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What is the proper action when peers in your field have/are publishing papers with a crucial flaw?
I am in an uncomfortable position. I am beginning to do research in a particular area within my field. The body of related works are mostly done by students of a single professor. And, nearly all of it makes a crucial mistake. The works are borrowing/applying concepts and techniques from other, more theoretical and mathematical fields, yet in a way that doesn't make logical sense. Specifically, they are conflating terms, utilizing them as good sounding buzzwords, and (through an incorrect interpretation) as a criterion for the design and value of their techniques.
My work heavily uses the same concepts, yet my arguments are completely contradictory to those of my peers. So I am trying to figure out the best course of action.
I could start by submitting a paper correcting their mistakes, but it would feel a little cruel, and would likely turn my peers against me. I could publish my works, and try to point out their flaws politely, but the flaws are so prevalent that it would still likely cause a lot of discomfort to them. I could send an email to them explaining the problems with their work, but I'm not sure how that would go. It's quite a problem, because it really invalidates the reasoning and conclusions of dozens of papers and even a text book. The professor is distinguished and well known in his field. I really don't want to be the one to stir things up, but the issue must be addressed in some way or another in order for me to publish my work.

Based on your previous questions, you were an undergrad student in 2013. Are you currently a PhD student, or you are a TT professor? If you are still a student or a postdoc, have you asked your advisor or PI this question?

I am a PhD student. I have notified my professor of the conflict, but have not discussed with him in depth, and he has not really given an opinion. I was hoping to hear some others thoughts, and then I will discuss with him further.

IMHO, you need to ask your advisor to confirm  their flaw.

What do you mean by "crucial flaw"? Is it a mathematical mistake, or is it a matter of taste? Or is it an obvious misuse of datasets?

This may seem like a cliched answer, but I believe good communication would be key. First off, you need to make absolute sure about whether or not their work represents flaws (preferably with your supervisor).  The next step I believe you should take is to contact the Professor whose team you believe has made such critical mistakes.  Discuss the issue with them and get their perspective.  If, after all of these efforts, you are still absolutely sure that there is a mistake in their work, politely inform them that you disagree with their approach/methods/technique/etc. and that you will be publishing a paper representing a different point of view and approach that presents your argument on the matter.  Mind you, don't ask their permission, it's merely a courtesy so as to show that you don't mean anything personal by it.  After that, publish away.
Finally, I should mention that I feel that there isn't really any issue at all.  If someone got mad at me for publishing a paper that disagreed with their research...that's not exactly a person I would care if they were mad at me or not.  It not only seems excessively petty, but it's also the nature of scientific research.  Great ideas and solid theories get overturned and refuted on a regular basis.  If your counterpoint to their research is solid enough to be published in a good journal, then it's good enough for them to read and consider without getting unnecessarily angry.

I agree with what you say the colleagues who allegedly published flawed research should do, but I'm less optimistic as to what they will do and as to what the possible repercussions on OP could be. Still, +1.

On the matter of communication. In your (OP's) publication, you could frame your contribution as building on and improving rather than correcting (as you write) your colleague's approach. You could also emphasize the advantages of your approach, measured by some yardstick, rather than dwelling on the flaws of theirs. The general attitude here would be collegial rather than adversarial, pointing out the common ground and objectives.

I recently read a paper that I think does something quite similar to what you're thinking about. You can access it here: https://physics.nyu.edu/sokal/complex_dynamics_final_clean.pdf but here is a citation for posterity:
Brown, N.J., Sokal, A.D., & Friedman, H.L., (2013). The complex dynamics of wishful thinking: The critical positivity ratio. American Psychologist, 68, 801-813.
This is a case in which a psychological theory was built upon some concepts taken from other fields and the authors here argue they were both wrong to do so and at any rate seem to have made key errors in their applications of those concepts. To be clear, this example is pretty much scorched Earth; the critics are not pulling any punches or trying to make anyone feel better. Of course, you have to remember that anything you say will be read against the literature that came before it, so you need to make a strong case.
What I think is done well here is:

Make clear what exactly is wrong and what the implications are for the research area.
Be absolutely certain about the correctness of the criticism and painstakingly explain it so non-experts have a chance to evaluate your new claim. Chances are, the error(s) has gone uncorrected due in part to others not knowing enough to notice it.
Discussing a potentially correct use of the concept (this could be where your research comes in).

I should also note that the lead author of that paper was a graduate student in psychology who somehow connected with the second author, an eminent scholar in mathematics and physics. It's also clear from the author note that the author(s) reached out to several other highly-qualified researchers to solicit feedback. One lesson here is it is helpful to get powerful allies, who are often going to be people who don't have a dog in the fight (but could be people who always disbelieved the research you're criticizing). Another is that it pays to be really, really sure you're correct.
In this case, the lead researcher behind the criticized theory responded and gave substantial ground to the critics (link to gated article), saying she was not qualified to dispute the critics' claims and felt the gist of the theory was correct but clearly the mathematical side was not. I wouldn't be so optimistic about the original researcher conceding a whole lot in your case, but it's a good example of how an argument can be presented so convincingly that everyone involved finds a measure of agreement.

"and painstakingly explain it so non-experts have a chance to evaluate your new claim. Chances are, the error(s) has gone uncorrected due in part to others not knowing enough to notice it."  +1

Can't you just explain why they are wrong in your own published work?  Maybe just discuss it with them beforehand and explain your arguments so they don't see it as a personal attack when they see you criticising them and attacking their arguments.
There are some well-known articles in physics which are entirely based around ''X has argued this, his arguments are completely wrong, here is why'', but it's done in a polite and rational way.


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How do I improve my rewriting and editing skills?
When writing academic papers, I am really bad at improving what I have already written. I have heard that most of the time writing should be allotted to revisions. I know a few academics who are really good at keeping on revising until they are happy, but I simply can't do it. Knowing that a sentence/paragraph/section can be improved but not being able to do so is very frustrating.
My partial self-diagnosis:

I refuse to make big changes, probably since it is a lot of work. (This sounds like I'm just procrastinating.)
If write with collaborators (almost always), I do not want to change what they wrote or revised, unless it is obviously wrong. (This sounds like I lack confidence in my writing skills. Or I just don't want to upset my coauthors?)
Before rewriting, I can't even re-read properly. I don't want to re-read the paper carefully and create a current copy of it in my head. I tend to skip parts. Even after I have re-read the manuscript, it is not always clear what the current state of the paper is.

I am sure I have many weaknesses that I am failing to verbalize in this question, but I'd like to hear what others did to train their rewriting skills. Also, I want to hear how you rewrite.
FYI, I am not a native speaker of English but I have seriously written only in English. My field is science and engineering.

+1 me too, and I  am a native speaker. What has worked for me: Having someone to brutally revise early draft can help. On my own: reverse engineering an outline, physically cutting up a paper draft into pieces, and aligning pieces with the outline to reorganize while keeping many chunks of text intact, then rewriting to smooth transitions between the chunks.

I recently posted a lengthy answer for a similar question a few days ago, the essence of which was to separate what you're going to say from how you're going to say it.
If you've done this for a paper, you can edit it focussing on writing style alone. This is a good way of avoiding the "big changes" you mentioned in your question: You will have made all these before actually formulating the text.  As a consequence, you should also know precisely what it is you are trying to say in each paragraph.
Iteratively refining a text can get you stuck in dead ends, e.g. if you choose a certain formulation and then can't make it sound right. One thing I often do when I get suck with a paragraph or chunk of text that I don't know how to fix, is to just delete it and rewrite it.
If you get stuck on the specific formulations themselves, i.e. you don't know how to re-write a certain paragraph, you could try explaining it (remember that you know what you want to say, but not how to say it) out loud to an imaginary listener.
Reading a paragraph out loud is a good way of forcing yourself to re-read it. It's also a great way of checking if something sounds silly or is not really comprehensible.
Update
If you're having trouble reading to yourself, you may want to try pairing-up with a colleague or co-author, and reading parts of the paper to each other. Granted, this may feel a bit awkward, but just look at it as editing the paper together. Working in pairs is known to improve motivation and productivity, and will basically force you to concentrate on the task at hand.
If you have problems concentrating in general, I can give you a few tips from my own experience:

Break down your editing into short bursts of at most an hour, and focus only on a part of the paper, e.g. the abstract, a figure, or any specific section.
The first few hours in the morning are the most productive for me. Try to find out where your own "best time" is.
Coffee. In certain cases, the caffeine can help you focus.

+1 for "delete and rewrite" and +1 for "read it out loud".

This is essentially what I am doing now. I spend a lot of time trying to iteratively improve, get frustrated, and then just delete and rewrite. Also, reading out loud most of the time, but somehow I can't focus on my own reading. If someone else reads it to me, I would find flaws in the flow much more easily.

@Memming: Do you have problems concentrating in general? If so, most of the advice here will be moot, as the problem would not be specific to writing. In any case, I've added a few more suggestions above.

Good advices. Yes, working with a peer does improve my productivity. (Coffee also does help me focus, but I can't drink it for health reasons.) Thanks for the edits.

One thing I found very helpful is to have the computer read the paper back to me. I am using a Mac and the text-to-speech functionality produces pretty good results (I prefer the "Alex" voice myself), except for mathematical formulae. This is probably not as good as reading to a colleague, but is much more convenient.

I think the more efficient way would be to start reading and focusing on how to write in the first place and then focus on editing your work. This approach is going to save you a lot of time.
Perhaps the fastest way is to get some professional help which often is free in academic institutions in the form of academic writing courses. If you get the opportunity through these classes to show your writing to a linguist you can gain a lot.
If that's not an option then some classics on writing are:

White, E. B., & Strunk, W. (1972). The elements of style. MacMillan.
Zinsser, W. (2006). On writing well: The classic guide to writing    nonfiction. Harper Perennial.

Perhaps then you should start focusing on editing and I recommend these for the start:

Cook, C. K. (1986). Line by line: How to edit your own writing. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Ross-Larson, B. (1995). Edit yourself: A manual for everyone who works with words. WW Norton & Company

BUT personally the most important guide for me was the edits/comments that I got back from my supervisors, mentors and senior collaborators during the years. I checked their edits over and over again to systematically diagnose what was wrong with my writing and I think those edits/comments were the most helpful resource. I went as far as creating a corpora of literature relevant to my fields of research to know how exactly people write in my domains of interest  in engineering and social science but well that's going a bit too far in the beginning.
Also one thing that I have noticed which makes a major impact on my editing is switching the edits on screen and on paper. I usually first do a round on screen. Then print and do it offline and then switch again! I don't know about others but in my case I tend to focus on completely different issues on when checking the scree or printed material and if I only do one I will miss a lot more.

2014 EDIT: One additional method for editing your work is listening to it. Text-to-speech software are really helpful here and you will pick up issues that you might normally neglect. There is something magical about listening to your writing which is totally different from reading it. I definitely recommend trying this as well. Obviously higher quality text-to-speech software that have more and better natural voices will enhance the experience...

+1 for Zinsser. His is still the book I reach for when I'm stuck on a writing project.

My simple strategy is as follows:

Draft your paper. Make it as complete as you can.
Give yourself atleast a12 hour period in which you dont look at the paper, no matter how tempting it is.
Use a read-back program that can read the paper back to you loudly. Mac has a free built-in program.
Listen and note which sections need reworking.
If you don't like what you hear, its likely to be poorly written.
Revise as if you are writing the paper for someone with little knowledge of your field.

The best advice I have got while writing my PhD dissertation was to focus on the arguments in the drafting stage and on the details in the revision stage.

12h is not enough. 7days are more like it.. (;

I think you're question is a VERY good one and one that impacts a lot of people. Because of that I upvoted it. However, the answer, which I think you at least have an idea of, is "suck it up and get to work."
Writing well takes a lot of time. Writing well includes planning, writing, reviewing, revising, reviewing, revising (ad nauseam - and I do mean nausea). If you look at great writing, you'll see it's often written by great writers. You should not think that they get it right their first time. When I (I consider myself an OK writer, not a great one) write for publication I usually write the piece and then end up editing it 10 times. In the end I spend much, much more time in the editing processing than in the initial writing process.
Writing takes time. Writing well takes more time. If you want to write well, you need to be willing to push through the discomfort and keep working on it. That said, don't try to do it all at once. Edit several times spread across several days (or weeks, if you have the time) - a fresh mind helps.

I would recommend using some versioning control system (like SVN or git) for your paper. These tools gives you the freedom to change what ever you want with you paper, and have all the history recorded. You could practice any kind of change, and still keep the ability to revert to older versions. Even better, you could merge good elements from old version into newer versions. By reviewing your history and seeing what you changed, you can learn what types of mistakes you tend to make, and you can work to avoid them in the future.
Note that some popular note-taking tools, such as Evernote or Simplenote, also keep track of previous versions of your notes, although it's more primitive than Git or SVN.
DropBox provide a (terribly) simplified notion of versioning control. The advantage, however, is that it works "out-of-the-box" - no learning curve, or fancy tools.

Good advice about version. Have seen it used in so many places.

I have been using svn (and trying to move to git). But, I haven't been studying the changes carefully. BTW, do you have a favorite merge tool? I use vimdiff, but it's not too convenient for comparing/merging multiple versions at once.

I use magit, but didn't do enough merges to be able to recommend it. However, in general, it is wonderful and makes the usage of git so much nicer!

One great way I have found to improve my writing, is to reread it side by side with someone not directly in the project (significant other, friend, ...).
So this person would read it while you are here and will directly ask you questions on what you meant or tell you this and that is not clear. Also you can propose better phrasing together, wondering if such formulation is clearer.
Supervisor comments are often great, but they most probably won't have time for such detailed discussion over your text. Having a "live" discussion is really so much more insightful on how your text is received. If you do it with someone you have a good relationship with, it can even be fun and motivating!
Of course, it is a great burden to put on someone else, it can take hours, so you need to be ready to return the favour or find another way to make up for it.

Focus first of all on the content: your message -- the points you want to get across. Do not focus on the language -- the way you communicate the message.
This is the most important guideline, IMO. Clear ideas will lead you to clear organization and clear language.  Unclear ideas will not lead you anywhere useful.  Do not start by worrying about the language.

Especially if English is not your first language, write short, simple sentences.  Very short.  Very simple.  Later, if appropriate, you can always combine them.

The secret to writing is...reading.  To start with, reread and rewrite your notes about the message, before trying to write the text that conveys the message (see #1).
After you've written your message, read, reread, and rereread what you've written.  Each time you read it, you will naturally improve (rewrite) it.  When you read it, try to erase any knowledge of it beforehand - read it like your intended audience would read it.

Repeat #3.  Repeat it again.  Reread to write better.  (It will also help you read better.)

All of the above apply to editing, as well as to writing.  If you are editing the work of someone else, then you are interested, first, in understanding that writer's message.  If the message is not clear then forget about improving the wording and provide the feedback that you do not understand what the message is (and perhaps help by pointing to language that confuses you).
If the message is clear to you, then move on to how it is conveyed.  If you read carefully it will be clear to you what is not as clear as it should be, what might be missing, and what might be extra (unnecessary).  You will naturally discover problems of order of presentation.  Just read and reread, carefully, and you will be fine.

I also used to resist making big changes. At some point, I realized that this resistance was coming from a fear of having to delete sentences that my brain has already created and now feels emotionally attached to them as my precious pieces of writing. (Even if objectively they aren't such good sentences anyway!) Subconsciously, I would think: if I delete them now, who knows if I ever come up with the same idea on how to put something in words?
The strategy that helped me is really a psychological strategy to address that fear:
Don't delete anything permanently. Cut a sentence that does not fit in your current text and paste it into your "sentences bank". I have a Notion page for this purpose called "My writing snippets", which collects all those phrases, sentences and even whole paragraphs that didn't make it into any manuscript yet. But it can even be a .txt file on your desktop. This way you don't dread permanently deleting your prose. And, with your next writing project, or when you're stuck in your writing, you can look over your sentences bank to see if there is anything that you can utilize. I've observed that even if I never use a sentence again, saving it calms my brain that it's still out there, just in case I need it.
This helped me move on with applying the most impactful changes, e.g. ones that improve the flow of the story, and require moving or removing many sentences or whole paragraphs.
In addition, I do recommend removing stuff from the sentences bank once it has been applied in a manuscript to avoid self-plagiarism.

When you need to rework bits of, or the whole, manuscript it might be a good idea to alienate yourself from the manuscript. One thing I noticed is that it's difficult to look at a piece of text I have worked on for weeks, with fresh eyes. Hard to be creative in formulating things when you are stuck in a particular thought pattern.
It does wonders to put that aside and go deal with something else entirely. If you can forget the existence of the manuscript, even better. When you take a look at it again some days after, you might be able to see awkward formulations, hanging sentences or unclear paragraphs. During an academic writing class I took a couple of years ago they had this fantastic quote, "the author is dead!"
While the full context of the quote is somewhat deeper and besides the point here, it should suffice to say that seen from the eyes of the reader, the author is long dead and gone... You, as the author, need to be aware of that and at least try to objectify yourself from the text in order to be able to see it as a reader might, and see the potential weaknesses.

On a different note, another thing that might be a good exercise in revising or reformulating scientific text, is to attempt to rewrite some existing text. For instance take a published article (could be yours or someone else's) and rewrite/summarise/revise it. Then submit both texts to a plagiarising-checking tool (there are some free ones online), to see if you can minimise the similarities in between the texts while keeping the message as intact as possible.

I have a lot of problems with my writing (although I am a native English speaker), and was made to do a writing course by my PhD panel.
I did this course, Writing in the Sciences, on coursera, and I can thoroughly recommend it. It took a few hours of my time over around 8 weeks, but you could easily pick and choose which bits you wanted to do if you wish. There are assignments to complete, which can lead to a certificate if that is something that interests you, but you don't have to do them. I actually did all the assignments as it helped me practice writing and editing my own work. I also got to practice editing other participant's work. Although the instructor is from the medical sciences field (as are most of her examples), everything she teaches is applicable to other sciences. I am from the atmospheric sciences field myself.
I learnt some really good tips on how to go about the writing process itself (i.e. how much time to spend on each step in the process), but the majority of the course is about how to edit writing (either your own or someone else's) to make it more exciting and interesting to read. Many of the tips given already are included in the course.

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How is the Journal for an Annual Review Chosen
The review in question that got me thinking about this is the The Review of Particle Physics by the Particle Data Group. It's a biannual review of all particle physics results and is meant to be the central reference for experimental particle physics results. It is highly regarded as the "bible" of particle physicists.
I'm mentioning this, because I think this working group is an institution in and of itself that could hardly depend on the prestige of a journal to make its claims credible. Obviosly it still has to go through a thorough peer review process, but still I think it kind of does have a standing of its own.
Since this review is quoted by virtually every paper that depends on experimental particle physics data, publishing it in a specific journal seems to me as to give this specific journal a citation/creditiblity boost (as opposed to it being the other way round as usual). Is this impression correct?
I recently noticed that they swiched from publishing in Chinese Physics C in 2014 and 2016 to Physical Review D in 2018 (which is a very prestigous journal in particle physics, I don't know the reputation of Chinese Physics). Looking through the history of the review,

I noticed that it has historically mostly been published in Physical Review or Review of Modern Physics with a couple of other journals intersparsed. How is the journal for publishing a review like this chosen? It seems to me that with a longstanding review like this, they gave some credibility to a journal like Chinese Physics which I had never heard of before.

Chinese Physics C has also been the publisher of the last few atomic mass evaluations. I would suppose that the international community behind the Particle Data Group has decided to move the review around amongst journals around the world to better reflect the fact that it is now an international community. But, not being a part of that community, I can only suppose...

Short version: it's a money issue, at least in the case of Review of Particle Physics.
Disclaimer: I'm not part of the particle physics community, so I might get some details wrong in the following, but I think the broad strokes will nevertheless be correct.
First of all, I think the scale of what the Particle Data Group is doing shouldn't be underestimated. They are a group of more than 200 contributors, who publish a humongous, ever growing biennial authoritative and extremely well-regarded review article. With over 2,000 citations per year, I think it's fair of you to say that the article would boost most journals, rather than the other way around. Obviously just the data collection, editing, and fact checking requires a fair amount of funding.
Now, the crux of the matter is that they (PDG) also distribute the article in the form of a book, and a shorter (200-300 pages) booklet for free. We're not talking small numbers either - more than 30,000 copies of the booklet, and over 10,000 copies of the book (see e.g. this APS announcement).
As I understand it, there is a process where different publishers bid on the right to publish the review by offering to shoulder (at least) part of the cost of printing the books. (CERN covers at least some of the cost for the booklet.) This is the main reason why the article has moved around between different high-energy journals. Then in 2014, apparently only Chinese Physics put in a bid (archive.org backup link), and consequently went on to publish the article.

I actually have two of these bookles, which I hold very dear :) The explanation makes a lot of sense, thanks!

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Transfer from a U.S. PhD program to a UK university (Good standing student and only two courses (6 credits) left to complete)
I am currently a Ph.D. student at a U.S. university (oe of the top 10 public universities) I am taking my final modules to complete my program, (after this semester, only two courses left) after which based on the U.S. PhD system I would have taken my complementary exams and submitted my dissertation proposal in Fall 2016. Then, I would have to carry out my dissertation project for about 6 months (part of my data collection has already started in U.S, my study is a comparative analysis of U.S and UK) and finally I would have had my dissertation oral defense in Spring 2017.
However, my husband and I will be moving back to the UK soon due to recent circumstances beyond our control, (as we are both EU Citizens, we are here in the United States on a VISA which in my husband’s case is due to expire soon along with his Post-Doctoral contract). We had hoped for my husband to find another temporary position here in U.S. so that I could complete my PhD program, however, being Europeans here in the States implies the need for any company or university to sponsor or cover our permanence in the U.S. thus making it harder to find a position.
Currently, I need know if UK universities accept PhD graduate credit transfers and the possibility of any UK professor/advisor willing to support me towards the PhD program completion in a UK university. Alternatively, I would like to know if there is the possibility of a UK advisor cooperating with my U.S. university committee and willing to offer a basic supervision during dissertation/data collection period in UK schools, in order for me to come back here for complementary exams in Fall ’16 and final dissertation in Spring 2017.
Also, as mentioned above, I am enrolled at a U.S. university, but I am an EU citizen. Before moving to U.S. we have lived in the UK for 8 years (I graduated with a British PGCE and my husband with a PhD).
In particular, I would like to know if this kind of transfers are possible, and if so:
• Which universities would you suggest that can accept the transfer of my PhD graduate modules?
• How can I find out what level are my U.S credits and qualifications in relation to the UK PhD system?
• Finally: I would like to know how can this level of qualification help my progress to a full PhD degree completion in UK?
• Or, alternatively, which universities in UK could be willing to offer a basic supervision throughout my dissertation and thus allow me to complete my Complementary exams and dissertation defense here in the United States.
Most of all, after many efforts, two years of my life working hard, completing advanced courses, it would be devastating for me if I cannot complete my PhD due to the fact that we need to move.
As time is of the essence for us, I would be extremely grateful if anyone can provide me with any information or suggestion.
REPLY to Contributors'suggestions:
Dear All,
I need to add my reply here due to its length.
I would like to thank you very much for taking the time to respond to my queries. I truly appreciate it and all your comments are extremely valuable to me. @Alexandros and @ Gnometorule: As explained above my comparative study has already begun three months ago through data collection and analyses here in U.S, thus, based on my study timeline and progress (and under initial advisor supervision) I will need other 6 to 8 months to collect data/analyze and writing period in UK. As suggested from my professors at my department the dissertation proposal submission can easily take place immediately after oral comps and, if needed, be amended according to complementary exams results.
The reason why I need to move back with my husband is because I am pregnant with my first child and the amount of financial and health insurance support that I will require here in the U.S. it’s going to be significant. Having been not pregnant I could have certainly considered remaining here in U.S on my own to complete my degree. However, that would be very hard financially since my department struggles to provide funding and stipend for all of us PhD students (particularly internationals) during the academic year, and during the summer RAs or TAs positions are literally nonexistent (which means no health insurance provided) thus my husband has always supported both of us with living expenses and paid my health insurance in summer.
Regarding my current U.S. institution, unfortunately, they have not been supportive. I have spent three months waiting for a solution in the hope they could find an advisor willing to follow my dissertation progress from abroad on a two to three weeks’ basis, which as suggested by many it is a pretty fair and common choice according to many professors from other different departments, also considering that this is a qualitative ethnographic study in social sciences that does not require any lab facility or strict supervision. However, after three months the department final decision is that they are unable to provide me with a supervisor as my current one is very young (new hired this year) they explained me “it is not fair to assign him the supervision of a student from abroad” also they cannot confirm the budget availability for the fall semester (even while doing complementary exams in Fall I have to be enrolled and tuition for an international student like me is extremely high).
Every year we need to wait until the end of summer and only then we will know if we are funded for the following semester, this is also something that we struggled to understand as we are told from the general Graduate School and from other departments that when a department offers you a spot in a PhD program and is aware of your lack of personal funds but still offers you the PhD, it means that they are taking the responsibility of covering that program for the time required to complete it.
I know students' life events can be challenging for the student and for all the people involved. However, such events or any potential challenging circumstance should not compromise a student’s ability to complete an academic program and the right to succeed. In 2016, we should never find ourselves constraint to choose between family and career… :(
Finally, I have now contacted the British Council which suggests to get in touch with single UK universities and professors, thus for the time being I can only hope that some reasonable professor in UK will accept to at least look at my transcripts, at all the work I have done in two years (48 credits) and at my first part of data collected and dissertation plan.
Again, I would like to thank you all for your contributions and willingness to help.

Does your supervisor have collaborators in the UK? Have you asked them about your situation?

"Then, I would have to carry out my dissertation project for about 6 months". What kind of PhD is this that 6 months of research + coursework equals PhD.

If your PhD is nearly finished (this isn't very clear), then I suspect that the simpler approach would be finding a UK academic who was willing to join a supervisory team to help you finish your existing PhD, awarded by your US university, while living in the UK. Many (most?) UK universities would, in this scenario, have an arrangement whereby you could pay a small fee to have access to library, lab and IT facilities. The key is probably finding a suitable UK supervisor, but hopefully your US supervisors can help with that.

Just want to point out, you will likely run into funding problems in the UK because you have been a resident in another country for a long time, in spite of your citizenship.
But the UK and US systems are very different. If you've only just passed your quals, have you begun research yet? Since UK PHD goes directly into research, it might be easier to start over, or stay in the US on a student visa.

i dont quite understand your description of a 'typical U.S. Ph.D.,' in particular the casual "it's only gonna take 6 months to begin and finish my actual thesis." You seem to be almost done with coursework (and haven't submitted a thesis proposal yet), and are considering to leave before it ends, and want to transfer these credits to a UK school, ideally one that has formalized this transfer process - is that correct? If yes, here are some thoughts...

If your program is not massively different from any U.S. one I'm familiar with, you are vastly overestimating how deep you are into it. This is relevant as one possible step forward would be to simply start from scratch in the UK. You benefited from those classes (I hope); now you can enter a program light on or with no coursework in the UK.
I'm going to be bald and say that there is not one school in Europe (or the U.S.) that has formalized accepting another school's partial coursework, to integrate it into degree progress at the new school. If you get accepted into a program with coursework, you can probably negotiate skipping some; but I don't think more is realistic.
If you do not want to start anew, then, in practice, the only way to work this is to find someone abroad who is willing to advise you at their school, while you stay formally at your old one. They'd then likely be part of your committee, probably as a co-adviser. This again is only likely to work if that person is either a personal friend, or a close collaborator/friend of your adviser...which might be a problem again: as I parse your question, I don't think you have one? If you can make this idea work (it can work - I had a foreign co-adviser: he was a close friend, and we enjoyed writing a paper at his school while I was at graduate school), then I would warmly suggest to only consider the move after finishing your coursework. There wouldn't be a transfer as you stay subject to the degree requirements of your current school; finding what exactly is missing at a new school sounds messy, and certainly makes this even more complicated (==unlikely to find support for). Your visa situation seems to be fine, and it sounds as if it would only imply a few months of separation from your husband. In a worst case scenario (simply dropping out), you could probably have your faculty confer you an M.Sc. for it, maybe for a little extra work.
Just putting it out here: as your visa situation is fine, I'd at least consider to temporarily live in different places. I've seen plenty of this in grad school, also for married couples. It isn't easy, but if your time-to-graduation estimate is correct (which I very much doubt), it would be only a bit more than a year. That said, it's your life, and none of my business. :)

'There is not one school in Europe (or the U.S.) that has formalized accepting another school's partial coursework,' is just wrong. In the 1990s I spent five years working analytically on refining this (already well established) practice at the UK's largest university, and said practice is now widely accepted here (although not generally on the scale of the operation I was working on). To some extent our model was derived from the fairly portable US credit system, at undergraduate level (but was essentially Scottish). It gets massively weirder at postgrad level, but is far from unknown.

@CaptainCranium: Very interesting! I'm surprised, but that's laudable, and kudos for having been involved.

I have two main points:  I have a nasty feeling that the transfer that you are thinking about might not be as smooth and simple as you hope; and I do not see why you need to transfer at all.  As a seasoned university administrator as well as an academic, my initial instinct is that you would be best-off finishing the programme that you are on, wherever you end up living.
Actually three points, really.  The third is that you seem not to be approaching the UK system as it really is.  It would be best to address and explore it for what it really can do, not to try to get it to solve the problem as you currently see it.  (And even then, you might find it advising you not to transfer formally at all, no matter where you are moving to.)
Right...
Yours seems to be a fairly unusual Ph.D, by UK standards.  There are doctoral-level awards that can involve passing some classes (the EdD sometimes, for example, can require attendance for research methods), but generally the Ph.D is typically awarded following submission of a thesis detailing your original research over a period of time.
For that reason, if for no other, transferring in the manner you suggest seems a bit unlikely.  There will certainly not be many (perhaps no) UK university programme structures shaped to accept seamlessly the kind of work you are talking about.  If you really must transfer to a British institution, then your best bet might be to apply for funding on the basis of proven ability at that level (although that might also involve complications in terms of residency).
In any case, my instinct is that you seem to be approaching the problem backwards.  If you really must transfer to a British university, the main task would surely be to identify a few compatible departments, with suitable supervisors who might help you towards completion, and then see what possible leeway might be available in each case, in terms of timing and content.  That might well vary from one university to another, perhaps depending on how each one sees you contributing to its culture and mission.
I believe that the broad rules for my Ph.D (University of Reading) were and are pretty standard for the UK:  for full-time students the work must be accomplished, and the thesis submitted, in no less than three years and no more than four.  (Part-time, depending on circumstances, that four-year limit can stretch quite a bit.)
Then again, one can be approved for a Ph.D ‘by publication’, meaning that you essentially write an Introduction and a Conclusion, sandwiching influential material that you have already published.  That takes approximately no time at all.
Amongst those structures, you might find that you can negotiate something on grounds of existing work.  If you are still pursuing your work, though, a UK university is likely to want to see evidence of it in progress, followed by a solidly substantial and firmly-structured thesis (90,000 words or so, in the humanities, which your ‘comparative analysis’ sounds like).  Frankly, you might not be as close to the end of this process as you think you are.
However...  Why can you not complete your studies with your current university?  Many Ph.D students (this was my situation) live a long way from their host departments.  I lived near enough to get to mine occasionally for meetings, which was simply comfortable and nice, and also yielded my teaching training... but for the most part I might as well have been living on Mars.  If some force had shipped me overseas, I could still have completed, so long as I kept producing material at a reasonable pace.  Some hardy souls undertake Ph.Ds while nowhere-at-all on military submarines.  Can you not simply finish the programme that you are already on?

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


text:
Abstract, Preamble, Acknowledgements and Introduction all in Thesis, how to order them?
This might be a bit of a complex situation (to explain), so bear with me:
For my Bachelor degree, I am currently carrying out a nature management project. A nature management project normally consists of a management plan but can include other results as well.
As you might have guessed, this is the case for my project. Next to the management plan, I also write a guide and I develop a database. I do this to enable the organization I do this project for to become more autonomous in setting up management plans adapted to their situation and provide a step by step guide to replicate it.
However, my thesis should include all these results. I already decided to put the guide in the Annex. However, the introduction to the thesis is now different than the introduction for the management plan part. That's why I decided to call the introduction to the thesis the preamble, which explains the situation in detail.
-Is this a good idea? Any suggestions?
The abstract is required to be above everything else, so that stays just where it is. And the explanation I put in my Preamble is too long to put in the abstract, because it can be regarded as a introduction to the thesis instead of just the management plan.
I must also include acknowledgements. And I just don't know where to place them.
-Between the Abstract and the Preamble?
-Between the Preamble and the Inroduction?
-Or should I just do the acknowledgements after the references?

Hi and welcome to Academia.SE! Does your university have a style guide on thesis writing? Have you first discussed these issues with your advisor, who is the only one who knows the details of your project?

If you "decided to call the introduction to the thesis the preamble", then you don't have a preamble and an introduction, do you?

Well, the problem is I am in a foreign country and my advisor does not respond to my emails, or only gives short answers.
The other problem is that my university's thesis guide is very general and does not even remotely answers my questions regarding order and  lay out. They want us to figure it out ourselves.
Germany and The Netherlands often give a lot of freedom.


text:
Consequence of declining an accepted offer after the universal deadline 15th April
This is my cousin's problem.  In the first week of March he was offered a PhD offer (Upper Middle ranked School in USA) in Physics and he  received his I-20 to get the visa.The admit was fully funded. He accepted the offer because he didn't have any offer at that time.  But few days ago, a top ranked school admin said to him that, he might be admitted as a lot of students haven't accepted their offer (it is not guaranteed though plus admission is completed ).
He was always expecting to get admitted in that school. The deadline of the offer letter from first school  is 15th April (He accepted the offer already).
Will it be possible to decline the first offer later/admission  if he gets the offer after around two weeks from the top ranked school? I want to know the consequences of this situation.
EDIT:
I have received another suggestion from academia. He suggested to defer the admission (if he gets from the second university) from the Top ranked school. After a semester completed in the first admitted University, If my cousin feels that he should change the department, he will be able to do it. How reasonable is this?

So he's thinking about declining a fully-funded offer from an OK school in order to potentially be offered a maybe-not funded offer from a top school? After a deadline the school he has already agreed to go to has for accepting an offer? Does this seem like an honest, acceptable thing to do? Academia is not that big a field, if he were to do this it would be remembered, and it wouldn't be a good start at the top school either.

If the top school gives him the offer it will be fully funded. He asked me my recommendation and I told him that it would be very unethical to do. His reply was that, a good choice for a long term would be great for his research carrier. Will the previous school accept his apology?

I'm not sure, that would be dependent on how upset they are when one of their fully-funded students suddenly leaves. I think they'd accept his request and "accept" his apology, because nobody wants a student who doesn't want to actually be there, but I imagine bridges will be burned no matter what.

Did your cousin already get his student F-1 visa using the I-20 he got from the first school?

I think he can do that (is it ethical? good move? etc., I can not comment on that). The old will have to revoke his I-20. The new school has to issue him a new one (I do not think you can transfer I-20s between schools).

Assuming both schools are members of the Council of Graduate Schools, they have an agreement about cases like this. If you don't change your mind and reject the offer from the first school by April 15, you have to get a letter from the first school releasing you from your obligation to attend before accepting the second school. Otherwise, the second school will be unable to take you.
In the one case I know about, there wasn't any problem in obtaining this letter. However, I can't promise that all graduate schools will be as reasonable.
If your cousin gets an offer from the second school before April 15, he should contact the admissions officers at the first school by April 15 (today!) and tell them he is rescinding his acceptance and why.
If he gets an offer after April 15, he needs to make sure the first school is okay with him not coming and get a letter from them before he accepts the second school.

I have received another suggestion from academia. He suggested to defer the admission (if he gets from the second university) from the Top ranked school. After a semester completed  in the first admitted University, If my cousin  feels  that he should change the department, he will be able to do it.  How reasonable is this?

That's a reasonable alternative.

But will the first university let  my cousin go to the second university?

They very likely will, but he has to ask the first university to release him formally. If he doesn't, and the second university finds out about it in September, there could be real trouble because they would be legally unable to pay him his stipend.

Is it ethical? Possibly not.  But does it matter? Probably not.  If the 'top school' is actually a  'top school', don't shed a tear - they have more than enough money and a long enough waiting list that losing your cousin won't bring them financial hardship. The scholarship will go to someone else in that case. No one will care in 6 weeks, except your cousin, who will be happy having made the choice best for him.  I've never seen an academic department that couldn't find surfs....sorry, employees.

Very, very, very bad advice, assuming he actually wants an education. See this webpage.


text:
Arxiv rejection of preprints
Following ArXiv rules I contacted with an well-known expert in thermodynamics (he is author of a known monograph) we discussed my work during several days and finally he endorsed me. When my work was ready to appear a moderator removed it, alluding to technical problems with my submission (a embedded font problem), although more latter moderators asked me personal and even economic questions! I never answer such questions and forgot the whole issue
The paper is accessible in my page at academia.edu
I have participated in an Essay Contest with another work, and it has been selected as one of the finalists. It is cited here together other three finalist essays.
I submitted this new work to ArXiV, it has been removed and I received the next response:

Your submission has been removed upon a notice from our moderators, who
  determined it to be inappropriate for arXiv. Please find another forum.
For more information on our moderation policies see:
http: //arxiv. org/help/moderation
--
  arXiv moderation

ArXiv already archives several essays submitted to the same Essay contest, such as 1209.0023, 1209.1257, 1211.1917, 1210.3575
Therefore it is not a problem with the Contest or with the format. Notice that only one of above four has been selected as finalist.
According to the moderation policy I cannot ask to moderators about the details on their decision. The excuse is that "moderators are not referees", but this looks a bit childish, because it seems that they are accepting that moderators cannot sustain logically the decisions that they take about others' work.
Would I write to the advisory committee chair? Would I take some other action?
EDIT: Finally the first work rejected by Arxiv mods was published in the International Journal of Thermodynamics. I no longer care about ArXiv.

Is this on scope ? this seems to be an arxiv specific issue.

@CharlesMorisset Actually most arxiv-related questions are about "best practices", which seem reasonable. There is one specific question about the arxiv endorsement policy which is akin to this one, and that was fine. So I guess this might be ok as well. I thought it might be off-scope because it's asking a question that only an arxiv moderator can really answer.

@CharlesMorisset: The only relation is that both were rejected without any clear reason.

@Suresh: The moderation policy explicitly says that moderators will not answer. I am asking here for advice on what actions to take (if any). Yes I read the question about endorsement, but I am already endorsed.

@CharlesMorisset: I did not submit because a bit below says "The moderators are not referees and do not provide detailed feedback on submissions. Administrators thus cannot provide detailed feedback regarding submissions deemed inappropriate, and will not enter into extended discussion regarding submissions."

When you say personal and economic questions, do you mean asking about potential conflicts of interests?

A more direct link to the second paper is http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1356

@DanielEShub: No.

arXiv.org moderators have often been jerks, in my experience. They revoked my endorsement status after I resubmitted a previously rejected article with a few modifications. It seems they'd give a warning first.

Check out: http://www.archivefreedom.org/

Just for the record: there is a difference between "we don't answer" and "we do not give detailed feedback" / "we do not enter extended discussion about the topic". Actually, no reasonable moderation policy would support extended discussions.

Congratulations on trancending the need for arXiv by publishing in one of the journals listed at https://scholarlyoa.com/2013/01/15/open-access-publisher-launches-with-355-new-journals/

@Tobias-kildetoft. My work was published on International Journal of Thermodynamics. Congratulations to you by linking to a blog entry about the Academic and Scientific Publishing, which publishes a fake journal with a different name "International Research Journal of Thermodynamics" http://www.acascipub.com/Journals.php

No, the name of the predatory journal exactly matches the name you give here, as can be seen on the list I linked.

@Tobias-kildetoft. No. The blog article you gave is about "Academic and Scientific Publishing" which publishes a predatory journal (with a slightly different title) as can be seen on the list they maintain. Also pretending that two journals are the same because have the same title reflects your ignorance of those issues. Fraudulent publishers duplicate the titles of legit journals...

@Tobias-kildetoft. This is the legit Journal where I published (http://dergipark.ulakbim.gov.tr/eoguijt//index). This is a fake journal with the same title (http://iosrd.org/journals/index.php/ijth/index) published by one of those fraudulent publishers mentioned in the blog. Now accept your mistake and move on.

Of course, arXiv.org is the best place to go without peer-review. Many papers that appear in arXiv are of the highest quality. Be polite with moderators, never challenge them as they have the right to reject any paper without any explanation. Try to appeal. If this does not help, address this issue to Chair. If again no result, go to vixra.org and publish your paper over there without headache. Vixra.org is the best solution when you unable to publish it in arxiv.org.

Publishing on Vixra is almost surely a mistake, if one wants to ever be taken seriously by professionals, etc.

viXra is a legitimate reaction to arXiv's tendency in taking itself too seriously. arXiv moderators say that they are not reviewers (since they are not specialists in the field) but still act as reviewers when refusing papers as "not being interesting enough", that's hypocrisy.

If arxiv rejects your paper, go to vixra.org. You can also publish it in researchgate.net Don't get upset and try to be fast with your publication. Remember, any submission you've made is a potential leak of your idea!

The idea that someone is going to steal a paper rejected from the arXiv is on the far side of paranoid.

@Corvus Why? If it is rejected for font issues then it seems just as likely as any other unpublished paper to be stolen.

@dorothy, do you know of a single case where a moderator at the arXiv has stolen a rejected paper?

@Corvus No. But then I don't actually know of any cases where a paper was rejected from the arXiv at all so it's not clear what to draw from that. I do know of a case where something actually published on the arXiv was stolen and then published somewhere prestigious (and is still published there) which seems even more surprising.

Read about Grisha Perelman and then you will be able to understand why any submission is a potential leak.

The chances that an idea is worth stealing in the first place are much smaller than the author may often suspect, especially when worrying about such a thing... especially if the arXiv.org moderators reject the paper entirely. Again, as in a comment of mine to another answer to this question, if you do have hope of being taken seriously by professionals, editing and resubmitting to arXiv, ... not vixra or other similar.

@user32476 Perelman was quite well known before his paper, or I do not think that a hard to read/follow paper would have been quite that a success in the community. And the "leak" was not that - the story is a bit more intricate in that, as far as I understand, it was claimed that the paper had gaps which had been filled. The discussion is now what is a gap, and what is simply something that the reader has not understood that the author did? So, Perelman does not quite qualify as a counterexample.


text:
Is it okay to ask a professor if he is going to attend a certain conference
I am planning to attend a prestigious conference in the near future, and I was wondering if a certain professor who I wish to meet and I would love to do my phd degree and research under his supervision will be attending this conference. So is it appropriate to ask him (by email) if he plans to attend or participate in this specific conference? Or are there other ways to know this information?
P.S. My research interests are an exact match to his research interests.

As an alternate source, most conferences publish a list of accepted papers once the decisions are made. If he is a (co)author of one, the chance of him attending goes up considerably.

What is the point of asking him? If he is not going to attend the conference, you are not cancelling your own attendance, right? If he is there, find an appropriate moment and talk with him. If he is not, then contact him by email about PhD opportunities.

Why are people so afraid of professors? He's just this guy, you know?

@greenfingers If it's even a moderately large conference, or the professor is very popular,  they may not meet unless they actually arrange a time and place in advance.

@Mangara : with budgets getting tighter, I've seen an increasing number of presenting authors who only show up for a day out of a week-long conference ... so even if they're presenting, they might be hard to track down.

@JeffE for me it is respect more than fear. However there might be some fear of making a mistake or unintentionally doing/saying something that the professor might not like, therefor losing his interest.

@TheHiary Given that it's likely the best chance you have to gain his interest, there's nothing to lose by trying, right? (many conferences also have a list of attendees on the website - see if there is one)

@Mangara: That may be very field-specific. The CS professors that I know are hardly ever first authors of any papers. Whether or not they attend a particular conference seems to be determined exclusively by whether the conference is one of the main conferences in the department's research area (i.e. important enough for the professor to show up themselves) and whether the professor gives a keynote there. If anything, having a paper there means one of the employees in the department is going anywhere, thus reducing the necessity of the professor going there to represent the department.

You can always ask. The professor is not obligated to answer. Some people dislike telling others their travel plans unless there is a Good Reason to do so, but even if so they're unlikely to get angry if you ask.

My two favourite techniques for stalking potential business contacts (including professors):

Email them asking questions about their work.  Once you've built up a bit of rapport, then you can move on to asking about meeting in person.
Check conference programmes to see if they are giving a talk/seminar/poster, and visit them in person then.

Note that Famous People® tend to have crazy busy e-mail queues and may not respond to you, especially if you are asking particularly naive questions. Don't feel bad if you don't get a response to #1. Usually they are much more responsive at the conferences themselves where there are less competing pressures.

Absolutely! Go for it. Just send an email briefly introducing yourself and your research interests. Say that you're interested in doing a Ph.D. with him. If possible, ask a question or two about his work to show that you've done your homework and aren't just emailing people blindly. (How feasible this is depends on your field; in mine, ecology, it was pretty easy.) Then, mention that you're going to be at the conference and would like to meet in person if he also plans to be there.
I know this is nervewracking, but really, professors don't bite. The worst that can happen is he might say that he doesn't have funding or time for more grad students now. That's disappointing but not the end of the world (and there may be an opening next year). I used this approach, minus the conference part, when emailing prospective graduate advisors and it always went over well.

Of course it is OK if you ask him politely; but, if I were you, I would add a little about what I am going to talk to him when I see him at the conference. I do not think it is a good idea to say that you want to talk about your PhD supervision; write to him that you are a researcher, like his research background and want to discuss mutual research interests and ask your questions.

Describing yourself as a "researcher" and saying that you want to "discuss mutual research interests" without mentioning that you're looking for a PhD advisor sounds deliberately evasive. Trying to start a relationship that's based on trust and integrity by telling white lies doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

I thought if he send an email with an admission request may discourage that professor; as every day, faculty members receive many similar requests and this may cause the the professor not even open his email of read his request.


text:
How do computer science admissions committees process GRE essays sent with the scores?
I am currently studying for my GRE exam and I came across a book which states that GRE essays are sent with the official score reports. How does the admissions committee process these essays?
I am applying for a PhD in computer science.

Where did you see this information? To my knowledge, ETS does not send essays along with GRE test results.

@aeismail the answer by Rori confirms what I have read.

@ff524: is the field important to this question?

@Ooker Right now, the ability to access the essays is a relatively new feature, so I think it's unlikely that admissions committees in any field use it. But in the future, maybe admissions committees in some fields (but not others) will start to use it.

@ff524 as answered and commented below, no one (from humanity to hard science) cares about it because the schools require applicants to submit their own samples. Therefore, I don't think this is question is field-specific

I am surprised, but this does appear to be true.  From the ets website we have the following:

ETS also makes available test-taker photos and essay responses on the Analytical Writing section of the GRE® revised General Test to designated score recipients as part of an institutional portal. Photos and Analytical Writing essay responses of all individuals who report their scores to institutions on or after July 1, 2014, are included in the portal. The photo and essay responses from each GRE revised General Test administration you select from your five-year reportable history will be made available in the portal as part of your score record to the institutions you designated to receive your scores on or after July 1, 2014.

(In some sense, I'm even more surprised they are making photos of test-takers available.)  As for how the admissions committee processes these essays, others on the site can speak more directly to this, particularly in computer science.  However, I'm certain this will vary from department to department (assuming any department looks at them at all).  I suspect the admissions committee of many departments will not even be aware these essays are available through the ETS institutional portal.  Of those that are aware these exist, I would be surprised if much weight were placed on these.  These will convey almost no incremental information to an admissions committee.  (I suppose if you scored a 0 and the rest of your application was outstanding, and the committee knew these were available, someone might look to see what happened.  Maybe.)

I've read somewhere else that the essays are mostly for humanity researchers.

@Rori: The inclusion of photos is for fraud prevention.

@aeismail Right, I assumed as much.  I'm just surprised they are storing photos of every test-taker for 5 years and making that available to score recipients.  I can imagine some test-takers objecting to that.

@Ooker the essays would be thrown immediately in the trash bin in philosophy since you send a writing sample. The "analytic writing section' is ignored except in the case where it raises giant red flags. I can speak for other humanities.

@virmaior you would say recycle bin ;). Anyway, is that writing sample important, or can judging you better than the analytic? One can simply send the safest sample that they have, right?

First off, there's a missing not in my last sentence (I don't presume that level of arrogance -- I just mistyped it).

Second, I'm not in a position where I look at PhD applicants presently but the score given by non-philosophy graders would irrelevant as the writing sample is supposed to be the best possible philosophy paper you can write. Admittedly, that means it's presently an arms race where people send their "safest sample"  but the safest sample is one that shows the individual can make new contributions in philosophy either through a very solid critique or a noble attempt at a positive project.

The sort of things the analytic writing task tests (at least when I took it and scored a 6 in 2006 or 2007 were not nearly up to par.

I'm on my department's graduate committee and read through all of the applications. I had no idea that the essays were available and am quite certain that my colleagues aren't either. The statement posted in one of the other answers also states that the essay is only available via a portal, which is not something you would typically go visit for each and every application.
Extrapolating from our department to all departments (certainly a sketchy process, though maybe not entirely crazy) I would say: don't worry about it -- nobody's going to read the essay.

if nobody is going to read the essay, then do they care about the score?

Yes. The essays were graded, so someone read it. We trust their judgment and just look at the number that the grader gave the GRE essay.


text:
Why do some US universities have "Electrical Engineering" and "Computer Engineering" vs. "Electrical Engineering and Computer Science" departments?
When I started searching for a graduate programs that fits my research interests in the United States, I noticed that some universities have separate "Computer Engineering" and "Electrical Engineering" departments, while other universities have a combined department "Electrical engineering and Computer science".
Why do some universities choose to divide or combine these disciplines?

I got my PhD doing atmospheric science at a Department of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering and Space Technology.  Names are not terribly important.

Hah. And then there's Computing Science vs Computer Science, which I always found a strange tradition.

One aspect may be the very name Engineering itself. That particular phrase is a bit sticky. In my department, Computer Science is associated with Mathematics, not Engineering, thus none of our students qualify to apply for the SMART scholarship, for example.

It's usually politics or prestige.
Back in the days when the computer science discipline was heating up (mid to late 1990s), there was a big discussion on where to put computer science. Traditionally, it was a science, but at that time the economic outlook for high-tech (which included electrical engineering and computer engineering) was really, really hot, and it was fashionable to have a department that encompassed "everything high tech". Thus, there was a big push to move computer science to the Faculty of Engineering. This was augmented at the time by the birth of "software engineering" programs and by a number of papers discussing programming and software development as more "engineering design" than "science".
Fast-forward twenty years or so, and you have what we have now, where programs that are related to "high-tech" are roughly grouped together.
As stated already, the disciplines are different. I won't repeat @TinActon's words since he's summarized them well. However, they operated under the same high-tech umbrella for a while.
Really, you don't choose the department - you choose a program, but it's more likely that there's synergistic (industrial) collaboration in a department that has EE, CE, and CS together, as the industries that hire in EE, CE, and CS tend to overlap a lot. However, that's not to say that there isn't cross-disciplinary opportunities for CS and the other science fields either. Biology and chemistry and physics all have a very high dependence on equipment and techniques developed in the EE/CE/CS side, and similarly EE/CE/CS benefit from the work being done in the sciences side.

For starters, the descriptions for these areas of study in the US are not the same as they are in Europe, or other parts of the world. Sometimes they are not even the same for schools throughout the US. It is up to that particular department to provide a name of the program. This provides some flexibility to alter that name with the times.
For example, many modern computer science programs began in mathematics departments and were not split until a few decades ago.
Now, computer engineering, electrical engineering, and computer science are separate fields of study. Electrical engineering may never actually make use of a computer system, and may focus on radar systems or radio waves.
Computer engineering may focus on the combined series of electronics that work together to comprise the computer system. For example, transistors, capacitors, circuit boards, or processors.
And computer science may never go into the electronics of a computer system, but focus entirely on the software implementation, algorithm design, protocols, signal reliability, etc etc.
Electrical engineering and computer science might be a hybrid of the two, such as programming embedded hardware, creating APIS, or digital signal processing in general.

Lets run though some examples:
Note though that usage differs a lot.
Electrical Engineering: General power, motors, generators, transmission lines ...
Electronic Engineering: Transistors, ICs, signal processing ...
Computer Engineering: Adders, multipliers, CPU design ... (to an extent a special case of Electronic Engineering)
Computer Science:: Algorithms, Machine Learning (computer science is no more the study of computers than chemistry is the study of test tubes)
Software Engineering: How to make computer programs.
Computational Science: Doing science (eg biology) making use of computers (eg for simulations).
Mechatronic Engineering: combined mechanical and electronic engineering. Robots.
But these definitely overlap, also some things are poorly defined (Eg is computer vision CS or software eng?).
I have a degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, from my universities Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering department.
Within which I took units in Electrical, Electronic, Mechatronic, Software, and Computer engineering.
I also have a degree in computer and mathematical science, from the Computer Science and Software Engineering department. Where about half my units were on software engineering, and where people had the option to take mechatronic and computer engineering units.

What you describe as "Electrical Engineering" is what people around here generally call "power engineering" or "power systems engineering" and it is only one subfield of electrical engineering, which is much broader (it includes my own field, telecommunication networks, for example.)

As I said "usage varies a lot"

If I were going to enumerate examples of "electrical engineering" I would probably list examples from multiple areas, to avoid giving the impression that it's only about one area, e.g. examples from power systems, telecommunications, signal processing, and control systems instead of four examples from power systems. just a thought :)

@ff524 would you care to make an edit along those lines? I always tried to avoid the electrical end of my degree; so am not too sure on good examples.

It may be immature curriculum development or mundane matters such as staffing and building architecture.  In any case, computer engineering has to have some focus on digital electronics, while electrical engineering with analog electronics, and then computer science need not focus at the hardware level at all.
These will be very specific to the personality of the department, it's not really a detriment either way as long as their emphasis matches your interests.

electrical engineering with analog electronics - false. There are plenty of EE departments that have almost nothing to do with electronics or hardware of any kind.


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Is there any preference given based on how far in advance of the deadline a graduate application is submitted?
During graduate studies online application submission period, is there any preference given for an applicant if he/she submits his application at the beginning of that period compared with someone who submits his/her application couple of hours before the deadline?
Or as long as the applications are complete there is absolutely no difference!

Look at all the application rules and guidelines. Unless the registration/application is specifically described as first-come first-served (which would be unusual), the date of submission doesn't matter as long as the submission is complete before the deadline.

There may not be any formal preference given, but for example, might a committee begin looking at applications before the deadline, or read the applications in the order of submission?  Being one of the first or last applications to be read could conceivably be slightly advantageous (or disadvantageous, I'm not sure which).

@NateEldredge I don't know of any committee that actually starts looking at the files before the deadline, but maybe it does happen in some places… I don't think it's likely, though. People wait for everything to be filed, then divide the work and plough through!

In our university, the PhD deadline is usually in December. The committee doesn't start looking at application packets until everyone "gets back" in January. Anecdotally, I have heard that this is typical for most departments in the USA.

My department is the same as @Shion's.  Although it's theoretically possible to sort applications by their application date in our review system, nobody actually does.

Here's some empirical evidence from my experience - having done three very late applications in the past which all ended with success.
Short answer
According to my past experience. No problem applying late - even the last hour.
Long answer
Jobs 2013: I have made last hour applications for two job posts recently, one for Computational Biologist at ICL and one for Bioinformatician at ICL. Both led to interviews followed by acceptance. Remarkably, the Computational Biologist post stated that "it is essential that the post holder has a PhD", which I did not have! I have now started this job.
MSc Course 2012: I was the last applicant of the Bioinformatics and Theoretical Systems MSc with CISBIO - most people applied during their BSc e.g. many on the course applied February but I applied in October after finishing my BSc! Not only was I accepted, but I got a scholarship that I did not even apply for! In the interview panel was a chair of BBSRC research grant, who set me up with the scholarship after the interview.
Good luck!


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Is it common practice for book reviews editors to be excluded from chief editor(s) meetings?
I'm a book reviews editor (volunteer role) for a newly established journal (running just for the last couple of years). The journal has a couple of chief editors, myself as the book reviews editor, and then an editorial board. I manage the book reviews (including soliciting, organising, reviewing, editing, etc) which are eventually sent off to the editors for approval. We've never (to my knowledge) have had an editorial board meeting. The editors meet every two months to discuss the journal (strategic and administrative), but I have never been invited to these meetings.
Not having worked with a journal in this capacity before (I have guest edited special issues, published, and done peer reviews), I'm unsure as to whether or not book reviews editors should be included in at least some of these meetings/discussions since they pertain to the shaping of future journal issues (and book reviews may be a part of that, such as limits on word lengths, which books to focus on, etc). However, as I'm quite new to this, perhaps it is normal for such editors to be excluded from bigger picture meetings/discussions?
I have this horrible nagging feeling that I'm being excluded purposely because I'm a young woman working with older men, but I think I'm just overthinking it due to my lack of experience in journal editorial practices.
Edit/Clarification : This is a purely academic role. The editors are not paid for running the journal.

This isn't really a question about academia. Try https://workplace.stackexchange.com/

The (few) editorial boards on which I've served and which had book reviews treated the reviews editor the same as associate editors, not chief editors. But these journals had only one or two "chief" or "managing" editors; maybe things work differently when there are enough chief editors to warrant actual meetings.

@Buffy I think this is a question about a volunteer role in an academic journal.  I don't see what that has to do with the workplace.

@AnonymousPhysicist, it is about the internal policies and practices of a journal, not an academic institution. Would how Elsevier pays its editors be on-topic here?

@Buffy I strongly disagree; academic editorial boards are academic institutions.  In most cases, the publisher (Elsevier) does not pay them.  I am under the impression that for scientific societies that do not have their own publisher, it is common for the society to select the editorial board of the society journal and then pay the publisher to do the publishing.

If the question were "I'm a salesperson working for Elsevier.  Why don't they invite me to marketing department meetings?" it would be off-topic as those are corporate functions of a corporation and not academic functions.

This is going to vary from journal to journal. Still, it's unlikely they're intentionally excluding you for nefarious reasons. More probably they're simply doing it because of inertia (it was always so, why change it?) or because they think you might not be interested (sociaca88 is probably busy and we're not paying her so we should try not disturb her, etc).
If you want to join the meetings, you can just ask. Be sure to mention "which books to focus on", which is a great reason for you to attend the meetings. They probably won't decline as well. Only caveat is there will probably be broad swathes of the meetings which are not relevant to you and might not be of interest to you.


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Extreme pressure due to constant demands for results is causing health problems
I am facing extreme anxiety and not enough sleep. My group always wants results. Every two weeks, you must have new results. Being sick is not accepted. I feel so drained and tired. There are constant messages, many ideas, and lots of collaboration. I know it may sound a good thing, but as an introverted person, I feel so drained.  I am distracted by the many ideas. Also, it seems my work is not recognized or understood. I am trying to elaborate each meeting but it seems not clear even with data although I am passionate.
I feel physical and spiritual pain. I have migraines and back pain all the time. I cannot sleep. The director doesn't understand any excuses. They need everything fast, even when there are problems with the machines.
They encourage comparisons, and there are rivalries between each other sometimes. I know they want publications, but I am feel pain because there are many things to juggle: writing, experiments, communication. I tried to bring this to a discussion but their tone is always dismissive. I don't know what I can do. I cannot sleep or eat properly

Your health should be the priority despite what the research group says, expects or wants. I suggest you talk to a doctor or health professional as soon as possible. Adding the country may be helpful so that others can point your towards resources at university that can help you.

What did you try, and specifically how did you communicate your boundaries? Have you seriously considered quitting/switching labs? What are your alternatives?

Similar question: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2257/how-to-deal-with-constant-pressure-given-by-advisor

Can you give us some context on your position and where you are?  Are you an undergraduate, PhD student, postdoc, etc.?  What country is your university in?  Roughly speaking, what is "my group"?

"Every two weeks, you must have new results" I think this question would be helped by elaboration on the word "results". If you come to a meeting without having done anything in the past two weeks, of course you can expect reasonable frustration from your boss. If they are expecting a paper every two weeks, of course this is unreasonable. It's impossible to tell if the op's group is being reasonable without elaboration.

These problems really should be discussed with a doctor or therapist and is way outside of the scope of this site. There are some general rules of thumb around how to maintain good mental health and prevent burnout (which you can probably find online). But also, different people are capable of handling different things, and different coping strategies work for them. You need to figure out what works for you specifically and whether you can find a workable solution within your "group" or whether you need to get out of there (a therapist can also help you figure that out).

What kind of results? What kind of machines? Mass spectrometers? DNA sequencers? Computer clusters? Where is the world? Can you elaborate a little bit in your question?

First, talk to a medical professional about pain and migraines.
Second, find a way to schedule breaks in your day. Working more isn't the same as working better. In fact you can actually inhibit clear thinking if you try to push on a problem too hard. Your brain has a way of putting things together during periods of "rest".
Third, make some of those breaks exercise - especially aerobic exercise. The brain needs oxygen.
Fourth, if your lab is dysfunctional either find a way to leave it or work with your lab-mates to set a more reasonable pace. At least try to find out whether you are alone in your analysis. I suspect that you are not.
Fifth, many of us are introverts. You can still be effective in public/social situations. It is a skill to be learned. Introversion is not a disability. For many scholars it is a superpower.

Some decent advice, but you could've probably phrased the introversion part a lot more empathetically by at least acknowledging learning takes time and one can only go so far in terms of reducing how draining social interaction is. Also, I'm not actually seeing in the question how introversion is the direct cause of them being "ineffective in public/social situations" (feeling drained could mean introversion is an indirect cause, feeling distracted could come from feeling drained, or it might be unrelated, and being unable to communicate ideas well is related, but not a part of introversion).

You have a one character typo; "you*r lab" in 4th paragraph.

I was like this at one point and then I just stopped meeting their standards. I slept at 10 every night, did not work until noon, basically prioritized my own health over work. Nothing really changed as far as my research went.
My supervisor did raise their voice at one point over progress, then I was just like, in my head "its either me committing suicide and tarnishing your reputation forever or me working and suffering over the holidays while you are on your vacation, so why are you getting mad at me?"
You are the boss of the research publications that they put their names on.
What is the worst thing that can happen to you?
The worst thing that can happen is you getting kicked out.
But just note that most people who are working only has Bachelor's degree and they apparently have higher employability than master and make more over a lifetime than PhD and have higher life satisfaction.

I would like to add a note to your excellent albeit personal answer.
"suffering over the holidays while you are on your vacation"
It is quite likely that the supervisor was stressing himself out on holidays (I mention that not to justify the supervisor, just to mention how pain&suffering is ingrained in many academia's people life)

Giving up ones goal of getting a doctorate and having an academic career is not a solution. People can have different goals, but don't just give up. Your path to success can be convoluted (mine was) but you can get there.

"most people who are working only has Bachelor's degree and they apparently have higher employability than master and make more over a lifetime than PhD" -- where's the evidence of this? Generally PhD is found to make more (about $1M more over lifetime). That is not to diminish your other points of encouragement for OP, but to check one dubious statement.

@nanoman your source is from 2011, and way more people have a PhD now than before ... on top of that, have a look at table 7 vs table 8. I have the discomforting feeling that most of the people earning a PhD outside STEM subjects are from rich families, relying less on the academic titles and more on the familiar ties (directly or indirectly) to achieve their income status. Unfotunately the report spends some words on racial differences, not so many on economic inequality.

Overworking to the point of irrecoverable physical of psychological damage is also not a solution. Not being able to eat or sleep properly like the OP sounds more immediately worrying than future goals or success. This answer also isn't necessarily calling for giving up, but just giving up on the idea of graduating at all costs.

An abusive situation does not stop being abusive just because it has nice academia/workplace words like "schedule" or "group" or "manager".
You are in an abusive workplace. I've been there too.
Your workplace culture means it will stay abusive, and you probably don't have any realistic ways to change that. That means, in my book, it failed. Not you. You didn't fail. You just don't like being abused. Nor should you. That's good.
It can be hard to move in a niche field, but try to.
Otherwise, assume that they will carry on this way. Why wouldn't they? From their perspective, it works. You might break and be seriously ill, some time in future, or cry every night, but they get results because they insist and make you feel bad if you don't, and in the end they can always get a new living cadaver to fill the slot if you die or go.
Treat this situation as if you are a married woman living with a guy who every two weeks punches her and tells her what trash she is if the house isn't perfect, meals aren't perfect, and it's never good enough, so it's always punches. Would you say to put up with it forever? I wouldn't. And neither should you.

I agree that the workspace is not "normal". People do still publish in Nature having much nicer (on human relationships) that this extreme pressure, which is nothing but counter productive.

Talk to a medical professional. Then talk to the disability office.
It sounds like your work is causing you physical and psychological harm, and this is manifesting in physical harm. The migraine headaches, inability to sleep, and such that you're feeling? In basically every developed country, that legally counts as a disability, and they're legally obligated to provide reasonable accommodations for you.
As such, I would recommend that you talk to a medical professional, and get a diagnosis of whatever's wrong with you, and get them to write it up along with any suggestions they might have regarding treatment in a letter that you can take to your employer.
After that, I'd say to take the letter to your manager (if an employee) followed by the disability and/or human resources office, or straight to the disability office if you're a student. They should work with you to provide you with accomodations that will assist you with resolving this issue.

"migraine headaches, inability to sleep, and such that you're feeling" could just be symptoms of stress, which would not be a disability any more than a cold would be one. Of course diagnosed chronic migraines or diagnosed chronic insomnia could classify as disabilities, but it seems very premature to jump to that conclusion given only the information in the question. Although different jurisdictions and institutions may have different rules about what classifies as a disability.

@NotThatGuy A cold is a disability; that's why your employer is required to give you sick days. It's a transitory disability, since it typically goes away on its own, but temporary incapacity is still a disability.

"A cold is a disability; that's why your employer is required to give you sick days" - the fact that they're called "sick days" and not "disability days" suggests differently. In the UK, for example, someone is only defined as being disabled if they have a long-term impairment (I found some indication that the US ADA specifically excludes colds as disabilities, but I couldn't find a reference for that). Also note that I'm not arguing about what "disability" should mean, but rather just pointing out the legal classification.


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Can the publication conference choice affect one's admission to a new academic job?
Sometimes, I have been noticing some postdoc open position announcements that, besides the usual prerequisites (PhD, an excellent CV, programming skills, etc.), asked the candidates to have publications in the most important conferences in the field.
For example:

[...] Candidates need to hold an earned Ph.D. (or be near completion)
  in computer science or in a related field with good programming skills
  in C/C++/Java/Matlab. Successful candidates are expected to be
  self-motivated and have a good publication record (at least have one
  paper accepted by premier conferences or journals like KDD, NIPS,
  ICML, IJCAI, AAAI, SIGMOD, VLDB, ICDE, TKDE, TKDD, etc.) and good
  command of English. [...]

I was quite surprised to read announcements like this (if one made an excellent research, who cares where it has been published?).
Are cases like these rare or quite common?
To get hired for an academic position (like postdoc for example), is it so important to publish in top-level conferences?
Is the conference fame considered more important than the paper scientific relevance for a hiring process?

I can't comment on whether the practice of explicitly pointing out that publishing in top conferences makes a stronger record is common, although I suspect it is taken for granted rather than spelled out.  But, from the perspective of a hiring committee, being published in a top conference generally indicates that

The research is excellent.
The work has been peer reviewed by other top researchers in the field.

Both of these indicators will give a hiring committee a better feel for a candidate's potential for future top quality work.
By publishing in a lesser conference or journal and without those indicators, a closer reading of the publication would be necessary to make a better judgement.
To comment on your question about whether the conference is more important than the work: for most people, I would assume (and hope) the work itself is more important.  But the reality is that hiring committees need to differentiate candidates, and judging by conference/journal quality is one way to accomplish that goal.  Additionally, trying to read all candidates' papers, and then trying to judge the worth of the research without necessarily being an expert in the sub-fields themselves, would probably be futile at worst, and frustrating at best.
Finally, strong letters in support of the candidate are probably almost as important as the research itself, especially if the letters point in particular to example publications that demonstrate outstanding work.

On point of minor disagreement.  A close reading of the paper is necessary to make an informed judgment of its quality no matter where it's published.  But people are more likely to read the paper if it's published in a trusted venue.

I believe it is not rare, at least when considering the DBWorld calls. CS is oriented towards conferences and people value top conferences more than anything else. Although I am just young researcher, I may say people are going crazy for publishing in top conferences in CS. I saw some professors target only and only top conferences.
I do not know whether this is a good thing to the field and I wish to hear from experienced researcher in the field how things was before 10 or 15 years.

I saw some professors target only top conferences. — [raises hand]

The requirement to have a strong publication record on top-tier conferences is very common and it is important when you look for academic positions. I believe it is well-known and well-accepted among the researchers. I study databases and when I started my Ph.D., my advisor told me that he wants me to have three to four publications before graduation. When he talked about where to publish them, these were the exact words he used, "Having one ICDE does not hurt." What do you think this implies?
I fully agree with you by saying "if a research is excellent, who cares where it is published". But my friend, just as in all human activities, hiring committees always seek to achieve the job with the lowest cost. With more and more Ph.D. and PostDocs going into the job market, the committee members definitely have no time to read in detail the research of every applicant. Considering you are a committee member having 100 resumes at hand for one position, but you can only arrange 10 interviews. what is the fastest way to filter some candidates out? You know the answer.
All the efforts in a hiring process are simply to make you outstanding among competitors. Top-tier publications, strong recommendations, etc. When everyone has them, you have to have them. You also ask "Is the conference fame considered more important than the paper scientific relevance for a hiring process?". Well not always. For example, a "Best Paper Award" in ICDE may count more than a regular VLDB (I am actually not sure about this.)  But people believe a regular SIGMOD/VLDB is better than a regular ICDE or EDBT, which is most of the time true.