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What's an efficient way to learn simple formulas by heart without understanding?
Is there an unorthodox way to memorize formulas for daily use, similar to the assimilation of multiplication tables in primary school? I included 'without understanding' because I do understand the formulas: given pen and paper and time to think (about the physics involved and/or dimensions) I can figure out the formula. I need to be able to use them instantly, without thinking.
Context
I am a Physics PhD student who has spent about 7 years in the field. I thought that I would by now automatically have assimilated formulas that I use daily, but this hasn't happened. If anything, the situation progressively worsens because I vaguely remember so many formulas that I mix up similar ones. I can never come up with a formula when asked on the spot, which is embarrassing. On my desk I have stacks of formula sheets that I have to use continuously, including highschool-level formulas, which is very time-consuming.
Examples include

λ = c / f;

k = Ω2 m;

trigonometric identities; hamiltonians; derivatives; etc..
A long time ago when I studied Latin I managed to learn meaningless sequences by heart by repeating them hundreds of times (orally an in writing), rhyming, making songs etc.
This is also the only approach I have found thus far for physics formulas, but the problem is that I need them every time in another form (k = Ω2 m,  Ω = (k/m)1/2,  Ω2 = k/m, m = k/Ω, and so on). This means that I would have to separately learn by heart all different permutations of a formula, which is too much.

There is no need to memorise the formulas, except for exams, in some cases even not for exams because you may be given an A4 paper with all needed. The formulas that you need will be stuck in your mind if not you do not need them.

I don't remember most formulas I use day-to-day. But I've written them down in my thesis and I refer to it all the time. Ask yourself, whether you really need to memorize all of them. I, personally, would be surprised if in any kind of meeting someone would expect me to spit out the complex Fresnel reflection coefficient at oblique incidence for p-polarized light and anisotropic media off the top of my head.

If you've been working through all of your physics with an ever-growing formula sheet, then you haven't been exercising/growing the "muscles" you need to do calculations without it/more easily (e.g. by deriving the needed algebraic manipulations on the fly). Those skills will require time to develop.

Write a computer flash-card program in a language of your choice and then use the program. For example, it could randomly give you the correct version of a certain formula together with incorrect versions of that formula and you need to be able to pick out the correct one. The effort of writing the program in and of itself will help you assimilate the formulas, and the repetition of randomly chosen reviews will also help.  Something like Python + Tkinter would be a natural tool to use.

This type of question might also interest the people at matheducators.stackexchange.

I would recommend just understanding the formulae.

Note that one of the formulas in your question is wrong: you write m = k/Ω, but in fact if you divide k=Ω^2/m by Ω^2, you will see that m=k/Ω^2. This shows one of the great advantages of memorising only a few formulas and understanding how to derive the rest: it's much harder to make mistakes that way.

Remembering exact formulas is not an easy task, specially if they have nontrivial constant factors. However, I believe there's physical content to knowing the units of whatever you want to compute and knowing which other quantities it depends on. Summarising, I believe dimensional analysis + physical intuition should be enough to get by. (The second part being the one that requires hard work.) For example, how can I tell how much energy do I need to heat up some object (e.g. a potato or some metal)? What does it depend on? How will dimensional analysis and physical intuition help?

"I need to be able to use them instantly, without thinking." This is a red flag to me. What do you need them for? Why does not somebody with the capacity to understand them hold this requirement?

"On my desk I have stacks of formula sheets that I have to use continuously". Maybe you just need a better tool than paper. A text document and use of ctrl+F (search) is a low tech (even the default Windows notepad support it), and should spare you a lot of time, and I would be surprised if no apps existed for the specific purpose of quickly searching a physic formula.

In a work, don't . If you can handle learning physics, plenty of formulas and fundamental constants will become memorized anyway;  if you don't understand how a formula was developed, it's guaranteed you will misuse it.

Memorizing without understanding is so harmful to anyone who is going to be a productive member of either academia or the industrial workforce. Rote memorization might be useful for knowing what toppings to put on a sandwich, and you don't need to know why you should put 3 pickle slices instead of 2 or 4. But anything involving formulas is going to require a deeper understanding. Please don't encourage people to do this.

A good way to memorize a formula is to derive it whenever you happen to forget it. Practice deriving that formula enough times, and eventually you’ll remember the formula well enough that you don’t need to derive it anymore.

This is what smartphones are for.

Note: this answer was migrated from physics.SE, so I've had to re-render the formulas as images. The answer is also specific to learning physics, though it might work for other fields too.
This looks like a classic XY problem. I don't know of any practicing physicists that use a special memorization scheme 'without understanding', and I think such a thing would be counterproductive. Here are a few tips that might help instead.
1. Use conceptual handles
Here are formulas for the speed of sound in a gas, the speed of waves on a string, and the frequencies of oscillation of a mass on a spring and a physical pendulum.

The intuition for all of them is the same: the numerator is some measure of a restoring force, whether that's how hard the gas pushes back, how hard the rope pulls, the strength of the spring, or the torque of gravity. The denominator is always some measure of inertia, proportional to the mass of the system. Thanks to this intuition I don't have to remember anything, except that a square root is involved.
As another example, consider all the annoying conversions between wave quantities,

along with many others. To remember the conversions between (ω,k) and (T,λ), I just use

which is the fundamental definition of the wavenumber four-vector. This fixes the factors of 2π, since that's the change in phase of one cycle. There's no place all these little tricks are written down; everybody has their own and it's best if you make them yourself as you go.
2. Don't worry about judgment
I was just watching a summer school lecture where a renowned theoretical physicist took a good 30 seconds to flip a fraction. This is completely typical and not embarrassing at all. Some people function better rearranging symbols in their heads and some function better using chalk or paper. Personally I can't do anything in my head; I have to use paper or write it out in the air, but I have never felt judged for doing this. If your colleagues are being judgmental, they are being rude and you shouldn’t let them get you down.
When I see somebody able to remember or rederive something much faster than me, I often ask them what their conceptual handles are. Unless the person is exceptionally rude, they’re typically happy to explain. (This is especially true in physics, where mere memorization is uncool.)
3. Chunk concepts, separately from tools
If you're having trouble writing a grant proposal, the solution is not to memorize the exact sequence of muscle activations needed to write every individual letter. Similarly, if physics feels too 'big', the very worst thing you can do is to make it even bigger, by unpacking every equation into eight separate equations. Learning is instead done by chunking things together.
For example, take the derivation of the wave equation, which is a full two pages of math written out. You don't want to store every line in your head. Instead, you just want to store a general intuition that "curvature means a restoring force because strings under tension straighten out", which gives you the ∂²y/∂x² term. To get from that to the final result you need to know Newton's second law (giving the ∂²y/∂t² term), the small angle approximation, and the binomial approximation. But none of these are specific to the wave equation -- they're just general tools.
As another example, I was lost when first exposed to tensor notation. It looked like there was an enormous amount of stuff to memorize! But it faded away once I sat down and wrote out all the allowed manipulations. It turns out there aren't that many, ten common ones at most. All tensor calculations up to graduate level are just using the same ten steps over and over again, so in a technical sense it's actually easier than high school algebra, which has many more allowed manipulations. Once you have this understanding, many derivations get shorter; they get chunked into "use the standard steps, plus this one trick in the middle".
Then all you have to do is remember the trick, ideally with a conceptual handle.
4. Construct your own understanding
As I emphasized above, the best way to get this kind of understanding is to construct it yourself! There's no shame in revisiting a subject that's "basic" and rebuilding it yourself from the ground up; I've done this with calculus and mechanics several times whenever I felt I was getting rusty. Make a formula sheet, or if you think visually, try drawing a mind map or a dependency diagram. Challenge yourself to rederive key equations without a reference. If you do this a lot, you'll naturally construct the necessary conceptual handles and chunks, and get better at recognizing which tool to use.

I would add to this that there are a lot of formulae that I have not memorised, but I have memorised exactly where I can look them up, so I can find them quickly when required.

+1 I went into IT rather than applied science, so I never got to the stage where this was a problem for me, but I've always found “understanding” something helps me remember it better.

@BySymmetry And when you can't remember where they are in a specific reference text, you can get good at using the index to find it quickly.

@knzhou note the migration has killed your formulae.

I really like @knzhou’s answer, which I think does a great job of addressing the issue in a more or less canonical way. To add to that, part of your false premise (what @knzhou refers to as your XY problem) is that you are trying to compartmentalize “memory” and “understanding” as two separate and independent things. That’s not how the brain works. In practice, remembering things and understanding things are two aspects of the same set of mental phenomena. When you properly understand the derivation of a formula, it’s not just that you are able to reconstruct the derivation and the formula on demand given time and pen and paper, but it also becomes much easier to remember the formula without the derivation. This is because of the conceptual handles (to use @knzhou’s very apt terminology) that you develop through the process of acquiring that good understanding.
In fact, I think whether you can easily memorize a formula or not can in many cases be used as a good signal to test whether you have acquired the necessary understanding of the derivation/reasoning behind it. If you still find the formula unintuitive and difficult to remember, or generally feel uncomfortable with what the formula says, it’s possible that you haven’t internalized the logic behind it (maybe because you are focusing too much on memorizing the derivation itself rather than really thinking and understanding why each step is natural and how the different parts fit together). The mental exercises that @knzhou suggests can be a good way to bring yourself up to that level, which is a higher level of understanding than just reading a proof or derivation and verifying that it is correct.
In addition to that, @knzhou’s advice to simply care less about your ability to come up with formulas on the fly when other people are watching also sounds very sensible.

For me (a mathematician), the process is based on repeating the formulas often enough. At some point, I begin to guess what the right answer might be, then I will do the (mental or paper-based) calculation to verify. Some repetitions more, and I will not need to verify any more.
For some formulae, there are specific tricks, which usually relate to testing with very simple special cases and checking that the result makes sense. For example, either sin(θ) = x or sin(θ) = y, but which was it? I do remember that sin(0) = 0, and remember where the zero angle points in the unit circle, which allows me to deduce which alternative is correct. (True solution left as an exercise.)
In physics, I need to remember whether I should divide or multiply by some quantity. In addition to checking the units, I might let the quantity go to zero or infinity and consider what should happen then. v = s/t or v = t/s; if distance stays constant but time goes to infinity, then the velocity must be small, which allows me to pick the right alternative. (I actually check this by looking at the units, but the example should illustrate the technique.)

The method I have always found most effective is to make a word or initialism out of the letters in the formula, filling in vowels/consonants as needed.
Examples:

To remember the Laplace domain formula for the first-order lag element PT1 in control engineering

note that the denominator spells out "1st"!
To remember the formula for time invariance

I treated the uppercase delta as an "A" and remembered "futa" (Japanese word for "hermaphrodite") which of course only makes sense if you're familiar with the word.
Similarly, I use "Uli" (German first name) and "ICU" (Intensive Care Unit) to remember this pair of formulas in electronics, while imagining my friend in the ICU:

I also use a similar idea to remember lists (use their first letters, for example PAGE to remember that rational agents have perceptions, actions goals and an environment) and definitions (find a mnemonic in its name, for example, in bioinformatics, BLAST extends a match in both directions while FAST calculates oFFsets).

One famous mnemonic for kinematic viscosity (ν = μ / ρ) is "What's new (nu)? Mu over Rho!"

As far as I know there is no established, classic memorization system for formulas. Most people in memory arts have focused on memorization of numbers or text (or cards).
However, there have been a few sketches of how it can be done in the memory arts community. This thread discusses various suggestions, including defining images for the symbols (integral sign is a violin), peg systems for lists, or using the method of loci to wander around the formula. Similar ideas can be found here.
This method presupposes that you know other basic memory arts. That is of course the problem, it takes a fair bit of training before you will be great at them. I did my PhD on memory, have worked on human enhancement for years, and often have need to recall various formulas... yet I do not use memory arts for them. A mixture of laziness and alternative cost have kept me from it; the tradeoff may be different for others.
Generally when I do memorize formulas I try to get familiar with them - get to know each factor, term and symbol and why they are there. Once you have a web of links you can reconstruct the formula fairly easily unless it is something arbitrary and structureless like

4.652 x4  +  0.4587843 x3 - 0.434343 x  +  17.

But if you need to rattle off such formulas again and again you might want to reconsider what you are doing.
Finally, making and having a cheat sheet of often used formulas is nothing to be ashamed of. It is useful. I recently created a standard file to include with physical constants and formulas in my code, and it made my current project (a book writing one) noticeably easier and less frustrating. There is nothing wrong with outsourcing your mind to the Rubber Book if you can look things up fast enough.


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Should I start writing a paper early or after all research is finished?
I am working on research that will lead to a paper. The research isn't finished but I've finished enough that I have a good idea of what the basic idea of what the paper will say and look like. Is it better to start writing the paper now and make revisions as my research progresses or is it better to finish the research, have firm conclusions already in place, and then start writing?

I suspect the answer will turn out to vary a lot from author to author. In general, you need to have enough of an idea of whether the research is going to be able to optimally fashion your work as a story -- but the process of writing the paper can often usefully help to steer the ongoing work.

You should write up an outline and/or flow chart to give yourself an idea of how exactly you want to frame the paper. Having a game plan before you start writing will keep you from scrapping the paper and starting over from scratch. Always remember to think like an outsider. A way of writing the paper which might make sense for you might not make sense for an external reader.

I think this is an opinion question. Some folks like to maintain the paper as they work through the research,  others prefer to just take lab notes and turn them into a paper when they know what the results are. Either works; do what makes sense for you.

In my experience, it's often not possible to have firm conclusions without writing things down (or up).

Is the main purpose of the paper a) to check the validity of your emerging conclusion, or b) to get the word out on a conclusion you believe to be correct, or c) to help firm up the phrasing and structure of your thesis (or d) for pragmatic career purposes like getting published and cited and building your reputation)? If a) you found it was incorrect, how likely is that to totally upset your research?

The concept of "finished" is problematic when it comes to research.  I think that the same quote applies as for art: research is never finished, it is only abandoned.
Less poetically and more pragmatically, it is often only in the process of writing that certain critical aspects of the work become apparent.  When a person is in the midst of working on a project, they tend to get very close to the material and begin to take as clear and obvious things that are very much not so for others who are not so deeply involved.  Writing one's work up in a scientific paper forces one to step back and build those gone-implicit arguments from the ground up (or at least it does if you are writing well).
This often leads to discovering unexpected problems, which lead to new literature searches, new theorems, new experiments, and even whole new perspectives.  I have had nearly the entirety of a paper change out from under me as we wrote it and revised it, and the work became much better as a result.
So, to return to your question, of when to begin writing up a paper.  My advice and experience is this: begin writing when you think you have achieved the key results that you want to build the paper around.  As you begin to do so, you will likely discover gaps that need to be filled in, which will shift how you write the paper, etc.  When the process converges, you know you've got a good paper on your hands, and it is ready to submit into the tender mercies of your dreaded peers.
Don't let yourself move forward with the research, though, to try to achieve the next key result.  It's fun and exciting to do new things, but you must also have the discipline to cross the Is, dot the Ts, and observe the little things that need to be corrected and might otherwise escape your notice.

Your point that "it is often only in the process of writing that certain .. aspects come more apparent" is a good one. I frequently recommend to my students to actually write a first draft of the introduction very early in the process (and be prepared to revise that), so that they have to think about the overall narrative and how this paper fits into a larger picture (e.g. their PhD research). I also hope that this will help them to recognise when the paper is finished ..

You meant dot the i's and cross the t's, not vice versa. I guess, typos are immune to ranks, skills and levels of experience... ;-)

@AleksandrBlekh Actually, it was deliberate, as one of "the little things that ... might otherwise escape your notice."  You win the prize for being the first to notice the joke.  But the point is as you say: mistakes (and not just typos) happen to all of us, no matter how experienced.

Ironically, the "cross the Is, dot the Ts" did escape my notice (:

@jakebeal: Oh, so it was a joke. Then, I won no prize and actually failed... to recognize your intent (I guess, I was in a too serious of a mood at that time :). Just another confirmation of the point we both agree upon ("mistakes happen to all of us").

To sharpen jakebeal's point a bit: my primary specific recommendation is that you not spend any significant amount of time polishing the paper until you're confident that very nearly the sum total of its contents are collected in front of you, literally or figuratively.  A more-or-less-messy pile of scratch can be enough to facilitate the process of thinking through one's lines of argumentation, depending on one's personality and modes of thought, while taking a comparatively small amount of time away from continuing the necessary research/experimentation.
Just like it's often a terrible waste of time to plan most experiments or lines of research too far ahead, it's also typically a terrible waste of time to refine a manuscript too far ahead.  You may find you've spent a couple dozen hours wordsmithing text that never finds its way onto an editor's desk.

I guess that depends on the person. A messy pile of paper does not help me get thinking, personally. Only when I see a reasonably polished draft, I see where the hand-wavy bits that need more research lie.

@xLeitix, fair enough -- like I said, "depending on one's ... modes of thought. Your pile of scratch clearly has to be far on the 'less-messy' end of the spectrum. :-)

Though, @xLeitix, as I think about it some more, I think you might be describing a point in the process further along than what I was envisioning. Ironing out hand-wavy bits does seem more like a near-the-end-of-the-process sort of thing.  The 'pile-of-scratch' approach is more for earlier in the process, when the large strokes of the effort are still being figured out.

For me, writing a paper is a process that is not unlike how an author writes a book. I am constantly thinking about the "story" while I am doing the research. While working on a research project, I will suddenly think of some nice manner of presentation, phrase or even a single word that capture nicely some aspect of the work and I write these down in a raw manuscript file. Then, as the project advances to a more mature state where I know the majority of the results I will jot down a very rough outline. The actual hardcore writing then consists of putting everything together.
So in short, I suggest to start jotting ideas about writing as early as possible, but don't worry waste time on organizing or polishing these notes.

It depends – on your content or type of research as well as on your approach to writing.
The two approaches to (scientific) writing I would like to distinguish are:

Start with writing a quick draft and then revise and restructure it many times.
Start writing with a clear structure in mind and try to optimise every sentence from the beginning.

In my experience, neither approach is generally better, but for most people, one approach is better suited than the other. If you are the person who prefers approach 1, you might start writing as soon as you finished an aspect of your paper; if you prefer approach 2, this may be a waste of time, depending on the content (see below). While there is a grey zone between the two approaches, I have not met anybody yet whose approach lies in it.
The types of content I would like to distinguish are:

Modular papers: There are several chunks of work that have little interdependencies to each other. If you would practice extreme salami publication, you would publish each one as a single paper, with no paper building up upon an unpublished one. So while some of these papers would cite others, there would be no loops in the citation graph.
Interdependent papers: There is no structure like the above. For example the results of experiment A lead to experiment B, whose results in turn inspire to repeat experiment A with other settings and so on.

Obviously, modular papers are much more suited for early writing.
To give an example from personal experience, I am the sort of person who prefers the second approch to writing and I wrote most of my papers so far after all the work was finished. Nontheless, I recently wrote a paper in a totally different style. However, this paper was a method paper, which I knew to be modular. I did things in the following order:

Encounter a lack of a method during research.
Have an idea for a method.
Look, whether somebody had the idea already or there is a better method.
Devise the core method.
Find central conjecture required for core method.
Prove conjecture.
Write down core method and conjecture (I started this step the very next day).
Perform theoretical runtime analysis of method.
Write down runtime analysis.
Apply method to artificial data to test its performance.
Write down results.
Devise artificial test case to compare method with best existing method and perform the comparison.
Write down results.
Apply method and existing method to real-life problem from step 1.
Write down results.
Write abstract, introduction and conclusion.

At no point in the process did I need to perform revisions to already written stuff other than adding a sentence for explanation or renaming a variable. While I am very happy to have done it this way and this saved me a lot of time, I also know that this approach would not have worked at all for any of my other papers.

While I upvoted all nice answers here, including yours, I disagree with you on the second approach. I very much doubt that in the beginning (per OP's description) or, even, in the middle of research, it is possible to come up with clear structure and more so with optimal sentences. This is based on my limited research experience (working on my dissertation research for some years). When I say "clear structure" here, I refer to a detailed structure, not the high-level one, which IMHO can and should be finalized upfront.

@AleksandrBlekh: As I detailled in the last part of my answer, I have done to some extent done this and it worked fine as far as I can tell: Two people read the paper and had no big issues to remark and in particular no issues that I consider in any way connected to my approach to writing.

Fair enough. I'm sure that it depends on the nature of research, type of paper and the researcher.

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Is attendance to seminar worth mentioning in 500 words application?
In an application for an internship I am required to talk about the list of preferred projects.
One of these project is a generalization of the work I've seen being presented in my department and thought it was interesting (and I've somehow looked into this internship because I knew the author of the project).
Is it a good idea to mention it? I've also interacted with the speaker (whom I previously invited to speak at summer school and works in a field similar to mine).
I am unsure on whether it is something that is worth flagging or if I should focus on more concrete reasons for my interests given the short amount of space.

Your question title does not make much sense with regard to what you are asking here. Also you haven't said why you would rather refrain from doing this? I don't see the drawback.

Sorry, editing the title I cutted part of it and didn't notice. Fixed. Also, added my reasoning on why I'm asking.

"I had the chance to interact/discuss/work with Mr. X on topic Y and it was really interesting and enlightening." That's only 19 words, and it could be cut down farther if needed, so I don't see the problem if this is really an important point for you.

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Discussing authorship/sole authorship with supervisor
This is a borderline IPS question, but I feel the academic aspects will be more relevant.
One year ago I switched supervisor. Went to him with a formulated project (but no concrete results yet) and I am now at a stage where I should discuss authorship, which I haven't done before. This supervisor provided much needed guidance and support in meetings, but I am personally of the opinion that I should be the sole author of the paper, though this is obviously a grey area.
My question is then two-fold:
Does his contribution qualify him objectively (i.e. in most academic situation) as a co author ?
I have a hard time telling whether his contribution is enough for him to ask me to include him as a co-author.
On my part I have:

Formulated the core idea around which the paper revolves
Found a fitting mathematical formalism
Run all numerics
Ideated and wrote all mathematical proofs required

On his part he has:

Guided me in what could be considered an interesting result in the field (e.g. this would be an interesting statement, can you show that it is true?)
Guided me in constructing a coherent story around my idea compatible with the field

On the one hand, this paper would have never been born without his guidance. On the other hand I believe is contribution to the content is not big. I would like your thoughts on this, so that I can ponder the various sides of this and be ready if a discussion arises.
How do I discuss this with him?
I have a feeling he won't ask me for co-authorship, but I might be wrong and indeed he might expect it as a counterpart to the time he dedicated to me.
I would like to bring up the topic in a way that recognizes the value of his support and express my opinion on authorship without causing conflict (with the person that will in all likelihood write me references for the future)?
One way I thought this could go is to just ask something like: "I will be writing up. Do you think such and such journal would be a good outlet for this work? Do you think we should author this together?"
I believe this sends the message: I am somewhat open/uncertain about  co-authorship, what do you think? and leaves the initiative on the topic to him.
Some clarification : sole authorship is considered a good thing in my field, I am at a loss in assessing how much.
Also, I am responsible for my own funding which comes from a scholarship, none of my supervisor had anything to do with it.
Finally, my previous supervisor has explicitly stated he wouldn't require authorship on this (saying he didn't contribute enough).

Authorship norms vary greatly by field.

Note: things may vary by field. Single-author publications has never been an important metric in any field I've ever worked in, but can't say for sure about math.
I think your advisor should be a co-author. Here are some things to consider:
Reputation. Even if you did good work, the paper will get more circulation with an established researcher's name on it. So, you probably want him to have authorship, though you should of course be first author.
His contributions. As you say the project "would never have been born without his guidance." It sounds like he did not contribute only offhand comments, but actually proposed a line of research and helped you to follow it.
Funding. I'm assuming he funded you to do this research. In itself, this doesn't mean he deserves authorship -- but I suspect that a lot has been going on "behind the scenes" to help you with this work. Grant proposals are a lot of work, and he probably put a bit of thought into your general research area before he even hired you. (This may not apply in your particular case, since the advisor didn't fund you.)
The bar for co-authorship is not so high. I have seen questions on this site where people have been given co-authorship for reviewing the grammar! I think this is ridiculous, but adding your advisor seems altogether appropriate. In particular, you will be first author, so it costs you very little -- and it likely means quite a bit to him. In fact, the old supervisor would have a decent case for being added as yet another author.
Edit: OP has clarified that single-author papers are an important metric in this field. If this is true, the advisor in question surely knows this as well. So, if you want to ask for sole-authorship, you could say something like this:

I wanted to ask about the authorship for this paper. As you know, single-author papers will be important for my career. So, I wondered if you thought it would be appropriate for me to be the sole author on this paper.

Note, I still think adding your advisor as a co-author would be more appropriate. Perhaps a "compromise" would be to ask the question in a more neutral way, something like:

I wanted to ask about the authorship for this paper. You obviously made a lot of contributions and maybe it makes sense for you to be a co-author. On the other hand, this paper might be a good chance for me to get a single-author paper, which as you know, I will need for my career. What do you think?

Some clarification : I am in a field where sole authorship is an important metric. I am a PhD student and I won the bursary that funds me independently and before meeting my current advisor. Thanks for taking the time =) !

Also, my old supervisor clarified that he wouldn't want to claim authorship on this.

I should clarify on "the paper would have never been born without is guidance": by that I mean that it would have not reached completion, but the core idea of the project was already there.

@ThreeDiag - perhaps more from an experimental side, but ideas, core or not, are a dime a dozen. Actually bringing them to completion is the hard part. In a field such as physics or materials science, what you describe would warrant co-authorship. Math may well be different, but then your advisor would know that and not bat an eye at you having sole authorship.

OK, updated my answer. I still think you should add him, but it seems like you've already decided not to add him and want help informing him of this, so I also added a few lines discussing this.

No, I haven't decided what to do. My feelings seeing the amount of work each of us put in is that he should not be a coauthor. But that's just my feelings and there might be good reasons to ignore them. I'd like to know about those and how to lead the conversation.

And I think your edit goes in this direction, thanks.

Concerning one of your last comment. There is likely a very little chance that a supervisor put an amount of work exceeding a couple percent of that done by the student IF the paper is the only that matter. Such a comparison shouldn't be done.


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Purposeful fail - effect on Master's admission
I am intending to purposefully try to fail a course to stay an extra semester, so I can finalize some research projects which can't be finalized otherwise. My current GPA is 3.82. How badly would that be reflected on my master's admission?

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I would suggest applying for graduation the next semester.

Where are you? This was common practice at my university, failing on purpose on selected courses in order to space the exams better, or in years with exceptionally hard courses. The theory+laboratory courses were always almost twice as time consuming than their credit. It even had a name. Cont'ing (As you would have to meet on the Continuation Exam). Org Chem was a popular "cont". So was Adv. and Appl Thermodynamics. But that was in the 5 year masters program. If you failed any class, you'd get 2 attempts to pass (but in reality 4, since you could do also attempt next years regular exam)

In my Austrian university there would be no record of your failure. In the US, there would be.

Explore all other options first. Seriously. Talk to professors whom you think to possess some common sense (especially your adviser and the department head if they are among them) explaining clearly what your situation is and what your objectives are and ask for the advice on how to proceed. Resort to the F option only if you see that there is no other way.
As to "masters admission", it depends. If you want to master in math., say, and your F is in "underwater basketweaving" or something else like that, I personally would not even notice, but if you fail algebra, that will be quite a red flag and your explanations that "it was intentional", etc. won't fly with me (also, are you going to include these explanations into your application letter or what?). So, if you follow this line, at the very least be sure to choose a subject people in the field you want to specialize in view with contempt.

I want to take master in material science and engineering and further specialize in fuel cells. The subject is a major course and it is about designing mechanical power cycles (diesel cycle, gas turbine, etc...) and HVAC.

In Portugal students are allowed to take classes after finishing a degree. I have a friend that after the master took classes and finished the research he was doing in order to publish a paper. Here the continuation of the research just depends on the group leader decision, you can continue without a formal bond with the university. Are you sure you can't do that in your university too?

Intentionally failing a course in your major is a terrible idea.

i believe circumstances shall be taken in consideration to judge the quality of idea. i just need to know how terrible it is comparing to the merits if you have the expertise

@xxx since failing a course in your major will undercut your claims to expertise, it is a terrible idea. You’ll be put in the position of relying on them to “take your word for it” despite evidence to the contrary on your transcript.

In short, don't take the F.
I'm making an assumption here, but it sounds like this would delay starting your masters in favor of finishing some undergraduate research. I can't think of any scenario where someone would look favorably on prioritizing undergraduate research over graduate research. Even if your undergraduate research is amazing most are going to assume that there was really a graduate student pulling most of the weight and you were along for the ride.
Another consideration is that more and more admissions boards are using algorithms to first filter candidates. Something like an F or a minimum GPA requirement might eliminate you before someone even looks at your application.
I'm also a bit curious about your timing. You are asking this in December. Your masters program probably begins next September. That seems like plenty of time to complete an undergraduate level research project that I assume you are already well into. Taking an F now to buy yourself maybe 20-30% more time seems like way too much risk.
If you really want to stay and continue your research, talk to your adviser about getting hired as an employee. After you've earned your degree, this is really very appropriate. My adviser did this all the time while I was in grad school.

there is no vacancy and it is financially hard to rent out uni

@xxx - If you were hired you would be getting paid and you wouldn't have the burden of tuition.

you are right, but there are no vacancies, even if there is it would barely be sufficient for food supply. renting outside costs more than tuition.

If housing is that bad then it just might not be possible. I'm sure the university is very aware of the housing situation and has created their rules to prevent people from taking advantage of the cheap housing.

tell me about it. we have to pay it 250USD after finishing to graduate. yet uni dorms is really cheap

To be fair, it's possible the OP is due to graduate this semester, with the exams after Christmas. I had a first-year student in Montreal who was planning to delay taking some core units in their subject so they could take more other units without becoming eligible to graduate (at which point they would be ineligible to take any other units).

This is a seriously terrible idea that could tank your plans for a masters.  As others have suggested, pretty nearly any other option might be preferable, including negotiating an incomplete or a withdrawal in that class, dumping your research project or petitioning to go an extra semester to finish it.  Anything but a deliberate F.  That's just dumb.  There has to be a better option.  Talk to your academic advisor.

i won't affect the time to which i'll apply. i don't see how it will

i just want to know as a missing tile in the admission committe how big it will look

@xxx  It will look big.  Nevermind the cost of living for a few months - a big failure in a major, advanced core course will do serious damage to the entire educational investment you've been making for years.  You're talking about chopping the walls off of your house to use for firewood.  You won't have a house left to keep warm.

Don't overestimate the importance of finalising these projects. Of course, it would be ideal to complete your undergraduate research, but it isn't worth doing it by deliberately failing a course. If the projects are valuable to your current supervisor or institution, then they will find a way for you to complete them. If they aren't valuable to your supervisor or institution, then they aren't essential for you to complete.
Having complete research from your undergraduate degree is by no means essential for Masters admission. A low GPA could see you being automatically filtered out of admissions, whereas an incomplete research project is just a good opportunity for you to explain how you would like to complete it.

so if i got high gpa with number of publications, good recommendations and an f. how harmful that is. because this inquiry is based on an info i took from graduate school professor that they care about final gpa only

@xxx Most people enter their Masters degree without publications. I can't quantitatively state how harmful an F would be for admissions, but my intuition is that it could see you sifted out early on. You ought to still get good recommendations from your research supervisors even if you don't quite complete the research (bearing in mind that "completion" can be a shifting goal-post).

also i feel people overestimates F. that is why i am asking to get some exact picture which doesn't overestimate any.
locally, some of my seniors couldn't get accepted until they published while they have gpa close to 3.9

@xxx Everyone has told you this is a bad idea, and why it's a bad idea. I don't know what more you want from an answer.

TL;DR: this is a classic question of short term versus long term thinking.

Others have given good answers to your question at the practical level, so I won’t bother repeating that advice. Instead I will address your situation at a higher, more conceptual level. What you are thinking of doing is a strong example of short term thinking: that is, perceiving one course of action as preferable to another because it confers short term advantages - the savings in rent from living in the dorms apparently, or other things you have not explained - while not giving sufficient attention* to long term disadvantages of the same action and the overall advantages of the alternative course of action when those long term effects are properly accounted for.
Yes, I know you are concerned about the effect of the F on your master’s admissions, which is a longer term effect. But have you really considered all other effects? The F grade will appear permanently on your transcript. You will have to explain its meaning, over and over again, whenever and wherever you go, for grad school applications, job applications and who knows what else (hopefully your future boyfriend/girlfriend/fiancé/fiancée won’t care!). Some of the people you explain it to will believe your explanation, others will not. Some of those who believe it will find it satisfactory, others will not, and may even find your behavior dishonest and manipulative. You have no way of accurately predicting the future consequences of this intentional F grade, however much you would like to get an authoritative answer “no, it will not affect your master’s application” or “it will definitely be a problem”. All that we can be certain of is that you will be intentionally putting yourself at a potentially significant long term disadvantage, when your stated motivation to save money is short term in nature.
I don’t mean to suggest that the money and other short term advantages aren’t important; obviously they are. However, I urge you to do some studying on the nature of short term versus long term decision making and the pitfalls of concentrating too much either on the short term or on the long term. This is a well known subject and google should easily lead you to some interesting articles on the subject, which I hope will inform your thinking towards making a good decision. Good luck!
* as I think the universal disapproval of your idea in the other answers and comments rather convincingly shows.

We got a saying around here which loosely translates to the following:

Every year you delay entering the workforce costs you at least 10,000 bucks in the long run.

And that's a low number in my region. Basically, you'll work more years, start working on your pension earlier, etc.
I'm not a big fan of loans, but if you need one to survive half a year of housing, you can make it work. In the long run, you pay off the interest and the extra cost just by starting on time.
Since you mentioned it's quite an important subject and your overall high score otherwise, a loan is in the long run the cheaper and more professional option. Failing this test on purpose may bite you for the first years of employment, years which happen to go a lot easier if your marks are exemplary.
Clarification: the 10,000 bucks mentioned should be, translated to modern times and USD, at least 5 times more. Since the OP did not specify a region, I did not presume one and simply stated it for my region roughly 20 years ago. I was trying to say you're losing a great amount of money by every year you start later, regardless of the actual value. It's guaranteed more than the additional housing cost.

i didn't get accepted in any job yet. that is another reason i want to stay, to have some kind of time comfort while applying. staying on campus can help me with money since i can tutor in dorms and work part time in uni. observing our graduates, it will take time to get a job.

Are those $10,000 US equivalent bucks? I'd expect the direct costs from a year of school + living to be at least $10,000 "in the red", and the missed income from a year's work $20,000+, so $30,000 total. Looking at working one year less before retiring maybe missing out on $100,000+ from that final year...

Maybe Mast left out a zero?

@Xen2050 No, they are in gilders assuming an economic of 20 years ago. That's when I first heard the saying.

@xxx it would be very very damaging to both your future employment and entering a masters program.  First, no one may read your reason as a lot of this is computerized and you wouldn't even be read as the F would simply kick you out of the list.  There is filtering done first before anyone reads anything.  Second, if I were an employer I would put you at the bottom of my list.  Having hired, fired and run projects the odds of you getting a decent job or a masters will fall dramatically.  An F in your freshman year can be ignored, but never in your field or as a senior.

Today 1 Netherlands Antillean Guilder equals 0.56 US Dollars... Maybe it's a very old saying that means "a lot of money", like back when a million dollars meant more than just being able to buy 2 houses in Canada (or one house in some cities)

It is more like a few grand. If you save 10,000 per year, that would be amazing. Most Americans have -2000 in their pocket and little in the way of savings. Even though positive, I am only at +5000 per year at most. With 10000, I would have made 2200 on it in stocks this year.

My understanding is that you are intending to do this because of your university offers dormitory accommodations to students at very affordable rates. I strongly advise you to just get a roommate and possibly a part time job to cover any possible cost differences.
A few years from now, the money you save will seem trivial to you and your transcripts (for which you have paid tuition and time) will be forever impacted.

This entirely depends on where you are and what are the policies of your school. If you were at a US institution, I’d tell you “no way,” since the consequences of failing a class, particularly in your next-to-last or last semester, are potentially severe.
On the other hand, if you were at a German university where the system allows you multiple attempts to pass, with the failed grades not recorded, I’d still advise against purposefully failing, but I could see the logic behind it much more clearly.

Even in Germany, it would be difficult to explain to fail a major. You fail classes in the first two or three years of university, but after that, you know how to choose courses, prepare for exams etc.

After you would retake and pass the exam, at least at my university, there was no record of having failed.

@Roland: It depends on how long it takes. Given the German system, few are going to complain about taking one extra semester over normal. If it takes seven or eight years, that’s a different matter.

(This is based purely on personal opinion, so may not apply to others.)
If I was looking at graduate applications, I would not only be concerned with whether a potential student has a strong enough academic background, but also whether they are displaying other characteristics needed to succeed. On some of these, I think your proposed action would send ambiguous/negative signals.

Motivation: Is your interest really in doing the research, or is it in getting cheap rent?
Timekeeping/forward-planning: You knew the time you had available when you started your research project. While it is not always possible to predict how long research will take, were there any points where you could have adapted your aims to fit within the available time? A masters program also requires a project to be completed within a fixed time frame.
Financial planning: You may think it's unreasonable for academic admissions to be influenced by non-academic issues, but the university needs to know you can reasonably expect to be in a position to completed your course. Are you going to run out of funds part way through? For me this wouldn't be a major decision factor in itself, but it might colour my judgement when comparing candidates who are equally academically qualified.
Integrity: I would consider arguing that this is the most important quality needed to be an academic. Can you be trusted to carry out and report your research accurately, even if it isn't in your personal best interest?

The hidden message is: Don't do it, right?!

@usr1234567 The OP didn't seem to be listening to all the other reasons it's a bad idea. I thought this might more directly address their point of focus (the masters application process).


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What to do when wrongfully accused of cheating?
For a couple of days ago I had an in class online quiz consisting of multiple choices. I had read and prepared for the quiz and got a 80%, not too well but not bad either.
Several days after the exam I got a email from my professor saying that two different persons had come to him and told I was observed cheating by searching the web for answers. I met up with the professor and he blamed me straight away for cheating. I never talked with him before but he sided immediately with the other side rather than me, even though he had no "past impression" of me. He tried to scare me to admit to something I did not do while I repeatedly told him I did not do it. He made me very uncomfortable, saying I should drop the class and so on...
He was being very childish and immature, I told him it was unfair to take someone’s word over mine when there was no prior relationship, he just started working here. He kept threatening me and I told him I would never admit to something I did not do and it is wrong to accuse someone based on a rumor, this means that I could potentially wrongfully accuse someone of cheating and they would be in trouble.
I am very scared now and I suffer from social anxiety, I have been scared to show up to class as I feel the professor is out after getting me. After this incident, he has also given me very bad grades, borderline failing me, even though I am a student with a 3.5 GPA and very hard working. Also he has been talking about me "cheating" to other students, started a rumor about me that has spread among several classmates, which makes me very uncomfortable being around people.
I have gotten several reports from classmates that he has shared this private matter with them. Whatever I do in class now is not good enough; he keeps on punishing me with bad grades and gave me a zero on the quizzes, making the class hard to even pass. I have no clue what to do in such a situation, and as mentioned before I suffer from heavy social anxiety and I am scared of going to class.
We had a quiz with the same format as the other one shortly after with same amount of questions from a different chapter, I had to finish that quiz while he was looking at me and I got the same exact result as the previous one. I thought that would be proof enough, but he told me that he believes the other person more than me, without giving any reason for why.
I don't want to be labeled for something I am not or punished for something I have not done. Is he allowed to talk to other students about such a private thing? What about my rights? What can I do?

I'm sorry you are suffering due to this situation, however ac.se probably isn't going to be able to offer much concrete help. You might consider seeking advice from someone (the ombudsperson is a good start) within your institution.

I have no where else to go, I tried doing that and what happened was that the department head an the professor ganged up on me. I wish if someone that has been in a similar situation or have some knowledge about what a professor can and can not do could help me out a little bit. I am trying to take this to the dean when I am ready

I don't see a problem in asking here at AC.SE (which is created for academics and those enrolled in higher education). Regarding your question, I think the professor should have a solid evidence on cheating to act upon it. He is completely unjustified to accuse you based on other students words. If you are not able to resolve the issue with the professor directly, go to the department head and discuss with him/her (or at @T-K suggested below, go first to Student Conduct and seek advice).

I think the issue is the way this is being asked. The title is not helpful in knowing what the problem is, and a lot of it is emotional instead of focussing on the problem at hand, which is what one's rights are when they are being accused of academic dishonesty.

@TK: yes, the question needs editing but is not out of AC.SE scope.

Were the "other persons" other students taking the class, or other lecturers / tutors / assistants? All answers seem to assume fellow students, but it is not clear to me from the question, and the answer will change considerably.

It was just the Professor, the only explanation he gave me was "I trust his/her word more than yours"

There is something I don't understand here. As you stated, you were observed cheating by searching the web for answers by two different persons, as the professor says. How do they know you searched the web? Did they see your computer/smart phone? Are they students or instructors? If they are students, they are cheating as well (they were looking at your computer). If they are instructors, you probably have no case. Please clarify.

Could you clarify in which field, type of institution and country?

Voting to close for now as we cannot give a more specific advice than “take this to the appropriate authority” without knowing the answers to the questions @Henning asked.

A little insight into a possible motivation: my mother told me of a teacher she once had (math, I think), who, on the first day in class, eyeballed the pupils, singled her out and did a Gandalf: "You, you will not pass".
A power trip, just because she could, and it was thus easy to maintain the right grade mean. Good thing she could not abuse that power on written tests.
It may be worthwhile to get another professor involved, to try to check if the story of the two reports is not a fabrication.

It was a online quiz where you use your computer, he say it was two students that saw me but he wont give their name. I sit on the first row and would never be as reckless to cheat infront of everyone, neither would I cheat in general. The Professor is now asking me about a other student, saying he cheated as well, this is getting out of hand. I told him that if they look at my screen during a quiz they are cheating, but he said they were allowed to do so because I am a cheater.....

I live in the US, a other student got called up to his office today to talk about me, this student do not like the Professor and what he is doing so he audiorecorded him without telling the Professor. He has a 10 minute audio tape where the Professor continously try to get him to admit that I cheated

I suggest you ask the other student to keep the audio tape in a safe place and perhaps make a backup copy if it's in electronic format and pass a copy to you. But for the time being do not reveal that you have the recording, and I suggest you go with the other student to report to the administration about the professor. Tell the truth as accurately as possible, including the important sentences that the professor told the other student, which he can help to ensure by privately reviewing the recording. Only if the administration turns against you then you might want to reveal the recording.

Also, you might want to edit your question to include the relevant details that henning asked for, but I disagree that the question should be closed in the first place.

First, you should check and read the entire academic dishonesty statement at your university. This should give you an understanding on how the university normally treats these types of issues. Actually being proactive on contacting an office of academic integrity or student conduct, depending on its name at your university, can help you understand what the standard route for a professor to take for academic integrity.
While it is appropriate for a student to come to a faculty member to talk about another student's cheating, it seems to be a red flag for your instructor to ask others about your cheating by name.  A vague announcement about seeing that people are not looking at their own papers or looking at their phones is appropriate, but actively singling a student out for their academic misconduct could violate one's privacy in a case of academic dishonesty. This is something you should check with your university though.
Another person who may be of help is the undergraduate chair of the department in which this is occurring, but it seems in the comments you have tried.

I do not know in which country you are studying in, but in the UK all universities have a Student Union or Student Association. I always recommend that students seek advice from representatives of the Student Association who will have some experience of handling this kind of thing in the past. The Student Association can also support you by providing  representative to speak to the department on your behalf.
I know this might not be available everywhere but I felt it should be included as an answer to a question like this to remind staff and students about the excellent role that Student Unions provide in the case of difficult disputes between staff and students.
I also have significant experience in the university pastoral care system of representing and guiding students who are experiencing similar accusations of unfair means from their departments. Some universities do provide neutral academics who can advise students who find themselves in such difficult positions.

Your university should have (a) a formal process to be followed for accusations of cheating and (b) a formal process for resolving disputes between students and academic staff. Contact either your student support or your personal tutor (or both) and seek to get these formal processes engaged. Do not try and resolve this personally by engaging with the professor. Ensure you continue to attend class and perform further coursework to the best of your ability.
Your professor should be following process for dealing with your alleged cheating not arbitrarily punishing you with lower grades on unrelated tests.

You give no information on the country where you are studying, and I really only know about the German examination system. In Germany, university grades are administrative acts, implemented by an examination board, which is governed by public law. Therefore, students can lodge a formal objection (Widerspruch) against an unjust grade, which then is readdressed.
Having said that, I would recommend to look into your exam regulations, as a first step, to find out whether a similar procedure exists at your institution. In many English-speaking countries, complaints can be brought to the student ombudsperson. They might also explain further options.
You seem to have a good case, as you have been accused based on hearsay where you should have been given the benefit of the doubt.

I live in the US, a other student got called up to his office today to talk about me, this student do not like the Professor and what he is doing so he audiorecorded him without telling the Professor. He has a 10 minute audio tape where the Professor continously try to get him to admit that I cheated

It might not be, but a doomsday weapon can yet come in handy.


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US equivalents of Russian academic titles
I am looking for US equivalents of Russian academic titles, such as "Kandidat Nauk" and "Doctor Nauk". I've done my research and come up with a list of translations of these terms. I'd like to know which of these translated titles are the most recognized/appropriate in the US academic world and whether they carry the full meaning of the Russian titles.
Кандидат наук (Kandidat Nauk) – Ph.D./Doctoral Candidate/First Doctoral Degree
Доктор наук (Doctor Nauk) – Grand Ph.D./Senior Doctoral Degree/Higher Doctoral Degree/Second Doctoral Degree.
Here are some of the Internet sources I used:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candidate_of_Sciences
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doktor_nauk
https://www.englishelp.ru/translator/articles-for-translator/288-translating-academic-degrees.html
http://www.aic.lv/ace/tools/leg_aca/guid_rus.htm

From how it should work, the situation is like this:

Kandidat nauk (кандидат наук) is a PhD holder. Not a PhD candidate, but a done PhD.
Doktor nauk (доктор наук) is something not really common in the US system. It's the higher doctorate in the UK or a habilitation in a European system.

Now what you get recognized depends on the local authorities, but ideally that should be it.
Bonus: the typical position names in ex-Soviet system are junior and senior research staff (младший научный сотрудник, старший научный сотрудник). Typically, you have the former when you are doing your PhD and the latter when you are a postdoc/tenure track researcher.

Oleg, a few more questions:  (1) can you say a "doctoral candidate" about a "kandidat nauk", or would that mean the same as PhD candidate?  (2) Can PhD be described as a First Doctoral degree?

This answer is useful but it doesn't respond to a question about the equivalent of "Doctor Nauk" in the US. I guess the other way to look at it is whether there are other, possibly non-official, titles or positions which recognize an academic's achievements beyond PhD. Full professor?

A. Well, in the old Soviet system "doctoral" was either Doktor nauk or a MD. Nowadays, as the Western terminology is quite widespread, you might say so, but you need to specify it's the "Western" doctor, i.e. a PhD. As for you second question, I don't quite follow. "First doctoral degree" seems to be a clumsy English translation of Kandidat nauk. Never heard it in the wild.
B. Doktor nauk is not a full professorship per se, but something that entitles you to it. The closest analogy is the habilitation, I'd say that Doktor nauk is something like a positive evaluation in a tenure track.

Kandidat Nauk ≈ Ph.D.
Doktor Nauk ≈ Sc.D. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_Science for details. Not very common in the U.S., but I've known a number of poeple who had one from European universities. Some people (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_Science#United_States ) take a view that it's the same as a Ph.D., but they're mistaken.

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Authorship for master's student who I worked with to build measurements during his thesis
I am a PhD student and I wrote a journal paper recently on a topic. The methodology and the results are completely my own. The idea is also my own.
The way I build my measurements are based on a research I carried out with a master's student during his master's thesis. However, later developments and everything is mine.
When I submitted it, I acknowledged him and gave credit to his thesis. My supervisors are always there as authors anyway. However, for some reason, I feel bad emotionally because I didn't add my student as an author. When I submitted it, I thought very logically when I wrote all the author names and the student hasn't done any further development or editing in this paper. So, I didn't add him as an author.
I also informally informed him about the acknowledgment and he seemed okay with that. Later, however, he asked me if we could write more papers together and I really liked that idea.
During this process, I felt probably he didn't like that I didn't include him in this one. I've communicated transparently why I did what I did (even without him asking).
I don't want to make our professional relationship worse. So, I told him that I don't know what's right and ethical in this case and I would discuss it with my professors, based on the outcome I can change the author's names after I get the first revision.
What should be my approach based on your experiences?

"I also informally informed him about the acknowledgment and he seemed okay with that. Later, however, he asked me if we could write more papers together and I really liked that idea."—To me this sounds like the opposite of "probably he didn't like that I didn't include him [as an author] in this one".

Maybe work with him on rewriting his master's thesis into a publishable paper of which he would be first author and you would be second author? Most of the work is already done, it's just a rewriting exercise.

What did your supervisors say?

@Stef thanks for the comment. Actually, we did it for a conference paper. We wrote it together and he is the first author. I like collaborating on that. For this one i was confused as i extended it.

@FerventHippo I still will ask for their opinions. However, in the meanwhile (after i uploaded this question ) the student himself respectfully and in a very friendly manner asked me not to include him as he has strong beliefs that he shouldn't be in this as he didn't do further studies. I appreciate this and he's willing to discuss further research with me soon.

@CfourPiO the fact that the student wrote a conference paper about their work is important. They already got their paper you can cite.

From your description it seems that you did the right thing and that the other person isn't an author of the recent paper. It is proper that you gave credit, but derived and extended works don't include the earlier author(s) as authors.
It is also good that you and he are planning future collaborations. That is the place for joint authorship.
I see no ethical issue.

Thank you for the answer. It helped me constructively gather my thoughts, and I discussed them with the student clearly, and there were no issues anymore.

I agree with this, but in a future case I would (try to) involve a (good) masters student in the paper.  It's valuable for them, and their input can help the paper.  Then, in my field at least, they would  cross the threshold for authorship when combined with the other work.  Partly this is because I know how much my ideas are improved by discussing or even explaining them. Therefore I tend to rate the contribution of a discussion partner to experiment planning as rather valuable to the final work.  But that's for next time something like this comes up.  This time is fine

@ChrisH thank you for the comment. Actually, I have done the same in the past for many conference papers when I've used some of their results also and i understand how valuable it's for them and for me to grow as a mentor. This time i was confused because I didn't use any results directly.

I only agree with this answer because the student already wrote their own paper about their thesis. But, in the context of a thesis, I don't agree with the statement about extended works. Students should be included as authors if they did all the initial work, otherwise you don't have anything to extend in the first place.

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Consequences of university losing its accreditation on admission for further graduate education?
I graduated 10 years ago from a school that just lost its accreditation.
What kind of consequences can I expect from this?
In particular about that affecting admission chances for further education. Although my university wasn’t a top one, I though that my 4.0 GPA would allow me, in the future, to do a top PhD program.
But now my former school is closing down. There are, so far, no plans to try to resurrect it or reapply for accreditation. It will just cease to exist and transcripts are handled by another institution.
Do you know similar cases or have specific evidence on the matter?

Why would something that happens to a school after you graduate affect the worth of your degree?  Also, your question about how this affects future job applications (which I guess is essentially not at all) is not a fit for this site (see Workplace.SE).

@Kimball "Why would something that happens to a school after you graduate affect the worth of your degree?" Well, suppose that the university you attended was subsequently revealed to be a fradulent sham, after you graduated. That would clearly affect the worth of your degree. It seems reasonable, to me, to ask "Hey, the university that awarded me a business degree just failed as a business. Will that affect what people think of my degree?"

@DavidRicherby to be fair, business professors are not usually the ones running the university.

Your school may have already had a grading problem if you went from "average undistinguished" at UCLA to "top 1%er" there without a major change in e.g. your own study habits. I suggest documenting what you have done during self-employment, and working on letters of recommendation from clients.

@PatriciaShanahan Huh? I have "average undistinguished" height in the UK but, if I went to various places in the world, I would be noticeably tall. That doesn't mean that those other places have a height-measuring problem; it just means I've moved into a different demographic.

"If I look for a job in the future i would be applying mostly on my degree’s strength and grades and with references from former teachers."
I think that approach is completely incorrect. You need to focus much more on the fact that you have 10 years of experience as an entrepreneur. Employers will want to know what you've accomplished in 10 years. They will want to know why you decided to "go it alone". The will want to know if you are "gutsy" enough to work for them in a challenging capacity.
When they ask you where your degree is from, tell them, but you don't have to volunteer that the institution is winking out of existence. If they find out on their own, demonstrate to them that you're fully aware of the situation and the reasons for the institution's troubles. Be knowledgeable and non-defeatist. They'll respect that. You're not to blame for the school's fall. You're not the one who went bankrupt.
In the meantime, make sure you get any paperwork from the school that you need. Be proactive about this...not defeatist. This isn't your fault. And for God's sake, don't delve into a pity-party with any potential employer about how you went to a "lower tier" school because you wanted to "stand out". That's completely ridiculous. Trust me. Don't go that route.


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Are there any journals that pay reviewers?
Being a young researcher myself I received a comment from my colleague that some of the journals are paying reviewers for the reviewing process.
When I gave it a thought, it started to make more sense.
In case of high quality, respected journal, an institution may consider itself privileged to have a reviewer of such journal and allow the reviewer to dedicate small proportion of his/her daily activities just on the reviewing process.
The reviewer being paid, has more obligations to provide thorough in depth review.
Does that hold true for some journals or is it just a myth?

@dgraziotin - may I ask what do you mean by traditional journal? Payment for fast-track review seems interesting - I didn't know about that. I can see, however, this being a trend going the wrong way.

Once you accept a review you are obligated to provide a thorough in depth review whether or not you are being paid.

@StrongBad: Agreed. In depth is however quite relative term. Because we, human beings, like to interpret the law the way we want, some may provide more some less in depth reviews. Some may feel motivated and driven by the price to provide highly desired suggestions and recommendations that are not mandatory for every field.

One alternative I've heard is to pay not in money, but in a discount or waiver for publication or subscription fees.

It's not a myth. There are/have been some journals that pay peer reviewers. For example:

The New England Journal of Medicine used to pay $5 per review, until some reviewers complained that "if that was the price that this eminent journal placed on their opinion, the New England Journal of Medicine should seek referees elsewhere"
The Lancet reportedly pays for peer review "sometimes"
Reviewers for journals published by the American Economic Association earn $100 for each "timely" review.
Zentralblatt MATH (zbMATH) pays 2.56 EUR per review, although this is for post-publication reviews that are then published.
The Journal of Medical Internet Research offers "a review model in which selected peer reviewers may be paid to deliver high-quality and speedy peer-review reports" (if authors pay an extra fee for the fast-track option)
The Arabian Journal for Science and Engineering has offered an honorarium of $100 for each "timely" review
Drugs in Context pays its peer reviewers an honorarium of unspecified amount, supposedly "to motivate rigorous peer review"
The International Institute for Science, Technology and Education (which is on Beall's list of allegedly predatory open-access journals and publishers) pays reviewers for its journals $60-$100 per review

Whether the reviewer being paid, has more obligations to provide thorough in depth review is true or not is entirely uncertain, though.

that is quite nice list of records busting my myth. May I ask if you know of more of those journals that are related to life sciences/medicine? Also, do you know how does the paid reviewing process relate to a full time job that such a reviewer would have?

Cool, +1. I am especially intrigued by the odd 2.56 EUR from zbMATH, which just happens to be exactly 5 DM at the conversion rate used during the switchover in 1999-2002... So they apparently haven't changed this in at least 12 years. Fascinating.

In most cases it's either a trivial honorarium, or a slightly higher amount related to that "fast-track" option offered by some open-access journals. A company called Rubriq is trying to make a "paid external peer review" business model work, we'll see how that works out...

@ff524: zbMath is slightly different. The "review" they refer to are not pre-publication peer reviews, but post-publication summary and discussions. In particular, the reviews are not anonymous and are published. There's an analogous service in the United States by the American Mathematical Society (who gives you essentially a gift card that you can spend buying AMS publications for each review; IIRC the rate is something like 4USD per review.)

@WillieWong - I guess you are referring to a post-publication reviewing process similar to what I'm more familiar with as f1000. You are right by pointing it out that this is not a pre-publication review. However it is a reviewing process too and it is paid. For that reason I think it could be included in this list. I think this question could be fairly generic.

@WillieWong: no hard feelings :) Just a part of discussion. Also that let me clarify that the question could be fairly open, about the entire reviewing process, being either pre- or post-publishing.

@mjp: there is a tiny difference with the Faculty of 1000 (this is not to say that the comparison is not apt; I am just being pedantic). To the best of my knowledge the F1000 process involve a selection of only the "good" articles for recommendation. Whereas with zbMath and AMS-MR every article in the indexed journals are reviewed; sometimes this leads to hilarity.

@ff524: Would you be interested in making this answer a community wiki, so people can contribute and create a larger resource?

Has the ZBL policy changed recently? I've reviewed a couple of papers for them in the past few years and never got any money. Maybe it's because I'm in the US and they can't send me euros?

@Nate from the linked policy, it seems you have to explicitly let them know you want your token 2.56 EUR. Try it and let us know what happens :)

@mjp  the question is "are there journals..." not "what are all the journals..." (the latter would almost certainly be closed on Academia. SE) so I don't really see the need. In any case, anyone can suggest edits.

@ff524: Aha, they do it by bank transfer, and it costs much more than EUR 2.56 to wire money overseas. But I didn't know about the Springer book discount either, that could be useful.

@NateEldredge: Is this post useful the the extend that people start making money by reading it or what ? :)

This is not quite what you asked, but book publishers often pay reviewers to evaluate a manuscript and give their opinion on whether to publish it. I recently received $125 US for just such a review. It was less work than reviewing a typical journal article (since I wasn't asked to check technical details) but had a short deadline of just a couple of weeks.

With the advent of a huge number of online journals, requests for reviewing papers is increasing. Most eminent scientists are too busy with other more important things than reviewing someone else's papers. The end result of all this is that journals seek opinions of people who may not be really competent to provide a fair and accurate review. The other problem is that reviewing manuscripts is not considered an added merit/honor/qualification. Thus reviewing a paper for a journal has absolutely no advantage for the reviewer. The simplest solution would be that journals start paying at least a 100 dollars and up to a reviewer. I am declining to review several papers every month but if I would get extra 500 dollars for reviewing 5 papers a month, it will be an added incentive to review a MS. In other words, journals should really consider the option of paying the reviewers. They are already being paid a hefty some as publication charges and open access publishing. They can share a small part of that profit with the reviewers.

Welcome to Academia SE. This site follows a strict question-and-answer format and answers should address the question, which in this case is about what is done and not what should be done. I am therefore flagging your answer for deletion.


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Methods for figuring out the best schools for a particular field of study
I am about to graduate in Electrical Engineering and I wanted to pursue graduate studies in a field such as coding theory or software defined and cognitive radio.
But I'm not sure where to find the information needed to decide which school to choose. University rankings won't be specific enough to point out the quality of the research groups of my interest. I was looking for something that would point out volume and relevance of papers and articles published by the Universities' research groups.
I don't need answers on which school is best, but tools to figure this out by myself.

Research groups that are active in a particular field will publish often in those fields.
So, identify conferences* in your field of interest. Look at the technical programs for the last couple of years, and check out the groups that seem to be contributing a lot.
Also, ask professors at your undergrad university who work in related fields.
* Also workshops, large conferences with a few on-topic sessions, journals, etc.

This is not a direct answer to your question.
But if you are targeting a specific field of research, it might be better if you go with a well-known supervisor than a high-ranked school. I know that the name of the school and hence its ranking is important when you graduate from there, but the importance of the supervisor is something you should not overlook at all.
Just my two cents.

Would you say a good "measurement" would be number of citations a certain researcher received, as shown in Google Scholar?

Yes of course. But you should always check whether they are STILL active in a specific field of research. For that purpose, you can check their recent published papers. The better conferences/journals that they publish, the better the quality of their research!


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Can you present data on non-participants?
Are you allowed to present data on those who declined to participate in your study?
The following is an excerpt from a study on whiplash-traumas where the authors clearly publish some basic statistics on people who declined to participate [1].

Emergency departments identified 6952 eligible participants, of which 3851 (55%) agreed to provide follow-up data (figure). People who participated were older (mean age 37 years vs 32 years) and more likely to be female (2133 [55%] of 3851 vs 1435 [42%] 3430) than the patients who did not participate, but not different in whiplash associated disorder grade.

[1] Lamb SE, Gates S, Williams M a., Williamson EM, Mt-Isa S, Withers EJ, et al. Emergency department treatments and physiotherapy for acute whiplash: A pragmatic, two-step, randomised controlled trial. Lancet [Internet]. Elsevier Ltd; 2013;381(9866):546–56. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(12)61304-X

What is your worry here, exactly?

@vonbrand That it would be unethical to include data on someone who did not want to participate.

If the only thing reported is the number of non-participants, and there is are enough population to making identification of participants/non-participants next to impossible, I don't see a problem.

@vonbrand: I agree, though in my example the authors also compared the diagnoses of participants with those of non-participants.

Note that the above study is looking at people who declined to provide follow-up data. That says nothing about the basic demographic and diagnostic data the study already had access to.

This is standard practice. And it is necessary in order to detect selection bias.
The CONSORT initiative (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) provides a flow chart that includes entries for "declined to participate" and dropouts in various follow-ups.
The American Psychological Association, in its Ethical Principles for Psychologists and Code of Conduct, section 8.05 "Dispensing with Informed Consent for Research", writes:

Psychologists may dispense with informed consent only (1) where
  research would not reasonably be assumed to create distress or harm
  and involves (a) the study of normal educational practices, curricula,
  or classroom management methods conducted in educational settings; (b)
  only anonymous questionnaires, naturalistic observations or archival
  research for which disclosure of responses would not place
  participants at risk of criminal or civil liability or damage their
  financial standing, employability or reputation, and confidentiality
  is protected; or (c) the study of factors related to job or
  organization effectiveness conducted in organizational settings for
  which there is no risk to participants' employability, and
  confidentiality is protected or (2) where otherwise permitted by law
  or federal or institutional regulations.

The kind of summary statistics you cite falls squarely under point 1b.
Of course, you do need to exercise some caution, in particular to ensure that confidentiality is maintained. Listing the names of non-participants, for instance, would certainly cross the line. As would giving out "too much" information from which one could reasonably deduce the identities of participants or non-participants (if you work with a small, easily identified population, say).

It seems to me that this is clearly relevant to the study. As long as no personally identifiable data (and just the numbers cited clearly don't qualify as that) I don't see a problem.
In the end, "declined to participate" is an indicator of some self-selection, which could introduce some bias.


text:
Switching to philosophy after a PhD in mathematics
I'm currently finishing a PhD in mathematics from a university in Europe ranked top 10 in the world. I've always been torn between philosophy and mathematics, and I'd like to give philosophy a chance (now that I have the "safety net" of a PhD in mathematics). Also, for personal reasons, I'd like to move to the US.
It turns out, at least according to the various admissions webpages, that doing a second undergraduate degree in the US is not as easy as I thought it'd be (even disregarding issues about funding, etc). Hence, my questions are:

1) Why are top US Philosophy departments (e.g. Harvard, UC Berkeley, ...) reticent to admit students already holding an undergrad degree in a different subject? In general, is the rule "no admission for students already holding a degree" as strict as it sounds, or can there be exceptions, depending on the context?
2) In said top US institutions, how common is "by-passing" the second undergrad degree and being admitted directly to a graduate program in philosophy?

To expand on a brief comment in Pete Clark's answer, you should be wary of viewing your PhD in mathematics as a safety net.  In the US, you could probably always use it to get a job teaching low-level courses under poor conditions.  But if you want a tenure-track job, you need to publish, teach, give talks, and participate in the mathematics community.  If you set this aside for years to focus on philosophy, you'll damage your mathematics career in a way that would take further years to undo (while maintaining a viable math career would take a lot of time away from your studies of philosophy).

@AnonymousMathematician I agree. The PhD being a "safety net" in my mind means that if I embark in this philosophy adventure and it doesn't turn out well (after, say, 1-2 years), I'd still have some chance of finding a decent job (not necessarily in academia nor in the US, though).

Why do you feel you need for additional qualifications in philosophy? Why not just read and publish philosophy, as a person with a mathematics PhD? This sort of thing is not uncommon, especially if you are interested in publishing in a related area (i.e. philosophy of mathematics/science). A PhD is really just a ticket to an academic job, it doesn't force you to stay in the same narrow sub-field.

No offense, but why do you need another university? It is like trying to re-do the high school years, and insisting to do it in a elite boarding school - at the age of 40.

@Greg How is this relevant to the questions I've asked?

@protagoras Your question is why top universities consider your career plan meaningless, and I answered.

Maybe you do not know what an undergraduate degree at an American university means.  You do not study, say, philosophy, you "major" in it.  Depending on the university and your own choices, you may take anywhere between 1/3 and 2/3 of your courses in the area.  You will also be taking basic courses on writing, social sciences, very broad courses in the sciences, and so forth, that to many well educated Europeans would feel like high school all over again.  The idea of getting a PhD and then coming back for an undergraduate degree would be regarded as crazy by most American universities.  I agree.
In general, yes, a PhD in subject X should get you out of having to do an undergraduate degree in Y and you should be thinking of enrolling directly in a PhD program in Y.  But forgive me while I pick apart your question a bit.

I've always been torn between philosophy and mathematics, and I'd like to give philosophy a chance (now that I have the "safety net" of a PhD in mathematics).

The idea that someone regards a PhD in mathematics as a safety net is very amusing (or bemusing?) to me.  If you have always been torn between mathematics and philosophy and got a PhD in mathematics, surely you must have devoted some serious study to philosophy, right?  If the answer is "no" then I don't really understand the situation.  If the answer is "yes" then I hope you have been exploring the connections between mathematics and philosophy, which is something appropriate for someone considering doing multiple PhDs.
If you want to study an area of philosophy with connections to mathematics (most obviously, philosophy of mathematics, but there are many other areas of modern philosophy which draw upon mathematics), then having a PhD in mathematics at a "world top 10 university" should be a tremendous advantage.  The level of mathematical expertise you bring will probably be superior to that of some of the faculty you would be working with.  Thus at the very least you should be looking for some kind of specially worked out, accelerated graduate program.  I would encourage you to also look for postdoctoral and other temporary faculty positions: these can be places to transition from one field to another.
The desire to start up an undergraduate program after having received a PhD at a top place is frankly a bit worrisome to me.  You've probably spent your entire adult life as a student, roughly 10 years of it.  You now want to turn around and spend another roughly more 10 years as a student?  That's about a third of your adult life.  Don't you have other things that you want to do?
Added: Although I do not think you should consider enrolling in an undergraduate degree program, if you really haven't taken any courses in philosophy at the undergrad level [by the way, in the US it would be really screwy for someone to have a lifelong interest in X and Y, do a PhD in X and never take an undergraduate course in Y; but maybe less so in Europe] then I think you should enroll in -- or audit, or whatever -- at least one or two as a non-degree student.  You just need some amount of assurance that academic philosophy is anything like what you think it is.

For that matter, my university (in U.S.) would not admit as a Ph.D. student anyone who already has a Ph.D., period. Doesn't matter about subjects.

@Pete L. Clark Thanks for the reply. I've indeed taken plenty of classes on philosophy (as an auditor) while an undergrad and grad student in maths, and I regularly go to seminars, so I have decent idea of what academic philosophy is like. Also, ideally I'd skip this all "do a second undegrad degree" business, but I have no clue on how admissions work for graduate study if one has a background in a different discipline, so I had to ask.

@paul: That policy seems a bit much to me, but it's good to know that some places have it.  (Mine doesn't, not even for a PhD in the same subject.  I checked.)  The OP should definitely ask around.  protagoras: Good.  Skip it.

@Pete L. Clark Also, do you think doing a postdoc in a different discipline is actually feasible? (That'd be the best option.)

@protagoras: I think it would depend upon the particulars of your situation and training, but it is not definitively unreasonable given the information you've provided.

The counter-question is, why do you want a second degree in philosophy?
Part of what a PhD teaches you is to teach yourself things. Many a PhD-holding scientist has branched into other related fields through self-study and connections/collaborations with other scholars, rather than doing a formal course of study. I know a neuroscientist who teaches in a biology department; I know several psychologists who have expanded into work in other disciplines, including applied statistics, political science, economics, business, and sociology. I've also come across the websites of philosophers who do research at the intersection of the physical sciences and philosophy, or at math and philosophy. Sometimes that expansion is formal - they take classes or earn a second degree (usually a master's) in the field, but usually it's more informal.
So I think first you need to figure out what you want to do with the philosophy degree. Is it just to satisfy your curiosity, or do you want to do significant research at the intersection of the fields? Both of those goals can probably be accomplished without getting a second bachelor's degree in philosophy. By your own admission you already have significant coursework in philosophy; you could continue to take classes as a non-degree student until you have the knowledge you need to do the research you want. You can start a research collaboration with philosophers interested in that intersection. I don't think philosophy does postdocs the same way that the sciences do, but you might find a humanistic postdoc that will take you on. An example are the Mellon postdoctoral fellowships that are at several universities; you'd have to make a really compelling case, though, because they are reserved for people with PhDs in the humanities and humanistic social sciences.
To more directly answer your original questions:
1) I doubt most people could answer that. The simplest reason is probably because they want to focus their resources on first-degree students. They may also reason that second-bachelor's students are less serious and invested (fair or not). There are also financial reasons; most schools and U.S. federal programs do not provide financial assistance for second-degree students. You'd probably have to ask the schools themselves for the exact answer. (It's not a departmental thing, either - the entirety of Harvard College doesn't admit second-degree students, not just philosophy). The rule is usually strict with no exceptions.
2) In very general, it's pretty common. To be more specific, though, you'd have to have an undergraduate preparation they deem sufficient to begin the graduate program. So if you didn't have an undergrad degree in philosophy but you'd taken 7 or 8 undergrad philosophy classes (and did well), and you also had a mathematics BA and indicated you wanted to study the intersection between mathematics and philosophy, an MA program in philosophy might admit you. However, very few PhD programs will take you, because most U.S. institutions have a policy whereby they don't admit people to do second PhDs. If you already have a PhD in any field, you typically can't do another one very easily.


text:
Wrote the wrong university in cover letter for Phd Application
I wrote the wrong university in my cover letter for applying for a Phd position, Should I send the corrected one to the Phd Program Coordinator or leave it as it is? Will this make them to throw off my application (my chance is zero)?

I got my (now completed) PhD position using a cover leter with the same mistake. So the chance is not 0, but I don't know how good/bad it is.

@wimi Thank you for ur comment, it made me feel better, I hope they will just laugh at my application.

No one can predict how another would react, but I'd guess the most common reaction would be a laugh and then just assume it was a mistake.
People expect that you would apply to more than one university. People make oversight errors and know that others do.
You could send a note, apologizing for the mistake and expressing your continuing interest in their program.

Someone is telling me to leave it as it is, If they have already read it then damage is done. If I tell them there is a mistake they will read it for sure. Maybe this mistake will grab attention to my application since the wrong university is a reputable one in my field.

I doubt that it would matter much either way. But every individual is different.

Thank you so much for your answer, I would like to share something with u. After reading your answer, I got a brilliant Idea which is to send them an apology and take this chance to introduce myself and why im interested in their program and how i can contribute to it, and guess the happy surprise I did that and they replied to not worry about this issue and they are happy that I have applied for this job good luck!