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Arxiv equivalent for medical research article
I'm looking for a suggestion, for a medical journal counter part to the arxiv. A minimal frill, open access online repository
to time stamp articles with some visibility.

Given how concerned doctors can be about the risks of confusing the public by circulating papers before peer review, I doubt the medical community would support anything like the arXiv.  (But I don't know enough to give a definitive answer.)  There are certainly open access repositories for published papers, such as PubMed Central, but that's different.

@AnonymousMathematician yes, as you point out that is different. The main concern here is one of claiming intellectual ownership (time stamping the research result)

You can get a time stamp with any regular blog, or sites like Researchgate. Now for visibility in medicine, you won't get much without publishing in a peer-reviewed well-ranked journal. This being said, there are medicine-related papers on the arxiv.

If it's intellectual property you're looking at, what you need is a patent.

If it's specifically the time stamp you want, rather than public visibility, see http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/23367/how-can-i-time-stamp-my-data-without-publishing-it

@CapeCode no, patents do not cover all kinds of intellectual property. Papers are not patented, but subject to copyright.

@fqq yes you're right. I meant intellectual property on something they invented.

medRxiv: a preprint server for health sciences.
https://www.medrxiv.org/

This is the correct answer today. The preprint serve medRxiv was launched in June 2019, several years after the question was asked here.

To elaborate on the answer by ddiez: bioRxiv has been deliberately designed to fill the same sort of role for life sciences that arXiv does for physics, math, and computer science.  A key reason for this is the growing recognition amongst some practitioners in these fields that scientific communication is being inhibited by the long time to publication and pre-publication secrecy that is typical in life science fields---it is not uncommon to be hearing privately about work for years before one is able to read the details or cite it.  Overall, this is a very good thing: it improves communication, it reduces the chance of being "scooped," and it reduces the "all-or-nothing" pressure associated with targeting super-high-impact journals.
That said, bioRxiv is still fairly new, and the conventions for its relationship with journals are still evolving.  Some journals are very supportive and encourage authors to deposit in bioRxiv.  Others still tightly embrace the prior publication culture and consider deposit in a preprint repository a prior publication that precludes submission.  Check carefully what the policy of the journals that you are targeting with before you make a decision about whether to deposit.

Note that this answer has been obsoleted by the launch of medRxiv, as noted in the newer answer.

I am not aware of a "pre-print" (I don't mean this term in a derogatory manner) repository for medical research similar to arXiv. I think there are two reasons for this. The first is that my understanding is that the peer review process in medical fields often takes less than a month and rarely more than a year where as in Physics and Maths I think the pattern is reversed. The second reason, and I believe the most important reason, is that medical research studies should be preregistered. The 2013 Declaration of Helsinki states:

Every research study involving human subjects must be registered in a publicly accessible database before recruitment of the first subject.

This requirement has lead to initiatives (or possible vice versa) of trial repositories like bioMed Central where protocols can be peer reviewed and published. While this is very different from arXiv which archives complete studies, it may provide the type of "time stamping" you are looking for.

Unfortunately, preregistering a clinical trial doesn't mean that the trial outcomes (i.e., the resulting research paper) will be freely accessible.

@FranckDernoncourt the OP was not asking for open access, but rather a timestamp with some visibility.

I see. The question is a bit unclear then as currently stated imho. (I had upvoted your answer btw, it's a great one, my comment was just aimed for readers not familiar with the topic)

The closest would be bioRxiv.

This was a correct answer when the question was asked. But meanwhile medRxiv was launched in June 2019 - see the answer by gncs.

How about PeerJ Preprints? It was launched in 2013.

PeerJ Preprints is the 'pre-print' area of PeerJ. Similar to pre-print servers that already exist (for example arXiv.org), authors can submit draft, incomplete, or final versions of articles they are working on.
  ...
  PeerJ Preprints will only accept submissions in the same subject areas as PeerJ (Biological and Medical Sciences) and PeerJ Computer Science.

Researchgate.net
A lot of academic medical professionals are uploading pre- and post-publication manuscripts to https://www.researchgate.net/
EDIT: Above answer was all there was at the end of 2017. However, since June 2019, medRxiv.org fully serves the needs of  the medical science community.


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Deciding whether to study abroad or continue at my current university for my PhD, what factors to consider?
I'm currently doing a master's degree near my home state and have been offered to continue at the same grad school with a PhD. The funding side of things has yet to be confirmed, but is almost secure. I also have another offer from a grad school in Switzerland for which the funding is definitely secured.

Regarding the position in Switzerland, (i) living abroad for a few years is an advantage and (ii) the research topic is more closely aligned to what I ultimately would like to focus.
My current place has the advantage of (i) continuity and knowing the research group environment and (ii) research collaborations and publications that would probably exceed - in terms of both quantity and quality - that of the position in Switzerland.

What other considerations should I factor in to my decision and any advice as to which option I should choose?

One big advantage of changing schools is that you meet new people.  Most people have a few things they're really good at.  By meeting new people, you get to learn the new things that they are really good at.  More generally, you get to experience the culture of a different place and group of people (both academically and socially).  This helps to give you a more developed sense of what is normal (reasonable to expect), and likely will expose you to new insights.  All else being (close to) equal, I suggest that you move.

Depending on the country you're from, moving to Switzerland for a PhD might be an immediate improvement in your living standards, and that is certainly a good reason. It might also bring you on the spot to take advantage of the stronger hiring prospects in the industry, especially for engineers, mathematicians, biologists. But, from a strictly academic point of view, there are a few other things to consider.
It's true that there are world-class universities in Switzerland, some regularly appear at the top of international rankings. But there are also several mid-tier, "me too" institutions that surf on the popularity of the big ones.
If you ultimately plan for an academic career, the strength and international visibility of the group is likely to be more important than changing school/country. It's true that it's tacitly almost a must to have some sort of international stay in your CV but there are other less risky occasions for that than a PhD (e.g. a postdoc). A PhD is a big investment in efforts, time and money so go where the good science is.

You should definitely take into account quality of life in either position. Also, you should keep in mind that in the academic world, it is looked upon favorably to move around for your training.

How do you weigh publication record (which will almost certainly be better where I am currently) against gaining experience in other research environments?

That is definitely a tough question! I think it boils down to what you want to do when you are done with your PhD. From what I know, the academic environment likes to see experience in other environments while industry looks for problem solving and research skills (which I think are shown in a good publication record).

Probably looking to stay in academia although I don't mind looking at side projects in industry. The one thing that concerns me about going to a new place and not knowing whether I'll get published is securing postdoctoral funding (preferably a fellowship).

Not being sure you'll get published seems to me like a red flag...why take an academic appointment if you won't be publishing? Are there other aspects to it that will further your career?

Why do you think it will be harder to be published in Switzerland than wherever you live now? I mean, in Switzerland there are notable research groups (at least in mathematics and physics, I don't know what you study). Is it a small group? Is it less funded?

Go. Even if it is going to be harder, smaller pay, etc.
Science is about diversity. You need new academic experiences. It will greatly improve both you and your work. Even if it doesn't really work.
Further, every time I see a CV that only lists one institution, bs+ms+phd, I think "meh". And I know that doesn't really help in selection processes for postdoc/professors.
I'm saying all that based on my personal experience. It wasn't easy, I had all types of issues, didn't publish much, but it was worth it.

In addition to Dan's comments recommending you move, I would add that if your goal is to obtain an academic job, it will help you to have more people familiar with your work.  Aside from a few schools and fields, such as MIT and engineering, it almost always makes sense to move, particularly if the quality of the program is substantively similar.
Moving schools also improves the signal sent by your education.  Having more good schools on your CV sends the signal that multiple independent parties deemed you worthy of acceptance.  If you stay on at the same school, it may not be clear to someone who first reads your CV whether you were accepted into the PhD to start or whether it involved an independent admissions process.

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Applying for Masters Degree with academic integrity violation on record
I am a junior college student that goes to a top 6 CS school. I will be graduating a year early and am starting to think about whether or not I want to get my Master's degree.
However I have an egregious academic integrity violation from my first university from which I was expelled (which was a top 4 CS school, during my first semester). I have since learned from the incident and transferred to my current college, where I have been studying for 3 years.
If I do decide to get a masters degree, I would either plan on pursuing it at my current school (where I believe I will be accepted, due to my academic performance/relationships with professors/ the fact that my department head knows about my past) or at another top-6 cs school.
Would a school of such caliber be willing to look past my academic integrity violation, or should I not even bother applying for a Master's degree?

Although it is perhaps possible that a school has a policy where they will not accept people with past issues involving academic integrity, I feel like this will mostly depend on the person or committee reviewing the applications. If you did well overall, I would think they would overlook something that happened years ago.
However, if it were my decision, I would apply to the school you're currently attending (since you said you know a lot of the faculty and it sounds like you're fairly confident that you would be accepted there; this would be your backup plan) and whatever other school you are thinking about applying to. Is there really any harm in applying to see if you will get in?

The very basic principle of Economics: Every choice is give up.
Hence, if you give up on something, you are choosing another thing.
Therefore, if you have nothing to give up, then those are not choices.
What will you lose by applying a master's degree anywhere on earth? Why not bother? I don't think it is a question of bothering if you're really planning to do master's degree. This is an academic decision.
On the other hand, what will master's degree give to you? Are you planning to do a PhD as well? Or do the companies you'll apply seek master's level as a requirement?
As ashlinry stated, it highly depends on the person who will evaluate your application. Moreover, you get to write a cover letter for your application. Great chance to clear it up! Write your excuses, write what you've gone through, etc.
By the way, did you talk to your professors about this situation?

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How is the quality of a paper evaluated for application purposes?
Suppose a situation when two students trying to apply for a PhD position in pure mathematics and they both have same GPA, same Rec.Letters, etc except for their published papers. Let both applicants have one paper published each, but applicant A has a "much better" research done compared to applicant B.
What makes applicant A's paper "much better"?
If it is the number of people cited his/her paper in their references it is absurd because time is the main factor of growth of its credit.
If it is the reputation of journal the paper is published it is also not a good judgement because the very same journal can contain both proof to FLT and a PhD paper.
I don't think the length of paper matters... I don't think the time that a researcher has spent matters since no one asks that...
This is a question of comparing two research paper which neither contains a solution to a famous unsolved problem; it's about papers that normally publish by students (or even professors).

You probably need to specify an area or discipline.  In my area, if a student has a good research paper, I usually assumes he/she has had help from his/her supervisor.   Also, I factor in the tool, whether it has been applied in a sophisticated manner, and difficulty of the problem.  For the tool, I determine whether such a tool will help with the problems in my area.  If so, I will pick that student over another without the tool.

I'd recommend reading Pete L. Clark's answer to the related question "What makes a research paper low-quality?".

same GPA, same Rec.Letters, etc except for their published papers — If two applicants have different published papers but identical recommendation letters, then something is very wrong.  Recommendation letters are supposed to be personalized to the applicant.  In particular, given that these hypothetical applicants have publications, useful recommendation letters will not only describe their papers in some technical detail, but will actually offer value judgements about them.

The quality of a mathematical paper isn't an absolute. It may not even be apparent for years. Quality is judged by individuals and two judges may come to opposite conclusions on the value.
Number of citations is no more than an indication. A person working in an especially arcane sub-field with few other researchers will naturally have fewer citations than someone working in a popular field. Who cites your work may mean more, actually.
The quality of the journal in which you find something is an indication, but partly that is a matter of coincidence. Perhaps the paper in the "lesser" journal is, again, in too arcane a field for the editors to have included it. It isn't that this means nothing, it is just that it isn't an absolute indication.
If the purpose of the question is anything beyond a hypothetical, related to who is more likely to advance, then that really depends on other factors. Certainly one paper isn't a great indicator. As a comment by Prof. Santa Claus notes, a future advisor is more likely to want to work with the student who has more to contribute to the actual work of the subfield of that advisor. Something in either paper may help that person to make a decision, but other factors will also come in to play.

This doesn't, of course, address the issue that some problems in mathematics are considered important. You mention famous unsolved questions of course. Giving a first correct proof of a problem already considered important is, of course, quality work.

Offtopic, but would you tell me if I can publish a paper in a journal which is 'based' in another country? For example my university is in Montenegro, can I publish in Australasian Journal of Combinatorics? Thank you.

@Emma, yes, of course. There are very few national constraints as long as the work doesn't involve national security of one country. For combinatorics, there would be no issue at all.

a future advisor is more likely to want to work with the student who has more to contribute to the actual work of that advisor — This sounds a little off to me.  Potential advisors are more likely to work with student whose interests match theirs, but not because it helps their research, but rather because those students are more likely to succeed.  (I take it as written that most faculty cannot choose not to work with students at all.)

@JeffE, I made a clarifying edit. You are right in most cases, but some students join labs in which they contribute to ongoing projects.

This may be a bit of an odd reply, but bear with me..
When you go to school, you go not to learn, but to learn HOW to learn. This takes training for an undisciplined mind. Years of training.
When you head off for college and university it's just a progression. The subject matter may be far more complicated, but showing that you have your own personal grasp of an understanding is what "they" are looking for and not just copying text to show you've found the relevant information.
So when you do your paper/s, truly come to an understanding on the topic before even starting to write. If you do that, then the answer will flow from you and it'll show anyone that reads that you actually can learn.

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How can I not forget university mathematics?
I am a first year undergraduate student of mathematics. Nevertheless, I have (self-)studied a total of 19 (UG and PG) books, cover to cover already, at home not in classes. The method of studying was to study a book (i.e. for first time) without doing the exercises with understanding at least 80% of it; in other words, "reading" or not involving in all technicalities. Afterwards, for second time I analysed every line of the book with doing all exercises.
However, even with twice study I have forgotten almost all of the 19 books. To be precise, if I take a test one week after I am finishing a book (the second cycle of studying) I would get a perfect score; on the other hand, if I take a test about 6 months after that initial test I would get 5%-10% score!
Quite the opposite, I do remember every mathematics that I have learned in high school and I will probably remember after 20 years!
I thought about that quite a lot and I cannot figure that out why is there such a big difference. Or more practically, what can I do to learn university mathematics as 'mind-sticky' as high-school mathematics?

A good opportunity to memorize university mathematics is transforming abstract knowledge into simpler to grasp stories. All what you have to do is searching for some colleagues, and tell them a narrative of how do you learned mathematics and why you have done so. Stories become more realistic if they are explained with details, for example you can describe the color of the first logarithm table in detail or explain how it feels to study the subject at university level.

This question might be a better fit for matheducators.stackexchange.

Apply it to real problems then it has a link to stick to...

In order to learn anything you need to cause physical changes in the brain. This requires repetition and reinforcement. The brain actually re-wires itself by forming new connections between neurons. Your initial reading is probably doing little for you as you just pass over the material. If you read, for example, The Iliad, it is a nice story, but you won't remember much of the detail of it after you finish. Only a few things will stand out. And mathematics is worse because it is the connections between things that are essential.
Your second pass, doing all the exercises is better, but apparently not enough.
Engage with the material.
As you study take notes as you go. Summarize each chapter of the book. Write down the three most important ideas in each chapter. Better yet, each time you have a "study session" write down what you think are the most important ideas (but not everything). When you finish, go over those notes again and write down the three most important ideas.
When you go back to study for another session. Try to remember what the important ideas were from the previous session. If you can't go back and review your notes.
Periodically, review your notes. You don't have anyone to give you an exam, which is the trick professors use to get you to review, so you will have to make that part of your regular process.
If you take notes on index cards you can carry your summary cards with you for review. If you have to wait for anything for a few minutes, you can pull out your cards and shuffle through them. You can also rearrange them and create mini-decks of important ideas.
But the idea is to force the important concepts from short term memory into long term. Memorization isn't the goal, however. It is making the remembered ideas useful. Connecting one idea to another. A math problem seldom depends on only a single idea for solution. You need to combine them. Memorization alone won't do that for you, but solving lots of problems will. There used to be (and may still be) books you could buy that had nothing in them but exercises. I once used those books to help solidify my knowledge.
You can also make up problems for yourself. If you want to know what, for example, derivatives can tell you about the shape of a curve/function of a certain kind, graph a lot of such functions by hand, on paper. If you graph, say, 100 rational functions by hand using the first and second derivatives, you will get a feel both for rational functions and for derivatives.
It is that sort of reinforcement that leads to learning.

A truly excellent and comprehensive answer. Thank you! :)

19 UG and PG books is like a total math education through a MS. To cover that in less then a year or two, without professional support to guide you through the tricky spots and correct any fundamental mistakes, means you are going way to fast. To really learn material, you need time to digest it. To expect to learn a book/topic a month is not reasonable. Given the number of exercises in a typical math book, I would expect even an experienced mathematician to struggle to complete them in a month.

I have finished 19 books in 4 years before entering university in my high school times.

Estimating well one is know mathematics is tricky. I offer some ideas for figuring out whether you are learning all the material you go through and whether you are actually forgetting it. (The questions are something you should think about, as this website is not intended for extended dialogue.)
How well do you do in classes?
You are doing a huge amount of self-study, which show in your performance in mathematics and mathematically oriented classes, like physics and statistics. How are they going? Compare also with your peers. If you excel at them, it is a good sign that you are learning things and not forgetting them immediately. If they do not go well, there is a problem in your study methodologies and you should fix that.
Is it easier to learn a subject that builds on top of a previous one?
When I took the first linear algebra course, which was about calculations with matrices and vectors and some proofs, I did not feel I understood anything (in spite of getting a good grade). On the next linear algebra course with abstract linear spaces I noticed that the material from the previous course was easy and I had in fact learned it. This pattern repeated, for me.
Typically, in your mathematics studies, you learn the same thing over and over again, in more and more abstract settings. If you can grasp the idea in an abstract setting, it usually means you have also learnt it in the less abstract one (even if it did not feel like that). How does this work for you?
Memorization and re-learning
You are not supposed to remember all details of mathematics by heart. Rather, you are supposed to be able to reason about it on a more general level ("Is this true?" "Could I prove this?") and maybe be able to reconstruct an identity or theorem by considering typical examples and counter-examples and coming up with a proof, given time. Some proofs are difficult and hard to come up with, while many are manageable. Also, when you do need a theory you have studied before, you should be able to re-learn it very quickly.
How to learn mathematics
Do lots of calculations and exercises. When facing a definition, try to come up with an example and a non-example. When facing a theorem, try to see if you can remove or weaken the assumptions and see what, if anything, goes wrong.
There has been much more written about this and it is too broad a question to answer here.

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Should I apply for a lecturer position in mathematics or physics if I have a degree in maths and PhD in physics?
I am finishing my Ph. D. in physics and I have a degree in mathematics. Currently, I am planning to apply for a lecturer position in Australia. Will it be more feasible to apply for a lecturer position in mathematics or in physics?
Update: Thank you all for your advice. Currently, my papers are still under review. I think I shall try applying for the positions in both subjects.

Since the word "lecturer" can mean different things in different systems, is an Australian "lecturer" the same as a UK "lecturer", which would be equivalent to a US "assistant professor"?

Also, what is your publication record?

Read the announcements of the available positions.  They will contain the required qualifications.

You can apply for any position for which you are qualified. Read the person specification for the advertised post. Usually it specifies which degrees are required and which area of PhD  the candidate should have. If your profile fits the description go for it and apply. You can apply for as many positions as you like.
Good luck.

Physics will be more likely as that is the more recent and the higher degree.  In particular, this would be the case for more top tier research positions.
All that said, you should (a) blanket the waterfront and apply in both areas--jobs in academia are scarce and (b) look for positions where your particular blend of knowledge is most wanted (e.g. I dated a lady who was a professor in comp sci, but really had a math background and teaching load...but close enough to CS so she fit there).


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Missed entry to foreign grad school; what are my options?
I want to specify that this is actually for a friend, I personally am not an academic but he is and is in this situation and asked me to write here to ask for suggestions as he is abstaining from the internet.
My friend over the past year got his hopes up to go to graduate school in Brazil, and after finally passing the Portuguese proficiency exam he found that he had missed the window by a few weeks. Currently, he is unsure how to proceed.
He would very much like to still go to Brazil, but he cannot apply again until 2020, and he worries that as a fresh graduate that a lack of academic history between 2018 and 2020 may be harmful for his chances to get in. Financial burdens are also pressuring him to accept alternative choices for graduate school, but he is frankly bummed out at the prospect of anything but what he had in mind.
He currently does work as a paid lab worker in an Entomology lab (his field of study along with Philosophy), so he does have a few years of paid lab experience; I posed that he continue along this track and wait for the opportunity to appear again, but he is growing increasingly tired of his work setting and wants to jump back into academia.
As someone who was denied from their dream grad school (not on merit, but by deadline), what are his options on continuing work in academia without forgoing his dream?
Note also that he refuses to work outside of something supporting academia which limits his financial options.
I feel that this is not a duplicate of similar questions because, having looked at them, they mostly advise reapplying or talking to the advisor. Due to the foreign nature, it is not possible for him to apply before the next window (as I understand, feel free to correct me!).

Why can't he reapply this year?

Part of the visa process I believe. I'm unaware of the entirety of the process, but from what I gather there's a window to enter the graduate program that is limited due to the dynamics of international student visas and all that jazz.


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How to start doing research in some field I'm new to?
I'm a PhD student in theoretical Physics and there is one particular field in which I'm extremely interested in for a while. This field of research is somewhat new, but seems to be very promising, with lots of relevant researchers directing their efforts towards it.
I'm very interested in doing research on this field, but as I'm a beginner I'm not sure on how to do so. I believe I have the necessary background, but I really don't yet know how to find out what has to be done or something concrete on which I can start to work. One particular issue that I have is that I feel that being able to discuss the subject with other people would be nice, but I don't know about anyone who works on this field (to be honest I think no one in my country works on it, which is really a shame, given the attention this field is having internationally).
That said, I think my whole issue is lack of experience and getting started in some new field is a particular skill that I consider I must have. After all I don't want to be forever bound to what I have done in my PhD. Say tomorrow something promising appears and I'm interested in it, I would certainly like to be able to switch my effort towards it if I judge it worth it.
So my question here is: how do I get started doing research in some field I'm new to, considering I don't know anyone working on it to discuss the subject?
Addendum: Considering the discussion in comments, let me clarify that what I'm looking here is exactly on how to start threading a path that will lead me to do serious work on the subject. I'm certainly not considering to start doing things at the same level of the experienced people working in the field for the last few years. I just want to find the right entry point, in order to start doing something simple and gradually get better in the field.

While it's obviously a good thing to be intellectually/scientifically flexible and inquisitive, one should also realize that people who've thought about a family of issues for 10  or 20 years have a huge head start (on you). That is, you cannot reasonably expect to "be competitive" in a given field upon your own volition. You can certainly start to learn things to become relatively-more competent in a new field... but it would be unreasonable to imagine that by a mere effort of will you can catch up to more-experienced people... especially if you don't have an advisor/mentor who can help...

@paulgarrett but then would it be possible to get such kind of advice? Lots of people in this field seem to be quite approachable and to encourage people to get involved, I just don't know what is the correct way to approach them on the subject. As I said, I really want to move my research into this field, so whatever I have to do I'm willing to do so. I think it can't be impossible to do so, I just need to know the correct way to approach this.

Intellectually/scientifically, sure, there's no obstacle. But in terms of "making a living" (for example funding, and, more fundamentally, getting a job based on other peoples' perceptions of ... your competitiveness... perhaps exactly for getting funding...) you are at a disadvantage. Not to say that you shouldn't try to do this change, but that you'll need to do it gradually, "proving" all along the way that you can make or are making excellent contributions ... in areas that gradually verge into the new thing you want. Merely expressing enthusiasm is certainly not enough...

@paulgarrett doing it gradually would be very nice already. In fact it was what I had in mind when writing the question. There's no rush here. In fact the question is all about how to get started on this gradual process.

What @paulgarrett says is a bit misleading.  All successful scientists started out with the "disadvantage" of having less experience.

I am confident there is no magic answer to your question.  Use normal research strategies.

I'd echo my brief answer to another question, though it was more about base knowledge rather than research output, the start to doing research in any field is to learn about it: https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/133079/63475

mid- and later-career academics don't tend to move from field to field arbitrarily (whereas it's not uncommon to make a big jump between undergrad and grad school: you simply aren't that committed to a field at that point): they usually have some adjacent knowledge that's taking them into that area, so they aren't starting completely from scratch

The best way to go is to have some sort of collaboration with someone more familiar to a target field, to which you can bring some outside skill that they need. I've seen this happen several times, and eventually the people shifting fields become newly expert in that area (though this can take years and several publications). Eventually the result is a graph like this: http://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=2031
I know you say you don't know anyone in the field, but then that's really your step zero: you'll somehow need to expand your network to include these people if you want to move into that field. I'm not sure it's a great idea to be doing too much of this during your PhD, because that's typically a time when you need a bit of laser focus on your specific research, but you can start to reach out and make contacts for the future.

I'm a PhD student

This makes things simple. Ask your supervisor - they will either be able to help you, or be able to point you to someone who can help you.
If it's true that nobody in your country is working on this, you might have to transfer to another university.


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Is contacting this expert in the field something acceptable or would it be discourteous?
I have a major in Mathematics and Mathematical Physics and a masters in Theoretical Physics. I have enrolled the PhD course and must pick an advisor/theme until june.
I have three main big fields of interest and for the PhD I wanted to work in the intersection of these themes. I then got interested in one particular formalism which is related to all three themes. This particular paper is written by an expert in the field and seems to be part of the people who initiated this research effort.
I did talk to a professor in the department that has knowledge in one of the fields and has a lot of interest in the others (despite being no expert there) and which is usually open to new things.
He, however, said that I should come up with a concrete research objective inside this field.
Now, I must admit I can't do it. I look at what has already been done and I admit I have no idea what is still open and what can specifically be done. I just know I want to work with this and start a career with it.
So I considered the option of writing one email to the author of the paper that got me interested into this and ask for advice on what can be done.
The point of the question is that I'm unsure if this is acceptable in the academic world and if this would be well received.
So my question is: would be it ok to write an email to the author and ask what for advice in what is still open and can be done for a PhD research given my interests? Or is it discourteous and shouldn't be done? Or is there some specific way in which this should be done to not be discourteous?

I think this is perfectly OK, because I did it, successfully. (Well, it was a letter, not email, because it was in the 1960's.) My adviser suggested that I write to an expert whom he knew. I described what I had already done and asked for suggestions about further research. I got a very nice reply, with several conjectures, which contributed greatly to my Ph.D. thesis.

Thanks for sharing this @AndreasBlass. Your comment shows that it is not just OK but it is also really worth a try, perhaps I get a nice reply like that which ends up being very helpful.

Yes, you can ask and you might get a reply, or not. If you demonstrate that you "have done your homework" and have some knowledge and not just interest then you will stand a better chance of success. What (or who) have you read? What have you explored? What ideas have you tried and failed with?
You can certainly state that you are looking for a research problem suitable for a dissertation and that you are coming up short. You can ask for guidance on where to search (additional papers to be read, people to contact...).
However, it is unlikely that a problem will be dropped in your lap. If you were able to attend a seminar with the author's group you might be able to do better. And be aware that a "problem" quickly thrown out may not be suitable as it may end up trivial or impossible. Such things are often approached only gradually.
But it isn't discourteous to ask as long as you can show that your search isn't just a random one.
But in general, also be prepared to work on a few problems before you come up with the one that leads to success. Even an unsuccessful attempt can teach you how to be more successful with the next one.

Thanks for the nice reply @Buffy. I'm at the very begining of the Ph.D. so that I'm still picking adviser/project. In that case I haven't explored much yet. Still, I'm interestes in this subfield for a while and have read some of the author's papers and a few others related that I reached by citations so I think I can write a more detailed email with the information you suggest. Still, I was trying to be as concise as possible. Is it still ok if the message gets a little bigger to fill in these details?


text:
Dropping a Course in my Field Before Applying to Graduate School
I'm currently a Senior Undergraduate planning on applying to MS and PhD programs this Fall.
Between my current research job, TA position, and courses I believe I'm over committed time wise this semester (only 2 weeks in and I'm very stressed). I was looking to drop a course to free up my schedule and unfortunately the best candidate seems to be a course in my research area in which I'm applying to graduate schools.
The class takes place during night hours, it's poorly taught/structured, and I seem to know most of the material already. I have publications in the area and I feel as they should make up for not taking the course, but currently dropping the course would show up on my transcript (as a withdrawal).
Would a withdrawal from a course in my related research area negatively affect my graduate application? If so, severely?
Currently I am having a discussion with an advisor, but I'd also like thoughts from others who are familiar with graduate admissions processes. There are several other related questions on this site, but all seem to address a large number of W's or W's in areas not related to their proposed research area.

I wouldn't worry about it. You have a perfectly valid reason for dropping. Your advisor can give the best advice, of course, knowing you better than we do, and also knowing other options you might have.
But a poorly taught course won't give you much of a push toward your goal in any case.
But if your advisor is "on board" with you dropping and supports you generally, then you should be fine for the more important task of getting good letters of recommendation, which will count much more heavily than a W on the transcript.

Thanks for the answer! Do you feel as though this W would require explanation in my SOP?

Not necessarily. Try to make the SoP as positive as you can. Why I will be a success here and hereafter. If it is raised in an interview or otherwise then you can comment. It isn't as if this is a unique situation for an admissions committee.

@Dando18 Many applications have a separate box for answering some question along the lines of "Is there anything you'd like to explain about your record?" This is mainly intended for explaining serious illness, family circumstances, etc. that affected academic performance, but if you want to explain why you withdrew from the course, that might be a good place to put it without affecting other areas of the application.

I have publications in the area and I feel as they should make up for not taking the course,

Yes, I agree.  If I were on the admissions committee, I would count publications much more heavily than classes.


text:
Giving a Professor a Gift After They Inadvertently Suggested I Do So
I know it has been asked several times on here whether giving a professor a gift is appropriate or not. The general consensus seems to be that it is unethical to both give and receive the gift [1] [2] [3]. However, I have a bit of a nuance that I would like to inquire about.
This past fall semester I requested to meet with a professor who I both enjoyed and respected and ask them for advice about the graduate admissions process.
I asked, out of curiosity, if letter writers minded submitting ~8 letters or if the work would bother them. They answered (roughly), "No. We enjoy helping students. If you want to be nice, you can get them a starbucks gift card or something after they've submitted the letters."
At the time I had no intention of asking this professor for a letter of recommendation. However, it ended up that they were one of my 3 letter writers. I want to write each of my letter writers a thank you note, but now I am faced with the predicament of whether to follow their advice or not.
I have been thinking of reasons for either getting or not getting the gift.
Reasons to get gift:

I will never have this professor again for classes, so there would not be any thoughts of favoritism.
Buying a $10 gift card would not be a significant financial burden on me.
I would be going along with their advice.

Reasons to not get gift:

There is a slight chance I may ask this professor for another letter, so giving them something of monetary value could call into question any future letters they write for me.
It could still be seen in a negative light given some stigma around giving faculty gifts as a student.

I understand I am probably overthinking this. I would like to show my gratitude to this professor in an ethical and professional manner without burning any bridges in my young career at the same time. Should I still refrain from giving gifts to professors? If so, should I address their previous suggestion, or just ignore it?

How can "Do not get gift" -> "... I may ask this professor for another letter, which could present some ethical issues." ?

@jDAQ I meant that as a reason for not getting the gift. If I gave them something of monetary value, then it might bring any future letters they write me into question. I can edit for clarity.

Ok, I see what you mean. But I hardly think any researcher/professor could be bribed into writing a superb LoR by a $10 gift card. You might be overthinking it, since they have suggested it, get them the card (if you want to, they mentioned that is being nice and not mandatory). If they happen to refuse/look uncomfortable, briefly mention they were the ones who suggested it, apologize and move on.

You are probably overthinking it. I guess the intent of the professor's comment was really, "It isn't necessary, but at the outer limits, something of inconsequential monetary value".
Would you consider giving a gift to the professor in other circumstances, not related to academia? If not, then it isn't needed here. Express thanks in an email or with a greeting card (again, the outside limits).
There is one sort of gift, however, that is appreciated in some circumstances. If the student comes from a different country, especially one with a different culture, then a small token from that place might be treasured. Something that might be picked up at a tourist kiosk, say. I've accepted and retained a few of these. They have almost no monetary value, but represent a connection that the student values. I can see one of them, now, from where I sit.
I once went out for lunch with a bunch of students from a foreign land. They wanted to buy my lunch. I thought it more appropriate that I pay for their lunch. But sometimes you have to accept something because the gift is heartfelt and it would be insulting to refuse it. That isn't the case as you describe it.

Thanks! I had assumed I was overthinking this, but it felt strange to me to go against the advice. If I choose not to get the gift, should I address their previous suggestion or just ignore it?

There is no need to address it. Saying "thanks" is enough.

Why not consider something nice, but with no monetary value, such as a handwritten message on a carefully selected card?

That's what I was planning on doing anyways. I just wasn't sure if I should add the gift card or not.


text:
Best practices when hosting visiting speaker (especially with the questions part of their talk)
I'm an undergrad and I have invited a speaker to come and speak in my department. He's a mathematician at another university, and although what he will talk about is relevant to mathematics, it's not an academic talk or seminar. It is an academic speaking to other academics and students in an academic setting, however.
I've organised this completely alone so it's down to me to introduce the speaker and make sure the talk runs smoothly. I've never done anything like this and I'm worrying about how I should do it. I'm especially worried about how to run the questions section - which will be a substantial part of the time (at least 15 minutes of the hour).
Here is how I imagine it should go:

I thank people for coming and introduce the speaker.
I sit down and the speaker... speaks.
At the end of his talk I stand up and ask if there are any questions. If people raise their hands I'll point at them so they can ask the speaker their question. I'll keep an eye on the time so when there are just a few minutes left I'll say "there's time for just a couple more questions".
After the last question, I'll thank the speaker again and that'll be it.

Should I be doing the questions? Or should I let him call on people himself? (In the latter case, how should I make sure we stay in the time limit?). Where should I stand if I'm moderating the questions? The lecture theatre has a stage where he will stand to give the talk. Should I just stand to the side of him? If I'm standing up there, is it ok for me to ask questions (particularly if nobody in the audience is doing so)?
This is in the UK, in case that's significant.

Good for you for doing this! I will say (based on my experience in the US) that it is good manners for the host to ask questions after the talk if no one in the audience does so. If there are lots of questions from the audience, often the host saves his/her questions for later private discussion.

As @Anonymous says,have some questions ready.  I'm in the UK too and the introducer/chair might need to ask the first question to get things going, or even the only question. Where you stand is preference, but step down off the stage if you can and sit in the front row, moving back towards the stages as the speaker reaches the end of their conclusions.

Your timetable is really standard. I'd only recommend keeping the introduction very short -- maybe 30 secs and focus it on the credentials of the speakers. No weather talk basically.

First of all, stop worrying - I am sure that, no matter how you decide to approach this, the quality of the talk will be much more memorable to the participants than how you ran the Q&A part from an administrative point of view.
Further:

I thank people for coming and introduce the speaker.
  I sit down and the speaker... speaks.
  At the end of his talk I stand up and ask if there are any questions. If people > raise their hands I'll point at them so they can ask the speaker their question. > I'll keep an eye on the time so when there are just a few minutes left I'll say "there's time for just a couple more questions".
  After the last question, I'll thank the speaker again and that'll be it.

This is pretty much the standard layout of such sessions, and I see no problem at all with running it like that.

Should I be doing the questions? Or should I let him call on people himself?

It is more common that you as a "moderator" call the questions, but I have certainly seen it handled differently as well.

Should I just stand to the side of him?

Probably not during his talk, but when you are moderating the Q&A part you may get up the stage. However, most moderators seem to prefer to stand somewhere to the side, presumably to not steal the presenter's thunder.

is it ok for me to ask questions (particularly if nobody in the audience is doing so)?

Yes, you should make sure that you have at least a few fallback questions as a discussion starter.

If only every conference chairman read these couple lines...

You should take a seat in the audience, near the front, after you've introduced the speaker.  When the speaker calls for questions, ask the first one, on which you and the speaker have agreed in advance.  That should break the ice and start questions from the audience.  If it doesn't, have about two follow-up questions ready.
When the time limit is approaching, you or the speaker should announce, "We have time for one more question."  After answering that last question, the speaker should thank the audience.  You stand and face the audience; the audience applauds, and the speaker leaves the stage.

and make sure to alert the speaker when they have 10min, 5min, and 1min remaining.  people tend to go over if you don't.

Very good suggestions on the agreed-upon follow-up and fall-back follow-up questions.

This idea of the host asking the first question is something I've never seen carried out in practice. It would seem rather odd to me (and perhaps a bit selfish on the part of the host), unless nobody else in the audience had a question. Though I suppose the convention varies by field and by department.

@DavidZ: The host has one or two prepared questions in case there's not a question immediately forthcoming from others..  The idea is to be ready to break the ice.  Also note that the host is seated in the audience at the time such a question might be asked.

@BobBrown yes, what you said in your comment is more or less how I've seen it work in practice. What you said in your answer, where the host asks the first question without first giving an audience member a chance to ask, seems very strange.

As a host and chair of the session you have many conflicting duties: keeping the speaker happy, keeping him from running overtime, preventing awkwardness if there are not enough questions, preventing awkwardness if a person in the audience asked improper questions (too low-level, too specific, dismissive of speaker), etc.
How you do these things depends on the speaker, the subject, the audience, and lots more (are there refreshments in the room? Is there some important meeting after the talk so people start getting up and walking out? Is the speaker socially awkward or is he well versed in manipulating a crows?). I am probably much more experienced than you in handling such occasions, and often I find myself struggling to find the appropriate response to each situation.
Here's what I've learned through experience that may be helpful to you:

I think about the options in advance, but make the final decision on the spot, depending on the situation.
I coordinate with the speaker in advance just before the talk - even if I previously told him everything by email, I speak to him just before the talk starts telling him something like 'ok, you remember that you have 45 minutes, and then we'll probably do about 15 minutes of questions - I will let you know 10 minutes before your 45 minutes are up'.
Remember that you are in charge of making the decisions throughout the event, but you can ask people for help in making them. You can ask the speaker and the audience for input, like "Too bad you couldn't finish the last example - will you be able to complete it if we take 5 minutes out of the questions session", or "Is that noise too annoying? should we stop and look for an alternate room?"
You are only in charge because sometimes someone must make a dictatorial decision. But you should avoid making any decision unless you have to. Let the speaker choose who asks questions unless for some reason this is not appropriate, let him decide how long to talk about each subject unless it is becoming awkward, let him fend off inconvenient questions unless he is too shy/weak/nice to do so, let the audience ask him to talk more about some topics or to stop and better explain a definition or whatever, and let the speaker decide what to do as long as it doesn't result in anarchy or is clearly the wrong path to take. You are only there to solves problems that would not be solved naturally.

In addition to the excellent answers, a couple more tips:

pay attention during the talk for slides that the speaker may skip, details which are only glossed over. In case the audience is particularly shy/uninspired, you can always ask the speaker to talk a bit more about those parts. He/She obviously has something to say about them even if they were less important.
during question time, make sure the rest of the audience can hear the questions. If not, try to use a microphone or repeat the question yourself before the speaker replies.
depending on the occasion it may be useful to ask the people asking questions to briefly introduce themselves before the question.


text:
Do academics in the UK usually have to declare other jobs (e.g. consulting) they take on and is it public information?
I am interested in relationships between academics at UK universities and private businesses.
A number of academics in the Computer Science department at my old university worked part time and were also employed part time by google. I recently found out that a number of them also work a few weeks a year on a consultancy basis for a local finance firm.
I wondered whether 1) they had to declare any such activities to the department or university (especially in the consultancy case which seems to go alongside full time academic employment), and 2) whether it's possible for others to find out about these relationships (e.g. a journalist investigating links between an academic department and a particular company).

Regarding (1), whether they had to declare depends entirely on a) the agreement with private businesses (in particular, the agreement between the private business and the academic might actually be between the private business and the university) and b) the terms of the academic's contract. I believe that many contracts permit UK academics to work for private businesses during part of their time, but I don't know how widely that holds.

Regarding (2), it is always possible for others to find out about relationships. You could rephrase your question to: can a third party find out about these relationships legally? It then depends on the contract between the academic and the private business. In particular, if the contract contains a non-disclosure clause, then someone must violate that clause to enable a third party to discover the relationship, hence, it cannot be discovered legally.

@user2768 thanks for the comments! Can I ask if there's a reason you posted this as comments rather than as an answer?

my answer to (1) is subjective ("I believe that many"), so it felt like a comment rather than an answer (workshop publication, rather than conference publication). My answer to (2) avoided the question somewhat (it is always possible), so I don't know whether I really addressed the question you wanted to ask. If you're satisfied with the answers and want to accept them, then I'll state them as an answer.

@user2768 Can you please turn your comments into an answer so that I can vote for it?

@jakebeal, done.

Regarding (1), whether they had to declare depends entirely on a) the agreement with private businesses (in particular, the agreement between the private business and the academic might actually be between the private business and the university) and b) the terms of the academic's contract. I believe that many contracts permit UK academics to work for private businesses during part of their time, but I don't know how widely that holds.
Regarding (2), it is always possible for others to find out about relationships. You could rephrase your question to: can a third party find out about these relationships legally? It then depends on the contract between the academic and the private business. In particular, if the contract contains a non-disclosure clause, then someone must violate that clause to enable a third party to discover the relationship, hence, it cannot be discovered legally.


text:
What is standard record-keeping like for a journal editor?
I'm developing an in-department certification process, with multiple faculty members assigned to assess each new certification, and it occurred to me to model the overall process on the (familiar) cycle of submitting articles to editorial review at a journal.
Not having been on the backend of that, it's dawning on me that I don't know what the usual record-keeping looks like for a normal journal editor. Is there some standard software platform to keep track of who is assigned to reviews, deliverable dates, status, feedback, etc.? Can it be put in a simple spreadsheet or database? Is it usually accessible by multiple people at the journal, or private to the one editor?
I've searched online and not found anything in this vein. Any advice or examples of "best practices" in record-keeping for the editorial process would be helpful.

These days editors don't do much paperwork because the editorial management system (EMS) does it for them. The EMS logs all actions, sends automated reminders to reviewers, informs the editor when a review is submitted, and so on. It is usable by multiple people, and an editor with sufficiently advanced permissions can see what other editors are doing or even override them.
There's a list of free & open source EMSes here, don't know if it's applicable for your situation.

The linked view of the EMS was helpful, and I did use that as a starting point for my database I used to track our process. Picking this as the selected answer.


text:
Trust issues with my PhD advisor, is it worth fixing or can I get out?
I am a math PhD student considering changing universities.
I have suspicions that my supervisor has not been very honest with me
since I told him that I considered changing universities (and therefore
supervisors) because of shift in interests. He got angry with me, told me that it would bring
bad reputation to the research group and that I can't just leave after
1 year.
In a conversation I mentioned a university, in which there is a professor,
call him professor M, whose work interests me.
My supervisor said that professor M is the only
one in his field in the university (apparently
with the intent of discouraging me from
trying to apply to that university).
I looked up the website of professor M's research
group, which seems to tell a different story
(plenty of PhD students, at least one post doc).
I found this a bit suspicious.
Moreover I recently realized that my supervisor
has coathored an article with an emeritus professor, who
is in the university, who has worked on the same field, although
not part of the research group of M. The "research group" in my
university is not that active itself.
When I told him that I want to consider alternatives
he told me that the doctoral programme is collecting
information about PhD students (which was true), and
that he needed to know whether I was part of the group or
not. He gave me 3 days to decide whether to stay or leave the
doctoral program. I asked the coordinator of the program about this,
and he told me that the list in question changes all the time and
that it is not nearly as serious matter as my supervisor claimed.
It should be noted that my supervisor is notoriously bad at
bureucratic/adminstrative university matters.
I suppose in all the above cases it is possible that
the explanation is something less malicious, such
as ignorance or misunderstanding.
In any case I am not in good terms with my supervisor
and I don't think we trust each other very much.
The dilemma is that the funding is good and secured, and that
the alternatives are abroad (and uncertain).
Could the situation be worth fixing?
Should I run for my life?
Is there a risk that if I try to change universities
he will refuse to write a recommendation letter or
write a mild one (he supervised my Master's thesis)?

One question: Is your current supervisor rather junior (e.g., assistant professor) or rather senior (e.g., full professor)? Junior people are very afraid of not getting tenure, and may for this reason take things such as the information collection of research group membership more seriously than anyone else does in the department - without any bad intent. This also applies to leaving after one year if you are funded by some research project grant.

By the way, the comments about M being the only one in this area at the university may not be dishonest.  Your advisor may have meant M is the only active faculty member in this area (i.e., not counting grad students, postdocs, or emeritus faculty).  That's misleading if your question is "who could I talk with?" but appropriate if it's "who could be my new advisor?"

This sounds a bit like an Here's my situation, any comments? type of question, which are not particularly suited to the SE format (http://meta.academia.stackexchange.com/a/1205/10094). You may want to rephrase your question to make clearer which concrete, generalisable question you have. Particularly, I am not sure how the title matches the body of your question (the "lying" part doesn't seem to have all that much to do with the actual question, which is more about whether or not you should transfer).

I find it a bit strange that you are leaving yourself with "suspicions" about whether Professor M is the only one (i.e., professor) in his research area at the university in question.  Surely you can independently confirm or deny this: you just have to look farther than the webpage of Professor M's group.

DCTLib: The supervisor is older (has worked in the university for at least a decade, maybe even close to two). He is not a professor. Funding is provided by the department.

Anonymous Mathematician: I agree, it might not be dishonesty.

Why exactly are you considering changing universities: their shift in interests, your shift in interests, or is it partially a personality/relationship thing? How much more time and information do you need to make a decision? Regardless of supervisor pressuring you (for his own reasons), I think you need to decide pretty soon. It sounds like you haven't even contacted Prof M yet, which is majorly weird, and see if he'd even accept you. If you decide to leave can you at least do a publication or two with the current dept on your work so far? and leave on good terms.

Faculty are human beings. We might be given only one slot a year for a doctoral student to work with us and we thus invest (or we feel we invest) an incredible amount of time into the students in our lab. We aren't paid extra for this, which perhaps exacerbates the feeling of ownership.
While I don't know you or your advisor, I would find it easy to believe that his feelings were hurt by your desire to shift PhD programs. You are basically taking his investment in you (which you may feel is minimal, but he may feel is considerable) and throwing it in the trash.
Managing people's feelings are part of being a professional academic. You might as well practice being good at it.  Some day you'll be on the other end of the equation -- being told by a student that you had high hopes for that they no longer value working with you and that they want to move to a different program altogether. It's all part of the karmic cycle of being faculty.
Now, with that preamble out of the way. You need to let your advisor know that your shifting programs isn't seen as any rejection at all of his lab or his style of mentoring you, etc. etc. (even if part of this might be true); but rather that you are seeking something different at the other program. It's the stereotypical "It's not you, it's me" form of a break up.

I think your last paragraph misses the point a bit. If he is definitely going to leave, fixing the relationship with his supervisor isn't a big problem (although it would be polite and more satisfying to leave on good terms). The problems is whether to leave, and how to fix the relationship if he doesn't.

Besides, @Robokaren's excellent answer, I find some problematic things on your question.

He told me ...that he needed to know whether I was part of the group
  or not.

This is a very just demand on his part. So the real question is, do you actually want to leave or not? In any job (including your PHD) or in any relationship, your colleagues, supervisors (jobs) or your friends, partners (relationship) must know if they can count on you or not. It is unfair to actually make him wait until you make up your mind.
I also do not know, what did you expect from your advisor when you told him you wanted to go elsewhere. He gave you his advice (the fact that only one professor / faculty member works there on your preferable research area) and suggested that you should stay in your current university. That means he thinks highly of you which is always a good thing. And how did you react? You believed that he lied to you, because you saw on the other university's website there is a postdoc who is working there with your "dream" professor. If this is your definition of lie, you are sadly wrong. Also, the fact that he later asked you if you would finally stay or not, is probably an indication that he will not stand in your way (by not providing a reference letter) of you leaving.
Either way, as @JeffE would probably say, the relationship with your advisor
is broken (at least from your side, since it is obvious you do not trust the guy anymore). So, I do not think in a little while you will really have any other real choice but to leave. In any case, make a decision and make it fast, before burning any more bridges with your current advisor.

Thanks for the critical comment (I mean this sincerely). Can you elaborate on this: "In any job... supervisors... must know if they can count on you or not". Do you mean count on me to produce a PhD thesis at the end of three years or so? If so isn't this a long term project? The decision affects the rest of my life, hence I found the time limit disproportional.

It is still your life and you can do what you want with it, so you can always either leave or stay. Still, whatever you do, you must tell your supervisor your final decision ASAP, so he can plan accordingly.

I don't trust your advisor either, but I also, like you, realize the importance of stable funding. I would try to get along with the advisor. Much of this might be related to the advisor's ego if it's a big one. Talk of leaving could have resulted in a nice big bruise.
Keep in mind as well that bosses are always in an adversarial relationship with their "employees". It's the nature of the beast in the workplace.

This is nonsense. Faculty are definitely NOT "always in an adversarial relationship" with their students. In any decently run lab, the professor wins when the students succeed and vice versa -- and most people in academia are acutely aware of this.

@Corvus - I flagged you for offensiveness. I didn't say "faculty" and I didn't say "students" and I didn't say "academia". I thought you would be able to realize I'm making an analogy.

Unless you work in a boiler room / sweatshop, bosses and employees are generally not in an adversarial relationship. (Of course, you need to watch your back, as anywhere in life.) It's especially important that your advisor - advisee relationship be not adversarial.

@ mxmxmx - Thank you! You get what I've been saying. Advisors are holding most of the cards, so it's not a very good idea to rock the boat. If an advisee starts rocking the boat, bad things might happen. That's why I suggested to try to get along with the advisor. In academia, the advisor's have most of the "sticks" and the "carrots". And believe me, outside of academia, most workplaces are governed by bosses where "it's their way or the highway". I don't consider undergraduate or graduate research a "real job" because a salary really isn't at stake. I know. I've been there.

In bosses are always in an adversarial relationship with their "employees", the word "always" is nonsense. First, this site is Academia, the issues are not the same as industry. Second, I am an industry retiree. I got along very well with a few of my bosses. The word "always" is indeed non-sense.


text:
How to ensure that the acceptance letter received is real and not a mistake?
Recently a very popular name-brand university has been in the news for the wrong reasons.
I quote from a national newspaper's article that it has "accidentally admitted 800 candidates ... only to retract the offer about seven hours later".
As a prospective applicant who has received offers from two non-"name brand", dream schools, I shudder at this fact. I am forced to anticipate disappointment when I should actually be relieved after the typical stressful and anxious wait.
As an international student, I seek information on whether many universities do retract their acceptance letters weeks after sending them. What are some ideal ways to ensure that the acceptance letter received is full and/or final?

The best way to know that you are not in a mix-up is to email a real person. As an international student you really need to speak to someone and you can ask for it. I recommend you to set up an skype interview, even before they accept you. I am sure you have tons of questions besides if you are accepted or not, and you should worry more about finding an education that is a good match for you. Still, I wouldn't assume the worst, that mix-up was an isolated case and not the norm.

I think speaking to a real person would be ideal after that assistant has accidentally emailed you an offer. That would be a sort of confirmation as well as try to ask the other relevant tons of questions.


text:
Publishing a tech report or other non-peer reviewed paper as an independent researcher
I have got a paper in the queue which I would like to publish outside the realm of peer reviewed journals. The main reasons:

Money. I'm currently not affiliated to any academic institution which would reimburse my conference fees and publication costs. I would also like to provide open access, so other non-affiliated researchers can actually read my paper. This can be very costly.
The topic. It's an interdisciplinary thing I write about, which  doesn't really fall into the field of interest of the usual journals and their peer reviewers. It's a bit of an in-between-the-chairs thing.

It is a very technical paper with a focus on "open science" - akin to what is sometimes classified as a Technical Report.
So I thought about releasing it as a technical report on Zenodo. This way  it gets a DOI, gets archived, becomes publicly accessible and gets a clear citable form.
But there's a catch: a technical report usually needs an institution (at least in the latex/bibtex world). Are there any recommended alternatives? Are there any known "best practices" for my case?

If you're in an arXiv-friendly field, why not put it there? It will probably get more exposure.

@ff524 I always thought about arXiv as being a "pre-print" server where people share information before it appears in a printed journal. Does publishing on arXiv only make sense? Is it common practice?

The benefits of posting to arXiv don't change if the paper never appears in a journal. Why should they? arXiv is for "scholarly articles.. of interest, relevance, and value to those [arXiv-covered] disciplines", not only those soon to appear in a journal.

@armin, Are you asking about institution because the latex template  has a spot 'affiliation' line and you worry that leaving it blank  or commenting it out will do something to the output?  (one common option is just to put down your location, such as city/country as it still serves to  helps interested reader track you down later if they would like to contact you)

See questions about " affiliation,", for example, http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19710/what-to-put-in-affiliation-field-when-submitting-paper-without-affiliation

@Carol I am more concerned about the referenceability than about the affiliation line at the beginning. In the usual bibtex "techreport", institution is a mandatory field.

It might be field dependent, but I have only seen technical reports published by companies (if similar to technical notes) and professional organizations (like TAPPI).
But nevertheless, peer-review aims at improving your work, giving it more credibility, as it has been reviewed by your peers and they concluded it is (in their opinion) valid, or rejecting it if it is performed poorly (not exclusive list).
So publishing in any place other than a regular journal might affect your work's visibility (I'm not sure the power of Google can bypass this issue) and your work's credibility (as I'm not sure I would consciously cite a work that is available only as a pre-print and not peer-reviewed).
As for the problems you present:

Money. I'm currently not affiliated to any academic institution which    would reimburse my conference fees and publication costs. I
  would also like to provide open access, so other non-affiliated
  researchers can actually read my paper. This can be very costly.

I understand the issue here, but when I was in institutions that had no money to cover the open-access publication, the non-open access option was the only alternative. Unfortunately, you probably can't have the pie and eat it too...
I can't comment on conference fees, as in my field, conferences don't count as publications.
A middle solution could be to choose the non-open access option of the journal you select and publish a pre-version or even the accepted version of your manuscript as a pre-print with a link to the official (but not open access) pdf (you could ask the journal policies on this matter). In this way, you provide all the information through the repositories you choose, the manuscript is peer-reviewed, and the article is indexed and available for those paying the paywall.

The topic. It's an interdisciplinary thing I write about, which doesn't really    fall    into the field of interest of the usual journals and their
  peer    reviewers. It's a bit of an in-between-the-chairs thing.

Most works in my field are interdisciplinary. You can usually identify the main field of the article and find a respective journal. In most cases, you can propose reviewers, so you can select ones from the different disciplines your manuscript covers. Each then can concentrate on the part they are more confortable to review, covering eventually all aspects of your work.
Finally, if you insist for a technical report, you might be able to contact a relative association or company directly and discuss if they are interested in your work and a publication under their technical reports (but I admit that I have no experience on this and I might be completely out of subject).


text:
Job prospects in USA with a UK Master's degree but no Bachelor's degree
I have decades of experience that could apply to a Master's degree program through the UK.
I never finished my Bachelor's in the USA.  I went to school and finished 1 year of it about 15 years ago.  I live in and plan on working in the USA, however, the traditional education path is the BS first then a Master's.  I only want the degree to qualify for a better-paying job as the only obstacle I repeatedly hear for hiring me in interviews is the lack of a degree.  I am nearly 50 and can't spend 7 years getting both a Bachelor's and Master's degree to qualify on paper so I have looked into this option.
My questions are:

To anyone who has gotten a UK Master's degree without having a Bachelor's degree first, was it a problem when trying to get hired in the US that you did not have a Bachelor's degree and went straight for the Master's?
How did you address the issue when asked about your lack of BS but having an MS?

I can't really give an answer, but note that a US bachelors is a generalist degree and a masters is a specialist degree. So, any benefit depends a lot on the jobs you seek. An alternative is to do a part time bachelors, nights and week-ends at some local college or university. Time will pass no matter what you do. Coursework toward any degree might be a benefit.

Why do you want a degree? For some box-checkers. lacking a Bachelor's degree may disqualify you even if you have a MS. On the other hand, I know people who got into professional programs (e.g., Dental School, Pharmacy School, Med School) without competing their undergraduate degrees, but have their doctorates and work as medical professionals. A lot is specific to your situation.

I'm voting to close as off-topic.  Your question is about how non-academic employers deal with a particular degree situation, not about what happens in academia.

More appropriate for The Workplace?

This doesn't seem to be a question about academia. Maybe indeed best migrated to Workplace as suggested above?

I don't get it. How can you have a master's degree without a bachelor's degree? Either you have an integrated master's degree which is 3 year of bachelor's plus one years of master's, or you have an independent master's meaning you got accepted based on your prior bachelor's degree.

Once you have a Master's, nobody is going to be concerned any more about your lack of a Bacherlor's degree. That's because you've demonstrated knowledge that exceeds what is necessary to get a Bachelor's, so people will no longer be concerned about the lack of the latter.
The issue for you will be to get into a Master's program without a Bachelor's degree. I suspect that having many years of experience in a particular field will count quite favorably in the eyes of admissions committees, as long as you can document industry experience that is comparable to what a graduating Bachelor's student would know.
My suggestion would be to go talk to the head of the graduate program at a couple of universities in your area. Introduce yourself and ask them how they would view your application. That's cheaper and faster than first writing an application and then seeing what happens. Personally, I've always appreciated people coming back from industry because they bring different perspectives that enrich the education of all students, in particular that of students who've come straight from undergraduate and have never worked in industry. So I'd give your application a chance, assuming you can someone show comparable experience.

"nobody is going to be concerned" sadly untrue. The prospective manager may not be concerned, but the admin assistant in HR who is screening applications and cannot tick "appropriate undergraduate degree" sometimes will be

As @Flyto notes, many universities administration will simply refuse to admit to any graduate program a student who does not have an undergrad degree... to the extent of over-riding departmental recommendations to admit. I've had the experience.


text:
Journal rejected my paper because contents of paper are in PhD thesis
I have submitted a journal paper to a journal four days ago and today I received an email informing me that it has been rejected. The only reason for this is: "About 70 % of the article is similar to other documents".
I know my paper and I know that I haven't copied it from anywhere else. There is a conference version of the paper, but it is different, plus it is 6 pages long, while the journal is 15 pages long, so since 6/15 = 40%, it doesn't add up to 70%, and this is not the reason for rejection.
The real reason is that my PhD thesis is available online (it is mandatory at my university to add it to an open repository if I want to graduate). I graduated 3 months ago, and in fact the last chapter of my thesis consists in the paper that was rejected now. However, I was always told both by my supervisor who is a full professor with 25 years of experience (and Associate Editor of top-notch journals) and by many other people that it is not a problem to submit a paper based on an already published PhD thesis, as journals should not consider the thesis as a paper. Therefore, I am very surprised by the decision made by the editor. What should one do? Wait to graduate until the paper is accepted? That is simply ridiculous.
Has this occurred to any of you? Do you know how journals behave in this case? I once reviewed a journal paper which was literally copy-pasted from a chapter of a PhD thesis of a student. I contacted the editor who had sent me that paper asking what to do and he mentioned that it is a standard and common practice and it shouldn't be considered self plagiarism. So, once again, I am very surprised by the decision made.
EDIT: as asked in the comments, here is the email I sent to the editor:
Dear Professor XYZ,
I am contacting you regarding the submission of my paper to the journal ABC123. As in the subject, the reference number of the manuscript is XXXYYYZZZ. Today I have received an email notifying me that my paper (submitted only 4 days ago) has been rejected. You may find the email attached to this email. The reason for this is: “About 70 % of the article is similar to other documents”.
The possible reason for this very high similarity is threefold:

I have published a related conference paper before, containing preliminary results and much less content in general. However, that conference paper is 6 pages long, while the paper submitted to ABC123 is 15 pages long. Therefore, it is mathematically impossible for the conference paper to be the reason of the > 70% similarity, since 6/15 = 40%;
The paper has been uploaded on arXiv. This was done the same day in which I sent the paper to your journal. However, this is allowed by Elsevier, as explained here;
The contents of the paper are part of my PhD thesis, in particular, of Chapter 5. This is what probably results in the highest similarity, as the article submitted to your journal is based on this chapter. However, Elsevier’s policy with respect to PhD thesis is the following: “Elsevier does not count publication of an academic thesis as prior publication”.

I have run a plagiarism check myself, you can find it attached to this email. This confirms what I have said so far: the similarity of my article is related to my PhD thesis, not to any other previously published works.
Given the above explanations, I would kindly ask you if you could reconsider your decision. The plagiarism check returned indeed a similarity higher than 70%, but, as explained above, this is most likely related to my PhD thesis. However, Elsevier does not count PhD thesis as prior publication. Therefore, my paper submitted to ABC123 respects Elsevier’s policies and should therefore be considered a new publication.
Thank you for your consideration.
Best regards,
cholo14

If this journal's way annoys you, just choose another one. Some people have strange ideas about papera. (In this forum I read the opinion that a paper should be rejected if contains a single language typo.) Some people are strange.

Possible duplicate of: Paper was rejected for high similarity with parts of my own dissertation

Perhaps email the editor to ask for clarification.  Perhaps someone else plagiarized and published your work.

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2158/how-to-identify-predatory-publishers-journals Are you sure this is a real journal?

I wouldn't have written, "Therefore, it is mathematically impossible for the conference paper to be the reason of the > 70% similarity, since 6/15 = 40%." That could have been left implicit. Nor would I have written, "However, this is allowed by Elsevier, as explained here." The editor should know that. Similarly for "However, Elsevier’s policy with respect to PhD thesis is the following: "Elsevier does not count publication of an academic thesis as prior publication." And for other aspects. There's no need to spell out every detail to the editor, they're smart enough to understand.

@user2768: I don't know whether I would have written something like that (assuming I would have thought of it), but I bet it felt really good to write it. I found myself laughing (silently) and clapping (figuratively) when I read through #1-3 in the OP's update.

@DaveLRenfro I did too (smiled, at least). I'm sure the editor will as well! At least, they should. (They may also think the OP's a little wet behind the ears, which isn't necessarily bad, but that's what prompted my comment.)

Well, just think of the links I added in the email as references in a paper. Also, although the editor for sure knows the journal policy, someone had to remind it to him, otherwise this email wouldn't have been needed in the first place :)

Email the editor, explain that their automated plagiarism detection system has seemingly gone awry, inadvertently flagging your PhD thesis.

I have done exactly this. I noticed that the jounral I submitted to does not consider PhD thesis as prior publications: https://www.elsevier.com/editors-update/story/publishing-ethics/clarification-of-our-policy-on-prior-publication
I have mailed the editor, and he almost immediately replied that he changed his decision. So now the status of the paper is "with editor"

@cholo14 Thank you. You should put your response comment as edit to the question. We are glad to see occasional problems to be resolved constructively. We get good news rarely enough.

@CaptainEmacs should I copy-paste the email I sent him in the question then? I can do it, but of course I will leave out confidential information

I don't think it is necessary to edit the OPs comment into the question (except maybe the part about "PhD thesis are not considered prior publications). It's part of the answer, not the question. Anyone with the same issue will see the question, read the answer, and hopefully apply it, reading the comment for confirmation.

@cholo14 Hmm, after DJClayworth's comment, it may be good to give an idea how you formulated it and hope that user2768 will pick it up.

@DJClayworth Comments are not permanent. I used to add some - relatively carefully crafted - refinements to answers, only to find them relegated to chat or being deleted. To make it permanent, it needs to be in question or answer. Many OPs have actually edited their final action and the outcomes into the question, including which answers helped them. This is more useful for a final record.

@CaptainEmacs so maybe I could answer my own question, posting the email I sent as answer, just for reference in case anyone has the same issue. I will not change the accepted answer to mine, but as mentioned my answer could help other people with the same problem

@CaptainEmacs: On the danger of being off-topic here: This makes me wonder whether the SE system isn't somehow lacking an "OP's Conclusion", some kind of a special permanent comment that can be left only by the OP and only on the accepted answer. Sure enough, regular comments are not guaranteed to be permanent. Also, an answer indicates a way the question could be solved, and its acceptance indicates it somehow solved the OP's issue, but in cases like this, the additional information of "how the answer was tested" is definitely worthwhile, as well. At the same time, though, the question ...

... is logically the wrong place for this bit of information, as it is, if anything, a component of the answer (= solution), not the question (= problem).

@O.R.Mapper Perhaps a suggestion for "Meta"?

@O.R.Mapper your suggestion is great. If you post it on Meta, could you paste the link to the question here?

By the way, the question was closed, so I am not able to post the email I sent to the editor anymore

@cholo14 It seems I can still edit your question and my answer. I can add your edited email to either, if you like.

I have edited my question and added the email I sent to the editor, feel free to edit my question or include it in this answer


text:
What do I do if my professor doesn't give me an extra credit assignment that he promised?
The problem is this: I'm taking an online course, and my professor told everyone that there will be an extra credit assignment at the end of my course. Not just me, but for the whole class. The extra credit appeared Monday on the dashboard, saying it will be due on Sunday (as is with all other assignments in my course). However, although it is unlocked, there are no problem/explanation or any assignment description at all. Originally I thought there's some system error or he just got sloppy and forgot, but today is already Wednesday and he still hasn't added the description. Well, I know this is a rather minor issue, but I still wish to ask for recommendations here. What should I do? The extra credit is not some sudden extra chance for failing student, but actually stated in the syllabus at the start of the course. If appears to me that it had been a long-time legacy of this course, and I don't see any reason for it to suddenly be gone. Even if he changed his mind and doesn't want to be generous, he should've at least give some kind of notification to tell us all that there'd be no extra credit. I'm thinking about sending an email to asking him about the issue, but I'm not sure if he'll just get mad or ignore me altogether. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance!

You are getting good answers. Politeness is always the right approach. A mistake is more likely than anything else. On the other hand some teachers are offended at having mistakes pointed out (even if it is not their mistake but a system error). So just in case, for insurance, take a screenshot of everything you see.

"...today is already Wednesday and he still hasn't added the description". Why would he add a description if he doesn't know it's missing? Has anybody informed him that the assignment doesn't have any content?

"I'm thinking about sending an email to asking him about the issue, but I'm not sure if he'll just get mad or ignore me altogether." You've already reasoned your way through to the correct conclusion here. The idea that maybe he'll "just get mad" for no reason seems like a completely random, groundless concern that you should simply discard (unless your professor has a history of getting mad for no reason).

Just email the professor!  One of my biggest frustrations with students recently is that they seem terrified of emailing their instructors, and are much more likely to attempt to get advice from a bunch of total strangers on Reddit or SE.  Your instructor almost certainly wants you to be successful; internet strangers don't care.  Just email them!

@jeguyer I don't actually know if other students asked about this, because I'm taking an online course and there are no live zoom meeting discussions or the like. But I don't think they had asked because most of them seems to be too occupied with this week's regular homework that they don't have time to ask or even to check.

@AdamPřenosil Thanks for pointing out, my professor don't have a history of getting mad for no reason, so probably I'll just ask him, just like everyone here suggested. Thanks for all the help, everyone!

Some LMS platforms (looking at you, Blackboard!) are notoriously finicky, it's possible your professor doesn't know how to use the software all that well and has screwed something up.

It's probably best just to send him a politely worded email, short and to the point. You (and we) can't know what the professor's reaction will be but your request for clarification seems legitimate. Maybe it's a misunderstanding on your part or an oversight on his. Just ask.

This. And word it as your mistake not the profs, so “I’m having trouble accessing XYZ; what am I doing wrong?” not “You messed up uploading the extra credit assignment”.

Double check with yourself that you don't miss anything obvious/Are looking in the right place.

Double check with a fellow student (if you know them/are in touch)

E-mail the professor that you have done 1 and 2 but cannot seem to find the assignment, express your enthusiasm about doing the assignment and ask them for instructions on how to proceed. Keep it short and polite and 9 out of 10 they accidentally made a mistake.