliant talks at top conferences.  Convince well-known active researchers to write letters raving about your work.  Make a good product and get superstars to sell it for you.  Do all that, and we'll definitely want to hire you, no matter where you got your degree.  On the other hand, without a strong and visible research record, independent from your advisor, you are much less likely to get a good academic job, no matter where you got your degree.

(This is less true in more applied areas of CS, in my experience, mostly because it's significantly harder for PhD students in those areas to work independently from their advisors.)

But.  Faculty candidates are necessarily judged by people who are not experts in their field.  Without the expertise to judge whether your work is really good, those people must look at secondary data that correlate strongly with successful researchers.  One of those secondary characteristics is "pedigree".  Did you get your degree at MIT, Berkeley, Stanford, CMU, another top-10 department, or somewhere else?  (What's an "Ivy League"?)  How good/famous is your advisor?  If they're really paying attention: Where did your advisor's other PhD students get jobs, and how well are they doing now?

Fortunately, most good departments do make a serious effort to understand the quality and impact of applicants' results, instead of relying only on secondary data.  Also, secondary data matters considerably less once you actually have an interview.

And. In my experience, where you get your degree is strongly correlated with successful research.  I got my Master's degree at UC Irvine in 1992 and my PhD at UC Berkeley in 1996.  The biggest difference I saw between the two departments was the graduate-student research culture.  Every theory student at Berkeley regularly produced good results and published them at top conferences.  When the FOCS deadline rolled around each year, the question I heard in the hallways from other students was not "You know the deadline is coming up?" or "Are you submitting anything?" but "What are you submitting?", because "nothing" was the least likely answer.  Everyone simply assumed that if you were there, you were ready and able to do publishable research.  Publishing a paper wasn't exceptional, it was just what you did.  That cloud of free-floating confidence/arrogance had a huge impact on my own development as a researcher.  I've seen similar research cultures at a few other top CS departments, especially MIT, Stanford, and CMU.  (Caveat: This is an incomplete list, and there are many departments that I've never visited.)

tl;dr: Yes, getting a PhD from a top department definitely helps, but more by helping you become a better researcher than by making you look better on paper.


Can one be average in academics but great in research at same time in PhD

What i wanted to ask how much of PHD is about creativity and how much
  is about perserverance and how much is it about academics

The snarky answer is: Yes.

A slightly more unpacked version of this in no particular order would be:

Academics (aka things you learn in courses) is important because we don't create in a vacuum. We invent new things, but also combine old things in clever ways, or modify others' ideas creatively for new purposes. Think of it as one component of the fuel for your creativity: why ignore it ?

Creativity is of course the key to doing something new, which is the most basic requirement for completing a Ph.D.

Perseverance is incredibly important, because most ideas don't come into your head fully formed and perfect. It may be that your first 10, or 100, or 200 ideas aren't quite right, but by studying them closely, and seeing what works and what doesn't, you're able to produce a genuinely interesting new piece of work. Slogging through the bucket of non-working ideas takes perseverance, and can't be replaced by anything else.


Should I include all authors for in-text citation if I cite a source with three (or more) authors in a different chapter again?

Though not explicitly stated in the original post, the question pertains to the use of "et al."

This is mostly a nonissue for APA 7th edition because three or more authors are now cited as "et al." from the first mention, whether parenthetical or not, except where it would create ambiguity.


How do journal editors check word count on pdfs?

I suspect that in many cases where the authors submit a PDF and the editors do not use Linux (as may be the case in many disciplines, including most arts and humanities disciplines), that an exact word count may not be obtained. Instead, an approximate word count based on the length and formatting of the manuscript can be determined.


When is it acceptable to issue an update to a manuscript that is still under review?

I think you are focusing too much on the details, which may be confusing the issue.  It sounds to me like your goal is to make sure reviewers of paper B are convinced by your arguments, rather than to write up a proper proof of A.2.

It is a perfectly acceptable and common thing to refer to paper A for a proof of say Lemma 1 even if Lemma 1 is not explicitly stated or proved in paper A.  (E.g., "by a mild extension of the proof of X in [A], one gets...")  What is important here is two things:

your explanation of exactly how it follows from [A] is clear to someone who has not read [A]
that there really is nothing new to check and you are not just being lazy

From what you wrote, it sounds like at least the first part was an issue for you.  And if you can't make the proof of your lemma transparent in such a way, then you should write down the proof, either in paper A or paper B (possibly in an appendix).

Since you've made it clear you don't want to do the latter, and this sounds like a minor change to paper A (just adding in a small amount of details), it's fine to revise your paper A and update it on the arXiv (so make sure your paper B references the new arXiv version) but there's no need to revise your submission of paper A for a minor change.  You can just point out you made this change upon resubmission after getting the referee reports.


Asking for a letter of recommendation from someone on a hiring committee that is also reviewing your application

In many, and I hope most, places your friend will need to recuse from the decision to hire you even if they don't write a letter. Given that, assuming it is true, getting a letter from them isn't an issue.
But you can ask, first, for their advice on whether a letter from them would be helpful or not. It is even possible, I suppose, that rules would make such a letter off limits for consideration, though I think that would be rare.
It might be that an informal verbal recommendation from them to the hiring committee would carry weight (if not seen as improper), in which case a letter from someone else would be valuable.
But either avoid the issue completely by asking someone else for a letter or explore it with your friend first.


If transitioning into academic position, should I buy my PhD graduation cap and gown?

As noted in the comment, the location might change our opinion of the problem, however I will make notes from my experience.

When I graduated with my first degree I hired a gown as I could not see the value of owning one and knew I would study for higher degrees, and perhaps I could buy one later in my career. I received my second degree in-absentia because I knew that I would graduate again with a third degree in due course.

Now I attend ceremonies on a regular basis my institution can provide my gown for any formalities. Someone really parsimonious might say that you never need to buy a gown.

However, I have great regret not getting the earlier gowns. Time has changed things in a way I could not predict when I was making the decisions. The gown from my first university was designed by the hippest fashion designer of the 1960s. It was real 1960s cool in colour, shape and cut. No black gowns and mortarboards for them. As the institution matured they felt hip fashion icons of the 1960s were no longer cool and switched to plain black gowns and mortarboards. Now, in present times, it is impossible to source the original gowns. They are collectors items that rarely come on eBay and go for huge prices. All the original graduates, like me, now realise what a fantastic item they missed and want to get them. (Because, today, they look quite fantastic again).

The Computer Science Class of 1976 - Note the curved Hats

The gowns from my second university, which some of my colleagues own, have changed in quality over the ages. When I graduated they were made by fine tailors from excellent cloth with fine silks and quality trimmings. Today they are polyester and so forth and mass produced identically to all the other university gowns.

My rented gown just does not impress half as much as the originals that others wear at these fine ceremonies.

Only you can know how fine are the gowns that you could buy. No one can know what the future brings.


Forwarding a student’s question about exam modalities to a professor as a TA?

You cannot answer this question, so you have to ask the professor.
You do not want to be responsible for the potential confusion caused by a wrong answer.
If your professor already made up their mind, it’s a matter of seconds for them to answer the mail (this is a clear case of this PhD comic).
If not, they need to make up their mind anyway some time, and you were right to redirect the question.

Check that the forwarded mail is concise; otherwise summarise it when forwarding.
Also make sure that the response goes to you as well (include yourself and the student in the reply to field) as you may get further questions along this line.

This does not really apply to this case, but for more complex or exotic questions you can also include a suggested action and rationale and just have it ratified by the professor, e.g.:

  A student asked me whether they should bring a print of the formula sheet or it will be provided. I would guess the latter since it makes it easier for us to control that the sheets have not been tampered with. Can you please confirm or correct this?


What if an undergraduate concentrated on research on the account of his study?

When you say you're studying medicine, I take it that you hope to be a doctor.

In which case it doesn't matter how brilliant you are as a researcher, if you can't acquire the necessary medical knowledge and clinical skills you'll never be competent or safe to practise medicine and your medical career will never get started. You may have a fantastic career as eg a medical statistician awaiting you.

It's great if a doctor is research competent too, but being able to do research is not essential. Being able to examine, diagnose, and treat patients is.


Would creating an online flash card deck for GRE study help overcome a weak TOEFL score?

This may not be a direct answer to the question, but I think the fact that the question is asked reflects some basic misunderstanding of TOEFL and GRE.

I want to point out the TOEFL and GRE are two completely different tests designed to assess different aspects of your language skill. TOEFL is a test for people whom English is not the first language, and thus the emphasis of TOEFL is whether the test taker has sufficient mastery of English to survive the day-to-day interaction with other students and professors on a English-speaking campus. GRE, on the other hand, is concerned with your ability to express, analyze, and comprehend at a level demanded in graduate studies. Thus what you have done for GRE probably does little to rescue your low TOEFL score, given that the two tests have fairly different objectives. Moreover, mastering the vocabulary is only the first (albeit necessary) step to ace these exams. Even if you have mastered GRE vocabulary through your contribution, there is still a long way to go before you can use English to express yourself fluently.

As someone who have been studying in the US as an international student, I want to also point out, from my personal experience, that TOEFL is really an easy test. Of course when you first encounter the test as a non-native speaker, the level of English demanded may seem unreasonably high. But don't complain yet, because actually living in an English-speaking environment demands even more. There is really no excuse for a low TOEFL score if you really want to study in the US, no matter how many Anki cards you've made.


Should a teaching statement be posted publicly on the web?

It can be advantageous to post your application materials publicly while you are searching for a job (because it alerts a broader audience to your job search and lets them quickly find out more).  Once your search is over, I see no career advantage to keeping these materials on the web.  I think the main reason to do so is as a service to others.  It's useful for graduate students to see a wide range of research and teaching statements, so that they have a clearer idea of what they typically look like.  This if possible only if some people make theirs available.

There are also several other reasons someone's teaching statement may remain available.  One is that they forgot to take it down, and another is that they feel it provides students with useful information about their approach to teaching.  However, I'd bet that keeping it online as a public service is the most common reason.


What's the difference between a preprint and a working paper?

As per the other (current) answer, in fields I know (pure and applied math, computing, GIS, ...) a working paper is less mature than a preprint. However, there is not necessarily a progression from one to the other.

The expectation is that a preprint is basically ready for submission to peer-reviewed journal or other venue, and may even already be submitted by the time anyone else reads it. In some cases, that may not be strictly true: I've seen working papers where there was a specific clear gap or two that still needed to be filled before submission, and I've myself had to rework preprints significantly based on friendly feedback received and/or different format/length expectations where ultimately submitted.

In fields I know, "working paper" carries connotations of work-in-progress. It may still be under active development, or paused to be revisited much later, or maybe never. But someone feels it is worth sharing and having in citable form regardless of any half-bakedness. Nothing wrong with that, and during my Ph.D. I was strongly influenced by a working paper that outlined an approach the author never got around to completing.


When will the GRE Subject Test resume after COVID-19?

ETS has now clarified their policy -- no subject tests until April 2021 at the earliest. As stated in the comments (and at the link), test takers should contact their prospective grad schools for instructions about how to proceed given this.


Does the GDPR entitle students to see their recommendation letters?

In the UK, most recently, reference letters during an employment recruitment process have potentially been available to the candidate for whom the letter has been written.

Bound to be the same for academic references.

No obvious reason for this opportunity to be curtailed by the coming into force of GDPR, quite the contrary.


What are some good practices when asking people to share their PowerPoint presentations from a conference/talk?

There is no magic when it comes to asking for presentations. And there is nothing wrong with being the person who asks people for their powerpoint slides (at least you show that are interested and it may result in them being cited; and it shows that they got their job done - though a presentation they interested others in their idea).

If they don't reply (or don't sent it), it is usually of one of the following reasons:

They are busy and missed your mail,
It would take their time to find the presentation and send it (it may be big so it is not just sending an e-mail),
They would prefer not to make it public as:

It is not polished enough for anything but a presentation,
It may contain things that they would prefer not to share publicly (e.g. plots form other papers, preliminary data which may later proven to be wrong or incomplete, pictures or video they don't have right to share further, etc).

If they don't want to share it - they have right to it. However, usually they have nothing against (and actually are happy to do so) as long as you make it quick and easy for them.

So it is a good idea to ask for slides just after their talk - they may have it on their computer (so you can copy it to your stick) or on a stick (o you can copy it to your computer) or send it right away.

Also:

Send your e-mail at most a week after the presentation,
Be short and concise (what exactly you want, what do you want with do with it),
If there is no response try writing the same e-mail a week later.


Could I ask an employee of my company's client for a recommendation letter ? Will it violate any company policy?

HR can get you the answer concerning company policy. No one here can make a determination other than by guessing. Wait for them to respond or follow up with them.

But also consider the consequences of making your project manager unhappy. Again, you can judge that, but no one here can.


Does building a Python library fall in the category of research?

The point of research is the production of knowledge. If, after you take away all the code you’ve written and the datasets you’ve collected, there’s nothing left, then you’re not doing research, you’re doing development.

So, if you want to do artefact-oriented research like this, the question you have to ask yourself is this: what is the new knowledge you’re producing? Are you testing a new, better algorithm? Are you applying an existing algorithm in a new context and determining if it works there? Are you investigating how a complex system functions, or how it interacts with humans and/or the environment? What is the research question that you’re answering?

If you do determine that you’re doing research rather than development, however, there are a number of artefact-oriented research methodologies, such as the Design Science Research Methodology. You should be able to find more information on it with Google Scholar, if you’re a member of an institution that gives you access to their research journal subscriptions.


If I haven't had a response to a request for recommendation letter a month before applications are due, should I contact someone else?

Contact the second person anyways, but continue to try and get the slow-responder to get the recommendation to you.  This might mean extra work for you, but having backup options tends to be a safer bet.  Good luck!


John Ioannidis from Stanford has analysed citations pattern. In this 2016 paper he looks at citation patterns in multi-authorship. He commented on the impact of alphabetic authoring in the various disciplines as well.

In a recent August study in PLoS Biology, John further explores self-citations as well. In this paper he examines "extreme self-citations and citation farms" that can skew and game the citation system.

So yes, using his technique (he examines the Scopus and GoogleScholar database in these studies), you can probably find and examine citation patterns as well.


Name for journal article that was extended from a conference article?

First of all, I do not think there is any etiquette here. The only rule to follow are the instructions of the journal guest editors. If they do not mention anything about the title, then you can change it.

Now, if you ask about common practices, I can tell you that, in my experience, it is common to change the title, for a number of reasons:

It is a different publication, not a republication of the same paper. You have mentioned that it is an extended version, and I guess that you are suggested to include a percentage of new material, so a new title is in order.
As you point out, it avoids misunderstanding. For instance, when including both publications in your CV, you do want the evaluators of projects or posts to distinguish them.
Note that, even if you use the same title, you could be suggested a change by the journal referees (I assume that the paper is subject to the journal reviewing procedure).

I often have read the explicit instructions "you can change the title and/or coauthors..." but, in case of doubt, there is no harm in asking the guest editors.

Personal note: I once used the same title for the journal special issue and I regret it, for the reason 2 mentioned above.


Is mistakenly attributing something to an author that they did not say misconduct or simply bad scholarship?

Yes, intent matters, but scholars need to do due diligence in their studies. If they don't then their infractions become more serious. There are some things that scholars should know and there are some things that scholars should do. In some cases it is just sloppiness. In some cases it is intentional misconduct.

But there is a broad area in between in which the culpability varies even if there is no evil intent in the action.

Like anyone, a scholar needs to take care. We are trying to extend the range of what is known to be true in the world. We are also trying to give originators of ideas proper credit when they are able to advance truth.

So, intent means a lot, but it isn't everything. And if you exercise due diligence but still err, it is just an honest mistake. Worth apologizing for, of course.

In some fields, such as math, it is impossible for a person to know everything. That hasn't been possible for about 100 years. So, research is needed in narrow areas to make sure that you know the background of what you are doing. So, unintentional plagiarism is possible, but sloppy.

But "sloppiness" is an infraction of its own. It isn't "pure as the driven snow". Not the worst infraction possible, but still a blot on your reputation if you do that. So "just" sloppiness might give the wrong impression.


Is it unethical to hire a paper writer AFTER the assignment is done?

In your hypothetical situation, no cheating occurs, since you do not misrepresent your own efforts. Comparing your own to someone else's solution after corrections have been returned in order to better your understanding is a perfectly good study practice.

Let me also clarify one point: you say, "paper writers [...] known for getting (dishonest, of course) "A"s on all the papers they write". There is nothing dishonest about the A grade. If the teacher gives it an A grade, it's because it is an excellent paper. If it had been handed in with a different name on it, it would have received the same honest A grade. The only dishonest thing is the student's behavior in putting their own name on it and claiming it as their own work, and arguably the ghostwriter's in knowingly assisting in this deception. Absent this, everything is above-board.

The only point where questions could be raised is the influence of money in your hypothetical. There are two places where this could play a role:

1) Acquiring this solution is expensive, and therefore out of reach for poorer students. This kind of disparity seems to be more acceptable to some societies than others, as shown e.g. by the price of education in the US (lots) vs Germany (nothing).

2) You are contributing to the maintenance of an industry which is predominantly assisting others' dishonesty. On this question, which is similar to e.g. contributing to bittorrent development because you like to use it to download linux distributions, I think that society has not formed a uniform opinion, and it is left to the individual to decide their own comfort level.


How should a university non-academic employee's affiliation be like?

I have faced this problem in a previous publication, and what I did was list my current employer as my affiliation, with an asterisk, stating that "Large part of this research work was carried out while I was with the ..."


E-Scroll for University Graduates: Any problem?

I have never in my life used the hard copy of any of my degrees. If people wish to verify, they generally contact the university in any case. I thus anticipate no issue at all in a switch to electronic degree certificates.


Why is headhunting uncommon for academic positions?

Why doesn't a department chair offer faculty positions to exceptional scholars to attract extraordinary people?

Ah, but they do. For high profile academics, there are many behind-the-scenes discussions between department chairs, deans, and other faculty members. If a department really wants a particular academic for a particular chair, they'll have discussions about it with the candidate. I imagine that certain faculty get calls rather frequently asking if they want to move universities. Some professors can pretty much move at will; see, for instance, Cornell West's move between Harvard and Princeton -- West got in a tiff with Harvard President Lawrence Summers, and then he up and moved to Princeton, where they were happy to have him.

The networking system within academia is broad enough and the number of open positions small enough that hiring headhunters is not really necessary, although for really high profile positions -- presidents of universities and the like -- a headhunting firm may be hired to make sure certain protocols are met.

For run-of-the-mill assistant professor and associate professor positions, and for other candidate-search positions such as department chairs, the application process works well. But don't think that there still isn't any wrangling between various faculty members and possible candidates -- if you're an excellent researcher that has been making a name for yourself as a graduate student or as a junior faculty member, you may be asked directly to apply for positions that are open.


How to decide whether to referee a math paper?

That is an excellent question and answering it will help me sort out my thoughts on the matter. Which exactly matches the best reason for me to referee papers: because doing so will likely teach me something.

To go into more details, there are basically two sets of reasons to accept or decline to referee a paper.

I assume here that you feel reasonably competent to do the refereeing; otherwise you should simply decline.

1. Reasons centered on the community.

1.a You want your papers refereed, and for the system to work it needs everyone to participate. It is part of our job, and thus we should do it; the big question is where to place the bar.

A good reference point is to consider the number of referee reports one has benefited from, weighted against the average number of coauthors.
This gives good incentives: it means submitting too boldly and facing rejection might "cost" you to force yourself into one or more referee reports (depending on the journal you submit to). Another common reference point, which is quicker to estimate, is the number of papers you got time a fixed factor that roughly takes into account the number of authors on the paper, the number of referees per submission, and the average number of submission. I would think that a factor between 1 and 3 is reasonable.
Then this reference could be mitigated in several ways.

For example if you struggle to stay active in research, and if lack of time is not the primary reason, then accepting more referee request is a good way to contribute; moreover it can help you get to grip again (see above and below).

Also, since there will be authors who will do less than their share (e.g. because they did a PhD and then quit Academia altogether, not necessarily free riders), each mathematician should do at least slightly more than his estimated share for the system not to get out of control.

So, if you don't feel like it and have some advance in your refereeing with regard to the above weighted reference, you have a good case declining. If you feel that you could do it and you are behind compared to the reference point, then accepting is the proper move community-wise.

1.b Accepting or not to referee a paper can be used as a political tool if you have strong opinion on how mathematical publication should be run. I think it is part of our duties to have a say in this. As a concrete example, you might decline to referee for some publishers whose practice are in your opinion opposed to the interest of the mathematical community (no need to be more explicit I guess, except it might concern more than one publisher). You might also decline to referee because the way you are asked is not correct; as an example if the editor asking me would imply the expected answer in his demand (e.g. "the paper is long and we have a large backlog so we would only accept it if it where really extraordinary"), I could very well only give a quick opinion and not referee it fully, as my time would be wasted if I dive into a paper whose fate is basically already decided.

On the contrary, you might accept in a borderline case in order to support a journal with particularly good practices (e.g. open access without author fees, low-cost subscription community-owned, journal working a new model you want to support, journal having an at least decent proportion of women in its board, etc.).

2. Reasons centered on oneself.

As mentioned in the second sentence of my answer, refereeing is not only a duty, it is also an opportunity.

2.a You can accept to referee because you expect to learn from the process. This is particularly suited for papers lying near the border of your area of expertise; in particular it might be the wrong move to only referee papers which are very close to your own work. Of course, a very technical and difficult paper needs more competence, so you have to weight that criterion against the expected effort and time needed to do the refereeing. If you feel a bit out of good questions to try answering, refereeing papers is a great way to force yourself into looking precisely at new math, which can only help find new directions. You may also find techniques which can help for questions you have no clue about, or it could turn out your own bag of tricks provides answers to some questions left open in the refereed paper.

2.b Accepting to referee and doing a good job at it will make you look good to the editor who solicited you. There is no short-term reward, but in the long run this can benefit you in several ways (being known to be serious could help your papers be taken seriously, at some point good refereeing job can help get proposed an editor position if your own scientific production is good enough). You should mention refereeing in your CV, but it will probably not make a big difference in most cases your CV is needed.

2.c Of course, the main reason to decline to referee is lack of time. You should not jeopardize your own career by accepting all referee request if those are numerous (I personally don't get so many that this argument weights much, but that depends on people and on subfields). If you feel guilty, look at 1.a and you might realize that you already did your share. Big shots can also reasonably concentrate on other things than refereeing "common" papers, and would be more selective (and less available).


Can I directly use a professor's suggestion?

Yes, you can. If the professor did not want you to use his words verbatim, he'd have described the ideas, but not provided words. Example:

  You could say about how you organized a public talk on this topic to convey your interest.

This gives you an idea of what to write about, but doesn't give you the exact thing to write.

Of course, you don't have to use his words if you think you can express the same idea better in your own words.


Should you tell everything in a poster session if you have not published it yet in a journal?

I certainly would. It is often very beneficial to discuss your work with somebody who can understand it. You may get some interesting remarks, suggestions that you didn't think of, or just some information that you are not aware of. Besides, the openly exhibited attitude of "I'm not telling you anything of value because I suspect you are a petty thief trying to steal my intellectual property" leaves a very unpleasant impression and the evasive moves of the sort "This would take too long time to explain" may just make people suspect that you don't know what you are talking about yourself. So if you do not want to share your ideas at the moment for whatever reason, I would just not go public with anything at all.
With that said, the chance that somebody will stop by and engage in a long meaningful discussion with you during a poster session is not too high (unless you present something really outstanding), and you certainly do not need and aren't expected to tell everything you can in the case of the usual "small talk".
Just my two cents.


How to address "positively" an unemployment gap for a postdoc application in a CV

The job announcement contains a contact person - a professor or the head of a department, often. Contact them, state your situation, and ask if it is possible to get the job regardless. If you know someone from the faculty or the country, you might also ask them informally, first.

If you, for example, had family reasons to not leave a particular city, where you could not get a position, that might qualify as a sufficient reason. State any relevant reason, but do it in short manner. Get to the point.

Also, in some countries it is possible to hire you under a different title (researcher vs. postdoc, for example) in spite of the work history. It might be that the condition in the announcement is not binding for some other reason.

You will not know of such factors without asking, so just ask.

For example

Dear professor,

I wish to apply to the position [link to the job announcement and name of the position], which says that my PhD must be no more than three years old [or whatever it states, precisely]. My PhD is four years old, for [reasons]. Is it possible to get the job?


How to expedite? Compensation? University still hasn't provided alternative formats after 9 months

Although it might appear that you are purchasing services from the university, I don't think this is true, legally (although I'm not a lawyer).

If you have complained to the university through the official channels you can lodge a complaint with the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education (http://www.oiahe.org.uk/).


Is it ethical to do phd thesis about topic someone else did it before?

It doesn't sound like there's an ethical problem here -- as long as you appropriately credit the earlier work. (That is, prominently cite the prior work and clearly explain the relationship.)

However, you should note that re-doing someone else's work with minor changes will generally be viewed as less significant and novel than the original work. In particular, doing almost the same analysis as someone else's PhD thesis is likely not sufficient for another PhD.

That said, it is valuable (and often publishable) to re-do prior work. This is helpful to you and the community, and could form part of your PhD.