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How to emphasize special issue publications in a CV?
Recently I have had a paper accepted by peer review (4 reviewers!) and received an invitation to have it included as part of a 'special issue' (which, of course, I accepted).
The question is: how to emphasize in a CV that the paper is published in a special issue (without being too pretentious about it)?
Related question: is it even worthwhile to emphasize this?
This is related to the question: How best to present publications in different areas on a CV?, would it be best placed in its own section or emphasized as part of the normal bibliographic record.

I think you don't really have to to anything special in order to emphasize the "special issue" (no pun intended). Simply because, per most publication style guides (check the one you use, just in case), you have to (or, at least, can) provide that information as a part of standard reference entry.

Thank you for the edit @AleksandrBlekh but it should be noted that where I am from, emphasise/emphasize is spelt with an 's' rather than a 'z' - is there a style guide for here?

You're welcome. I'm sorry about the 'emphasise' change - while my version is a standard in US English, your original variant is indeed a valid one in some countries and SE, being an international community, should be open to using such alternative forms. Please let me know, if you want me to revert the change.

Not a problem at all - no apology needed!  I think I get into the mindset of following a style guide.

@AleksandrBlekh: Interestingly, I never saw a citation that mentioned that a paper was part of a special issue, except if the paper was the introduction to the special issue and mentioned it in its title.

@Wrzlprmft: For corresponding APA Style guidelines, see this post and this page. For relevant guidelines for both APA Style and MLA Style, see this Harvard Guide section.

How to present this information may depend on your field.  In mathematics, special issues are uncommon, and they carry no additional prestige.  (A special issue might attract stronger papers than usual, or it might be forced to accept weaker papers due to an insufficient supply of thematically appropriate submissions.)  On the other hand, in computer science particularly strong conference papers are sometimes invited to special issues of journals.

You should emphasize the special issue on your CV only if this is a widely recognized concept in your field and it is generally considered prestigious.
I'd recommend listing papers in special issues together with other papers (but with a special indication if appropriate), rather than in their own section.
If you can give a short but compelling description (e.g., the program committee invited the top 30% of the papers at Conference X to the special issue), that could help people from other fields make sense of the designation.  This can be valuable in both hiring and tenure cases.

This: "or it might be forced to accept weaker papers due to an insufficient supply of thematically appropriate submissions." is an important point. In fact, in my field (one of the quantitative social sciences) this is why special issues do not carry any additional positive weight. If there is any difference with 'normal' issues, than it is that they actually have the reputation that you get easier accepted because of exactly this possibility that they do not get as many submissions as they had anticipated.

Unless your field has other traditions, I would strongly suggest not distinguishing it in any way.  In the fields where I have interacted, being part of a special issue / special collection provides no different prestige than anything else in that journal.  Instead, they are typically used more as organizing points for synchronizing a thematic collection of articles---more a publication opportunity and a promotional focus on a particular area of a discipline that the editors think is worth highlighting.  As such, they're definitely good to be part of, but not appropriate to significantly distinguish on a CV.

In the parts of computer science where (peer-reviewed) conferences are the primary publication venue, it is common practice for the program committee to invite the most significant publications to a special issue of a journal dedicated to the conference. In this context "special issue" means "this paper was considered among the best papers in this (already prestigious) conference."

@SashoNikolov I am aware of this---and I stand by my judgement.  The value of inclusion in the special issue is at least as much about the quality of the journal.

If you are aware of this I cannot see that from your answer. Special issues of the type I talk about are usually published in the same journal year after year. The point is to facilitate the publication of full versions of significant new results, not to promote a particular area. And I disagree about the no added prestige part. For example, conferences like STOC and FOCS are already very competitive and a paper being in the top 10% of STOC accepts is a much stronger signal than being published in SICOMP. Many STOC special issue invitations are in fact declined in favor of submitting to JACM.

@SashoNikolov That may be true for that particular pairing, but there are many other computer science conferences for which it is not true.

As per my knowledge, in the following fields

Computer science
Electronics and communications
Information technology

the reputation of special issues are no different from the regular journal under which it is published. That is unless it is being issued through a top tier conference. Hence no differentiation is necessary in this regard.


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Sending reminder for LOR and asking them to do it early?
I'm applying for the Spring Semester for 5 Master's programs, with deadlines ranging from Oct 15th to Dec 10th. I sent all the information to my 2 Professors who are writing the letters. I guess I was naive in thinking they would write the letter pretty fast, now I'm freaking out they might wait until the deadlines of December. (It's been two weeks.) That wouldn't give me much time to choose a program, and move by classes that start in the spring semester!
All the programs say they will make an offer about a week or two after reviewing my application, which they won't start until AFTER they get my letters. I really want my Professors to write the letters ASAP. How can I tell them I'd like them to submit them before the deadline? Is that OK?

You sent "all the information" - including deadlines?  You can expect that they will submit by the deadlines that you told them, but not necessarily before.
If you need the letters earlier than you originally said, you'll just have to ask them - no way around it, and the sooner the better.  If your new deadline is still at least a few weeks away, it shouldn't be too much of an inconvenience for the professors.  If you tell them "You know that letter I asked you to submit in December?  I actually need it tomorrow," they will very likely get annoyed, and may not be able to have it ready in time.

source: Stack Exchange

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Does the time spent doing a PhD count towards research experience for job applications?
There's a job application (UK based) which says something about having to have around 2 or 3 years research experience, but not necessarily have obtained a PhD.
What if I have a PhD and 2.5 years research experience postdoc? Does the PhD also count towards the "research years" ? I increasingly view a PhD as "training" rather than "research"...
EDIT
Of course there is a research element to any PhD, but the emphasis is on training to become an effective researcher.

If you didn't do research, how did you write a Ph.D. thesis?

@zibadawatimmy: The question does have more to it. I do see this in some places. Technically, your presumption is correct, I believe it too. But this has more to do with how the employer perceives this experience. I am awaiting a detailed answer to this question.

If someone has got 2 or 3 years research experience, they started this period without research experience. That's the same situation as having done a PhD, which provided a title on top.

@Roland: I agree with your claim. But your example comes with special cases. For instance, can years spent in independent research be considered as research experience? Is there a way to prove it to an employer? (Prompt if this is to be posted as a separate question)

Well, from my experience in the UK university system a PhD should assume no research experience whatsoever - as evidenced by conversations with lecturers, professors, and so on - so in fact the 3 years you take doing a PhD ought to be a massive learning curve. There will be mistakes, caveats, low points, high points, and success and failure all thrown in. Only after the PhD - if at least partially a success - should you be able to use your newly gained experience to do things "right" from the start. Of course - some PhD's will be amazing from the outset, but my guess is most will not.

So yes there is research involved but a lot of it is training up to be a researcher.

@ÉbeIsaac Call them and ask. A PhD is research experience. We can't know if there are additional requirements.

@Roland yes I think that's the best thing.

@pbs All research is training, and has a learning curve.  You're rarely just doing essentially the same things over and over again.  You're learning and inventing new techniques and methodologies on a regular basis.  Of course, Ebe is right, and it's hard to know with any particular employer if they share the perspective that "researching as a newb" is still research.  Sometimes they are specifically looking for your ability to function in a research capacity outside of the careful guidance of your advisor.

@zibadawatimmy I agree to a certain extent, especially with early stage career, but once you have gained much experience, e.g. suppose you are a professor, then you really ought to know your stuff by then.

@pbs I think the point Roland is trying to make is that if you work on research for 2 years without a PhD, you will have the same learning curve and make the same number of mistakes. Doing a PhD doesn't necessarily place you at a disadvantage compared to other research projects (I'd say it is even an advantage, as you are usually in charge of your own project).

Excellent question! I put it down as experience anyway, but it seems to be shrugged off more often than not, as it was considered necessary as part of a degree. When I was applying for jobs, I got a call from one where the guy went over my resume over the phone, saying things like "And you don't have ANY industry experience? You didn't even do an intership? What were you doing over your summers?" to which I could only give the flabbergasted reply "Doing...research..."
So, yea, I'd definitely put it down as experience. But don't think that people will necessarily take it too seriously, sad to say.

Typically, time spent as a graduate student counts at least to some degree as research / professional experience.  For example, the IEEE counts education culminating in a Ph.D. as five years of "professional practice," no matter how many more years it may have actually taken you.  Those 2.5 years of postdoc most definitely count, though, so it seems quite reasonable for you to apply.

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Is it a good idea for an applicant to a graduate program to call a potential supervisor, if he does not answer emails?
I am going to apply for a graduate program, whose outcome totally depends on the potential supervisor's propensity to recruit any applicant for his/her research group.
One of the professors' research interests have a myriad of overlap with mine. But he does not answer my emails. He is not in sabbatical, but very busy, such that I am suspicious whether my email has been read or not.
The last chance to know his opinion would be calling him by phone. But I am afraid that this way would not be so gratifying in his perspective.
As a rule of thumb, is calling a professor by an applicant a good idea?

To quote JeffE on another question: "I would consider a cold call very intrusive."

What country is the graduate program in? I think the answer depends a lot on this.

Also, if you apply and are accepted, I think that your e-mails/phone calls might get a much better response.

@Anonymous: I am talking about a program in Canada

Then probably you shouldn't call, as applications will go through a central committee.

In my case at least, the following helped me deal with busy academics who don't respond to my emails (both as a student or academic):
Face To Face Meeting: If an academic does not reply to your email, trying to talking to him/her face to face through an online chat (e.g., Skype) or in person, is much better for you, than a phone call from you. This is because, he/she will get a better understanding on what you are, and he/she needs to make a commitment to listen to you; because he/she knows you are looking at him/her.
Arranging The Meeting: Because he/she seems very busy, find his/her department, and try to find the secretary for his/her research group. And kindly ask the secretary to ask the academic for a meeting.
Worst Case Scenario: The secretary ask the academic that Mr.x wants to have a meeting you. The academic for some reason does not want to do that, so then he/she will search at his/her mailbox and then will answer your emails. At least you get an answer to your sent emails.

Thank you, buddy... But as I am an international applicant, the first two solutions might not work!...
But asking the secretary to handle the case could be functional...

@matinking oh ok, good :-)

This may be true for students already in a program, for peers with specific requests, or for people specifically recommended by a peer.  It's inappropriate for students attempting to join a graduate program.

Do not phone.  You should not have emailed.  There is a standard process for acceptance into graduate programs, and contacting the professor is not part of it.
In the US, at least, and in the fields I'm familiar with, professors with any kind of international profile are inundated with applications to work in their lab/graduate program, even though in most cases, the professor has little or no control over whether students are accepted into the graduate program, since that is run by a graduate committee.  Accordingly, emails to a professor asking to be taken as a member of their lab, before the student is accepted into the graduate program, are worse than useless; they are pestering a busy person with irrelevant requests.  Such emails are typically deleted as soon as the professor reads the first sentence, or at best -- if the professor is extremely generous -- forwarded to the appropriate person.
This is multiplied by ten if the email sender doesn't have a good grasp of English, because (fairly or not) such emails are often perceived as simply carpet-bombing, spammed to scores of people on the off-chance of a hit. Again, professors may receive dozens of such poorly-written begging letters per week, almost all from completely unqualified candidates. (The question here, while far better written than many such letters, is far enough from standard English that it would likely hit this barrier.)
It is multiplied by a thousand for a phone call.  It's quite likely that if you did make phone contact with the professor, the act of phoning would add you to the "Do not touch this person with a ten-foot pole" list, even if you were accepted to the graduate program.
If you are interested in working with this person, there is probably little point in contacting her directly. Go through the standard graduate student application procedure and then once you're accepted, contact the person and make it clear that you are already in the program.
The exception would be a potential graduate student who is truly exceptional.  This does not mean an overlap of interests; it means an overlap of interests plus a very strong skill set, meaning pretty significant work in the field already, or some other really out of the ordinary ability -- not grades, not a prestigious university, but actual demonstrated skills.  And this would not, typically, be communicated by the prospective student, but by someone associated with the student whose judgement would be more reliable, like a professor or industry expert.  So even in this case, the student should not be pestering the professor with emails or phone calls.
There may be individual exceptions, who welcome this sort of thing, but the odds are very much against you.

While I agree with "Do not call," the next sentence does not seem to be true in the absolute way you have stated it - it's highly field-dependent, for example. See Is it unwise to contact the professor directly before getting admitted to a program in US?

Fair enough; I will add a qualifier.

Another strategy which I have used as a student: Call them when you would guess that they're not in the office, and leave them a message (it's a little less awkward), then, when they call you back, they will already know what you have to talk about and have a response prepared. This has worked for me in the past.


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What are some good ways to lead a discussion session for a TA in a graduate-level STEM class?
I'm a TA for a class on graduate-level Digital Signal Processing, and one of my responsibilities is to lead a discussion session. It's a 50-minute session that happens once a week, and the professor teaches the class for 3 hours in the week.
The professor had suggested that I discuss the solutions to the homework problems in this session, so today for my first session, that's what I did.
However, I felt this was quite a waste of time, since everyone who had had problems in the homework had come to my office hours and got them cleared, and everyone else in class had managed to do the problems. While I went through solving the problems on the board, I wanted to actively engage the students by throwing in questions about details, what-ifs, some important tricks to remember, etc. But it was a mostly unresponsive, bored-looking class with frown faces.
Should I not go through the homework solutions, and instead focus on important topics covered in lectures?
Also any ideas on how to lead a discussion session in a way that the students who actually managed to do the homework (which is the vast majority of the class) don't get bored?

Instead of only going with questions you might be a little entertaining with some sense of humour.

Related: How to improve myself as a recitation (discussion,lab,tutorial) teacher? and What to do in recitation?

Clear up common points of confusion you've encountered while grading.
If you are also grading homework for the class (or you know the grader...), you can identify common mistakes or points that students seem confused about. Even if you explain these on the individual homework papers on which students made those mistakes, (a) many students don't bother to follow up if they don't understand the grader's comments, and (b) it's possible that other students would have made those mistakes, and didn't only because they made a different mistake instead.
Discussion sessions are a great time to point out these potential pitfalls, warn students away from them, and discuss why they represent a wrong understanding.
Ask a question as a confused person.
I like to challenge a class (in the context of the discussion - not necessarily on an exam!) by asking a question that is ill-formed, confusing, or based on a mistaken premise. (Not to trick them - I warn them that this is what I'm doing.)
For example, I like to find questions asked by Real People on Stack Exchange sites (like Signal Processing Stack Exchange!) related to what I'm teaching, and challenge students to formulate a good answer. Then we discuss the answers as a group.
Answering a "real" question posed in this manner often requires much greater mastery of the material than solving the "nice" problems we usually give students.
Pose a design problem.
On a similar note, the "nice" problems we ask questions often have boring, "nice" solutions that require straightforward application of what they have learned, but not much original thought and critical thinking.
Raising a design problem - i.e. "How can we design a DSP pipeline to do X?" or "Here are two designs that solve a particular problem. What are the benefits and disadvantages of each?". These, too, can come from mailing lists and forums. Here's an example of the type of design problem I'm thinking of.
(Of course, these should be problems your students can solve, based on what they have learned.)
Have students nominate topics for discussion at the
beginning of a section.
At the beginning of the session, ask the students to suggest a few topics from the lecture or homework that they would like you to review in greater depth. Then have the class as a whole vote on the nominated topics to determine what to do with the session.
Source of this suggestion: TA handbook for UCSC
Ask the professor to provide you with past exam problems for use in the discussion sections.
Students seem to love working on past exam problems :)
Specifically, you may want to do it as follows:

Hand out a printed copy of the questions (double-sided, stapled). For each question:

Read the question aloud, or ask a student to read the question aloud.
Ask if the question is clear.
Have them discuss the answer in small
  groups.
Ask for votes, or ask someone to explain their answer.
If the
  class doesn't all agree on the correct answer, then you can have them
  discuss further, or you can try to clarify a difficult point.

Source of this suggestion: Jason Eisner
Give mini-lectures about things you think deserve to be retaught.
Especially if you have the time to also attend the professor's lectures, you can identify topics that he may have had to rush through.
Similarly, you may give a "refresher" on a prerequisite topic that students don't seem adequately prepared in.
Or, you can give a mini-lecture on a topic that, based on homework grades, students just aren't getting.
Source of this suggestion: Jason Eisner

I think these are all great points! Thank you so much! I especially love the ideas of posing questions from StackOverflow and giving them exam problems. I'm sure you must be a great TA if you're able to do all of this. Thanks for sharing :)

In general more than 90% students in any class don't prefer to discuss homework problems. Though these are truly necessary to sharpen the understanding, but it could be great if you first discuss something about your professor has already taught and try to get an idea that how many students are really interested in your class.
Many time what happens, many students don't know the benefit of a TA class. Because they just think whatever your proffessor has taught that is enough. So you encourage or convince them that they can interact easily without any hesitation to make clear their doubts or understandings, no matter that is a homework or previously taught lectures.

My impression that you should be solving problems, but not the ones from the homework. Prepare some problems that share the same idea, but not exactly the same, and discuss them with your class, or, as ff524 suggested, make use of past exams.
On the specific question of how to get the students involved, I suggest splitting each problem in small and increasingly hard questions. Say, if the bigger problem is focusing on some aspect of amplitude modulation (I'm not keen on DSP), you might ask 'What is amplitude modulation?' as the very first question of the problem. Presumably, everyone in the class knows the answer, but have a student answer this question in front of the audience. This way, you might mitigate their fear of standing out and going to the blackboard.
As an added bonus, you may ask easier questions to the students that are underperforming, and leave the hard ones to the best students in your class.

By the way, if you send lots of people to the blackboard at the same time, they can all have fun and not feel self-conscious.

Hmm, haven't tried that. @aparente001, do you mean asking several people to solve the same problem or asking several people to do several problems at the same time?

I mean that each person gets a section of blackboard to show the solution to a different homework problem.  I have fond memories of doing this in my Calculus I class.


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Desaturation of academic (TT) job market in Mathematics and the Sciences
Although this question doesn't pertain to me so much, and I have my own suggestions, I wanted to ask this general question to the community. What solutions can be (relativity) easily implemented, to cure the problem of a lack of TT (Teaching + Research) positions in mathematics and the sciences? This is a major problem in academia now, and we can see individuals with PhD's in Mathematics (for example) who struggle to find suitable employment, end up in postdocs for many years, etc.,
I ask this because these solutions can hopefully be looked over and possibly implemented in the future, if we have an idea of what they are.

In decreasing order of difficulty:  1. Create more tenure track positions in mathematics and the sciences.  2. Graduate fewer PhDs in mathematics and the sciences.  3. Convince PhD students (and their advisors) that they can be happy, productive, and intellectually fulfilled without holding a tenure-track position in mathematics and the sciences.

Sorry to sound pessimistic, but some professions by their nature attract more people who want to pursue them as a career than the job market can support. As a thought experiment, reread the question with "TT positions in mathematics" replaced by "astronaut positions", "movie star positions" or "NBA player positions". Mathematics is less extreme, but the principle is the same. Fortunately, as with anything else, a person who is willing to compromise on geographic location, level of prestige of the college, salary, etc, and has reasonable talents probably has a good chance of getting a TT job.

@DanRomik I'd have to agree with you on this. Good and true points.

Most of this question is a rant. Please consider editing it to get at the heart of the matter.

@StrongBad I appreciate your concern. Nevertheless, I think that content is necessary for context.

I'm sorry, but completely changing an existing question to the content of a question that has been closed by the community (invalidating existing answers in the process) is not appropriate. I have already told you what to do if you want to get your question reopened: discuss it on [meta]. I have reverted your edit and refunded your bounty.

This is a site where the community, not the individual, collectively decides what belongs and what doesn't. Once the community has indicated (by close votes) that it believes some content does not belong here, the only appropriate way to get it reinstated is to convince the community (on meta, or [chat] if you prefer) to reopen. Anything else is frankly, somewhat disrespectful to the other users of this site.

There are no "easy solutions" to this problem, but here are a couple things I have

Increasing the funding in STEM fields. Essentially, with more money, you can hire more people, and keep the "game" going a little longer. This is what created the Clinton-era boom in STEM jobs in academia - a surplus of money allowed the creation of low commitment soft money positions in Universities. The drawback to this is, of course, that it doesn't actually solve the problem as much as delay it.
Decrease the number of STEM graduates. The replacement of a single tenure-track professor in a field at steady-state size is 1. Even for a field that's doubling in size, it's 2. That's a very small number of graduate students who can actually be expected to find tenure-track positions coming out of a lab. Reducing the number of graduate students being produced stops this overpopulation problem. The problem with this solution is that you have a little bit of a Tragedy of the Commons problem - its really best if everyone else do this, and you don't, resulting in you having a massively productive lab. Right now, much of academia is built on large amounts of graduate student labor, and reducing the number of graduate students would mean figuring out a "new normal" for lab productivity.
Non-academic jobs. This is, essentially, where those students above replacement rate end up - but right now, many people in STEM view this as a lesser position, or a failure. That's not particularly realistic, and the fields would probably be well served by making sure that their grad students were aware of those options, and well-prepared for them. Some fields do better with equipping their students with transferable skills than others (biomed is particularly bad). The problem with this of course is that it's relying on tenure-track faculty to view the path they didn't take as one worth pursuing, and educate themselves on those options.


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List of Subject Dependencies for building a subject taxonomy
I am interested in compiling a list of learning dependencies by subject matter. E.g., you must know certain kinds of algebra before you can learn certain aspects of trig, and you must know how to add before you can do certain kinds of algebra.
This kind of hierarchy could be applied to math, computer science, biology, written/spoken languages, etc.
Is there a project like this already established? Is there a field of study that concentrates on an idea similar to this?

As others are implying, learning does not work that way.  It is not actually systematic.

@AnonymousPhysicist I'm not asking about learning, I'm asking about subjects themselves.

I think that prerequisites do not apply to topics and subjects, but to lectures and books. For example, I can tell you what you have to know to follow my course on calculus, but it is quite difficult to say what you have to know before you can understand a derivative. You can either take the real numbers for granted, or give a fake-definition via Cauchy-sequences or Dedikind cuts, or give a real definition within the framework of a fixed set theory. Bourbakists would choose the latter, while all courses I know, which are actually aimed at first year students, pick one of the first two options.
Another problem is that prerequisites are subject to substitutions. If subject A is considered important, and subject B is not part of the mainstream, a lecture on A will rather make detours than using B, while a lecture on B will freely use everything from subject A. For example, the fundamental theorem of algebra is most often proven by complex analytic or topological, and not by real analytic or algebraic means. The reason is simply that most people learn complex analysis before they learn Galois theory, and the real analytic proof is more computational, i.e. not "nice".

Prerequisites for classes and books do not exist per se, as they are the logical result of the discipline-focused or interdisciplinary topical (subject) learning hierarchies of dependencies. (I am talking about core concepts; obviously, some deviations are possible.)

If you can reach the same goal by many different routes, the prerequisites depend on the route, not on the goal. The way we teach students depends a lot on tradition and perceived importance of subjects, may be more than on the logical dependence of the subjects.

Fair enough! I was just expressing my opinion. I'm sure you know these things better, Professor :-).

While the term "learning hierarchies" is used quite often, I think that either learning dependencies or learning prerequisites would be a more accurate term (the latter is obviously more often used in the education process context, i.e. see this page and this page, while the former IMHO carries a more general knowledge acquisition connotation). While I am not aware of any cross-disciplinary (interdisciplinary) dependencies in an academic context, from a general knowledge management perspective, I would refer to ontology and taxonomy as the relevant topics. One of general learning taxonomies (important from pedagogical standpoint) is Bloom's taxonomy, however, your question, as I understand it, asks for domain-aware learning taxonomies.
Having said that, let's focus on mathematics, for illustrative purposes and due to its general nature. The following are some relevant and/or related math-related (except the last item) resources that you might find useful in the context of your question.

The Further Mathematics Support Programme prerequisites (see linked documents)
Classic 1981 paper "Hierarchies in mathematics education" by Kathleen Hart
"An Educational Ontology for Teaching University Courses" by Mihaela Oprea (research paper, presenting an interesting ontology-based and discipline-independent approach to learning)

Thanks for the information! An excellent start to the discussion!

@anp: My pleasure!


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How did German universities outperform the US's and the UK's, before the 1930s?
I narrowed the outperformed in this question to the US and UK, but please feel free to include other First World nations' universities (eg: Canada, France).
[Source:] The top American universities didn't really compare to the best in Germany, France, or the UK before then.
This subsequent question inducted this post.

What exactly are you asking for here? The post that you link to explains a reason for the decline of German universities during and after WWII. What do you want that isn't addressed in that post?

@ff524: Maybe I missed something, but exactly what is asked in the title of this question is not addressed in that post. What (if anything) was better about German universities than US or UK universities before the 1930s. I think this question is not trying to establish how or why anything declined, but what the situation before the decline was precisely (with the only information found in the linked post being an unsourced claim that they simply were "the best universities"). (I am not saying the claim is true (let alone that linear rankings make any sense at all), but the linked post does.)

@O.R.Mapper perhaps you can [edit] this post to explain it better. I have trouble understanding what is meant by "How" here - you seem to interpret it as "In what characteristics", I'm not sure about it.

I am not an expert in the history of science, but German science ascended over a long period in the 19th and early 20th century. I suggest reading about the history of science for more details. In math, which is the field I am most familiar with, it was a long process including luminaries such as Gauss, Jacobi, Hilbert, and so on. Maybe someone else can answer explaining why it was Germany and not other countries. Also, the UK did have good universities then... the biggest contrast was with the US, where much less was going on.

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's about the history of Germany.

When it comes to research, in Germany there also are research institutes which are not associated with any university, e.g., the Max Planck Society. "[I]f the Max Planck Society were included in the Shanghai Jiao Tong University league table, they could displace Cambridge as the top placed European university and knock Oxford out of the top ten." HEPI Report 77. Is there something similar in the UK? On that note, maybe it's not fair to just compare universities.

@CapeCode I disagree: I think this is a great question for this site.  I'm just not sure we'll get a good answer any time soon....

Since the question has resurfaced, I would like to suggest that the question has two slightly different aspects. One is: "in what ways did German universities outperform US and UK ones before 1930s?" but the other one is "what are the causes and reasons for this difference?"

Prior to the 1930s, Germany had some of the world's oldest and best universities. This is largely a due to historical reasons discussed in this article
But what changed in the 1930s? Rather than ask why German Universities out performed US universities before the 1930s, perhaps a better question would be "Why did US universities out perform German universities after the 1930s?"
I would answer that by saying the two events caused the change. First, the influx of refuge scientists prior to World War II boosted US Science (e.g., this article). Probably the most famous scientist to flee Germany to the US was Albert Einstein.
Second, the US funded science much better than Germany after World War II.  This extra funding was partially done out of fear of Soviet science and partially an artifact that the US economy was the only one not destroyed or heavily damaged by the war. (This article talks about US Science funding and provides more insight into this specific topic)
Also during the post-war period, many scientists choose to come to the US because of research opportunities. As described in the book Moon Shot, Wernher von Braun chose to surrender to the US because he knew only the US and Russia would have the resources for a space program (he surrender was part of Operation Paperclip). He chose the US because he would rather live here.
Similarly, many scientist immigrants continue to chose the US because of opportunities not available in their homelands. The NSF describes this here.

I don't know whether you're asking "How did they do it?" or "How do we know they were better?", but I will try to answer the second question.
I went to the Nobel website sorted by affiliated university and counted the countries and years there (no guarantee that I didn't miscount or something).
I chose this source and not the Wikipedia list, because on the Nobel page, each researcher is only once and only Physics, Chemistry, Economy, and Medicine are counted.
Top Nobel-Prize winning Nations 1901-1930: Germany (28), UK (16), France (15), USA, Netherlands, Sweden (6 each).
Top Nobel-Prize winning Nations 1931 - 1960: USA (61), UK (23), Germany (22), Russia (6).
Top Nobel-Prize winning Nations 1961 - 1990: USA (128), UK (31), Germany (13), Switzerland (11).
Top Nobel-Prize winning Nations 1991 - 2015: USA (166), UK (20), France, Japan (14 each), Germany (12).
In this very limited view of research history, Germany seems to have been more prolific in research in the first third of the 20th century than the other countries.
Since the second third of the 20th century, the USA is the clear leader.
Because the linked question asked about the top universities, here they are:
Top Nobel-Prize winning Universities 1901-1930: Sorbonne University, Paris, France (6),
Goettingen University, Göttingen, Germany (5),
University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom (4),
Berlin University, Berlin, Germany (4),
Munich University, Munich, Germany (4).
Top Nobel-Prize winning Universities 1931 - 1960: University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA (7),
Columbia University, New York, NY, USA (7),
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA (5),
University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom (5),
University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom (4),
California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, CA, USA (4).
Top Nobel-Prize winning Universities 1961 - 1990: Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA (16),
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA (10),
University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom (7),
California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, CA, USA (7),
Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA (7),
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA (7),
Rockefeller University, New York, NY, USA (7).
Top Nobel-Prize winning Universities 1991 - 2015:
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA (9),
Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA (8),
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA (8),
Columbia University, New York, NY, USA (8),
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA (7),
University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA (7).
Warning, pure speculation ahead!
My theory is that the possibility to travel played a role in this. At the beginning of the 20th century, we have Europe with its long research tradition and many established universities on one side of the Atlantic ocean and the USA with comparatively young universities on the other side. Crossing usually took weeks on a ship, so it was a bit more difficult for the american universities to hire great scientists and to participate in academic exchange.
This started to change when the first scheduled trans-atlantic passenger flights were offered in 1931. Nowadays, we can collaborate with any researcher in the world via skype, meet at conferences all across the globe, and moving across the atlantic for a postdoc doesn't mean that you won't get to see your family again for centuries.
For some less speculative reasons why the US outperformed Germany after 1930, see Richard Ericksons answer.

There was, and still is, a strong anti-intellectual current in U.S. socio-economic and cultural life, in contrast to the cultures of UK, France, and Germany (for example). The pretense is "practicality", so that (in my own experience) John Purdue, one of the original donors of Purdue University in Indiana, specifically prohibited the teaching of Latin or Greek, and playing of string instruments (as opposed to "band music", which in English means woodwinds and percussion). What I recall from childhood is an exaggerated emphasis on practicality, and a belief that everything can be made fairly simple: not really "simple", perhaps, but that all the crazy "European science" (e.g., quantum physics) was "making things more complicated than they needed to be"... since, surely, some good measurements in experiments would do better.
In the mid 20th century, too, in mathematics, there was a backlash against the "fancy" European mathematics, manifest in many textbooks, which I will not name.
So, yes, in some regards the post-WWII (and atom bomb) era, and the post-Sputnik era, and the post-emigre era, were a very different phase for U.S. academic mathematics (and other basic science). E.g., earlier, J.J. Sylvester tried to get a math program moving at Johns Hopkins, but was mostly frustrated, and departed. There was simply no niche in U.S. culture then (or now, actually) which would allow it to make sense...
My own perception of the current "boom" is that it is not really a boom any more, since things have mostly collapsed back to a hyper-utilitarian scenario... easy to justify to constituencies who are themselves inadvertently short-term-hyper-utilitarian, or otherwise ... compromised.

I like this answer which reminded me of what is said in the introduction of a very nice and amusing book by Scott Dumas titled The KAM story: "First, at one end of a spectrum, I imagine people I’ll call advocates or ‘enthusiasts’ for KAM theory (the reader can think of West European or Russian mathematicians). At the other end, Iimagine ‘skeptics’ or ‘detractors’ of KAM theory (think of hard-boiled American physicists). [...]"

And then he continues: "Likewise, Americans (and sometimes Britons) comfort themselves about their ignorance of continental European thought by picturing a ‘fog of pointless theory’ emanating from the old world, while Europeans are shocked by the crass pragmatism in America, a place whose main contribution to philosophy has been to enquire about the ‘cash value of truth.’"

When I was a student I had the opportunity to study the KAM theorem at a certain depth during a course in statistical mechanics, but at the time I couldn't imagine I was studying something that was not probably taught overseas, as there were a European physics and an American one.


text:
How to quote "... (see Chapter 5 above) ..."
I'm writing a short essay on a book we're reading in class. The book (Gerald O'Collins, Rethinking Fundamental Theology) contains the following part, literally:

To begin with, the disciples of Jesus remembered him as having made extraordinary claims to personal authority (see Chapter 5 above) and then as having died an utterly shameful death in a place for public executions.

I'd like to quote this in my essay, but to include "(see Chapter 5 above)" seems pointless. I am tempted to simply leave it out. Is that allowed in such a case, or should I always replace it by "[...]"?

As you suggest, replace it by "[...]"

Certainly, using ellipses is the right approach. However, depending on a publication style you're using, you might not need to use square brackets (i.e., per APA Style: http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2011/04/ellipseswhen-and-how.html).

Quotation is about honest and lucid representation of the original material.
Just as you would not include an extra irrelevant sentence at the end, you can freely omit an extra irrelevant phrase in the middle.  As you note, the standard way to do this is with ellipses: "..."
The important thing is to make sure that your ellipsis makes no changes in the meaning of the quotation.  If you change meaning, that's quote mining, and is dishonest.  For something like your example, however, where you are omitting a cross-reference that is meaningless out of context, however, there is no problem at all.


text:
Should the presented points by different referees within the LoRs be convergent or divergent?
Assume a graduate applicant, has who informed two faculty members as referees, for presentation of the acquired Letters of Recommendation.
Every referee mentions some points about the applicant, based on the acquired acquaintance with him/her.
There are two possibilities:

Both referees talk about the same points regarding the applicant, approximately.
For example, both assert that he is egregious. (The ideas are overlapped and the points are converging.) In this case:

In this case, one could conclude that as two people has asserted the same points, so the applicant would be supposed to possess that property.

Referees' points are completely different in a compared manner. As an instance, the first one talk about the applicant's innovation in research and the other one indicates his/her temper to help the others. (The ideas are far from together and the points are diverging.)

Therefore, one could realize more diverse ideas about the applicant's personality.
Now, in view of the admission committee, which of the above mentioned scenario would be more effective and profitable for the applicant?!...

You realize that it's also possible for LoRs to have some, but not 100%, overlap, right? This question seems to present a false dichotomy.

As a matter of fact, I seek a general analysis in this case... The Divergent and Convergent words and the considered overlapping level within in my question could be interpreted in a fuzzy manner.

Could you please do some proofreading of your question?  This will help it get more attention.

@aparente001: I've applied a major paraphrasing onto the question.

The scenario where both your letter writers don't describe you as "egregious" is probably best.

@Matt: You mean, mentioned points about the applicant by the referees better to different?... Would you please assert some reason for your opinion?

@matinking Why do you worry about this? You should not have any influence on the contents of the letters, making this a moot point to discuss. Whatever is being written is hopefully true to the experiences of the respective authors, which might agree or disagree. Maybe in one case you showed your experience in the field of research, while in the second, you were new but proved to be a quick learner. Those are different, yet positive experiences. Letters of recommendation are real letters to be read by sentient and often intelligent beings, and not checklists listing your feature set.

@user5254: That is just a curiosity and certainly I will not have any effect within either of the cases.
So, May I conclude that, in your view, both approaches would be effective?

With due attention to the applied consulting with some experienced faculty members my final conclusion is that a mixture of the convergence and the divergence better be taken into account within the LoRs.
In other words, the investigator of the LoR is not eager to read all repetitive points about the applicant within the different LoRs, neither be distracted by the bombardment of the many non-overlapping points from different referees, will which not lead a coherent imagination from the applicant.


text:
Any experience in working with aged emeritus supervisors?
Recently, a graduate position, supervised by an emeritus faculty member has been offered to me. The aforementioned professor is one of the most famous contributors of his field on the planet for over 3 decades, but his age is over 75...
Some people just advise that the old faculty members would not capable of the active research and support of the graduate students and one better tries to inhibit cooperation with them.
The others asserts that the worthy and coherent experience and cumulative knowledge of such people shall be grabbed by graduate students by working with them!!!
I just struggled to contact with his current and former students to know his code of ethics, specifically, but they refrain from answering me.
Does someone have any experience to pass graduate studies under supervision of such aged emeritus faculty members?

One thing to worry about is whether or not he will be able to advise you throughout the entirety of the PhD. My advisor is 77 and has health problems which it worries me some, but he is very active in research and more or less gives me carte blanche to pursue whatever I want. Having an advisor pass away or be forced into retirement for health reasons while pursuing your PhD can be a big concern. If you want to work with him, consider getting a co-advisor so that - should something happen - you will not be left on your own with an incomplete thesis.

75 is not that old in some ways or for some people. I know a professor at a local university who is almost 80 and he was (is?) a lifetime marathon runner and is still exceptionally healthy, both in body and mind. My own father is 75 and in good health and his mind is probably better than it's ever been.

@ToddWilcox and I have seen many people who died before 60, and can barely walk and talk intelligently after 70. Also marathon runner just means that someone participated in marathon (which is actually really easy to participate in stuff, the hard thing is to win all the participants). You can participate in marathon and finish it in 12 hours barely moving. Anyway I was trying to say that one example from your life does not generalize to the whole population of 80 years old.

@CameronWilliams your comment is far better than any answer here, might you consider posting it?

@djechlin It's more of just a side comment that is not really related to the concerns OP had. I considered making it an answer, but I don't like being a bit off-topic like that in an answer.

As I know several (non-emeritus) advisers who practically spend zero effort and time to their graduate students, because they are busy with politics, grants, committees, conferences, own company etc I would say an emeritus prof may even better in that sense. Also, even if he is busy, he may let you "peak over his shoulder", which can be an extremely useful experience. One downside that you have not mentioned: he may have a large professional network, but most probably it is not a young one. You will need people closer to your age, too as mentors,

Quick Answer: The downside might be his age, but the upside is plenty!
It is obvious that the age might be a factor, however you are not dealing with a dance instructor or a body builder here. Look at Prof. Stephen Hawking, beside his age, there are other limitations; but everyone listens to him and want to learn from him. Put his name on a conference, and people will line up. The following points popped up in my head:
Experience: Being dominant in a field for any amount of period, let alone 3 decades, is not easy. What you will get is a world of experience and vision (my second point here).
Vision: It is not all about hard work to be on the top, the individual needs to have a vision of the field as well. You will have the privilege to lean how he come up and deal with research issues. Believe me, I had supervisors that did not have the 'vision' part, and working with them was not pleasant.
Less Politics: He already 'done it all', and therefore not looking forward that much to the next promotion or something of that sort; what you get is a person that everyone knows that he is the leader in a field; so all the help you get you from him; you get it through no or much less jealousy and/or office politics.
Decision On Your Overall Career: If you get a position to work with a young supervisor, you can't truly answer the big question: What I will do after my PhD?. However if you work with an experience academic, you can see yourself after 20/30/40 years. You can see how hard you need to work to get there and is it something you want to do or not.
Conclusion: Take the position, there might be a little downside because of his age, but the positive points are plenty.

This seems like uninformed idealism, not reality. Have you never met old professors? For every one that is great to work with, there are another three who will assuredly dead-end any students' careers, by working on something no one cares about anymore and by generally not understanding the community. You are enthusiastically advising someone on a course of action that is more likely than not career suicide. (Also, the sad truth is Stephen Hawking is not capable of doing research anymore; no one professionally listens to him.)

@ChrisWhite It is not just the age factor here. For better understanding imagine learning guitar from Keith Richards!

@ChrisWhite, OP said that the emeritus prof is still in active research, as for the risk of a dead-end career, there are far more worrying issues than the age of the supervisor, like unethical, over ambitious supervisors that work you to death for little to none recognition, or those who want to impose their personal agenda. He is a risk like any other supervisor is until you actually meet and assess the situation, at least in this case he has proven experience and knowledge in his field. Of course it is wise to have a co-supervisor in case his health deteriorates if the worry is his age.

The advisor might also retire or die. This is certainly more likely than with a younger advisor. Besides that glaring detail, the rest of your answer is really unsubstantive opinion.

One consideration regarding this frame, is whether the emeritus would continue in his field or research area, or wanted to do something new (e.g.: turning to obscure projects that he/she shouldn't have done prior emeritation or switching disciplines completely), or whether there are institutional limitations on research space or acquiring further funding (note: and thus existence of your lab members)

This is a pretty bad answer, likely just idealistic advice from someone who does not fully understand the implications of working with an emeritus faculty. At the least, I would suggest having another (younger, more presently recognized) advisor at the same time.

It's going to depend on the person, of course.
Is he still actively engaged in research? How much time does he spend on campus?
Does the university have a policy that professors have to retire at a certain age?
Go and talk to him--ask him about his mentoring style and how often he'll be available, etc.

He is active in research and the host university has no policy to retire emeritus fellows... But as I am an international applicant, there is no straightforward approach to either check his presence in campus or talk to him...

"It depends, go talk" does not answer this, or any, question.

I sometimes think gathering information on your future supervisor creates unnecessary bias. There is nothing like first impression, if you already have some mis-conceptions about this person, it might ruin any chance of great collaboration you might have had with him/her. I believe checking his publications show you if he/she collaborated with other researchers in the past or not (does he/she have a high number of single author publications or a number of the publications are collaborations? with their name appearing both at first, middle or last of the author list in different papers?).
I believe working with such a renowned person in your field of study is a special opportunity you can benefit from professionally and should just put your best collaborative behavior and take a chance. At the end of the day every personal information you get from past co-workers is not without bias.

One's Patience is the point, will which not be revealed but just checking the roster of the publications. My concern is focused on the effective Personal interaction with the supervisor...

@matinking: What do you mean by that comment? What really is your concern? Can the old dude still think clearly? - by and large, I would assume yes, very much so. I TA-ed for such a person (Nobel Emeritus), and he was sharp and very pleasant, but he had lost interest in academic research. Another even older Nobel Laureate at my school, on the other hand, was still very active in contemporary research, and excellent at placing his students. So I think checking publications, then talking to him or her, is the right idea. Check where prior students teach now as well.

The stated cases are inspiring... Thanks... As I am an international student and can not talk to him, face to face, in your view, what kind of points and questions should I mention in the email to conclude about his activity?

@gnometorule: Thanks in advance... However, I even doubt about the possibility to devise a skype-based interview...!

@matinking: If the person places well, and still publishes, you face the same risk as with any professor. A younger one might be more hungry to push for publications, in particular if not yet tenured; but not facing this pressure can be good for you too. Extended comment discussions are discouraged, so with best wishes, I think we should stop here. :)

@gnometorule just one more :), I assumed this "Recently, a graduate position, supervised by an emeritus faculty member has been offered to me" part of your question meant you already have the place. So sooner or later you are going to meet in person to talk about the heavy stuff, why not  drop him/her a line about how you are excited to start working with him/her and whether he has a date and time in mind to meet before you start your duty?

Of course you can talk to him!  You can use the phone, you can use email, and you might be able to use Skype or WebEx.
Rather than asking about mentoring style, have a conversation -- that will show you something about his mentoring style.
You need to evaluate the person, not the numerical age.
Of course, if there are health problems, then do make sure you and your advisor make arrangements for a colleague or collaborator of his to adopt you, so to speak.

Code of ethics?  Pardon me?  Perhaps something was lost in translation.  How would this guy have reached the respected status he reached if he engaged in unethical practices?

First, you are lucky to work with a person so distinguished in your field.
Second, age doesn't matter.  I would completely ignore the age of your mentor.
Third, everyone has different ways of doing things.  How you contact someone, how you work with someone, how you say "hey"... that is up to the person not their age.  Let go of your age-bias.
Fourth and most important, if the mentor is as distinguished as you claim then their interaction/help will be relative to the "spark" you provide in your field, your ideas, and what you bring to the table in your relationship.


text:
Should I ask for an exam deferral due to my fiance's first conference and first time leaving the country?
My fiance's paper was just accepted for a conference that is held out of country during one of my exams and he would really like me to come with him, as it is his first time presenting at a conference and first time leaving the country. When he asked, I told him that I couldn't go because of my exam during the conference time, but multiple people have told me to ask my professor if I can defer my exam.
Is asking worth a try or will I just annoy my professor?

You might be asked to take the exam in advance - I've known professors that prefer that strategy too.

well it depends on how seriously your institution takes exams, the request would be regarded as bizarre in many places and would therefore be unwise.

Bringing your spouse to a conference is like bringing your spouse to a meeting with your boss.  Don't.

I don't get this question. Apparently you love your fiance enough to want to spend the rest of your life with him. But you are not sure if you love him enough to risk mildly annoying your professor by asking him a question?

The best that can happen for your fiance's academic and career prospects is that he ends up spending all the non-scheduled time, including evenings, with other conference participants talking about the conference topic. Would you be able to either participate in the conference or occupy yourself independently during it? If not, it is a bad idea to go regardless of the exam.

Surely is there a compromise? Usually conferences are a couple of days and exams are a couple of hours. Why not go before or after the exam?

@AnonymousPhysicist: Bringing one's spouse to a conference is not as unusual as you make it sound. Many CS conferences include a "social event" on one evening and explicitly offer to buy additional tickets for attendees whose family members have come to the conference location. This does, however, not mean that these additional people attend the actual conference, as they have not registered as participants and paid the entrance fee, it only means that they spend their days on their own and are with their researcher-spouse in the evening.

@PatriciaShanahan: I know a couple of colleagues whose spouses routinely come to conferences with them, and who make it a plus socially rather than a minus (renting an apartment, being able to invite colleauges over and work/party in the evenings…).  So it’s not necessarily a bad idea.  I’d say rather that it will take the right kind of characters, and some thought/effort, to make it work — for many people it wouldn’t, but for some it’s fine.

There's nothing wrong with asking, as long as you are polite and willing to take "no" for an answer.

Hypothetically the professor in question may take a very hard line in regards to students taking their class schedules with the utmost seriousness (as alluded to in AMR's answer).  For the most part I would only expect this to be a temporary emotional issue for the OP, and to thus fall under "willing to take 'no' for an answer". Unless the professor is also on your thesis committee or is otherwise reasonably expected to have some say and sway in your career path, then all it should amount to is some unpleasant abrasiveness for a few minutes.

@zibadawatimmy people can get upset for anything. Jake's answer applies to any reasonable professor; unreasonable ones may give you trouble for the colour of your shoes. Also, different institutions take schedules with different levels of seriousness.

This is the only reasonable answer.  It's an exam, not the end of the world.  That said, some exams are more important and less easily rescheduled than others.  Without more information, though, asking is the only appropriate advice.

This may be unpopular, but I would only suggest asking for an exam extension under four five conditions:

A medical emergency
A death in your immediate family
A true scheduling conflict (usually occurs only during finals) with another exam
The instructor changes the exam date that they posted on the syllabus and it causes a conflict with a professional obligation that you scheduled based on the syllabus
Your work was accepted to a conference or seminar after the beginning of the semester that conflicts with the exam date (edit based on suggestion from ff524)

For point 3, I would still suggest only going to the instructor that you have a better personal relationship with. If it is back to back exams, then you are expected to manage your time and energy effectively at this point in your academic career. Some professor's are very clear that they are there to help and accommodate their students, but if yours has not given those overtones, then I would hesitate.
For point 4, the syllabus is a contractual arrangement with you as a student. It outlines the obligations of the course (your contractual obligation) and the commitments of the professor (their contractual obligations), one of which is keeping to the schedule barring unforeseen circumstances.
Understand that when you made the choice to do graduate work, you were making a decision about your career, one that should be extremely important to you. As a result you have a professional obligation to meet the requirements and conduct yourself in a professional manner.
If you were working in the corporate sector and had a major deliverable on a project you were working on, or you are a key member in the team that makes the sales or investor pitch that could make your start-up succeed or fail, would you go to your boss and ask for the time off or turn to the customer or venture capitalist and ask to change the meeting for this situation?
Why then would you treat an exam, which is part of the career obligations you chose to undertake, any differently? Also remember you are asking the professor to do extra work for your benefit. They may need to write a different exam for you.
All that being said, if you are in a graduate program (which you are technically supposed to be if you are asking on this site), then you should know people in your department fairly well and you should be able to get a feel for how amenable the professor will be to your request. Good personal lives make for successful careers, but just remember what that request is saying. These decisions are not easy.
EDIT: Regarding Comments
I think many people are trying to rationalize with institutional "rules" about exams or how nice of a person the professor might be. One of the best professors I had rescheduled our final for a number of us who had a difficult exam before her's and gave us the exam the day before she was leaving the country for an extended holiday. But it was her belief that she wanted to give us the best opportunity to demonstrate what we had learned and effort we put in and not what the results of a scheduling decision by the registrar were. But she in no way had to be that flexible or generous with her own free time.
The point I am trying to make with my post is about personal responsibility and conducting one's self professionally. And to do that, you need to chose obligations and needs over wants. Whether or not the school's policy allowed for it, it is unprofessional to expect the professor to have to do more work so that you can go on vacation. Most professor's have a host of other professional responsibilities, and you are either cutting into their professional time to do research or you are cutting into their personal time to do what ever it is they would do with the time it takes to figure out how they will accommodate your request, including likely rewriting the exam, administering the exam, or finding someone else to proctor the exam, all for something that is your obligation, to show up for a scheduled exam and be prepared.
There are certain things that trump that, and that list is above as they are about the obligations and needs for the student's well being and only someone completely selfish and lacking of compassion would begrudge the request, and that includes outside work obligations in a job that supports the student that were made prior to the syllabus being issued.
But for something that, for all intents and purposes, is a holiday, as the student would have no official responsibilities at the conference as they are not the one invited to present their work is not a professionally acceptable reason. Vacation time is scheduled in between semesters, and as a student, one should accept that it is their professional responsibility to meet those scheduling requirements, especially on the graduate level.

I don't think those are the only valid reasons to ask for another exam date. For example, I think it's perfectly reasonable for a student to ask for an exam deferral if the student herself is going to present at a conference - that student likely submitted the conference paper before the semester even started, and had no way to foresee the conflict. As an instructor, I would try hard to grant that student a deferral, if I am able to. (I would not be likely to grant a referral to the OP, who is going on a personal, not professional, trip.)

@ff524 I would agree with that, but that falls under professional obligations, and brings, prestige, however minimal, to the school and the department to have  one of their student's or faculty representing them at a conference or seminar. I think any professor of graduate students, even undergraduates in many cases would welcome that request. I should probably revise point 4.

Yes, my point was that a professional obligation can be a valid reason to ask for a different exam date even if the professor hadn't changed the date. (I don't think it has anything to do with "bringing prestige" to the department though...)

@ff524 I only meant that in terms of the fact that representation at conferences and seminars is one of the currencies that academic institutions trade in.

@ff524 That's an interesting edge case.  That is basically a conflict in your professional schedule.  Which is, technically speaking, an unprofessional thing to have.  Though not exactly bizarre or even rare.  I'm not sure how I'd respond to such a request, other than to ask my chair or other professors for their opinions. I'd sort of like to do as they do for student athletes: have someone administer the exam to them on the road as close to the normal exam time (or other approved times) as their other commitment allows.  Sounds impractical, though...

I'm not sure what is the benefit of capitalising (almost) every word.

@MarchHo Neither do I... I did Title Case for the first two, and then just went with it for the other two... It makes absolutely no sense what-so-ever.

"Why then would you treat an exam, which is part of the career obligations you chose to undertake, any differently?" Because in many cases, an exam is a far less significant event than the corporate analogies you cite.

@NateEldredge They idea is that once you embark on a graduate program, you have made a career choice, and in any career you should conduct yourself professionally at all times. For a graduate student that means being prepared and meeting your obligations to your coursework. It may also include research and teaching responsibilities as well. If the exam represents 33-50% of their semester grade, then that is a pretty big professional responsibility, and I don't think given the circumstances described that it warrants even the entertainment of the idea of not sitting for the exam.

I'd add that for scenario 3, some universities (my undergrad, for example) have policies regarding the timing of finals. Specifically, my  undergrad had a policy where if a student had 3 finals scheduled within 24 hours, the student could request that one be moved through the dean's office. Thus avoiding having to negotiate with instructors in the first place.

The seriousness of an exam schedule depends on the institution. Where I did my undergrad, professors are free to schedule additional exams for whichever reason they see fit, and a few have been known for considering vacation a fair one.

Having experienced it recently, I would personally include death of a close friend under point 2. Thankfully my immediate family is all still alive. The death of a close friend can be very traumatic and time-consuming, more so than the death of an extended family member, in my case(s). Not only attending to the rituals themselves, but also helping mutual friends through the experience (including the executor of the estate, who needed extensive help from the whole group of friends). Perhaps "Death of a loved one" would be a more appropriate wording for point 2.

Re:"syllabus is a contract"...Perhaps you should look up the definition of contract? In my college days, I seem to recall that by the time week 3 rolled around very few classes were in sync with the syllabus.  A plan is generally not something that can be accurately scheduled.  A syllabus is just a plan, not a contract. The other part you are totally missing is that in a "professional" environment, generally meetings are confirmed shortly before the actual meeting. That gives both sides the opportunity to "change the plan" if something comes up. Changing a plan is not unprofessional.

If you are willing to take the exam in advance, if it is not too much trouble for me to make a separate exam for you, and if I feel that there are no fairness issues by doing so, then I guess it would be acceptable to me no matter what your reason is.  If I did this I would probably want to make the offer of taking the exam early to all the students.  If it seems like it would not fly to make this offer across the board, then I would hesitate it to make it to any one student.
If you are in the same academic field as your fiance and you could attend the conference yourself professionally that would be a different matter.  I will assume this is not the case.  IF so, then to me your request sounds rather close to "I'd like to go on vacation with my fiance rather than take my exam at its regularly scheduled time."  Maybe this sounds less than empathetic, but in my experience accompanying some other grown person in a professional context for moral support is not a standard thing to do.  Most academics have travelled internationally and/or presented at a conference, and for those who have there was a first time.  This is, conventionally, not something that requires a support network of another person to be physically present.  If you are not participating in the conference, then your fiance will be and therefore having you there could be more of a distraction than a comfort.  You would see each other only for a few hours a day when he gets back from the conference.  Why does he need you there?
I don't want to pry into your personal situation but I'll just say that if your fiance actually has special needs for which you function as a caretaker, then that is a different story and would be worth mentioning to your professor.  But getting academic stuff scheduled because your fiance would miss you during his trip: again, it sounds a bit harsh but I think the honest truth it that most academics would not really understand that and think that both of you are not as "serious" as you should be.  Maybe being together is more important to you than that kind of stuff: fair enough....

Essentially, you are asking an academic institution to upset normal exam procedure because you want a holiday (or vacation, if you are American). Does this sound reasonable to you?

I don't see any problems here. You are not going to annoy the professor, at most the professor may tell you that he won't be able to make any arrangements to deal with this issue. The sooner the professor knows about this, the better your chances will be that the professor can make an arrangement for you.

I allowed my students to take an exam on an alternative day for much less compelling reasons IF their overall performance in the class was above certain (reasonably high) threshold. However I have no idea whether this "IF" applies to you, and if it does not, beware: to be treated from human rather than formal standpoint regardless of official regulations, etc. is a privilege, not a right, and there should be some reason why you might be considered deserving it. This is not as much about whether to ask (asking a question like that in a polite way won't hurt you in any way) as to what to expect as an answer (though, of course, some people are kinder than others).
As to Pete's "Why does he need you there?", I've seen many graduate students to bring throngs of their relatives to their PhD defense. Showing off to your beloved ones in your moment of glory is human, just as wanting to see some familiar and trusted/trusting eyes in the sea of unknown spectators when onstage. Of course, almost everyone can (and many do) perfectly well manage without that, but why should we deny reasonably good people a few little pleasures in this rather large and fairly unpleasant world even if it might be classified as "unfair to others" or "violating official policies"?


text:
Is it possible to co-finance a personal grant in Europe if it doesn't meet salary conditions of the country?
If one obtains a personal postdoc grant to cover a couple years of research as a full-time employee, but the value of the grant is only 60% of the union-stipulated wages in the country in which you wish to tenure it (and additionally does not include social benefits), what alternatives are available?
I can only fathom three choices, none of which seem appealing/feasible:

Decline the grant in favour of working on an existing project that covers full wages. (That seems wasteful and to forego an opportunity to further one's career opportunities as a researcher who attracts external funding.)
Convince the department to co-finance the remaining 40% of the wage as an "income supplement" out of their operational budget (That doesn't seem very likely.)
To obtain another grant from some other funding agency, on short notice, to co-finance the grant. (I'm not even sure that such actions exist, particularly at this time of year.)

To clarify, in addition to an appraisal of the three choices I've listed above, I'm especially curious if there are alternatives that aren't listed.

As usual, rules on this sort of thing will vary from country to country and from grant agency to agency.
However, all three options that you mention sound plausible to me. To go over them:

Decline the grant (...)

Sure. Nobody can fault you for declining a grant that pays so much below standard salaries. Honestly, unless I had no other options, this is likely what I would do. I am not sure I would call it "wasteful" to decline a grant that, honestly, sounds like a terrible option to begin with.

Convince the department to co-finance (...)

This is indeed not unheard of. Of course, whether you will be able to convince the department to do so largely depends on how much they want you to be there, what their regulations are, and if they have money to spare. I have seen this sort of co-financing mostly in cases where the department and the applicant were already in longer contact, and the public grant was mostly acquired as a way to make a move that was happening anyway cheaper for the department (that is, it was planned that the candidate joins them anyway, but now a part is paid via an external grant). If the department had no intentions to hire you without the grant it becomes substantially less likely that they will be willing or able to chip in.

(...) obtain another grant (...)

This sounds like another plausible option, but check the regulations of both grant agencies. In many cases, full-time personal grants are exclusive - that is, you can have only one at a time, even if the stipend is very low. However, it may still be an option to apply not for a second personal grant, but for a regular research project that allows you to pay a salary supplement for yourself. Whether this is possible again depends on the grant agency. For instance, the SNF in Switzerland as a rule never allows to pay any money to yourself as part of a regular research project. The FWF in Austria, on the other hand, is perfectly fine with this as long as the rules of the host institution (regarding, for instance, maximum employment), are followed. That being said, with this option you should probably expect to live off the 60% stipend for a while, as the application procedure for grants tends to take a while.

Thanks for the thoughtful response. The grant itself is a competitive national grant (NSERC) that offers a fixed value, independent of in which country it is tenured (e.g., Norway). The agency does permit supplemental sources, so long as they are "not remunerating additional activities."  However, it is not clear to me where such supplemental sources might come from (other than the department, which would be a tough sell since they have sufficient money available in other projects): there is no direct funding for non-permanent researchers through the Norwegian Research Council.

Just for closure, I wanted to mention that I accepted this answer because, as suggested, declining the grant turns out to be the best option.

Another option is to contact a PI who has money to hire a postdoc and can top up your salary. In my department for instance salary money can be combined across projects. The downside is that if your project does not overlap with the PI's they will likely ask you to carry out duties specified in the project for which their money was originally allocated.

This is a nice suggestion. I've tried to formulate the question to be more generally applicable, but in my particular case there is already money enough to hire me as a postdoc on a PIs grant. However, it is exclusive and cannot be allocated as a "top up" to a personal postdoc grant, so would require my declining my grant and instead working on his (related) project.

@schester Do you need to spend your grant money evenly throughout the 2 years? If they give the money to your university and then they make the payments, perhaps you can get 1 year paid with the grant and 1 year from the PI's money? In that case they are not "topping up" your salary but rather distributing it unevenly throughout the 2-year period. I think a person in the finance or HR section in your department might be able to sort something out (have you asked?). Good luck!

Another nice suggestion. The agency awarding my grant has a strict payment schedule, unfortunately.


text:
Does one really need a co-author to avoid being considered a nerd?
I have just graduated in B.A.Sc. During my undergraduate studies I was considerably active in research, such that I succeeded at publishing a paper on my own in a well-known conference.
At the conference and after the presentation, a very experienced professor asked me to present him some more details about the applied methodology from the paper. His opinion of my research paper diminished when he saw the list of authors and realized that I am the sole author. He advised me that such research might not be so noticeable and the community may take such authors as nerd people. Furthermore, he explained that such research reports would not have coherent enough accomplishments, due to the lack of any positive effects of the idea "cooking" in co-operation with other researchers. The ironic thing is that, before he found that the paper has just one author, his attitude regarding the paper and its content was gratifying, deservedly!
My questions are:

Is this viewpoint an overall and widespread idea among researchers?
If the ideas, simulations, manufacturing and the other stuff for a paper were done by a single person, should this person consider faking some co-authorship for the paper to avoid presenting themselves as a nerd to others?

Weird comment, the one you got.

Nothing wrong with being a nerd, nurd, or gnurd. It just means you're dedicated to your field. Wear the term proudly and ignore the idiots. There are reasons to collaborate, but that is emphatically not one of them

Can you say what field you are in? In some fields (e.g. biology), instances of students publishing research without a supervisor are extremely rare, so it might look weird. Not that this justifies the "nerd" comment.

@Bitwise: Robotics & Control...

Was "nerd" the term used by the professor, or your interpretation of his comments using other words?  It strikes me as a really strange term to use in this context.  If it was his term, then it makes me question his judgment (and you should probably ignore his comments).  If it's your term, then I wonder whether he communicated his comments clearly enough.

@AnonymousMathematician: He, frankly, used Nerd to describe the case, explicitly.

I'd write this professor off as really eccentric and forget about it.  Warning you about being considered a nerd due to your solo paper is incredibly strange.

@keshlam Aren't most researchers nerds to some degree anyway? I've only seen "nerd" used negatively in anti-intellectual contexts previously, so it's strange for a professor to use it in such a way.

The professor you met is an idiot. You will meet many such people in your life, I suggest getting used to it.

Isn't it because the professor wants easy co-authorship on young researcher's papers without doing much work? So this is why he might discourage single-authorship papers, in the hope that young researchers make him a co-author for free because of a "culture" that encourages multi-author papers?

If there is one thing that active participation on this site has taught me above all else, its that there is nothing so weird that no professor has ever said it to a student under their supervision.  Wow.

nerd actually stands for Not Even Remotely Dorky so thank him for the complement

That is indeed strange wording. At least in my field (computer science,) I think that having any publications at all probably qualifies you as a nerd. :) Maybe what he was trying to say is that you might be perceived as an enthusiast who doesn't actually have much academic background in the field? Kind of like the TED talks where 14-year-olds present ideas that have been around since the 50s or so because they haven't actually done any literature review to see that 'their' idea is old and unworkable. That's the closest thing I can think of that might make his comment even vaguely legitimate.

I take being called a nerd as a compliment, so his comment would motivate me to be a sole author. At least in the U.S., to most people outside academia, anyone in academia and certainly anyone who publishes might be seen as a "nerd". Usually, "nerd" means someone who is smart and more interested in academic knowledge than in sports or drinking or television or fashion, etc. So, from the definition I'm used to, the professor and anyone published in any journal is pretty much a nerd!

There are reasons to be more careful about sole-author papers from young investigators, but pretty much none of them are the ones this professor told you.
I would be more cautious when considering a sole-author work from a young investigator simply because inexperience plus lack of supervision means there are more likely to be mistakes.  These might be in the technical work, the scoping of the problem, the design of the investigation, or the interpretation of results.  On the other hand, if your paper went through meaningful peer review, that's a pretty good initial filter for simple mistakes, and that means I'm likely to take the paper as seriously as any other that's made it through peer review (i.e., still with significant skepticism, but assuming basic sanity).
None of this, however, has anything to do with gratuitously insulting an undergraduate investigator.  I would consider the professor you describe to be both a fool and a bully. Perhaps this attitude is widespread in the community where you published, perhaps it is not; certainly, there are toxic scientific communities.
I would thus advise you, if you want to continue working in that area, to keep doing so and meeting more investigators.  If you find they are more constructive in their criticism, then ignore the first, nasty person that you interacted with.  If you find the first scientist was representative in their attitude, then find a better scientific community to participate in.

+1 Excellent point about the fact that there is a high probability that a sole-author work from a young investigator might have mistakes (bugs) in the implementation that cannot be cross-checked by peer-review, since they are usually at a low level.

Besides actual mistakes, a big concern is that new people to the field don't know what's done, and the results could be a special case of more sophisticated results.  (Of course this happens even for experienced researchers!)

+1 but I think your third paragraph jumps to a lot of severe conclusions based on very little evidence. It's possible that the professor was a fool and a bully; it's also possible that he was just trying to be helpful and that langauge difficulties garbled the message. There's certainly not enough evidence to start suggesting toxicity of a whole field!

@DavidRicherby Please note a subtlety: "the professor you describe" may not be the professor in reality---we have only the OP's report of their experience.  Nevertheless, I would note that although most people and communities I've encountered are positive, I replied the way I have because I've also encountered both people and communities for whom abusive behavior towards junior researchers would be quite normal.

Just a quick comment in addition to this excellent answer: There is an element of truth in the fact that adding co-authors increases the visibility of the article, if only because it will be listed on their ResearchGate, ORCID... pages. Of course, that does not mean one should include co-authors for this reason, though.

...and presents him/her to the others as a nerd, does he/she have to consider some fake co-authorship for the paper?!....

No, you should not breach ethics because you think people might think you are a nerd if you don't.

I afraid that the other people do think like him, don't they?

@matinking regardless, you should not do something unethical.

One important aspect within the research-based code of ethics is the CREDIBILITY OF THE PUBLICATIONS... If the mono-author papers would not be taken as serious works, their composition might be under question, at all...

@matinking Well, it certainly won't be considered credible if you add a fake author to it.

@reirab: of fake, I mean mentioning the name of real people, but who have no influence on the paper, at all...

@matinking I understand, but either way it will not be credible and it wouldn't be hard for anyone to figure out if they actually talked to the other 'author.' Aside from the fact that you just shouldn't do it because it's the wrong thing to do, if/when you get caught (and that's probably just a matter of time,) such dishonesty would severely damage your reputation (not to mention the reputation of your "fellow author,") calling into question the credibility of both your past and future work. In any legitimate research institution, it could also get you punished, up to expulsion.

@reirab: Thanks buddy :)... I know the consequences... the question has been devised in a philosophical manner...

If you are the only one that has worked on the paper, then the paper should only have your name on it.
However, to learn how to write good papers, initially needs some kind of mentoring, in most cases. Also in many disciplines (including mine  - CS) sole-author papers are the minority. Collaboration with other people will improve your papers, since other researchers may be stronger in some aspects (e.g., programming, experiment design, writing) of producing papers than you. Thus, you should not aim to do everything yourself, if you can collaborate with other people and share ideas and implementations. And sometimes learning to collaborate is a more important skill than writing papers.

Even if your fellow researchers aren't 'stronger' than you in any aspect, just talking things through with someone and having someone else consider the ideas and any possible holes that you may have overlooked is quite valuable.

Furthermore, he explained that such research reports would not consist of coherent enough accomplishments, due to the lack of any effect of the idea cooking that could be acquired by co-operation with the other researchers.

The grain of truth in this is that most collaborations are inspiring, but:

Collaborations do not make papers or results more coherent. Many collaborative works suffer from the effect of too many cooks spoiling the broth. More specifically, every coauthor contributes their part without paying much attention to things working together or during the writing process, there is a clash of different ideas how papers should look like. The results are often rather loose patchworks than coherent, streamlined products.
Now, I have also participated in collaborative papers where this was not the case – but this was usually due to the first author taking the lead and not due to collaborative efforts. But even in those good collaborations, the coherence was en par with my single-author papers (at least in my humble opinion and going by the reviewer’s comments).
Not every multi-author paper is collaborative. At least in my field, a considerable portion of papers is mainly the work of the first author, with the other author(s) being supervisor(s), whose contribution mainly consists of outlining the research project and helping with the writing. On top of this there is the huge portion of papers where the supervisor is added for no reason other than being the supervisor (ignoring authorship ethics).
Being a single author does not mean that you do not communicate your ideas to others; it just means that none of them could make an addition to your work that justifies authorship. The paper of mine whose contents I discussed with most other researchers ended up being a single-author paper, because none of them found a major flaw or something to add to it. Also with no other paper of mine did I put that much effort in ensuring a thorough internal review.
Co-authors are not necessarily better at finding flaws than peer reviewers. This particularly applies to the papers authored by a PhD student and their supervisor which are common at least in my field. The student often learned a great deal of techniques from the supervisor and thus they can only inspire each other to a certain extent. In contrast, a peer reviewer has a fresh take at the work and a different perspective. Moreover, the supervisor will usually not check a lot of details of the work that do not end up in the final paper and hence are available to the peer reviewers.
Moreover, with papers with a large number of authors, it may very well happen that not all of them read the paper thoroughly. I once reviewed a paper with five or six authors, which proposed a complicated measure that was bound to always yield 1 as a result (they did not apply this measure though). While I found it plausible that one author made this mistake, I found it much more likely that none of the co-authors even read this part than that they did not notice this.

To conclude, the number of authors is a bad metric for paper quality. In particular, many papers that are equally prone to suffer from the alleged problems of single-author papers have multiple authors.

About your third point. I've been told by my advisor that it is good to have a single-author paper (which may be impossible in some other fields, unlike mathematics) to show that you are capable of independent work, but I've also been told and seen some (positive) dissertation reviews where the referee mentioned that the work done appears to be isolated (which is bad in any field, I'm sure) due to single-author papers.  Even if it is not actually isolated, I think it might give raise a flag when you are e.g. looking for work or submitting a grant proposal. So it's best to have a bit of both.

I totally agree with jakebeal's answer, but I'd like to add another possible motivation for the professor caution (however weirdly phrased). It might not apply to your case, but let me add it for the sake of completeness.
There are fields, like mathematics, computer science and theoretical physics, where publications with a single author are not at all uncommon, and PhD students are even expected to be able to produce a single-author publication.
There are other fields, especially in the experimental sciences, where publications with a single author are virtually non-existent, or limited to specific cases, simply because it would not be possible for an only person, however experienced they might be, to manage a complex experiment or to understand it correctly with respect to the state of the art.
In the latter case, an experienced researcher in front of a single-author publication from a student might think that the student actually received significant contributions from other people, but they chose not to appear as authors to boost the student's strength for some, possibly questionable, purpose (e.g. in view of an application for a position or an award).

other people ... choose not to appear as authors – even when they make significant contributions? i guess I have to wait a long time to witness such a thing...

@silvado Not necessarily: for a full professor with a hundred or more publications, a minor publication can be totally irrelevant, but for a student with none or few publications it can be relevant. Really, I wouldn't bet on the non-existence of the above (mal-)practice (actually, I wouldn't bet on the non-existence of any kind of malpractice).

A publication is never irrelevant as some universities evaluate people on the number of publications they make. Something like 6 or out. A paper with a professors name on it even if he didn't do anything is valuable for the university as it ramps up citations. On the other hand people won't think the author did all the work if there is a professors name on it, so the (no work) professor gets more credit for it.

@Surt "never" is too strong an adverb: surely most universities evaluate people on the number of publications, but in many cases if in a year you have already, say, 4 or 5 journal papers, adding a conference paper more is irrelevant. And in many universities around the world a professor is not out for not publishing. To be more specific: for me and many others I know would be irrelevant.

@MassimoOrtolano This completely depends on the university/country. Where I'm located, the national standard does not count actual papers, it counts "points" which are weighted by journal impact (determined by a national committee). Some conference papers will contribute to your points. So professors are typically always interested in being coauthors.

@semi-extrinsic: Yes, also in my country is like that, but what I mean is that the change of points given by a minor paper can be irrelevant for many professors, and some professors don't care too much about these national rankings.

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