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Can one be kicked out of Doctoral School because of not being able to find a supervisor?
I proposed a project about twistor formulations in noncommutative geometry for alternative theories of gravity to a professor to apply for a PhD program in physics in 2019, and though the professor didn't have any publications concerning the theories and techniques in my proposed project, he signed on to agree to supervise me to work on that project. And the PhD program also admitted me.
Then due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, I couldn't arrive at the university until October 2020. However, since my arrival, the professor seemed to always talk to me in a tyrannical or sarcastic tone. He always criticized me, even for trivial matters, often as negatively as he can, and never praised me. In all, he is irrational, surly, capricious and thus very difficult to cope with. Since I feel it is so hard to work in such a negative environment, I took the excuse that I am not sure if I am interested in so mathematics-oriented research he does in noncommutative geometry to resign from him as it’s like he wants to speak like even withdrawing from the supervision agreement is my mistake - he is a person who never admits it’s his fault whenever things don’t go well.
The scenario of our resignation from each other is as follows. He asked me to make a presentation 3 times and was never satisfied with it - every time he kept asking me very basic questions, like what is a vector, tensor, metric, covariant derivative, etc., making me to explain everything from the very beginning, even the conventional notations, and caviled and scorning me throughout the process to run out of time before I could finish my presentation. Then at my request, he let one of his students show me an example of the kind of presentation he expected and gave me a final chance to make a presentation satisfying him. He said if I can’t make such a presentation, I can’t work on mathematical physics. On that day, he went to my office asking me if I was ready to make that presentation, then, as I hesitated, he started to talk with me about PhD studies - he said my progress is too slow to carry out that project in the given PhD period, so it's better that I work on something else, like experimental physics, or just resign the PhD. I felt he completely didn't believe in my ability and held me in so low contempt; I realized his previous criticizing and scorning me was treating me like a clown. I thus felt so sad that I thought I couldn't work with him any further.
After calming down, I thought about the reasons for his treating me that way from my arrival. I think the reason is very likely that he wants to try his best to discourage me from working with him on that project, because he found not only he but also I am not familiar with the theories and techniques in the project, so that to work out results in 4 years may be problematic. I think he is not familiar with the project because he seems to rarely answer my scientific questions in that project - he either said "so what?" or "please focus on basic questions first." On the other hand, he also has no publications about the project.
Then we each wrote a mail to the program’s head to resign from each other in the end of February, 2021. The head seems not to know that professor well in person, so can’t judge it’s whose mistake, and just approved my request to change my supervisor. But he seems not be able to help me with looking for a new supervisor at all - he does not know which researchers in the faculty are engaged with the research topics I hope to work on to suggest them to me - the only thing he does is to threaten me from time to time to kick me out of the doctoral school if I don’t join a research group soon. This constant threat makes me feel uneasy and lack peace of mind.
In the beginning, I thought finding a new supervisor should not be too difficult, but later I found it’s not that easy. I approached several researchers, and though almost all of them invited me to have a talk with them and most of them even spoke in a way like they could be my supervisor in the beginning, none of them was willing to declare to be my supervisor afterwards. The reason is one of the following: they don’t have PhD projects in mind nor can they supervise me on my proposed project with which they don’t have experience; they are going to retire; they already have many students or they think I have no sufficient time to learn their research techniques since I have lost some time since the beginning of my PhD studies; they don’t feel safe to take me because they don’t know me much. I think in general, the situation is that no researcher in the faculty is engaged in topics close to the research I did during my MSc and those who work on topics much different from my MSc research don’t think I have sufficient background knowledge to do their research nor do they think I have sufficient time to learn. Some other PhD student said I just need to find a researcher who can sign to be my supervisor but doesn’t need to really collaborate with me, but I think this is not easy - except for that professor I originally contacted for admission, I have not found any researcher who is willing to sign to be my supervisor to let me work on topics they don’t have experience with.
The program’s head has sent a letter to the director of the doctoral school to suggest to kick me out of the doctoral school with the reason of having no scientific progress. However, the program’s head sent that letter only based on the fact that no researcher signed to be my supervisor. Since resigning from the supervision of that tyrannical professor, I actually have taken multiple courses and studied topics of those researchers I approached in the hope of being able to work with them. It’s just because I wander from topic to topic, I don’t make concrete progress towards my thesis.
I also have been invited to talk with the director, and he said even if I don’t have a supervisor, I can work on my own topic, like how he did something different from his PhD supervisor’s research. But the program’s head didn’t say I can do that in the beginning, so I spent time wandering from topic to topic of different researchers. However, I think even if I really work on my own topic without a supervisor during these months, if I don’t make a publication, and if no researcher in the faculty can understand what I do, how can they judge if I have made scientific progress?
I recently made another attempt of getting a supervisor by approaching a researcher in General Relativity and Astrophysics, the department closest to my MSc research. While my MSc research is about spinor formulations of general relativity, his research is about the application of General Relativity to Astrophysics. He introduced me a project as an extension of one of his papers, and since when he did this, it’s about one week away from the time the director said to kick me out of the doctoral school if the program’s head didn’t say I can stay, he said I have to prove my skills to be able to conduct that research project in one week to talk about collaboration with him. During the first week, I could not think very well due to being sick - I think I was infected a cold in the hostel I stayed - then in the second week I sent him a note showing a result he wants me to show, but he didn’t reply me and when I visited his office next day, I didn't see him. I don’t know what he thinks about what I sent to him and whether he would talk about collaboration with me.
Nevertheless, can they kick me out of the doctoral school because I cannot find a researcher who is willing to sign to be my supervisor after resigning from the original irrational supervisor? Actually I feel I am a victim of being placed under such an irrational supervisor - I have some posttraumatic symptoms after being exposed to his extreme negative criticism - but now it's like they think it's all my mistake and want to kick me out of the doctoral school.

Im so sorry for your experience. I think you need to change PhD program

@looktook I also have the suspicion. Even before I arrived, they had threatened me to kick me out of the Doctoral School if I didn't arrive by certain dates. But it's their Covid-19 travel restriction which forbad me to arrive in early March 2021, when I originally had booked a flight to arrive. I was so worried then, not knowing if I should apply for other PhD programs because I didn't know if and when they would let me arrive. I took the risk by assuming they would soon let me arrive by taking their online courses in my home country, but after I arrived, I still encountered the threat.

"What is a vector? What is a tensor?" I'm no professional academic, but I would think that in a presentation to my colleagues in the same field, I wouldn't need to define terms that they could be reasonably expected to know. Heck, I don't do physics math in my field. I still know what a vector is, thanks to my undergraduate physics and linear algebra classes.

@moonman239 When he let his student show me an example of the kind of presentation he expects. he didn't ask him any basic questions of this kind. I think if he treats him and me equally, he should ask him what is a group theory (since he gave a presentation about discrete groups) - a theory everybody in our fields knows. I complaint to him about his unequal treatment, then he said it's his way of checking knowledge which I have no choice but to accept. He also talked to his student gently during his presentation while he always talked to me in a tyrannical or scornful tone in my presentation.

@SaharaTrekker I see, in that case RUN, however you are immigrant in foreign country, I think it will be really hard.

The key points about the timeline of your story that I gather are

You have 4 years to complete your PhD.
You are currently a little more than one year into your PhD.
You have not had an advisor for 9 months (February until now, November). During that time, you've had multiple conversations with top people at the school that you need to make progress toward your degree.
You started working with a professor a few weeks ago, who gave you one week to complete a task. You finished the task in two weeks.
You are now urgently waiting for the professor's response because of the school's deadline to find an advisor is approximately now.

I think you are indeed in serious danger of being asked to leave the program. It sounds like you have been told you were in danger, the steps you needed to take were explained, and through a combination of being very rigid on what you want to work on and not being decisive enough to commit to the opportunities you found, you have not completed those steps.
If you want to resolve the situation, based on what you wrote I think the best chance you have is to make it work with the new GR and Astrophysics advisor. But, professors are busy and you took extra time with the task assigned, without communicating in advance that there might be an issue. So, they may not be inclined to respond immediately. I would wait at least a week before sending a reminder email, otherwise it will come across like you are bugging them. If you need the professor to talk to the head of the school on your behalf, you can try sending them a polite, short email asking if they would be willing to do this for you. If this works, then longer term, talk to them about what their expectations are for progress, and consider being flexible to work on projects in their area of expertise.
However, I just want to be realistic, there is a chance that the situation has already passed the point of no return. The school indeed can ask you to leave if they aren't satisfied you are making progress toward your degree.

I am not very rigid on what I want to work on. Though in the beginning, I did hope to work on something closely related to my MSc research or the project I proposed to that original supervisor, later I have opened my mind to accept other topics and explored some new topics some researchers introduced to me. I just thought if I cannot work on some fascinating topic, I can just work on a topic which interests me though not fascinating me, like working for a job, and leaving working on fascinating topics in the future or my free time. But I just haven't found a supervisor for that.

@SaharaTrekker That's good to hear. I think if things can work out with the GR and Astrophysics advisor, that sounds like a very good option. Unfortunately budgets are tight, there are more students than positions, the pandemic has made everything more complicated... so there are definitely factors outside of your control that can make finding a new advisor very difficult. Just be prepared in case things do not go the way you are hoping, because it seems like it is a possibility and you have to look out for yourself. But, I hope things do work out.

This is not the first researcher who works with me. Another researcher introduced me a very interesting project about topological matter in August, He acted like he can be my supervisor, including clarifying my related questions, referring me to related papers, encouraging me to take his related course. He also said if that project is too complicated for me, he will think another for me. But he kept not replying my email if he will supervise me until 2 months - the longest pending - after I first met him, when I emailed him for the same question - he seems not to feel safe to be my supervisor.

Before the researcher I first met in August, I also worked with another researcher in June. He asked me what topics I am the most interested in and introduced me his paper the most related to them. He suggested me to read it and said given him some days he would think a project related to it for me. But several days later, I couldn't reach him. And after I found him some weeks later, he has taken a new student and have totally 4 students, thus feeling not having sufficient time to supervise me. Besides the two researchers I spent the longest time, there are still others.

A professor to supervise a student's research project is the most important relationship in a doctoral program. I don't see a feasible way forward without one. The whole point oh a PhD is to receive training in research; minus an advisor, a student isn't receiving training in anything.
Different programs are likely to handle this situation a bit differently, but I think it would be treating the student most honestly and fairly to ask them to withdraw if there is no suitable supervisor. It's almost certainly not possible to graduate without a supervisor. PhD transfers are rare, but some interim relationship might be possible with the goal of having the student move to another institution.
From a student's perspective, I'd recommend reconsidering how specific their research interests are to see whether they could indeed pursue a slightly different direction under an available supervisor.

The whole point oh a PhD is to receive training in research; minus an advisor, a student isn't receiving training in anything → I would not be that categorical. My main supervisor was fantastic and we had an extraordinary relationship but the training he gave me was minimal. He helped enormously navigating the muddy waters of academia (as I put it elsewhere) but I learned much more by talking to people, reading good papers, and having the time to think.

Can one be kicked out of Doctoral School because of not being able to find a supervisor?

This depends on the rules of the school / university and the university law of the country. Since they have (apparently multiple times) actively threatened to dismiss you I think you should operate under the assumption that, yes, they have the option to dismiss you. If, and under what specific circumstances, they are willing to act on this option is anyone's guess, of course. Some schools are quick to dismiss students, others basically never do it. That said, if kicking out students is a somewhat common practice at your school, then "not finding an alternative supervisor after a conflict with your original supervisor" seems like as good a reason for dismissal as any other. I doubt that the school has an obligation to arrange a replacement for you, and if you can't find a supervisor then dismissal from the program is the only real alternative course of action I can think of.
However, the other question is whether there is even much point with you continuing this PhD program in the first place. You already lost 1/4 of your research time and it looks like nobody in the department is willing or able to work with you on the kind of research you are interested in. Maybe you would be better served using your remaining time in this doctoral program to looking for alternatives (in industry or in a different PhD school)?

The problem is that there is not sufficient time to do so many things at the same time. I spent the whole last semester focusing on taking multiple courses to get adequate ECTS to continue besides studying research topics of multiple researchers. If I know they would kick me out now, I should have spent time applying for other PhD programs in this country or other countries instead of taking these courses and studying the topics of those researchers I approached for supervision. It really takes time to get admission to a PhD program.

@SaharaTrekker I completely believe you. I have just made the experience that we all tend to spend too much time and energy trying to fix problems that cannot be fixed, for no other reason than because we have already spent so much time and energy on this problem before (see also: sunk cost fallacy). Sometimes things aren't going our way and it's better to look forward than to continue beating a dead horse (I know it's easy enough for me to say, but much harder to do!).


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Explaining slightly low grades in SOP for top schools
I'm a computer science student with a 3.8/4.0 trying to get into schools like MIT, Berkeley, etc. (at that tier) for their MS programs in CS. My undergrad school is a top 20 school (in the 10-20 range) in the US.
I have such a poor GPA because once I understood the material, I skipped doing homeworks for some courses because I would rather spend that time learning something else, working on research, etc. I also thought I'd go directly into industry so anything beyond the minimum threshold (3.6ish at the upper end) for the job was useless. Should I mention this reason in my statement of purpose or does it come off wrong?
If not like this, how should I bring it up in my SOP?

It comes off wrong, although isn't 3.8/4.0 stellar?

@Allure - not particularly; I know quite a few people with 3.9 or 4.0, although I did clarify this a bit more in the title

I don't know about CS, but in math (at least when I was in school; maybe a lot different now?) MUCH, MUCH more important are the courses you took (especially advanced undergraduate and graduate level, and how you did in the most difficult of those, and to what extent your ability and interest allowed you to go well beyond the minimum graduation requirements) and what your letters of recommendation say about your ability and potential (these are not the same thing) relative to the top handful of students at your university.

Maybe you are having a bit of fun with us. Such a GPA from a top 20 school is pretty impressive. I'm wondering why you are applying for an MS and not a doctorate. I'd guess the chances of one are about the same as the other.
But since you are asking about a very narrow range of schools, it is impossible what you can say or do to make acceptance assured. Only their admissions system (likely a committee of faculty) can determine that. I'd suggest you apply a few other places as well.
However, the SoP is not the place to try to make excuses, no matter how unnecessary (or necessary) they might be. The SoP is a forward looking document detailing as best you can your plans for the future, both study and afterwards. Don't waste words there that can actually be better focused and contribute more if done correctly.
I'd suggest you ignore your GPA altogether in your application materials. Graduate admissions in US is broad based, not narrow.  And, especially, not especially heavily dependent on GPA. Your letters of recommendation are more important.
And, TBH, I'd worry a bit about a student with perfect scores. I'd wonder whether they ever needed to work hard at things (some people would, others not). And so I'd worry whether they would hit a wall when grad study suddenly proves harder than what they have experienced before. I'm not suggesting that this applies to you, but it might run through the minds of some admissions people.
You should be fine for study, generally, but I'd cast a wider net than just UCB and MIT and wider still to consider a doctorate.

This is an honest question. I would estimate maybe 300ish CS students at my school have a higher GPA, most of whom are applying for grad school. 250*20 means as a rough back of the napkin calculation, we can estimate 5000 applications that are at minimum better than me GPA wise, which seems like a very large number

Again, GPA is only one element, and not the most important one. And not a subject for the SoP in any case.

This answer says "The SOP is also your chance to explain negative experiences, such as poor grades ... it looks very out of touch if you write an aggressive SOP but never mention your awful grades, for example". Is this GPA not bad enough to mention or do you disagree with the answer?

Be aware that you are likely to be judged similarly by similar schools. Cast a wider net or risk not finding a slot at all. One or two backups. There are many fine CS schools in the top hundred, actually.

I disagree pretty strongly that the SoP is the place to explain the past. If there is a "Personal Statement" you can do it there. Don't whine to the the admissions committee. And if the lower grades were not in important major courses (upper division) they are irrelevant anyway.

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BSc thesis proposal: how detailed is the norm
I'm in my last semester of a computer science BSc and need to write my thesis. Highly competitive environment, apparently it's the norm here that BSc theses should try for a publication. In Europe. I have gotten informal (but written) confirmation from a professor that the topic I suggested is ok, they even assigned some additional mentors. But none of them is very responsive, the thesis is not formally registered yet (it's mandated by university policy that registration needs to happen quickly/before substantial work) and I'm supposed to write a proposal.
I'd like to get an idea of what the norm is for such a proposal (to tide me over while I wait for feedback on the one I wrote). I think for a good research proposal I would need to do a literature review (even if just condensed into the introduction), but that would be a substantial amount of work (read multiple dozens of papers I guess). That can't be the usual expectation (before starting the thesis, while applying for a topic), can it?

I have gotten informal (but written) confirmation from a professor that the topic I suggested is ok, they even assigned some additional mentors...the thesis is not formally registered yet (it's mandated by university policy that registration needs to happen quickly/before substantial work) and I'm supposed to write a proposal.

Write as little as possible: The professor has informally agreed that the topic is okay and has assigned their resources. The professor is satisfied. Write something, check it is okay with the professor, and submit it. The professor is unlikely (imo) to be interested in the formal requirements, they (imo) just want you to get on with the work.

Generally a good proposal will need to have a literature review (perhaps brief) to motivate the research. A bachelors thesis will not need to be as good of a proposal as one for a grant that a professor would write especially since like the other answer said, you already have approval so it seems like a formality. My undergrad thesis I did as best I could but i think i only cited 10ish papers total and only some where in the lit review part (which imo should be a motivation part not just to show you read a bunch of papers that may or may not be relevant.
So I would do as much as you’d like. It’s good practice, which is really what the undergrad thesis is about. Hard to say exactly because I don’t know exactly your schools policies.
I’ll also add that at my school the proposals were entered into a scholarship contest so there was motivation to write a good
One. I tried but I guess mine wasn’t that good because I didn’t win the contest haha.

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Can I write a commentary on my own article?
I have just finished writing an article for my PhD. In the discussion section of this article, there is a paragraph where I mention a tangential discovery based on the main findings of the article. It doesn't fit well with the main article, and so my supervisors are recommending that I remove it. However I want to publish this tangential finding, as it is potentially even more important than the main article. But because it isn't directly related to my PhD, I won't have the time to flesh it out into a full article.
Is it possible for me to write a commentary on my own published article, and publish that separately? I would be able to summarize the tangential finding in about 1000 words, and it would allow me to claim the idea even if I can't fully flesh it out at this time.
Thanks a lot!
EDIT: removed final question as it was irrelevant

Yes, you can write such an article and seek to have it published. But it is up to the publisher whether it will be published or rejected. The usual standard calls for some significance and/or innovation in a new publication and you may meet that standard or not.
But the decision is theirs, not yours.
It is more likely to be publishable if you expand it sufficiently that it stands alone in some sense. If a reader of the original would find the new work obvious, then it is unlikely to meet the standard.

Your final question about publishers is off topic here as a "shopping question", so I've ignored that. Perhaps you should remove it.


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My thesis advisor expects more and harder work from me than other students, possibly because my work is for their client. How should I approach this?
I'm working on a Masters thesis and have been feeling really uneasy since working with my supervisor. From the beginning, she would not discuss expectations, and given the exploratory nature of the topic, I thought that was odd especially since it's in the guidelines that supervisors are supposed to set expectations. When I hesitated to accept the topic, she insisted that since the work is beneficial for her company (usually she just supervises students whose work she does not care or get involved with from what I've heard) that she would be able help me.
Long story short, a lot of problems happened and I could not work with her data without her. I really don't think she even thought the topic, which she offered to me, through. Several times I got the impression that I could not trust her. I even thought about changing topics and she found out. Although she was polite about it, I think she really wanted me to continue because she had told others that this was going to get done. I tried to stay positive and we made progress but now at the last moment she drops a bombshell saying I'm supposed to do and understand some difficult analysis which I have never seen from her or anything I've read, let alone learned how to do this. She's going through it like it's nothing and telling me it's basic and I'm telling her I'm not going to be able to learn/do this in time. She tells me that even the program expects me to understand this, which I don't think is true if I haven't even seen it before. She even mentions that her other students have done it and have had no problems with it, so I looked into this and saw only one person who had done a thesis using the same method with her. Except this person did something not even remotely close to the level of difficulty I was doing, and the amount of work was nothing comparable to mine. Yet whenever I speak with her she constantly implies that I haven't done much, aren't willing to much, and that my abilities are not up to par.
So, I am really confused what is happening. A part of me thinks I'm being abused and wants to report her, but I'm not sure what the consequences of that would be. I'm afraid that I might have to start over with a new topic and that other professors won't want to work with me (and that she won't even be reprimanded). Another part of me wants to give her the benefit of the doubt and just try to complete the work (maybe later make a complaint if I fail) but I also don't really want to do the work only to find out that she fails me.
TL;DR. If my supervisor is having having different expectations for me (much more and harder work), how should I approach this? Is this allowed and can she fail me while passing others? (European university)
Does anyone know anything about laws surrounding european universities and could maybe take this into consideration?
Also, should I tell her about the other student's work that she passed?
Thank you.

The wording is so vague this is barely understandable.

isn't that what the summary question is for...?

The questions at the end are the sort of thing we might be able to help with. Consider changing the title to something like “my supervisor expects much more from me than the other students, presumably because they want my work for their start-up. How to approach this?” (and focusing the rest of the post around this aspect of the question). (Edit: Now that there is a good answer to the existing question, you should do this is a new post, or by editing your old closed question, rather than making huge changes to this question)

"...should I tell her about the other student's work that she passed?" - Yes, you can talk to her in a calm and professional setting, and NOT in a confrontational tone (that implies "Hey, I think you abuse me" or "You lie to me and exploit me").  The purpose of that meeting should be for your understanding and for her to explain her points, and to build the bridge between you and your advisor. The goal of that meeting should not be to cause any conflict between you and your advisor.

"Does anyone know anything about laws surrounding european universities" You mean laws which apply, for instance, to Autonomous University of Madrid, University of Oxford, Open University, ETH Zurich, École normale supérieure in Paris, Moscow State University, Istanbul University, and Kyiv Polytechnic Institute? No offence, but I am continuously wondering what makes people who live in a European country believe that higher education throughout europe were so homogeneous or unified that such a question would make sense.

I thought they might or might not be, but I'm not about to state which university or country this is in regards to

Most laws under which universities function are national (or in the case of Germany, lower) level laws. So if you don't mention the country, then we cannot help you. There is no he European level laws relevant to your problem. Even if there were, European rules function mostly through being implemented as national law. With law, the devil is in the (national) details. So your question is unanswerable without knowing the country.

Could I message you privately? The reason I'm not disclosing that in the post is for anonymity.

If my supervisor is exploiting and abusing me, what should I do? (European university)

If you are sure your supervisor is exploiting and abusing you, then you can escalate the dispute. Note the word "escalate". The consequences will be serious, and there's a good chance your relationship with your supervisor will never recover.
You can check your local university's procedures about how to escalate. Here's an example from University College Cork, Ireland, and should be typical.

The guiding principle of this policy is that parties should seek to resolve disputes at the most local level possible, and avoid escalating the issue unless it is unavoidable. In addition, disputes should be resolved at the earliest available opportunity, as this is likely to be more conducive to a satisfactory outcome.
It is recommended that students, in the first instance, make a reasonable effort to resolve the matter causing concern informally through contact with their supervisor(s).
If this does not resolve the difficulty or is inappropriate, then the student should contact one of the following:

Co-supervisor or advisor; or

Chair of the local Graduate Studies Committee (who may, at his/her discretion,
consult with the Head of School/Department).

Should the matter still not be resolved, then the student should contact one of the following:

Head of School/Department; or
Head of Graduate School of your College.

The document goes on to say what happens if none of these manage to resolve the dispute. You then have to prepare a formal complaint, which will be heard by a board in a style not dissimilar to a legal case. Your supervisor will get to defend themselves and possibly file counter-complaints against you. The board will deliberate and produce a recommendation, which can lead to change of supervisor, change of working environment, or change of your student status.
I'd recommend making pretty damn sure that "my supervisor is exploiting and abusing me" is a true statement before proceeding, because if the board finds against you, your academic career is probably over.
Good luck.


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Applying for a PhD, do academics hold grudges?
During my BSc, I had an overall OK-ish relationship with my adviser. For clarification, my adviser was not a supervisor (I've seen the words being used interchangeably in some countries and unis). He was just someone I went to if I had questions or concerns about my course.
At the end of my degree, I blew up an internship interview with him, and I am worried if this will affect my chances of getting a PhD in the same department (but in completely different research group).

Do academics hold grudges?  Some do, some don't.  You should not spend time worrying about it.

What is the question? Is there a question?

The real question here is "Should keep beating myself up for a botched interview two years ago?", to which the answer is obviously "no". You appear to be blowing the entire episode way, way out of proportion in your head. A scenario where your advisor holds a "grudge" against you based on this seems to me, absent evidence to the contrary, to be bordering on science fiction. On the other hand, it is not entirely out of the question that someone on the admission committee will be aware of this episode. Chances that they will consider it as big a deal as you still do, though, are close to zero.

Finally, if this episode is the reason why you are trying to avoid asking your advisor for a letter of reference, then, if I'm being honest, this seems a bit silly to me and I would advise you to reconsider. Of course, it may be that you have other, more rational reasons not to use him as one of your references.

So how does his assessment of you being an inadequate fit for an intern position affect your perceived capacity as a PhD student two years later?..

Yes, many academics hold grudges. Examples abound.

do academics hold grudges?

It depends on the context and the personality of the academic. But in general there is no reason to believe that the distribution of academics who do hold grudges is in any way different from the general population. So in summary: yes, some academics do hold grudges, or at least do not want to invest in someone who has disappointed them once.

It might be worth adding that someone might hold some kind of grudge, yet be able to behave professionally and write a fair letter.

Unless the professor you mentioned is on the hiring committee for your PhD, I’m not sure what can be done. Don’t write an email! I teach undergrad and grad students, so I want to put myself in your shoes. I tried writing out your problem, but it feels silly:
“Dear Doctor So-and-So,
I’m not sure if you remember me but I wanted to let you know I’m applying for a PhD at Your Uni with Dr. Other Person. I wanted to reach out because I interviewed with you a few years ago for an internship but my wifi was cutting out and, during the interview, I soon realized the internship didn’t fit my skill set. I wanted to apologize for the lack of professionalism.”
If I received an e-mail like this from a student, I would be confused. I would probably be nice and write back “Don’t worry about it. Good luck!” That’s it. Why even send an email?
I’m sorry you’re worried about this prior episode but it shouldn’t affect your PhD prospects with another professor. If nothing else, this happened during the pandemic. I feel like a lot of my colleagues have been much more generous towards students because of this time in history.

I don't think such a letter is needed or helpful. The matter was likely long forgotten. Why bring it up again? If that person is one who would hold a grudge you are just picking at a sore.

Sorry, that’s what I meant: the letter would NOT be helpful. After writing it out, I felt silly.


text:
What should the difference be in content between thesis written submission and oral defense presentation?
I was just wondering if anyone has tips for a thesis defense presentation. One thing I don't understand is how it is supposed to differ from the written submission (which panelists will have already read prior to the presentation).
If my thesis is applied (statistical), should I focus less on explaining the theory and how the method works? Is there any rule of thumb to determine what to include/exclude?
How should I start/end the presentation?
Thank you.

Do you have a thesis advisor? This sort of question would best be answered by your advisor because they know the actual contents of the work as well as the local customs.

Is the defense presentation a public event, or just for the committee?

I think the "local customs" issue is dominant here...

it's private. but the guidelines say to present as if for a general statistical audience.

On one hand, it should be "easy" to present something you worked on for 6 months and you should be able to give a personal insight into the topic.
On the other hand, there is a non-zero chance that the thesis was done by someone else, so the oral defense is the last chance to assess if the thesis defendent is the same person that produced the written thesis.


text:
Is it acceptable to post an exam question from memory online?
You are not allowed to directly post material from a professor's lecture but any notes you take are considered your intellectual property. By the same token if you take an exam and remember a question can you post it online after taking the exam to know whether you did it correctly? The numbers and wording can be changed but the question will essentially be the same.
According to an answer to a related question (Is it ethical to post an exam question and answer to the internet?) this is acceptable but I find that questionable since although the wording is changed the idea is the same. But I think that it's not necessarily a disservice because although specifically those who take the same class in the future, if they come across the question, may encounter it on their exam if the professor reuses the question, most people who encounter it will learn from it.

How is this question any different from the one you linked? Asking it again just because you don't like the answers is not an appropriate use of the privilege to post.

In my time at university, we (more or less) only had oral exams that counted toward the final grade. Of these, there were a metric ton of "memory protocols" available via the student council, most even typeset in LaTeX (yes, it was mathematics...) and with reworked solutions. These were used by most students as example problems for their own exams. Those being oral however made relatively sure that no two exams were exactly the same.

Note that plagiarism is about ideas not specific wording. If you post it and cite it then it isn't plagiarism.
The professor (or the university) hold copyright on the material as they do on all other writings. So, you should, in principle, ask for permission. One can violate copyright with rephrasing, not just with quoting. Note that an important aspect of copyright law is whether a "copy" makes the original less valuable or not.
However, there is another question which is whether you do future students a service or a disservice by doing so. If your posting is used to increase grades at the expense of learning then it is, IMO, a disservice. Reuse of questions for exams is a fraught activity, of course. The world would probably be better if it weren't done, but in some fields that is difficult. If you want to be of service to learning, then I'd suggest that you don't do it.
In a field like mathematics, there is a vast difference between reading a solution and producing one. Taking "exams" knowing all the questions and answers in advance won't give a student the feedback they need to know whether they have the needed insights. I can imagine an "All A" student who knows nothing of the subject.
You haven't tagged this with ethics. I hope you consider that an important issue.

I know the asker didn't mention this, but it seems like it might be relevant to bring up any honor codes or academic integrity codes that might be enforced on the asker. Even if it would not be plagiarism or a copyright violation, there still could be consequences for anyone posting exam questions. Unless they aren't a student at the time they post them.

I don't understand how posting past exams could be a disservice to future students? Practice exams are typically the best way to learn.

Copyright, at least under US law, does not extend to "any idea [...] concept, principle, or discovery". You can copyright the literal wording of the question, and that would also extend to close paraphrasing, but it would not cover the general idea or essential concept of the question. Nobody owns (e.g.) the concept of figuring out a building's height by measuring its shadow and doing trigonometry, or any similar question you could devise.

Assuming that the exam questions are not intended for release, it is possible that the university would view this as an infraction against the general requirement of "academic honesty" or "academic integrity".  Depending on additional context or actions that accompany this activity, they might even view it as being an inchoate attempt to cheat in a future exam (e.g., by making the question available to another student who uses this to gain advanced knowledge of questions for a future exam).  It is also possible that the university would consider this to be a case of improper collusion in the conduct of assessable work, which is also generally regarded as an infraction against academic integrity.
Many universities have strict requirements on when a student can take possession of the exam questions after the exam (e.g., special coloured sheets for exams that cannot be retained) and the goal of this is to ensure that the questions on those exams do not become available to students, so that the same questions can safely be asked again in future exams.  When students collect and share these questions it has the potential to undermine the integrity of future examinations that use those questions.  This is generally considered to be an illegitimate form of cooperation in assessable work, so it may be viewed as collusion or as a general breach of academic integrity.
In the case where the exam questions are released by the university, the situation would be different.  Universities publish some of their exams on repositories that are available to students, and if the exam falls in this category then there is no issue of collusion or academic integrity in posting a question yourself.  The only issues to be aware of in this latter case are copyright law and appropriate conventions on citation of your sources.


text:
Emailing professor about final exam as a Master's student
When you email professors to ask if you can see your final exam, they usually are reluctant to show you the exam. So, they tell you that as long as you pass the course, there is no need to worry.
But, I want to know what I did incorrectly, and also see if there is any grading error because I think I did better on the exam than my approximate exam grade I calculated based on the final grade (the final exam grade was not posted).
The professor did not post the solutions to the exam or the final exam grade.
How should I ask to see the final exam to maximize the chances that the professor will agree to send a copy of the exam?
Do professors have to show the exam or exam grade or is there no obligation?
It would also be fine for me to ask for the solutions to the exam if I realize that my exam grade should be lower than what I think after reading the solutions.

"because they often don't grade it fully" citation needed. Not my experience.

The question is missing a country tag. In some countries it is common that students can have a look at the graded exams and even try to explain their solutions to get additional points if the grader did not see why their solution is also correct.

I did not downvote. But, I think your question may be downvoted because you wrote "...they usually are reluctant to show you the exam because they often don't grade it fully". Did you mean to write "...because they have not finished grading all exams from all students in the class yet" ? If that is what you meant to say, then you could edit your question to improve the approval rating for your question.

Whether there is an obligation depends on your country (and sometimes institution within the country), this question at minimum needs a country tag. Even if there is an obligation they probably do not need to email it to you or show you solutions, only allow you to view it with them in their office.

@Job_September_2020 If the final exam is pass/fail, the instructor will sometimes rapidly establish if a particular student obviously fails or obviously passes, and thus not always grade this exam in details; only for the more marginal cases would the instructor mark the copy in details.  I certainly know of some courses where this is the case, and I suspect there are many more.  I do not know how prevalent this is and so I think the statements by the OP are overly general, although they might reflect local practices.

@ZeroTheHero, Yes, you are right about those pass/fail classes. Thanks for pointing that out.

@Job_September_2020 it is admittedly not clear if this is the case for the OP.  If the exam is not a simple pass/fail and there is a letter grade or a numerical grade attached to the course credits, I would hope an instructor would mark every copy in full.

@ZeroTheHero, I agree on all points. I would hope the OP would clarify his post.

When I did my undergraduate studies in germany there was always a special timeslot for viewing your exams ("Klausureinsicht"). The timeslot was posted by the grading professor, and you could go there, have a look at your exam and discuss with the professor/postdocs who graded the course. Maybe you should have a look at your universities rules, maybe they have some formal provision for viewing the exams.

Where I work:

students have a right to see their copy of the final exam; this does not extend to accessing a copy of the solution to the exam (which are rarely posted) or the marking rubric, although most instructors have no issue with discussing the contents of the exam copy with the student.
the actual booklets used to write the final exam must remain with the instructor and “safely stored” for one year in case a student files an appeal and some exam copies must be recovered for comparison.

Various institutions have their own rule book but I would be surprised if an instructor agreed to mail you your copy: it is too dangerous if you challenge the final grade.  You will likely have better luck asking for a meeting to discuss your exam.

I don't set the rules universally, but ethically, you are entitled to full information about how you were graded. That doesn't, however, imply that you should be sent a copy of the exam.
But you should, in principle, be entitled to visit the professor and have any deficiencies explained to you. But changes in grade aren't very likely after such a meeting.
Again, rules vary, but they should favor transparency.

How should I ask to see the final exam to maximize the chances that the professor will agree to send a copy of the exam?

At my former university, you can certainly request to meet with your professors to review your exam papers and grades. You can simply contact the professors via emails or phone calls.
They may be too busy right at the end of the semesters. But, eventually all professors will find some available time and place to show you your exam papers, and they may even discuss the solutions to the exams with you, and answer all your questions/concerns.

Usually, the professors want to finish the grading of the whole class first before they meet with any student to discuss the individual grade for that student. That is understandable.
The length of time to finish the grading of a whole class may depend on how many classes and how many students your professors have.
Maybe, you can wait for some time from a few days to a week after you finish the exam, and then start asking the professors about the grades ?


text:
How can an brand/company be credited in a paper?
Say, a brand/company like Intel provides a free service — specifically large computational resources (a cluster that could be used for AI, machine learning etc.). In business, it falls under "sponsorship". In return for its sponsorship the brand wants... VISIBILITY. And of course, "visibility" can come in many forms.
But the essence is:
It's a business transaction. Not a charity event.
For a business/brand being associated with scientific research (which results in a paper) has value. For the researcher writing a paper getting free resources has value.
A business sponsors research and expects brand visibility in return.
So, the question is:
How can the brand get maximum visibility for sponsoring a paper?
(or sponsoring the research that results in a paper)
Getting merely a footnote mention or being hidden somewhere in the back in an "acknowledgments section" seems like a poor value to the brand/company providing the resources.
Of course, in general, one could argue that there are better ways to do "marketing". But here we assume that the company WANTS to provide resources and hopes to get some brand visibility out of that. (the more the better)

Many HPC centers (or e.g. research facilities providing instrument time, or places that host many visiting researchers for that matter) have instructions for how they prefer/request to be credited (e.g. by specifying a phrasing that typically would go in the acknowledgments).

The confusion here is probably due to your original question not making any mention of private companies, so I (and probably some others) figured you were talking about more conventional (for us) university HPC resources.

Unless there's a very special resource involved (e.g. prototype quantum computers) or a particularly high-profile project, I suspect providing compute time is not a particularly effective marketing exercise for a company. That said, companies like Intel, AMD, Nvidia etc. are often quite involved with the construction of new high-end compute clusters that, as it happens, can provide them longterm visibility and prestige, at least in some circles.

Indeed, echoing Anyon, "institution" usually implies an academic or at least government entity (or possibly religious or social non-profit type organization). Companies are not usually called "institutions". You also asked "how can an institution be credited" and got a simple answer. It seems maybe your actual question was "how can a company get more credit than usual" which is a completely different question. I don't know why you'd expect people to answer a different question than you asked.

@BryanKrause Thanks. That's a fair point. My fault.

I cannot sort out what problem is being solved here.  Is this question from the point of view of the company?

@TerryLoring I have modified the question body and the headline. Yes, this question is from the point of view of the company. Sorry for the confusion.

Acknowledgement in the paper is the credit on the academic side. That's all the credit a company gets or deserves within academia, it's perfectly suitable to be in the acknowledgements. Others who provided their time or money will also be found there. Often the methods section will also describe the computing resources. Other academics who want to use the same resources will know where to go.
Marketing is the company's business and is up to their goals.
They can make a TV ad saying "our resources were provided free to 1,000 academic projects with a total worth of $XYZ, so buy our brand of paper towels".
They can say to their computing customers "hey computing customers, here are some papers where people used our stuff with good results, therefore you can expect good results, too, when you pay to use the same resources."
And, importantly, they can go to the government agency that sponsored their company to develop this computing resource (don't think that every time a company does this sort of thing they are actually spending their own money... Companies get government grants, too) they can include it in the successful use of those funds towards a cause for the public good.

The normal way to do this, is through the Acknowledgements section. This could contain a line like:

"HPC resources for this work were provided by institution X."

Where is the acknowledgments section usually located? i.e. how easy is it for people to notice that credit? Are there ways for the institution to get credit that are not "normal"?

Acknowledgment sections are usually either at the end of the introduction or at the end of the paper. Another location (not really a section) is a footnote on the first page.

@WebDevBooster This seems like an XY problem. Why do you want to know if there are other ways?

@AzorAhai-him- Are you asking why an institution would want to maximize return on investment? Is that what you want to know?

@WebDevBooster "Maximize return on investment"? What does that even mean in this context?

@WebDevBooster I am not. Publishing a paper does not get any "returns" that are relevant for a HCP cluster.

Providing resources has a cost associated with it, hasn't it? And if an industrial institution provides resources for free, it's not unreasonable the institution would want something in return, is it? That "something" would be the return in this context. Those "returns" are very much relevant. Otherwise, the institution wouldn't consider providing free resources in the first place.

Or does an institution like Intel provide resources solely for the goodness of their heart? Or just for fun?

@WebDevBooster Why does that something have to be something in a paper?

@TimRias A brand like Intel provides a free service (which in business is called sponsorship). In return for its sponsorship the brand wants... what exactly? VISIBILITY! That's right. So, the question is: How can the brand get maximum visibility for sponsoring a paper? If a researcher sends a big thank-you note on a postcard, that probably won't do. So, how else are you going to give visibility to the sponsor brand if it's not "something in the paper"? How will the paper readers know that the brand has provided resources if it isn't mentioned in the paper?

@WebDevBooster There are other ways of getting visibility related to the sponsored research, other than visibility in a paper. (e.g. in related presentations, mentions in related press releases, on the group/researcher/institute website.)

@TimRias Aha, that's what you meant. Yes, those things would be definitely valuable too. I guess, they could be more valuable. So, thanks for the input. Still, a paper is a piece of published research. So, a lot of value here comes from prestige.

In my opinion, what you want to do is inappropriate. A research paper is not a suitable venue for advertising or providing brand visibility to a corporation. Any attempt, beyond an acknowledgment or the listing of an affiliation, is likely to be shut down by the editors. Please don't try.
However, there are other ways in which a researcher could draw attention to their sponsor. Perhaps the best is to create a good personal website.
It is common for academics to create websites where they might do any of the following: post preprints of their papers; advertise their work and that of their students and postdocs; recruit prospective students; provide links to resources they value; and generally draw attention to where they feel it is deserved. If I'm interested in a researcher's work, I will often find may way to their website at some point.
So, create a good website promoting the research, and add as much brand visibility for the corporate sponsor as you like.

Usually an institution will partecipate in studies if they have an interest in it.
For example, this researcher:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Pradeep-Dubey-4
has a long career workign for Intel, and there are many scientific papers which base their results on computations perfomed on Big Blue (Intel supercomputer) with their name and Intel as their institution/affiliation as co-author, papers spanning from statistics to geophysics.
Surely he contributed more than providing the script grammar to launch simulations on Big Blue, but having a person from the hosting institution actively involved in the computations does not seem a far fetch to me.

So, to get a more prominent credit (rather than being buried in an acknowledgments section or in a footnote somewhere) an organization like Intel provides someone who is credited as a co-author and has an employment association with that organization. Would that be a correct way to put it?

@WebDevBooster In that case the organization is not merely providing computational resources as a service, they are directly involved in the study if their employee has an authorship role (which is certainly plausible for providing support for a key resource in a project).

Right. So, if Intel wants greater "visibility" for their sponsorship (because that's what it is in the world of business — a sponsorship which is expected to have a return on investment which in this case means brand visibility/exposure), then they find ways to make such a branded co-authorship "plausible". Or perhaps, they even make such a "plausible" co-authorship a condition for providing their services.

@WebDevBooster I am not sure it is the most cost-effective way to increase visbility, I think a big company wanting to promote its cloud/computational service would be better doing cost-dumping trying to shut-down the competitors. Or buying them (let's remember that PowerPoint already existed as a software ... which had already all the functionalities, Microsoft bought it in the early 90s).


text:
What should I do if I believe that the Journal is being careless about the plagiarism?
This post is related to this one. It's been almost a month, and both of the publisher and the journal have done nothing about the plagiarism. Every time I call Springer (I called them like 5 times), they say "Once they make a decision or progress, they will contact you". I also emailed some of the staff a couple of times asking what they have done so far and how long is it going to take them to decide. I was completely ignored.
They already have the proof of plagiarism and they created a plagiarism - ticket ID. Is it normal that it's been a month and they have not decided yet?
I feel something fishy about the way they are handling this issue. Since they have the proof of plagiarism, I think the article should be retracted within a day if not couple of hours.
Should I wait longer, or should I assign a lawyer? By they way, are there some organizations I can complain to regarding this issue in case I find the journal and publisher careless or taking sides?

Update 29 Jan 2023: The article was retracted about two weeks ago

Relax.  These issues take years to work through.  With your urgency you seem like a crazy person.  The world does not proceed at the pace of 24-hour news, nor should it.  People should take time and think and work through even the simplest decisions carefully.  They are doing so.

Calling 5 times in less than a month to try and prod them to speed up their process is way over the top. So, yes, the comment was trying to prod you to consider letting them do their thing on their schedule. Your continuing to call will not be helpful at all to the process.

You should be careful about your language.  You have no idea if the journal is "being careless about plagiarism".  More likely, they're being very careful to not incorrectly accuse an author of plagiarism, as that would expose them to significant liability.

It's summertime right now for most people in the world, and therefore vacation season.
There isn't a lot of urgency to this issue; it'll be taken care of eventually. It seems simple to you, but I'm sure they have a specific process they go through, and that process is likely not simple because it'll be designed to handle a whole range of cases. It's not like just one person there who has a "remove for plagiarism" button, probably they have some busy people who all need to review the issue and who have a bunch of other things going on and may be on vacation at any given time.
They may have other more complicated issues to handle in the meantime, and are doing things on a "first in, first out" basis rather than handling the simple cases to get them done with fast.
If you contact them through a lawyer, they'll probably want to handle all responses through their lawyer, which will make everything that much slower and careful, not faster, and cost both you and them money that doesn't need to be spent.

@AliShadhar The people you hear from are probably not the people making the decision. They probably find it frustrating that you keep asking for an update when they assure you that they will contact you once there is something to update. It's not apparent to me that they are acting unprofessionally. I think we'd all prefer if journals moved more quickly on many aspects.

Is it normal that it's been a month and they have not decided yet?

Plagiarism investigations often last years.  So yes.
Springer is a for-profit organization, and they are not getting paid to do this.  Expect corresponding disinterest.

should I assign a lawyer?

In my non-laywer opinion, you have nothing to gain by taking any further action.

Thank you. It takes years even if the proof is very strong and clear?

Yes.  The result might depend on evidence, but the process mostly does not.


text:
What should I do when someone publishes a paper based on results I already posted on the internet?
I posted new theorems and proofs on Mathematics Stack Exchange.
Weeks later, someone else submitted the same results to a Springer journal and the paper was accepted.
How can a publisher like Springer publish stolen results before verifying if they already exist or not? The funny thing is that both of the authors know that these results are mine and one of them kept asking me if I want to publish them together with their results in one article and I declined, as I planned to include them in my second book. Therefore, it is clear this is not a case of simultaneous discovery — the authors were aware of my work and copied it exactly.
What should I do? Thank you.

Update 29 Jan 2023: The article was retracted about two weeks ago

For future reference, please note this policy; we can discuss cases in the abstract, but this is not the place to make serious accusations against named individuals (names have since been redacted).

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

I suggest you write a formal letter to the editors of the journal.  But you will need to state only facts and not opinions.
In your letter, give the link to your Mathematics Stack Exchange post.  Point out that it was published before the paper in question was received by the journal.
You say "both of the authors know that these results are mine."  Do you have evidence of this (an e-mail, perhaps)?  If so, then include the evidence in your letter.
Request the editors to acknowledge receipt of your letter.  You will need evidence that the editors received it.  Otherwise, if the editor is unethical and perhaps a close friend of the authors, they will claim that they never received your letter.
It is not enough that you posted your results before their paper was received by the journal.  It is possible that they were the ones who created the results, they showed it to you, and you posted it online (before they could submit it to the journal) claiming it was yours.  That's why they didn't mention your name in the paper.  How do you convince the editors that you are telling the truth?
You need to provide evidence, but note that evidence can be falsified, and that evidence is not proof.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

How it happens is that nobody at Springer (editors, reviewers, ...) were made aware of the situation in a timely manner. I doubt that there was malice from a company that wants to maintain its reputation. There may be a lack of due diligence, of course, but it is just about impossible to know everything that has been published. And, "publishing" in a question on SE is a bit obscure in the larger world. It might require serendipity if one of the reviewers was a member here. Also, math formulae are very difficult for search engines, complicating due diligence further.
To try to solve the problem, contact Springer directly and lay out your case. A retraction might happen or other facts might come to light. But the authors have likely plagiarized you if you weren't given credit.

Editors, reviewers, etc. are not Springer employees, and act autonomously. In cases of plagiarism, you should contact editors of the journal, not directly the publisher.

@EmilJeřábek I disagree. This is the time for Springer to perform an internal check, especially because the paper is published and it is now outside the domain of editor & reviewers. Every reputable publisher has a department to investigate plagiarisms/frauds & co.

@EmilJeřábek If it is as you say, then I don't understand what Springer does. Reformatting, web hosting, printing and profiting? I'm usually pessimistic about such things, but that's a bit much.

@wizzwizz4 Reformatting, web hosting, printing and profiting: sounds about right.

@wizzwizz4 In my experience "reformatting" is often replaced by "mangling formulae", but yeah, that's pretty much it.

Well, lets all just hate on the publishers that make our work available, even seeing to its improvement, and enable our careers. Without them we'd be peddling self published tracts on the street corner. If you have no use for their service, don't use it.

@DenisNardin reformat, deformat, close enough.  ♂

I don't understand why my comments are being interpreted as "hating the publishers". I'm just pointing out that there are things that they do, and things that they don't do, and anything related to the subject matter of the journals is firmly in the second category, and as such it is handled by the editorial board. This includes issues of academic misconduct. The expected outcome of reported plagiarism is that they will confront the authors, and (if the conclusion is that misconduct happened) publish a corrigendum or outright withdraw the paper. Such actions are the purview of the editors.

The matter will need to be dealt with by the publisher and editors together, so the standard first step is to contact the publisher or an editor or both.  The publisher and editors should be in communication with each other, so it shouldn't matter which you choose to contact, but the editors will have more specialized mathematical expertise to give an initial opinion on whether there has been any academic wrongdoing.
The onus is on you to prove your case: one is innocent until proved guilty.  This means you need to explain clearly why you believe that you should have received acknowledgement for your work.  If equations, phrases or sentences are the same, state precisely which equations, phrases or sentences are the same.  If specific ideas used are the same, describe how.  You can't expect a reader to spend a long time searching for similarities, particularly for equations that require specialist understanding.
Springer is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).  When one of their journals receives concerns of plagiarism, they should follow the COPE guidance for plagiarism in a published article.

It is strange, isn't it, how they will acknowledge to your face that they got it from you with a sunny smile and then turn around and do a thing like this.
Philosophical answer: you are a brilliant person with lots of good ideas, and you don't mind sharing them on a public forum, even if that means other people will snatch them from time to time. Such folks must themselves be low on good ideas, if they really need to cobble together an academic career out of other people's accomplishments.
Pragmatic answer: take this up with the handling editor. Your email must be high on detail (include all the links and dates that prove it was you first) and low on whining and complaining, since that person will probably find the whole thing distasteful anyway.
Political answer: I know I always get downvoted for bringing this up, but the old boys network does exist, it is a fact of life, and handling editor and stealing author may be friends... in which case you may lose the war even if you win the battle.

This answer takes everything in the question at face value.
The actions of the authors will not be looked upon favorably by the journal or the StackExchange network.
You would be able to prove that the ideas have been taken from your post. Besides your email/other correspondence with the authors (hopefully this is recorded), similarities between content, terminology, symbols etc. should be adequate to build your case. Once this is done, the authors run afoul of journal requirements (not to plagiarise) and the StackExchange policy of sharing attribution to any content taken from here (more on this ahead).
As such, the journal should take some action, either requiring that your work be cited or that the paper itself be retracted. Whether or not they do this depends on many factors, such as the journal policy, the editor's conscientiousness, the strength of your argument and so on. The authors should, in my opinion, face some censure (at the least) for indulging in malpractice.
However, my primary concern is something else that you stated :

as I planned to include them in my second book

You should know that anything posted on the SE sites is automatically shared under a cc-by-sa license. This means that anyone is free to share (copy, redistribute) and adapt (remix, transform, build upon - even commercially) content from here, provided that the post-creator is attributed (by author name and by mentioning that the content was posted to SE). Details about attribution here and cc-by-sa here.
In your context, this means that your proofs could legally be used by anyone, so long as they mention that you posted it to SE at a certain link. They are free even to put this in their book and sell that book commercially. By 'remix', I suppose they could simply change some terminology, and then claim that they have 'built upon' your work, perfectly legally.
So while your indignation at being cheated out of credit is justified, your proofs posted online may not be quite as secure as you imagine. We all have different stands on how freely work should be shared, so this may be quite alright with you. To me, it would be a bit naive to share something under a cc-by-sa license when I intend to ultimately put that in a textbook.
However, @BryanKrause has pointed out that this may not be quite as naive as I thought. You, as the creator, are allowed to relicense SE content (when you put it in a textbook, for example). What you have already put out (on SE) can always be used by others under the original cc-by-sa license though. More details on this here.

CC-by-SA licensing and academic integrity are not particularly related; there are lots of things you can do while complying with a CC-by-SA license that are academic misconduct, and vice-versa. The license of SE content has very little bearing on how "secure" the work is from the perspective OP has.

@BryanKrause- We may be talking about different things. Once OP shares something under cc-by-sa, OP cannot later share it under a more restricted license. Any 'remix' would also have to be licensed cc-by-sa. The latter part of the answer is not about misconduct by other authors, but the rights of OP themselves.

@AliShadhar- You'll find some good solutions to that issue on this site, in the form of qustions about protecting discoveries. I think the preferred route for mathematicians is posting to a preprint site.

@AppliedAcademic That's not true, you can certainly license cc-by content that is your own under whatever other license you want. You can't revoke the CC-by license, though.

@BryanKrause- You're right, that is a nice subtlety. I'm incorporating that into the answer, pl feel free to edit as suitable.


text:
My "in review" article appeared online on ResearchGate - uploaded by a reviewer
My team submitted an article to an MDPI journal 7 weeks ago. The manuscript quickly went into peer review. After a few weeks, MDPI contacted us and asked us to provide a list of potential reviewers. They had troubles to recruit reviewers at this stage. We provided them a list with known experts in the field. A week later, another researcher uploaded our manuscript to ResearchGate.
Notably, it was our manuscript with the typical MDPI template. She uploaded the manuscript but attached it to one of her own articles, so that the attached document did not match the title/abstract. We saw it because RG informed us that our work had been cited by others...
We were very surprised and contacted both the uploader and MDPI.
After one week, the uploader replied and apologized for falsely uploading it. She admitted that she was a reviewer of our manuscript and removed it. MDPI never gave a concrete reply and just said that they would look into this matter.
Two days ago we saw the reviewers' reports. They were both very positive.
Today, the manuscript had been rejected for an odd reason (claiming the statistical method is not correct, although the method requested by the reviewer is included in the manuscript).
We feel that we are part of a larger intelectual theft. It is the first manuscript dealing with this particular topic - although it is a negative result piece.
EDIT: What would you do in such a situation?
EDIT: We had no pre-print uploaded.

Probably MDPI uploaded it.  They are a dodgy publisher.

What kind of information do you want about the reviewers?

More to the point: what do you want MDPI to say? Since you already know the identity of the reviewer, what can they say that you can't already find out from Google?

@Prof.SantaClaus I agree that MDPI is a questionable publisher, but in this case the reviewer admitted uploading it; why do you think there is more behind it?

What does "attached it to one of her own articles" mean exactly? Did the reviewer just upload the wrong PDF, or did she edit the PDF / manuscript to remove your name and add hers? In the first case this seems like an innocent error, without 'intellectual theft' or any intentional wrongdoings. Yes, she (inadvertently) broke anonymity and confidentiality, but she did not make any attempt at passing your work for hers.

I find it really weird that a manuscript for review somehow got 'attached' to another document. It really makes no sense at all...

@JonCuster I have never used ResearchGate, does it maybe collapse a set of uploaded files into one?

It sounds like your reviewer just made a mistake; they intended to upload their own document, but when they went to select it through the file explorer interface, they accidentally clicked on yours. Is there any reason to believe this wasn't just an honest mistake?

@Cag51: This is the case here. But the idea is novel and has been online for a few days so that everybody could perform the (admittedly simple) analysis with her own data.

I'm voting to close as "needs more details". I cannot tell what exactly is being asked. If OP just wants to know more about the reviewer (which is the only thing with a question mark in the question), the question doesn't explain why they can't Google for it, and it gives a lot of extraneous details besides. That implies that something else is actually the question, but as written it's not clear what that question is.

@Allure: My question was how the community would handle such a situation. In my team, this is a novum. We have not experienced this before.

@Dr.M I'd suggest editing that into the question, then.

@Dr.M Well, I think your main concern is that your article was online for sometime and now you think there is a chance that someone publish the idea sooner than you right? Ehhhh... Well, you can't do anything about it except accepting the apology of the person that made the mistake (aka reviewer). I'm voting close this question, not because it's not clear what you're asking, but because it seems you're expecting someone jump in (MDPI or reviewer or whoever) and turn the clock backward and situation become like nothing happened... That's what exactly you're asking for...

What would you do in such a situation?

Nothing. It seems like a simple mistake. Your reviewer did something they shouldn't have done, and when it was pointed out to them, they immediately acknowledged it was a mistake and corrected it. This kind of error happens to everyone and there's nothing else to do.
The other details in your question (like which publisher it is, what the ultimate result of your paper's peer review process was, etc) all look extraneous to me. You might not approve of MDPI, but it's not like they can do anything in this situation (what can they do anyway, blacklist the reviewer for being human?). Some reviewers approved of your paper and some disapproved, and the result was reject; this is not uncommon at all for highly competitive journals so it's also not surprising.
If the negative review is flat out wrong (requested method is already in the paper), you could file an appeal with what should be a decent chance of success. If you are concerned about being plagiarized, you could establish precedence by putting out a preprint. Aside from that it doesn't look like there's much to do.

It is unlikely that you will get any more information from MDPI than what you already know (the identity of the offending reviewer).
Expecting MDPI to treat this matter seriously and transparently seems too optimistic. They will likely brush you off if you persist on asking them about it.
I would suggest you draw your own conclusions on whether to submit anything to MDPI or support them in any other way.
Let me suggest an alternative. You seem to have the name of the offending reviewer and their written admission of academic dishonesty. Assuming that the reviewer is an academic, I would suggest that you simply let her employer know. A simple email stating the facts of the case to her direct supervisor (department head or dean) would probably result in this matter being dealt with in a more appropriate manner.

Great answer. One some point: A simple email stating the facts of the case to her direct supervisor (department head or dean) Many universities have academic integrity or similar ethics departments. I would suggest contacting there in addition to their supervisor.

Calling this “academic dishonesty” seems a bit harsh, no? This is certainly something that should not have happened, but it was a simple mistake that could have happened to anyone and was quickly corrected.

I downvoted for two reasons: (i) While I generally agree with your objections against MDPI, I see no reason to blame them for a mistake made the reviewer; I also don't see what they could actually do about it. (ii) Calling something which has most likely been a simple mistake "academic dishonesty" is a strong exaggeration; and actually writing a complaint over this to the reviewer's employer is completely over the top.

I seriously don’t see how someone could upload someone else’s work as part of their own paper. Unless I’m completely misunderstanding the situation is that not what OP is describing?

@Spark My interpretation of the OP is that the reviewer was updating a listing of their own paper on ResearchGate, which had the right metadata (at least title and abstract, possibly publication details), and then went to upload a full-text version or supplemental file but somehow/carelessly selected the wrong PDF file to upload.

That’s still a pretty big mistake to make, but I do agree that in that case you shouldn’t go guns blazing on that person.

In some of the answer/comments, there are already some judgement about the publisher.
I always recommend people to take a deep breath and have a read on "how" the current reputable publishers started their business and think twice before putting the stigma. There is enough material to describe every publisher as "dodgy" or "questionable".
Coming back to your question, I consider the upload of your document on Research Gate an honest (and very clumsy) mistake, not part of a evil plan to steal your idea.
However, I understand you are afraid someone (someone in contact with the editor, to be more precise) is blocking the publication of your (positively) reviewed article, to copy and publish the same thing before you. Unfortunately, I am pessimistic and old enough to know that this thing already happened in the past and will happen again in the future (speaking in general terms, I am not sure it will happen to you, but I understand your concerns).
You have some chance of defending yourself by putting out now a pre-print (maybe an older version of your paper, or even a version missing some details), to provide a proof that you are working now on the topic. If in the future you have to accuse someone of plagiarizing your research, you have some additional fact to prove you were already working on that specific topic.
Other than that, you have not much in hand, you may end up in a litigation "your words against plagiarizing researcher words" and it will be time consuming and stressful, so keep safe all the possible communications (upload confirmations to MDPI servers, correspondence with the editor) to build a timeline of your research progress and where it was possibly "leaked".

"However, I understand you are afraid someone (someone in contact with the editor, to be more precise) is blocking the publication of your (positively) reviewed article, to copy and publish the same thing before you. Unfortunately, I am pessimistic and old enough to know that this thing already happened in the past and will happen again in the future (speaking in general terms, I am not sure it will happen to you, but I understand your concerns)." --->>> This is my major concern and I appreciate your advise!

@Dr.M I don't say it is likely, or common, but it may happen and even if it happens in 1 instance over 10'000'000 submitted papers, you do not want to be that 1 instance.