text:
Informing my supervisor of discrepancy in the results
I am working on my MPhys thesis, on a certain dataset. Part of this dataset has been analyzed by my current supervisor during his PhD, with published results. He asked me to expand on that work by completing the analysis on the whole dataset.
When I repeat the analysis on the part he had already worked on, I get different results. Unfortunately he has not published any detail about how exactly he tackled the problem, and instead relied on his memory. He gave me advice like: put this parameter to 50, use feature A, use feature B, disable feature C and so on.
I was able to reproduce his result to within 10%, but yesterday I was horrified when I discovered that this was done without using one of the features he recommended, let's say feature A. I have played with the data since and am totally unable to reproduce the result (it is off by a factor of 2 when using my supervisor specifications).
Using feature A totally makes sense, so I am not sure on what to do: I am afraid that should I tell him about this problem, he would delay my upcoming viva. This has a lot of unwanted consequences, for example would force me to pay extra money to the University

What exactly is your question?

It seems highly unlikely that someone would falsify data and then years later ask someone to reproduce the data.

I am not sure on what to do.

I am afraid that should I tell him about this problem, he would delay my upcoming viva — If there's a serious unresolved issue in your research, such as the one you're describing, perhaps your viva should be delayed!

In my opinion, it is absolutely essential that you are completely open about this.
If you cannot reproduce his results, at least one (possibly both) of the following are true:

You are doing something wrong. You are a student and he is your supervisor. It's his job to help you if you are doing something wrong. There is nothing to be ashamed of. It's better to be delayed with correct results, than on time with wrong results.
He was doing something wrong. Don't be afraid! You are not accusing him of anything unethical (*). If his previous results or his understanding are genuinely in error, he should be very interested in knowing this, and grateful if you discover such an error.

(*) If you do suspect unethical behaviour, the question is entirely different and better asked separately.

The viva is the thesis defense.

You should talk to your advisers, and in good faith expect that, since everything is from memory, there is a multiplication by 1/2 missing or some minor detail. Else, falsifying data is the 9th circle of hell.


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How important is the academic staff to student ratio?
I've been looking at some universities abroad (I'm from Norway) like in Hong Kong (HKUST), but the academic staff to student ratio seems dreadful compared to others with 1:23. Still, people seem to think it's a really great place to go. Also, it's ranked 19th in the world in the course I want to take, Mechanical Engineering, despite this.
So, my question is, how much weight should I put in this ratio? Will it impact my education greatly when the ratio is so high?

grad school or undergraduate ?

Sorry for not clarifying. I'm planning on Undergrad Mechanical Eng.

Here's the info for the uni: http://cl.ly/MR1I

For engineering, there's 3100 undergrads and 1700 grads, with 152 "regular" and 22 visiting professors.

undergrad questions are off-topic here

If the ratio is about undergrad students, I wouldn't worry too much: those figures may vary wildly without the quality of the education dispensed being affected. For one thing, academic staff may not be all teachers, proportion of research vs. teaching time may vary, degree of implication of PhD teaching assistants (which do not count as academic staff) is not included, …
(The value given, 1:23, makes me assume that's what you mean)

On the other hand, if the ratio is about “grad students” and/or “PhD students” to academic staff, then yeah, you should give it a careful look. If the ratio is too low, run away fast! There are places that take too many grad students, if they can manage the funding, but won't have the human resources to advise/tutor/supervise them as they should. Trust me, you don't want to be in such a place.

Thanks for your answer. As I'm graduating from high school into undergrad, I hope it'll be okay with that ratio. It sounds awesome to study in Hong Kong, so I guess I'll give it a go.

Further, all the teaching staff 1:27.4 have a PhD, with 80% from top 30 unis in US/UK. Impressive, despite the ratio.

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text:
Timezone of "AoE" for a conference submission deadline?
I noticed this submission deadline for a conference listed as

January 12th 2017, 23:59, AoE

(that's not the real date, just an example). An explanation says "Anywhere on Earth". Does that mean the deadline is at the first point in time there's someplace on Earth which hits 23:59, or the last point? In other words, does Hawaii get discriminated against or for? :-)

Actually, there is no discrimination. The time between the announcement of the conference and the deadline is the same anywhere on earth.

@Wrzlprmft Actually, there is some insignificant discrimination: if the time between the announcement and the deadline is not a whole number of days, then there will be some timezones in which a slightly greater proportion of the available time falls during the night.

@DavidRicherby I would expect any deadline to be at some fixed point in time (most often local time zone of the conference), or you'd have to check where on earth the submitter was when they submitted. So the deadline for the submitter in local time would always be different. "AoE" means the submitter has no excuse if they are late.

This means that as long as there is a place on earth where the deadline has not yet passed, you can still submit.
Thus, it is the time zone of e.g. Baker Island: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/usa/baker-island

To add to this correct answer, here is an external resource providing a definition.

Do you have to have the IP from Baker Island in order to use its timezone?

@Ooker: No, be cause it's AoE for everyone. Otherwise, the deadline would be in your local timezone - an assumption generally avoided by specifying a timezone.

@O.R.Mapper so why not specify the timezone of Baker Island? Why do they have to create a new timezone which is confusing to use?

@Ooker: At least my impression was that AoE time is pretty much self-explanatory, whereas Baker island is unknown enough so I first had to check what or where it is. Maybe the inventors of AoE time thought the same. Also, "AoE time" is a timeless statement, whereas a particular location is by no means guaranteed to always have the same timezone.

@O.R.Mapper +1 for "timeless statement"

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Is it normal for adverts for US jobs to give much less information than European ones?
At the moment I'm looking for my next position (most likely postdoc level, potentially one step up from there).
When looking at advertised positions in Europe I generally expect to see a brief summary of what the job is about on the advert, and then have the ability to click through to see one or more multipage documents detailing the responsibilities of the post, the exact qualifications that are required and desirable, and so forth. Typically these detailed specifications will be used in the selection process - and so an applicant will use them to inform their application, making sure to address each point.
When looking at a couple of positions in the US, there has been the initial brief summary... and then nothing else. The entire job advert seems to consist of one paragraph giving an overview, plus some boilerplate about equal opportunities.
Is this normal? If so, what are the reasons? Since the selection criteria aren't being disclosed, how can an applicant go about identifying what attributes they need to highlight in their application?

Yes, it's normal.
A few things that you can do to get more information about faculty or postdoc positions before applying are:

Look at the web pages of members the department to see what they've been publishing, their grants, etc.  Keep in mind that the expectations of new hires may be far higher than the expectations were when older tenured faculty were hired.
Look at class schedules to see what the typical teaching load is, both in terms of the number of courses and in the kinds of courses that faculty and postdocs teach.  For example, do postdocs ever teach advanced undergraduate and graduate courses, or do they only teach sections of introductory courses?  Are the typical sections 200 students or 30?
For tenure track positions, Look for the institutional policies on promotion and tenure.

In Europe, at least in science, a postdoc is generally hired with specific funding to undertake a specific project. This might not be the case in the US, where lab heads will take on postdocs with a general idea of the area they will work in, but then it will be up to the postdoc to design their own research program.
Also note that the law around employment in the US is much less restrictive, so where in Europe an employee can call foul if asked to do something not in their job description, and an employer can only sack an employee if they prove to be below a what would reasonably be expected on a listed responsibility on their job description, these things don't apply in the US.

In the US you will also have an enforceable job description. It just won't be part of the advert. But you eventually sign a contract.

I don't know where you are finding these adverts. If it is in print, in the back of a publication, say, note that many places expect that you will find the department web site where more information can likely be found.
If that is not the case here, then also note that giving out too much information about a job is a way to attract fewer applicants, though perhaps more appropriate ones. Most academic positions in the US are "teaching and research" even for post docs. If a position is strictly one or the other it will likely say that. Even the listed subfield is normally treated as pretty fluid. If they want an expert in Machine Learning, say, that is their dream and they may need a person rather than the ideal person. Saying more than you need to say defeats this flexibility.
An advert will need to be specific only if they are seeking a person to fill a slot in a particular research lab in which generalists or "related field" candidates don't help.

I asked the professor for more details. He just gave me a link back to the same Web page. So that's all there is.

@Flyto, then I'll just guess that they are pretty flexible in their needs. The details will come if you apply and are interviewed.

Thanks. It feels like a good way to waste everybody's time, by getting applications from people who they don't want. I can't believe they're undersubscribed....

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If interviewing for a postdoc by Skype, how to get a feel for the lab culture?
I have recently applied for a postdoc in the USA, and because I am on a different continent any interview that I may be offered will almost certainly be by videoconference. I assume that at postdoc level, nobody is going to offer to pay for an intercontinental visit for a second interview (am I right?).
There is some good advice here on interviewing over Skype, and indeed this is something that I have my own past experience of. Something I've noticed before is that while the formal interview itself can work almost the same way in person or by VC, one misses out on the surrounding interactions - chatter before and after, perhaps walking around the building, and so forth - which helps one to form an impression of the people, the place, and whether one wants to work there.
Are there any ways to get a feel for these intangible aspects of culture and personalities without a visit?

Postdocs earn ~50k in the US and a trip to the US would cost somewhere under 10% of that, so it probably isn't economical to fly you over for a year postdoc, but for a longer postdoc, it might be plausible. (It's worth considering that other applicants would expect similar treatment, hence, the total travel costs would be higher.)

Moving on to your question, you could telephone other members of the lab and have informal chats.

Is there an upcoming meeting/conference that you and the PI and or their students will be at? That allows for informal questions, and possibly the second interview as well.

@jon cluster sadly not,  but it's a good idea. Thanks.

I would ask if it is possible for you to talk to other team members via skype, directly after the interview, without the PI present. You might want to ask if this is part of the process ahead of time and whether it can be arranged if it isn't. I arrange for interviewees to spend a few minutes with other team members without me present, even if the interview is via skype.
Some people might think this is a weird thing to ask. But to be honest, if you are interested in team culture, and they count this against you, then you probably didn't want to work there in the first place.
I good thing to ask is about people's hobbies - do people in the group manage to spend time on interesting things outside work. One place I interviews some one joked "I play drums in a band, but I would never let the boss know that". There was no chance I was going to take that position.

Email people who used to be in the group and ask them for advice.

Agree with the other posters to contact other lab members and ask about their experience of climate. I particularly suggest asking graduate students, who may be less concerned with politics and therefore more direct with answers, as well as more knowledgeable about how professors treat non-professors.


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Converting from and to British grading scheme
I've tried googling around for this but I haven't really understood how the British grading scheme works. I am specifically interested in knowing the following things:

What is a 2:1?
What is a level A?
How can I convert from and to A, B, C grades to numerical grades?

For the second point, perhaps it refers to A levels?

None of these apply to post-grad degrees. This question is off-topic here.

What's the other system you want to convert to and from?  There isn't some default obvious system.

@EnergyNumbers:  The 2:1 part could be an entry requirement for a postgrad degree.

@EnergyNumbers: "Overruled." This would be relevant for admissions and hiring decisions.

@TaraB where I live, grades are expressed in points, like 27/30. I would like to know what the equivalent of a 2:1 would be in this system.

Some relevant answers might be found here:
http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9058/how-to-convert-from-one-grading-scheme-to-another/15462#15462

@user1301428. Where do you live? No one here is a mind reader. Why are you dropping vague hints of the system to which you wish to convert, instead of just coming out and telling us?

The UK system uses the notation of 1st, 2.1, 2.2, 3rd as degree classifications. Most individual modules/classes are grade on either an A, B, C, ... scale or a percentage scale. I believe the conversion of A-=70=1st and B-=60=2.1 is pretty universal. At reasonable universities, approximately 10% of students get a first and 60% get a 2.1.
Under no circumstances would I advise converting your own marks on an application. State the marks you got and if it is a particularly bizarre system provide a link where they can get more information.

So you mean 70 out of 100?

No.  Different grading systems are different.

@JeffE In my department we mark work with letter grades which are internally converted to number grades and eventually lead to degree classifications, so within our system the 3 systems are the same. Since a large portion of our assessment is double marked by an external assessor, the 3 systems are designed to be similar across the UK.

@DanielE.Shub: Right, but that equivalence doesn't extend outside the UK.  Even with raw numbers, a score of 70% (7/10 or 21/30 or 70/100) reflects different levels of mastery in the UK, in India, in Israel, and elsewhere.  As you say yourself: Under no circumstances would I advise converting your own marks on an application.

@JeffE in this particular case I must convert it, because I am asked if I have a first or a 2:1 degree, so I have to find a way to convert my grade into this system

@user1301428, given that you're being asked for a 1st or 2-1, I'm going to guess that you're applying for a postgraduate programme at a UK university. If that's true, contact the admissions department, they will know what you need when applying from outside the UK. As JeffE says, the systems are not necessarily comparable and you risk seriously disadvantaging yourself if you don't do it right.

An A is 70% upwards (this is also known as a 1st)
A 2:1 is 60%-69% (also known as a B or upper second)
A 2:2 is a C 50%-59% (lower second)
A 3rd is 40-49% (a d)

Apart from much better formating, there seems to be little substantive difference between your answer and mine.

@DanielE.Shub - It happens :)

@DanielE.Shub - Unfortunately, your formatting was such that I had trouble understanding what you were saying.  Magpie's I understood at a glance.  Formatting can be important!

@DanielE.Shub there is some misleading information in your answer and it is not complete.

What about the E which is called the Elephant mark which is anything less than 40%


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Can you use the Italian "Dr" title in Austria even though it does not refer to the same academic level in both countries?
This was originally posted in a German-language site, but it was recommended to me to post it here as it might be more of a legal question than a language-related one, and similar questions were asked in the past in this community:
During a discussion about the challenges of applying EU regulations across different member states, the topic of academia came up, specifically the (admittedly edge-case) scenario of the combination of Austrian formality with regards to academic titles (where, as an example, one can be referred to as Dr. Dr. Dr. Otto Mustermann in case of three doctorates), and the exceptional situation in Italy where one does not need a Doctorate to be able to be called a Doctor (a Bachelor's Degree warrants the use of the title of Doctor already, or Dr. Mag. for a Master's Degree). This sparked a discussion about the legal recognition of titles across Member States where the same title is awarded at the end of different Bologna cycles.
For the purpose of this thought experiment, let's take the case of a student that is awarded a Master of Science degree in Mathematics from an Italian University (300 ECTS), therefore allowing them to use the title Dr. Mag. in Italy. Can they use the same title in Austria as well?
The Austrian rule in this regard seems to leave at least some room for interpretation:

If a foreign academic degree is validated in Austria, then the
appropriate Austrian academic title should subsequently be used in
place of the foreign title.

So if the academic degree is, conversely, not validated in Austria, it should follow that one should be able to use the title from the country that issued the degree - Dr. Mag. in this case.
On the other hand, this other page says:

Foreign academic titles may be used according to the same rules as
Austrian titles.

This point would negate the previous interpretation, suggesting instead that the regulation with the highest priority would be the Austrian one. However, that same page also says:

Whether an academic title is to be placed in front of or behind a name
is decided according to the rules of the country in which the award
was made.

This acknowledges the importance of the source country instead. But it also mentions:

The use of a corresponding or similar Austrian academic title is not
permitted.

Would the Italian Dr. title then correspond to an Austrian academic title, even though they refer to two different degrees?
More specifically then: would a person with a degree from Italy then be able to officially use the title "Dr." in Austria too?

Your question is already answered in the page you linked: you could use the precise Italian title (e.g. Dott./Dott.ssa or whichever form you obtained), or, if the degree is validated in Austria, use the Austrian equivalent. tl;dr use the title you have, perhaps spell it out in full on official documents to avoid confusion.

There is a non-trivial controversy about this usage, at present, from what I understand, the Austrian government recommends using "Dr. Mag" (see linked pdf at the bottom of this page) https://www.bmbwf.gv.at/Themen/HS-Uni/Anerkennung/Akademische-Grade.html

It sounds like the only reason to try to use Italian Dr in Austria is to trick people into thinking you have a better degree than you do. Regardless of technicalities not a good thing to do regardless.

In which situation would you use this title anyway?

@TheDoctor: It might be important in various business contexts to include your title.

@thosphor The reason is irrelevant, but I find your comment beautifully ironic because it is exactly in Austria that a wife is allowed to use the husband's doctorate title and be called "Frau Dr" even without having a doctorate of her own (interestingly, the opposite does not seem to hold: https://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/22/travel/dr-dr-dr-dr-may-i-call-you-freddie.html)

@TheDoctor In Austria, academic titles are part of official forms (it is not mandatory to enter this information, but you will find everywhere multiple fields available for entering academic titles either before or after the name, or both)

As a sidenote, this specific problem (Italian dottore versus German Doktor) is well-known enough that it has a joke name ("Brennerdoktor") and a Wikipedia page: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brennerdoktor

(to be fair, the "Brennerdoktor" is a particularly egregious version of people studying in Austria, getting their degree nostrified in Italy - hence becoming dottore, and then calling themselves "Doctor" back in Austria)

@user1301428 "Allowed to use" is a strong term. It's an old-fashioned custom, yes, but it's not like a doctor's wife was ever legally allowed to carry her husband's academic titles.

@xLeitix Further research suggests that this is true for academic titles following the name, so she would not be able to call herself Frau Muster, PhD if her husband has a doctorate, for example, but she can indeed use Frau Dr Muster. Hence I don't think that "allowed to use" is a strong term, but rather a quite precise one.

@user1301428 The linked article from the NYT is from 1988; it doesn't exactly describe current usage.

@user1301428 I would be interested to see a trustworthy source that says that this was ever legally allowed, rather than simply tolerated. I can't read the NYT article since it's behind a paywall, but I strongly suspect they are mixing up informal customs and law. Also, let's be clear, even the custom died out around the time of my birth. So it's less surprising that it only worked from husband to wife - in the seventies, there simply were much fewer woman with higher education than their husbands than the other way around.

@user1301428 Also, this isn't unique to Austria. The same was apparently sufficiently common in the US to make it into a joke in a Friends episode: https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/ddf6b137-b05e-48bc-91b1-382f9c193f58

In fact this is still common enough in the US that we say "Madam ___" instead of "Mrs ___" when a woman holds a political function. See english.stackexchange: Madam President vs Mrs President

@xLeitix I think one should point out that in this case she also his full name with the doctoral title. Similar to "Mrs. Martin Luther King, Jr." a.k.a. "Coretta Scott King".

Lawyer here. In Italy, you cannot use the title Dr. to imply you have a Ph.D. ("dott. ric.", dottore di ricerca); you can only use the title "dott. mag." (dottore magistrale) or "dott." (dottore triennale) which are the correct titles stated in the law.
In Austria, you can use "dott." or "dott. mag.", better if followed by the name of your alma mater to avoid confusion [e.g., "dott. mag. (M.A./Msc. Università degli Studi di Bologna)"].
If you are a medical doctor, you can use Dr. as it is commonly used to refer to medical physicians.
The abbreviation "Dr." in Italy is not commonly used to refer to BA or MA degrees, so you should not use it in Austria, in order to prevent litigation (better safe than sorry).

This sentence:

The use of a corresponding or similar Austrian academic title is not permitted.

makes it clear: one cannot use a foreign title to imply the corresponding Austrian academic title.
Therefore, using an Italian "Dr." title is wrong if used in Austria to imply one is an Austrian doctor (or Austrian-equivalent recognized doctor).
On the other hand, one can use the Italian "Dr." title if they clearly states that it is an Italian title.
The Dr. title in the name, as custom to the German-speaking world, can be done only with a Doctoral title, therefore using the undergrad "Dr." title to do that is a violation of the Austrian legislation (because in Italy the Dr. title is not officially prepended to the name).

What's the maximum penalty for violating said law?

@JonathanReez https://kujus-strafverteidigung.de/strafrechts-abc/missbrauch-von-titeln/ here is the situation for Germany, it says a fine or up to one year jail time - not worth it!

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава


text:
How many "Cambridge"s in one line? (Citing a book from C.U.P.)
I just got the page proofs of an article I wrote that is to appear.  In it I cited a book, like this:

Author, Title in Italics, Cambridge University Press, 1891.

In the page proof it looks like this:

Author, Title in Italics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1891.

Obviously that's wrong and I will so notify them.
But I wonder: Does the renown of this particular publisher justify omitting to identify the city after the publisher's name when the city's name is actually a part of the publisher's name and everybody knows which "Cambridge" it is?  (This came from a "production company" that contracts with the journal, so maybe "everybody" doesn't include "production companies").  If the city must be named separately I'd be tempted to write

Author, Title in Italics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1891.

which still relies on "everybody" to know this.
"MA" is an abbreviation promulgated by the United States Postal Service.  I had the impression that in England, postal addresses typically put the name of the county after the name of the city, separated by a comma, but that that probably wouldn't be done with Cambridge. If I did that, then "Cambridge" would appear three times in one line.  An alternative would be what I would do if I were sending a letter the old-fashioned way from America to someone in Cambridge and put "England" or "United Kingdom" after the comma (although for a letter I'd probably put the postal code after the city's name on the same line and "England" would be on the next line). (Somehow I feel more comfortable with "England" than "United Kingdom" since it's not only an entity created by politicians but also a geographic name that will persist even if the UK becomes defunct.  Or as someone once said "There'll always be an England." But maybe that's just personal taste.)  I suppose "England" would be harmless and probably no one would notice, but I would feel silly thinking someone would have to be told that's where Cambridge is.
What do people normally do when citing stuff from this particular renowned publisher?

Many books published by CUP say "New York" and not "Cambridge" on their copyright notice; I own at least two.

@fkraiem : Presumably that's when they're printed in the U.S.A. for distribution in the U.S.A.

England is just as much a political entity as the UK - just from longer ago ☺

@SimonW : But it's not only a political entity.  If England split into 20 independent states with no political connection among them, they would also be within England just as Mali and Burundi are in Africa.

There's really no harm in adding clarifying information.  Obviously, we need a city name if we get "University of Georgia Press" because there are two very different University of Georgias in the world.  One located in Athens (Georgia, USA — not Greece!) and the other located in Tbilisi.
Likewise, if we see a publisher we're not familiar with, and the citation is only "Athens", it's nice to know at a quick glance whether we're talking about the American Georgian city, or the Greek one.  The topic of the paper make dictate which one is the "expected" one — if we're talking Atlanta politics, we can assume Georgia, unless otherwise specified, and if we're talking Plato, we can assume Greece.
Ultimately, though, it depends on the house style. If the house style includes the city, they'll do it for all publications, no matter how obvious one would think.  In your specific example, it's undoubtedly an overzealous copy-editor who is probably accustomed to having "Harvard University Press, Cambridge" and fixing it to "Cambridge, MA" to clarify.

I would say this comes down to which referencing style you are using, not logic. If it calls for a city then you include the city, regardless of how obvious this is. Similarly, you include the publisher in some styles, even when the publisher is the same as the 'author' of a booklet or similar, and you include both the authors of a chapter and the editors of the book, even when they are the same (sometimes long) list.
When I put preprints of my papers online, I use a referencing style I am happy with. Once it's in a journal, I sometimes wince, and then forget about it.

I always make it a point not to include the city name of the book publishers in bibliographic references in my articles. Including the city name in today's globalized world is a pointless and archaic tradition that should be abolished, along with fax machines and similar anachronisms.
Thus, I would write "Cambridge" if and only if the journal copy-editor insists on adding this redundant and pointless information. In that case I would ask them to remove "MA" since that's factually incorrect, and aside from that I couldn't care less if they want to also add "United Kingdom", "England", "Cambridgeshire", "in the general vicinity of Hogwarts", GPS coordinates, instructions for delivering mail via homing pigeons, etc.

Well, either way, concerning citation style, it's the journal that is right, unless they are wrong. If they prefer to include the city and the state, it's their choice, not yours; if they include ISBN and ISSN for everything, it's their choice, not yours; if they remove them, again, the same thing. Of course, unless the modification is plain wrong, like removing substantial data (think removing number in a journal volume when the page numbering becomes ambiguous) or unless it means extra charges on you (e.g. if this additional data adds another page you'd have to pay for).
You can of course ask them whether it's necessary, but as others mention in their answers, it is an important field. You can also of course withdraw the article, that's your choice :-)


text:
Conference held in year X, proceedings published in X+2 - which to use?
A certain conference was held on year X, but its proceedings were published in print in year X+2.
When I cite an article submitted to that conference (which I read in the published proceedings) - how do I indicate the correct year?
I'm asking specifically about BibTeX field values, but a less-specific answer would also be ok I guess.

Since someone chasing citations will want the print version, I'd think X+2, perhaps with a note that the conference was in X. Others will have more experience with this.

In the cases I've seen, the date (X) of the conference is usually part of the title of the proceedings.  So by using X+2 as the date in BibTeX, you'd provide all the relevant information.

Others have recommended using X+2 as the year, and I'm pretty sure this is fairly standard. For what it's worth, when dating older historical material, there are often three different years involved --- the year the paper/book was presented/submitted, the year appearing on the book's title page, and the year that the book actually appeared. I've seen one math history paper (or maybe it was a book) that used all three in the form (x,y,z), and at least in some cases each difference in x < y < z was at least 2 years. And then there's the author's personal date, sometimes at the end . . .

Make sure your reference has a DOI and the question becomes (still relevant but mostly) moot.

@E.P.: How does it become moot?

When I cite an article submitted to [a conference held in year X and published in year X+2] - how do I indicate the correct year?

The citation should include the publication year, not the year the conference was held. But, the conference year is useful, so it is worth including too. Perhaps:

Author (X+2) Title. In proceedings of Conf'X...

The Chicago Manual of Style supports this style.

Is this definitive, or your preference?

I believe it is standard, that is, the year corresponds to publication year, not the year of the conference. Sense can be made of it intuitively, since a citation refers to a published document.

I checked the Chicago Manual of Style and it agrees


text:
Postdoctoral fellowships/calls to work in Europe for scientists/mathematicians/engineers that are similar to Marie curie?
I was wondering where I can find any information on the postdoctoral fellowships/calls to work in Europe which are similar to Marie Curie? I'm doing my
basic internet search on this, but don't seem to succeed that much. I'm especially talking about the fellowships that are offered in the areas of pure or applied sciences or engineering areas.
Any information, site or blog that you know of, I'd greatly appreciate if you could please pass it onto me.
Thanks a lot!

For life sciences:

HFSP Long Term Fellowships and Cross Disciplinary Fellowships. CDF is aimed at people from other disciplines that want to enter biology.
EMBO Long Term Fellowships.
LSRF fellowships.

My sincere appreciation to Bitwise and Federico, that was the kind of answers I was looking for. I'm hoping I could get more to add to the list.

I think that the EMBO is only for molecular biology, and the HFSP has also a pretty narrow definition of fields it support. For example, they do not support applied project in biotechnology, environmental studies, ecological studies. If somebody is not sure, it is better to contact the fellowship office.

Listing what I know, but it won't be a complete answer for sure.
Germany has several opportunities for foreigners, including DAAD and Humboldt fellowships.
Italy has launched this year for the first time a call with name SIR; it is now closed, but maybe it will be renewed.
All of them are generalist calls, not aimed at a particular field.

Some of the open academic positions, including postdoc positions, in Switzerland are listed on the ETH-get-hired website. Although somewhat more popular in German-speaking Switzerland and for Science/Engineering it is fairly general in scope.
I should note that these are typically fully funded job offers, not grants.

The European commission hosts a database called EURAXESS on research fellowships that are being offered within the European Union, at all levels (European funding, international funding, national funding). You can easily narrow down searches by these levels and career stage. The link is:
http://ec.europa.eu/euraxess/index.cfm/jobs/index

There are literally zillions of scholarships.
Contact the representative of EU and the embassies of countries you are interested in. They always have an S&T department which generally have advertisement of such scholarships, websites, or even newsletters on this very topic.
Assuming  that you are in the US, you can contact the MIT European Career Fair (https://www.euro-career.com/) they have several connections to national frameworks like DAAD or Humbold.

Greg: thanks for your reply, but I'm in EU. But I guess the suggestion remains unchanged even for EU.

Well it helps if you clarify such details about yourself. :) Yet, it doesn't hurt to check their website and see who are the major scholar sponsors going there.


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Negotiating with an editor after a failure to review a paper honestly
Suppose the first paragraph of a paper submitted to a journal says "We prove that the Riemann hypothesis follows from Catholic doctrines concerning sacraments [etc.]" and the referee's report accompanying the rejection says "The author's purpose is to prove the P =/= NP conjecture . . . " etc. and explains that that fails.
How reasonable would it be to argue that the journal should reconsider on the grounds that the paper was not honestly reviewed? And in so doing, how would one avoid offending the editor who probably holds the referee in high esteem and has never heard of the author?

I asked something similar recently: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/85418/reviewer-makes-an-obvious-and-serious-mistake-and-paper-is-rejected
Reviewer made a really obvious mistake and tried to negotiate with the editor. You might find the discussion helpful.

This happened to me a few months back with a minor one-page paper that may not be worth a lot of hassle, and it happened to someone I know much more recently.

Apparently, it's very common and sadly not much to do (besides contacting the editor to let know of the incident).

You are questioning the "honesty" of the reviewer? Think he misunderstood your paper on purpose? I mean it's possible, but I'd rather suspect your writing was unclear. In that case the due way is to rewrite and resubmit.

@Karl : It's not that the reviewer misunderstood on purpose, but that the reviewer was inattentive in a morally culpable way.

@MichaelHardy Be careful with such harsh accusations. This is not a good mindset to have. With that attitude, you will tend to blame others for your own shortcomings.

@ian_itor : I haven't given details, but a reviewer expressed an opinion of something the reviewer clearly had not read.

The reviewer thought he knew already. He had a wrong idea of what he was going to find there. Likely he won't be the only one of your  readers who is unattentive and in following does not understand you. So: Help them!

@Karl : Your comment of course is right, but does it bear upon what we're talking about? If the editor says "We already made our decision" and the response is to be that the paper was not reviewed properly, one of course can ask the subsequent proper review to consider a rephrasing that will "help them", but that doesn't address the question of how one should argue the point with the editor.

You don't say what the verdict of the editor was! Has he said "Rejected!" ? In that case, just adjust a few things, and resubmit. You write in the letter to the editor that the previous submission was rejected because the reviewer had a fundamental misunderstanding about sth. explain why that happend, and how you have improved the manuscript to make sure it won't happen again.

How reasonable would it be to argue that the journal should reconsider on the grounds that the paper was not honestly reviewed?

If I were you I would really, really, really avoid bringing anything to do with "honesty" into the discussion. Seriously, it's unprofessional and off-putting to question the integrity of people who may have a much higher reputation and level of credibility than you (and you don't even know the identity of the person you're accusing... not a good position to be in). However, I think it would be extremely reasonable to politely point out the mistake and make the case that the reviewer's misconception of what the paper does is severe enough so as to invalidate the conclusion of the review and justify giving the paper a fresh look.
Now, whether it is also reasonable to expect your argument to sway the editor's decision is a separate question. Personally I wouldn't be too optimistic, but it's worth a try, and if you phrase your rebuttal politely and professionally then I don't think you are risking anything other than a bit of time and a minor disappointment.
I also agree with a point made in the comments that it would be worth taking a fresh look at your paper to see to what extent a lack of clarity in your writing may have contributed to the reviewer's mistake. If you find any way to improve the presentation in a way that minimizes the chances for this sort of misunderstanding, do so, and include a revised version of your manuscript when you submit the rebuttal, and explain the changes you've made to eliminate the chances for a misunderstanding.

And in so doing, how would one avoid offending the editor who probably holds the referee in high esteem and has never heard of the author?

I don't see why the editor should be offended, and also think it should be possible to not offend even the reviewer if your email is polite and sticks to facts. Mostly, just don't say anything offensive (like questioning people's honesty!) and you should be fine. Here's one way you might do it:

Dear Editor,
Thank you for sending me the referee report for my paper and the decision regarding my submission. While I appreciate the consideration given to my paper by yourself and the anonymous referee, I wanted to point out what appears to be a misguided interpretation of my paper's results by the referee. They claim that I try and fail to prove the conjecture that P=/=NP, but in fact my claim is that I have proved the Riemann Hypothesis, which is a very different conjecture. The difference between those two claims is that [insert very brief explanation here if necessary] and is well-known to experts in the area. I believe that my reasoning is solid and have checked the paper to the best of my ability, but of course a serious examination of my paper would be necessary in order for a fair and correct decision to be made regarding whether the paper should be published by your journal. The referee's mischaracterization of my claims obviously calls the conclusion of the review into question.
I therefore kindly request that you send the paper to be refereed again, either by the same referee with a request that he or she rethink their opinion in view of their earlier misunderstanding, or to a different referee who is qualified to provide a serious opinion on the paper.
I also wanted to mention that I have made a few small changes to paragraphs X, Y, Z in Section A to try to make the statement of my results clearer and minimize the chances that other referees or readers of my paper will misunderstand my claims. The revised manuscript is attached.
[Yours etc.]

I think most journals won't reconsider a rejection, but just ask you to resubmit. Formality.
Explain to the editor why the previous reviewer had this misunderstanding, what you changed to clear this up for the future reader, and there should be no problems. Provided you have identified and addressed the problem correctly. ;-)
If the paper was not formally rejected, do the same thing. Just be very polite in any case, because the fault is definitively on you, and you want the reviewer to just slap his head and say "Yes of course, brilliant, why didn't you say so before!".
Instead of being annoyed with you for wasting his time.

Can you always resubmit a rejected paper to the same journal? Or is it likely that the editor will just reject it again without sending for review?

Yes it is likely, but that depends on the reasons why he rejected it the last time. That's what the letter to the editor is for, explaining it.


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American Mathematical Monthly reprints, as opposed to preprints, on the arXiv
The arXiv is for preprints, but may also be used to disseminate reprints.
What considerations bear upon the advisability of putting a reprint from the American Mathematical Monthly there? In particular:

Is it permissible under copyright law and might that depend on how long it's been since publication? Monthly articles of a certain age (three years or more maybe?) are available through jstor(dot)org, I presume with the consent of whoever owns the rights, so I would guess that after that time it is permissible?

Does it get substantially more attention for the article than it gets from jstor(dot)org and from library subscriptions to the Monthly and from other subscriptions? Here it seems that anyone with internet access can see it, whereas with jstor(dot)org you need an account on the web site of a library that subscribes. One could post a link to it here.

IANAL but I am pretty sure that would violate copyright. An article in the Monthly will be found as easily there legally as on arXiv by any reasonable search strategy. There are probably workarounds for folks who don't have access to jstor. This is not one.

Whether it’s permitted or not would depend on what the copyright transfer form you sign says.

@EthanBolker : Whether it would violate copyright would depend on whether the Monthly has a policy of permitting such things.

Policies vary by journal and some let you pick among different policies for a fee.

I now have an email from the Editor-Elect saying she will check with the Managing Editor and Publishing Manager who are out until January 3.

The Monthly's information for authors links to Taylor and Francis's general policy on this point.  If by "reprint" you mean the VOR (version of record) then no you can't post it to the arxiv.  You can, however, post the AOM (author original manuscript) to the arxiv.

I was not aware until after I posted this that a commercial publisher owned the rights to this. Some mathematicians have realized that certain conflicts between the interests of commercial publishers and those of academia make it better to do things in other ways that that, and so it seems to me one should be wary of such an arrangement. Seemingly few mathematicians have realized this is part of a broader problem of certain kinds of corruption in academia. One other small symptom is the widespread practice of . . . . . .

. . . . encouraging vast numbers of students to take calculus who have earned good grades in the prerequisite course but who are known not to have understood the prerequisite subject matter in a way that is needed to learn first-year calculus in the way contemplated by textbooks and curricula. Instead they just learn algorithms like (d/dx)x^n = nx^{n-1} without ever suspecting that learning mathematics consists of something other than learning to apply memorized algorithms. Mathematicians see that that is all they learn and attribute it to an unfortunate lack of . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . ability of most of the students, but seemingly fail to see that the system encourages lack of ability because it is a good strategy for doing what the students want to do, which is not learning the subject, but getting grades. A few places like the University of Toronto and Macalester College and some of the liberal arts colleges in western Massachusetts are dealing with this issue to some extent. but many many professors of mathematics are blind to it. And probably some want to keep it that way just to rake in paychecks for phony teaching. And some administrators . . . . . .

It’s owned by the MAA who contracts to Taylor and Francis for publishing.  Acta and Compositio have similar arrangements.  This is much better than it being owned by a publisher.

. . . . . want to keep it that way in order to rake in the tuition money.

If it is owned by MAA who contracts with that company, then why does that company own the rights?

If it is owned by MAA who contracts with that company, then why does that company own the rights?

I don’t think that company does own the rights.  I think the MAA does.

But you said there is a Taylor & Francis policy upon which this depends, rather than an MAA policy.

Because the MAA chose it that way, they could change their minds. Institut Mittag-Leffler switched from Springer to International Press for publication of Acta and then put their whole back catalog online for free.  Which they could do because they owned it.

Have you read the contract? Is it publicly available?


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Can we apply to the Marie Curie postdoc fellowship with two proposals supported by two different faculty members at two different universities?
I'm thinking of applying to the Marie Curie postdoc fellowship. I've been to their FAQ page, but I didn't see a question that addresses the possibility for the same candidate who wishes to submit two (or more) research proposals with two different future mentors at two different (or same) institutions. Thus I wonder whether it's possible at all?
Marie Curie association never replies, I tried emailing them before; so how could I check this?

In my experience, funding agencies always forbid applicants from sending in two applications if they cannot accept both awards.

I think you should read the Guide for applicants of the MSCA-PF very carefully if you want to increase your chances of getting the award.
In the 2023 edition at p. 7 they clearly state that:

Only one proposal per individual researcher can be submitted. In case
of several proposals involving the same individual researcher, only
the last submitted proposal will be considered eligible. However,
please note that the same supervisor and a host institution can be
involved in more than one proposal in the same call.

But the Guide also contains a lot of other absolutely vital info if you plan to apply!
If you need to ask any other questions, you can try to contact the National Contact Point (NCP) of your country. In my experience they respond very quickly, but I guess it can vary from country to country.
Finally I would suggest you to contact your potential supervisor as soon as possible. And keep in mind that most research institution need to approve your application first, and this can also take time.
Good luck!

It’s part of the requirements that you submit only one proposal. So don’t get into trouble submitting two. My advice will be to submit the same proposal for another fellowship. There are so many fellowships out there that you could actually submit a new application to.


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Explanation of certain phrases in an online interview for a fixed term teaching position at a certain Scottish university
I've applied for a (teaching only) mathematics lecturer position at a certain Scottish university, and as part of the application process, they shortlisted me for an online interview, where they're asking me to present this:
"As part of the interview process, you will be required to give a 15-minute presentation on the following topic:
"A sample of my teaching at SCQF Level 7 (10 minutes) & My Contribution to (university name) (5minutes)" "
I've two questions here:

I'm particularly confused about the second part: "My Contribution to (university name) (5minutes)". It sounds very generic, but what does it truly mean in this context? I mean, I could say that I'd like to design this course and that course specific to the university, design answers to certain types of problem sets, and depending on the situation and needs, could consult students informally about their careers etc. But is this something that I need to do, or am I interpreting it wrongly?

SCQF Level 7, mentioned above seems to be mostly of high school level, as opposed to university level. Is this true? If you're familiar with the Scottish University level math courses, I'd appreciate your answer!

@DanielHatton except that for many places in the world they will be high school level as the scottish first year is aimed at 17 year olds that left school with only 1 year of sixth form.

Created an account here to give a specific data point in response to your point 2. meaning to complement the well-rounded answer by @alexg - I did Higher and, Advanced Higher maths in school, and first year mathematics courses at a certain Scottish University; there was considerable overlap between the last two, though the latter went further.

"SCQF Level 7"
Scottish undergraduate degrees, and their relationship to secondary school teaching, are different from what's found in England and Wales. A typical four-year degree course will feature students taking a variety of subjects in their first year, narrowing down to advanced study in just one or two by their final year. Scottish students, having taken Highers and maybe Advanced Highers, will have a broader base of subjects than their English counterparts; they will not have done as much mathematics as someone taking English A-levels and going on to an English maths degree. They skew younger than in England because it's possible to enter with only one year of Highers, compared to two years of A-levels. People with A-levels and other qualifications do enter the Scottish university system, and might start at the second-year level if they prefer and if their grades permit.
Accordingly, the first-year mathematics teaching would usually be designed to take in a student population who are not all expecting to continue with mathematics, and who have a diverse background in the level and topics of what they have done so far. The teaching would be trying to set them up for their next years of study, either in mathematics or in some other subject such as physics where people typically opt for first-year maths as well.
"SCQF Level 7" is a slightly technocratic frame for this. Formally, it corresponds to RQF level 4 and EQF level 5, and is associated to the CertHE level of qualification. But somebody taking these courses at a university is not necessarily headed for a CertHE in Mathematics, if only because a first-year Scottish mathematics course might only represent 25% of the total credits taken that year. It's more like what the English universities sometimes call "foundation year" (an optional one year of transitional study before the regular undergraduate degree), or the "short cycle" of the Bologna process. It's not a full course of study leading to a freestanding qualification. These level numbers are back-formed from the practice of what Scottish universities have been doing for a long time, so it's probably easier to understand that than to try to understand the SCQF abstraction.
Characterising this as "high school level" is neither right nor wrong in global terms. It depends on the school in question: the Scottish education system draws the line in a different place from the English one. For a Scottish high school, students will have seen some of this (assuming they've taken Higher maths), or even more (if they've taken other more advanced qualifications while at school), but not always the same subset, and the university-level presentation will be different. So in the Scottish context, it's reductive and inaccurate to say "high school level", as that does not reflect the structural purpose of the teaching.
"My contribution to (university name)"
I agree it's hard to interpret what's wanted here, and it's only a five-minute slot. It could be a totally generic opportunity to make the case for your fit to the role, or it could be asking about what you bring to the university other than performing assigned teaching  duties within the department. I think that the thing to do is look back to the job description, which should include a numeric grade and a long list of desired characteristics. The grade will match up to nationally-standard criteria, which are the product of lengthy negotiation between universities and unions about the reasonable scope of duties for a "lecturer", "senior lecturer", etc. There should be some sort of hint in the job description, or in the institution's standard language for that level of job (which you could find in the section of their website dealing with promotions), about the kinds of things they would like to see. For example, Aberdeen's recently-revised criteria, to take a non-Glasgow example, cover a wide variety of possibilities and say what evidence they would consider indicative.

This sounds quite parallel to the function of lower-level math courses at most U.S. universities. Namely, incoming students may have taken very little math in high school, and won't really need much later, probably, but maybe they will... and/or maybe they'll want to... so we don't narrow things down until a few years into a typical undergrad program. Yes, very different from the goals of other systems. I'd not previously known what the Scots system was, and I'm interested to hear about it, esp. in contrast to the English.


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For a postdoctoral/Ph.D. position in Mathematics in Europe, can I make this somewhat irregular request?
I am not sure whether this question is suitable for academia, if not it would be great to know the site where I should ask this. I am a finishing Ph.D. student in Mathematics at a decent school in the US, and my postdoctoral job applications so far have gone in vein, although I do have published paper in recognized journal. Also, I had to switch my advisor and subject in the middle of my Ph.D., so I think I would have been better off with more experience in the field I am working on or a related field. That would mean even if I get a postdoc, I would feel a little bit inferior to other postdocs or might seek a little more help from my mentor.
I noticed the postings by some European Universities for postdocs where they mention that they are looking for postdocs and Ph.D. students both. Although I will be applying for postdocs in these universities, I was thinking of having your opinion on the following, somewhat irregular backup plan:
Say University U in Europe has a postdoc position P for salary x for 2 years, and Ph.D. position D for salary y for 4 years, where x>y. If I can get P, great, but if not, can I also talk to and try to come to an agreement with the university (e-mail them with explanation etc.) for a visiting position where I will be learning some more stuffs and will be researching as well, but may be with less salary than P but the same (or little more) salary as/than D? In other words, I feel like I need to gain more knowledge in my area, so if I don't get P, I will be happy with almost the same salary y as D, but will try to bend the rule from 4 years to just 1 year? So it will be like a visiting position with less salary, of less time period, but I will like to be treated like a Ph.D. student (that means less independent research, more learning compared to a postdoc). Will that be a ridiculous thing to try? So, I will be somewhat like an advanced Ph.D. student but not expert like a postdoc and so I am willing to negotiate with the salary, I won't need another Ph.D. since I will have had one(if they give another, fantastic!) Do you know whether it might work or create complications enough so that the hiring committee will be offended? Should I try to send an e-mail explaining this situation and see whether they will negotiate with me on this?
Thank you very much in advance!

I am not writing an answer, since I know about the US and not Europe, but I can't imagine this plan working.  Generally, university bureaucracies treat postdocs and grad students very differently even though there is a fine line between them.

I'd expect this plan to have significantly less chance of working in Europe than the US.

@JeffE Why?  I thought the difference would be smaller in Europe, because, at least in some countries, both PhD students and post-docs are employed.

In continental Europe, a lot of postdoc/phd positions are directly under the professor, and don't so much involve a hiring committee per se. In those cases you may get some leeway (especially if the professor has reasons to know about you [friend of your advisor etc.]). For the more special fellowships or university positions where they have to go through a hiring committee, I'd imagine the committee to not be very impressed with this request.

In several European countries, for example Germany, Switzerland, or Austria, it will be possible to fill positions in part-time. Whether you then actually work only part-time or not is a different question. In these countries, there is in most cases not a big difference between PhD students and post-docs regarding organizational details of employment, or even salary on a full-time position.
So the way I see your plan possibly working is as follows: A professor has funding to employ someone full-time for 2 years. You could then try to argue that in addition to working on the particular project, you also need time to educate yourself further and get only a half-time position, but stretch that to 4 years. You may want to communicate that it still means that you are working or studying full-time on project-related topics. If the funding is flexible regarding the year when it is spent (which is sometimes, but not always, the case), then I'd guess you have good chances that people are willing to make that deal.
This plan is probably best discussed with the professor offering the position, informally before you apply for the position, or when you go for an interview.

Silvado, thank you for your answer, it does give me some hope. In the beginning of your second paragraph, you mentioned, I 'stretch it to 4 years', but that might be too long to stick to a lower-paying salary, and I think one more year will give me the platform that I need. So, can I not informally talk to the professor that I will work for low pay for 1 year and then for regular pay for another year (as a regular postdoc)?

Also, sometimes the department post their positions, e.g. http://www.euro-math-soc.eu/node/3465. Here it seems like the US postdoc position, and no professor in particular gives the funding, the department gives it. So do you think, is there any way here I can communicate with the faculty I want to work with and tell her/him my plans in detail? Or should I not do that? Do you think department will be happy by any chance since somebody is taking less money as a postdoc?

@Mathmath as long as a single professor recruits you and is flexible regarding the organizational details, I think also mixed models can be negotiated. If positions are announced on the department level, I guess they are seeking a more independent person. Then such a request may in fact have a negative impact on your application.

Maybe it should be added that if project here refers to something like a project grant that includes that full-time position and goes on for two years, "stretching" that position could be rather difficult: If the position is in fact funded from a 2-years research project, the money obtained for that project can usually be accessed during those 2 years and no longer. Whatever is not used at the end of the two years is "lost" (for the particular project participants), as the grant essentially says "investigate X within 2 years and use at most Y money for up to Z full-time positions".

For France, this will likely not work : for administrative reasons we cannot pay a postdoc with a PhD salary (or a "little bit more than PhD salary"), in fact we must follow some strict salary guidelines.
However, there exists a position in between PhD and Postdoc, this position is called "research engineer". This is not officially a postdoc position, but it could be unofficially a postdoc position, with a lower salary.
But, because there is always a but, I advice you not to tell a person that you are ready to work for less money than the salary offered by this person. This is not likely that you will obtain any position if you follow this strategy.
When I have money for a postdoc, either I don't really "need" (=for a specific project) a postdoc and then I will hire someone who is independent (and it is unlikely that this kind of person is ready to work for a lower salary because independence comes mostly from experience); or I really need a postdoc, and in this case there is no way that I will accept someone I refused previously, even for a lower price.

Thanks Prof. Peyronnet for your response, but some universities advertise a general position for postdoc as well, or say in France, they advertise for a project where you can choose your university and postdoc mentor (e.g. ANR project), or for example, in Finland:  euro-math-soc.eu/node/3465 is where a university is looking for a postdoc, not any professor in particular. Do you think there is a way I can mention in my cover letter that I would need to need time to educate myself further and so will be open to a semi-responsible position (=lower salary without saying it)?


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Bad departmental funding, when do you leave the ship?
As a post-doctoral researcher, I am employed directly by a university. Due to the economic crisis, funds are not overabundant right now, and a lot of expenses have been scaled back or even cut out completely in the last few months (library access, public hall lighting, building opening hours, research consumables, etc.). Now, it's already a week late on my monthly pay check (or more precisely, wire transfer), and we received a collective email from the departmental head. Quoting part of it:

Unfortunately it is not possible for us to pay as usual on today's date, the salaries because of liquidity in our bank account. I apologize for this inconvenience which we are trying to overcome as quickly as possible. Although we cannot precise the exact date when the issue is resolved we are hoping to make payments during the current month.

How do you analyse this email? My initial reaction is very, very negative: the first two duties of an employer, it seems to me, are to ensure workplace safety and pay salaries. So, when I read this email, my first instinct is to run away (I already hear JeffE saying “don't walk, run”).
However, it's a bad time to look for a new job, so: what are my options? Is this a breach of contract? Should I just wait, and how long? What do you read between the lines of this email, that perhaps I haven't?

Are you unionized?

How about: "Walk, don't run"

Jobs are like planes: you should always be aware of where the emergency exits are.

(I already hear JeffE saying “don't walk, run”). — Yep.  But not without documenting everything and talking to a lawyer first.

In addition to what Ben suggests, you'll probably want to find out some things. Many such legal aspects are country specific, but I'll put in some points about Germany which could give you an idea what to look for:

Your post sounds as if the wages were usually paid mid of the month. Is that actually legally fixed? (In Germany, if nothing is specified in the contract, wages are due at the last day of the month.)
Find out whether your social insurance fees were paid on time.
Find out what general rights you have and equally important: what deadlines apply
Find out whether your social insurance covers this case.
E.g. in Germany, the unemployment insurance would be the ones to talk to as they cover at least some cases where no wages are paid though a contract still exists ("insolvency money")
And make sure whatever actions you take that they do not cancel your rights there.
Do you have the right to stop working (so you can use the time to look for a new job)?
In Germany, if you stop working after the employer is too much back with the wages (> 2 months IIRC) you retain the right to receive wages (plus interest if the employer finally pays. If he goes into insolvency, this is still important as it affects the money you can get from the unemployment insurance).  IIRC, you have to warn your employer in advance that you'll stop working if he doesn't pay.
Do you have extraordinary rights to cancel the contract (so you can tell potential employers that you can start right away)? Again, find out if you  need to warn your employer that you may use this right.
Find out what is happening around you. How do other universities deal with payments? Is it the university or your funding agency who don't pay?

Here in Germany universities often have an extremely bad reputation for delaying payments (and have had that for years): Years ago (i.e. before anyone started to speak of any kind of European crisis), I started working at a German university, and it took them 2 1/2 months to wire the first money. It was quite less than a full month's wage and they even had the nerve to call it an advance payment... I also remember that at a certain point later they deceided to shift paying wages from mid to end of the month - IIRC there wasn't anything that could have been done against that (there may have been an extraordinary right to cancel the contract).
Now, you ask what we read between the lines. What I read between the lines is that this office is not nice to you staff. With "not nice" I do not mean that they are not wiring the money (assuming that it is not the accounting staff that defrauds you), but what they could tell you in this situation.

The text is extremely vague about when/whether the payments will be forthcoming there is hope that they will pay, but I'd have appreciated in your situation if they were hoping to pay full wages by the end of the month.
Of course they cannot write "run and get yourself a new job", but they could have explained whether you are insured in some way, what you need to do in order to get that insurance, what else you could do, etc.
In short, I'm missing somethins that shows that this employer is still trutworthy.
On the other hand, the accounting staff is probably under extreme stress already for a while, so this may explain why they don't manage to be nice.
When you talk to them, try to let them know that you understand this and know that right everyone is putting pressure at them, and they didn't get their wages, neither.  In short: try to be nice to them - being nice doesn't cost any money, and having a good standing there may actually help.

Step 0: Document all your efforts to find a solution to this situation. Save a copy of that email from your chair. If you need to resort to Step 4: Hire a Lawyer, a paper trail is invaluable. Also, as @JeffE noted in the comments: stop working until you are paid. This is your most powerful negotiating tool. Don't worry about breach of contract; your employer did it first by failing to pay you.
Step 1: Meet with your immediate supervisor. As a postdoctoral researcher, some/most/all of your salary probably comes from grant accounts, and not the department's general payroll. If there is a financial problem in your department you should still get paid.
Unless, in order to pay you, money has to be transferred from the grant account to the payroll account. This is how it works at my institution. If the payroll account is wonky, then you cannot get paid, regardless of where the money comes from.
Step 2: Meet with your department chair, one-on-one. He/she may be more willing to be forthcoming with the details in a personal setting. There could a rational, if scary, explanation for what is going on. It may be outside of the chair's power. It could be that the department was expecting payments from grants that did not happen. It could be that an allocation from the institution or state or whatever has not arrived due to budgetary problems. If meeting with the department chair is not satisfactory, go on to step three.
Step 3: Contact your institution's central payroll or human resources office. Ask about the situation nicely and politely, but make it clear that you want to know what is going on and when you will be paid. As these folks are either 1) removed from the situation if it is department specific, or 2) closer to it if it is institution wide, you will likely get an answer. Indicate that you believe the department/institution to be in breach of your contract and that you are consulting legal counsel (even if you are not yet). Sometimes, that will grease the wheels.
Step 3.5: Sit tight for a little while and see if it does not go away. If your institution/department does not have a history of such shenanigans, this could be a one-time, but very annoying, blip. Also, look for another job. Be honest with your supervisor about why you are doing so - this financial snafu has you worried about the security of your contract.
Step 4: Hire a lawyer. By failing to pay you per an agreed upon schedule, your employer is in breach of your contract. I would only go this way if you are desperate. 1) The litigation route is likely to take away a large portion of your time that you should be spending doing research or looking for another job. 2) Depending on the ratio of legal fees to missed pay, you might lose money overall. 3) The heavy handed approach may alienate your department, robbing you of recommendations.

One important step is missing from this list: Stop working until you get paid.

@JeffE Well, let me add that in there

Stopping work until you get paid is a reasonable labor principle, but it could be problematic.  If you want to find a job with a more stable employer, you presumably should be doing as much of certain forms of work as possible (writing papers, presenting at conferences or seminars, etc.).  Furthermore, refusing to teach classes or supervise grad students hurts students.  This might be justified, depending on the circumstances, but it is not a step to take lightly.

In the comments I suggested Walk, don't run as opposed to Run, don't walk. Obviously, at some point you will need to get a job that actually pays you, hence you need to be looking in case things go even further awry. If however, during the next pay period you get paid everything you are owed, I would just let the "one time" screw up slide. A university level screw up doesn't really tell you anything about what your advisor thinks about you. I would talk to your advisor to make sure he/she thinks everything will be fine going forward. If you continue to not get paid, or are forced to take a pay cut, you need to decide if what you have is better than what is out there. As a post doc I would have rather had a few months of unemployment, or unpaid research time, than taking the first available job. You want to make sure you land in a good job, so don't go running off.


text:
Why do many recent open access “mega-journals” only cover biological sciences?
In recent years, there has been a number of quality peer-reviewed open access journals launched. Some of them are what I would call “mega-journals”, such as PLOS|One and the newly-launched PeerJ. However, most of those mega-journals which boast broad scope focus in fact only on medicine, biology and health sciences (e.g., PeerJ’s Aims and Scope). Why is that so?
Are there other such open access journals with high-quality, focussing on other topics (Physical Sciences, the Mathematical Sciences, the Social Sciences, or the Humanities)? If not, what is the specificity of biology and related sciences?

First, I'm not sure I believe that it is true to say that, "most of those mega-journals which boast broad scope focus in fact only on medicine, biology and health sciences." This might be true of PeerJ but it is not true of PLOS ONE. I have read sociological experiments, physics-based  network analyses, and pure computational work published in PLOS ONE. I get the sense that bioscience makes up the core of their editorial board and bulk of their publications, but it's far from the whole thing. Also, there are other "mega-journals" that serve other communities and fields. For example, SAGE Open focuses on the humanities and social sciences. There are others and new ones being created frequently.
That said, it is true that the first and biggest mega-journals are more focused on bioscience than they are on other fields. I think that the reason is because the "mega-journal" model is closely tied to the modern open access movement which has its largest amount of support in biological and health sciences.  Basically, I think that PLOS ONE attracts so many biological articles because they have a biological heavy editorial board. They have a biological heavy editorial board because they have leveraged the network that exists for PLOS. PLOS' flagship journal is, of course, PLOS Biology and the organization was started by a group of bioscientists.
Peter Suber's open access timeline is instructive. Although OA has a broader history, folks like Harald Varmus have used institutional support at places like the NIH to push for a set of norms around open access through projects like PubMedCentral and requirements from funders to publish OA. The result is an OA movement that has simply been much more successful and influential in the biosciences than it has been in other fields. There are structural reasons this might be the case. Pay-to-publish models are easier to swallow in fields that are largely grant based. Biological and health sciences makes up an enormous proportion of grant funded research through the NIH, NSF, and other private and public agencies.
But my sense is that, fundamentally, PLOS ONE has provided the inspiration for most mega-journals because it quickly became the largest journal of the world and, through that process, managed to maintain a surprisingly high impact factor (~4 in 2011!). To the extent that PLOS ONE has created the mega-journal model, there may be a bioscience bias — especially early on — that comes simply from PLOS ONE's own roots in bioscience.

The "the organized" in the second para should probably be "the organization".

I don't think it's accurate to say the OA movement "has simply been much more successful and influential in the biosciences than it has been in other fields".  That's true for gold OA, but false for green OA: self-archiving rates on the arXiv are 100% in particle physics and 90% in astrophysics (see http://www.councilscienceeditors.org/files/presentations/2009/Ingoldsby.pdf), which is much higher than the overall compliance rates for the NIH or Wellcome OA mandates (75% and 55%, respectively; see http://poynder.blogspot.com/2012/05/open-access-mandates-ensuring.html).

That's a good point. The question was about open access journals so that's what my answer referred to. But are correct about preprints.

I think one of the major issues here has been the existence of arXiv in all its various incarnations. Since there was already a major open-source distribution network—even if it eschewed important parts of the publishing process like peer review—it made the need for a PLOS|One-like journal much smaller.
A secondary issue is that many of the journals in the mathematics and physics communities have fairly liberal policies on the use of open-source repositories to distribute papers; for instance, the American Institute of Physics and American Physical Society allow publication within their journals, while still allowing authors the right to "self-publish" using their own version of the materials. Similarly, the American Chemical Society, while having slightly more restrictive policies than AIP or APS, still effectively allow open access after one year of "exclusive" access.
So, ultimately, I think the emergence of PLOS|One and similar efforts is an attempt to move more in the direction that already exists in the various physical sciences communities.
Edited to add: One additional issue that may explain the state of activities are some of the recent decisions by the NIH to require that manuscripts published with NIH financing (thereby including the majority of biomedical research in the US) had to be made publicly accessible within six months of publication. This is a development that has not been matched by the NSF and other major funding agencies, nor is it a rule in most of the European Union, as far as I can tell (although I believe the UK is haltingly starting to move in that direction).
As a result, there is a strong impetus for open-access in biology and biomedical science that is not matched by the other fields (which might not have nearly as much money and therefore would not have the clout of the NIH).

I completely agree with this assessment: arxiv + liberal policies in math/CS (for example) + completely ILLiberal policies in the medical journals.

I understand this argument for math/CS/physics, but some hard sciences (chemistry and geology) as well as humanities are not “covered” by arXiv…

Thanks for the comment. There is a second important line of argument that I forgot in my original post: the role of the NIH's decision to mandate publicly accessible papers. It's not matched in the other disciplines, and there hasn't been the same "push" toward reforms.

I suspect that this is actually a combination of several co-occuring factors:

The lack of an arXiv or arXiv-like service that has been widely adopted means that biomedical research largely relies on journal-mediated access to research.
NIH open access mandates have helped drive the acceptance of open access, the tendency to put money into grants to fund OA publications, etc. which creates a market for new journals.
The biomedical research field is huge. Consider non-defense R&D spending in the U.S:

If you had to pick an audience based on that picture, what would you pick?

And moreover the kind of money that biomedical scientists (in countries in Europe and in the US) spend while doing research means that dropping $1000-$3000 on an APC is not big deal. The $3000 APC for PLOS Biology was settled on in part because that kind of figure was at the time being regularly spent on page and colour charges for papers in biomed subscription journals.

There are certainly other examples in the social sciences if you look hard enough, although they may not be as publicized as PLoS ones. For instance I know it is becoming more popular for journals to make back issues freely accessible after a certain time period (see for example Epidemiology, Geographical Analysis before 2004 and Project Euclid journals). Also Springer has there open-access venues (BioMed central), which is mostly biological sciences related but has a few social science journals (also Springer has the option to publish an article open-access for a fee, although the fee is pretty hefty).
So in short, I'm not sure why there is a popularity in the bio-medical sciences (perhaps because of the sheer size?) but it is certainly a trend across academia for both contemporary publishers to open the archives and for new open-access journals to form (and existing ones to become more reasonable and respected alternatives).
Similarly to aeismail's reponse, the SSRN archive is heavily devoted to Law articles, and many of those journals are entirely open access as well (see for one example the Columbia Law Review).

Sage Open covers the social sciences and is also another megajournal.  Currently it is Scopus indexed and in the Emerging Sciences Citation Index


text:
How do you judge an Indian CGPA score?
Let's start with background: I'm European, don't know much about undergrad educational systems, and especially grading, outside my own area. So, I receive a CV from an Indian undergrad with the following section:

Now, I have no idea whether the scores displayed here are dismal, average, good or excellent. Wikipedia doesn't know what CGPA is, except in Nepal (and the student in case was not educated in Nepal), so I turn to you, Academia Stack Exchange, to help me solve this riddle!

Two factors can be used to get a broad idea about an Indian engineering student - one is the college and the second is the CGPA.
College:
The Indian Institute of Science and Indian institutes of technology are top technical institutions in the country. Of late, multiple IITs have been set up, leading to (arguably) diminishing quality. The original seven IITs boast of excellent faculty in most departments and are understood to be better than the newer ones.
Besides, there are regional colleges like National Institutes of Technology and Anna University and BITS which are also among the top engineering colleges in the country.
Grading System:
Most of the above colleges use the CGPA system for grading. Students are awarded grades ranging from S (=10) to D (=6) in various courses that they enroll over a period of 4 years. In a course, the top performers could expect an S, the students who have scored 80%-90% could score an A and so on. Obviously, the exact grades depend on the instructor and the overall performance. A student that scores S in all his courses  over 4 years ends up with the perfect CGPA of 10.0. A 9-10 CGPA indicates mostly excellent track record and so on.
It should be clear that the CV in the question reflects a mediocre score in a top college.

The IIT in question is Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar. Out of caution, I hid all information that could lead to identification on the CV, but given the size of the place I don't think revealing it threatens the anonymity of the question…

@F'x: It is one of the newer IITs which are finding it particularly difficult to attract good faculty. With this info, the last line in my answer should be "mediocre score in a mediocre college." :)

Thanks for your excellent answer, and the quick follow-up!

I disagree with Nunoxic above. IIT B is a new university and hasn't proved itself in terms of research and teaching versus many other non-"Indian Institutes of X". I argue that it has the potential to do well but until then is quite in the middle of the pack.

There are extremely few students in India who have GPAs of 9-10. Also I won't I call IIT B a mediocre school. It is pretty good university ,even though not the best. Getting admission into any IIT is very difficult.

@user107, IIT B typically refers to IIT Bombay (at least here in India). I'm not sure what IIT Bhubaneshwar is referred to as but if one goes by their official site it would probably be IIT BBS.

I'm from India and I must say that getting into IIT's is a pretty much of a big deal here. You can be sure of the fact that the kid is hard working. But a GPA of 6.96 ~ 7 is Okay-ish. Average. 9-10 is brilliant. 8-9 is about average and very good.
You can ask what other things he excel in. Extra activities he participate in etc..etc..
Report cards don't show someone's potential. Do they?

I am a graduate from BITS Pilani, India. We have a 10-point Cummulative GPA. Here is a table converting the CGPA to GPA
Source: http://gmatclub.com/forum/how-to-convert-indian-gpa-percentage-to-us-4-pt-gpa-scale-124249.html This has some detailed insights into the CGPA and the method.
Hope this helps.

Your source cites http://www.wes.org/gradeconversionguide/index.asp as source. According to this page it is more like: 70-100 -> A in US,
50-69 -> B in US, 35*-49 -> C in US, 0-32 -> F in US. (Maybe it changed since last year...)

I completely agree with all the answers that an Indian student can be judged keeping in mind both the college and the grades. IIT's (Indian Institute of Technology) are among the best schools of India. For the grading scheme however, the following guide is issued by the University Grants Commission(India) which is in charge of the coordination, determination and maintenance of standards of university education in India.
    Letter Grade    Grade Point
    O (Outstanding)     10
    A+(Excellent)       9
    A(Very Good)        8
    B+(Good)            7
    B(Above Average)    6
    C(Average)          5
    P (Pass)            4
    F(Fail)             0
    Ab (Absent)         0

The Universities can decide on the grade or percentage of marks required to pass in a
course and also the CGPA required to qualify for a degree. You might also see some students mentioning their SGPA. This is how CGPA and SGPA is generally computed:
Computation of SGPA and CGPA
The SGPA is the ratio of sum of the product of the number of credits with the grade
points scored by a student in all the courses taken by a student and the sum of the
number of credits of all the courses undergone by a student, i.e
SGPA (Si) = ∑(Ci x Gi) / ∑Ci
where Ci is the number of credits of the ith course and Gi is the grade point scored by the
student in the ith course.
The CGPA is also calculated in the same manner taking into account all the courses
undergone by a student over all the semesters of a programme, i.e.
CGPA = ∑(Ci x Si) / ∑ Ci
where Si is the SGPA of the ith semester and Ci is the total number of credits in that
semester.
Illustration of Computation of SGPA and CGPA and Format for Transcript
Ilustration for SGPA
Course      Credit    Grade letter  Grade point     Credit Point
                                                (Credit x Grade)
Course 1      3             A           8             3 X 8 = 24
Course 2      4             B+          7             4 X 7 = 28
Course 3      3             B           6             3 X 6 = 18
Course 4      3             O           10            3 X 10 = 30
Course 5      3             C           5             3 X 5 = 15
Course 6      4             B           6             4 X 6 = 24
            -----                                    ------------
              20                                              139

Thus, SGPA =139/20 =6.95
Illustration for CGPA
*-----------------------------------------------------------------------------*
| Semester 1 | Semester 2 | Semester 3 | Semester 4 | Semester 5 | Semester 6 |
*-----------------------------------------------------------------------------*
| Credit: 20 | Credit: 22 | Credit: 25 | Credit: 26 | Credit: 26 | Credit: 25 |
| SGPA:6.9   | SGPA:7.8   | SGPA: 5.6  | SGPA:6.0   | SGPA:6.3   | SGPA: 8.0  |
*-----------------------------------------------------------------------------*

Thus,
CGPA = 20 x 6.9 + 22 x 7.8 + 25 x 5.6 + 26 x 6.0 + 26 x 6.3 + 25 x 8.0
       _______________________________________________________________ = 6.73
                                 144

Sources: http://www.du.ac.in/du/uploads/Guidelines/UGC_credit_Guidelines.pdf

for the sake of completeness, it should be noted that IITs are autonomous, they're independent of UGC.

In my experience at a top European university, many grades even from top tier Indian universities don't have the same explanatory power as grades from European or American universities.
We regularly got applications with grades in the 9-10 ranges and 99.x percentile scores. However, many students we interviewed were not up to our standards. Basic knowledge even in core topics such as programming, cs theory, mathematics and statistics was lacking, and while we noticed that many 'famous' algorithms could be reproduced, tasks involving writing new algorithms for specific problems were generally not solved or solved inadequately.
Of course, the sample size was not large enough to form a proper sample, and there might have been a selection bias in what students even applied for a position with us. Still, all other things equal, I would rate an 9-10 / 99.x grade from a good Indian university about on par with at most a 'cum laude' degree (non-magna/summa) from a good European university.
My conclusion therefore is to invest additional efforts into the interview and selection process, and I would suggest to not consider any mid-range marks as in the application in question.

CGPA or Cumulative Grade Point Average should be considered in relation to the class curve. If we assume that the top edge of the curve denotes 8.2, then we should preclude that 6.96 as B+. And if we try to calculate this to the US GPA, 6.96/10.0 would co-relate to 3.3/4.0.

Yes IITs are good technical institutions in India. But you can't recruit a person simply because he came from a good college. He should possess the skills required for your job. That's the main thing you should look for rather on his background.
I would like to say that getting a good grade in IIT is very challenging. A 7 grader would be comparable to a 8.5 or even 9 grader in private colleges. IITs are not made by its faculties (which many IITs are facing shortage of and also of quality)  or infrastructure but by students.

IITs (the original 5 at Bombay, Delhi, Kanpur, Madras, Kharagpur) are the best UG institutes in India bar none. There are more now but they don't have as good a reputation as the first 4 in the original list (Kharagpur has lagged somewhat recently). If this person is from one got an All India Rank under the General Category (not under any reservation/quota scheme) then you can be assured that he has raw intelligence and smarts.
Some IITs are notorious for rigorous grading very unlike ivy leagues in the US where grade inflation is rampant. GPA of 6.96 is mediocre but if it's in a hard stream such as Electrical Engineering or Comp Sci then it may not be that bad (one has to obtain an All India Rank within top 300-400 kids from all over India to obtain admission to these stream in the first 4 IITs). The peer group is simply extraordinarily competitive -- think of hand picking top few hundred students out of a country of billion and have them take tests under a common roof.

@MonkyPanda You had a suggested edit which suggested that the sentence "If this person is from one got an All India Rank under the General Category (not under any reservation/quota scheme) then you can be assured that he has raw intelligence and smarts." is "Totally wrong about quota scheme" in Edit Summary. Would you please explain?

I presume one can easily search about the quality of the university and its faculty through the internet.
The problem might be how to interpret the score.
In such cases, it is best to ask the student for an official transript.
Official transcripts usually have all the information about how grading is done. It will describe the grading scale (e.g. 4-10), whether any courses are just pass/fail, whether there's some "exceptional" grade, and what does a grade number X usually mean.
Once you get a sizeable number of applications from such a university, you can interpret the results for yourself.

Sorry, but this doesn’t seem to answer the question, because a transcript doesn’t usually tell you if that grade is good or not for a certain university.

All schools are not same. Getting into IIT is very very tough. A CGPA of 6 is not the same ( simply because the cohort is far more competitive with an acceptance rate of 1%-2% esp at the 5 IITs) as CGPA of 6 at another school.


text:
Group/lab guide for new students and post-docs: what should it contain?
Large research groups have guides for newcomers, which contain both important information, both high-level and practical, on their new position and the group. I don't have such a large group, but I can see the value in keeping all important information in one central place.
So, if I get to writing such a document, what information should one put in a group guide for new group members?

Does this group include international students and post-docs?

@FaheemMitha yes, it's international

I hate bureaucracy, but I would start off by talking to HR to make sure you include everything you "have" to. This probably can be a page of links to relevant web pages.

You can find a lot of good examples on the web, written by professors with a lot more experience, but here is mine.  It includes guidelines and advice on:

How to approach group meetings and individual meetings with advisor (me)
Finding a thesis topic
Planning and recording research
Reading the literature
Writing papers
Publishing papers
Giving talks
Programming
Recommended software tools
General conduct

Your guide was very enlightening, and very well organized (which I am sure reflects the state of your lab). Thank you!