How to address dependencies when publishing a chain of papers

Dependencies like these are a great place to use preprints.
The arXiv is usually a good preprint server for computer science research (other fields use others, like bioRxiv, ChemRxiv, etc). Your preprint can go up immediately, and then it's publicly available with a DOI for citation ever after.
This both clearly establishes ordering and allows paper B to cite paper A in its preprint form. Even if paper B makes it all the way to publication before paper A, the preprint can be linked to the final form after paper A is published, which indexing and citation services use to consolidate the versions together.
Finally, most journals allow preprints these days, and some even force you to use them, so in most circumstances there is no downside to posting a preprint.


Is it good syntax to thank the reviewer for every comment in peer review?

I'm in the social and health sciences, so etiquette in your discipline may differ (though I doubt it).

I have never done this. Generally, I thank the editors and reviewers for their time and effort in the body of the response letter, but I stick to business in the individual comments. There may be a really exceptional comment by a reviewer that I may thank them for (suggesting a specific citation I didn't think of or identifying an oversight, where addressing it may improve the manuscript immensely). So, basically my individual responses look more like "As suggested by reviewer #1, we have added additional literature about topic x in the introduction...We have revised figure 2 so that it more clearly displays the findings."

Hope that helps!


How to nicely communicate to my professor that I prefer a different topic/project

Directly and honestly. It's your job to champion your concerns, not your professor's. They might not have realized Y would be a better fit or have some thoughts about X you are not aware of.

  Hey Prof. Awesome,

  Do you have a few minutes to talk about the recent projects assignments? I'm much more interested in working with Y because of reasons. I also think it would be more beneficial to my research because reasons. Can I stop by sometime this week to discuss your thoughts on X and whether it would be possible for me to switch to Y?

  Thanks,

  Kristof Tak


In general, information is free, but its creative expression is not. Therefore, you can build on other people ideas from copyrighted works but you can't copy text or images from such works.

Therefore, you can freely summarize other people's methods, provided that you cite your source - and that's an issue of intellectual honesty rather than a copyright issue.

However, you copied verbatim the whole paragraph in your "Sample preparation" section instead of explaining the method with your own words. This can only be done if it qualifies as fair use (or equivalent rules outside the USA) or you get permission from copyright owners - be it specifically to you or with a free license.

Since the original article states that "This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC 3.0 License" (link mine) you can copy it while abiding to the license. You are obliged to:

Acknowledge authorship of the copied fragment. It's debatable if just citing the original work without stating that you copied text from it is enough.
Not to make any commercial use of your paper. For example, you can't publish it in a commercial journal. I would say that publishing it in ResearchGate doesn't qualify as commercial use, but the limits of commercial use are tricky.

If these conditions pose a problem to you, or even a slight nuisance, you can try to remove the copied content and explain the same ideas with you own words. This way you can get rid of copyright and license issues and you will just need to keep citing the original paper.

Addition

The original article is also published here under the same license. This publication is more specific about obligations of reusers of content, with a dedicated page.


NIH grants - moving to another institution as PI

The answer to your question is specific to your funding from the NIH. From the NIH webpage:

  Many NIH grant mechanisms allow the principal investigator to bring their grants with them when they change recipient organizations. This is subject to approval by NIH, and there are specific procedures which must be followed in order to make this process run smoothly (and relatively quickly!). If you are a current NIMH recipient, you MUST contact your NIMH Program Official (PO) and Grants Management Specialist (GMS) BEFORE your move, in order to initiate the process of transferring your grant.

This webpage then goes on to describe the steps necessary to transfer the grant.


Should students be shown the grading rubric?

Sharing a good rubric with your students can be a helpful way to let them understand what is expected of them.  There is a down side in that the rubric then provides a basis for students to complain that you've graded a paper unfairly.  Don't release the rubric unless you're really willing to give credit according to the rubric even if a paper has obvious flaws in areas not covered by the rubric.


Is it usual for graduate programs not to find suitable candidates even among a large pool of applicants?

I guess my question is: is it usual not to find any suitable candidates from such a large pool, or is the admissions panel just being too picky?

As somebody who recently did not hire a single candidate from a pool of about 100 applicants, I can say that it is indeed possible that they just did not find enough good people.

We were looking for a PhD student in computer science, with a focus on software and cloud engineering. We put out announcements to a few of the widely-distributed mailing lists in the field. Here's roughly what happened:

A few candidates had completely inappropriate backgrounds. E.g., one applicant had a master in biology.
About 30% to 40% of the applicants were computer scientists, but with a completely different specialisation in their undergrad and master. For instance, many students applied who used to work on theory, AI or Machine Learning. We are not interested in such backgrounds.
Easily more than 50% of the applicants, based on their application material,  did not have a sufficient command of the English language.
More than half of the applicants came from Asian universities where we did not know the university nor the professors writing the letters. All of them had reasonable grades and positive but very generic letters. Most had done internships at companies we have never heard of. As we had no way to distinguish the good from the bad students with those (to us) seemingly identical application materials, we deemed the risk too high.
About 25% of the applicants had, or pretended to have, multiple papers in predatory open access journals. The few times I actually looked up these papers, I was either unable to find them, or they were obviously of very low quality.
The vast majority of applications were supremely generic, and obviously sent in identical form to any PhD student posting in a Western university.

At the end of the day, we found 3 or 4 candidates that we were genuinely interested in, and after Skype interviews etc. it just did not work out with any of them.


Dissertation formatting: should foreign words and Latin abbreviations be italicized?

In general, unless your particular institution's style guide has something to say on the matter, this is entirely up to the author to decide. The primary reason not to do so, I think, would be that there are so many foreign words that it becomes impractical to italicize them all (in other words, the italicization becomes too prominent).

Additionally, one can make the argument that over time foreign words appear enough in a foreign language that they end up "borrowed" by the other language. For instance, if I were writing in the humanities, I'd be inclined to italicize Weltanschauung but not schadenfreude or angst.


While the previous letter is still technically valid, I would strongly urge you to consider getting an updated letter or even a replacement letter from someone else. If you have done anything noteworthy since the previous letter was written, then that could be incorporated in a revision. Alternatively, you may find that someone else is able to provide a more useful evaluation of your talents and abilities.


Do visiting professors make for good PhD supervisor?

Rules vary, but visiting professors should not be permitted to supervise PhD students because they are not employed for the duration of the supervision period.  So while they might be skilled supervisors, they are not suitable supervisors.


Should authors omit statements / citations of well known results in response to referee requests?

I would recommend approaching a referees recommendation to drop a citation in the following manner:

First, consider carefully whether there is good reason to keep a citation in the paper at all.  The key factors to consider are reading audience and the customs of others in the field.  For example, in cross-disciplinary work I have often cited extremely basic material because core dogma known by every undergraduate in one field are sometimes viewed as nearly unbelievable statements in another field.  On the other hand, students in particular are sometimes prone to over-citation because they have been well-trained in citation and decide to err on the side of caution.
If a citation is warranted, consider whether to use the primary source or a textbook source.  Notation and interpretation change over the years, and for purposes of elucidating a well-known result, a readily accessible modern text is often a much better citation for the reader than a difficult to find or understand original.  In certain cases, however, returning to the original is important: for example, the standard interpretation of the Turing test is different than what Turing originally proposed.
Whether the decision is to keep the same citation, change the citation, or drop it all-together, in responding to the referee one should explain carefully why one made that decision.  I would be startled if a paper could be imperiled by deciding to keep a citation when a referee recommended dropping it---it's just such a minor issue, all things considered.  With a careful explanation of how the choice has been reconsidered and the final decision, most referees are likely to be sufficiently satisfied, even if they might have chosen differently.

Bottom line: no paper is going to be put in peril by a few extra citations as long as the author is reasonable in explaining their decisions.  The citations might ultimately get dropped or not, but in every case we are talking about "minor revisions" territory and not the boundary between "major revision" and "reject."


Is it possible to quit a TVL13 job in probation period?

If you want legal advise, then you need to talk to a lawyer or your union representative. It is a bad idea to trust random people on the internet on such issues.
My experience in Germany is that if you want to leave you don't go through that process. Instead you talk to your supervisor. (S)he will express regret and want to know why, but in the end (s)he will not want to keep someone who wants to leave. So together (with the HR department) you will make a contract that terminates the existing contract at a convenient time for both regardless of the notice periods.


what is the common academic way of linking a section of a paper to a previously published paper?

The point of writing a scientific paper is to communicate what you have done and how. A key factor is to keep a clear trail of your sources. If you need to re-iterate an already published method you basically have two options:

Simply state that you use the method described in "so and so" (yyyy). If you have made any changes to the method originally described you do of course need to provide details on those changes.
If the method is somehow so key to your paper that you think it is worth re-iterating the method description then rewrite it in your own words and, perhaps, start out by saying. I have followed the method described in "so and so" (yyyy), what follows is a re-iteration of his/her/their description. You can of course include changes you have made to the method but then it has to be crystal clear to the reader what is from the older paper and what is new.

It is quite common, at least in some fields, to provide a abbreviated description, focussing on key aspects and ignoring parts that are more obvious. After all the reference to the original description should be given and the source for the information is there.

What you should totally avoid is to quote the section from the older paper. It is always better to provide your own version of whatever you are "quoting", since this may make clear your interpretation of what was originally said. Straight quotes hide such effects.


How to "work on the essay" as a non-native speaker

The referee is obviously satisfied with the "scientific" part of the publication but points out the narrative itself. I don't think that your English language skills are the deciding in the factor in that matter. You could write the same paper in your native language, let it someone translate it as it is and still get the same comment. As the referee puts it, it's the style that has issues. You should try to formulate your paper in a way which not only lists the discovered facts one after the another, but attempts to guide the reader's thought process towards your idea and results. Make it more interesting and engaging. Your language should be eloquent, your narrative consistent, your thought flow constant; the paper itself serves as a way to reflect the scientist's mind and as such it does not consist only of definitions, lemmas, theorems, proofs, citations, figures, etc., because a significant part is the skill (or art) to mold them into an article that readers will enjoy reading.

If the problem is really only the lack of English skills, try to write it up in your native language and consult some professional to translate it.

If that is not the case, don't be discouraged, good writing is a skill and can be learned and trained. Unfortunately, I've encountered many students (and some experienced scientists) who struggle with this. I personally blame it on the lack of reading of non-scientific material, like novels, articles, philosophical works, etc. Of course, this doesn't mean that you should style your paper like an adventure novel, but, as I mentioned before, writing is a skill, and it is best honed by being in contact with other well written materials. This way, you'll broaden your vocabulary, improve the ability to express your thoughts through text and, if you focus on English materials, become more proficient in English.


Can I simultaneously pursue separate masters and PhD degrees?

The answer to the question as stated is almost certainly "yes". A correspondence degree can be pursued by anyone, regardless of occupation, and your occupation as a PhD student shouldn't affect that. Note that your department may discourage this practice, as you would effectively be holding two full-time jobs (or one full-time and one part-time, depending on how quickly you pursue the correspondence degree).


The nightmare of being an independent researcher

Firstly, 5 papers on completion of your Masters is pretty good (for comparison, I had 1 rejected paper at that stage).  Even though they are in different areas, they demonstrate your researching skills.

Secondly, in regards to the PhD and in particular, funding - I have a few suggestions:

Research not only what the academics' specialities are, but also the scholarship/funding opportunities that the universities have on offer.
Contact the academics, asking about their research, this way you'll express your interest without giving away all of your ideas.  Once you build a rapport with the academics, then enquire about co-authoring a paper.
Perhaps look into working at a university (library, research assistant etc), so, look at the job opportunities.
most of all, don't give up!

This is, by no means an exhaustive list and I am sure, other members here will provide more in depth answers, but it something to think about.


Is it okay if a PhD student's work seems insignificant compared to others'?

It is entirely normal that beginning students would achieve incremental results that compare poorly to the best papers from the best researchers in the field. Sometimes researchers need time to mature, and sometimes research directions just don't pan out even for the best of us. Not every worthwhile paper is revolutionary.

That said, it's impossible for us to tell whether you should be concerned or not. It's possible you did everything exactly right and this is where the science led you; it's also possible that you did not. The person best suited to judge this is your advisor. Since your advisor wants you to publish, it would seem that they are not too concerned. Still, asking them for feedback is likely a good idea.


I'm writing a paper on a side project with a friend, should I involve my supervisor?

I recommend that you should talk with the supervisor about side projects. Perhaps revealing the nature of a project at once is not a good idea if the relation with the supervisor is not so close. You can start for example telling your supervisor that you are/will be collaborating with a friend on a project and see the reaction and the comments, and after a few weeks you can expose the whole project and paper to the supervisor. I don't think you have invested such a long time in your project, 3h/week is a small amount of time, so you didn't took much effort from your principal project, you have nothing to worry about.


Can a lecturer force you to learn a specific programming syntax / language?

No, they can't. But they can make you fail the class.

Lecturers usually have free rein over the specifics of the material taught. Therefore they are free to choose any technology or dialect as long as it is within the area of the course.

Nobody can force you to study anything but if you want to pass his exam or the course by e.g. submitting lab problems, you have to play by their rules.

They might not know any other dialect and therefore be only able to teach (and grade) Oracle SQL. Or they might consider it the best dialect, e.g., because of wide industry use.

Finally, although I would be annoyed by this as well, sometimes you have to suck it up and just pass the course. Lecturers that teach the same (obsolete) material for 20 years are unfortunately a reality in academia. At least you might learn what to avoid in the future.


Laws vary and I am neither a lawyer nor Australian. But in general, unless the grant or university rules say otherwise, things you create are (or at least should be) your own. Some universities try to make a claim (various places in the world) and you may have signed away some of your rights previously, but in the absence of that the IP is yours.

Check locally for the correct answer, of course. If the rules seem arbitrary or unfair, you can explore, locally, what it would take to counter them.


does my affiliation affect the decision of accepting my paper in a journal

You seem to be asking if it is possible that due to your affiliation, your paper is rejected for bogus reasons.

While this cannot be ruled out with certainty, such cases should be very rare in reputable journals. Reviewers are advised to only take the scientific content and the clarity of the presentation into account.

It is quite common that a presentation that is quite hard to follow makes the reviewer unable to assess the scientific contribution. This is because the reviewer shouldn't guess what is meant to make her/his judgment. If a central part is unclear, then this precludes the reviewer from supporting acceptance. If a follow-up submission is made with an improved presentation,  only then, the reviewers can check the scientific content properly and recommend to accept or reject the paper. Getting the improved version rejected (again) is not a sign of discrimination, but rather one should see the first try as a paper draft that has not actually been reviewed due to lack of clarity.

Note that many scientific communities are close-knit, so if an author needlessly does not adhere to the standards of the community in terms of the type of experimental evaluation, the arguments used, or the questions being answered, then this can also lead to little interest by the journal to accept a paper.


Are bibliographies/reference lists generally included in page/word counts?

Should not count.

A six-line main text can pack more convincing arguments compared to a one-line main text. That's why it's important to make sure all students have an equal share of area or real property to build upon.

A six-line citation does not necessarily bring any advantage compared to a one-line citation. For that reason, I don't see why we should penalize students who had identified some information with more authors or a longer title; that is not how we teach them to examine the credibility of a paper.

If you're concerned about them citing too many things or citing mindlessly, you may put a limit on the number of citations like some journals do. However, I wouldn't include them in the word count.


Writing an arXiv paper without "Introduction" or "related work" sections

ArXiv's submission guidelines state that

Submissions to arXiv should be topical and refereeable scientific contributions that follow accepted standards of scholarly communication.

A manuscript that doesn't provide any context is unlikely to meet that standard, and may be declined by a moderator. In any case, the golden rule in technical communication is to consider the audience (hopefully your preprint will find some interested readers!) and what they'd find useful. Context and discussion of the relation to prior work tend to be quite useful.
Note, however, that ArXiv's guidelines don't specify that you need to write a perfect introduction. I've sometimes found myself stuck on one or two key opening sentences, trying to get them just right, instead of writing productively. If you face a similar issue, here's a method I've found useful. First consider what points you want to make, and maybe key works you want to cite, in order to have some structure to work from. Then force yourself to just put something down on (a possibly figurative) paper, in order to get started. If you edit that a few times, I would be surprised if you don't have something that's at least refereeable. More advice along these lines can be found here.


Is it usual to 'cut and paste' from the 'Case for Support' into the Je-S online form?

(The answer may vary depending on the research council you apply to, and the type of grant. Let me give my perspective as someone who applied for an EPSRC First Grant last year.)
I don't think that the Je-S form is supposed to be similar to the Case for Support. As you say, the audience for the Case for Support is reviewers, so there you are free to describe your project in detail, using appropriate technical language. By contrast, I think (at least some of) the material in the other parts of the Je-S is intended to be read by non-experts, including non-academics. For example the instructions for the "Summary" component read as follows:

The Summary is used for:
-Sending to potential Peer reviewers to determine whether the proposal is within their field of expertise
-To publicise the Councils research programmes to a variety of readers eg Opinion-formers and policy makers, the general public and the wider research community.
Explain in plain English:
-The context of the research.
-Its aims and objectives.
-Its potential applications and benefits.

In case you didn't see it, on the "Document Menu" page of the application, each item in the left-hand menu bar has a ? button that you can click to get some instructions. (Unfortunately, these instructions don't always clarify things very much.)


Good question. Hard to answer. Some thoughts:

reviewers are not trained
reviewers are anonymous
reviewers receive minor feedback on their performance
reviewers are also authors, competing for the same funds/ prestige
reviewers are specialized in a narrow discipline
reviewers are volunteers
reviewers are scarce
the review system lacks an external (independent) control system (audit)
reviewers are humans, with their own personal interests, emotions, capabilities

Considering these observations, it is unlikely to expect two review reports to be aligned. Then the difficult decision transfers to the associate editor who is also a volunteer and not specialized in the author’s field.

Leaves the question why it is accepted while outside science this wouldn’t be. Honestly, I don’t know. Just some guesses:

Science is a powerful isolated sector with its own rules?
The current system works for established research groups?
Jourals do not have the funding to train and attract qualified professionals/scientists as reviewers?
There is no easy solution or alternative?

Added based on comment:
- reviewers are busy scientists
- reviewers are career-wise not rewarded for conducting reviews


Supporting @user153812, I'd write

  Marx and Engels (1888) propose sharing property ...

but

  The paper (Marx and Engels, 1888) provides the first definition of communism ...

The rule of the thumb is that a citation in parenthesis should not disturb the flow of the sentence. Every time this not happens, I find myself referring to the authors, hence the plural. The only exception is when there is a sole author.

  Lenin (1907) provides a crucial extension of the initial suggestion of Marx ...

I had to correct myself, having written it initially in past tense, which sits better with my belly felling, but does not provide a good reference to the genus.

(Note that I did not proof-check the dates, it's just the May spirit.)


How should I cite a publication where the author(s) are anonymous (but the organization is not)?

It probably depends on the citation style you have to use.
The Modern Language Association style (MLA) states

An Editorial & Letter to the Editor
Cite as you would any article in a periodical, but include the designators "Editorial" or "Letter" to identify the type of work it is.
"Of Mines and Men." Editorial. Wall Street Journal east. ed. 24 Oct. 2003: A14. Print.

But the American Psychological Association style (APA) just substitutes the title for the author. See APA blog.

“No Author”: For Sure
In some cases, there truly is no way to pin down who the author is. We treat this as “no author.” In reference citations, we handle this by moving the content’s title into the author position (with no quotation marks around it). This most commonly occurs for wiki entries, dictionary entries, and unattributed website content. In the in-text citation, the title (put inside double quotation marks) likewise takes the place of the author’s name.


Publish in ArXiv/Munich Personal RePEc Archive/SSRN

In the cae of ArXiv:

1) Yes. However, your paper needs to be endorsed by an established academic. See ArXiv's help on the endorsement system: https://arxiv.org/help/endorsement

2) You need to give ArXiv a perpetual license to distribute your work. But otherwise you retain the copyright. With a traditional subscription-based journal, you would typically have to give your copyright to the journal.


Is there an attribution obligation for arXiv preprints with the standard license?

If you use someone else's work, academic honesty requires you to cite that work.  Licenses and copyright are completely irrelevant.
If you redistribute someone else's work, then the license is important.  That is a matter of law, not academic honesty.  The ArXiv license does not permit you to redistribute work unless you are ArXiv; attribution is irrelevant.  The ArXiv license also does not authorize modification, so ArXiv cannot change the author names in a paper.


What do editors do when authors send them angry emails questioning the competence of the reviewer? When I edited a journal, if the author provided technical arguments against the reviewer's comments, I would forward those to the reviewer(s) and see what they say. If they didn't, I would usually say something generic about our faith in our peer review process and apologize that we cannot accept the paper. Either way the dispute does not usually escalate beyond the three of us (author, editor, reviewer).

Filing a lawsuit would be unprecedented. Banning you from submitting is more conceivable, but still unlikely. After all, it's to their advantage that authors submit potentially-publishable papers there. If it happens my guess would be that the author wrote something that crosses into the realm of personal attacks: for example, "tell your reviewer to take a gun and shoot himself".

In any case it is not something to worry too much about - after all it's not you that sent the bad answer - unless the author did write personal attacks, in which case you could send the editor an email distancing yourself from the author's behavior.


You don't need to have earned any honors or prizes in math.  You do need to show that you are a strong student in general, and that you have sufficient background in math to be able to hit the ground running.

Physics and math are very close and give you a great deal of fluidity, especially in the direction you want to go -- as long as you have taken enough math classes.  (Some people graduate in physics with the bare minimum of math classes -- with PDEs as the most advanced class taken -- and they would have trouble making this switch -- but you are not one of those people.)


What is the difference between all of these impact factors?

They are fake impact factors, or bogus impact factors.
For instance, the first two you name (Universal Impact Factor, or UIF, and Global Impact Factor, or GIF) were identified as fake impact factors by this paper in 2015. Some others on that list are in the 'list of misleading and fake metrics'.
The original Impact Factor (IF; or Journal Impact Factor, JIF) is the one calculated by Web of Science (which belongs to Clarivate Analytics, or formerly to ISI which belonged to Thomson Reuters).
I just checked the Journal Citations Reports (JCR) of Web of Science. (The JCR is the section where you can find the JIFs). The journal you link to, BEPLS (or Bulletin of Environment, Pharmacology and Life Sciences), can not be found there.
In other words, it does not have an Impact Factor (other than the fake ones).
(EDIT: As you mentioned in your edited post and in the comment, the journal is listed in the Master Journal List. To be clear, it is in the "Zoological Record" index of Web of Science, and not in the SCI, or Science Citation Index, which may be the reason why the journal does not have a JIF. But I am too unfamiliar with the "Zoological Record"-part of Web of Science to know the details.)
It is most likely a predatory journal. Beware.


How can I determine the funders of an article?

In general, you can find often find the sponsor listed in an article acknowledgement or registration of the protocol. The article was preregistered as NCT02928653. Upon going to the preregistration site I see the sponsor is Purdue University.


Is it ethical to require student work in exchange for letter of recommendation

Yes. It would be unethical to trade lab work for a guaranteed good letter of recommendation, but I see nothing wrong with your scenario. I think it's acceptable for a professor to only write letters for students they've worked with if they has open lab positions. I also think it's good to require a student commit to at least one month of research at minimum.

It can be hard for many students to juggle/balance life, school, and work. Doubly so for those who need to work through college. But research is the backbone of many grad programs and it's important to get as much experience as possible. The research requirement can get in the way of everything else, but it's also a way for you to try research before applying to grad school.

EDIT: Another way of thinking about it: Would it be an issue if a professor required a student to take their course (or do research) before writing them a letter of recommendation? Of course not! Wanting a letter from such a professor would require you to spend time going to lecture and doing the course work. The only difference here is that one month of research is probably more beneficial and less work than taking a class.


Community College/College Teaching Certificates

I teach at a community college in the Los Angeles area and have worked on part-time and full-time hiring. The following is based in my experience and may or may not apply to you.

Based on the hiring practices where I work, a teaching certificate does not carry much weight. At most it might be a good sign that a candidate was not looking for a community college job as a short-term stopgap, but instead was serious about teaching as a career.

If you want to signal to a department coordinator, dean, or hiring committee that you're serious about teaching, there are much easier ways to do that than getting a certificate. Just put some work into writing a cover letter that comes off right. Don't list your publications or talk about research. Explain honestly why and how you know that teaching is what you want to do. Describe concrete experiences that have convinced you of this.

  so far I have not even been able to get adjunct positions

In my geographical area and field (natural sciences), adjunct positions are absurdly easy to get, provided that you meet the minimum qualifications. Every science department at my school is always desperate for adjuncts willing to work for the scandalously low pay we offer. If you're qualified and we don't hire you, a dozen other community colleges in the area will snap you up. We frequently hire people who are woefully underqualified or known to be flaky.

If you haven't had any luck so far getting an adjunct position, here are some things to think about:

Are you in an geographical area where there are many such openings every year?
Are you getting interviews and then not getting hired? Are you not getting interviews? This will tell you whether the problem is with your paper qualifications or with something you're doing wrong when you interview.
Is it possible that someone is giving you a negative reference?
Have someone look over your job letter and c.v. and give you comments. You may be doing something that is sabotaging your chances. E.g., there may be grammatical errors in your job letter. Make sure your application materials connect the dots with the requirements listed in the ad.
In my district, we require people to submit undergraduate and graduate transcripts. Often when we look at these transcripts, we see signs of trouble. Is this the case for you?


How many journals can one follow at the same time?

Use a content manager and subscribe to the journals' RSS feeds.

I currently follow ~30 journals and a few blogs (this number changes dynamically as I remove some journals and include others) using feedly, which is a RSS reader that is very user-friendly and has apps for both Android and iOS. The software automatically fetches new content from the journals' latest issues and makes them available to me in real time. My daily feed is usually comprised of ~50 new papers every day. I devote 15-30 minutes of every morning to going through it--except on some weekdays when journals like Nature and Science release an entire issue. Going through the feed includes reading all titles, identifying potentially relevant papers, reading their abstract and saving them to my Mendeley library. Some people keep track of new papers through Mendeley alone, though I prefer feedly.


How to include periods of non-academic work on an academic CV?

Simply list in the section about employment who you worked for. The places you apply for may ignore this if they so choose, but at least you can document that you were working during this time and were not, as one could be tempted to speculate, in jail, unemployed, or homeless.

But then, it may also be that the people who look at your application think that it is quite beneficial to the program to hire someone who has seen other parts of the world, whether or not you learned specific tasks and skills there that are useful for your postdoc work.


Can an international PhD Student in Australia make a living with an APA scholarship and 8 hours teaching work per week?

I'm a current PhD student at the University of Melbourne. I can just support myself and one other person on my $30,000 of scholarships. I also live with just my partner (no housemates), our rent is just under $400/week + bills. So if you are OK with a more student-like experience you are likely to be fine, and use TA work to save for flights you need to take back to Europe.

Your estimate is quite low for TA work: the minimum wage for casual cafe or fast-food workers in Australia is over $22/hr. I get $44/hr for TAing, though this may just be Melbourne Uni. Also scholarships are tax-free, meaning you may not have to pay any income tax (as it would be nearly impossible to earn over the $18200 tax-free threshold given visa restrictions).


Could faculty members earn a degree while being employed?

In France, it is possible, in particular in order to get the "Habilitation à diriger des recherches (HDR)", which is a degree one can get after a PhD, and that demonstrates the ability to fully supervise a PhD student.
It is required in order to apply for a full professorship position.

In order to get the HDR, the lecturer must write a thesis and defend it in front of a committee, and needs to enroll in a university (and therefore is a student), usually the one where she is working (but I don't think it is required). Note that for the HDR, there is no class or lectures to attend, only the thesis to write.


Without accessing the code how can a reviewer confirm if the simulation results are correct?

Do you have reason to doubt their veracity or good faith? Are their claims somehow not believable or highly questionable based on your knowledge of the field? If it isn't standard in your field to release code I don't think a reviewer should necessarily demand it, regardless of your feelings about making code public.

The authors should describe their methodology sufficiently for someone else to replicate it; in that way, they are putting their reputations at risk that were someone to duplicate their approach they would find the same results. Fabricating results is a very serious accusation. There are some statistical approaches to test whether data are likely to be fabricated, but the efficacy of this approach depends on the sophistication of the fabrication, and that question is better suited to CrossValidated.

If their work is meaningful in the field, at some point someone will implement their approach again. There is necessarily a bit of trust in science that people do what they say they've done. A reviewer should check that a paper's conclusions follow logically from their results, and that their methodology is described and sound, but they need not verify or replicate the results. As David Thornley points out in a comment on another answer, even simply running code tells you very little about those key factors, it only tells you if there is a blatant lie or mistake.


How to get a university to make an admission decision more quickly

Universities are aware of this problem. I suggest you either email or call the admissions office at both universities and tell them exactly what you said above, without naming the other university. For the first, ask for an extension for acceptance. For the second, ask whether they can inform you ahead of time about your application. They may or may not be sympathetic to your problem, but at least you'll have tried everything. Do note that if both universities simply say, "sorry to hear that, but we cannot do anything different," you will simply have to make a decision with limited information. Best of luck!


Appropriate attire for a graduate school interview in the US

In general, you want to look neat enough to make it clear that you are taking things seriously, but not so formal that you give the impression that you are overly formal or don't understand the norms.  Typically slightly overdressed is better than slightly underdressed.  Your goal is to have people not particularly notice what you are wearing, and instead listen to what's coming out of your mouth.

Standards vary slightly from field to field: in my experience, mathematicians tend to be the most informal and chemists the most formal of the STEM world (business students and liberal arts exist in their own separate universes, which I am less familiar with).

In general, however, I would suggest that men wear a sharp-looking long-sleeved button-down shirt, long pants, no jacket or tie.  For women, the rules are more complex (and I am less familiar, but am incorporating advice shared from experiences of female scientists who I know), but something at that same level of "business casual" is probably good; long-sleeve button down, or a sweater; avoid cleavage or anything that can be taken as sexy.  Unfair though it may be, pants are probably better than even a long skirt or dress for that reason.  Heels can help for height, but don't wear sharp heels or heels that make noise. Low to no makeup, as there is often prejudice against that (again, not claiming any of this is fair).
Make sure your hair is clean and presentable too; if you have long hair, you will probably want to tie it back (men and women both).

Contrary to all this: if you have a strong sense of style and good personal visual taste, you can probably make all manner of things work.  But make sure you're confident you can pull it off---if you can, you probably already know it.  For the rest of us, I just recommend making the clothing unmemorable.


I think there is, in principle, nothing wrong for you to put these talks on your CV provided (i) they will really happen, and (ii) it is clear that they are in the future -- so put a (future) date next to them.

As a graduate student applying for jobs, you are in the same situation as all of the other graduate students: your CV is still pretty short. It is fair to add facts to it that will happen in the future (though it is, obviously, not ok to embellish by listing talks that you only may give but that may not in fact really happen).


Publishing into journals as an independent undergraduate researcher

Editors don't normally look at your "qualifications" when evaluating a paper. It is actually unprofessional. The work should stand on its own.

You don't need degrees, or specifically advanced degrees to submit. Again, the work...

The costs are a different matter. I can't know the policies of all journals, but for some, at least (I hope it is still true), the following applies. First try to charge the funding agency of the research. Second, to charge the submitter's institution if available. Third (maybe second), charge the submitter. Fourth, if no one pays, absorb the costs internally.

I'm especially not certain of the fourth point, but it used to be true for some reputable journals.

My advice would be to submit the paper to the most appropriate journal, ignoring costs. But also ask your department if, in the eventuality that it is accepted, they would pay. If they say no, submit anyway.

Deal with the issue of getting a personal bill only when it arrives. Possibly just by saying it is impossible for you to absorb the cost as an unsponsored researcher. If they then refuse to publish it, you have at least benefitted from some review of your ideas.

Journals normally expect that researchers have some funding and that the funding includes covering page fees for the resulting research. Funding agencies benefit from being mentioned in the papers produced. But that doesn't apply to you and journals may still be able to make exceptions "for the greater good."


Using Others Work - To What Level Is It Okay?

You absolutely must not use the work of others without attribution. If you credit everything you use in an adequate way, there is absolutely no limit on how much stuff from other people you can use. However, for your project to be successful, you will need to have a sufficient amount of your own contributions. To see what counts as sufficient, look at past projects and ask your supervisor.


Additional schooling and salary at private/public high school

Yes, it is an oversimplification overall. First, state laws vary about who can teach, and some laws apply to private schools as well. You may need certification or not to be hired, but in some places you will need to seek it afterwards. Most schools need to be certified by the state themselves, so the rules need to be followed.

Whether having been a TA or not may make little difference. What secondary school teachers do and what TAs do can be very different.

Nearly everywhere teachers need to do some kind of continuing education (to maintain certification). That might be in field, or it might be pedagogy, but it is usually a requirement. Having an advanced degree might alter the equation, but probably not erase the requirement.

Public schools aren't all unionized. Private schools don't all provide housing and few provide housing for everyone.

You probably don't need a doctorate anywhere in the US to be hired, but, some top secondary private schools value them.

Salary by region is probably a poor metric. If salaries are low, it is also likely that local living expenses are low as well. Some places excepted, of course, such as anywhere near the California Bay Area. But even New England isn't uniform. Boston is pretty expensive.

As for salary for an individual, the doctorate probably plays a relatively small part. The institution is looking for people who will serve their students well. Having a doctorate adds a bit of prestige to a school, but not necessarily an improvement in service to the students. They will look at the whole picture, as would any employer. Experience and letters of recommendation might weigh more than the degree.

But it is the complete picture and a judgement that you will fit in well that is more important than the degree.

After you are hired, your advance in salary depends little on the degrees you came in with. And most schools are constrained financially, both public and private.


Shooting For a Star Supervisor VS Mediocre Supervisor and Consequences For Your Academic Life Career

It feels to me that you are describing a false dichotomy. You will in fact need a supervisor who is both competent and with whom you are able to have at least a professional relationship. However, I don't really believe that your supervisor needs to be a "shooting star" - a regular, competent, research-active professor should do just fine.

Surely not all competent academics in your field are jerks / bullies? If they indeed are, I worry that your expectations are in some dimension unreasonable.


Ethics behind communicating research after end of project and unemployment

If your degree is not finished and your advisor feels you should comply with the request to give a presentation, you may not have a strong voice in the matter.

To put it bluntly, college professors are used to getting work from students for bargain prices. And, because they control the gateway to a degree, they usually get what they want. That is a sad reality of academia. Not all professors are like this. But some indeed are. This is why academia.SE is full of questions to the tune of "My advisor/professor took advantage of my labor. What should I do?"

I would consider two points here:

If you have a good relationship with your advisor, address these concerns to him/her. In writing (email) is even better than verbally perhaps. Mention that you cannot do extensive work for free. Express your opinion professionally. You do have a voice here (albeit one that might be ignored).
Be willing to compromise. If your professor still asks you to comply, outline some parameters you would like to have in place. (Two examples below).

I would be willing to work 10 hours a week on this presentation, but I do not feel that I can devote more time to the project and still complete my degree in a timely fashion.
I want to partition some of my time towards seeking full time employment for after graduation. Is their an avenue for me to do such?

In short, you have a voice in this matter, but your professor might disregard your opinion so as to retain an industry connection. This is part of the politics of academia as a student.


How to deal with exam performances that do not reflect my abilities?

Something seems to be going on that you need to change. I don't have any idea what it is, but it isn't the grade or the "argument" that you need. You say your performance (repeated) isn't representative of your knowledge and abilities. That may be true or not, but something is getting in your way.

Is it the inability to study properly because you have too many obligations elsewhere? Do you have particularly bad study habits, say assuming you "learn" something by reading it? Do you have particularly bad teachers (also assuming you learn by hearing something once or reading it)? Is it that you had poor teaching in your past and so were never taught the basics? (I learned/memorized my multiplication tables, finally, after finishing a doctorate in mathematics.) Or are exams so stress inducing that you freeze up and can't think normally?

I'm not one to dismiss any student as not being able to learn mathematics so I won't insult you, but something is blocking you, whether internal or external. You need to find it and change it. It could be as "simple" as you are at the wrong school and they have no way to help you, or no desire to. (Yes, not so simple.) I've had some students who's background was so poor that it was impossible to figure out what I could do for them in the time available. Fortunately, math wasn't their main pursuit so they could be successful elsewhere, but it was very frustrating.

Each of the possibilities I've mentioned and others, has some way to overcome it. But first you need to self-diagnose the problem. Only then can you attack it.


Will the preprint published to the figshare be available on Google scholar?

I got email from figshare :

Thank you for contacting Figshare support.
Content should be automatically indexed by Google Scholar, but it usually takes some time before that happens. In theory Scholar is focusing mostly on text documents (.pdf, .docx, etc.) but we have applied their guidelines across the whole set of items. We can confirm that we are currently working with Google in order to improve our coverage.


Should one thank colleagues for interesting discussions that have not actually achieved anything?

The acknowledgement is not just for the results you get ultimately, but for the time and effort spent by your colleague in discussing your problem. Research is not deterministic, so you can rarely know beforehand what  approach will work; you need to try different methods and then see what gives you the results. It's unfair to credit only those which ultimately worked. (Also, what didn't work now could work in a different scenario, with a different approach.)

To offer an experimental analogue, often we need to use several different instruments or techniques to get a result. This means we need to collaborate with different people for instruments and inputs; once they give time and access, they are acknowledged irrespective of the results.

As for how to acknowledge, the standard line is safe and respectful, unless you want to highlight a specific contribution.


Interview not reimbursed if offer is made but not accepted (UK)

This is common in the UK. In general interview expenses are relatively low. Many people take a train in the morning to the university and return home that night, so there might not be any food or lodging costs and only a relatively inexpensive train ticket. For an international candidate arranging flights and trains may require a 3 day stay, as it did for me.

I simply told the department that I was very interested in the position, but was not in a financial position to be able to cover my own interview costs if I found the departmental culture to not be supportive. They gave me a guarantee to cover the costs in writing. If your expenses are more than a train ticket, there is no reason not to ask.

Be aware, the offer may be made the day of the interview and they may want a decision the next day. The UK system doesn't really let you get competing offers.


Assuming the rest of your application is solid, is a gre score of 160Q and 155V good enough for a math phd?

Every school is different in how they view this, but I think the consensus now is that such scores are not as important as they once were. On the other hand, you have a negative piece of information about you, and you want to balance it, or overcome it, with lots of positive pieces of information.

I suspect that most places, with the possible exception of very large programs, take a more wholistic view of their incoming candidates. If your total application package is strong, I wouldn't worry about it, but be prepared to discuss it in an interview.

In fact, exams of that sort favor certain kinds of learners and disfavor others. This is, I hope, fairly widely recognized. The tag on the question suggests you want to study mathematics. Lots of mathematics isn't about "quantity" at all, and requires a different sort of thinking. Spacial, for example, or highly abstract thought.

But knowing that you make silly mistakes under pressure, you might want to find a way to address that directly, though I can't help you there. I assume there are academic counsellors who have the expertise to give you a start on it, at least.

You will find a lot of pressure in grad school, of course. A lot of pressure. You will want to find ways to both lessen it and to deal with it. On the other hand, not everything is like a high-stakes test, so the pressure is of a different sort.

The wisdom (?) of the internet suggests: https://www.thoughtco.com/do-you-have-a-good-gre-score-how-to-tell-1686221


Disclaimer: I am definitely no expert in research, but let me just share with you how I do it.

I do it largely by the help of Google Scholar (Hoo-ray for Google!). In order to make it sound "systematic", I phrase my way in two steps and an extra optional step.

Step 1: Obtain the name list of the top authors in the field of interest from Google Scholar. Since many researchers, especially in the filed of EECS, use Google Scholar, and they usually list their "research interests" in the form of tags (e.g., machine learning), we can view the authors conveniently by research interest. For example, see the results here for the top authors in the field of machine learning. You will notice that the list is automatically sorted in descending order in terms of citations.
Step 2: Stay tuned for new papers by these authors with the help of Google Email Alerts. Once you have browsed through the top author list, you should have shortlisted several most interested authors. To receive an email notification when they have new papers available online, simple click Follow on the right side of their names. Voila! You will receive an email every time they have new research published from now on!

Optional Step: Another thing I also do every year on top of the previous two points is to skim through this year's proceedings of the famous conference/journals in the field. This way, you may get a sense of what is hot these days.


Re-initiating the discussion with a seemingly busy Professor

First of all, professors are busy. They need to do research and teach. They need to write and then publish papers and handle all matters related to teaching (prepare for course materials, exams, grading exams,... etc). So, two weeks not relying the e-mail sounds normal to me.

As in you case,

  He also remarked that he is preparing to give a short test to decide where I stand in the project.

and

  I had informed him that I was quite familiar with tools/skills needed for the project.

sound like you are ready for the test to convince him that you are qualified to join his project.

I would suggest you to send him an e-mail to tell him that you are ready for the test and asking what is the most convenient time for him to conduct it.

Surely, you can tell him the literature survey undertaken during this period. I am not sure about mentioning skills have been learnt during the two weeks period. To me, any skill that can be learnt in two weeks is not worth mentioning.

Good Luck !


What will be implications of not publishing officially?

It's difficult to answer this question effectively because it is premised on some incorrect assumptions.  Let me begin by correcting them:

There is no such thing as an "official" scientific publication.  There is no Board Of Serious Scientists who determines which publications are legitimate and which are not.  Science is a marketplace of ideas, and many things that have never gone through a typical peer-review process have gained high citations.  For example, the Agile Manifesto has hundreds of citations and vast scientific impact, but has never existed as anything other than a page on various websites.  Thus, you are not "violating" anything, you are just choosing an unusual and often less effective route for getting people to notice the significance of your work.
If you publish work, it doesn't prevent somebody else from publishing the same ideas if they don't know about you.  Parallel invention of concepts happens all of the time in science.  You cannot magically exclude people from working in an area by "getting there first."  If nobody has noticed the significance of your work, it's as though your work doesn't exist.  If they do notice you, then that doesn't stop them either: they'll just build on your work and cite your informal publication.

So, what are the actual advantages and disadvantages of publishing in this informal way?

Advantages: You don't need to convince any other researchers that your work has value, you can just publish it.
Disadvantages: Your work may simply lie unnoticed and disregarded.  Putting the source for an informal publication on GitHub isn't much different than sticking a PDF on your website.

Let me also answer the question that you haven't asked: how do you get your work to have a scientific impact?  For this, you need to figure out how to engage with the scientific community.  Go to conferences and listen to other people's talks in related areas.  Figure out what questions can be answered by your work that cannot be answered by prior methods.  Above all, learn the language that other researcher use so that you can speak to them in a way that will not set off "crackpot alarms." You may well have created a fabulous new work of mathematical theory, but using words like "entirely new mathematical theory" sets off crackpot alarms, because they are frequently used by crackpots and rarely by researchers who actually have something to contribute.


Secondary citation MS Word 2013 (APA Style)

googled switch codes and used the '\s' suffix tag. Problem solved


How to cite the same author multiples times in IEEE style?

In the IEEE style, and more generally in numeric citation styles, one only rarely writes the author names.
I'd thus rewrite the first sentence as

According to [5] [...]

Starting a sentence with a citation may not be inappropriate but may reduce readability (this kind of issues if frequently fixed by the copy editor anyway). I'd thus rewrite your second sentence as

In [5] it is argued that [...]


How to professionally interact with a famous scholar (e.g. asking for a photo from a Nobel laureate)

I met one Nobel laureate who was very personable and comfortable with photo-ops; then I met another who excluded me (by physically closing the conversation circle) as I approached him during a conference reception. Since personal relationships have a huge impact on the success of your career, you are right to consider this matter carefully.

I often practice reading/speaking a script in front of the mirror, and then just wing it in real life.

If humor comes naturally to you, consider using a short joke. "You know, football players get way too much publicity. Would you autograph your famous fusion article after we take a picture?"
Perhaps you might prefer the direct approach, "I've appreciated you taking time to collaborate. Before leaving, would you mind taking a picture together? I want to show my grandchildren that I've worked with a Nobel laureate."

The quality of your interpersonal relationship is key. If during your collaboration you strike a balance between respectful deference to his ideas and humble pride in your own work, you will lay the foundation for a lasting professional friendship. I recommend How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie as a guide on building buoyant, effortless relationships.

Remember, by asking for a photo-op, you will be paying him a complement. Feel good about this -- the world needs more happiness.


How to list co-first authors and co-second authors?

Like @FuzzyLeapFrog writes in a comment, you could use any symbol in your CV as long as you explain it, e.g. in a footnote. There is no clear standard as far as I know. Personally I'd use a parenthetical remark to point out that I'm a co-first author, but you say there's no space. In that case, I'd just use whatever symbols are commonly used in papers to denote affiliations or co-authorship in your field. Often this means typographical symbols called daggers that are used to denote footnotes after the asterisk has been used. The order tends to be

Asterisk: *
Dagger (or obelisk): †
Double dagger (or diesis): ‡

In case you really want to go overboard with it, Wikipedia has a few suggestions for a fourth symbol, but there is no real convention for what the fourth symbol should be. Also note that the dagger symbol is sometimes used to indicate that the author passed away, so you may need to take some care with that in some contexts.


How to find who cited a researcher the most

Yes. Google scholar is your best tool and friend. It will tell you how many times a paper was cited and by which papers.

Here is the help site, it is directed towards your own papers but once you check any paper you can see the cites. https://www.google.com/intl/en/scholar/citations.html#citations

You can search for any paper or topic and under each result, besides the star symbol and " it says 'cited by/citado por' and a number, that tells you how many people cited the material in other materials, and if you click on it you will get a list of all the other materials that cited it. The name of the researchers are under the titles. You can do a discrimination analysis based on the papers with more cites. Which you can get the numbers for in the statistics section top left.

Other option, is the 'related articles/articulos relacionados'right to the 'cited by', that one open a page with all articles that are related by citation.

Besides that, you can go top left on the 3 lines symbol to open the list and go to 'statistics' for the  whole list of publications related and how many times it was used/cited by who. You can sort it too by field.


Could it be a problem years later if I forgot to include some things in my thesis?

Can there be some problem about this in the future?

What sort of problems do you mean?  It could certainly inconvenience someone in the future if they try to build on your work and have to reconstruct this data.  I'd recommend writing to your advisor to send the additional data tables in case anyone could benefit from them, assuming you don't have in mind doing anything else with them yourself.  You don't have to describe it as material you forgot to include (although, in light of the edited question, there's no way of saving face since you referred to it in the thesis as if it were included).  Instead, you could reasonably say something like "While going through old files, I discovered some potentially useful material that never made it into my master's thesis, which I've attached to this e-mail.  Feel free to make use of it if any future students work on related projects."

On the other hand, you don't need to worry about being punished or having your degree revoked, assuming there was no dishonesty or fraud involved.  There's always more material you could have included in your thesis but didn't, and this is not relevant once the thesis has been approved.  Omissions or even mistakes won't invalidate your degree.


Submitting to a venue when you are a member of the program committee

No is not frowned upon, at least in our field (TCS). I can provide numerous examples  for that. I saw it many times. PC members submit their papers, but they are handled of course by other members and, afaik, the whole process is not visible to them until the notification date.

Note that, some conferences (like IPCO) have strict rules. They explicitly say that no PC member shall submit a paper, alone or as a co-author. But if the Call for Papers does not mention, I guess a PC member is free to submit the paper.

What I have heard though is that even if a PC member submits a paper, it is claimed that higher standards apply to that paper (but I am not sure).


What is the best philosophy and practice to use smartphones for academic life?

We live in an era flooding with information, most of which that seem interesting but are utterly unnecessary to our lives and that could easily be replaced by something else that is both as interesting and more meaningful, but that requires more work than just scrolling Facebook or SE threads. Academia is no different, and if you are exposed to this kind of environment you have to pay attention not to drown, which appears to be what you are trying to accomplish.

The simplest solution is not to expose yourself extensively to this kind of environment (e.g., your phone).

Even if you crowd your twitter feed with important scientists and journals, chances are you will be just as unproductive as if you were browsing a celebrity's instagram. Most of that information will be irrelevant to you. If you can't help but use your phone for something during time you are supposed to do work, it's not crowding it "productivity" apps that will set you forward, it's ultimately your attitude towards it.

This is not to say having a mobile isn't important for research -- I use my tablet for several research-related activities, from reading RSS feeds from journals to writing papers and using SE, and even several of the applications you listed seem interesting --, however, chances are you can be more productive not using it most of the time. I wouldn't be so hesitant in blocking apps (if you really cant help but using them) instead of making them look "sciencey".

Here's my current approach towards using a smartphone/tablet:

I don't block apps or turn them off, but I usually reserve some time to use my tablet during the day for general browsing, which is usually early in the morning and late at night.

I have a Feedly RSS feed where I follow journals and authors that mostly publish in areas related to mine, so I usually don't  miss anything new.

I do have an exclusive twitter account which I use to follow research-related feeds and communicate with my peers.

I use OneNote to keep notes and Agenda to keep track of what I have to do during the day.

I have bluetooth keyboard and mouse that I carry with me (I use sharelatex to write), so carrying my laptop with me is unnecessary most of the times.

I use Teamviewer to access my office or home computer if I need to do something that requires a computer (e.g., programming).

I use my tablet during meetings to access papers/figures that I have generated.

My research is in the cloud and accessible through my tablet, phone and computers, and so are my papers (Mendeley), hence I can produce them whenever I need or am requested.

I rarely print papers. I read and annotate them using Mendeley.

I am however concerned about conservation of my notes and research in general, so I keep paper notebooks, which are also regularly scanned, and print important papers/notes that are meaningful and important and store them in binders.

The important thing is that I keep my mobiles with me all the time during work time, but don't use them unless necessary or requested.


My supervisor wants me to include another professor's name in my paper while... what should I do?

Is it possible that you misjudge why your advisor wants to see the other prof. on the paper? You say that the reason is that he was "declared as my second adviser on the project" ... but then you go on to explain that he actually was part of the discussions leading to the paper, so it does not, or at least not entirely, sound like a courtesy co-authorship to me.

Of course, you (and maybe even your advisor) do not value the input he had, but unilaterally throwing him off the paper for this reason is a dangerous road to go down. If he had any part in actually doing the research or writing the paper, I would at least talk to the guy first and ask him whether he thinks that he contributed enough to become an author.

However, prepare that there is a non-zero chance that the answer to this question will be "sure, I advised you regularly on the project since it's start, why wouldn't I be a co-author??" (and mean it!). Decide in advance how you will react to this. Note that, if the prof. feels this way, there is likely no way to remove him from the paper without him being annoyed or worse. Your task then becomes to decide whether you want to add him to the paper purely to keep relations intact (or not).


I didn't acknowledge someone who helped with my thesis, is there anything I can or should do now?

If ever the thesis is published elsewhere, say as a paper in a journal or a conference, or perhaps as a technical report, include the name of the person there.


How possible is it to do mathematical research outside academia?

Publishing
In mathematics, most people will judge your research on its merits, not based on your credentials or affiliations.  So this is not an issue, if you are able to generate significant results and write them up in a clear way.
Seminars
I have seen many members of the public regularly attend seminars.  I've never heard of them being kicked out.  It's not an issue.
Funding
The primary drawback is that you won't be paid for your research if you are just doing it in your spare time.  Unless you are already independently wealthy, that means you will have relatively little time for research since you need a day job.
It is of course possible to get grants to fund your research without being in academia; there are a number of private entities in the US funded entirely by grants, and many of them include mathematicians.  But you said spare time only.
Collaboration
Another drawback is that you won't be in close contact with other researchers by default.  It wouldn't be impossible to establish that contact, but again you must consider whether you will have the time.  And people won't take you seriously unless you have serious results.
Not getting a PhD
In mathematics, even more than in other fields, it is almost impossible to make a contribution without spending several years learning what is already known.  In principle you could do that without getting a PhD, but why would you?


Can post-docs serve as reviewers for grant proposals?

Absolutely a postdoc can be a reviewer, if a program manager thinks that they would be a good reviewer to have.  It's more rare than having more established people, but there is no prohibition.  In order to increase your changes of being invited, you need to get to know program managers and let then know you are interested in serving for reviewing.


I violated academic integrity unknowingly by sharing assignment resources with fellow student. What should I do?

You are overthinking this.  I don't want to make light of academic integrity, but given the cheating that does happen all the time, this is a very minor offense.  We all make mistakes, and what you need to do now is learn from your mistake (one of the things you need to learn is to not freak out about making a mistake).  The appropriate punishment is what you're experiencing right now. Going to the professor now would be a selfish move that is intended to give you peace of mind at the expense of drama and stress for your fellow student and the professor, so don't do it.


Can I take a second Master’s degree program in Biostatistics if I already have Masters Degree in Statistics?

Yes, it is generally completely permissible to do so. Universities often have rules precluding people from getting degrees that they have already earned at another institution, but not ones that preclude highly overlapping degrees. For example, I know many people who have math and CS degrees that overlapped so much that the theses were on the same topic. I think such determinations are usually made based on the name of the degree, and not an analysis of the similarity of coursework.

Wether or not this is encouraged or a good strategic idea is a different question, but most schools won’t have a rule-based problem with this.


Advice on applying for Economics graduate programs with a low GRE

The only way to know is to apply to one or more programs. If your record isn't strong in some area you may need to apply to several different programs.

But for most institutions, no single number is likely to be an absolute block. You need to make your case. Why is it that you are a good candidate? Why are low scores not reflective of your ability? What can you add to a program you are part of? Some places may block you, but for those that don't, be ready to make your case through your other materials and especially in an interview. Showcase the positive.

I wouldn't take drastic action until I explored the terrain a bit, however.


This problem has been receiving significant attention in recent years.  Among other thing, there was a recent scandal around "citation cartels", in which journal editorial staff organized not only to ensure their own journals self-cited but also so that groups of conspirator journals would cite one another in order to raise impact factor while adding a layer of indirection to make it harder to track.  Such journals also sometimes strong-arm authors into adding citations to other publications within the same journal.

I don't know if anybody has tried to further tease apart the different between intentional (i.e., citation cartel) and unintentional citation bias.  It would be interesting to study, but may be difficult given the amount of intentional bias that some are using the game the system.


How to write an email to an academic asking for a summer research project?

Taking on an undergraduate for a short-term research project is, especially in theoretical and computational fields, essentially an act of service on the part of the professor.  By that I mean that usually the professor will put in much more than they get out of it.  This is because the student will usually need a significant amount of one-on-one tutoring, or at least time, to understand what needs to be done and learn the tools that will be used to do it.  That leaves little time (in a summer) for actually producing research results, and since it is likely the student's first project, progress is likely to be slow.

If the professor is at your own university and you have already established a connection and a good impression, then they may be willing to do it based on that.  The next best situation is to have a professor who knows you well recommend you to the professor at the other university.  But if you're cold contacting a professor who knows nothing about you, you need to demonstrate that

You're in a good program and have excellent grades;
you have familiarized yourself with some part of their research (as well as you can with your current level of preparation);
You have good communication skills; and
You have some tools that are useful in the indicated field (e.g. substantial programming experience, experience with particular methods or techniques).

All this needs to be in a short email (a long email probably won't get read at all).  Even the above quite often be enough.  Of course, if you are exceptional in some way then make sure to highlight that.  For instance:

You have some published research already
You won a major award (e.g. you placed in the top few worldwide in the IMO)
You did something else that shows you have aptitude for the field and includes a tangible, demonstrable result

The last one might be something like "I implemented computational method X in C and used it to solve this interesting problem; here is the code on Github and the results."


How to edit the pre uploaded full text article on ResearchGate


How do "lecturers" differ from "professors" in large universities?

I used to be a lecturer at a university in the southwest USA.  As a lecturer, I was charged with only teaching lower division undergraduate courses (freshman & sophomore level).  In general, research and service is not a requirement for lecturers (unlike professors), but we are required to teach a larger load than professors.  And we were generally yearly appointments with no chance of tenure.


How do professors interpret normally distributed midterm or final exam scores?

Here is how I normally assign grades in a class of 30-50 students, given a distribution of scores:

Declare the average to be either a B or B+, depending on how satisfied I am with the class's performance as a whole.
To find the A/B cutoff, look above the average for obvious clumps. If, say, the average is 75% and there are ten scores of 85% or higher, and no scores between 80 and 85, then the scores higher than 85 are the As.
There will not always be obvious clumps, and in that case I put the cutoff somewhere between the average and the maximum in a semi-arbitrary way. I may look back at some exams to see if particular students did what I consider A work.
Determine the B/C and C/D cutoffs, then pluses and minuses, using a similar process.
To distinguish Ds from Fs, I don't make a numerical cutoff. Fs are reserved for students who have not shown me that they're actually trying.

The benefit of this method is that if I accidentally make the exam too hard or too long, the students don't pay the price. But I always try to make my exams straightforward, with at most one challenging problem, because experience shows that asking students to regurgitate what I've told them already provides a good enough range of scores to separate students from each other. If I've done things right, the average is usually in the low 80s.

Now, your professor may or may not use a system like mine. He may simply enter the scores into the grade book and use rigid, pre-determined cutoffs, regardless of the class's performance. The only way to know is to ask him.

By the way, you've observed that the people who spent more time studying got higher scores, and this strikes me as completely fair. If the class could be aced without studying, it wouldn't be a very useful class.


Is it inappropriate to ask my supervisor (at a research intern) to review a cover letter for a PhD application?

It is, of course, a reasonable request (unless you believe your supervisor is unreasonable).

Furthermore, the supervisor of your master's degree ought to be among the first to write your LoR. There is nothing wrong with requesting him/her to review your cover letter.


My assignment answers show similarities to my friends', though they differ in content. Can I be accused of plagiarism?

Well, it isn't a problem until it's a problem, so don't panic.
But, there might be explanations that account for it. They are your friends, so you may have developed similar speech patterns that make the same phrasing natural for all of you. You are in the same class so you might have picked up the phrasing from the professor and used it in the same context. Or from a textbook.
But the key is that the answers are different. I doubt that it will become a problem. If you are called on it and didn't cheat/coordinate, then saying that you can't account for it is accurate. It is doubtful that if you did cheat/coordinate that this would be how your coordinated. Relax.


What does it mean when submission system says "under review" after submitting minor revisions?

In most of the article submission systems the "Under Review" status means your manuscript is with reviewers. Most probably it must be sent to the old reviewers but there is also a possibility that editor might invite a new reviewer. It happened to me, one of my article which went through 2 revisions, 1 major and 1 minor took 1 year, and it was rejected because editor invited a 4th reviewer who raised few concerns.
Best of luck for your article.


Yes, if you have the opportunity to visit for a few minutes in person, you should do that. Ask if there are any further steps you should immediately take.
For an email reply, a few more days of waiting is better, but a quick visit is likely fine. Express your excitement about the future, etc.
In these perilous time, few now have the opportunity to do this sort of thing in person, but it is the preferred way. And, your situation isn't very typical since you probably already know the person and you are an "out of cycle" applicant.


Should I send private email to department's dean after sending faculty job application?

If you really know him and have corresponded otherwise, then it would be fine. Otherwise I wonder, as would everyone else, what you are trying to accomplish.

But you haven't said that you have actually applied. The title is a bit inconsistent with the first paragraph.

However, if you get an email, after applying, thanking you for the application, you could reply to that, reminding him of your earlier connection. But it would probably be improper of him to take any action other than what he would do for any candidate. Likewise, if you get an interview, you could go visit him.

But probably not a cold email. Especially since you raise it as a potential issue.


What is the best way to learn without thinking ahead?

A good way to force yourself to focus is to try to actually do something with the knowledge that you are trying to acquire.  To paraphrase one of my former advisors who I much admire as a teacher, there are three levels at which you can understand a subject:

Familiarity with the concepts: able to recognize and talk meaningfully about them.
Ability to employ the concepts effectively in solving problems
Ability to teach the concepts to another person well enough to get them to level 2.

It's easy to get stuck at mere familiarity if you aren't attempting to actually use the things you're learning in order to do things.  From a pedagogical standpoint, this is actually the main value of homework exercises.

Now, what about doing it in the absence of an external forcing function (i.e., grades)?  If you can't motivate yourself to do homework-style exercises, why not pick a project that you actually think would be cool and fun, and let that be what forces you to put the learning to work.  For example, taking the electricity/circuits example, a nice classic example is to try to build your own FM or AM radio receiver from basic components (transistors, resistors, etc.).  It's low enough power to be physically safe and complex enough that you'll probably have to deal with a lot of interesting problems even if you start from schematics found online.  Then try to make it better... before long, you'll understand not just the basic concepts but why you need to know them and how they fit together.


Are there other evaluation processes besides traditional to evaluate disabled person at university based on their understanding of the subject matter?

Yes, they are called accommodations.

  I want to know are there any other easier evaluation processes

If the student is assessed using accommodations, the assessment will be different.  It will not necessarily be easier.  Typically, the student is required to demonstrate the same course-specific skills as the other students.  Example:  a test is checking to see if a student knows about widgets.  Most students will answer writing by hand.  A student receiving accommodations might answer verbally.  The accommodation would be easier with respect to writing, but the same with respect to knowledge of widgets, because that is what the assessment is about.

  If there are other evaluation processes why aren't they implemented in real life?

They very often are.

  And if they are implemented which university allows such implementations in Canada and USA?

In the USA, universities are required by law to provide accommodations to students with disabilities.  I am not familiar with Canada, but I am sure there is something similar.


How many candidates are usually invited for a campus interview?

For tenure-track positions my department generally invites 3 candidates for on-site interviews after doing phone screenings. This is what I have seen from a lot of universities in the US.

Other types of positions don't have standard rules. Non-tenure track and adjuct positions are filled as needed, don't involve as rigorous of interviews, and may never be brought on-site. Postdocs are usually hired by the individual PI rather than the department.


Postdoc vs Assistant Prof - which is better for a career academic?

In the US, I think it would be clear that the assistant professorship is preferable to a post doc in nearly every case. The exception would be the opportunity to work with a superstar as a post doc.

Again, in the US, assistant professorships are (almost) invariably tenure track, though there are a very few colleges that don't offer tenure at all. But that isn't likely to be a factor.

For most, a post doc is really just considered to be a stepping stone to a real position and a way to continue to advance if the job market is poor at the time.

But ask the institution itself about tenure and also about the likelihood of actually earning it.


Will having a recommendation letter from someone in a different subfield hurt my chances of admission to PhD programs?

Obviously, the better your letters of recommendation are, the better they support your application package.   Impersonal, though supportive, letters may not hurt your package, but they don't help as much as fantastic letters from people who know you well.

So, not so much "hurt", but "not as much help as it could be", which some would say is equivalent to "hurt"


Major changes needed to paper "in press"

Well, you have to fix it, don't you? Talk to the editor.

Yes, the paper may indeed be rejected, but we cannot know this.

As a reviewer, I have found subtle holes in papers, and really it would have been unwise for the authors to submit without taking care of filling the holes (which they thought they could do, but turned out was impossible, as counterexamples were published later).

TL;DR: Better a watered-down, correct result than a wrong one.


Will publisher waive fee if currently unaffiliated?

This surely depends on the journal, and probably on your specific case (I don't imagine it's common to have a blanket waiver for authors without affiliation).    Many journals do provide support to authors without funding.  For instance, look at the PLOS FAQ #4:

https://www.plos.org/publications/publication-fees/

  Publication Fee Assistance is intended for authors who demonstrate financial need. [...] PLOS considers applications on a case-by-case basis.

Try looking at the webpages for journals you're considering for such information.  If you can't find anything, you can try contacting the journal.


Should I start my CV by telling about myself?

1) This is nonstandard, so people are likely to view you as odd, or at the very least unfamiliar with academic norms.

2) On a CV, you should prioritize specific, tangible achievements over things that literally anyone could say about themselves.  You say you have broad knowledge, but will anyone believe you?  It doesn't do anything to differentiate you from people who could also claim to have broad knowledge.  Save that for your letters of reference.


How can I find papers of a specific journal?

Go to the IEEE website and use the search they provide:


Is referencing online solution acceptable when completing assignments

This depends on the rules of the course and has no general answer. For some courses and for some assignments within them, this would be expected. In others, forbidden. Only the instructor can give you guidance.

But, you did the right thing in citing it. You were honest. Also, you learned something, which was the point of the assignment. But perhaps you didn't learn the right thing, which may have been the point: working through to a solution on your own.

The rules of a course should be clear. It is a problem when they aren't. But if challenged on this, just stress your honesty in citing your source. And follow the rules as you then understand them. But, sadly, instructors sometimes have unspoken expectations.

If I were your professor, and had neglected to make the ground rules clear, I'd accept your work, given the citation, but also caution you about future work if I'd rather you came to me instead of external sources. A professor can sometimes give a minimal hint to get a student over a block, but still allow for deeper learning to occur than can be done when searching out solutions. But I would also have to publish the ground rules.


Salary chart interpretation: "M.A" vs "60 Units includes MA" vs "M.A. plus 35 Grad Units"

Are these public school districts?

 Interpreting Salary Tables

School districts often have different pay schedules, which is what you are seeing.  Although I'm not from California, I've seen quite a few of these in my own state.

"60 semester graduate units Includes M.A." likely means that she can count her M.A. credits as part of the 60 hour requirement. If her M.A. required 36 hours, she could qualify with an additional 24 hours.

I is the lowest pay scale because it requires the least number of credits. Think of it as MA+0 credits.  II is MA+35 credits; III is MA+60 credits.  Pay increases with additional coursework.

 The Rationale Behind These Tables

Primary and secondary teachers (and other staff, like counselors or behavioral specialists) often start their careers with a Bachelor's degree, which is required in most states for a teaching license.

Additional education is desirable for teachers. It allows them to stay up to date on teaching techniques, expand their subject-matter expertise, earn additional endorsements or licenses, or earn higher degrees (which might include any of the previous reasons).  For example, a physics teacher who wants to expand into teaching biology might be required (by state law) to have a biology endorsement, which might take 12 credits to earn.

Since salary advancement is tied to having higher degrees and more college credit, it is not uncommon to see a teacher with an MA plus an additional 30-40 credits - if they are a career teacher.  These credits would have been accumulated over time, perhaps 1-2 courses a year, rather than the traditional college schedule of 4-5 courses at once. These credits may or may not be part of a degree program.  A Ph.D is less common, but does happen occasionally.


Stress and anxiety related to competition

I doubt that this will really be an answer, and might even add to your stress. I would rather sit down with you for a couple of hours and chat than try to capture all of this "advice from an old codger" in written form.

First, an observation. If you work in a "hot" area of research, mathematics or other, you will be at a disadvantage with respect to collaborative groups. Such groups throw around a lot of ideas, some good, some bad, and find a way to filter out the better ones. It is hard for an individual to gain priority in time in such an environment.

I never had that particular problem, since my mathematical work was extremely arcane (but fun). There were, at the time, only half a dozen people worldwide who had any real interest in it. Math was heading in different directions at the time. So, no, I didn't experience just what you are. But there was a different, perhaps related issue.

My main personal issue was that I was so introverted that it was difficult for me to even speak up for myself when necessary. I would probably have completed my doctorate in four years (rather than seven) if I'd only spoken up to the department head about my need for a better advisor at the time.

But, through an accident of fate I was able to learn that, even though remaining introverted, I could act as if I were not. I could overcome my reluctance, even, to look people straight in the eye as I spoke to them. Painful, but possible. It just requires commitment and practice.

The specific training I got was related to something called Self Defeating Behavior and learned that my natural tendencies didn't need to dominate my actions.

So, the stress increaser, is a suggestion that you find a way to do some collaborations. You don't need to collaborate with everyone or anyone, of course, and you get to choose. But a friendly, small, working group can increase everyone's productivity. Set the rules at the beginning to keep it friendly: equal authorship in all joint work, for example.

Make the collaboration something you do, independent of what you think you fundamentally are.

It will be difficult, at first, if you have any tendencies similar to mine, but, over time, you will find it necessary, even rewarding.

I once had a chance to verify this with a colleague who knew me in both phases of my professional life. He agreed (a bit incorrectly) that I'd changed my personality from complete introversion to a fair amount of extroversion. In fact, I remain introverted, but have learned to act in public when appropriate. It made me a better educator as well. I know others in my field who have made similar transitions. Some of them are very well known in the world of CS.


Do I need to mention having survived a life-threatening illness when applying for a new academic position?

If you think it helps explain a work or productivity gap in your career, I would mention it and I would do so in writing rather than let your prospective employers speculate. Because overcoming a major medical challenge can help you align your priorities and strengthen you in other ways, doing so can definitely be done in a way that leads one to conclude that it is a strength, not a weakness, of your candidacy.

If your previous condition is not relevant in these ways, I don't think you have any obligation to bring it up. Sure, your illness might return but nobody is 100% immune from serious illness impacting their ability to work or be productive. For that matter, severe chronic illnesses that unambiguously affect productivity (e.g., cramps, migraines, etc.) are simply not the kind of thing that people bring up while interviewing and candidates have no responsibility to do so.

Reminding prospective employers of this can open to the door to (illegal) discrimination based on your medical history and I don't think you are helping either yourself or your prospective employers by bringing it up. When you take an offer, it might be good to let your future department know about your history as background but you might even let this just be raised socially.


Is it worth doing a 'Pipe Leak Detection' PhD (industrywise)?

I think it sounds awesome.  Huge connection to industry, society.  Both directly with the method and then tangentially with pipes in general (water, oil, gas, sewage).  The basic things you do in acoustics, mechanics, fluid flow will be good training also.

And then the integrative learnings from putting a "fancy" technique onto a basic problem.  And this is whether it "works" or not (in terms of physical results or economic feasibility).  For you, it's all upside in the learning and the connections.

Jump on that thing.  Like yesterday!


Importance of supervisor support in being accepted for PhD

Unless you fail to meet the minimum requirements for admission, having an advisor who is willing to support your application and commit the resources to support you as a graduate student is generally sufficient to get admission in Europe (and at many schools in the US). Most of the time, even under “normal” circumstances, the people responsible for admissions will want such a statement of support from someone in the program before an offer is given.


My advisor wants me to make my PhD thesis weaker

If it isn't going to damage the relationship with your advisor too much, you should submit your complete thesis. The arguments you provided from your advisor are pretty weak, and I'm quite sure that 130 pages isn't particularly long. Your arguments to keeping the length are compelling (strength of ideas, likelihood of appeasing difficult thesis committee member, etc). That said, we are only hearing your advisor's opinion second-hand. It's possible you are not giving us all the information, either because you misunderstand your advisor or your advisor has not fully detailed his concerns (which is definitely not optimal).

You said you mostly worked on this without talking to him. I may have missed it, but I don't see that you have explained your reasons to your advisor. Is there time to do this? Ask him what would happen and how would he feel if you submitted your thesis as is? This should preferably be done in person, but you may need to phone or email him.

Good luck! Thesis time is always stressful, even under the best of conditions!


How do I plan for my PhD now that I have graduated with a Masters degree without thesis?

Probably the most important thing what you can do to make some doors open is to write a peer-reviewed research paper.

If you have any chances, find someone in academia, try to structure your interest and do some bit of research which you can publish under the academic.

Form another point, I know there are some Universities, which value "business" contacts and experience. Don't give up and apply, apply, apply...


talk with professors about prospective graduate study

As a rule, I think such meetings are a bad idea.  At a minimum you should go in with no admissions agenda.  If you are interested in research and only research I think the meeting will go well.  But if your real agenda is to help the admissions process, they will read through the facade and probably be annoyed.