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Is it rude to ask the associate editor about manuscript status for second time?
About six months ago I submitted a paper in one of the very reputed IEEE Transactions. I have observed from different papers published in that journal that the average time for receiving the first review is around 3 months. That is why I politely inquired about the status of the manuscript after around 4 months from the date of submission by sending a mail to the associate editor (AE). The AE promptly replied me about the status and said that two out of three reviews were still being awaited. However, it is now six months and I still do not see any change in the status of the manuscript in the online portal.
So, my question is: is it too soon to send a second mail to the AE asking about the status of the manuscript and can such second mail irritate the AE to the point that it might negatively impact the review process of my manuscript?

What do you expect to learn from the answer? Probably nothing you don't know already. So in that sense sending such a message is a waste of your and the AE's time. There are special circumstances where such a message could be useful, but normally I would not sent such a message, especially not a second one.

@Maarten Buis If OP asks is becuase he does not know the answer. If the AE's time have not responded , positively or negatively, then they are rudely wasting OPs time.

I think it should be fine to inquire (politely, of course) at this point. While it may be a minor irritant, it should not affect the outcome of the acceptance decision provided the journal follows ethical practice.
If you have a decision to make about the paper it is important to get the information. If it is just to ease your uncertainty then you could also let it go a bit longer. But there shouldn't really be a downside. Maybe a note would get the editor to prod the reviewers a bit.

It is not rude to ask. It is rude to not provide an answer, either positive or negative. If they ignore you and just don't answer then they are wasting your time.
Do inquire again politely, asking for a response be it either positive, negative, or a future day to wait for a  response/inquire again. Dont let them NOT answer, send a copy not only to the AE but also to their marketing or PR team or the closest equivalent. But do check first if in their site or somewhere there is a policy about answering times, in which case you can mention it.
If they dont answer ask again by social media and openly. You can too ask other authors how long it took them to get an answer so you can reference that too, however at this point you should be already looking for another journal for your paper.
Things are changing and traditional institutions and media are finding out that they don't have all the power anymore. You are not a beggar, you are a contributor and your work and time should be respected at least enough to get an answer.


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How does one manage to "time stamp" their physics paper without submitting it to a preprint server like arXiv?
Say, I have a paper written up. I wish to publish it in a reputed journal without submitting it to arXiv. The first journal(A) I submit it to rejects it.  I send the paper to a 2nd journal (B) for submission. At the same time, some other group submits a paper to another journal (C) and it gets published there. Is there any way to avoid this problem without using arXiv?

Why cannot the other group submit their paper? They worked for it?

What is the exact reason to avoid arXiv? Do the journals you are submitting to disallow preprints?

The following questions may help: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/23367/how-can-i-time-stamp-my-data-without-publishing-it, https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31018/how-can-i-timestamp-my-paper-without-violating-double-blind-review, https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/13216/discreet-way-to-establish-priority

My main advice is that this is not something you need to do.
You could use an alternate repository.  Many universities have one.  Some have embargoes.
The old way to do it was to mail the paper to yourself in a sealed, postmarked envelope.  I suppose you could have it notarized as well.

A modern version of mailing a document to yourself would be to obtain a digital time stamp (e.g. from https://www.freetsa.org/)

You could pre-register your study (e.g. on OSF: Open Science Framework), attach your paper draft to it, and add a temporal embargo on the pre-registration (OSF allows for this option).
That way, the pre-registration (including the paper draft) is saved with a timestamp, but invisible to the public until a pre-specified date or until you choose to end the embargo earlier than the pre-specified date (e.g. after paper acceptance or publication - see: End an Embargo Early).

source: Stack Exchange

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Relevance of a PhD with a quantitative psychology group for applied math
My background is in mathematics, with a main interest in mathematical statistics / biostatistics, and I am considering applying for a PhD position with a quantitative psychology group. The research itself can apparently be made statistically challenging towards the candidate's interests, which sounds appealing. I am not sure if I want to continue in academia after the PhD, but it would preferably be in mathematical statistics or biostatistics.
Would a PhD research with a quantitative psychology group take away this option or make it more difficult, even if the reseach itself is approached from a mathematical statistics view?

This might be a better fit at cogsci.se since it seems like you are asking about the overlap of two fields.

@StrongBad Wouldn't math.se be better in that case, since I am wondering about the prospects in the field of math after such a research?

Take a good look at the publications that have come out of this group.

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Networking at potential future workplace
I am currently finishing up my PhD, and already have a postdoc position lined up for a few years. Following that, I might like to move to a different country to work there for a few years. Now my question is: I will be visiting this country soon and have some spare time. Would it make any sense to already try to visit the university there? A current colleague might be able to bring me in touch with people there.

If there are any touchpoints between your interests and the university, then absolutely, go for it. If possible, give a presentation on your work. It is almost always better to have a network than not to have a network. Now that you are starting your postdoc phase, you need to find collaborators, and if there are common interests, this sounds like a good place to find them, whether or not you end up there in a few years.
However, this presupposes you do some homework beforehand. Find out what people at that university are working on. When you meet someone who just published something that connects to your work, be aware of that and be able to have an intelligent discussion. This shows interest, and will lead to people remembering you better (and in a better way).

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Effect of PhD advisor name/department on my future
I am in the first year of my PhD research (in Europe) in Biostatistics and I have a day-to-day supervisor, however he is not a full professor so he cannot be my promotor. Our department head is, but I would technically obtain the PhD at a department of Medicine/Epidemiology instead of (bio)statistics. Would this have a big effect on my future prospects if I wanted to continue in (bio)statistics, or are the topic and connections you build more important? We are considering looking for someone more statistical/mathematical as a promotor or copromotor, would this change much (on top of the influence they would have on the content of the thesis)?
So in short, if the content of the thesis/project is the same, does the name or work area of the promotor have a lot of influence on future prospects?

Biggest influence is what YOU get known for and then the name of the institution IMHO

For most people, any such effect is very short lived. It can help you obtain your first job, of course. But after that your reputation is your own and after a while, no one will remember or care who you worked with prior to earning your doctorate.
There are exceptions, however. Some, usually prominent, people maintain long term relationships with their former students and write co-authored papers. They might also have an active visitation program in which people visit one another's institutions to work on things or just give seminars. In a situation like this, it is the group founded by the professor that helps you build your reputation and keeps you connected to the larger work of the group. In such a situation your relationship with the professor moves from student to colleague and can be mutually reinforcing. Working initially with such a person can have long term effects, of course.


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Financials of USA PhD after study in EU
I am currently finishing my MSc degree in Mathematics (Applied Stochastics) and looking into the different opportunities I have for doing a PhD in Biostatistics (or Statistics) abroad. The USA is one of the countries I am looking into. However, I am not entirely sure what to expect from trying to get into the USA for a PhD, and actually doing a PhD there.
While in a number of EU countries, the PhD candidate is treated as an employee and gets paid a salary and enjoys certain benefits, the financial context of a PhD study in the USA is not entirely clear to me. I know I would need to look for funding (which I don't know how and where either yet), but what can I realistically expect? So far I am still debt-free and would continue to be so if I were to go to a country where PhD students are paid a salary, but is hoping to have a (relatively) debt-free PhD study in the USA realistic? Would I need a loan if I were to get into for example Berkeley? Overall, looking for funding seems a stressful part of doing a PhD in the USA, or does it turn out to be easier than I seem to think?

This is the kind of question that you can find answer via Google. If you want to do research, you should at least be able to answer yourself this question. Some keywords: "Teaching Assistant", "Research Assistant" salary etc.

I have done research, but it is tough to paint a complete picture due to not being familiar with the US graduate school system. From what I understand, offers are made tailored specifically to each candidate, and thus it is hard to know what I would/could be offered. Hence I came here looking for people with more familiarity to the whole system willing to share their knowledge.

In the US, in the mathematical sciences (e.g. statistics), it is not usual to admit a student to a doctoral program without funding. Funding means a monthly stipend. What the current amounts are I don't know, but I imagine in the range of 2000-3000 a month (pretax, for at least nine months). However, in many cases it may be necessary to teach. Whether teaching is required or not depends on how well funded the research area and the institution are. Some funded students teach while others do not have to teach (this is the difference between "teaching assistant" and "research assistant").

Does the total funding package typically cover everything so that no loan is necessary? Is it possible to live relatively comfortably, also in the more expensive states?

If you have funding and thus a stipend, you generally don't need loans, but the cost of living in the area very strongly effects how you'll have to live. In expensive areas you will generally need to have room-mates to afford the cost of rent, as having your own apartment near campus eats up half or more of your monthly stipend (and you only have 9 months of funding, so you are on your own for the summer, no guarantees). In less expensive areas you can have your own place, a dog and a cat, and a wife and kid or two living comfortably (though on a tight budget). You can live either way.

What aboud a teaching or research assistantship? Does the same story hold?

it is not usual to admit a student to a doctoral program without funding — Never accept such an offer. If they don't offer you funding, they don't really want you.  Look elsewhere.

I am a PhD student from Ecuador studying Software Engineering. I received my US green card a couple of months ago, but I did my bachelor's degree in the US and applied to the PhD program as an international student, so hopefully my experience will help you.
Something that my professors told me while I was getting my bachelor's is to NEVER accept an offer that does not pay for my education and does not give me a monthly stipend for the entirety of the program. They told me that this is very common for PhD programs in the sciences. I know that this is true for Computer Science and Software Engineering; I am getting a monthly stipend and do not have to worry about any financial obligations with my university since it is all covered by the research money that my advisor has. In fact, I have no idea how expensive classes are here in my university since I do not have to worry about that. Now, I am not sure about Biostats or Statistics, but since it is a STEM field, the same cases might apply to those fields. You might be able to contact the business offices of the programs that you want to apply to check with them.
Another thing I was told when applying to graduate school is to apply for external funding such as fellowships or grants. This is beneficial for the university since they do not have to spend money in you and they get a graduate student who will do research and make them money. Unfortunately, all the fellowships and grants I looked required the applicant to be a US citizen. So that did not apply to me. Some universities that I applied to had scholarships for international student, although I did not get any of them.
You will have to pay for your own health insurance and living arrangements, but most universities will help you with those tasks once you have accepted their offer. All graduate students who I know can survive with the stipend they receive and the expenses that they have. I have never heard of a graduate student that is struggling with their finances.
In summary, being an international graduate student in the US is not that complicated as it seems. International students are actually the majority group in graduate school! If your program is in the sciences, you might not have to pay anything for the program and you will receive an stipend for your work. I have never heard of an international graduate student that left their program with any type of debt.

Thank you, it sounds like the USA is something I could really consider for my PhD.

I am glad I could help!

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Is it possible to submit a preprint to viXra and then submit my physics paper to PRA?
I really want to submit to viXra to stake my claim on the paper's idea.
I don't want to submit it to arXiv.
I searched PRA's policy on this without much success.
I have read the following documents, yet I can't figure out what is their stand on the issue.

authors/submission-faq
web-submission-guidelines-physical-review
editorial-policies-practices
Information for Authors

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/13216/discreet-way-to-establish-priority

Physical Review is unlikely to notice or care what you post on viXra, or nearly anywhere else, so long as you hold the copyright and your work has not been accepted by a journal.
For opinions on viXra, see What are the differences between viXra.org and arXiv.org?.


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Does authorea have any moderation for preprints submitted to it?
Some of the preprint servers like arXiv have moderation. Others like viXra don't have any form of them.
I browsed  authorea.com  and I think they don't have any sort of moderation like viXra.
Am I right?

I asked this question on their help chat.
This is the answer that I received

Authorea preprints go through a basic screening (only content scholarly in nature is accepted in the repository).

So, you seem to be wrong.
There is moderation, although it seems to be lax in nature.
So, I probably think that your paper will get through it.
Authorea seems to be very new though. I checked it out thanks to you.
It seems to be some combination of overleaf and arXiv.


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Does vixra hold copyright over any submission to it?
I have read the following links

vixra.org/practices
vixra.org/submit

The only relevant line seems to be

By submitting your documents to viXra.org, you declare that all authors and other copyright owners of the work have given permission for distribution on the website and that you will inform us of any change of conditions.

Does this mean that they do not hold any copyright over my work?
Sorry if I am being too naive. I want to make sure of everything before landing in a mess.
This question was asked in response to this answer

Copyright remains with the authors unless explicitly given up. Not just for this site, but in general.

Note that vixra is not seen as a reputable site for scientific papers. At least in my field, it is viewed as a place for crackpot or crank papers. If you have done a serious piece of research, consider posting it to arXiv instead.

The answer seems to be: No.
See here: "viXra.org does not require that authors grant any specific license to viXra.org. Copyright is assumed to remain entirely with the authors of any articles submitted."


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Can I use a section title from another paper as my paper's title?
I recently read a paper which had a really interesting section with a very interesting title. I google'd it and it seems that they just made it up and it's not a common term.
Can I title my paper that? I will mention in the introduction that x et al. calls this practice such and such and that's what we'll explore and expand in this paper.
I'm asking if it is allowed, but also if it is not frowned upon etc. It's sort of an homage & it's a catchy title.
Thank you.

Hard to say without knowing what the title is. I would suspect that the title of a paper can be more precise, or have some kind of addition? You could then put the copied title in quotation marks and add a bit of your own, like <<In depth investigation of John's "Superfancy mechanisms">>

oh actually this is exactly how the working title is structured. phase from other paper: generic explanation

General advice is hard here, without knowing the specifics. If the title actually represents an intellectual contribution, then probably not. But if it is just language cleverness there is likely no harm, but a note on the origin would be appropriate.
For example "Differentiation, As She Is Played" is probably just a tricky pop culture reference and has no intellectual content, so safe enough. With apologies to Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics fame and who plays that game occasionally.

it is definitely an example of clever wording.


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My PhD Supervisor is founding a startup based on my thesis work and wants me to be first hire. Unsure if want to join
I'm a current PhD student and PhD supervisor is in the process of making a startup company largely based on the devices that I've developed during my PhD thesis. My supervisor is trying hard to convince me, but not pressuring me, to join the company as its first hire. If I accept I will almost immediately begin writing my thesis to graduate early as I begin to work at the company.
I will make a modest salary to begin with (A 10K-15K increase in my PhD salary, but probably 30K-40K less than I could expect to make if I was hired at a larger company) and get roughly 2% equity. He is looking for me to commit for a year to 2 years to begin with, at which point he thinks we can bring the company to a roughly 20M valuation if successful.
I enjoy the work I do and have a relatively okay relationship with my advisor, but am beginning to get some fatigue and am interested in getting the opportunity to work on something new. At the startup I would essentially be doing the same work I'm doing now and continue working in the same labs and using the same equipment. This makes it difficult for me to get 100% excited about the opportunity because there is not really an immediately tangible change or benefit that feels like career progression other than the small increase in pay, and potential future payout if the company is successful.
I don't want to accept the offer and within my first few weeks feel like I'm already burnt out on the project. But I also don't want to pass on the offer, find my new job not as exciting (or not be able to find a job at all) and wish I would have accepted the offer. Does anybody have any advice? Thanks.

Hmmm. Get an ownership share. Maybe 30%.

Fully agree with @Buffy - 2% is absolute peanuts. Your advisor needs you, and you should be worth a founder's share. But, what do you think of the prospects of the company? Would somebody actually buy it in a few years? And, the normal advice for startups is to be paid at a normal rate, no discount for equity since it is all a crap shoot anyways.

What your advisor thinks the company will be valued at is completely irrelevant to how you are getting compensated. I think you are getting lowballed hard in exchange of practically signing away your founding work: a lose/lose for you

Has your advisor started a company before? If not they may have absolutely no idea what to compensate you, so don't be afraid to push back.

I'm not sure how people feel able to comment on what percentage of the company OP deserves, given the very limited information presented here. Perhaps better advice would be that the OP should consider consulting with a lawyer or similar professional with experience in startups and IP issues.

Also, you might like to bear in mind that there may be middle ground between 'working for startup full-time' and 'no involvement' -- for example, by being on an 'advisory board' or similar, or working on a consultancy basis. Of course you will have to consider whether that is feasible (including the potential for conflict with whatever 'main' job you end up getting), but if your advisor is keen to have your input they will probably be open to ideas.

I think it is very different depending on the country. In general, I guess accepting it might be of high value for your CV. Moreover, it is something bound on personal character. I myself I have a kind of commitment sense. But really successful people are always actively looking for different positions. I knew of cases building up possible basically fictitious future moves just to get better funding and labs. You can accept and look around. And the supervisor might also understand and still support you. You won't leave the start up out of black, most likely. Not sure it is really an answer...

@avid given the context OP has given us it seems pretty unethical for the adviser to start a company based upon their work.

What country? In the US, the Bayh-Dole Act entitles your university to partial ownership of the IP rights in the invention embodied in your idea if the work was federally funded. I would want to know if your advisor has considered this fact (though threatening to out them if not is extortion in some jurisdictions, so don't even hint at that, and it's the university's choice to forgo the rights if uni doesn't want to exploit the rights), but I wouldn't want to be part owner of a place that's conspired to hide such a fact from the feds!

You may find you are an initial ideas person, not someone who enjoys taking an idea through into practice and commercial success. If so, you need to think in terms of getting money for your ideas, rather than for your follow-through work.
Depending on what contracts you have signed and other legalities, it may be too late to get money from your current idea, but look into it. If the devices are not patented, see if they should be, with you as an inventor. Depending on how much he contributed, your supervisor may also be an inventor.
Your objective should be to be compensated for allowing the new company to use your prior work, for example by granting you equity in exchange for a license. Most start-ups fail, so your equity needs to be high enough to allow for that. The net present value of a company that would be worth 20M in a few years if successful may be 2M, assuming 10% probability of success. 2%, even ignoring the job issue, is not enough if the technical basis depends on your thesis work.
Being underpaid by 30K for at least two years would cost you 60K, and it does not sound like you would take the job for fun. Committing to 2 years should result in higher pay to compensate for loss of flexibility. In any case, negotiate separately on permission to use your devices, and pay/benefits for any job offer.

-1 It would be highly unlikely that a PhD student would own any rights to their thesis work.  But I agree the compensation should be higher.

@AnonymousPhysicist That is why I wrote "Depending on what contracts you have signed and other legalities".


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Supervising same work again and again
I found few professors having supervised more than 200 masters theses 'each' in the past 14-15 years. When looked at these theses, I found that out of 200 theses supervised by a professor, more than 100 works were based on the same idea:

theory is same
method of analysis is same
results and discussion are alike (similar)
proposed future works are same

Only the data sets are different, that is in thesis 'x', he used data in the range 1-2, in thesis 'y', he used data in the range 2-3 and so on. In some cases, I found that even the data set in a particular range, say, 1-2, collected by different filters/methods were distributed to 5-6 students and asked to do the same same work. Even after 14-15 years, the future works to be done have not changed. The proposed future works are appearing same from one thesis to another. I noticed the same behavior in the remaining theses also. The whole bunch of theses were just based on 2-3 ideas.
So, the question is: if such type of works repeatedly supervised is good or bad. My personal feeling is that it is a bad practice. Even in masters thesis there should be newness.

Have you checked the school/department/program rules to see how much novelty is required in those theses? If so, please add a quote.

I assume these weren't published theses. Correct?

Why is this important to you?

@ Patricia Shanahan I am trying to figure out the university rules regarding novelty. So far I have found that a plagiarism of 25-30% is accepted.

@Buffy Few are published as some new ideas were tested in the early years.

A PhD requires "newness" but a Master's does not or mostly not, it is usually an exercise to define the current state of the art.

@Anstudent Lack of novelty is not the same as plagiarism. You can do pretty dull research about the colour of pebbles, and have 10 independent theses on that topic. Some facts will necessarily repeat, but that is due to the topic, not due to plagiarism. So, is your question about lack of novelty or about plagiarism?

Indeed, one may regret that results of a master thesis won't be visible in a journal (repositories like HAL, https://doc.archives-ouvertes.fr/en/homepage/ may be cure). However, the limitations of time and supervision of one master thesis (compared to years of PhD), experience and skills of the candidates too often do not permit to develop a brand new technique and advance far into uncharted territory.

For the points that you describe as "same", are they semantically equivalent, or are they textually equivalent? Do they all cite and quote any verbatim or closely paraphrased text? Is this supervisors seemingly directing the students to commit plagiarism?

@SolarMike that depends on the country/university/department and the local written or unwritten rules.

This is a poor supervisory practice. Unfortunately, it becomes increasingly common in Universities, particularly in countries with strong marketalization of Higher Education (e.g. US, UK). Students are treated as customers, and academics are assessed and promoted based on their "efficiency" in terms of the number of students they supervise, not the quality of education they provide. The pressure on academics to supervise more students is constantly increasing, and they rarely have enough time to meaningfully prepare to supervisory meetings. It is not surprising that many academics find it convenient to reuse the same projects over and over again.
UPD: Answering comments, I want to clarify why this practice is detrimental to students' learning. Project-based learning attempts to recreate an authentic experience of doing something, then encourages students to reflect on this experience and learn from it. The authenticity of experience is the key for success. However, after some repetitions the supervisor knows all good and bad ways around the project, and unconsciously projects them to the student. Students don't have the same feeling of terra incognita in their research. Of course, realistically, we can't expect each master project to be completely new, but it's still important that the supervisor has not rehearsed it by heart yet.
A closely related, but not exactly the same reason is potential plagiarism. All theses are published and could be dug out by students. I have seen some supervisors who passed good theses from past years to new students to "get the style", effectively encouraging plagiarism. But they had way to many students to supervise and no time to do it properly. Surely, copying from someone else's paper is a poorer learning experience for students compared to doing research themselves.

If the goal is to educate the student, then what's the problem with reusing a project? Will a student learn less if someone else has already done the project? You could make an argument that they might learn better with a project the supervisor has supervised many students through and is known to be well-suited to the educational goals. This answer doesn't really justify your stance of why it's bad.

There's also the question whether by rehashing projects one can really stay at the cutting edge of the field.

@Kat The answer provides the response to your comment already: the student doesn't get the experience of diving into a new, unknown project, and all the pitfalls this necessarily entails. It's not about learning how to do one specific thing, but instead about learning general strategies to apply to research projects. We already have plenty of education of the other type in coursework.

In some places, a masters is mostly based on coursework. A thesis, if even required, can be pretty pro-forma. It can just be intended as a learning experience for the student, rather than a serious attempt to create anything new. My own situation was a bit different, but the thesis was really just a review of a small area of math, bringing a couple of ideas together. It broke no new ground, but was more like a literature review and summary than anything else.
Other places the standards are different.
The case you describe seems like an outlier, actually, but it might be perfectly acceptable for the student to cover old ground and still have validity, depending on what they need to do. Even "going through the motions" on a research project might have some value in a "coursework" based MS.

My interpretation of the question is "Is this a good supervisory practice?" not "Is this acceptable behavior for students?"

Not to mention that the professor likely wanted all the different datasets for something

In the UK there are 3 types of master's degree. An MA/MSc is usually what is called a "taught masters" or post-graduate taught (PGT). An MRes is referred to as a "masters by research" or postgraduate-research (PGR), and then you have "integrated masters" where the master's degree is part of an extended undergraduate. The title of that degree tends to depend on the subject, so in Engineering, its MEng, in biology its MBiolSci etc. Integrated masters can be anything on the spectrum from pure course work to pure research.
A taught master's program will generally have research dissertation which makes up around a third of the credits. But the aim of this is to

Give the students experience in the practical/technical aspects of carrying out research (how to pipette etc).
To teach them to plan a well thought out study
To critically assess their own findings
To situate their results in the context of the field.

None of these learning outcomes require "newness" as such.
Even in a masters by research, the aim is generally to prepare a student for a PhD by giving them the correct skills - they are their to learn something. Although I would expect more novelness in an MRes, many of the aims can be met with a project that is only minimally novel.
I also think you might be surprised that many PhD projects are created by the professor rather than the student.

This is a symptom of bad supervisory practice.
While it is true that Masters students are not in general required to conduct original research, they should be taught the state of the art.  In this case the supervisors have taught the same theory and methods repeatedly for 14 years.  This indicates that the supervisors are not continually improving their supervision.  Continuous improvement is good practice.
It seems unlikely the best theory and methods appropriate for masters students have not changed in 14 years.
Furthermore, nobody can provide quality supervision to more than 10 simultaneous masters students while also teaching.  If these students received good supervision, some very unusual scheduling was involved.

Good point. I struggle to supervise 10 undergraduate research projects a year, let alone 10 masters projects.

My guess is this bad practice is the result of having to supervise so many students, rather than cause of it.

@IanSudbery: It can go either way. In many institutions it counts as a "merit" for a professor to supervise a thesis. It can even count as part of teaching load. This generates an incentive to supervise many theses, and this generates incentives to do so in the way described by the OP.

But surely not 10? I'm not sure I could supervise 10 even if I had no other teach or research to do.

@IanSudbery: in some countries/universities, the supervision formally needs to be by a professor who takes the responsibility but can delegate the day-to-day supervision work to a large extent (e.g. to experienced mid-level staff/PIs in their institute).

The case you describe seems extreme but I have known a lab that did somethnig similar. They had a huge task to do, analysis to conduct on all existing genes, and each master thesis with them tackled a fraction of that task, one gene.
It was a win-win situation: they got forward on the project and the students could tackle an interesting non trivial task much easier because they had a solid pipeline in place.


text:
Uploading potentially copyrighted material onto Academia.edu
On Academia.edu, a user uploaded a Translation Database of Sun Tzu's Art of War, which includes translations as recent as 2020. Alongside it was a Bibliography Document that references all works shown in the former. I’d like to upload a similar document that shows Translations of Laozi’s Tao Te Ching, however I don’t know if this would violate any copyright protection held by the Authors/Publishers.
This site here, presents many translations, some entries consisting of an authors’ text verbatim whereas others either link to a pdf or to a wayback machine page. Seeing as it’s still operating, I’m assuming that TAO hasn’t violated any copyright protection, I’m wondering whether I could include translations appearing in TAO without violating copyright protection. I recognise that for some translations, in the case of Beck
or Muller,  I would need to seek permission in order to include them in the database, however would I need to do this for all translations that are not in public domain?

would I need to do this for all translations that are not in public domain? Could you clarify?

@user2768 As far as I'm aware, translations of the Tao Te Ching published before 1923 would presently be in public domain, and those translations published thereafter would still have copyright protection. In the cases of Beck & Muller translations, contacting them may allow me to include their translations without violating any copyright protection, but in the case of others I’m not aware if I could include their translations in any circumstance freely.

translations of the Tao Te Ching published before 1923 would presently be in public domain: That would (presumably) depend on jurisdiction.

I’m not aware if I could include their translations in any circumstance freely Translators may hold copyright.

Laozi's work is not protected by copyright, you are free to provide translations. You cannot freely distribute translations of others.

This site here, presents many translations...Seeing as it’s still operating, I’m assuming that [the site] hasn’t violated any copyright protection

Your assumption is false: The absence of a take-down or prosecution doesn't imply an absence of copyright violation.

The user I spoke about, included translations as early as 2020 in their document (as seen in the Bibliography Document), would this mean that they sought and obtained permission from the publishers/translator in order to include them in their document?

@TomDotCom You cannot know whether others sought and obtained permission from the publishers/translator, unless they explicitly state that they have.

As written here, translations of "out of copyright" works likely contain sufficient creative content that they may be copyrighted. Laws differ, of course, but it may be that the translation itself is copyrighted while the original is not.
If a work is out of copyright you can create a translation and (probably) copyright the translation. But the translations of others may have copyrights that you should not attempt to infringe and cannot do so ethically.
Given that, I'd be hesitant to upload a translation that claims copyright to any repository without the permission of the copyright holder.
But the propriety of uploading a "database" depends on what is included. If it is just references to translations (i.e. a bibliography) then it won't infringe, but including the works themselves likely does.
However, I also think that US law is stricter on this than in other places.


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MLA German translated citations
I am writing a paper (in German) for a philosophy seminar using MLA citation style. For my work I use three english sources and I am going to translate all of my quotes for a better textflow. At the frist quote, I would like to mark that all of the following quotes will be translated by me. How do I do that in MLA?

Footnote —per work— is the easiest and flows the best for me.

Given that “lorem ipsum dolor sit amet” (Lorem 42),3 it is evident that…

This and all subsequent quotations are my own translations from the original Ipsum language.

But it's not unheard of to do it in the parenthetical reference:

Given that “lorem ipsum dolor sit amet” (Lorem 42, translation mine), it is evident that…

I can't seem to find an example of someone doing it for multiple ones like you mention, although I definitely recall seeing it once or twice. The parenthetical form is most commonly done for a source you only cite once or twice and each time you just say translation mine (or translations mine if there are two or more quotations that go with a reference), but I guess it wouldn't be horrible if you put this and subsequent translations mine or similar.
So basically, my recommendation is parenthetical if you'll use them a handful of times. Footnote if you'll be quoting extensively from them.

Good answer.  I think you'll feel more confident about this if you look at one or two papers where this was done.


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What are the working hours for full time PhD students in Germany?
What are the working hours per week for full time PhD students in Germany? Also, how many holidays are granted in a year? How is the work-life balance for full time PhD students? Thanks!

If your funding gives you three years to do the whole thing, then you'll probably drive yourself harder than anyone else will.

You are typically paid for 50 or 65% to do work on some project, but that just means that the university graciously allows you to write your dissertation unpaid in the remaining 50 or 35%.
How much you really spent is hugely dependent on the discipline, the department, the advisor, and yourself. The best case scenario would be when there is a huge overlap between the project and your dissertation, both the department and the advisor are very supportive, and you are very disciplined and get a lot of work done in a short period of time. This does happen, but not everybody is that lucky.

For context, these percentages assume that 39 or 40 hours would be 100% (depending on your federal state/Bundesland). Also, computer science PhD students are often paid 100%, since industry has a strong demand for good CS graduates.

Ah, thanks! Didn't know it varied from state to state. It's in an Engineering field (Mechanical) and in the Central region.

Engineering often has full positions for doctoral candidates, but you also spend a lot of time on side projects.

Saying "typically paid 50 to 65%" is misleading at best. Although it varies and it may be that the total average in indeed in that range the average per field often differs. In engineering most positions come with a higher percentage (often 100%) while in other fields anything above 50% is rarely heard of.

65 is the standard set by the DFG.

Sorry, but there is not definitive answer to this question as it varies a lot between fields and even between different workgroups and then even between different students in a workgroup.
While "working fulltime" usually means 100% (which is 39.2h/week in my state but could be different in others), you may get a contract between 50% and 100% (I've heard about 16% contracts, but can not confirm this). If you are expected to be in the office for the whole time or not depends. Also, you may have teaching duties or not. You may have to work on a project which is not directly related to you thesis or not. The holidays depend on the state and on your age (or work experience) but in general there is plenty of holiday in Germany (should be somewhere between 25 and 30 days, so five to six weeks). The work-life-balance varies even more. You'll hear very different stories from "working my xxx of for a couple of years" to "had the best time of my life and managed to make great friends and learn another language"

Thanks! The answer helps a lot. Didn't know it varied from state to state. It's in an Engineering field (Mechanical) and in the Central region. There aren't any teaching duties associated.

There are most certainly teaching duties associated, they just haven't told you yet. ;-)

Especially in engineering there are many PhD's working on projects only and no teaching is involved. To be sure, ask in advance.

Fraunhofer cannot award a doctorate, only university faculties can. You need a regular prof as mentor, and I've rarely heard they let anyone off the TA train. Not least because the other profs and students are jealously watching that.


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Is Math Overflow representative of how theoretical research works in person?
I'm a prospective PhD student who has had little to non-existent experience in formal/theoretical research. As an engineering student, the workflow I am used to is to test an experiment, then to debug to see what works and what does not and explore workarounds, if needed.
I've been browsing Math Overflow recently, interested in it being a site for "professional mathematicians." I myself am interested in doing work with provable guarantees in wireless communications using techniques from optimization and information theory.
Unlike Math Overflow, I would expect that you get to interact with less people in person. My question is: how close/different is the Q&A interaction in Math Overflow compared to in-person interactions with a theoretically-oriented research group?

Depends on the research group... You only have to read on here to find out how research groups vary.

It's certainly not representative, as MO (and SE) is a Q&A site, with threads focused on a single specific question.  It is not a discussion site.  How close are any of the SE science sites representative of in-person interaction in your area?

Your questions seemed begging for an experiential answer so...
I would say that the MO experience is incredibly different from in-person theoretical research experiences. MO seems to blend the feeling of everyone's eyes being on a topic/question of a large conference, with the thoughtful and deliberate answers of emails or letter writing. In my experience that is not the same as how research works "in-person".
For me research in person is a lot less formal, more forgiving, but yes you also have fewer brains to bounce things off of.
The good news is that no one is stopping you from using MO while you are working with theoretical mathematicians in person :)


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What kind of research method creates conceptual models without empirical data?
I am not a researcher, but I am trying to learn the methods so I can apply them in my own fields.
In a variety of journals––notably economics, entrepreneurship, and design––I've noticed that the authors propose a "conceptual model". This model is the product of deep thinking and synthesis of prior work. Sometimes it is an incremental addition to an existing model, a recreation of it, or an entirely new way to describe a concept.
They are not often based on empirical data. This is probably because these fields have a lot of variables, and it would be very difficult to isolate things––which is especially troubling when trying to model a system.
What is this called? Is there a method behind this? I've tried reading a bit of epistemology to see if there's a method behind it, but this was unfruitful. It seems either the logical extension of prior work (logic) or it is the black-box description of certain phenomena, which is sufficient so long as it accurately describes the outputs (pragmatism).
In the first case, logic, how can we be sure it's moving in the right direction? Does each addition have to be small enough to be "self-evident"?
In the second case, pragmatism, how can we be certain that we're modelling it accurately without perfectly understanding the underlying mechanism? How are we sure there are not unknown consequences or interactions?
I'd love to be pointed in the right direction to learn more about this. This is mostly aimed at understanding how we can model systems.

It wouldn’t necessarily be a research method, but the word you are looking for is ‘theory’ as opposed to ‘empirical’. For example, in Economics the concept of utility is central to the field - yet “Utility” doesn’t exist empirically, it’s a theoretical construct that helps us simplify incredibly complex phenomena (such as what goes into making a decision). The problem with modelling is that it’s inherently not perfect, the advantage of modelling is simultaneously that it’s inherently not perfect, which allows us to get a glimpse into a part of the whole messy truth.

What kind of research method creates conceptual models without empirical data?

Those are called theoretical methods.

how can we be sure it's moving in the right direction?

If we were sure about it, then there would be no need for research.  So we cannot be sure until the research is finished, which usually involves some non-theoretical methods.

how can we be certain that we're modelling it accurately without perfectly understanding the underlying mechanism? How are we sure there are not unknown consequences or interactions?

Usually you cannot be certain.


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What to expect for an on site interview in German University?
I have been invited for an interview at University in Germany. They have asked me to prepare a 10-15 minutes presentation. What should I expect in the interview and what should I include in the presentation? Any advice would be appreciated, thanks!

Please add information about the concrete position you applied for and the research field.

Ask the guy who invited you.

Prepare a short powerpoint presentation about a research project you've been involved in.  Start with your title and acknowledgments.  You can give the motivation, the research question, your approach, your findings, discussion, conclusion, limitations and future directions.  Try to tie the future directions into some of the interests people in the target university have.

For a Ph.D. position, they want to know:

Are you really familiar with your master thesis' subject? Can you answer questions about it? Can you explain your thoughts? This is mandatory.
Which relevant experience do you have for the institute and the future research? Some of your competitors may not have any. This is where you can enjoy the interview and get information for yourself.

So ideally you start with reporting about your previous research (your master thesis). Then you can say something like "as I wrote my thesis, I noticed that (bla bla), and as your institute does (bla bla bla), which is somehow similar, I hope to deepen (bla bla)." This would be very good. First, because it shows that you have relevant experience and second, because it helps you to check if the institute is actually relevant for you.
Remember that a job interview's purpose is to get to know each other, it's not a one-way police interrogation. For a Ph.D. position, this is especially important because in Germany, your final failure at a Ph.D. programme would also make you inadmissible for similar programmes in Germany. So it's vital for you to sense possible (interpersonal, academic, financial) difficulties early.


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What kind of audience can I expect for a scientific talk at University?
I have been invited as a Guest speaker to a scientific workshop at a University. I know there will be faculty members but will there be students present as well? This is my first time as a Guest speaker, so any information of what happens in such events would be helpful.

Every workshop/seminar/conference is different. It is always a good idea to ask the guy that invited you about the expected audience.

The answer to this question will vary from school to school. Typically speaking, you could expect faculty, staff scientists, post-docs, and graduate students at a generic guest speaker's presentation. As such, you might aim your talk for an audience of educated scientists with familiarity to your field (but not experts of the field).
If you want more certainty, you could ask the organizer who invited you what audience you can expect.
If you are comfortable adapting to your audience on the spot, and you are comfortable being somewhat informal, you could ask for a show-of-hands at the beginning of your talk. E.g.: "Show of hands, how many post-docs are there in the audience? ... Graduate students? ... any undergraduates?"

This varies tremendously by venue, as it depends on exactly why the talk is being held, is influenced by who is funding the talk and why, etc.
As an example, one set of public talks may be held as part of a series for "public and community outreach". At these talks there will be a mix of a few scattered faculty members, students of various programs, and up to half will be members who live in the surrounding community, including retired people, professionals with only a vague general interest in the topic, business people who might have an interest in the field, etc.
Another set of talks might be purely directly at students. There may be only a few faculty members (1-2 wouldn't be unusual), mostly undergraduate students from the specific hosting program and a few from related/other programs (who may be required to be there, or receiving extra credit for a class), and a few grad students (who are there because they are really interested, and/or may be hoping for some fee snacks). Other talks are held specifically for grad students, and there will be very few undergrads (if any), and yet another set of talks might have mostly faculty, post-docs, staff, and a few scattered grad students.
Administrators (deans, department heads, etc) attend some types of talks, but tend not to be found at others.
However, it is always acceptable to ask your host about the predicted audience, and they usually have a pretty good idea of who can be expected to show up. You should certainly be prepared for this prediction to be less than perfectly accurate, and the general assumption is you'll have a range of intelligent, interested, people attending, though few will be anything resembling experts in your specific area.
If your workshop has limited attendance and sign-ups, you could even send out a survey to try to learn about your audience, but this a luxury that's not usually available if it's just an open talk.

This is really hard to answer since it depends on so many factors.
In our relatively small math department, the average guest talk had a small handful of faculty, and maybe 6 students or so, and it was usually those of us who spent a lot of time on campus because of the times of the talk (mid-afternoon).
If you want any metrics that could help determine, I'd ask the host:

what time the talk is (the further from noon, the less people you should expect)
if they know of any professors/instructors offering extra credit to students if they go to these talks (in a couple cases, a graph theory talk filled the classroom, another had to be moved to an auditorium).

Also it depends on the general attitude towards your topic in the school. For example, are you a Knot Theorist going to speak at a small liberal arts school? I wouldn't as expect many to come, compared to if you were speaking at a large polytechnic university.
In the end, unless you're worried about having enough handouts, or something like that, don't waste brain space thinking about how many people. You can give a talk to 1 person the same way you can give a talk to 1000.

Thank you so much! You have mentioned about handouts which I find would appeal more to the audience. Since, my presentation will include my scientific background and my research work, I was wondering what can I include in the handouts?

Probably relevant graphics and equations

Maybe some "fun facts" as well -- little tips and notes about some extra interesting  things you won't cover in your talk


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How is life as a PhD student in Germany?
I have a PhD offer from a German university in Nanotechnology. It is a 3 year position (which is a short span). I would like to know how is the general experience of doing a PhD in Germany? Is it really hectic? I am focused and dedicated towards my work but want to spare time for other activities too. So, would really appreciate any insight into PhD student's life, thanks!

You mean academic life? Social life? Cultural life? What? We have no idea what you are asking. Doing a PhD in Germany is no different than doing PhD in any other country and depends on a matter of factors such as: the group, the field, the adviser etc. The question, as it is, it's impossible to answer.

3 or 4 years is the normal timespan for a phd scholarship in Europe. Unlike the US, we assume that the candidates already hold a master, so there isn't much coursework and most of this time is devoted to research (and TAing/tutoring, in many cases).

As said before, during your PhD you are not required to take any courses. 3 years fund is the norm. Extensions would be max to a forth year. If you stick to the time plan of your PhD you can pull it off if you have a guarantee that any technical difficulties can be managed in time. Make sure that the team you are joining have the necessary experience in the specific topic of your PhD so you can more likely find help if things go south. Also try to make a clear agreement with your advisor on sticking to the time plan or possibilities to extend the fund if necessary.


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Lecturer with anxiety. How to survive in academia?
I've been a long time member of academia.SE but I created this alt account because the question is a bit embarrassing. I finished my PhD 4 years ago and after a 2 year postdoc at a different university secured a contractual lecturership. During my PhD I never realised I had fear of public speaking, because I always felt secure presenting in front of my supervisor. Even at conferences, his presence in the audience was enough to keep me relaxed.
Fast forward to my postdoc, I was mostly working and publishing by myself. So, even if I had to present something it was to my coauthors, with which I am okay. But as a lecturer doing research part of my time, I am involved in projects and seminars where I am expected to present my latest work. Being on my own has brought out my inner anxiety, so much so that I choked during a presentation, had to drink water to calm my nerves and apologise for my breathlessness and slurred speech. That was the most embarrasing thing in my life. Please note that the anxiety is not the result of me not publishing or doing research. I have published more than most in my department. Knowing that hasn't helped with the anxiety though. I am constantly making excuses to get out of project presentations and seminar talks. Fortunately, the anxiety is less intense in teaching and I am able to manage.
How do I survive as an academic? Now even conference presentations seem daunting. I can publish exclusively in journals, but how do I get out of giving project and departmental presentations? How can I politely refuse to present without revealing my situation? Or better yet, how do I fix the whole thing? That one bad presentation has really messed me up.

Seek professional help? I know that there are methods (some of which include medication) for wrestling with anxiety.

Apart from other hopefully-good advice here, I tell myself, and I tell my research students, that it's not about me/them, it's about the math. To deliberately interpret any question as informational, even if they suspect it might be hostile. Such stuff. De-personalize, if you can hold that mental pose.

Do you have the same problem when lecturing undergraduate students?

In all cases that I have seen people which were nervous during scientific talks (including extreme cases where the person had a complete blackout), I never thought less of the speaker, and I just focused on the content. I am guessing it is this way for most scientists. We are adults. So I understand you feel embarrassed, but keep in mind that from the listeners' point of view it is not a big deal.

The best solution to anxiety is simply practice, practice, practice. Practice in front of the mirror, then onto friends, colleagues, then to the public. Once you have done presentation and speaking enough times, you will find yourself numb to any anxiety and fears. This is my personal experience any ways.
Those 1-day public speaking courses people go to, to me are not as helpful as simple practice, self-determination and perseverance.

I can't remember the context nor when it happened or who told me, so I'll just leave this as a comment: I remember someone told me that merely admitting the nervousness at the start of a talk/presentation to the crowd was enough to calm down and not freak out. I don't know if this will help you, maybe it will even work against you, but it apparently helped the person who told me this quite a bit.

Anxiety for something is typically only treated through either professional help, or a lot of practice, or a mixture of both. There is, unfortunately, no magic cure, aside from maybe a bit too much alcohol, that allows your mouth to dispense words without fear of being embarrassed, and even then, it only delays the embarrassment until you sober up.

Perhaps the @Mobius Pizza comment is spot on, you need to practice a lot in front of a mirror or in different places, constantly. Also, you should go often to various social events where speaking with a lot of people is mandatory. Lastly, do not lost your faith in your capabilities.

If your anxiety is that severe, perhaps you should consider a career outside academia. There are many roles in the public and private sectors that require research, writing and thinking, but without public speaking. I am not sure any academic dream is worth the misery of putting yourself through so much stress.

For those arriving from the "Hot Network Questions" link: Welcome! Please remember that this is an academic site. While general advice about speaking anxiety is helpful, your answer should also address the academic aspect of this question. Thanks for visiting!

I'm not in any way qualified to answer this question but... I think evening or weekend drama classes are a brilliant way of understanding how you can objectify youself, and thereby 'pretend to be' someone who is confident and authoritative. The 'imagine everyone naked' trick also works, weirdly.

Years ago, I gave up on the idea of a career in music when I developed severe performance anxiety. After I gave a terrible performance in front of a large crowd, I decided the thing I was going to do was 'face my fear' by signing up for something even scarier and going through with it. Result: an even more terrible performance in front of an even larger crowd, which I had nightmares about for ages, and I never performed again. So I know the feeling and can tell you that - based on my experience, anyway - throwing yourself off the deep end might be counterproductive. Suggestions instead:
Talk to colleagues about the issue, especially those you're close to and/or those who are openly supportive of mental-health stuff. I get the feeling that this is more common than most academics generally let on. I once watched an absolute legend of a faculty member in my subfield admit to considerable nerves in front of an unfamiliar crowd, which astounded me but shouldn't have.
Professional assistance: As 101010111100 says in a comment, it might be worthwhile to see if you can find a therapist who'll be on your side and work with you to find a way through or around this.
Toastmasters? I watched a former student of mine with major social anxiety gradually work through it with the help of a local group. The student went to a meeting and said nothing, and then went to another meeting and said nothing, and then introduced themself, and then gave a 10-second speech, and little by little practiced low-stakes public speaking until the idea of doing it felt a whole lot less terrifying.
Remind yourself about the 'spotlight effect': Not that I want to sound as if I'm trying to trivialize your feelings, but odds are that your audience paid a whole lot less attention than you did to your embarrassment. In general no one will notice a verbal slip-up or two, and even if you do come across as nervous or choke on water partway through, the audience is likely to be thinking much more about the content of your presentation rather than your delivery and state of mind. I saw a fascinating talk at a conference last spring and at lunchtime congratulated the undergraduate who gave it. The student blushed and admitted to an immense amount of embarrassment over having been so nervous. I said that while I could see some nerves in the presentation, I was thinking so hard about what was being talked about that I didn't care (beyond hoping the presenter remembered to breathe).

Regarding professional help, my wife is a psychologist and I’ve picked up some here and there. One stand-out point is that anxiety issues are some of the most reliably-treatable issues psychologists deal with.

+1 for Toastmasters or a similar course. Fear of public speaking is a well-studied phenomenon and there are MANY resources available that can help you. I've heard fantastic things about Toastmasters, but there are tons of others as well.

@KRyan out of curiosity, how do psychologist usually treat anxiety issues?

@Keine usually controlled exposure, is my understanding. Starting with the most benign cases they can and gradually working up to more daunting situations. Medication in the most severe cases just to make that initial exposure possible, but ultimately the cure comes from experiencing the frightening situation and becoming more comfortable. Coaching various techniques to calm and focus oneself, so that the experience is positive.

For what it's worth, I don't think this is an uncommon problem - you're by no means alone in this. A few thoughts:
Learn to see the humour in everything. Some of the time, you're going to get up there to give a talk and everything's going to go wrong - you're going to trip over the power cord, your demo's going to fail, you'll have forgotten what you're going to say, some angry-looking professor in the front row will start heckling you, etc. You can't fully control these things; all you can control is how you react, and that only to some extent. In this situation, you've turned up to give the perfect version of an important talk, and at least to some extent, it hasn't gone well - you know it, the audience knows it. The job, to be blunt, is in no way a good'n'. Moreover, they're now all sitting there wondering what you're going to do. This is the perfect time to show them that you're self-aware and that you don't take yourself too seriously - crack a self-deprecating joke, make a humorous comment, or enthusiastically launch into telling them something interesting. Essentially, there's a lot of truth in this:
http://48laws-of-power.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/law-28-enter-action-with-boldness.html
Leave yourself room to improvise. It's common to want to plan an important talk within an inch of its life, to make sure that you know exactly what you're going to say. Unfortunately, this can stress you out trying to remember what to say next, and make you sound stilted. I would argue that it's better not to plan the actual talk too much: instead, practise improvising. That way, when the inevitable problems arise, or people interrupt you, you'll know what to do. It's fine to have a rough plan, but be prepared to adapt it to the circumstances on the ground.
Publicly acknowledge your weaknesses and work on them. If presentations scare you, admit it - tell everyone, and ask them to give you lots of opportunities to present to help you get over it. Chances are, the people around you already know what your weaknesses are; by acknowledging them yourself, you neutralise them. Instead of being the person who's scared of presentations, you become the self-aware person who's scared of presentations but is dealing with it, which is a much better position to be in. The goal is to make the issue so intensely dull that no-one besides you will want to waste any time caring about it.
Detach your ego from your work. The aim of your talk is to tell other people something at least somewhat interesting and to help advance the field. You're there as a humble contributor to the great wall of human knowledge. You're not there to defend your work, except in so far as to make sure that other people gain a correct and fair understanding of it, and how it fits into the rest of the field. You're definitely not there to defend yourself - ultimately, you're just a curious person trying to help the field advance. If people have a problem with your work, help to focus the discussion on the evidence, and be prepared to agree with them if you're wrong. By avoiding the temptation to feel defensive about yourself or your work, you make yourself more relaxed, and better able to respond to input.
Finally: If you can, try to make the idea that anyone would want to focus on you rather than the field at hand seem ridiculous. As a speaker and as a researcher, you're human and flawed: you should know it, and you shouldn't be afraid to let them know it if the situation demands it. The point is that despite those flaws, you've turned up to do your best to make a contribution to the field. People who care about the field will respect that, and the rest don't matter.

"Excuse me; exciting math gets me all choked up!"

"Detach your ego from your work" -- very important. Obviously the OP is afraid of his first impression to strangers who don't know him prior to his talk.

Your body gears up for hunting the mammoth, for escaping from the saber-toothed tiger, or for giving a scientific talk, by releasing adrenaline.
It is impossible to predict how you will react to the adrenaline next time, based on how you have reacted to it previous times.
(Once, while recording an audition tape, adrenaline made my one good ear go temporarily deaf, leaving me with a very muffled perception of my playing, through my other, impaired ear.  It sounded as though someone was playing my piece in another room, with the door closed.)
So, what can you do?  Over-prepare.  In music, this means: analyze the technical requirements of each passage, and get your body comfortable executing them reliably, so they will come out right even on a bad day.  For a scientific talk, this means, write out everything you want to say (but don't use that as a script while giving your talk).  Do three practice talks instead of one.  Give a simplified version of your talk at your local senior citizen center.  (You can also volunteer to give a general talk about your field to a sixth grade science class.)  Put your talk on your laptop, on a thumb drive, and in the cloud.  Prepare slides that will allow the audience to get your main ideas even if there turns out not to be any intelligible narration.
A few additional thoughts:

The Toastmasters idea from trikeprof is good.
In the same vein, some people find it helpful to take acting classes.
Practice slow breathing every day, filling your whole trunk with air -- keeping your shoulders relaxed.  When you think you've gotten reliable in slowing your breathing, practice doing it under (non-academic) stress.  Note that fast, shallow breathing can induce hyperventilation.
While giving your talk, bend your knees a little, to keep everything flowing properly in your body.
You had a traumatic experience giving a talk.  There is a special short-term therapeutic technique that can be helpful in recovering from trauma: Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR).  It's generally not hard to find a therapist trained in this approach.
You may want to talk to your doctor about medications.

And one slightly crazy idea, that I've never tried.  Put a large photograph of your advisor on the back wall with masking tape in the room where you'll be speaking.

I have been fighting with this type of anxiety myself secretly while giving the impression of being an incredibly relaxed speaker to everyone else. Anything in this answer I might have gotten from some source that might have a scientific reasoning why it works, but I don't remember. For the sake of this answer, these are just coping mechanisms I tried and that did work for me (in order of how much I like them).
The world is but a stage and we are merely players
This is not about me! I am not presenting my own work, receiving criticism for it and standing up in front of a scientific crowd. This is just a stage play. And I love acting. Today my role is that of a bright young scientist, presenting her work at a conference. The audience is going to be wowed by the performance. Whenever I get nervous and struggle my mantra is "This is just a play. There will be applause when it is over. Nothing here can hurt you because you are doing it for your own entertainment." It works. The earlier I can get "in role" beforehand, the better. And after the applause, you are back to your own self, as always.
The imaginary friend
There are multiple options for this. If there is a person who's presence makes you calm, imagine them sitting in a place where you can see them. Smiling, thumbs up, positive everything is going to be fine. Or select an unknown audience member to take their role. Smile at them when you get nervous, imagine getting a smile back. It can make you feel more secure and the audience will receive you as very present and pleasing.
The power position
The students are not listening or seem to be silently laughing at my teaching? I will show them who the lecturer is. This is my lecture, my topic and whoever is diminishing the wisdom I teach will have the results served to them at the exams and in the assignments.
I am not that bad. I am nice to students. But sometimes being the hard one internally makes it easier to be the nice one externally. Because you know what you could do... although you never will misuse your power, of course.

What you says contradicts one of your comments. Explain.

It is quite hard to explain, as I can't find any comment to this question that I might have written and I have written quite a bit of comments on this site. So either quote that comment or I won't be able to explain.

With regard to my own experiences of music performance, I would say there are two parts to this. Firstly there is how well you know your material, as has been discussed. However, as you and I both know, no matter how well one knows one's material, one can still be anxious. This is where you can start to look after your physical and mental wellbeing through other means.
You may think it's unusual, but never underestimate the importance of diet on improving one's mood. Before my big, majorly important master's performance which I had been dreading for months, I looked after my diet a lot, especially the few days leading up to it. I didn't eat unhealthily, I ate a lot of oily fish [mainly salmon], which gave me a feeling of contentment and mental wellbeing. I also drank less. Additionally, physical exercise. I worked out the morning of my performance: this helped to take a lot of the physical tension out of me and to relax me more.
Additionally, deal with your emotions. If you feel upset, worried etc, don't be afraid to cry about it to let it out. About three weeks before my performance I had to do so [unusual for me], which was a lot of the tension coming out. But it was good for me and I did feel better afterwards. All of these things combined worked because I ended up getting a distinction in my performance.
So we can have therapy etc, but sometimes the simplest things - food, exercise etc - we discount because we forget how effective they are and we don't think they will make enough difference. We tend to think other things will be more effective, but looking after how we treat our bodies can have a massive effect on our minds.

Whether it may be mathematics, mastering an instrument or public speaking, to become proficient at any feat, one has to practice.
While there have been some clever suggestions made in the previous answers, what is surely to work is to continually expose yourself to this level of pressure and anxiety, either to the same degree, or gradually bit by bit, such as starting off with a presentation in a small group.
As an example from sport, the famous Williams sisters in tennis were subjected to verbal harassment by kids while they'd practice, who were paid by their father, to prepare them for playing in front of an audience. The point is not to go to such extremes, but rather that you can't expect to perform well from the get-go unless you learn to adapt these conditions.
Professor Cuddy from Harvard University, who has authored many papers and presented a TED talk on preparing for situations like public speaking and interviews, has many suggestions on dealing with these, such as what she calls power posing which noticeably decreases cortisol, a hormone related to stress.
I'll end with something tennis player Billie Jean King said, which is that pressure is a privilege. While these public speaking opportunities may be mortifying, that you are called upon to present your research and have an opportunity to contribute and interact with other researchers is a privilege, one worth learning to adapt to and perform well in.

I had similar problems with performing at folk clubs.  Even though I knew all the people there, and I knew they were all my friends, it was still incredibly stressful to stand up and perform.  This inevitably took its toll on my singing and playing, of course.
I found this self-hypnosis CD made a massive difference for me.  In particular, there was one visualisation exercise which really took care of my stagefright.  I still get nervous in public, but now it's a normal level of adrenaline which is simply excitement.  I'm similarly more confident with public speaking as well.
I'm sure there are plenty of similar products around, and there may be some better tailored to public speaking.  All I can say is that that's the one I used.

Glossophobia (fear of public speaking) is the #1 fear in America.  What has worked for many people (including myself) is to practice in a low-stakes environment until you build confidence.  That confidence you want is sure to come the more you practice and refine your techniques. With enough practice, the nervous fear you experience now will turn into positive energy which makes your presentation exciting. The more nervous fear you experience now, the more energy you will have as a polished speaker.
A group like your local Toastmasters club is a great place to practice.  If you do a search, you'll probably find a club very near you, possibly at your school.

I'd start with professional help.  Anxiety is often a treatable disorder, with cognitive behavioral therapy showing a success rate of about 50%.   Start with a cognitive behavioral therapist.  They treat anxiety disorders for a living. See where it goes from there.

There are lots of things you can do:

Be prepared: the better you know the subject, the less you can have problems. In top of that:

You might need some backup (cheating notes, e.g.) for in case you get into problems.
Before giving a presentation to anyone, first give it to a friendly audience (when I needed to give my dissertation speech, first I gave it to my promotor and two of his assistents, they afterwards told me that it was good and explained me what to take care of, I followed their advise and gave a good dissertation speech)

Follow some courses, about presentation techniques, public speech, ..., and very important, follow courses where you can really test yourself: it makes no sense listening to somebody giving a great presentation if you don't get the opportunity to test yourself. By giving small public explanations about little things, you can get feedback from the rest of the class and you can build further from there.
From the courses, get some small but useful tips and tricks, don't try to implement everything you learn from the course on your first presentation (be aware that it's an evolutionary process, which you'll learn bit by bit).

From my public speech course, I remember that I spoke very fast (I was so anxious that I wanted the presentation to be finished as soon as possible). During some try-outs one time I imagined that all people in the public were foreigners, not native speakers (although this was not the case), and because of that I started talking more slowly and I articulated very good. Since then I'm always using this trick.
From my presentation course, I remember the idea that the purpose of a presentation is to "Inspire" people. Not only does this word mean what it says, it also contains the structure of almost every presentation:
In : Introduction (extremely important)
S  : Situation (what will you talk about)
P  : Problem (which problems will you tackle)
R  : Resolution (how will you solve those problems)
E  : End (also extremely important)

Know yourself: every person has his or her own issues while dealing with public speaking: some people don't move and just stand there like a statue, they should move more. Others don't stop moving and they need to be aware not to do that so often. Some people need to hold something into their hands in order to have something to calm their nerves on (I always carry a pen), ..., all those things can be detected by yourself and the friendly audience from point 1.

While this answer is good for general speaking anxiety, it doesn't address the academic facet of this problem at all.

You may want to discuss a medication called beta blockers with your doctor: http://www.anxieties.com/159/beta-blockers#.WJlJxyOU28U
I am suggesting you consider this type of pharmacological solution because it doesn't sound like your main problem lies with some deep-rooted insecurities/anxieties about the quality of your work but rather with the "mere" delivery of your presentation. By reducing your heartbeat, beta blockers remove the physical effects of the performance anxiety and can be very effective at eliminating e.g. the dreaded breathlessness, shaking, and slurred speech that many people will exhibit when in speaking in front of a crowd. Talk to your doctor about possible medication s/he would prescribe. Sometimes, removing those physical symptoms is enough to let one deliver lectures and seminars with confidence despite the kind of nerves you described. Good luck!

In my opinion, it is inappropriate to recommend specific pharmacological interventions without a personal assessment by a suitably trained professional.

Thanks for your feedback. Just to clarify, my answer does NOT advocate "a pharmacological intervention without assessment by a trained professional". Nor does it suggest "taking pills without medical supervision". I thus do not think your stated criticism is valid.
The answer clearly states "TALK TO YOUR DOCTOR". It is then the medical professional who makes the decision and supervises the treatment, which - as my answer highlights - might include medication that indeed has been proven very effective in these circumstances.

As a side-note that is tangentially related to the above criticism: I am not talking about a psychopharmacological intervention but about beta blockers which have been shown to remove the physical side-effects of anxiety such as trembling and shortness of breath by lowering your heart rate. I wanted to mention this difference since Magicsowon brought up antipsychotics, which are an entirely different class of drugs. Either way I believe the advice to talk to your doctor about possible medication is sound.

I edited your answer to fit the spirit of your comments.  See what you think.

The answer is really simple - take a public speaking course. It'll be a trial by fire at first but you'll improve with practice just like with everything else. You'll be amazed at the difference it makes :)

Instead of using different psychological methods and drugs, I want to recommend you going for sports. And by that I actually mean any physical activities - even simple regular running will give you much more confidence. But to have better results, buy a subscription to a gym or start attending any sport training.
I am not talking about having some complexes about your appearance or anything, it's just about how you feel your own body, because that's what people see when you perform a lecture. And gaining confidence is really important for delivering good performances - instead of thinking about how you're nervous and want to end it as soon as possible, audience will better listen to what you have to say.
Moreover, being stressed harms your health, while doing physical exercises will reduce harm and make use of that adrenaline that your body has generated.
People of mind work often dig themselves too deep in their thoughts, while for interacting with other people you use your physical form - so, when you gain better control of your body, better "know yourself", you will see that it is still frightful to make presentations, but you can handle it. When you know you can handle it, fear will go away eventually.

What sets public speaking apart from many other tasks where anxiety could mess up things, is the fact that anxiety is normal here, many people will either feel quite anxious wen giving talks or if they don't feel anything a heart rate monitor would betray that they are under some level of stress . So, the problem isn't so much that you have some level of anxiety, rather that it is too much or your body overreacts causing problems. And then you're bound to get extra anxiety because of the anticipated problems due to anxiety.
The best way to deal with this problem is to do what JamalS says in his answer: you must practice a lot. You then make your presentation immune to your anxiety. If you feel anxious, you'll tend to fare better sticking to what is routine, a well practiced presentation may actually end up being presented better due to anxiety compared to when you're feeling very relaxed. And if things go well a few times, your level of anxiety due to feeling anxious will drop because you won't worry anymore about feeling anxious. You can just classify what you feel  as a good level of excitement that will help you give the talk.
Another thing you should do is to do regular exercise. When we exert ourselves the body redirects blood flow from its organs and the brain to the muscles. If you are not used to exercising then you'll get such effects already at moderate exertions like when you're a bit anxious before and during a talk. If you are used to running half an hour a few times per week at a heart rate of 150 bpm, you won't notice much when giving a talk even if your heart rate is increased to, say, 80 bpm from a resting heart rate of 50 bpm.

look for some experts in behavioral-cognitive therapy. It is very suitable for your issue and very effective (based on true scientific studies), you will little by little overcome your fears.
Don't start taking any drugs like some suggests, they are luckily not for you.
I am saying that because I am following this path for something way more hard than your problem and it is very beneficial.
Regards,
Andrea


text:
What do I do about my lab head misattributing my grant proposal?
The head of my lab and I wrote a grant proposal together. Last year we submitted it with me and them as chief investigators. This year I wasn't allowed to submit grants per the rules of my government funding body, so I agreed to let my lab head submit the grant while listing themselves as chief investigator and removing me. However, in addition to this, my lab head added one of my colleagues as a chief investigator despite them not having written any of the grant. This was done without my permission.
My lab head added the colleague because the lab head believes it will look bad if they are a sole chief investigator. They believe adding the second chief investigator will make it appear as if they are supporting an early career scientist and that there is someone who will be managing the project day to day.
I don't feel comfortable about my lab head misattributing my grant proposal, particularly without my permission. Is what they're doing ethical? What can I do if I don't like it?

You gave permission. Don't let your regret of that decision affect your future relationships. Hopefully you get an ack somewhere.

I gave permission for my supervisor to submit the grant, not to misattribute it to a colleague who didn't contribute.

Didn't contribute or won't contribute. There is more to a grant than writing it. Fighting with your PI is not a good career move.

Is what they're doing ethical?

Being a chief investigator on a grant does not necessarily imply that you are an author of the proposal.  Proposal a writing can even be outsourced to a third party.
In order to determine if the proposal is ethical, it would be necessary to read it and read the funding agency's rules, but if it's unethical it is probably not for a reason you have stated.

What can I do if I don't like it?

Probably nothing, except ask the lab head to change their course of action (Is it too late?).  If the university paid you to write the proposal, it very likely belongs to the university.


text:
Accepted by a different proposed supervsior: writing a thank you letter
This is a usual how to write a thank you letter but the twist is during the application process I put down professor X as a possible supervisor. I then interviewed with professor X and professor Y (both at the same institution). I was later accepted and the letter stated the supervisor would be professor Y. (Speculation: maybe professor X could not/did not want to take me on for whatever reason but professor Y did.) I spent a few days looking into professor Y's research and would probably accept.
How do I go about replying to the offer and emailing both professors? I'm not sure how to navigate this situation with the expected tact. Any guidance would be appreciated.
Context: this is for a PhD at a UK/European university.

I went through one single interview with both present. (I think it's standard to be interviewed by two people in my field...) I haven't actually accepted formally (i.e. from the university itself) nor have I contacted X nor Y yet. I suppose I want to contact both X (since X was my first point of contact and agreed to the interview to begin wtih) and Y (for accepting me), but I'm not sure where to start.

Thanks for the advice. I was sort of stuck thinking how I would write to X and Y courteously but as Buffy said they probably did talk with each other and so I can see why there should be no issue sending an email to both in one.

All it really takes is something simple.

Thank you both for considering my candidacy. I'm happy to join the program under Professor Y's direction.

And stay friendly with everyone.

Is there anything I should say to either X or Y? Or should I just respond to the university itself?

All the university needs is a notice of acceptance. My suggestion is to the professors. I'd guess that they both know about the two interviews, and probably had a discussion.

Oh right. I guess I was overthinking the situation and thought more tact would be required since I hadn't actually applied to professor Y. In any case the interview was actually with both simultaneously but I wasn't aware of professor Y's interest at the time.


text:
How do I tell my professor that I am volunteering with another project? Should I?
I am working on a project as an undergraduate researcher in Prof A's lab.
At the end of the semester, one of my class professors, Prof B, proposed an idea for a project, so I and a few other students volunteered to research with him. Since this is all over the summer (meaning no classes), the topic was interesting, and I have nothing to do due to the pandemic, I thought it was okay (time management isn't an issue). The work with Prof B isn't part of a dedicated lab either, and I expect it to last just a few months in the summer.
However I came across this question (https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/47981), and now I am concerned that I am lying by omission. How do I let Prof A know about Prof B, or should I even worry about this? Was it wrong of me to volunteer with Prof B this summer? My question is different because I have no other obligations.
The last thing I want is to worry Prof A or make him unnecessarily think that the lab is boring, or for him to get a bad impression of me. Time management isn't a problem, and I've been attending & contributing in all meetings and deadlines, etc.

IMO, if you are working on both projects voluntarily, you aren't required/don't need to tell either of them that you are working with the other. However, if you are paid by one of them, then you should tell them.

@onurcanbektas I'm not paid by either professor, I am volunteering in the sense that I'm not receiving transcript credit for the work if that makes sense.

again IMO, whether you get transcript credit is irrelevant in here; if you aren't paid a salary or something, you aren't required to tell any of them anything.

If you can handle both projects without compromising either, then there should be no issue. There, actually, shouldn't be a reason not to tell the other professor and they should support you as long as you haven't made a commitment to full time work on either project.
Taking on an additional project shouldn't give the impression that the earlier one is boring, just that  you want some additional experience.
On the other hand, if you are working satisfactorily with A, there is no real need to complicate things and talk about the other.
Think about the personalities of the two professors and choose. I don't see any ethical constraints either way, as long as you can do the required tasks.


text:
Article waiting for AE assignment for too long?
I have submitted two articles to a journal. One of them got accepted within 10 days, but the status for the other one has been "Awaiting AE assignment" for 15 days now. The journal says on average they take 30 days to make a decision on a paper. Should I contact the journal about the status and why it's not changing? Is it possible that they forgot my article? And would sending a reminder have a negative impact on the decision of the journal?
Thanks.

So if that’s the average and one was accepted in 10 days, how long should you now wait for the second?

well I'm not sure. the other one move from AE assignment to reviewer selection pretty fast, like in 5 days.

Given the times, waiting 15 days really doesn't seem like that much.

when would you suggest sending a follow-up email? @JonCuster

If you search on this site, you'll find people whose papers have been under review for more than a year. 15 days is nothing in academic time, especially with a global pandemic going on. I'd suggest to wait until at least their stated average time before you ask for an update.

I understand, but as my research was on COVID-19 I expected it to move forward faster.

Ah. Well you didn't say it was covid19 related. In that case, you may have some expectation of moving faster than normal. However you don't want to move too fast. There have already been a few covid19 retraction. https://retractionwatch.com/retracted-coronavirus-covid-19-papers/ an email asking about the status is probably okay

I downvoted this answer because by far the most time consuming step is the peer review itself, and "awaiting AE assignment" is a sign that review has not started yet. In this case 15 days is plenty of time to ask for a status update.

You can send a request for an update at any time. You may or may not learn anything. There could be many reasons for a delay, including not sending too many papers to one editor and needing to find another who is suitable.
But an average of 30 days tells you little about the distribution of actual times. There is no real reason to panic unless you have other options for the paper that seem equally good.


text:
How should I cite emended laws?
I'm writing a document in which I must cite several laws and other regulations, but I have a doubt about citations. I endend in the following situation several times:

There is law A, the main valid regulation about my subject
Law A has later been emended from law B, which either changed already existing informations (some numbers, a specification...) or introduced or removed other ones (provisions, definitions, competence to authorities...)

I would like to know:

When referring to an emended or a later introduced element, should I cite law A or law B?
Is there any difference about the "size" of the emendation? For example, should I behave the same if law B increased a fine from 2000 $ to 2200 $ or introduced a completely new supervisory authority?

I'm particularly intrested on EU/European conventions. References to authoritative sources would be much appreciated.

If you get fined, which amount do you have to pay? the old or the new?

It is just the first example I could invent, but in general I refer to the new amount (or definition/rule/authority/aything else).

So you have just answered your question.