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Legality of universities posting sections of books online

Something I have noticed in my courses over the years is that in addition to all the online distributions of textbooks (which I understand to be mostly illegal), I can often times find universities posting sections of books online, particularly just the exercises. Doesn't this violate the same copyright law?
Here are some examples of what I am referring to from books I have studied from in the past.
Do Carmo, Differential Geometry of Curves and Surfaces
Here is a solution manual to about half of Brown and Churchill's book in complex analysis (sections of the book itself can be found as well, and it may be worth noting that this is not the university the authors were associated with, I don't know).
There are other examples from other pretty well known texts in mathematics.
How is this legal for universities to do? Do they need to consult the publisher or something first?

Depends on the country. Laws differ around the world.

Important note: this looks like an individual academic posting it online using their university website, not USACH posting it (eg through a repository). The university may or may not know about this and may or may not have an opinion, but "they" aren't doing it.

The second link is not (any more?) what you say it is.

First of all, copyright infringement on this scale, which is not done for financial gain (in most common law countries) is not illegal but unlawful. The difference between these two things is that illegal behavior can lead to punishment, whereas unlawful behavior is simply not protected by law - if you are doing something lawful, you are protected from someone seeking redress. If someone seeks redress from you because you have distributed their copyright work, you cannot argue that your behavior was permitted by law.
With this in mind, it's not necessarily an important question whether or not your university is doing something which infringes copyright. In theory, everything is either lawful or unlawful, legal or illegal, with nothing in between. In practise, the only person who might reasonably be able to determine this is a judge (assisted by several lawyers). Partly because the time of judges and lawyers is costly, whole areas of human behavior exist in gray areas which are not in anyone's best interest to resolve one way or the other.
People break the law all the time. Some laws are never enforced, and some laws are unenforceable. Everyone is familiar with urban myths about various commonplace things such as Christmas pudding, or kissing on a Sunday being illegal in various jurisdictions, other practices such as outdoor nudity or urination being technically legal although they might be expected to lead to arrest, and yet further things such as weekly archery practice being required by law. Some of these stories are completely true, by the letter of the law. Large organizations such as Apple and Microsoft agree on wide-ranging 'patent swaps' rather than try to figure out who is infringing whom. Doubtless any organization as large as a university is constantly breaking some law or other, if you include building codes, employment regulations, health and environmental restrictions, tax codes, immigration requirements, etc. Probably lots of people are employed to do nothing except check that the university meets the regulations, but these people are constantly playing catch-up to new rules, as well as trying to make sure that the thousands of people working within the institution are obeying the internal policies which call for compliance to the law, rather than disregarding them (as they usually are).
Now, most academic publications are both written by academics and mainly bought by them, as well as by academic libraries. Academics are paid by universities to do research which includes the writing of books, and while lots of textbook publishers are corporations, some belong to universities, or work in joint ventures with universities. Thus publishers, authors, editors and readers of these books together with university organizations form a community. For publishers to spend their time trying to investigate instances of copyright infringement like the one you mentioned, would be the equivalent of you constantly remeasuring the borders of your backyard, trying to determine the exact boundary line ever more precisely, asking your neighbours to tear down fences and re-erect them a few inches over, and snipping the branches of plants which overlapped by a small amount. While your legal right, it would be very detrimental to the community, in this case the community of people who live in your neighbourhod, of which you are part. It would also be a huge waste of your time, for little or no benefit.
Far more important than legality is the question of ethical behavior. Unlike the law, one is not expected to attempt to conform as best one can, but to behave completely ethically, and make it clear that one is behaving ethically, at all times. The flip side of this is that you cannot behave unethically by accident, or without your own knowledge.
For a textbook publisher to reprint (say) a complete collection of one academic's papers which were published on her website, without notifying her or asking her approval, would be completely unethical, even if they were stated to be in the public domain. Similarly, it would be unethical for that academic to turn her university homepage into a site called 'FreeTextbookz' with a large collection of files and paid banner advertising. Many things which fall in between this are accepted by consensus of the community as being benign or trivial.

Your post is very good and your points are still valid, but I feel your examples with the crazy urban myth laws are a bit skewed. Most (if not all) of them are actually not a law, because they are overruled but other more important laws (lets say a state law, which is less important than federal law or even a constituional amendment). So people (legislation) is basically just too lazy to remove these laws from their books - But this doesn't mean it is still an active law. However, your points still holds as there are in fact many laws which we break at a regular basis.

A little off topic, but some jurisdictions do have laws under which certain types of copyright violation are a criminal offense, punishable by fines or imprisonment.  For instance, under US law (which I understand is generally considered to be based on common, rather than civil, law), we have 17 USC 506 and 18 USC 2319.  I think that would shift it from "unlawful" to "illegal" in your terminology.  But I am not a lawyer.

You are right @NateEldredge, editing.

In ordinary language usage copyright infringement (such as you describe) is illegal, specifically it is a civil tort, not a crime (except in the US when the infringement passes the $1000 threshold). In the Beck et al link, posting the book is not infringement since the would-be infringer and copyright holder are the same. In the case of the exercises that you linked, we (at least, I) cannot tell -- is the "host" the author, or does he have permission to post the exercises? This may not constitute infringement.
I do know (from having been violated, myself) that some faculty arrogate to themselves the right to claim the right to freely distribute other people's creations. The remedy in individual cases is for the copyright-holder to file a take-down request, but that requires specific knowledge of the infringement, and often, stolen books are only accessible from behind a pay wall. But also note that these items were not posted by the university, they were posted by people with an affiliation with the university. As such, the university deserves moral blame only if they have willfully tolerated copyright violations. For the most part, universities are diligent (albeit rather ineffective) at combating blatant copyright infringement, though many do play rather fast and loose with "course reserves" and the concept of fair use.

Note that even in cases where copyright infringement is a crime, it is not theft. There is no legal basis for describing a scan of a book posted on a website as 'stolen'.

That was a moral  judgment.


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How long should a professor stay?
When you accept a tenure-track position in the USA, how long are you expected to stay? Does it look bad if you change jobs a couple times after a few years at each university? Is there an unspoken standard?

Related, but not duplicate: The Etiquette of Leaving a Faculty Position

I'd expect many schools would start to look at this with disfavor, the more times you do it, the more the schools will dislike like. But, unless you are a real hotshot/rock star, getting the third and fourth offers on tenure-track as a nontenured professor will be harder than you might think.

This can be a little tricky.  There are two issues: what your obligations are to the university, and what could look bad on your CV and hurt future job searches.
Your legal obligations may vary depending on the country or the details of your contract, but my understanding of the U.S. social norms is the following:
Once you have accepted a job, you must show up for it.  (I.e., you will offend people if you try to change your mind and accept another job instead.)  You should stay for at least a year, except for health emergencies and the like, and preferably for a couple of years, since it looks bad if you apply for other jobs immediately upon arriving.  Beyond that, the department may be unhappy if you leave, but you won't be doing anything offensive.
On the other hand, you shouldn't make a habit of this.  When a department hires someone for a tenure-track job, they are looking for a long-term colleague.  It's still possible to get hired even if the department knows you are unlikely to stay long, but you have to be extra-brilliant to make up for this.  If you leave a couple of universities quickly, then it will look like a pattern, and everyone else will be less interested in hiring you than they might otherwise have been.
If you end up in this situation through bad luck, then the next time you apply for jobs you should try to explain what happened in a way that makes it clear why it is unlikely to happen again.

+1 Add a justification if you think that something might raise a red flag

I have known a few professors in my field who have become rather itinerant, bouncing from school to school every few years. Whether it's careerism or personality issues, I'm not sure. But they're also tenured faculty, rather than tenure-track.

I feel like 2 years (or less than ~4 years if I had to pick a number) would be offensive in academia... no?

Future employers might interpret your flightiness as your acknowledgement that you won't meet tenure requirements, thus leaving before it can be denied. Sooner than later they'll stop short listing you.

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Restrictions on use of a commercial database in publications
I am considering purchasing a commercial database of retail transactions for a certain industry and time period. My intent is to do basic summary statistics and regression analysis, and publish those results on an open platform (arXiv or SSRN) and ultimately submit this to a peer-reviewed journal. I don't want to publish any information that can identify individual companies in that database, let alone the entire data set.
The database vendor has a very restrictive license that mandates prior written consent of any publication based on their database.
Questions: does my intended use of such a database fall under a fair use policy, and do I really need to submit my draft publication for prior written consent? (I am located in the Netherlands, and the vendor is US-based and I have been in contact with their sales persons from Germany and Belgium).

I think that the specification of your jusdiction is insufficient. For example, Germany has special "copyright" laws about data bases: http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/urhg/BJNR012730965.html#BJNR012730965BJNG004301377 that are relevant for your question - and your jurisdiction may have one, too. As an example, the German law seems(!) to prohibit only substantial reproduction of the data base or reproductions that are against the interest of the database owner - so if the result of your analysis is basically what most people using the database would need, this may be a problem. But IANAL.

The EU is not a jurisdiction, and fair use is a concept that is mainly specific to the USA. You will need to be more specific about your actual jurisdiction to get a useful answer. But such a specific legal answer will likely be out of scope for this site. You need to talk to a lawyer.

One more piece of information that would be good to have here is what access you have to the database; or for what purpose you have been granted access. Are you supposed to do some specific work with the data, and now you want to also use the data for something else, namely an analysis for your research? Or have you been given access to the database in order to "use" the data in some way, as long as you do not duplicate the whole database? Or have you been granted permission only to look at the data without doing anything with it (although reasons for such a permission could be nebolous)?

@MJeffryes I was hoping to avoid lawyers as much as possible :)

@O.R.Mapper the database is widely advertised and commercially available. I don't have privileged access to a single company's internal data.

@TemplateRex: Ok, but for what purpose is it made available? What's the intention behind granting access? Answers to this question will likely be fundamentally different based upon whether availability comes with the note "Here you see the database exists, but you're not allowed to do anything with it." or with the note "Use the data for your own purposes, but do not open the whole database to outside access."

@O.R.Mapper the database is sold to companies to keep track of their own sales and market share vis-a-vis competitors. So it's more like your scenario "use for your own purposes" but with the clause "do not open up anything without our consent"

I'll second MJeffryes's suggestion that you need to talk with a lawyer.  Even if you have a legal right to do this (which may or may not be the case), you'll certainly get threatening letters from the company's lawyers and you might face a lawsuit, which would be disruptive even if you win.  Furthermore, predicting whether you'll win may depend on specifics that nobody could evaluate without all the details.  (For example, your use of the term "fair use" suggests this is a copyright issue, but violating the contract with the database vendor may be a problem quite independently of copyright.)

@AnonymousMathematician ok, I get it, although it's surprising to me that not more researchers have encountered such issues and discussed them here. Could someone with enough rep close this Q as off-topic, please?

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What to do if I only want to study master not PHD with a professor
I decided to study math after graduating from business department. I entered a 2-year taught program in the same university in Asia and used the time to take all the necessary courses. In the first year, I have studied elementary real analysis, complex analysis, abstract algebra and topology. This is the first term of my second year, I took differential geometry, Fourier analysis, graduate real analysis and functional analysis. My grade is OK and currently I am applying for a research program. My final goal is to go to a top program in US to study my PHD. Since I know it is very competitive, this year I decided to apply a research master only and apply PHD after I gained two-year research experience.
There is a tenured professor in my university whose research interest is nonlinear PDE focusing on fluid dynamics. I am very interested on his research topic and I have made an appointment with him to explore the possibility to do research under his supervision.  However, after chatting with one of his student today, I was told the professor usually only accepting student who is willing to continue studying PHD with him. I understand the reason. Since it's a pure math subject, in the first two year, student can only take the basic course, read the basic materials. It's almost impossible for a student to produce any good results after the master. He is very famous in the area so he has a lot of students to select. He don't want to waste the money and time to train a student for others.
On the other hand, I don't think my university is good enough and it's my dream to work and study with the best students in a top program. Since I will meet the professor in a few days, I want to make some preparation so that I can convince his to support me. I will finish all the necessary graduate courses after this year, which means it may safe me some time so that I can focus on research instead of coursework in the research program. But I still think it's impossible for me to produce the same result as a PHD student in 2 years. But since I am really interested in the area, I still want to have a try and talk with him. Currently I am planning to tell him the truth about my plan. Is there anything I can do to improve the chance of being admitted?

You say that the professor is a real authority in the area of your interest, but the university is not good enough. In my opinion, it is more important to do research in a good department / with a good adviser than to be at a "good" university.

@user3209815 I agree that for graduate study, supervisor is more important than the university or department. But there are several reasons I want to leave. First I say the professor is famous but only in this region, I am not sure whether he is famous in the area if including the people in US. Also the department is not strong in the worldwide (if I only look at those academic ranking, which I think can partially reflect the truth). The last reason is I don't feel quite comfortable living in the city. I think living two more years is OK, but I don't want to live 5 more years.

He has many candidates and limited time. Why would he choose you, that will leave next year, over any other that will remain? You have to ask yourself this question, and have very clear what can you offer in return that most of your peers don't. Maybe you are an expert (for a masters) in some related subfield? Or you have a lot of experience programming?

@Davidmh Yes, this is the question I am keeping asking myself. I think having taken all the necessary graduate courses (and get a grade) will give me some small advantages over other candidates. And I am not sure from the point of view of a professor, whether a student he supervised goes to a better program will bring him some benefits compared with a student who will stay? BTW, the master is a two-year program.

@JohnZHANG there you have one! You have the full year to work with him, while others would have coursework too. If he sees you with good chances of getting into the international scene, it may be beneficial for him too.

I would focus most of the meeting on the professor's research, and use that time to show that you would be able to jump into research right away.  Probably the best way to do that is to

Read the professor's papers beforehand and display a sincere interest in his work.
Have an elevator pitch prepared for each of your previous projects so you can talk about them intelligently and with enthusiasm.

If the meeting goes well he should start discussing potential projects with you, and you should be actively engaged in this discussion, and ask intelligent questions.
Near the end of the meeting, inform him of your plan to do a PhD elsewhere.  It's better to be rejected by this guy upfront than to be accepted under false pretenses.  In order to go to a strong university you will need his letter of reference, and he might write you a weak letter if you deceive him.  (If he's really a jerk he might write you a weak letter specifically so you have to stay with him.)
But it's important to discuss this issue after he already wants you, and is on the verge of making you an offer.  Otherwise he has no reason to even consider you.
(If he specifically asks about your future plans, you should be honest and unapologetic.  To many professors, being ambitious is a good thing, and shows you are higher quality than the students who come in wanting to stay.)

I see. Thanks for your advice. I will follow it right now.

No problem, good luck with everything!


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Why is demographic information asked during college applications?
I remember that at some point there was a quota system that colleges used to get the minimum number of certain demographics into their school. I remember that this was stopped.
Why is demographic information asked during college applications?
Are they using it solely for statistics, or does the choice have an impact on the chances of getting into the school for the student that is applying?

Statistics, I believe.

The extent of demographic information asked depends on country. Which country are you specific about, Dan?

The status of affirmative action varies considerably by location.

@ÉbeIsaac In the united states. BryanKrause has a good link.

In the United States, colleges are required to (try to) collect demographic information about their applicants and attendees, as a condition for various types of federal funding and aid.  The government uses this information to track the success of various underrepresented groups in higher education.  For the government, it is the aggregated information that is primarily important; individual students are not tracked.
However, in many cases, the schools themselves make use of the information for operating their own affirmative action programs as well.  Information about the racial and ethnic background of applicants may be used to target certain individuals, to try to draw a diverse student population to campus.  Moreover, when the new students arrive, the information can be used to connect the students to appropriate campus resources (minority student organizations, etc.).


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Using a template and no publishing
I would like to know if it is possible to "publish" in arXiv a preprint non-intended for publication with a journal template?
Example: make an article with AMS Article template (of JAMS) submitting it to arXiv and never submitting it to JAMS?

For all intents and purposes, I can see no way of distinguishing between a preprint that is not intended to be submitted and a preprint that just hasn't been submitted yet.  Thus, if a template is useful to you for formatting, by all means use it.
One caveat, however: some templates also include statements of copyright or material like a journal's logo that do not apply to a paper that has not yet been published.  Whether or not you intend to submit, I think it would be poor form to publish such things in a preprint to which they do not apply.


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Email of Appreciation in CV
I sent a proposal for public sector transformation to the Ministry of Economy  and received a reply from the Federal Minister, who highly appreciated my suggestions. I would like to know this: can I put "Email of Appreciation" by the Federal Minister of Economy in my CV?

I can't tell if you are being serious or a coyly humorist, and I venture that I am not the only one who questions your question ;)

"Thank you, I appreciate your suggestions" can mean anything from a true and deep appreciation to "I am politely throwing your work in the trash."
As such, I would strongly advise against including it in a CV, as it will essentially be meaningless padding.

I appreciate your answer.

As a general rule, a CV should tell about qualifications and accomplishments. Most people can show a piece of paper to guarantee the formal qualifications, a degree or similar, but it is much harder with informal qualifications or accomplishments which did not result in a visible product: Essentially you could be lying through your teeth! This is why you usually have letters of recommendation, to let other people verify your accomplishments and informal qualifications.
Ask yourself the following question: Does the letter do any of the above? Is it an accomplishment in itself to receive such a letter? Do the minister know the nature of your work? If yes, then you should describe how the letter is relevant to the CV, if no, leave it out.
Personally I highly doubt that it is relevant.


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Changes in major revision
Can I change statistical results (mistakes) a discussion section with new results in a major revision stage? I corrected all the comments of reviewers but I don't know what should i do in this case. Might this situation affect the editor negatively?

In addition to making changes according to the reviewers' comments, you may also make other corrections and changes that improve the quality of the paper. However, you should indicate to both the editors and the reviewers that you have made such changes, and explain why they have been made. Given that it's a major revision, the paper would go back to the reviewers anyway, so it makes sense to correct everything possible.
As a caveat, however, such corrections should not be made in an attempt to skirt around flaws raised by the reviewers. I recently reviewed a manuscript where there were several anomalies in the data, and I mentioned these in my review. The authors completely removed the offending data, and replaced them with new results that better "fit" their conclusions. Such behavior is not acceptable, as they did not explain why the previous results were wrong; they just replaced them.

A major revision can potentially involve quite a large magnitude of change.  As long as it remains essentially the same paper, you can add whatever makes sense to strengthen it and make it a better work than before.  You can also drop material if, for example, you discover a mistake or you decide that it is distracting. Dropping material is much rarer than adding material, however, except in the case when you are up against a length limit and you have to drop something to make room for new material.
The test that I would propose for determining how much is to much for a major is as follows:

If the changes might require different reviewers, it's probably too much.
If the subject of the main result changes, it's probably too much (though the main result might be substantially strengthened or weakened).

As @aeismail says, however, make sure that you explain all of your changes clearly in your response letter, so that the reviewers understand what you have done and why.


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X theorem or X's theorem
I am always stuck by the randomness of some syntax rules in academic articles, hence I cannot infer a proper answer to this question:

Is there a correct way to choose among "X theorem" and "X's theorem"?

I chose the word "theorem" for my concern comes from reading mathematics, but of course this questions stands for any reference to someone's work.

Probably, "X's theorem" is the most correct form, but sometimes -- I guess -- the possessive "'s" is dropped for reasons of euphony. Compare, for instance, Ohm's law and Taylor series.

I'd follow whatever is standard in the concrete case you're seeing. In my experience, the possessive form ('s) is typically used in English when you are talking of a result (e.g., a theorem, a law, a conjecture) as opposed to a mathematical object (e.g., a number sequence, a group, a function) or a whole subject (e.g., a theory) -- but there are exceptions (e.g., "Euler's number"). Also, the possessive form tends to be used only for single authors, because no one feels like saying "the Littlewood's and Richardson's rule".

@darijgrinberg: That would make a good answer.  Regarding multiple authors, I agree that using the possessive is much less common in that case, but I'm not sure why.  (One would write "Littlewood and Richardson's rule", which is no more complicated and awkward than "the Littlewood-Richardson rule", but nobody ever writes it that way.)

@AnonymousMathematician With the inconvenience that using the hyphen makes people believe that every hyphen joins two names: it took me years to realize that Lennard-Jones or Hanbury-Brown were not pairs of names but single people.

@MassimoOrtolano: Good point!  I can still remember thinking Birch, Swinnerton, and Dyer were three people.

I say either. For example, "by the Dini theorem..." or "by Fejér's theorem..."

I am not a first-language English speaker, but a rule of thumb I have heard from several people (in mathematics) is: use exactly one among possessive and article. So: We compute the solution using Newton's method, or We compute the solution using the Newton method.

"The Newton method" is not idiomatic in English.

It should be either "X's theorem" or "the X theorem," not just "X theorem". There is no single rule saying just one of those is always correct. Sometimes both are and sometimes just one is.
Eisenstein's criterion or the Eisenstein criterion, Mordell's conjecture or the Mordell conjecture, Chebotarev's density theorem or the Chebotarev density theorem are all standard English.  You can go either way.
What qualifies as correct English is what people who speak (native) English deem to be correct English. There is no way to apply logic to the matter. The answer to your question is that you should write whatever the common convention is, which you find out by reading and talking to people in the field. It could go both ways (see above) or only one way is standard and you should just use that. For example, it is standard to refer to "the Weil conjectures". Nobody these days talks or writes about "Weil's conjectures" for the set of conjecture he made about varieties over finite fields.


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What is too obvious to explain in a scientific paper?
Recently I had my paper reviewed for potential publishing. With no big surprise I need to make some adjustments to my paper. One of the criticisms was that my work lacks "textbook explanations" (e.g. what is BETA, alpha).
To further clarify, this is the first ever work I ever plan to get published  (academic context is finance). But I am surprised I should be required to explain basic concepts.
Would you have any recommendations as to what is the best way to incorporate these explanations in a work (e.g. footnotes) and what should be explained (of this really basic stuff/how to identify it) and what not?

a VERY concise resume of basic concepts is generally present before going further on.

First of all, you should define all the symbols that you use.

What is beta? Could be anything. It is a good practice to give the reader at least a hook at which they can read up things in detail in the literature.

Ironically, when I read "alpha" and "beta", I though A/B testing, not symbolic notation.

It's easy for students who spend a long time focusing on a single problem to think that something is obvious to you is obvious to everyone else.  It's often not to someone who doesn't work on this things.  See http://academia.stackexchange.com/a/66329/19607 for some thoughts along these lines, though your situation is different.

I find it very odd that you were asked to explain what alpha and beta are in a finance paper. For those who don't know any finance, this is at least as bad as being asked to define alpha and beta radiation in physics.

Even if, today, the meaning of alpha and beta may be self-explanatory, how do you know if this will still be obvious for someone reading your paper in 100 years?

Doing an unscientific survey of finance papers, I find that most define beta briefly in words or with an equation.  For example, http://repub.eur.nl/pub/10460/ERS-2007-044-F&A.pdf defines beta in words on the first page.  Most papers though write out a linear equation for excess returns to define alpha and beta.

Symbolic notation must always be defined in a paper.  The reason is that there are not that many symbols and lots of things they can be used to represent.  Thus, even if every class you ever took used v to represent voltage, other people are using it to represent velocity, vertices, values, etc.  See, for example, this far-from-complete Wikipedia list of how Greek letters are used.
At a minimum, each symbol should be defined the first time that it is used.  It is also helpful to your readers to provide a table of important symbols and to refresh their memory on definitions of critical symbols from time to time.  This can often be done quite simply and efficiently within the sentence where the symbol is used, e.g.:

we consider a particle traveling at velocity v through a magnetic field of strength B(x), where x is the position of the particle in space.

This is the question, but it is important to really stretch: That wikipedia article is far-from-complete, because it has about 5% of possible uses of the letter, not because it lack a couple!

Uh... no. Yes, people may use $V$ to represent voltage in physics or a vertex set in graph theory, but if a paper says "let $G=(V, E)$ denote a graph", then anyone with passing familiarity with graph theory knows what $V$ is, especially if this appears in The Journal of Graph Obfuscation. Same if a statistical paper uses $\beta$ or $p$. I shudder to think how papers would read that "always" defined their notation.

@StephanKolassa Actually, I would consider "let $G=(V, E)$ denote a graph" to be a reasonable definition, though "let $G=(V, E)$ denote a graph of vertices $V$ and edges $E$" is better and little less compact.

AFAIK, CS conferences often have page limits. Someone submitting to a journal or conference on graph theory that has page limits could quite reasonably be very compact indeed.

@StephanKolassa No argument there, which is why I sometimes end up eliminating my table of important symbols from the final version of papers.  But the difference between your original (which I also felt was reasonable) and my preferred extended version is a mere 6 words.  My key point is that embedding definitions is valuable and often much simpler and more compact than people believe.

I would certainly agree with you if you had written that "embedding definitions is valuable and often much simpler and more compact than people believe". But the first sentence in your answer reads "Symbolic notation must always be defined in a paper", and that is something different. I publish in psychology, and every single paper contains symbols $t$, $F$ and $p$ without explanations, because what these mean is drilled into a psychologist very early and very deeply. No, these should not be defined in a paper.

@StephanKolassa You're talking about the values from statistical tests, right?  Those aren't quite as monolithic as you seem to think.  There are multiple ways of computing those statistics, each with its different applications and cautions: $t$ from a one-sample t-test is not necessarily the same as $t$ from a two-sample t-test.  Thus, I still think those should be explicitly stated, e.g., "For this experiment, a one-sample t-test finds $t = 0.4$" and not just "For this experiment $t = 0.4$." Doing otherwise invites sloppiness and error.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

Probably also worth adding that conventional use of symbols can change with time. Will someone reading your article in 20 years have the same conventions, especially if you're working with theories that are still being developed and standardized?

A rule of thumb is: The article (including its references) should be self contained. Of course "self contained" is pretty hard to pin down exactly but as an example: If you use some β, then either define it or (at minimal) write something like "we follow the notation of X" with some standard book X. Also note that this usually does not cost you too much space because either something is very simple to define (e.g. writing the "c is the speed of light" is enough) or there is a good reference.
Another rule is that if the notion is uniquely defined in your field and taught to every undergraduate than you don't need to define it. From above: c can be something different from the speed of light, even within Physics, but a continuous function does always mean the same thing (once the topologies are fixed which should be from the context) as also "electric field" always means the same.

notion  that was taught to every undergraduate 100 years ago may not be in use anymore, likewise we don't know what will be in use in a 100 years time.

@Ian True. But I am not sure if one should plan with a time scale of 100 years in mind when writing scientific texts. If you look at 100 year old papers today you realize that you can read them with some effort (depending a lot on the specific paper) but in general you need quite some historic background to go 100 years back in science. I am pretty sure, that this will be the same in 100 years from now.

What is too obvious to explain in a scientific paper?

It all depends on your audience.
In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, p. 20, Kuhn laments how scientists pick up where textbooks leave off and specialize their writing into "brief articles addressed only to professional colleagues," those "whose knowledge of a shared paradigm can be assumed, and who prove to be the only ones able to read the papers addressed to them."
In general, it is better to broaden one's audience by simple explanations and definitions that do not individually require significant expansion of the paper length (including by citation to longer explanations that would significantly lengthen things), than to limit oneself to a smaller audience whose actual knowledge matches your assumptions.
Here, you're getting clear feedback from the editor/reviewers about things that need to be clarified, so definitely do those things.  The editor knows your audience better than you do, and the request is quite reasonable (even much more light than requests for changes often are).
Symbols should almost always be defined, and acronyms should be spelled out on first use, even if well known.  This can be done within a sentence (e.g. ", where c is the speed of light in a vacuum") or parenthetical (e.g. "the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)").
For other terms with specific meanings, it is helpful to define those specific meanings, to make it clear in your paper and help readers distinguish your specific meaning from all the other misuses of the term they've heard.  Where specific definitions vary (and they do, a lot more often than you'd expect), it's helpful to cite a source for that definition just as you'd cite a source for any other fact you've included from the literature.

The other answers here address some general principles in useful ways. My thought in answer to your question is "it depends". You need to think about your prospective audience and what you expect your typical (perhaps casual) reader to know.
It might help to look at other papers in the journal you're submitting to, to see what authors do there. Match their style and level of exposition.
Finally, thank your editor and reviewers for their help, and do what they ask.


text:
Should I contact the university? I will be in the area?
I am wondering if It is appropriate to contact the university and let them know that I will be in the area if by chance I am under consideration.  We are moving back to our home state and my husband will be taking a tuck load there.  I can join him or not.  They stated that they would begin looking at applications on June 16th.  Thanks.

I suppose it's in the US ?

I take, you have applied to a position at said university? I would not propose that you contact them. They are making a decision on the applications, not bechause you are in the vicinity. It could sound a bit to clingy for them and result in a rejection.

you should maybe wait to see if you're invited to an interview (phone or so) and then say that you might be not so far from it.

@HATEthePLOT Can you please turn your comment into an answer so that I can vote it up?

I take, you have applied to a position at said university? I would not propose that you contact them. They are making a decision on the applications, not bechause you are in the vicinity. It could sound a bit to clingy for them and result in a rejection.

While for large R1 type universities this is correct, smaller less desirable schools often make choices based on availability and if applicants seem "clingy".

If there is anyone in the department you applied to that you know personally or have sufficient shared research interests with that you think they might be inclined to support your application, I don't think that it would be inappropriate for you to contact them and let them know that you have applied for the faculty position and you would be nearby and available to drop by for a visit one day if they would like you to. I see this as highly unlikely to have a negative effect on your chances, and somewhat more likely (though still not especially likely) that something good could actually come of it.
Note that this recommendation pertains to contacting someone you know, or at least have some small affiliation with through shared research interests, shared acquaintances, coauthors etc. By contrast, sending a generic "look at me" email in connection with a faculty position application to a department chair you have no such connection to is in my opinion inappropriate, annoying, and may very well be counterproductive. Good luck!


text:
Should I change my Ph.D. department to better reflect the nature of my project?
I am in the first year of my Ph.D. program and, if everything goes well, in the end I will get my Ph.D. in Civil Engineering.
The problem is that my project, beside finding application to building materials, is way more related to other disciplines, like Physics. In fact, my second supervisor is in the Physics department and physics is also my background. I think that obtaining a Ph.D. in Physics or Materials Science would tell more about the type of research I am doing.
So my question is, do you think it is possible to keep my project, working in the same departments with the same supervisors, but changing the field in which I will graduate? Or is it the type of research that counts at the end of the day?

This question needs to be answered locally, not here. What do your professors and your institution have to say about it?

The answer to the "Should I" part depends on what job you want to get after finishing your PhD.

While we cannot tell you the regulations of your institution on changing departments, I would like to suggest that it's likely to be not worth the bother.
Every department covers a complex network of subjects, and so having a degree that says "Physics" will not really be any more informative than one that says "Civil Engineering." It's also not at all unusual for a Ph.D. to be something that might be reasonably categorized under multiple departments---in fact, it is quite common for research to be interdisciplinary, and especially for the "home field" of a method to be different than the "home field" of an application area. Finally, departments and degree names are not particularly consistent in their names and interpretations from institution to institution.
As such, people will in general pay attention to the content of your research much more than the particulars of your department.
If you actually find some major impediment to continuing in your current department, that is a different matter, but it doesn't sound like that is currently the case---particularly so early in your time as a graduate student.
In short: don't worry about categorization, worry about executing your project.

"As such, people will in general pay attention to the content of your research much more than the particulars of your department."  But for many jobs, you "must have a PhD in _____"

@AnonymousPhysicist And those jobs already have to deal with ambiguities in departments (e.g., are "Statistics", "Applied Mathematics", "Mathematics", and "Mathematics and Computing" equivalent?).  Most will be flexible enough to deal with interdisciplinary research---or else you have bigger problems to deal with for the institution in any case.

As a researcher, you can generally get funded for the same research while in different depts (in grants or as a postdoc etc.). But there are definitely plenty of differences in other aspects of the job to consider. In terms of detailed requirements for graduating there may be a big effect. An engineering dept will want your thesis results to be novel for engineering, while they may not be particularly novel physics, and vice versa. For a faculty job, a civil engineer will have a harder time convincing a physics dept they can teach the needed courses. Etc.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Student sleeps in the class during the lecture
I'm a grad student and a lecturer of a section of a first year undergrad math course. This is my third year involved in teaching and this is first time something like this happened.
Last week, a student sitting in the front row fell asleep during my teaching. He breathed very heavily and was very distracting. I wasn't sure how to act and I didn't want to embarrass/scold him in front of everyone. Some other students noticed it, and I quietly, without others hearing it, asked a student behind to push him. He woke up and we continued like nothing happened.
Today it happened again and I got stressed and lost the flow of the argument during my teaching and got angry. But I kept my composure and "accidentally" touched him with the paper sheets as I passed by and he woke up.
I haven't talked with him about it, and I might ask a course chair for advice. But I feel very disrespected. Only tangentially related, but I'm not that boring, I get 90% very good anonymous feedback/review at the end of every semester.
After the class I mentioned it to two of his friends/classmates, as they also noticed it, and one of them giggled and said that he will tell him to sit in the back next time (this is not what I want though).
What is a good course of action? This is the US, and I'm a foreigner and if I act the way it is normal in my country, here it might be considered overly inappropriate and I don't want unnecessary tension.
UPD:
I like cag51 answer and will follow it in practice. Thank you all, but honestly, some of your reactions were hostile. I come from another culture and a notion of respect is very culture-dependent and don't always have a pragmatic rationale. And one of my problems was that it disturbed the lecture flow which affects subsequently other students experience. I came with a good will.
I don't assume any disrespect anymore, but the noise may still be disturbing so I will talk to him as gentle as possible about the noise. Also I will suggest him, in the case of personal troubles causing it, the help options provided by school.
UPD2:
Please don't respond explaining why sleeping is respectful or disrespectful. Respect is a social construct which depends on the culture but it seems you're assuming your culture to be universal. Since I live in the western world, I don't have a problem of following western social constructs.

Is attendence to classes mandatory in your setting or are students free to chose whether they attend?

This is the classic fallacy of humans to attribute other peoples actions to character flaws - you see a sleeping student and jump to the conclusion 'he sleeps because he disrespects me'. Statistically, it is much more likely to be attributed not to a very disrespectful character but to circumstances - he might be in the process of breaking up with a girlfriend, overwhelmed with studying until late into the night, sliding into a depressive episode, have a roommate that makes getting enough sleep hard. It's possible that he is disrespecting you, but that is not the most likely scenario.

Personally I don't get why you would ask such a question here. Surely the best course of action is to ask this question to your employer or other colleagues.

"...said that he will tell him to sit in the back next time (this is not what I want though)" Can you clarify why you don't want this, and what instead is your desired outcome?

The other people have added excellent reasons why someone might be regularly falling asleep. I can also add that several physical conditions can cause it, even for people who do not have caring responsibilities, etc.

When you present to senior colleages at the depatment or faculty seminar, they may also fall asleep. Also when visiting other universities on invitation to present. They do not disrespect you. They just get sleepy, even when coffee was provided before the seminar and even when they are interested in the topic. It just happens. Don't feel offended, it is not worth it.

@VladimirFГероямслава one of the committee members on my PhD defence not only fell asleep during my presentation, he snored. Even my family, sitting several rows behind, noticed.

Probably apocryphal story:  A student fell asleep and the professor yells to the guy next to the sleeper "Hey, wake up your friend".  The student responds, "No way.  You wake him up.  It was you who put him to sleep!"

I had a friend who worked night time job and could not help but to fall asleep in a class. He was a great person and studied well.

I was a decent student who cared about my classes, but I'm pretty sure I dozed off occasionally. Students work, they cram, they play games all night, etc.

"if I act the way it is normal in my country, here it might be considered overly inappropriate", what would you do in your country that would count as inappropriate in the US?

@quarague if it was my choice, then I would have made it non-mandatory. But there are quizzes that are set by course policy.

@Ivo I assumed that we are all colleagues in academia and needed a second opinion. It wasn't a rant.

@user2390246 I mean if he sleeps loudly in the back of the class, then it would be harder for me to reach unnoticeably and wake him up

@Torque "You see a sleeping student and jump to the conclusion 'he sleeps because he disrespects me'"- I don't think it's necessary to jump to any conclusion. Sleeping is an inherently disrespectful action. Now, if OP had said "this student does not respect me," that would be a conclusion that could either be true or false. But the statement that "this student behaved disrespectfully" is not really debatable. For example, imagine a code of conduct or student handbook that listed examples of disrespectful behavior. It would be reasonable to include sleeping in class in that list.

Are you from East Asia (China, Korea, Japan)? In the US, this is almost certainly not a deliberate act of disrespect towards the teacher and more likely just a very tired student who couldn't help falling asleep.

@user182601 I'm from East Europe.

@user1172763 "Sleeping is an inherently disrespectful action" ??? citation needed

@user1172763 this is moving more towards being chat; you are falling for the same fallacy I described. You don't know why the student fell asleep, for all you know, it could be a neurological issue. You are just jumping to the conclusion that the only reason it possibly could happen is because he has no respect for the teacher, which simply isn't true, and with the student choosing front row imo isn't even the most probable case (most probable being 'not enough sleep due to studying/working to afford classes'). Hanlons razor comes to mind.

@AaronF One widely-listed synonym for "disrespectful" is "impolite" i.e. "not polite." It shouldn't be controversial to say that sleeping in class is not polite. It's just a matter of knowing what "disrespectful" actually means. Another definition I found was "showing a lack of respect or courtesy." There's a reason they included "or courtesy" in there.

I feel very disrespected

Don't be. It sounds like when you wake him up, he tries to remain awake and pretend like nothing happened. So, I don't think he is intentionally falling asleep as a signal of disapproval. Rather, my guess is that he was up late and then your classroom is warm and you are lecturing and his eyelids feel heavy and next thing he knows he's waking up and wondering whether anyone noticed. Been there.
Also, don't discount the possibility that he is tired because he is working full-time while going to school, or caring for an elderly relative, or taking too many classes, or something else along those lines. Even if he is just staying up late partying, it's still admirable that he tries to attend your class rather than just skipping.

After the class I mentioned to two of his friends/classmates about this

I am not sure what context this was in, but in general it makes me a little nervous. Gossiping about the student with the student's friends is rarely appropriate.

I might ask for a course chair for advice...What is a good course of action?

If the student's sleeping is disruptive, you should gently take action. For example, gently ask the student to sit in the back.
After you've eliminated any disruption, you have wide latitude on how to handle this. Asking your course chair for advice is a very good idea. Doing nothing is a perfectly fine choice. If you want to have a gentle conversation with the student, fine, but tread lightly. I strongly recommend against showing anger or otherwise being harsh with the student; that does not seem to be called for here.

"I don't think he is intentionally falling asleep as a signal of disapproval. " So much this. I've fallen asleep during perfectly fine lectures, despite sitting there fidgeting desperately trying to keep awake because life got in the way  (absolutely no parties and/or drinking involved). What really helped were lecturers who at the half way mark, had a short break, encouraged everyone to get up and opened the windows.

@Marianne013 I've seen senior staff fall asleep in colloquia (in one case, the current and 2 former heads of department, but I couldn't have called that talk "perfectly fine").  As you hint, warm air doesn't help, neither does a high level of CO₂ from everyone breathing.

What @Marianne013 commented is really probably the most important action the lecturer can take: make sure to have breaks and do whatever they can to keep the room aired out and not too warm (not too cold either, of course). That will benefit not only the one student who falls asleep, but also all the other students who manage to stay awake, but don’t take in very much because the heat and lack of oxygen is making them drowsy.

If a lack of respect were the cause of his sleeping in your class, I don’t see why he would bother to attend at all. I imagine he has available to him  more comfortable options for napping.

Going to someone's class just to disrespect them by sleeping would take quite some power of will and dedication. I'd be impressed

When I was in graduate school, we had visiting professors give talks about their work. These lectures were usually after lunch, the lights were dimmed and the lecture included a slide show, the seats were comfortable ... zzzz. Many of the students, including me, would fall asleep. No disrespect was intended, and the lecturer either didn't notice or pretended not to.

@PaulTanenbaum My initial thought wasn't that lack of respect was the cause of sleeping, but sleeping was the cause of disrespect. I don't think that anymore though as I've updated it in my question above.

@anonym just to give you another example, in case it helps to hear from the student's perspective: I have unintentionally fallen asleep in lectures I was really interested in! I had issues with uncontrollable sleepiness as an undergrad. I sometimes tried to force myself to stay awake by sitting in the front row - it didn't help. I have fallen asleep during 1-1 conversations.

If you talk to the student you could ask if there's any accommodations that would help them stay awake - for example is there somewhere they can sit where they can stand and move around a little if that would help them?

Many teachers know the risk of giving classes after lunch time. You should suddenly raise your voice for no reason.. except that then, the students have then more blood in the stomach than in the brain :)

One can be disrespectful unintentionally or simply by not caring. Regardless of how OP interprets the student's intentions, the student is being disruptive and careless. Showing respect in class requires some level of active attention, and its OK to gently remind the students of this

@Wastrel That's an advice I've heard several times, but that many lecturers don't seem to know about: if you want your audience to be awake and in the best disposition to understand you, keep the windows open and the lights on, even if you have slides! Slides are no excuse to put everyone to sleep!

@Stef I agree with that. Unfortunately, though, in modern buildings the windows can't be opened. But there's no reason to dim the lights for a slideshow, the screen should be bright enough.

I feel very disrespected

I will give you two perspectives to maybe change your mind
The Course I was Waiting For The Whole Year
When I was in my 4th year of physics, a lecturer was about to give THE course I was waiting for. I was extremely interested in the topic (that would lead to my PhD later) and could not wait for the class to start.
In the first minutes I felt extremely tired and actually fell asleep. I woke up when the course was done. I was beyond desperation. I had no idea why I slept - I think this was paradoxally the stress and the anticipation.
A few years later I went to the prof (who became a friend) and told him about that. he told me he saw me and was rather surprised because he knew how interested I was.
Where I Realize That My Friend Has Narcolepsy
A friend of mine suddenly fell asleep during a course, several times. It was rather funny because she would wake up when some words were pronounced by the prof (and only these).
She told me she has narcolepsy and since she was a very good friend, we of course experimented with other friends on her when she was asleep checking which guitar chords would wake her up. She ended up publishing a paper on that :)

This was my first thought as well. A number of sleep-related medical conditions can cause these sorts of symptoms, and many can be exacerbated by (e.g.) early morning classes.  The student may not even be aware that such conditions even exist. If this becomes a pattern, it might be kind to gently suggest (in private) that the student asks a doctor about it. If it really is a medical issue, hopefully it can be treated before they sleep through something critical like an exam.

@bta in the case of my friend it was not treatable (at least easily - the side effects were not good). She has to live with that (and cannot work in dangerous conditions or drive). At least in her case she falls asleep like a "normal" person would do when being really tired, without danger to herself (it's not like she falls on the ground - rather she falls asleep and lays her head down). It's annoying like hell because she tends to have these bursts when she gets excited (she intermittently slept through a party I was throwing and was not happy at all but it ultimately ended very well for her

Depending on their financial situation, many students have to work besides taking classes, which might be resulting in them not gettin enough sleep. Other issues can make their life stressfull as well. With young people being young people, excessive partying might equally be a possibility.
I am pretty sure the student does not come to class to sleep and likewise, he is probably not falling asleep because of your teaching, but because he is tired when coming to class and has a hard time staying awake, no matter the content.
Instead of taking things personally, you could try talking to the student alone after class, along the lines of, "I don't want to embarras you, but you have fallen asleep in my class several times now - is everything ok?" Like this, you make him (and him alone) aware that you have noticed without assuming malice or bad behavior from the student.

that sounds like a good question for an email, thanks

@anonym I believe it would be much better to ask him in person

@WoJ it depends on a person. For example, I prefer to communicate sensitive topics via email with outside of my closely trusted group, so that I have more time to think how to respond. Others would want to speak in person to follow better non-verbal aspect of a communication.

@anonym yes of course it depends on the person, but having a direct interaction for such a personal thing would be, again in my opinion (and my culture (French), something to take into account as well), better conveyed in person so that it does not sound bureaucratic and formal.

Alternative Perspective:
As an undergraduate engineering student, I found that I didn't learn in the same way as other students. Somehow, I was(am) wired differently. (Neurodivergent?) That is, I didn't learn very well if I sat and looked at the instruction and took notes.
My grades improved when I found a method that worked for me:

Two days before class, I would skim the text.
The day before class, I would read the text attentively.
On the day of class, I would sit in the front row, and sleep the entire lecture with my head in the pages of the text, on the content to be covered.
The day after class, I would take detailed notes from the text.

So that was the most effective way for me to learn. Once I figured this out, I did it for every class in every course. Other students asked "why not sleep at home?" I would respond that while I am sleeping, some part of me listens to the instruction. And this sleep-listening was much more effective for me then awake-listening. (I would jerk awake if I sleep-heard the word "midterm")
So this university student:

Pays tuition to attend your class
Shows up for class

Perhaps they are like me, and they need to learn in a different way. I suggest having an open mind and letting them do what works for them.
I always sat/slept in the front center of the class, as close as possible to the instructor. However, I didn't snore loudly, and made sure not to disrupt class. If they are loud, or are actually disrupting the class, I suggest asking them to sleep off to the side.

Yes, some of my instructors would joke with me about it. Yes, these were large sized lecture classes. I was in the US.

+1 - have taught someone who learned like this - they absorbed information like a sponge while in a zen doze but really struggled if forced awake. After they demonstrated a reliable ability to ace review questions mostly left them to it. Whatever learning was going on did however stop if they went fully to sleep to the point of snoring, so at their request would poke them awake if that happened.

@GremlinWranger That's awesome. I'm not alone!

The subconscious captures. it can be put to use.

Many mentioned that: Maybe they work night shifts to fund their studies?
As long as they are not antagonistic, it's their responsibility to decide how to use their time. They pay the fees, if they do not take advantage of the service they pay for, it's on them. At least they have the intention to come to your lecture (I assume it is not compulsory to attend, which would be, anyway, a dumb rule at academic level).
So clearly, they want to be in the lecture. A prof I know regularly fell asleep in the department seminars. At question time, he woke up. After many show-off irrelevant questions, he would be usually the one to ask the one that hit the nail on the head. Who knows, maybe the student has a half-conscious way of absorbing information?
Now, if the student sleeping is disruptive via their breathing, then the solution of going into the back rows is a practical one. Or your "accidental" awakening of the student. Perfectly reasonable.
But, other than that, it's the student's own responsibility to stay awake. Students leaving your lecture is worse - and that happens, too, is ultimatively more disruptive and disconcerting - but maybe they have a shift, a parallel session, an emergency, or some other good reason to leave. It is a good idea to take anything that is below the threshold of intentionally and antagonistically disruptive on the chin.
A little tolerance goes a long way.

When my father taught Spanish literature in Brooklyn College at night, he would lower his voice if there was a sleeping student, so as to not deprive him/her of sleep!

"Who knows, maybe the student has a half-conscious way of absorbing information?"  This was me, my answer is posted here too!

@PhilFreedenberg That's a nice prof, I like that.

@AstorFlorida And that's why I believe in tolerance!

I agree that it is annoying and can cause you to lose your line of thought. It has happened to me a few times before, and you cannot "internally, in your mind" ignore it!
My usual approach, though, is to disregard it! Students occasionally work late shifts and are just exhausted. Once, when a student yawned loudly, I just remarked, "Amen to that!" in a lighthearted attempt not to make things awkward.
When I saw a student sleeping for the first time, I was upset but did nothing. After that, I looked at the student's grades, and he was doing really well! I therefore reasoned that perhaps he is simply exhausted and it is a work (or) athletic exhaustion issue.
I comment here from the same foreigner in the US prospective.

Disregarding it is a fine option, and the fact that @User1000234 recognizes it as an option is key. An analogous recognition is also available: describing it as “annoying” suggests that the annoyance is assumed to be intrinsic to the student’s behavior; instead, remind oneself that X is annoying is very different from I become [or permit myself to be or, more empowering yet, make myself] annoyed at X. Each of us owns, and even creates, their own attitudes. Our attitudes aren’t caused by others’ actions, but invented by us in response to those actions.

Many people have said he is likely not doing it on purpose, but it is also worth mentioning how you can help. Some of the best professors I've ever had took time to mention that they understood we had a lot going on, and if we needed to stand up to stay awake, they understood.  There were a couple of classes where I could not stay awake if I didn't stand up a couple times during the hour.
When I was a grad student and taught a class, I made to make sure to mention that on the first day of class. It was an early 8am class, I always had a couple students who would just stand up on the side or back of the classroom for a couple of minutes, then sit back down. It wasn't a disturbance and I actually felt better knowing they were trying to pay attention.

He might have sleep apnea; be mindful.

@Buzz The only question in OP is "What is a good course of action?". I'd argue "Be mindful (for reason X)." does provide an answer to that question. But I agree it is not a very good answer because it should elaborate more (like Llamageddon's answer) and/or try to address more points from the OP.

Apologies if I misspoke; I also have SA and it's not particularly pleasant being 'awoken' from sleep (which was where my 'be mindful' stemmed from), and I hadn't seen Llamageddon's post at that point.

You might want to announce to the whole class that if they are feeling tired that it is ok to stand up and move to the side/back of the room and remain standing until a break. It is very hard for most people to sleep while standing and better to hear the content than miss it entirely.

An announcement to the whole class is likely to be perceived by everyone in the class as a public shaming of this student, specifically. I don't think that's the intent of your answer, but it's a likely result, so I'd be careful about this course of action if it's not the intent.

Possible reasons for the student being excessively tired (not exhaustively)

Sleeping problems

Either for no particular reason at all (sometimes happens)
Or due to mental health problems
Or due to physical reasons, like sleep apnea

Stress or working late because of other courses
Stress from life (sickness or death of family member, having to move)
Went out to party last night
Having to work to support himself

Falling asleep rarely means the lecture is boring. Only point 4. is arguably disrespectful. If it keeps happening you could even consider asking what's up, the student could be struggling with any of the above.

Talk to the student about sleep apnea, and recommend him to get a sleep study. He sounds word-for-word like me back in school, and difficulty staying awake is a hallmark symptom of Sleep Apnea(and Sleep Disordered Breathing in general)
Loud/irregular breathing during sleep happens when the airway collapses, causing its tissues to vibrate, which is also the direct mechanism of how sleep apnea happens. He needs a sleep study, and to treat it, before it ruins his life.
Also consider things like medication that can make people sleepy, antihistamines a good example, but could be any medication.

I wouldn't recommend instructors try to diagnose their students with medical conditions, that seems quite inappropriate to me.

@BryanKrause I agree that instructors (and other unqualified people) shouldn't diagnose medical conditions, but I think it's quite reasonable for us (unqualified folks) to suggest possibilities that should be checked. A sleep study, recommended twice in this answer, is the usual way to check for sleep apnea. I think OP should consult a doctor and mention sleep apnea as something  to be considered (if the doctor doesn't mention it unprompted). (Full disclosure: I have sleep apnea and have benefited greatly from treatment.)

Try to open a window. Lack of oxygen is a very common cause of sleepiness, and stuffy rooms with many people often have low oxygen levels. Cracking a window open might conceivably be enough to fix the issue.
I remember a conference a few years ago. I was attending a talk in the afternoon, after a full day. It was in a medium sized room, which was packed, and I found it very hard to stay awake. What's worse, this was a talk on a subject I found fascinating. The speaker was doing a great job presenting it and I was really, honestly interested and absolutely wanted to follow. I still kept almost nodding off.
So apart from all the other absolutely valid possible reasons in other answers, it could also just be that the room's too stuffy. So try opening a window next time (assuming the weather and your building's heating allows it, freezing is also not conducive to learning) and see if that might solve the problem.

Perhaps you could wake them up without really disturbing them. You would need to know what situation they are in. I would talk to them after class and ask them what they are going through. Maybe someone died; maybe they are going through a break up; perhaps they are working around the clock and have no time to sleep. I would find out and find a better way to educate them. They are there for a reason. I would want to know why they are there.

How dare they fall asleep on me.

That’s a silly way to think about it.
I would want to know the situation. Ask and you shall receive.

Just ask the class (or just that student if you want to embarrass him) not to sleep.
I routinely slept in my courses (That's what they are for, after all  :).  Then one year I had a professor with a 'no sleeping' rule.  (It is understandable to feel offended if someone is sleeping while you talk.)  So I didn't sleep.
(I nodded off sometimes, and when that happened, the professor called me out on it.  "Hey sleepyhead, wake up!  No sleeping!"  Or something to that effect.)
If he keeps sleeping, after you told him that's not allowed, you fail him under the 'class participation' clause.  Your class, your rules.

I think it is not kind to tell off someone publicly for non-disruptive behaviour at academic level (and sleeping is one of these). If there are noises involved, it's a different story, but it's quite different handling from someone who talks into their phone during lecture.

It's not kind, but neither is sleeping in class.  It worked out, and made for some fun banter.  Y'all are criticizing something you've never tried or seen.

Why all the downvotes?  Its a common sense solution - just ask them.

What do you mean by "ask them"? Your suggestion is to (slightly) ridicule them, not ask them. I am certainly not in favour of the "snowflake" strategy to protect people from consequences of misdeeds at any cost, but I do not see why sleeping should incur ridicule. There are many reasons why people fall asleep. Maybe my opinion is coloured by Japan: even with their work ethic, someone falling  asleep is respected.

As funny as a "no sleeping" rule is, I think there is generally an implied no sleeping rule anyway. I doubt most students falling asleep in lectures are doing it deliberately.

Why is it funny?  You're clearly communicating your expectation.  Besides, most of the comments above seem to disagree.  They imply its normal, that an instructor shouldn't be bothered, and generally should be tolerated.

You actually studied in a place where a professor felt they had to have an explicit "no sleeping" rule? That feels as useful as having a "wearing clothes in class is obligatory" rule. Sure, any of us might doze off by accident, but surely everyone knows this is not OK and should be avoided.

"surely everyone knows" - but the question is what to do if someone doesn't know

I don't think the student believes it is OK to sleep. I mean, nobody in their right mind could actually believe it is OK to sleep during a lecture, and if they do, then we have a far, far more serious problem anyway. This is something that can indeed happen to anyone, but I really doubt anyone would do it believing it is not a problem.

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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Applying to academia and industry at the same time issue
I will apply to both industry and academia while graduating with a PhD in math, but I'd prefer the industry.
The deadline to commit for the academia position is very early (end of Winter?). But one can apply for jobs in industry much later after that deadline, until graduating, which is until May-August.
There is this weird situation, where one can get an acceptance from academia, but decline it and later not getting any job in industry at all, and then it is late to pick up back the declined position from academia. On the other hand, accepting the position in academia, then getting job from industry and telling that "I changed my mind" must be highly unethical (and uncommon?).
These worries are partially based on the personal stories that currently international math grad student have much more chances to get a position in academia, then to get an industry job (any math related). Supposedly, the job market still didn't heal after the covid mess.
As an international student in the US, there is no chance to stay and keep applying to jobs after graduating. If you don't get anything, then you go home, and have very little chances to return. Is there any workaround on this? If I want an industry more than academia, do I have to risk not getting both or is there anything I'm missing?

Successful careers in academia and the commercial sector, for example, are quite different from each other. No one can predict the future, but this is probably a good moment to reflect on what you’d like to happen.

I would not recommend taking an academic job unless you're sure that's the direction you want to go. Very few people will actually be able to get a permanent tenure track job so if you aren't positive academia is something you want you shouldn't waste your time with the low salaries before you end up in industry anyways. Then your problem is solved.

@BryanKrause If there are 2 choices: not applying to postdocs and not getting an industry job and having to leave the US, and doing a postdoc for a year and then finding an industry job in the US; then second option is more reasonable. But I want also to hear about the ethics behind.
Salary is not a concern at all. I would do a food delivery as well, but the law prohibits doing non-(school major) related job.

@AzorAhai-him- I didn't know that. Fixed.

Graduation dates can often be moved out, relieving some of the pressure. Talk to your advisor.

Many math PhDs leave academia and end up working in industry. The best approach is to first decide which type of job you want, then craft your job search (and your activities) to maximize your chance of getting such a job. If you are quite sure that you want a job in industry instead of academia, then I don't see much point in applying for academia jobs at all.

On the other hand, accepting the position in academia, then getting job from industry and telling that "I changed my mind" must be highly unethical (and uncommon?).

I think the main concern is:

Try as hard as possible to not screw over the department that gave you a job by leaving them short-handed on teaching. If you left in the middle of the semester, it would be terrible. If you're thinking of leaving academia, talk to the department chair about this so they can line up someone who can step in and teach in case you leave between semesters. Try to give them as much heads up as possible.

For a research postdoc, try not to screw over the department by telling them you're leaving so late in the hiring season that they can't hire someone else to take the spot they offered you.

We've had faculty leave to take jobs in industry. The chair was aware the person might leave in May. I think the latest we were ever told someone was leaving was March and it was hard to hire that late in the season to cover the fall teaching but we managed. Knowing in February would have been a lot nicer. The market for teaching instructors is a bit later than the market for research postdocs or tenure track hires.

Is there any workaround on this? If a person wants industry more than academia, does one have to risk not getting both or is there anything I'm missing?

I think a good workaround would be to apply to industry jobs earlier, perhaps even the year before you plan to finish your PhD. My students often make connections in industry, do an internship, and later get a job offer designed to start when they finish their degree. That's harder for international students because your visa might not let you take a summer internship, but you can still create a relationship with a company and line up a job to start right when you finish your PhD.


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How do I Become a Theoretical Chemist/Physicist with a Chemistry Background?
I have a Masters in Chemistry. I'm UK based, and in my early 30's. I live with family. I have Asperger's and psychosis.
I find chemical theories fun and interesting. I've dabbled in a little math and some physics. I enjoy the theory. It's like a story with missing pieces.
Would anyone be willing to share their experience of pursuing theoretical chemistry/physics as a career?
I'm interested in advice as well based upon my situation. How did you fare financially? How is your day to day life? Any regrets? Any issues you can see with my plan?
Thank you.

If you are looking for a career in academia, you probably need a doctorate. If in industry, this is off topic here. Can you clarify?

Sorry! I meant as a job, not as a lecturer.

There is a chem site here also, but it seems to be for academics as well. We won't be much help, I'm afraid. https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/

This post only responds to your final question.  Some things I'd ask yourself prior to pursuing your idea further:

How many people graduate with PhDs in Theoretical Chemistry?
What percentage end up doing research in an academic setting?
What opportunities are you personally willing to give up to pursue this path?
What are your chances of succeeding?

No one on this forum will be able to answer these second two questions for you, and honestly these are the most important questions.  Proprietary resources such as Lightcast will be able to help you with the first two questions, with at least some level of accuracy.  Lastly, here's hoping there are some Theoretical Chemists in this forum who answer your other questions.


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Mentoring an undergraduate
In my undergrad math class where I am the main instructor (not TA) there is one really stand-out student. My guess is she hasn't realized just how smart she is. It doesn't seem like she mixes much with the other students so probably doesn't compare grades like all the rest.
I'm aware that for kids in high-school there are opportunities for special programs. Nothing like that at my institution. Just saying, "You should consider a math major and then postgrad studies" seems really weak. How can I mentor her? Specifically? And should I be worried about how individual mentoring might be, by its very nature, biased against the individuals who don't get mentored.
And (I know this might sound weird) would your suggestion be the same no matter the gender of the student and instructor?

Are you a student? Adjunct? Regular faculty? What?

Sounds like she would be a good fit for an REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates). If you don't have one at your institution, maybe you can recommend her to another one.

Maybe there is some way you can do a reading course, where she reads a book on a subject and you answer any questions she has?

@Buffy Status: female, most junior tenure-track professor, regular faculty.

How can I mentor her? Specifically?

This depends on your role at the university.  If you are a faculty member then one natural avenue for future mentoring is to offer to supervise this student in the event that she pursues a higher-degree program.  It is also possible to offer informal mentoring outside of this, and some academics do so, but it is unusual primarily due to time constraints from busy academics.  There is an enormous literature on effective mentoring and it is a frequent topic in business and management literature; to get you started, see e.g., Johannessen et al (2010), Nick et al (2012), Carmel et al (2015) (or for some shorter recent non-academic articles see here, here, here).
As an aside, when mentoring a student, one should always avoid assuming that the student necessarily wants the type of career that you want.  Thus, rather than telling this student that she should consider a math major and then postgrad studies, it would be better to just let her know that you feel that she has the capabilities for this pathway if it is something that she is interested in, and let her know that you are happy to discuss this avenue with her if she wants to.

And should I be worried about how individual mentoring might be, by its very nature, biased against the individuals who don't get mentored.

Of course not.  Any limited opportunity like dating, mentoring, friendship, playing on a football team, a job, a speaking role at a conference, etc., it necessarily going to be provided to a delimited set of people who are suitable for that opportunity.  The fact that others are not offered the opportunity is an inevitable consequence of limited roles and different levels of suitability of candidates; such constraints are not synonymous with "bias".

And (I know this might sound weird) would your suggestion be the same no matter the gender of the student and instructor?

It's not a weird question, and actually, it's quite prudent.  One thing you want to be conscious of is that an informal offer of mentoring occurring outside ordinary channels at the university (e.g., formal supervision of a higher-degree student) could potentially look like romantic interest and such interest might be unwanted (or it might not be).  Given that the student is female, if you are a heterosexual male then obviously that inference is going to be a possible one, so yes, the gender of the student and instructor could potentially be relevant to how you should act.  Here you should just be conscious of the fact that you shouldn't press the mentoring offer too much if the student is not interested, in order to ensure that it does not come across as something else.**

** Or alternatively, if you are romantically interested in this student, just wait until you're no longer her instructor and are not under any other institutional constraints, and then ask her out Romeo.

Just saying, "You should consider a math major and then postgrad studies" seems really weak.
Eh, no. In fact, it is a pretty strong thing to say - if they do go in maths in part because of what you said, it's a life-changing thing. Anything beyond that, wait until you are asked for your advice or opinion.
would your suggestion be the same no matter the gender of the student and instructor?
You are answering your own question here --- could it be that you have a bit of a crush on this person?


text:
Different strategies to mentioning the need for negotiating a faculty position in the US
Today I received a written offer from a great US department in my field (Biology) and still did not reply to the email. I want to start negotiations about a few points in that offer, but I need also a few days to gather some relevant professional and personal information (I still have time before their deadline expires). Also, there is a second offer I am waiting for (from a similarly good US university in my field).
What I don't understand and can´t find clear insights about, is the following:

in my reply to the email containing the offer that already arrived, should I:

just thank them, show my enthusiasm, say I will analyse it and gather some more info before getting back to them - and then later in a separate email ask if I could have a call to clarify/discuss the offer;

should I thank them, show my enthusiasm and already ask if we could have a call to clarify/discuss a few points of the offer (and just mention which points in the call);

or should I thank them, show my enthusiasm and already mention via email the points I want to negotiate?

at which stage should I mention that I do have an imminent second offer? Because I already know I will have such second offer (including the approximate value of the salary proposed in that second offer); I am just waiting for the written version of it.

I would thank them for the offer, say that you are extremely excited about the prospect of joining their department, but would like to have a bit more time to consider. I would not bring up any concrete issues immediately, nor mention any other offers unless you have something in writing. You can absolutely negotiate more, and your position would be much better once you know what offers you have lined up.

I see your point, but I still do have a reasonable amount of time to consider. I mean, before their deadline expires. I just thought I should immediately reply to their email at least to thank for the offer.

Yes, absolutely you should - that's the first statement in my answer.


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How to deal with an absentee advisor who is unreachable when trying to set up thesis defense
I'm a fifth year PhD student, which is the average year a student in my department graduates. For the majority of my time in my PhD program I've had an absentee advisor. He doesn't respond to emails about 90% of the time and is very difficult to reach otherwise, because he doesn't appear in the department in person very often and makes himself scarce when he is. I'm not his only student and the other students have had similar issues to mine, though perhaps not quite as bad. My issue is what I should do with regard to defending my thesis. I'm sort of at a loss as to what I'm supposed to be doing if I can't talk to my advisor. I have written a thesis, but I just can't reach the guy.
I have written two fairly substantial papers (to be clear in my field this is a pretty normal amount of papers to have when one earns their phd), one of which was a solo paper, after taking a long time to find my footing in research. Part of what took me so long to find was that I was a very unproductive student during the pandemic, there were personal issues but I could've worked harder. My advisor also did meet with me for basically the entirety of the time my institution was not holding in person classes, and I emailed him consistently every few weeks and he didn't respond for a year. I told other faculty in my department about this situation but nothing was ever made of it. If I have a major regret with graduate school it's that I did not change advisors then and there. I did not, though, so I am where I am.
I have good relationships with other faculty (both at my institution and outside), and many of them have recognized the issues of my advisor's conduct both through my situation and the situation of his other students. The problem I face now is that my advisor seems to really dislike me, and seems to be apathetic at best to my progress, actively obstructionist at worst.
To summarize what happened last semester, I spent much of the time away from my institution giving talks at other universities on my recent work. The entire time I had been trying to meet with my advisor regarding grants and job applications. When I was finally able to meet with him (essentially by cornering him, because, of course, he responded to none of my emails or my requests in his student seminar to meet with me), he told me it would be inappropriate to recommend me either for grants or jobs, because I was not productive enough, and that my behavior was inappropriate, for having gone ahead and tried to apply for things without his permission, and in this meeting I was met with a lot of hostility that I had never seen before. We had never been anything but polite and congenial, though my advisor is very taciturn and has never given me any advice I'd consider "helpful". Whether or not my work is to the level he deems appropriate to support, that is not for me to say. But I was taken aback at the idea that my behavior had been inappropriate. Later he found I had made a pretty serious mistake in my second paper, which left me deeply embarrassed, but I think I handled it with some dignity and I did correct the error.
That was the last time I was able to reach him at all. I don't really know what to do. Whether I should reach out to other faculty in my department, or the department coordinator, or someone else in the University. I'm really just at a loss and I feel totally abandoned. I decided sometime after that meeting in the Fall that I just didn't want an academic job, and I have had a lot of offers outside academia, so that I have a lot of things I could choose to do when I'm finished. At this point that's all I want, to walk out of here with a degree, but I don't know what exactly I'm supposed to do to get that when my advisor won't even talk to me.

I would reach out to someone who has a role in overseeing or administrating the graduate program - you could probably start with the "department coordinator" you mention. It's not clear to me whether this is an administrative or faculty person. If they are an administrator then probably they can advise you on next steps, which might involve a department chair getting involved.
Assuming you have a thesis committee, you can also reach out to other committee members for guidance and advice; it sounds like you've already done a bit of this, but I would press for specific next steps that you should do; make clear you aren't just venting or looking for sympathy, you just need to graduate.
Your graduate program and department do not want to see graduate students fall through the cracks like this, it doesn't do anything good for the department. Hopefully they can at least help get you through the steps that you need to complete to graduate. Given your career plans, that's all you need to do so I think you're in pretty good shape.

Quite possible that another professor would take them on at the last minute to get them graduated.

@JonCuster Yep, that's one possibility; I assume the department/program will want to nudge the professor first. But it's very unlikely (at least from my experience) that they would ever respond "sucks to be you, we have no answers."

Last minute advisor changes are generally the nuclear option in these cases, often playing out against a background of gnashing of teeth and general angst within the department politics. But the student escapes.

in the US, many universities have a "graduate school" that owns all the rules around Committees and graduation and it is appropriate to ask them what the formal options are.  You still have to work with your department faculty to enact any possible changes so they are most important, but there may be ways like the "graduate school" to be informed.

Consider-- and I do mean "consider," weighing the pros and cons-- of talking to your advisor's other advisees, with the possibility of presenting a unified front.
The obvious benefit is that if your fellow students are all in the same/similar situation, and all on the same page, and all mutually supporting each other, you become much harder to ignore or to write off as just a weird individual personality conflict.
One possible con is that you run the risk of someone blabbing.  Another is that if they're not all in the same "need to graduate, already!" state as you, it might sidetrack your meeting a little bit.
You might also, as preparation for meeting with someone, try to find out how many PhD Candidates your advisor has had overall, vs how many he has successfully graduated over some arbitrary length of time.  (Like ten years, if he's been there that long.)
Who to meet with?

If there is a faculty member in your department or college officially tasked with looking after graduate students, I would start there.
Your department chair.
If your institute has a graduate college separate from your department, there should be someone there like a dean, or an ombudsman.

I would look for people in that order, but that's just me-- the order is "from people who know most about how your department treats grad students, to the least."
I would focus as much as possible on the near total lack of communication and advise.  A lot of the other details can be waved away as personality conflicts.  (I'm not saying they WILL be, just that they CAN be.)  And if possible, bring receipts.  If you've got a solid year of regular e-mails going to the correct address with no response, that says something about him.  If you've published two papers with little or no guidance, that says something about you.
As a side note:

If I have a major regret with graduate school it's that I did not
change advisors then and there. I did not, though, so I am where I am.

I have been in a position similar to yours.  I understand your regret; it's natural in a situation like this.  But keep your chin up, and focus on how to go forward now, instead of what you should have done.  (Which it sounds like you're doing.)  I'm sorry you have to deal with this.

Here is a concrete plan of action:

Diarise everything now. At a minimum, download all emails with him to an offline archive. If you have more energy create a calendar record of all meetings you actually had, and the number of emails and waiting time needed for each one to happen. (Modern AI should be quite competent at summarising those emails, for example by feeding a PDF to Perplexity.ai.)

Write down all steps needed to graduate, and:
a. Arrange all steps that don't explicitly require your advisor's approval on your own, or with your department coordinator's help.
b. Document your advisor's unhelpfulness and get another academic to sign off on all steps that do in theory need your advisor's direct signature.

Communicate (with email records) with your departmental graduate liaison until there is a clear written set of actions for step 2 and clear understanding of who will be filling in for your supervisor.
For a typical PhD completion, the processes in step 2 might look like:

Write your thesis draft.

Collect advisor's feedback and edit draft to advisor's satisfaction.

Arrange academic panel for oral thesis defense.

Organise date, time and venue for thesis defense, including ensuring oral panel's availability.

Arrange external examiners for written thesis.

Collect revisions from examiners and edit thesis to their satisfaction.

Get advisor's final sign off.

Graduate!

Only the italicised items absolutely require your advisor's signature. Work out your backup plan for those. Every other step would be easier with your advisor networking and asking on your behalf, but it's not impossible for you to do them in your own (especially if a step-in academic or your department liaison can lend their name on your behalf).
All the best!

From personal experience, your "sunk cost" is gone. Sorry. What you can do is (1) remove the requirement for your advisors formal approval. (2) ensure that your advisor is not permitted to accept future PhD students.  This is where you can use a Step-In, Liaison, Support Services, and Academic Petition.