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What constitutes as stealing of an idea?
I have recently been accused by someone of stealing their idea and doing the work required. In fact they had come to me to do, let's say, a literature review because they didn't have the expertise to do one themselves. They gave me an umbrella topic and told me to figure the rest out. I ran with it and narrowed down the topic to a specific research question. Step by step I made sure to keep the person looped in and updated on my progress, as well as answered their questions (such as: what is the research question? What does this mean? What is the point of doing this review?). When it came time to move it forward, the person bailed and said they were too busy to continue.
A year later, I nudged them again as I wanted to finish it off and said I have other resources now (ask a student to do some data validation) to help complete the next step so we could start writing. The person agreed and we finally started to talk about authorship. They asked what I wanted, I said first as I had done a major part of the work. They also needed a first so I counter suggested we do first co authors as it had requires/requires both of our efforts. They were extremely reluctant, saying that I had stolen their idea and that it was wrong for me to do the work when they didn't have the time, and suddenly say that I deserved first because I had done the work but they also needed me to teach them step by step on how to do the lit review.
I feel that I have not been deceitful by hiding information or falsely claiming authorship away from this person. I believe it was a joint effort although I'm not sure what the norm is. What does actually constitute as idea stealing? Did I overstep by asking to be recognised as an equal contributor?

Too personal. Work it out between yourselves.

Which of you is the senior scholar here? It matters somewhat both politically and from a “advise vs action” standpoint.

I did upvoted both the answer by Bryan Krause and by Dmitry. Although they are rather different and somehow antithetical, they are both good answers. That force me to agree with the comment by Buffy just here above.

This answer assumed that OP was in some way senior to their counterpart, either in position or experience. Since this assumption is not true (OP is a masters student, the other person is a PhD student), it seems there is some fault for both parties in how they communicated expectations at the beginning of the project.

It's going to be difficult if not impossible for anyone here to judge this because none of us are in the situation and have the daily exposure required to do so.
However, with the limited information you give here, it sounds to me like someone came to you with an idea, and rather than help them with their idea you judged yourself more capable to do the work and took off with it.
It's like instead of helping a student understand their confusion on part of their homework, you've done most of the assignment for them, while keeping them informed of your progress. In doing so, yes you've helped them complete their homework, but you've stolen from them the opportunity to learn while doing it. Or imagine a 5 year old assembling a train set. They've run into a problem and can't get a loop connected because they've installed too tight of a bend, and ask for help. Do you provide some suggestions on how they might fix the problem? do you rearrange a piece or two to help demonstrate this? Or do you wait for them to go to sleep and show them when they wake up how you've completed it all for them and solved all their problems? Clearly you get the credit for completing the train set, but was it fair?
It sounds a bit like you've stolen an idea to me. The conversation about the project and authorship should have occurred at the beginning before you decided to "run with it", or at least in one of the intervening times when this person indicated they didn't have the time right now, not when you'd like to finish off the project and already did all the work. Arguably the other person should have brought this up on their own then and not now, but there are various reasons (such as social hierarchies, cultural norms, and their own personality) that may have prevented them from doing so, and if you are the more experienced person in the situation the onus is on you.
You very much may deserve the majority of credit on the final work. The infraction is not in deceit about what you were working on, but on taking on so much of the project that it became yours without getting permission or an understanding up front. Especially if all you were asked was if you would help with a literature review.

That's a great point. It was not communicated to me that they wanted to also do the process. I did make things easy for them to actually participate in the whole process and actively encouraged them. They didn't really indicate any remarks such as "hey slow down, I'd like to independently do this. Can you be an advisor instead?". Rather it was also time dependent at the time and they wanted me to finish it ASAP so I did. If they didn't interject in the 5 month period we were exchanging emails, I assumed i was doing what they wanted me to do. (I am ranked lower than them)

Oh and the time they bailed was actually at the point everything was pretty much done but needed another set of hands/eyes to do it. We did actually have a conversation about authorship, albeit briefly and never concrete, where I suggested co-first as the whole process requires at least two people and it seemed fairer to me, and what is usually done for these kinds of papers. (It's not a lit review but systematic)

@Lowlyresearchassistant By ranked higher do you mean that they are a peer but ahead of you (like a graduate student who started sooner), or are you a graduate student whereas they are a post doc or professor?

They are a PhD student while I am a masters. They came to me for a project that they were working on and asked for a quick systematic review (within 5 months) as I had done one previously so that they could get out some deliverables out to satisfy the funding body. They also wanted to invite their friends to coauthor to get more collaborators on board. I was silly to not discuss authorship beforehand but i think the fault/responsibility falls on us both.

"i think the fault/responsibility falls on us both" - Agreed. I'd go with Buffy's comment: you'll have to work it out between each other. Your advisor may also be able to help sort some things out.

Some researchers have a habit of casually run their vague ideas by others in their team, particularly those on whom they have some kind of power or influence. If you refuse to work with them, you may be labelled "not a team player", which no-one wants. People are generally excited to collaborate, and happy to put down some work to start what they think is a promising collaborative project. Several months later, when almost all the work is done, the person who "generated" an idea would come back and claim the first authorship (leaving it to you to do experiments and write the paper). If you try to negotiate, they will gaslite you claiming you stole their brilliant idea. And if nothing comes out of the idea, you wasted your time and the person will simply move on, probably telling others how useless you are.
Ideas en masse are cheap. Excellent ideas are rare and worth much. But telling which is which requires hard work, which is actually the main resource required. Having an idea is like having a mollusk on a seabed. It may have a pearl inside, or it may be empty. It takes time and effort to get the mollusk out of the sea and open it.
Some people have a skill of analysing their many ideas and discarding the least promising ones without bothering others with them. They often end up leading large and successful research groups, because their ideas are typically specific, well-elaborated and have a better than average success rate. These leaders do not chase others to work with them, quite the contrary, people will queue up to work in their lab. If you happen to work with such people, you can quickly tell that they know their stuff and can explain the proposal really well, as well as which role they ask you to take and how this collaboration can benefit you.
It seems that on this occasion you have met a person with a different skill set. It is unfortunate, and it may be better to accept that there may be no good solutions. You already did most of the work, and the choices you have are to either complete it and publish together (which is exactly what this person wanted), or walk away from an unfair deal and risk to be badmouthed by them.
If you have someone willing to listen (your supervisor, head of lab/department), you may try to involve them, but chances are they will not want to investigate deeply, and will stick to a usual "collaboration is good" matra. Well, unfortunately, it takes two to tango, and in a good collaboration everyone has to pull their weight, which is not always exactly what happens in academia. This is not your fault or failure, just a sad manifestation of a very competitive and sometimes toxic landscape of a field of academic collaborations. Hopefully your next collaborator will be much better than the first one. Good luck.

I will first try to answer the specific question: What constitutes as stealing of an idea? (Not specific to the OP situation)
In theory: Ideas are not subject to property, and therefore they cannot be stolen (nor protected by copyright or patents, although I am not a lawyer). This is commonly expressed as: "Ideas are free as the air". In other words, ideas are free and do not have an owner. You cannot steal something that is free and does not have an owner.
Also, ideas are cheap, and people frequently have ideas that are not followed through. If you decide to share your ideas, you should be proud if someone follows them through.
In practice (as experienced by the OP): People feel they do own their ideas, and these sentiments can be strong. Usually, people feel their ideas have been stolen when they communicate them to others, and these others follow them through. If an agreement was made to develop an idea jointly (or even to give away an idea), these sentiments would not be expected, but they could still arise (people forget, change their minds, make untold assumptions, etc.). The best way to avoid these situations is to have clear, written agreements before starting to do the actual work, including authorship of possible publications, as explained by Bryan Krause.
As for the situation described in the question, I would say:
Getting a reputation for "stealing" ideas can hurt your chances of collaborating with others in the future. Try to avoid leaving your colleague with that impression.
I would try to negotiate with them, always being polite and sustaining your position with facts. Decide beforehand what would be an acceptable outcome for you, so you know what are your limits. Maybe they can be "corresponding author" if that applies in your field, and you could be first author. Maybe a joint first coauthorship with their name first could be acceptable to both of you.
Who "needs a first authorship" should be irrelevant in these negotiations. Take into account the authorship policy of the journal that you plan to submit if they have one.
Never mention your impression that they did not have the knowledge to do the work themselves. That would only hurt their ego, and you cannot be sure your impression is correct, let alone prove it. From their point of view, they were probably guiding you to do the work, even if you feel differently. I would ignore any accusations of "stealing" the idea, as dwelling into that is not productive. Just continue to seek common ground if they insist on that.
Consider having someone else present while you talk to them, although this is delicate, and they might refuse. If you reach an agreement, you could send them an e-mail afterward with the conclusion reached.


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Postdoc in Paris with foreign funding
I am moving to Paris for a postdoc in spring 2021 and I have received funding from Denmark for two years. I am considering whether administering the grant myself or having it administered by INSERM. I would like to have detailed information on how the salary will be calculated in each case and how to get a work contract and social security, as well how to pay taxes in case I administer the grant myself. I know in other places this kind of contract would be a visiting researcher contract. I am an EU citizen (IT). I do not speak French at the moment but I am starting language classes. Any useful link for where to gather information for this situation would be highly appreciated.

Contact your supervisor, and ask them to direct you to the person(s) in the French university who can answer your questions.

I have already done this, but it is really difficult to communicate with the administration. I wonder whether there is a source of information online for foreign researchers in my situation.

It is my experience in France that most things are arranged in person. I doubt that there are resources online that can give you all the information you need, and I think your best bet is to talk to administration, possibly with help from a future group member. Also, it is (almost) always hard to do administration in a foreign country. In any case I cannot help you further, but I can wish you the best of luck!

We don't really do requests for "useful links," so closing this for now. If you like, you could rephrase the post to ask your question directly and then flag for reopening.

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Is it possible to get into graduate school for math with a non-math UG degree?
I'm an undergraduate biology and chemical engineering dual major student. I recently got into pure math while I was researching patterns in biology which lead me down the rabbit hole of fractals and non-Euclidean geometry and eventually, lead me to number theory. I really enjoy the subjects. Is it possible for me to pursue my graduate studies in pure math? If so, what would be the necessary steps I should take to do the same? I am in my second year of studies and I do intend to take the GRE Math Subject test but I would really appreciate any other advice you could give me. Also, switching majors is not an option because my uni doesn't have a good math program. If you are reading this, I hope you have a nice day ahead.

Is this in the US or elsewhere?

I'm from India... I've looked into local options and most of them have an examination that I have to clear and it's quite a clear cut option. But I'm also looking into options abroad. Mostly Scandinavian countries, Japan or the US.

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

Note that this is a US centric answer. I'm in agreement with it, but it may be very different elsewhere.

@Buffy I definitely agree with you, and thank you for pointing that out. As you know, in many places it is standard to get a masters first, and admissions criteria for such degrees are likely different. I have no personal experience with the non-US route, but I expect that some principles may still carry over (like taking more coursework before deciding on graduate school).

Turns out the Math Subject Test is definitely not a good indicator for successful PhD completion, and not a very good indicator of even initial success in grad school. But the points about interaction and so on are good.

I personally agree that the subject test is a poor indicator of future success, but I don't have anything beyond anecdotes to back up my opinion (hence the "maybe" in my answer). For what it's worth, my subject test score was middling at best. I'm sure this contributed to some of the rejections I received, even if I felt my score mostly said "it's been several years since I took calculus and linear algebra."

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How to write a math abstract for a conference in an experimentalist dominated field without "specific numerical results"
Note that in experimental fields it is not uncommon that an abstract is required to have "specific" unpublished results 9 months or so before the conference. The problem is if you are a theoretical/mathematical researcher in these lab based fields often your mathematical model and derivations are the crux of your research and a numerical exploration comes later. How do you write an abstract for these fields highlighting that you derived the model, proved a bunch of existence and uniqueness properties (that they likely don't care about) and have just started your exploration of numerical examples (likely the only thing they care about) without having anything definitive to say yet about your numerical examples.
The most definitive thing I could say about the numerical examples is, "We show that for a given set of parameter space we observe X and for another set of parameter space we observe Y. This is the consequence of X being true in contrast to Y being true in our field of application". To be clear I don't know anything about the structure of the parameter space that yield the two distinct X and Y scenarios yet, but I do know that both X and Y are possible given some preliminary simulations, and that the difference between X and Y is interesting.
One thing to note is this is not a conference that includes a proceedings. You have an abstract and a talk, but no paper comes out of it. Papers are strictly for peer reviewed journals in this field. The answers to this question How to write abstract for conference when you have no results yet? seem to be more geared towards fields where papers come out of the conference.

From experience: you just cannot simply publish without (numerical) results. Why? Applied people rely on those to qualitatively assess the value of your work. They have to compare it and the interested readers in those fields almost always judge a method by figures and numbers. They need to decide if that method is worth implementing, regardless of the approach's novelty constituents. Your one and only chance is to deliver a narrative (in the abstract) that clearly emphasizes why this method would surely beat state of the art alternatives. Otherwise, go for another conference..

publish? There is no paper associated with this conference.

Both publishing and disseminating of a method require you convince the auditorium of the method's validity and quality. If it's an applied field crowd you'll be addressing, they'll cough asking for some sort of benchmarks. Sorry, but this is how these guys "roll". Pure mathematicians do not understand/do not care of how a method performs if it's novel enough (if you just show that one thing implies another thing or generalizes it, it's fine with them), whereas applied maths people will often care only about concrete gains and applicability. Alas, it also depends on the conference's reputation.

As a clear answer: present a proof or a narrative explaining clearly why your method improves upon a specific subject. That proof is valuable for both experimentalists and theorists, as it definitely decides upon the qualities of your method. Doing so, I see no point in why you won't be accepted to speak there :). You may also find some people keen on verifying your findings and thus producing the so-called results..

Have you already been invited to speak at the conference?  If so, the point of the abstract seems to be mainly for people to decide whether to attend your talk.  How long are such abstracts usually?  In my experience (in mathematics), abstracts for talks are usually at most a paragraph and sometimes just a couple of sentences.  Speaking in general terms seems unavoidable.

Also, enunciating the obvious a bit: it sounds like you come from a more theoretical background (you might consider providing some professional information about yourself on your profile page; it can only help you get more appropriate answers, but from your other questions and answers I guess you are in a rather math-heavy branch of statistics) and you are finding the norms of speaking in this conference to be a bit awkward and outside of your comfort zone.  Maybe then you can just attend the conference without giving a talk in it?

It sounds like you should be submitting your abstract to a different conference.

@JeffE Some of my most productive collaborations have come from conferences that generated exactly this kind of problem.

I just want to say that this question could stand in for many interdisciplinary "social expectation" issues, and I hope more people ask questions about these problems of differing expectations across fields.  It is definitely a disincentive for people to start working a bit outside the field of their PhD.

Writing as a mathematical modeler in Epidemiology, and a regular submitter to conferences with these types of requirements, which are dominated by empirical research findings, this is something that's hard, if you approach it from the direction you have - with the numerical results coming at the "end" of your research.
It would be good to have a numerical result, because as has been mentioned, while you might not view these as the crux of your research, it may very well be the crux of why someone is interested in your research. Even as someone who does appreciate the theory side of things, I'm often rather more interested in the numerical results.
That being said, these conferences are mostly looking to avoid "Will be discussed" results, where there's no means to evaluate if you've done anything, or if it will be interesting. The latter is especially hard for deciding whether a presentation becomes an oral or poster presentation, because giving one of the precious oral slots to someone whose going to largely be discussing a slew of null results is (often) irksome.
You do however have results, and that should be enough to make it past the bar. If X and Y are both possible within the parameter space, and that means something for the field, then that is a specific result, and you should expand on why that's interesting.

It does depend on the type and reputation of the conference, but in my experience most conferences that are not publishing their proceedings will accept all abstracts that are clearly written and have no overt language, logic, factual, or similar critical problems. Looking at the question you linked to, I think exactly the same advice that is posted there is relevant to conferences with no published proceedings. I say this because the goal of your abstract here is primarily to attract attention and get people to attend your talk. (But, does this conference publish its abstracts? Some do.)
Following the advice given in the answers to the linked question will achieve this goal without putting you in an ethical challenge or leading you to claim things that turn out to be untrue or,  worse, so misguided or ambitious that it's embarrassing.
It's up to you to convince the reader of your abstract that you will have compelling numerical results by that time. This comes from explaining your methodology and approach in a way that will seem reasonable and so can be reasonably expected to lead to exciting, specific results. If you don't expect to, then maybe your project isn't well designed or well suited to this audience.
It never hurts to have a short abstract regardless of the conference rules on length. KISS! (Keep It Simple, Stupid) is appropriate here. If you are severely lacking anything interesting to say right now, it could be as straightforward as a paragraph version of: "We will present numerical results from a novel form of mathematical analysis of problem X, which will impact Y." If the audience is interested in topics X or Y then they might well show up regardless of their confidence in what new results you'll have.

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How aware are grad school application readers of differing standards internationally?
Recently two friends of mine have come back to Australia after having done 2 semesters of 3rd and 4th year subjects (about half mathematics) at different branches of the University of California.
They said that the tests would only ask questions directly from or similar to material covered in lectures and example sheets. If questions deviated from the lectures or example sheets very much students would complain to the lecturer. Thus, if one studied the example sheets enough they got an A relatively easily. They returned with A or A+ in all of their maths subjects, but they average about 75-80 for their maths subjects here.
In Australia, about 70% of the exam is usually like that. The rest are questions that we learned enough theory to feasibly do, but we hadn't seen that type of question before so it requires some level of cleverness to get it within the time limits of the exam.
My questions are

Can anyone corroborate that the maths tests at american universities are actually like this?
If so, is this well known and accounted for by the people who look at grad school applications from international students?
How do they fairly evaluate the performance of international applications? How are Australian applicants generally viewed by them?

Edit: Chris's answer below seems to answer the first question by "not quite", which is what I expected I suppose. The other questions still stand.

For the first question: there's no general answer.  Instructors design their own classes, including the exams; some may decide to have exams like you describe, and others may be just the opposite.

I don't think you can make such a broad generalization about American universities. In my first year math course, for example, we had exams in which none of the material was directly from the homework/readings, and the first page consisted entirely of definitions we had not seen which we would need for the questions on the exams. The average was on the order of 30-40% for some of these.

@AlexBecker I did not mean to overly generalize or insult people in any way. I indeed expected that at the best universities the tests would be harder. I think people evaluating your transcript will know that this is the case because of the prestige of your university. I am wondering how one might judge this for an applicant from an unfamiliar university.

@Craig I took no offense. I'm just trying to point out that a couple of universities in the UC system doing things one way does not necessarily mean that this is even the norm at American universities.

Repeating a bit other remarks: in the U.S., exams in upper-division courses are usually designed by the individual instructor, and vary widely.
There is a tradition in top-tier places in the U.S. to "challenge" students on exams, and students seem to expect this, while, yes, in some local cultures students expect/demand exams that contain no surprises.
For that matter, it is not clear to me that "testing cleverness" is necessarily an important goal for timed exams. I am well aware that there is a huge tradition in which quickness and cleverness are construed as fundamental skills/talents. Certainly these are important for math contests, and occasionally useful in the practice of mathematics, but I don't think our classes teach these things, in any case. Thus, testing for quickness and cleverness is testing for something outside the course content. Thus, in many regards it is an irrelevant challenge to the students.
That is, substantial mathematics often has genuine complications and difficulties that exist despite examples and forthrightness, and it is sometimes (often?) counterproductive to create "challenging (surprise) problems" from material that should be straightforward.
But, yes, people on admissions committees are well aware of such traditions and their variations, don't worry.
For me, the letters of recommendation from math faculty are far more important than grades on the transcript, in any case. Similarly, the statement of purpose of the applicant tells much more than the transcript. And, one more time, the skill set relevant to surprise questions on timed exams becomes ever less relevant throughout grad school.

Thank you for your informative answer. I've spent the last few hours reading through your other answers on this website. In particular, point 5 and onward of your answer here addresses some of my questions. As for this answer, the last paragraph is certainly eye opening and raises new issues for me. I picked my honors essay (the largest part of my final year) to be in an algebraic area that I am relatively weak in.

I did this because I wanted to branch out and fill in the gaps in my foundation after having focused on analysis and (elementary/analytic) number theory excessively for most of my undergrad degree. As a result, I have struggled more than I would in other topics and my thesis adviser is probably less than impressed with me as he has only seen me understand things slowly. The letter of the person supervising my activities in the final year of my degree probably vastly outweighs the letters from lecturers that I have only done a course with recently.

Do you have any advice on what I can do in such a situation? If I were to write this in my personal statement, would it seem like I am trying to sweep my inability under the rug?

It's better to engage with more serious things and have to think about them, rather than be glib about easy, elementary things. Faculty with any sense don't expect serious projects to be dispatched as blithely as standard coursework. It's a completely different thing. Perhaps we too often think that that "easy" feeling is supposed to persist forever, but it cannot. In any case, you can put a positive spin on "having to work harder" by noting that you deliberately chose a more challenging project. And, again, no one cares so very much about "speed" at some point.

Your replies have been invaluable to me. I have a better idea on how to write my application and realize I must place more emphasis on doing well on my thesis to collect a strong recommendation than getting high marks on coursework. Thank you for your help Professor Garrett.

You're welcome. Good luck!

Can anyone corroborate that the maths tests at american universities are actually like this?

Some are, some aren't.  Grading standards are heavily influenced by national and departmental culture, but ultimately they're entirely up to the instructor, just as they are in Australia.
But I expect that most upper-division exams in strong departments require enough mastery of the material (as opposed to memorization of examples) to answer a completely novel question that requires the same techniques.  The key word here is mastery, not cleverness.
(I go further than Paul Garrett.  Cleverness is not only inappropriate to test on exams; it's actually a dangerous habit to cultivate.  My most frequent advice to students in my classes is "You're trying to be clever.  Stop it.  Just solve the problem, one step at a time.")

If so, is this well known and accounted for by the people who look at grad school applications from international students?

Yes, admissions committees are well aware of significant differences between universities, both within the US and internationally.

How do they fairly evaluate the performance of international applications?

Generally, by comparing them with other international applicants, preferably from the same country, if not the same university.  In other words, exactly the same way we judge American applicants.
In my department, if we get an otherwise strong application from a university we've never heard of, we try to judge by the recommendation letters.  But sometimes we just have to gamble, so we admit one or two of the very best students from an unknown university just to find out how good it is.  If they do well, we admit more from that university later; if they do badly, we don't.

How are Australian applicants generally viewed by them?

Well, that depends on the individual applicant, doesn't it?

Thank you for your answer, I was not aware of this technique of comparing to other students from the same university/country. By my last question, I was asking if perhaps some reputation has been formed by e.g. previous Australian applicants with high marks having excelled in the program once accepted or on the other end of the scale, cases of students struggling in the program indicating that perhaps Australian undergrad degrees often do not adequately prepare students well enough for a phd at a top US uni.

The rest are questions that we learned enough theory to feasibly do, but we hadn't seen that type of question before so it requires some level of cleverness to get it within the time limits of the exam.

The math and science classes I have taken at top tier universities in the U.S. have had these types of problems as a significant part of exams.  As a caveat, those were also classes designed for math and science students.  I have tutored students in non-math fields who have taken math and science classes that were less rigorous in that regard (e.g., "Calculus for Business majors").
Suffice it to say that as undergraduates progress deeper into their respective field, they will generally experience more challenging material on the exams.

You have two very different questions here:

how the international applicants are being treated, and
how are math courses being evaluated.

The site would have been better off if you split them, as they are conceptually unrelated to one another. Ah well.
JeffE gave a good answer regarding the former question. His answer seems generalizable, as I've heard of other departments doing similar things. The admissions committees usually try to identify the countrymate among the faculty of their university and ask them whether the school the applicant is coming from is a worthy one. It is more difficult to do with applicants from Kenya or Morocco than those from Australia -- most academics will know about the top AU schools (and if they don't, I just gave them the link :) ).
For your latter question, there is no good answer as there are 4000 colleges * 5-50 math instructors in each. Oversimplified hand-holding you described is typical of the intro classes where the students will bitch about the letter $\theta$ and the sign $\forall$ as they have never seen it before. This creates huge impediments to instructors in trying to challenge the more inspiring and better prepared students who have to be held back at the level of the rest of the crowd.
I had a British prof in my Stat program, and he said that the British exams are usually written so that 70% completion gives you an A. I.e., the instructor reasonably expects that the top students will get 70 out of 100 on this exam. His exams were like that. As the system down under is built after the British system, you probably have the same approach.
The silly American "grading curve" system is 90-100% for "A", the top grade; 80-90% for "B", the second best grade; 70-80% for "C", which few students want to get; 60-70% for "D", which is a very low pass, and often requires retaking the course. Students want higher grades, and do not hesitate to give lower evaluations to instructors who grade less generously, so the professors, especially whose main responsibility is teaching (vs. research on the tenure track), have the incentives to make the exams simple so that the students are happy. The system produces a lot of students with nominal "A"s who know little to nothing. Only the top 20 or so universities (arguably stronger than the Australian G8 schools) have stronger incentives to maintain the university reputation, and tell their profs to make the exams real. I would expect that the stronger campuses of the Univ of California system (Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD) would know better than just hand everybody an "A".
As an artifact of the grading curve, the instructors have to populate their exams with 70% of very simple problems to let the bottom students accumulate enough credit for their "C"s, and can basically afford only one or two problems on a typical 90-120 minutes test to distinguish between the top "A" students and solid but not the top "B" students. This all is a matter of habit and tradition. Some instructors try to override it by making the total sum of scores in the course to be 431 or some prime number like that, so that there will be an extra step for the students to convert their 301 score to the familiar 100% range -- and most will fail without a calculator, and won't be able to tell whether getting three extra points they can squeeze for a homework would change their grade to pass from 69.93% to 70.05% into the next letter category. Professors coming from other countries may sometimes bring their own evaluation ideas (as my British prof did), and those interested in teaching and learning devise their own systems -- I described mine here.
Best luck with your applications, rest assured that you won't have any issues with the US schools just because you say it "todie" instead of "today" :).

The silly American "grading curve" system is 90-100% for "A", — To repeat myself and others: There is no single American grading system; every instructor decides their own.

Oh come on, Jeff. Most instructors write and grade their own tests (unless that's a centrally administered bubble sheet). But how many instructors in your department do deviate from the 70/80/90 grading scheme? Please count, you are getting me VERY curious at this point, now that you downvoted my answer.

Most of them.  In fact, none of the theoretical CS faculty In my department use those cutoffs.

(Also, I didn't down vote your answer.)

Wow. Double wow. (I thought you were a mathematician though; CS classes may be more project based, and you probably teach few if any Programming 101 classes that benefit from the standardized approach.) My apologies.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
How do I give credit to some image I included in my paper?
I recreated an image from a paper I liked (didn't use the same image to get out of the asking permission which could take a while). Now the reviewer asked us to give credit to the original paper. How do I do that? Is it okay to write that my image was 'inspired' from this other paper, as I didn't copy the image but used the image as a reference to create my own?
Its a drawing of blood vessels (with appropriate details related to our work).

First of all,

permission which could take a while

Is not entirely correct. Most major publishers have an automated "permission request" system that in many cases automatically grants you permission to reuse a figure from a published paper. It takes about 5 minutes and usually you can find it in the journal's home page.

Now the reviewer asked us to give credit to the original paper. How do I do that?

This isn't too hard. One way, for instance, would be to add to the figure caption: "Redrawn after Smith et al. (2005)". I think it also depends on what the figure is about. Is it a graph with data points that you used? Is it some schematic drawing? If you edit your question to better describe the figure we can give you a better answer.

Its a biological drawing. I edited the question.

In addition, modifying an image does not overcome copyright protection and the need to get permission. Making a modification to someone else's image requires copying it, and the copyright owner is the one who has the right to allow copying.

This answer is not relevant because the image was not copied. The author states very clearly "...I didn't copy the image but used the image as a reference to create my own..."

I disagree: "copy" is not limited to exact reproduction under copyright law.


text:
Format for student "résumé" for capstone projects?
This coming semester, I am "managing" (teaching?) the capstone projects for eight undergraduate students. We are going to start from scratch in terms of ideas for projects, but one aspect I want to include is the students' backgrounds and interests.
I am thinking that these should be presented in a short-form résumé.
Because the projects will eventually consist of teams of 2 to 4 students, having this background information will help make compatible groups.
Does anyone have experience doing this?
I'm thinking that it should just be a functional résumé:

A functional résumé lists work experience and skills sorted by skill area or job function.
The functional résumé is used to focus on skills that are specific to the type of position being sought. This format directly emphasizes specific professional capabilities and utilizes experience summaries as its primary means of communicating professional competency.

Is this a good idea?
Does anyone have any pointers to templates used specifically for assessable work?

In the end, I decided to go with a functional résumé.
The benefits were:

The students could tailor the academic course list to those relevant to their projects.
The students could emphasize some of their background interests that were also relevant.

The downsides were:

Some students didn't "get" the idea of a functional résumé and needed several iterations to achieve one.
Some students had much more relevant experience and more relevant courses than others, which reflected badly on the students with little relevant experience or coursework.

Though both of these downsides led to teachable things, which is part of the aim of the capstone project.
Because I wanted to show all of the résumés on a projection screen, I chose the following non-standard format to show them  in one page.


text:
Please ensure that you refer to Figure 3 in your text as, if accepted, production will need this reference to link the reader to the figure
I have submitted revisions to a journal. The editor asked that:

Please ensure that you refer to Figure 3 in your text as, if accepted, production will need this reference to link the reader to the figure.
Please ensure that you refer to Table 9 in your text as, if accepted, production will need this reference to link the reader to the Table.

What does the editor mean? The article contains 17 table and three figures, but he only raised issue with figure 3 and table 9.
Figure 3 and table 9 have been mentioned in the text already.

I'm voting to close because this question does not concern academia, but rather it is a problem that you have to deal with by yourself.

I don't understand why the editor refers to production. Surely "the reader will need this reference to link between the text and the figure/table" is more relevant?

@user2768 I assume they want to produce hyperlinks for each table / figure.

@user2768 "production" means a person, also known as a copyeditor.  The editor is saying they are making this request because they know the copyeditor will want it.

@padawan Why is this a problem that the OP has to deal with themselves? Why can't we help?

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it can't be generalized to other situations.  You should ask the editor, not the internet.

Disagree with close votes, this can be useful to others.

Is it perhaps a technical thing, such as using LaTeX and not having a "\ref" reference to the figure, and instead writing "figure 3" as text?

Did you mention the other figures and tables in your text? Usually, you should have a sentence like "as shown in fig. 3" or "in table 9, we see..." for each and every table and figure.
Maybe the editor just gave examples - you should do it for all of them.
Edit to incorporate the comment into the answer:
It might be a misunderstanding. Since you should address all reviewer's / editor's comments, you should write something like "fig. 3 and table 9 are mentioned on p.x line y. If this is not sufficient, I did not understand your remark, please elaborate on this issue"

yes i have explicitly mentioned all the tables and figures

Then it might be a misunderstanding. Since you should address all reviewer's / editor's comments, you should write something like "fig. 3 and table 9 are mentioned on p.x line y. If this is not sufficient, I did not understand your remark, please elaborate on this issue"

thanks for your valuable comments, i am considering to contact the editor for clarification


text:
Same problem solved in a totally different way
If I solved a already solved recent problem with a totally different method, can I communicate my solution in a journal? How likely is the acceptance of my paper?

Yes, you can (and you should!).
And you should compare the performance of your method with the existing one.
Even if your method performs worse, this is still a valid result.

Just to add to the above answer, make sure that you draw an explicit comparison between your method and the existing method in the paper and what are the advantages of your methods. You can write this as a separate section in the paper "Key Contributions". I am not sure that the paper will be accepted unless the new method has some distinct and sufficient advantage (because you have to answer the question of "why should anyone be bothered to use the new method").
Also, consider what are the shortcomings of the new approach and any approaches to mitigate them because reviewers will be interested in that too. If you don't have time to cover these shortcomings, you can justify how to mitigate them and write them as future works.
My advice is based on the fact that I recently submitted a paper (that got accepted) that proposed a new method to do something which had already been done by an existing method. But the advantage of my method was that it was more generic (the new method also works in scenarios where the old method doesn't). I basically showed this by referencing three prior works that had been unsuccessful in using the existing method in a new scenario that I was interested in and how the new method overcame the limitations of the old method. Some of the questions from reviewers focused on the applicability of the new method on future (yet unseen) scenarios.
Note: Take my answer with a grain of salt because my experience is only in engineering papers (specifically computer engineering/science). My advice may/may not be applicable to your area of research.


text:
Should we do literature search in Incognito mode?
I found a claim that literature search (in Google Scholar, ScienceDirect, Scopus, Web of Science, etc) should be performed in Incognito/Private Browsing mode.
According to the claim, search results may be influenced by browser cookies (presumably those about previous literature searches), and if a user account is used, they may be influenced by the scholar's information (interests, etc.) as recorded by the search engine.
If that is correct, authors of systematic reviews may need to report how they access literature databases and search engines.
Is there any evidence to support that claim?

And where did you hear this claim? Did you ask them for evidence? Who knows what Google is doing with their info, but, e.g., Web of Science is paid by my institution for use by the company - it is not in their (WoS) best interest to be messing with searches from our IP addresses since they would no longer be trusted (or paid).

I added a source but it doesn't present evidence.

@JonCuster: Some people might consider a benefit if the search engine can learn from your past searches and direct you to content that is more likely to be of interest to you personally.  In most cases, this would likely be more helpful than reproducibility of search results.  I'm not sure why that should make the engine "not trusted".  But it would mean that you'd need to take special steps to get a reproducible search when you specifically need one.

All I saw was references to Google Scholar. If you have used even plain Google search, you would notice that, indeed, Google tries to tailor results for you based on past searches, figuring that they should indicate something about what you might be looking for. They are scary good in that way, so applying it to Google Scholar seems like a no-brainer. But, frankly, relying on Google Scholar to do serious literature searches just seems like a bad idea. Go talk to a real research librarian and do what they suggest...

Google Scholar isn’t like Google at all. By default it just ranks by citations. It doesn’t tailor the ranking to your profile at all. I’d say the bias you’d get from Scholar is less than what you’d get from working at a specific library with physical journals, at least in the hard sciences.

@knzhou Google scholar definitely does not rank only by citations, it has some 'relevance' and timeliness criteria as well. If you know for a fact it does not tailor rankings to profiles (which may indeed be the case), though, that would be really helpful information and I'd love to have a reference to that fact.

@BryanKrause Well, I have a profile and I’ve literally never seen a less cited article listed above a more cited one...

@knzhou Maybe that's a preference to set? https://imgur.com/a/YUgYv0E 116, 1373, 17532, 161, 963, 98. (I will note I get exactly the same results for that search incognito and not, however I haven't tested any terms closer to ones I would normally use)

@BryanKrause Weird. Maybe I did and forgot! In any case Scholar at least must have the option, as I would expect any reasonable academic search engine to.


text:
Two abstracts accepted for oral and poster presentation, but I prefer they are swapped
A conference has accepted my two abstracts in the same track, the first for an oral presentation and the second as a poster.
However, I expected the second one would be accepted for oral presentation, as I believe it is more important and relevant to the area and probably to the track and the conference in general. It is also about my primary work, which is more sophisticated and robust than the first one, and I think it would be better for me to present it orally.
But I understand the conference committee have their evaluation and criteria for deciding the way of presentation for each abstract.
Shall I just accept this allocation, which is good anyway? Or is it common and accepted to request, with justification, that they swap the two abstracts - provided they didn't print and disseminate the program yet?

It does not hurt to ask. You can send a polite email explaining your reasons and ask if it is still possible to swap the talk with the poster. It is possible that the decision of the conference committee was based only on the number of slots available, and they will not hesitate to swap talks at all. It may be also that their decision, as you described, is based on some evaluation of strengths of the abstract and potential interest to it among the participants. In this case they will simply refuse to do as you ask, but you lose nothing but a bit of time.
The request to swap talks is not quite common, I guess, but also not unaccepted or weird. I would say, it is worth to try.


text:
How do I communicate my research with a general audience more effectively?
I really enjoyed my research but it happens that whenever I tell somebody about it, I have the impression I'm making it sound boring, unimportant and not exciting.
Americans have a way of telling a story, I know this kind of "performance" does not suit my habit. I'm more the continental European, a bit reserved, a bit technical. Not everything I did immediately is about curing cancer, I admit it.
I started by adapting a kind of top-down approach, first I say "Simulations", usually people feel they can relate to that. And if they wish to know more, then I can start going into some details.
I think this approach makes sense, but still, I find others can induce interest by the other person immediately from the start of their explanations.
Question: How can I communicate my research to a general audience in a way that is more exciting and interesting?

Make your research sound interesting to whom? People in your immediate field (say, quantum physics)? People in the same broad field (say, other physicists)? Other academics in general? Members of the public?

I think that you're missing the point if you're trying to make your research sound exciting.  If your research is exciting, you should be able to convey what it is that excites you to the people who matter.

@AriTrachtenberg: Maybe I am misinterpreting "people who matter", but I think it would be quite sad if only people mattered to me who were equally excited about, as hypothetical example, new algorithms for formal grammar-based syntax transformations as myself.

People who matter are the people you'd want to read and understand the work (as opposed to, say, your dentist:-) )

I always get compliments on my explanations when I assume that my audience is mentally challenged.

Try lots of different things. You've tried one thing, and it hasn't worked.
Treat it like any other kind of experimental research. Try new things, monitor the results, adjust your approach accordingly.
Some things that can work:

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

"draw parallels between that and what you're doing", or speak about the intersection. Possibly your research could (at least remotely) be applied to some problem they may have now or in a plausible future. I mean, put an example from the start and choose an example that worries them (I'm not saying it is easy).

Perhaps the real problem is that you're not describing your research clearly, and at the appropriate level for the person you're talking to. This is a skill that definitely takes practice to get good at. You'll know you're doing it right when the other person asks good questions; that's proof that they are engaged. So I suspect if you focus on being clear and getting the level of explanation right, you'll end up making the research sound more interesting without even trying!
I take advantage of every opportunity I can to explain it to adults and children, academics and non-academics, and so on. I've definitely improved with this practice. The number one mistake I (and probably most people) tend to make is to explain at too high a level. I always have this fear that I'm going to insult the other person's intelligence by explaining things too simply. But that doesn't happen. If the other person does want more detail, they'll ask.
Another possibility is that you're trying to sound professional when you explain your research, and that's inhibiting your natural style. But it's perfectly OK to sound like an excited kid in this situation, if that's how you feel. A lot of well-respected academics sound like kids when they start talking about something they're interested in, because they do feel passionate about it, and that makes the audience more interested too.

Switch focus from the hows and whats to the whys and do a top-down break-down from there. Your peers will be able to follow your break-down for longer than laymen, but all will be more interested in what you do.


text:
What does "ADM" stand for on an article submission information page?
On the information page of my article submission, there's a column titled "ADM", listing the name of two persons that I can email.
What does this stand for?

In this context, ADM probably means "administrator."  In other words, those are likely the people you are expected to contact in case of questions and problems with the submission site.

There are two thing in Manuscript Information
1.Editor-In-Chief called EIC or the
2. Administrator Called ADM about a particular manuscript

Are EIC and ADM synonyms or they have different tasks? In my case there is no information about EIC but only ADM and the paper is "under review".

You don't indicate which submission system you are speaking of, but the ScholarOne Manuscripts system, there are generally 3 levels of roles that deal with a submission. There is the administrator, who would preform some of the more routine tasks (checklists, adding notes, etc), this is commonly abbreviated as "admin" or "adm". The next level is an Editor. They can perform any number of tasks depending on the journals specific workflow, including finding and managing the review process, making recommendations and/or decisions. Journals refer to this role as many things depending on their business model. Editors (Ed.), Assistant Editor (AE), Section Editors (SE) are a few of the more common ones. Then there is an Editor In Chief role (EIC). They typically do the final decision, however, different journals will have various and widely differing workflows. Some journals have an EIC assign an Editor, who then manages the process from that point forward, with the EIC only approving the final outcome.
 Some journals don't have editors, only EIC's, some have no EIC's and only Editors. Some have 2 or 3 different flavors of Editors. Some smaller journals only have a very small staff, and they perform "all of the above".
Disclaimer: I am an employee at ScholarOne, but the opinions and posts here are my own.

ADM, most probably stands for Article Dedicated Manager, not sure though.
ADM is a person in-charge of handling any communication about a specific article. His role is to answer general questions and to give advice to authors. In some cases to communicate with editors if questions require that. However, decisions of accepting or rejecting articles are usually made by EIC or other Editors in the editor board.


text:
how to ask help from an area expert and getting feedback?
Actually I am doing my PhD in Computer Science, and it is advancing a little bit slow. I am convinced that I can use a technique to solve a problem in my research, but my supervisor is not very keen with the idea. Searching on an online course I found an expert in the area that uses this technique, and I would like to ask for his opinion and maybe advice.
The questions I have are:

How to write an email to this expert? I mean should it be a formal one asking beforehand if he would have some time to read the doubts I have, or should I just send an email with the question I want to ask directly?
What to do in order to increase the likelihood of receiving a reply from this expert? I know they usually are very busy people and that they receive tons of emails, so what can I do to make the difference so that he will answer it?

Before, I have sent some emails to other experts and I did not get any reply, except for one special case from a renowned expert in the field of Evolutionary Programming that was incredible kind and eager to answer in a very detailed way the questions that I gave to him. Any advice?

Probably not "eager", but "willing"... to answer.

Better send one email with your problem and detailed questions. Oh, wait. You could ask here at SE! More or less the same etiquette applies. Both ways, your question might get an immediate, enthusiastic response, or go thumbleweed (6 months without answer).

Try to pick up some of that expert's work or paper and let him know in your first sentence that you enjoyed reading it or that it was very inspirational etc. (but be honest in this part). Than try to make some connections to your problem and ask him directly.

Start with a summary. Write a couple of sentences to explain the reason for your email and a rough statement of what it is you'd like help with. If your message is long and takes a while to get to the point then the expert is likely to get bored and lose interest.
Explain how you know of their work, and how it relates to yours. As @user3624251 suggests in their comment, a bit of massaging their ego will not go amiss, as long as it is not excessively fawning.
Be polite, but to the point. If you are too apologetic then you'll just come across as underconfident and unimportant.
State your problem as succinctly as possible. As you would on SE, try to make it as self-contained and well-defined as you can.
If you can't describe the problem in a couple of paragraphs or less, and/or the reply would require more than a few paragraphs, then it might not be well suited to an email enquiry and you might be better off trying to arrange a meeting. You could try finding out if there are any conferences coming up that you could meet up at. Or, if you can sell your problem as being really interesting, maybe the expert would be interested in collaboration.
Accept that, as you have already discovered, you will not have 100% success rate. However well you write the message, you may not even receive a reply, and that is not necessarily a poor reflection on you. But there is very little harm in trying, and some people turn out to be very generous with their time and advice.
Always follow up with an appreciative email if they reply in any way whatsoever!

When reaching out an expert for help, it's good to learn as much as you can about him before hand. I always dip into LinkedIn to check out background, and to see if there are any interesting clues, common experiences, and the like.
Usually, the very best way to get connected is with an introduction. Do you know anyone who knows this expert, who can make an introduction? That's where LinkedIn is quite helpful.
If email doesn't work, consider using @name in Twitter and see if you can get an answer that way.
Also, when I'm asking for help, I don't usually fire off the question. Instead, I'll shoot a request off saying "I'm XYZ at ZYX and I'm working on ABC. Do you mind if I ask a question on CBA?" I know it's a second step, but I've found that people tend to be more open once asked if a dialog is acceptable.
Speaking personally, I get a LOT of questions via email and have an auto-responder to answer them. I sometimes check those questions, but rarely individually answer them. But if someone I know reaches out to me, or I see a quick, easy-to-answer question on Twitter, I often reply.
Good luck. Don't limit your outreach to one person in a field. If you don't get an answer, move on. You never know how busy any one person is or whether it's just a busy week.
--David


text:
Include article in bibliography I didn't cite
Say I gained knowledge from a review article. However, I don't cite that review article. I do cite articles cited by that review article, but not the review itself.
Should I still include that review in my bibliography?

You should cite all sources you use. You obviously use the review article, so you should cite it properly. It has been asked before, I'll try to find the original question.

@yo': I'd have to partially disagree: if the only thing you learned from a review article is a reference to another article that contains the specifics of what you need to cite, then I don't think you need to cite the review article. Otherwise, you might have to cite a lot of papers if you found an article through reference chasing!

@JaapEldering The OP clearly acknowledges that he "gained knowledge from a review article", so he should cite it.

You can add as "uncited reference" in your paper.

What subject are you writing on? I think the answer varies by discipline.

@JessicaB biology/behavioral neuroscience

I have handled similar situations by adding a sentence citing the article, such as

Smith (2003) provides a useful summary of this topic.

My reasoning is that since I found the review article very helpful, people reading my article may be interested as well. I know I appreciate references like this.

I see this question is tagged with the "ethics" tag, and there is also an ethics subtext to the question, although it is not stated explicitly. Well, I don't see it as an ethics question at all. The purpose of citations is not to serve as acknowledgements to an author whose paper taught us something useful, and citing a paper is not something you should do as a courtesy because you want to be nice to someone or feel that they deserve a pat on the back. Rather, citations have two goals:

We cite a paper if we feel that this would help the reader. Will your readers be interested in seeing this review article as background material for the topic you are discussing? If yes, then definitely cite it.
We cite a paper to properly acknowledge the research contributions of other authors, on which our work relies and builds on, so that the reader is informed about the context of the new work we are discussing in our paper. If by citing the papers referenced in the review article you have already provided such a context, then citing the review article in addiiton is not necessary.

The point is that there are good reasons to cite a review article. But an ethical consideration involving some moral debt that you feel you owe to the writer of the review article, which seems to be what you are asking about, is not one of them.

I don't know what the expectations are in your field. However, one way this sort of thing might be dealt with in mathematics is to write something along the lines of

[1] gives a helpful review of this subject.

or

We direct the reader to [1] for onoverview of related work.

I think that is a valid way of including the reference if you feel you want to do so, without actually needing to decide whether it is necessary or not.

It may depend on the type or purpose of the document. If it's a journal article, check the requirements in the Instructions for Authors. Some state that the reference list / bibliography should only list sources that are cited in the paper. Similarly, if it's a thesis chapter, check the requirements for your school or university regarding citations and reference lists / bibliographies.

Only the cited articles are listed in bibliography. Therefore, if you don't cite the review article, you do not include it in the bibliography.
If you think that the review article is useful and you want to include it in the bibliography, you can just cite it in the paper.

This is usually true, but not always.

It is good to obey the usual convention, if you are not certain for a special rule. If you are sure that you can list uncited publication in the journal you are submitting, you can do it.

You have to motivate authors of review articles. The simplest way to do so is to cite them. If we do not motivate people, then no one will eventually perform this sort of not very thanked and quite time consuming job and you will have no  opportunity to retrieve knowledge quickly as you did now.

I have a feeling like this answer doesn't quite respond to the question. It does not discuss whether or not to list the review article in the bibliography without mentioning it in the text. Moreover, the statement "this sort of not very thanked and quite time consuming job" makes me wonder whether the answer is mixing up reviews (as in surveys for overview/survey articles) and reviews (as in refereeing for peer review of submitted manuscripts).

I disagree. Citations are not a motivational tool and shouldn't be used with such a purpose in mind.


text:
What rules guide whether to put qualifications on an academic business card?
I'm just wondering what rules of etiquette guide whether an academic puts qualifications on a business card. I'm assuming that either "Dr" at the start or "PhD" at the end is important to include where applicable, perhaps with the exception that higher titles such as "Prof" would take precedence over "Dr".
However, what about beyond that?

The accepted conventions also depend strongly on country. As a general rule, though, I'd avoid anything "cute" unless you happen to be your own boss.
For instance, in the US, I'd expect to see doctoral-level degrees listed. I'd also expect to see high-level professional qualifications, such as "PE" for "Professional Engineers." Similarly, if a master's degree carries sufficient professional weight in one's discipline, I'd list that, too. You are also correct in assuming that Prof. "overwrites" Dr.
In Germany, by contrast, one is expected to list all degrees of equivalent standing, including honorary degrees. This can lead to rather unwieldy titles such as

Univ.-Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Dr.-Ing. h.c. Dr. rer. nat. E.h. Johannes Schmidt

(Note: I've seen substantially longer, too!)
However, two additional points are worth mentioning.
First, any degree at the master's or diploma level is considered significant enough to list as part of one's title:

Dipl.-Ing. Michael Mustermann

would be expected for someone with a "Diplom" in engineering.
Secondly, until recently, non-German degrees were not considered the equivalent of German degrees. An American doctorate holder was

Joanna Doe, Ph.D.

and was legally not allowed to call herself

Dr. Joanna Doe

However, this has been somewhat relaxed recently, although only for degree holders from certain countries.


text:
Is an Additional degree required to qualify myself for post doc/industry position outside my area of expertise?
Can someone with a Ph.D in field X get a job in academia or industry in field Y, even if the  job posting says "PhD in field Y required?". If not how will going back to get a second post graduate degree be looked upon by academic and industry employers in field Y?
Background:
I am finishing my PhD in Mathematics and am currently on the job market.   Ideally, I would land a math post-doc position, however, I have also been looking at industry jobs (as some of these would be more satisfactory than say a 4/4 teaching load or 3/3 or whatever it would be), but most of these seem to indicate that I would need a M.S. or PhD in Computer Science.I have a background in math as well as in C.S. (B.S. in C.S., B.A. in Math).
If I don't get a post doc offer, I am considering attending a school for a master's in C.S. in machine learning or a related field.  Considering I have all the math background, I believe I would be a good candidate for a M.S. or PhD in C.S.  And there are a lot of interesting problems where the two areas overlap.
Is it reasonable to return for a second degree if I don't get my dream post-doc offers, especially to make myself more marketable to industry?  I am seriously considering this option.

Going back is always a choice, and you'd almost certainly be able to thrive in it. Reasonability on the other hand is a hugely personal question. Voting to close unless this can be edited to be more general.

Oh, and one more thing, don't put so much stock in the indicators of requirements: If you're seriously considering these kinds of positions, put your resume in. With your background, you probably could find your way into some of these positions without the CS graduate degree.

Is it reasonable (your original question), yes. Is it necessary to get the job you want, probably not!
"Requirements" for a job are often just loose guidelines, and in some cases are used to scare unqualified, untalented, or under-confident people away from applying. Good employers will usually loosen these requirements (or sometimes even outright ignore all of them) for the right candidate. Someone with a B.S. in computer science and a Ph.D. in math is exactly the type of person who could potentially qualify for a position that asks for a Ph.D. in CS. Requiring a Ph.D. in CS might be used to scare away all the coding ninjas who might otherwise apply. It is all about the story you are able to tell in your resume and interviews. Make the skills you have learned while completing your math Ph.D. appear as transferable as possible. Talk to math grads who are now in industry and peck their brains. Your degree is lucrative if you know how to sell it. I wouldn't recommend getting a second Ph.D just to go out into industry. At the very least apply to a bunch of jobs and see if you get some interviews before you go off and spend 4-6 more years in school.
I know of several people who have Ph.Ds in math and applied math without a B.S. in CS who went into industry. Many of the jobs they took said Ph.D. in CS required. Some companies just want really smart mathy people in these positions.

Thanks!  Let's say that I want to be involved in other areas of research that overlap in computer science but that have deep underpinnings in theoretical math (i.e. using tensor algebras in quantum theory, etc.).  What's the best route to become abreast in other areas beyond my main discipline (and be accepted by the academic community)?  I am trying to think ahead years (not too many!) down the road after the postdoc so that I have projects to offer graduate students.

I'd say get active in the CS community at your school (while you are still in math). Go to the relevant CS seminars. Make friends with CS grad students, postdocs, and faculty. Chit Chat with CS professors after the seminars. Tell them your research interests and how you want to go the C.S. route. Ask them about the journals/conferences you should be reading/going to. You can still go to a C.S. conference as a math student/postdoc!


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Careless uninterested potential advisor
A professor, call X, who is with strong probability about to be my future MS Thesis supervisor/advisor, seems very interested to work with me. Mostly on lectures, X seems interested in my ideas and is very encouraging.
However, out of the class, X is totally unreachable, uninterested in my problems. e.g. very slow to respond questions, once I needed an important paperwork to be done and X totally slacked it, although a ceratin mouthful "sure I will do it" promise. I had really hardtime to fix related issue with much frustations, because of X's attitude. And X did not give me any apologies for this situation.
I understand that profs are busy beings, managing tons of stuff at the same time, but I expect not to break a given promise or not to give promise at all to do something. I am really fed up and tired of this repeating behavior.
I have started to think that, it is not a good idea to work with X. I seriously doubt that professor would be reachable in my thesis study, not to mention to be helpful in my future academic pursuits, such as a strong letter for a Ph.D. application.
Am I expecting a lot ? Also, I want to kindly inform X that, I do not want to involve any future studies with X. What kind of wording should I use ?

I'd suggest you narrow this down as much as you can. There's at least two questions in here: 1) Are you expecting too much interaction from a thesis supervisor (potential or current really). 2) How do you decline previous acceptance of supervision.

Professors are busy and are always juggling multiple commitments.
This does not mean that you are unimportant to them but maybe some judicious memory jogging is required for them to remember what X has promised you.
Another excellent strategy which I have adopted is to show up to my committee members' open office hours with issues when I need them solved instead of bothering them over email. Usually I need 5-10 minutes of their time to explain my issue and solicit future directions. That works really well. I am not a big fan of long meetings.
In response to your specific question, if you want to not work with X just tell X that you do not feel that you can work with them in the future. It might be helpful to have someone else lined up before you do so though.

What are "open office hours"? I know office hours for courses.

Contrary to popular belief, office hours are office hours. Anyone can show up to them irrespective of whether you are in that course or not. Some faculty go above and beyond and make that explicit. Usually, that is referred to as "open office hours"

+1 for judicious memory jogging, overextended is not uninterested.

Also, I want to kindly inform X that, I do not want to involve any
  future studies with X. What kind of wording should I use?

No wording should be used. Don't send anything.
Now you may be very angry or upset, but there is no point to send a message to imply you will never work with this person. If the professor does try to contact you for possible projects or studies, just simply say thanks, and proceed with saying that you have thought about this and have decided to pursue other options.
If you send a no-involvement-in-future message, you'd just end up looking obnoxious. This is not grade school, we don't tell everyone that "I am not going to play with you, and don't you dare inch your elbow over the side of my desk, or I am going to tell the Dean."

In addition to Shion's answer: Sometimes, I could be X... And the reason is described in Shions excellent answer. It does not mean X is uninterested, but there are important and pressing tasks which easily cover 60h/week in my position, and then there are still the not-so-urgent-but-still-important tasks left.
I usually tell the students to remind me again if I did not do what I promised until xyz, and if they don't do that, I assume it was unimportant (well, usually I try to do what I promised, but still, things are slipping through).
I would suggest talking to your potential supervisor and (politely) talk about your concerns. If they don't get your point, it is totally ok to look for an other one and they can not be surprised. If they get your point, you should try to find some arrangement which would help you in similar situation (e.g. you are allowed to be a pain in the ass of your supervisor). For good students whose work I value, I really want them to push me. On the other hand, I definitely don't want to micro-manage someone. So it's a matter of balance and communication about it helps a lot.

Talk to students.  Always talk to students of the Prof.  If you start finding out lots of previous students dropped out, don't go that route.  If they look at you and say "run" follow their advice.  If it's clear that they are trying to not say something bad about their supervisor but clearly aren't willing to say anything good: stay away.
But don't burn bridges.  Just go for other options.  No need to say, "I'm sorry you're too busy".  Just you've gotten interested in another problem.

It is not obvious how this professor will look into your PhD. You also say he can be good and devote enough attention when he thinks this is appropriate (during the lecture).
The most obvious way to decide is to look around. Does the professor have other PhD students? Not very good if you would be the only one over many years. Which percent of these PhD students been successful? Maybe you can talk with them?
Also, that are most serious works of the professor laboratory? Recent Science or ten years without publications? Of course, asking such things directly is very tricky but try to visit the laboratory website.
Understanding the professors overall attitude to exactly PhD work may help to decide. Heavy involvement into ongoing research projects and other relevant activities (so no time for general talking, etc) may actually represent the professor positively.


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When citing a journal paper, should I use the online publication year or the print publication year?
I want to cite a paper which was published online (Open Access) in 2012 and later published in a printed journal issue in 2013. Which publication year should be used in the citation?

Many journals will tell you how to cite an article on their websites.

"Wen citing a journal paper" - check and re-check your paper so you don't make mistakes like this! :) The original publish date is usually used, but this can be field dependent.

Cite both, if you really want to be helpful to the readers.

As StrongBad said, the general rule is to follow the guidelines outlines by the publication venue.
If there is none, then as a rule of thumb, cite the journal version. The reason depends on the type of online publication:

When the paper was an early access version of the later journal paper and
thus identical, the journal paper in some sense replace the online access
version.
When the 2012 paper was posted at arXiv.org or the like, then the later
journal version went through peer reviewing, whereas the earlier version did
not. So the journal version can easily be more mature.

Note that one role of citations is to assign academic credit. Credit towards a paper that appeared in a reputable journal counts a bit more, so citing the journal version is also a courtesy to the author(s).
If for some reason, for your paper, it is of importance who had an idea first (e.g., when you give a chronological overview of related work), you can just add a note like "An earlier version of the paper appeared in XYZ in 2012" to the bibliography entry of the journal version to make that clear.

Also, in order for a reader to find the paper, the year of the journal version is needed - this is what belongs to the volume/issue/pages. Also, in my field it is quite common that the online-first version doesn't yet have issue and pages assigned (it is the accepted manuscript immediately after acceptance) - use that with a note "in print" until the final citation record is available. For establishing precedence, you may even consider using the submission date (of the finally accepted version).

Each article, to be properly indexed, is assigned some minimum information:

Journal name given in a correct way. However, this can be 3 of more different things for one journal, e.g. "JAir" = "J Aircraft" = "Journal Aircraft" (randomly chosen journal that has 3 proper names); you can choose any, but usually the middle form is prefered (i.e., basic abbreviations, but not the shortest ones, those are known as "astro. abbrv.")
Journal volume. Starts at one when the journal is introduced, and counts one by one in a way that is basically decided by the publisher, with some rules.
(a) Article's first page, or (b) in cases of per-article page numbering, article code, or (c) in cases of per-issue/number page numbering, number of the issue in the volume (usually called just "number") and the article's firts page.

There are two more bits of information that are usually required:

At least one author's name
Publication year

And there is one more thing that is more then welcome, but not necessary:

Article's title.

Every volume is published throughout only one calendar year (but multiple volumes can be published in the same year). The year of the publication of the article is the year of the volume in which it appeared. No matter if it appeared as "e-first" one year before, or if it appeared on arXiv 2 years before, or whatever.
However, if you cite a paper that has appeared as an e-first on the journal's webpage, but has no volume assigned yet, you cite it as "To appear in Journal of Beer Drinking, 2013", even if it's obvious now that it won't be in a volume in year 2013 (since it's already 2014 and the previous volumes are closed). In this case, it's necessary to provide more information to make the citation unique: advised is to provide the article title, which is usually unique in a reasonable time scope.

You should cite the final article where possible. If the article is online but not yet in print, you should cite the DOI which is a permanent resource and will be updated by the publisher when the print volume is announced, so anyone linking to the online version will get the published version. I have noticed some journals taking up to 9 months to assign a print volume to an epub so the DOI is the only sure way to ensure that epub and print citations match up in the end.


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Post-doc and family considerations
I’m doing my PhD in Europe but I’m researching my opportunities for doing a postdoc in the US. There is a reasonable amount of job postings in my field, so I hope I’d have a decent chance of obtaining one. My concern, however, is purely financial. I have a wife and two children and am wondering whether such an endeavor is realistic or if it would put us on the brink of economic collapse.
I am for this reason interested in the experiences of others who pursued postdoc positions by relocating with a family.

Despite the position being temporary, is it more common that partners find jobs, too? I imagine that because of hiring processes, it wouldn’t be strange if the partner started working mid-way through, at which point one may already know that another relocation is coming up in 1-2 years. For what it’s worth, my wife has a MSc in the same field as I’m in and there’s typically a large demand for people like us, so securing a job shouldn’t be too hard (barring the paperwork, which would probably be a major issue in itself).
How do people do this, like really? At times I feel this is insurmountable, because AFAIK the typical postdoc salary is not enough to support an entire family. Yet, I’m far from the first PhD student with a family.

In the US, it can be quite difficult for a spouse to find a job with an employer who is willing to sponsor the spouse for an employment-based visa, particularly if that employment is outside of academia where there is a yearly quota on the number of H-1B visas.  I wouldn't discount the difficulty of this.

To expand on Brian Borchers comment: Under US immigration law, which hasn't been significantly updated since the 1960s, your spouse will not automatically have permission to work in the US.  If they wish to work, they need separate permission, which may be hard to obtain.

It sounds like you're aware of this, but please keep in mind that cost of living varies enormously in different parts of the United States. It's certainly possible to support a family on a postdoc salary in Eugene, Oregon, for example (the beautiful town I live in); in Berkeley, CA, as a contrasting example the median apartment price is 4x higher (!).

Per this page, your wife would need to fill a I-765, it costs $485 (cf. p. 15), and it takes (if I read correctly) 90 days. But day care for your kids will likely be your biggest problem anyway.

@hejseb you are right. I was on the US with a J1 visa, my wife could work, if she requested a work permit (mostly rubberstamp), but it would take about 3 months and cost about 400$.

If your children go to school, day care costs will not be astronomical.  There are affordable programs to cover the gap from 3 pm to 5 pm; or you or your spouse might be able to cover that gap. If your children are too young for school, then try to find a position with good child care benefits.

Your spouse can start the paperwork for the work permit, in advance of the move, I think.

I moved from France to the US to do a 1 year-post-doc in Computer Science, with my wife and our two children (3mo and 2yo at the time), so I guess my situation is very close to yours.
I was paid ~$50.000 / year, didn't pay taxes the first year (because of the tax treaty between France and the US), didn't have a car, and lived in a reasonably cheap community (cost of living index ~ 105, for instance, the rent was $800 / month for a very small flat, furnished and including internet, water, some other utilities. It didn't had a washing machine, for instance, so it was a bit rough with two children).
We were not rich, but it was completely doable. It was a bit risky, but we managed to live entirely on my salary, something we couldn't have done in France, so I would think that our situation was rather correct.
Here's what we learned:

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

Of course, it makes more sense to start such an adventure for a 2 years (or more) post-doc.
But moving with kids (in young age) is fun: they'll grasp the new culture super easily, they'll make friends, they'll help you to make friends, they'll make people chatty, and they will break any sense of isolation you could have by moving to a foreign country.
Actual experience may vary: the USA is a vast country, and the salary range, as well as the cost of living, vary greatly. I'm not a super hero, but with the support of your family, you can make it. Tons of people did it in the past ;-)

One thing to check on: some universities offer day care. It is usually very high quality and has a wait list. Sometimes you can get a discount based on your income. We don't get a discount and pay $900 per child per month at a non-university day care now. Previously we paid $1200 per child.

Try to negotiate a relocation allowance, that will reduce the burden of "moving is super expensive." (Universities do offer relocation allowances. Albeit, they might not advertise. Maybe ask HR.)

I moved from the UK to the US to do a 4-year-post-doc in Computer Science. After 2 years, I quitted. I just started a new job in industry a few months ago.
I was paid $80.000 at the first year, a bit more in the second year, but not too much. Roughly, I received $5000 month after tax (federal and state), and health insurance etc.

I chose the cheapest insurance option. It was practically useless for me, because its in-network clinics were all in a different state, where the main campus of the university is located.
I paid $2000 per month, excluded the bills, for an old one-bedroom flat, built in the 50s. There were risk of lead poisoning when staying in the flat. The agent asked me to sign an agreement that I would not sue them if this would occurred to me. One often can only rent a studio with this price (sky-rocket every year), but I wanted a flat since I had a kid at that time (2 now).
I paid $1800 per month for the daycare of my toddler. In the second year, my son got bigger, so I only paid $1500 per month now.
I spent the rest on food, car insurance, bills etc. We do not eat out. I bring food from home for lunch. We never go to cinema, never travel etc. We just maintain a basic life.
I don't know how much I saved per month (if at all), but my balance
hasn't changed in 2 years.

I really loved my research. My postdoc advisor was kind and wonderful, driving me to find an apartment when I first came to the US, giving me advices about kid, daycare etc etc. My advisor were the most talented person I had chance to work with (ACM distinguished scientist); thank to their guidances, I was very productive, and published several good papers. I had 2 more years on my contract, but funding was never a problem in my old group, so I could stay as long as I wanted. However, I had to quit.
The reason was simple: I have a second child this year. The daycare cost for an infant starts from $2000. That meant I needed an addition $24000 after tax each year. Only a (boring) engineering job in industry can help me to cover this cost.

You history is definitely interesting. How old was your child when you moved ? You write "Only a (boring) engineering job in industry can help me to cover this cost": well, the cost of living in the US can really vary greatly. With $80.000 / year, there are parts of the US where you can support an entire family without too much trouble.

Very interesting to hear about your experience (although of course I’m sorry it didn’t work out in the end for you). Would you mind revealing what part of the US this was so I can get a sense for the cost of living compared to other places?

@Clément My first child was 18 months when I moved to the US. I tried to have him potty trained as soon as possible, thanks to that the cost reduced a lot in the second year. hejseb: I'm in the Silicon Valley.

@hejseb Americans love cost of living comparators. I have no idea how accurate they are, but you can find tons of them. As an example

What's missing from your vignette is -- why were your children in day care?  Was your spouse bringing in any money?  Was your spouse going to school? // I think the take-home message of this post is, don't go to Silicon Valley where housing costs an arm and a leg.

I've moved to Denmark (capital region) from Finland with family (one spouse, one child). A bit shorter distance and probably less of a cultural gap. I'm a postdoc.
Housing and everything else here is expensive, but we don't eat out or buy many things, so we are doing fine. Starting out would not have been possible without sufficient savings, since apartments typically require one to six months of rent as a deposit and pre-paid rent. Only I am earning money. Note that this depends heavily on the area to which you are locating, and on how careful your family is with spending their money.
My spouse is not currently employed, but she also does not have a high education. Your university is likely to offer some sort of help - around here the university offers some free courses for finding employment, for example.


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Can you obtain detailed date information on publications when using Google Scholar?
My question is related to Google Scholar. I know that I can search articles by specified year or year range, but is it possible to obtain detailed dates of publication/indexing in Google Scholar? If so, how could I do it?

Sometimes.
There is no way to search by more specific date ranges but an exact date might be available for a particular paper. For example, this paper shows a publication date of 2014/4/26 but this paper only shows the year, 2015, but no month or day.
Otherwise, if Google Scholar doesn't show the date, you can follow the link to the publisher's website which might have it. For example, IEEE lists that second paper as having a conference date of "Sept. 29 2015-Oct. 1 2015."

Yes, I've found this differentiation and tried also "step by step" digging method but it's very time consuming and works occasionally. But what about indexing date in scholar database?

@MichalSzulc I'm not quite sure what you mean. My typical workflow is to collect all the bibtex snippets (from the publisher, not Google Scholar, since it is often missing info) for any paper that I might find useful in the future. Then I can use my bibtex manager to search on dates or anything else.

What do you mean by "from the publisher, not Google Scholar"? Do you always contact publisher by email/phone and ask for a copy?
I'm curious of a date when google scholar indexed searched document in its database. Something like this: http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008/02/google-shows-when-it-first-indexed-page.html (however this engine descibes in fact last date of indexing/crawling, not the first one )