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How to overcome these learning difficulties and progress in academia?
I am a mathematics graduate who recently dropped out of a PhD for personal reasons. I also have Asperger's Syndrome which I was diagnosed with in 1996. Since dropping out, I have been thinking long and hard about why it did not work out, and something that's just occurred to me is that being on the autistic spectrum has presented greater challenges in trying to succeed in academia than I originally anticipated. It is something that I have tried to overcome and repress in very recent years but it has still played a major part in how I learn and interpret things compared to other people.
Here are some ways in which I am affected by my Asperger's Syndrome:

I can be more easily overwhelmed by dealing with unfamiliar people and environments than most other people, which may present challenges in moving departments.
I often find independent and open-ended learning tasks overwhelming; even if the work is relatively straightforward.
I have difficulty picking up on the social cues of supervisors and implicit ways of communicating to me that something needs to be improved. By the time it is made much more explicit, it is often too late.
I find learning unfamiliar content a challenge, and although I can learn things fairly well if they engage me well enough, I find the whole process daunting, particularly when I don't know what I am working towards or if I don't have an underlying sense of what is "correct". This is especially challenging in experimental and research environments, where this preconcieved knowledge is not present.
I can get sidetracked from a task if I am overwhelmed by it, which leads to me going off at tangents and being afraid to approach the task at hand.
I am very prone to forgetting things and mixing things up unless they are written down or stated very explicitly.
I find it difficult to manage my time, and based on previous experience, I find I cannot simply say "I am going to learn chapter X in Y hours".
I can often find it hard to articulate my emotions and separate personal matters from professional matters.
I often have major difficulty interpreting criticism. If it is presented in a diplomatic and ecplicit manner then I can correct what was wrong, but sometimes my mind struggles to know how to process it and how to move forward. In some instances people have expressed their disappointment about my apparent inability to complete a task which may seem somewhat basic to them, and things like this can send me on a downward spiral which makes me feel depressed and demotivated, thus making me feel much less like improving my work and finding a way forward. (This is what happened during my dissertation and the PhD that I started and dropped out of, but this is a problem that I didn't really acknowledge at the time.)

I have always been a consistently high achiever at school and university (gaining several awards along the way) but this has not come without its difficulties. Although learning new things can be challenging for a lot of people, people on the autistic spectrum, myself included, often have fewer tools in being able to deal with the associated stress and anxiety than most other people. I have worked with academic faculty before and they have been completely oblivious to this aspect of my life, even though there has been documentation provided by the universities' support units which has been freely accessible by the faculty involved. As a result, they simply think of me as a highly capable student as most of my exam marks have been 1sts, and then they become surprised or disappointed when my progress is slow due to finding the tasks psychologically challenging to process and make progress with. I tried to mention my specific needs to my supervisors but their response was that the expectations they have are those of anyone they work with, and even when they have been disappointed with my progress for one reason or other, they have been unwilling to adapt their supervision techniques or people skills to make me feel more comfortable and more able to progress. I have had some rotten luck with supervisors before, who seemed ill-equipped to deal with people like me, which is probably a reflection of their people skills and the extent to which they were worth me working for in the first place.
I really want to become an academic mathematician in the long run and make a return to it in the forthcoming years, although I'm very aware that the challenges I face may make this very difficult to cope with if I'm doing a PhD or a post-doc or so forth, especially as the whole point of research is to delve deeper into some unknown aspect of a subject that hasn't been uncovered before. However, this would make successfully completing a PhD incredibly rewarding for me as it will have helped me to convince myself that I can overcome such obstacles, thus providing personal gain as well as building my academic career. I have had numerous attempts at research projects, although both supervisors expressed their disappointment at how slow my performance has been, despite this being more to do with the personal challenges I've already mentioned as opposed to being lazy and not putting the work in (which incidentally is what my supervisors thought I was). I am not giving up with academia though. I am not letting these bad experiences make me think I’m simply not cut out for academia, as people with Asperger’s Syndrome and autism can accomplish a great deal of success if the right type of support is in place for them. I want to return to doing a PhD in the future although I am taking a pause from academia to broaden my horizons and regain my motivation.
Does anyone have any advice on how to overcome these issues in the fullness of time, or more realistically, alleviate them? Also, how would I mention this to a potential future supervisor without making them potentially think I may not be capable of doctoral level work?
(Also, I am not looking for any comments on my suitability as a PhD student. I know that given my predicament, doing a PhD or other academic jobs will be difficult, but advice telling me that I am not good enough, I should just give up or settle for something else is not what I am looking for.)

Here's what I see: all the things you have listed (except perhaps the bullet about picking up social cues) seem completely standard for someone beginning their PhD, even without Asperger's. Perhaps your condition makes some of the issues more pronounced, but a lof of the difficulty you are having is just a natural part of being a young researcher, and the only way to overcome it is with experience. Of course, you should also try and mitigate the things that are affected by your condition (for example, you could try telling your advisor about the need to tell you things explicitly).

@tomasz You've hit the nail on the head - these are issues that anyone can expect to encounter in a position like mine, yet people on the autistic spectrum have fewer tools for dealing with anxiety and stress and so those issues may indeed be more pronounced. If I want to potentially work with another supervisor in the future, I will be upfront with them about my condition and explain to them how it affects me - based on their response I will then consider whether I would like to work for them and whether they seem adaptable.

Your question focuses on all the negatives of your first PHD attempt. Were there any positives? Have you actually enjoyed doing research? Because from all your posts you seem to expect that your advisor will pick you from the hand, show you what exactly to research by setting precise expectations and deliverables and help you overcome obstacles when stuck. Unfortunately, this is not how PHDs work or are supposed to work. Your plan "I am taking a pause.. to broaden my horizons and regain my motivation" is excellent and would help you focus on being happy on a work you love doing.

There were some positives from the PhD attempt. I did like reading books and learning about areas of mathematics I had not come across before, but this is more in a "know as much as there is to know" type way rather than a "probe deeply into one aspect and become an expert on it" type way. My approach is probably more in line with that of an undergraduate student than what a PhD student should be doing.
It also boils down to research area - if it's one I absolutely love then learning it becomes easy. Otherwise it feels like a chore and then I don't feel like putting 50 hours a week into it.

None of these difficulties seem to be entirely specific to an academic career. Perhaps it will help you to tackle this issue in two parts: (i) how do I manage the challenges of my condition in the workplace, and (ii) how does academia differ from this general case. Note that (ii) probably has positives as well as negatives. No doubt the internet can help with (i) - perhaps try workplace.SE?

I sense that these issues wouldn't be as severe in a workplace, but then again it depends on the job. I suppose the weaknesses I have mentioned could be applicable to any worthwhile job that requires a lot of learning.

While I don't have a direct relevant experience, let me offer you some advice. First of all, I would like to express that I am quite impressed with your achievements as well as your attitude and spirit toward achieving your dream. Now, the promised advice.
My first point is that you are presumably is still relatively young and, thus, it is possible for you not to worry too much about the speed of your return to academia. So, my first advice is to take one step (in the right direction) at a time. The second advice is, when doing professional networking (via online, offline or various hybrid modes), try to find and connect with people in academia, who are less focused on immediate results and more on the human factor. In other words, people, who see potential in other people. It it not easy to find such people, I know, but you have to be persistent and, at the same time, patient, as it might take time (which you, hopefully, have, as I assumed).
Finally, it is IMHO very important, when being in a Ph.D. program, to periodically self-assess your motivation with the selected topic or area of research. If you will find that your motivation has a downward trend (not when it has already reached dangerously low level), try to improve your motivation by looking at the topic or field of study at different angles, in other words, from different perspectives. If that approach won't infuse an additional portion of motivation into you, consider changing the topic or area of research, based on, perhaps, your new interests or shared interests of you and the above-mentioned people in academia. While this last advice of mine seems like a common sense, sometimes we forget about simple solutions to our problems and lose precious time in unnecessary struggles. Hope this helps. Good luck!

I also have autism, although discovered this quite lately, and I am doing a PhD in theoretical computer science (which is very mathematical, way more than most other branches of cs).
Let me share my experiences with you. I can relate to some of your points very well, but regarding my supervisor I am really lucky, as far as I know he did not know that I am on the autistic spectrum. We get along really good up to now (1 year), he is a kind person, gives me lots of freedom, encourages me and so on. So I really enjoy being here.
But in the first year up to now I have not accomplished anything scientifically important, I do not even have a topic for my thesis fixed; and over the course of the last months this comes up more and more, and yes builds up tension on myself, but I try to stay focused and built a plan for the next months.
Where I really have problems is in my social life, I have difficulty bonding with people, to understand why they act like they do. I am also more or less a "closed" person in that I cannot talk well about feelings or "everyday stuff", or sometimes act inappropriate in social situation, feel inhibited, which makes me act disorganized or planless, and so on; I guess the mix of all of them makes it difficult for people to relate to me too, alienates them from me or they just think I am chaotic/stupid whatever. Let me mention that this gave (and still) gives me a really hard time here in my new place as I had to move the city to start my PhD, where in my hometown the people I know there accepted me as I am.
But despite from that, maybe I can tell you something about "inappropriate advisors". I have also studied mathematics (after computer science), therein I specialised in an area of algebra and the experiences I collected there with my advisor where totally different; and hypothetically if she where my PhD advisor I can imagine things would run very different for me, in the bad direction. I still remember one of the first meetings with her, where in some sense she was putting me down, as how difficult her field is, how much work you have to put in and that this is not for everyone, and even questioned my ability as a person. Later I heard that she did this with other students too (but before drawing a wrong picture, there are also student which come along with her really well).
Anyway, as I was genuinely interested in the field I specialised in it. During the course of me working in this field I had some difficulty with her.
One time she totally put me down on one approach, it was quite an basic issue, but anyway still after 3 years I cannot say what I have done wrong.
Later I read (peer-reviewed journal-) papers from her, even discovered many (substanciel) errors (maybe due to the fact that I was quite new to the field I suspect that I questioned many "standard" arguments more closely). And suprisingly to this criticism from me she was very kind, accepted them, and even sincerely thanked me for them.
Eventually I started my PhD, and moved to another city for it. I meet her at a conference later (as I said, I still have an interest and the conference was in my past home town and I was anyway around at that time, so I visited it despite not being in the field anymore). And there suprisingly she was very kind to me, I still remember I was standing away from the crowd outside smoking and she came to me, quite enthusiastic, smiling and asking me a lot of questions of what I am doing now and so on.
If you would see me you would not think that I am autistic, guess I have learned some strategies to cope with it in the long term, so people might get a different impression from me at first. As written above I often make the impression (and indeed I am much to often) desorganized/inappropriate/chaotic. But on the other side, on an intellectuel level: I started programming quite early, participated in contests in my teenage years, and even got it to the finals of a national wide programming contest two times, as a student I won prices, often had the best marks, was among the best in the university of the students I started with (thats why I got recommended for student grants), my thesis got published and I also won a price for that.
Also I am very formal in my thinking, on an intellectuell level in math and cs, I always question things, and I also critize others quickly for it, expecially for bad notation or sloppy reasoning, this I already started in school - quite contrary to that I am a very shy person in social aspects.
Let me add, I already worked for one and a half year before starting my PhD as a programmer. I had great freedom therein and I was the only programmer, in this context I got along with my colleagues very well, but as I know myself this was partly because of this independence I had there (and also which I had here in my PhD again).


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How to cite where names are not of [firstName lastName] form, in particular patronymic?
In academia in the US, the dominant name format is [firstName lastName]. And in APA citation format you typically cite by referring to the last name. So e.g. if John Doe wrote a paper in 2014, you might cite it as Doe (2014).
More generally you'd cite by referring to the family name. So e.g. if the Chinese basketball player Yao Ming wrote a paper in 2014, you would cite it as Yao (2014), since Yao is his family name and Ming is his given name. But there is typically no confusion anyway, because when East Asians publish in Western academia, they simply give in to Western convention and reverse the order of their names. So Yao Ming would typically simply have his name printed as  Ming Yao. And so we're back to the [firstName lastName] format and there is no confusion.
My question is: What about patronymics? E.g. if Osama bin Laden writes a paper in 2014, should he be cited as Osama (2014) or bin Laden (2014)? It seems that unlike with East Asians, people with patronymic names have been less inclined to give in to Western convention and reverse the order of their names. So his name would still appear as Osama bin Laden  on the title page.
Suppose I notice that everyone simply cites his paper as bin Laden (2014). (Indeed, in the real world, this is how Western media outlets often refer to this historical figure, even though this makes as much sense as referring to George W. Bush as simply George.) If I want to cite this paper, should I simply follow what is now the convention and cite it as bin Laden (2014), even though this is mistaken? Or should I cite it as Osama (2014), at the risk of my peers having no idea which paper I am talking about? What is or should be the proper convention?
Note that this 'problem' is not limited to Muslim names. Even in Europe there are e.g. Icelandic names. There are also some cultures where people go by a single given name (i.e. no last name/family name/surname) but which may sometimes be composed of more than one word (e.g. sometimes in Mongolia, Burma, South India, Indonesia).

Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20567

Interesting question. The best thing would certainly be to consult the journal's style manual or, if this does not yield an answer (as is likely), to ask the editor. Their response is conclusive. Having said that, the issue seems to be very complex. There are no hard and fast rules. I quote from the "Referencing Manual For IAIS students" (Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exter):

Some names are made up of fifteen or even twenty words, and it can be
  baffling at first glance to determine how to put the various elements
  in the right order. […] Any one of these elements can become the 'urf'
  (customary name).
[…]
Once you have established the ‘urf, it is customary to follow this by
  the author’s given name (ism) and the name of his father (nasab)
  joined by the word ibn (son of – also written bin) or bint (daughter
  of) in the case of a woman.
[…]
Surnames are a relatively recent phenomenon across the Islamic world
  and modern Arabic names only came into existence towards the end of
  the 19th century. It is now accepted practice, particularly in the
  West, to treat the final element of a person’s name as a surname and
  the first as a forename, so it is now correct to cite Taha Ḥusayn as
  Ḥusayn, Taha, although you will find Taha Husayn in older books and
  catalogues. The Western obsession with the surname can lead to some
  strange coinages, for example Saddam Hussein’s full name is Ṣaddām
  ibn Ḥusayn al-Tikrītī, yet it is now standard to cite him by his
  father’s given name (Ḥusayn) as a surname. (Most second forenames
  indicate the father’s name, which is why names such as Aḥmad can be
  found as the second element in women’s forenames). Similarly, the form
  of given name `Abd (slave/servant of), followed by one of the
  ninety-nine names of God, should never be split from the element which
  follows it, although most Westerners still cite Jamāl ‘Abd al-Nāṣir
  (wrongly) as Nasser.

The referencing manual suggests to use the following established bibliographic resources to find the 'urf (customary name):

the bibliography of a scholarly book (however, different sources will quote the same Arabic name in different ways)
the Exeter University Library catalogue, which uses the best-known name in the Library of Congress transliteration
the Encyclopaedia of Islam
the Library of Congress Authority List

In all of these cases, problems with transliteration may render it difficult to look up the proper name.
The University of Malaya's APA Formatting and Style Guide is another useful resource.

Use the patronymic. It is the part that looks like a surname, has the function of a surname, and is less likely to cause confusion.
It seems clear enough to me. One of the two is a personal name, supposedly unique or almost unique among their relatives, which is used to address the author among his/her family. The other one serves to identify the author's lineage and distinguish among other people with the same name. By convention, we cite using the second.
One could argue that a surname is a form of patronymic, too.
This is, incidentally, the solution that causes less practical trouble. If someone is called Andreas Jonsson, it is difficult to assess if the latter is a surname or a patronymic without asking the author personally.
I know it is not always that easy with names, but it seems like there is a simple way out if the problem is limited to this issue of patronymic vs surname.

Indeed, surnames in (many) western countries are the bureaucratic evolution of patronymics. I was surprised to learn that Sweden used them frequently (Sven Nilsson, Karin Nilssdotter) until as late as 1901.

What if these persons much prefer they didn't have to give in to Western convention and convenience, and preferred that you used their actual name? (See e.g. @Gaurav's answer.)

@KennyLJ Then I think that they shouldn't put their patronymic in the paper at all, but just sign it with their first names (if I understand the issue correctly). If I read a patronymic in the author's name, I assume they want me to use it.

Some friends of mine wrote a letter to Nature about this question, in which they argue that where family names don't exist, first names alone should be used instead of the father's name:

Indians from the south traditionally do not have surnames. It is only when forced to comply with Western naming standards that they use their father's given name as a substitute. As a consequence, journal rules require them to publish research under the fathers' given names (with which we — Nalini, Jeevananthinee and Sujatha — also sign this Correspondence letter). Obviously, as young south Indian scientists making a contribution to science, we would prefer to be identified with our first names and not by our fathers' given names. [...] We believe that now is the time to introduce a consistent publication system that accommodates Indian names. The universal author-identification that uses contributor IDs, as discussed in your News Feature, is a good start. Such a system could be designed along the lines of the digital object identifier (doi) system used for journal articles.

In my experience, the Korean case is not clear.  This is because some Koreans change their name order, while others do not.  What's more, some will change the order in some situations (academic publishing, for example) but not in others (academic social context in Korea mixing with Westerners).  Thus, it can be unclear which of two or three syllables is the family name and which the given name. The political family Park is an example of Koreans not changing the name order -- and the U.S. media also retaining the original order (at least in this century).
Spanish names can also be a problem, since some have given, middle and last but others have given, last and mother's last.

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Listing GPA on undergrad CV when reaching out to professors
I intend to apply to PhD programs in computer science, and I have been advised to reach out to professors I'm interested in working with by sending them my CV. My GPA is 3.6, which is not bad, but it's not great either. I think the rest of my CV/profile is quite positive, but I am not inclined to list my GPA for this 'reaching out CV', since it may create a bad first impression, even before I apply. So the question is whether I should leave my GPA on.

3.6 is well above the threshold where the actual number matters; other things like research experience are more significant.  If your CV usually lists your GPA, leave it in.  If your usual CV doesn't list your GPA, don't bother adding it.  In either case, be sure to give some evidence of research potential/ability/experience.

While people may not care very, very much about undergrad GPA, if you send a CV without it people may notice (even if not caring deeply), and wonder about it, ... which is not what you want them to be thinking.

Conspicuously missing a CV makes a worse impression.  The most important thing, in my view, is to take some time to properly understand what the professor is doing, and how you could help his/her research efforts.  A thoughtful contact of this type is much more valuable than crafting the correct CV/profile.

I think you're missing the point. I do intend to be thoughtful in my contact with a professor. But my question is about whether I should include my GPA in the CV that I send.

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Where can I get a cheap, virtual, high-performance server suitable for academic use?
I am working on a machine learning project for which I need proper computational power. Assuming that my local university can't provide a server to run the code, I am looking for an online website which sells virtual servers for limited time — as in a month or less.
I heard that some companies provide free servers for students if they prove their status as students — but I failed to find anything with a search on Google. Is there anywhere which provides virtual high performance servers suitable for academic use?

One of the reasons I ask this question on Academia Stack Exchange is that most of the VPSs you can find on the net are more focused on the quality of bandwidth and connectivity, but I am just focused on CPU and Memory setting (I just need to run a Matlab or Octave program).
P.S.: This question is related to the subject matter at Server Fault and Super User, but those sites are almost completely focused on servers suitable for web-based applications. Also, they don't know about the opportunities provided for students for free or at low cost.

I'm in a similar situtation (If you are in australia I could almost tell you the precise organistations to talk to). Another place to check is if your university has a student computer club. Mine does and the severs they have a more powerful (and less utilied) than almost anything the univerity owns.

Assuming that my local university can't provide a server to run the codes, Why not? And why does it have to be your local university?

I've used the A2C2 cluster at my university (Arizona State University) - feel free to apply to them!

By local university I mean my current university.Actually that is an Independent project and they don't granted computational power for such that situation.Yeah It is possible to search through other universities but anyway If I can find a not-expensive virtual high performance server I prefer to pay for that.

Just to clarify - are you looking for a free or payed service?

free or low cost service (up to ~30$/month).thanks

This question is off-topic because (a) it is a shopping question, which is off-topic on Stack Exchange sites (they tend to quickly go out of date, and rarely admit one objectively correct answer), and (b) because its connection to Academia.SE seems dubious: you can't just take any question and add "for academic use" to the end and somehow automatically make it on-topic here; that's exactly the "boat programming" fallacy.

while I'm just as interested in answers to this question, sadly it is off-topic here like @D.W. pointed above

In most countries, there exist high performance computers that researchers can apply for access to.  For example, in Sweden there is the National Supercomputer Centre, and other countries have similar projects.  When you get access, you get a limited number of core-hours (for example, if you have 5000 core hours, you can run 50 cores for 100 hours or 500 cores for 10 hours) to be used over a specific period of time (for example, one year).
To apply for access, you may have to go through someone who is employed at a university, if you aren't.  If you are a student, you hopefully have a supervisor who can apply for your project.  Or they might have special services for students!

Maybe things are different in Sweden, but I can't imagine a national supercomputer granting time to someone who hasn't proven their code on smaller university-level clusters. Just imagine all the users who would reserve 50 cores for a day and run serial code (it happens!).

In both the UK and Sweden I've been granted access to supercomputers without proving specific code — all I needed was an OK from my supervisor, on whose project I entered.  I don't know how it would be if not working with a supervisor already known to the people managing the supercomputer, though.  Your m̶i̶l̶e̶a̶g̶e̶ kilometrage may vary. (A single process on those computers normally runs on a single node with 16 cores, so not that powerful, really.  I think access to more powerful nodes requires additional steps.)

@ChrisWhite the university clusters are the SNIC ones (or rather, the universities provide their clusters through SNIC). In fact, my university (Stockholm University), doesn't have clusters that I am aware off, except what some individuals groups have purchased. The usage patterns are analised every year and taken into account for the next years allocation.

In the US, large-scale access to national-scale and some regional-scale resources is done through an application process that involves showing performance and scalability of the code(s) planned to be used. However, to my knowledge, all of these services offer a start-up award at a smaller scale (less time, short duration) to allow the proposing team to get their feet wet, measure their code, and provide the required performance numbers.

@BillBarth Ok.  But I hope and suspect that what CoderInNetwork is looking for is not large-scale by the standards of those supercomputers.

@gerrit, but it doesn't have to be. Many sites, including mine, support small-scale requests, too. Neverthless, I just wanted to rebut the point that some sort of proof about code performance was absolutely necessary to get access to national-scale resources.

That is a nice idea.I don't want to involve my supervisor in the process for some reasons(and actually it is a personal independent project). Yeah my country has such places but as you mentioned it is vague that is it possible to apply for that without involving your supervisor or not. I will ask them

The US NSF sponsors systems through the Xsede program, which includes many systems that aren't geared for large-scale runs, but rather for utility usage by many small jobs. Startup allocations on those systems are quite readily available.

Amazon provides cloud computing resources (in particular EC2 virtual machines) for free for the first year and, most likely, offers discounts for educational institutions and/or faculty/students.
In addition to Amazon's offerings, Microsoft provides attractive programs, based on their Azure platform and focused on educational sector. Some of the programs are free of charge (require application). You can get more detailed information on the relevant Azure for Education webpage.
P.S. Converted my Amazon comment to this answer due to addition of information on Azure.

The "free" tier on Amazon's AWS services won't give you any compute power that a normal desktop cannot – in fact, considerably worse. You get 750 CPU-hours per month with 1 GB of memory, which is worth $2.30 per month if you buy the time outright. In saying that, if you've got money, you can get a lot of CPU power from Amazon and use Matlab's distributed computing toolbox.

@Moriarty: I agree that AWS' free tier is low-power, but it still can be used for various non-demanding educational applications, from hosting a project's website or blog to light apps prototyping or such. For resource-intensive applications, one definitely would have to use paid tiers, which I have done for my dissertation research software (R, RStudio Server, LaTeX, etc.). I have also used AWS' Spot instances, which saved me money at the expense of occasional disruptions in hosting. It's a good idea to have a source code backed up to a free tier-powered VM for uninterrupted development.

thanks @AleksandrBlekh as you mentioned in comment its free servers are not good enough for heavy computations but I am willing to pay for their paid services if that helps.I should investigate their website through.

If you can parallelize your code it could be a good idea, but I would not go with Amazon; its interface is counter-intuitive and it can lead to nasty  surprises in the billing. Heroku and another PaaS are better IMO. I dont know about Azure, though.

@bduran Heroku is great, but more for building applications than doing science. If OP is comfortable with SSH/terminal usage (which he/she will probably be or need to be in order to use most of the alternatives mentioned here), I would say an unrestricted VPS (like Digital Ocean, mentioned in another answer) is better than a PaaS like Heroku (and others).

@CoderInNetwork, some quite high-powered instances are available e.g. see https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/now-available-new-c4-instances/ and http://aws.amazon.com/hpc/ in general. If time is not critical, taking advantage of spot pricing is a very good plan.

The Github Education Pack comes with 100$ free credit on DigitalOcean, which hosts virtual machines on the cloud.

I came here to post exactly this. While Amazon's AWS is the way to go if you are going for larger scale, or benchmarking, DigitalOcean is way leaner and simpler to set up, which will get you running in way less time. I used the 8GB instance for a few hours at a time to run machine learning experiments for my bachelor thesis. When I was not using it, I just took a snapshot and destroyed the instance, to make it stop running costs. The whole process cost me about five dollars, and I didn't restrict much my experiments.

If you're doing machine learning, I assume most of your compute time is coming from floating point calculations.
If this is the case, You could gain quite an increase in performance by using a GPGPU library like CUDA or Theano.
Amazon has GPU focused instances that you can use for GPGPU work
Amazon also has virtual HPC systems that probably fit your current use case.

GPGPUs might be of use if (and that is a big if) the problem is actually suited for them.

I agree GPGPU is not for every task, but my understanding is that many machine learning paradigms work with large sets of floating point values. Would you mind giving some example cases where general purpose CPUs handle a large amount of floats better than GPUs?

R-Systems will rent you time on their bare-metal HPC utility cluster for quite low prices. They charge by usage, rather than on a subscription basis.

This may turn out to be more work than you are willing to commit, but perhaps it is worth mentioning BOINC.
You can set up your computation task appropriately and have it run on computer time donated by volunteers who participate.
Ensuring that your code is compatible with this distributed model, and enticing volunteers to run your project, is of course a separate problem.

At this time of year (Summer) many universities have large undergraduate computer labs that are mainly empty and idle. If your project is recognised by your university then you may be able to get access to those computer labs officially sanctioned.
I did this at my institution one year and gained agreement to install a small program at boot time on every campus machine in a teaching lab and was able to gain access to an huge computing resource for free and generate results that surpassed even what those using a dedicated HPC had achieved.
It does take skill at negotiation and a demonstration of your competence to convince those who have control at campus level, but the results might be worth it.


text:
Humanities for people with poor preparation?
As someone in a math-heavy field, the advice one is generally given if one's preparation for potentially going into graduate school is poor boils down to the following:

Do better in a class that succeeds the class you did badly in. The example, I think, was something like "if you did badly in algebra, take algebraic topology." But in undergraduate humanities programmes, there isn't necessarily as obvious a succession unless one looks at course numbering and intensity (e.g. presumbly a small seminar in the high 200's will be more intensive than a large survey introductory lecture class).
Do RA work for a year or two after one's undergraduate years (which might allow one to take discounted classes). But I am unsure if RA work is as plentiful among, say, scholars of Marx or medieval theology as it might be to biochemists or economists. Naturally, it would seem that there's probably some demand for translators or archivists, and I know people who have interned at museums as researchers, so maybe I'm not aware of something.

So I feel like it's hard to map advice in more overly structured programmes that may also emphasize things like hard data more to the humanities.
Is this true, and if so, what would be good advice for such situations?

I find it curious that, although I am in the math-heaviest field, neither of these pieces of advice is familiar to me.  The first one seems a bit strange: it is good advice in the technical sense (i.e., if successfully followed, good things will happen) but it seems less helpful than the completely obvious Do well in the classes you are currently taking. I certainly do not generically advise students who did badly in algebra to take algebraic topology: if they succeed it looks good, yes, but for the students I know it is much more likely to fail dramatically.

The second piece of advice is totally unfamiliar: what you do after your undergraduate years if you are interested in going to grad school is to apply to and then attend grad school.  I know of little or no RA (I'm assuming this means "research assistant"; that's how unfamiliar it is!) opportunities for people with BA's in mathematics who are not graduate students.  Can it be that the only advice you've been given for grad school in a math-heavy field is so unfamiliar to a tenured professor of mathematics?!?  Surely we should try to nail this down before extrapolating to the humanities.

@PeteL.Clark RA work is very common (and can be extremely beneficial) in economics (and related fields). I know applicants who went from getting into top 30-40 schools to multiple admits with funding to top 10 programs after 2-3 years of RA work. I believe it's also fairly common in many sciences (e.g. psychology, biology).

@PeteL.Clark: I suspect it might be advice more common in fields with more "hard data", which probably wouldn't quite include math. The first suggestion was actually given to me once, and probably founded on the assumption that I had done badly only for issues of focus, and not because I was completely incapable of doing well in the earlier classes.

Humanities prof in the US here. You are indeed correct that there aren't, generally speaking, research assistantships available at the undergraduate level in humanities. It's just not that easy even for a very capable, very motivated undergraduate to contribute much meaningful to the writing of a scholarly paper in most humanities fields.
The best advice is to figure out exactly why you did poorly in the earlier course, correct the problem and then work very hard is a subsequent humanities course. You want to show that the one bad mark is an outlier.
More generally, the best advice for success in humanities courses and applications to humanities graduate programs is to learn to write really well. If you can learn to write careful, focused, clearly argued essays that people actually enjoy reading, you'll have a definite leg up on the competition. Your bad marks might keep you from making the cut at some programs, but if you blow the writing sample away, you might become very competitive at programs that treat their admissions more holistically. (My sense, which is not very reliable, is that admissions decisions in the humanities tend to be a bit more holistic in general than in the sciences, since UG programs tend to vary much more in the humanities than in the sciences.)


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Are endorsed undergraduates eligible to submit papers (and eventually get it accepted) to arXiv?

Is it possible for an undergraduate to submit his first preprint to arXiv and get it accepted ? Assume that he/she has been endorsed.

I am asking this because so far the papers that I have observed the email id seemed to be email id of Professors of some university or colleges but of course it may not be the case in general.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'accepted'. As far as I know, the arXiv doesn't perform any quality control, other than the endorsement process.

"accepted" means to be available online as an arXiv paper.

Ah, I see what you mean. From the explanation of the endrsement system: "Endorsement is a necessary but not sufficient condition to have papers accepted in arXiv; arXiv reserves the right to reject or reclassify any submission." Rejection seems to be quite rare and is based almost exclusively on violations of the arXiv policy, not the scientific merit of your submission.

Yes, of course.  The arXiv staff doesn't sit around evaluating the credentials of everyone who submits.  They reserve the right to reject even endorsed submissions, but this is unusual.
The main obstacle to publishing on the arXiv as an undergraduate is writing a suitable paper and getting it endorsed.

Even if he/she has no previous publication record?

@user170039: Lack of previous publication record is one of the main things the endorsement system addresses.  It may mean that the paper will get more careful scrutiny to make sure it's not nonsense, but the academic status of the submitter has nothing to do with that.


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How to deal with a student who talks too much in my class?
I am teaching English for an Employment course; the entire course usually takes 2 months.
This semester I have a student who is talking too much in the class and for anything that I teach he has something to say—sometimes related to the course and sometimes not. However, he performs well enough in my class activities and homework and he doesn't seem to be deliberately rude.
He is not a chatterbox—he's not talking continuously for a long time, but for many and many times, but each time he speaks for a short time. Sometimes he is also a bit aggressive, saying things like "non-human employers" or "psychologists talking empty for money". I think he is suffering from aspergers since he also usually brings some maths stuff to read in class.
How can I deal with such an unpleasant situation?
BTW, I am a woman teacher and the student is a man; does this makes him more rude?

You think he has aspergers since he brings math stuff to read in your class?
Also, I do not understand the last sentence, how is him talking in class more rude if you are a woman?

In your opinion, is he trying to engage with the lessons by stimulating (potentially unneeded or inappropriate) discussion, or is he deliberately trying to distrupt the lesson?

I also had a very talkative guy in my university years. I still remember this: A prof. once, after introducing a subject, asked him "do you have something to ask?". The guy replied "yes, I do", and the prof. replied smiling "I was sure!". The whole class had a good laugh! My point is that maybe some humor could help.

@Landric: I think he is not "...deliberately trying to distrupt ..."; I think main reason for his behavior is feeling uncomfortable because of attending the classes: he has a successful academic background in math, but because of little knowledge of English he has to come my classes for labor-paid-job for his living. So his many interruptions probably is because of his anger (?)

@george I would strongly advise against humor at the expense of a problem student (or any student, for that matter).

Is this job training class?  I would imagine this is off topic

@user1938107 - no. CV writing and general English improvement.

I can't help but notice that the OP is full of spelling and grammar errors while you state that you are teaching an English class.

@Olorun I think the OP meant that possibly this student is being less polite than he would if the teacher were a man.

@dreamer I also can't help but notice that the OP seems to be a female teacher called John. That being said, I get the feeling that the OP is not a native speaker (so may be teaching in a country where English is not the main language), which may be perfectly excusable. For example, you cannot expect that all English teachers in India have perfect English.

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is not about an academic education. It might be something for the Educators proposal.

@Moriarty My comment was not meant to be offensive. It just seems to me that some of the mistakes made here are a matter of sloppiness rather than a lack of understanding (and from an English teacher you would expect that he/she double checks for that).

@dreamer I didn't reply your first comment not because of your comment itself but because it was absorbing a lot up votes by some people who are happy for such sort of things. I am not a native in English and I teach in an English-native country. I am a bilingual teacher for students of my first language who know little English; that's why I am teaching that class. Well, my teaching is not paid also, and if one thinks still native-speaker deserves more to be an English teacher, so it's a shame to the institution which sacrifices learning for saving money, not a shame on me...

... BTW I had 78% positive feedback (even though my English level is lower, 6 out of 9) in the last semester i.e. second among teachers and majority of them are paid and native. And to @Moriarty: Does everybody put their real name in here? Firstly, I want to be anonymous since I am a teacher and may at least one of my students show up here, Secondly, is it really too difficult to be aware of choosing John as profile's name and writing 'I am a female' in OP simultaneously?

In the first place, I would take him aside for a quiet chat. Nothing aggressive - just explain how you see the situation he is creating. If he has some interesting points to make, do listen. But also make it clear you are teaching all the students in class, not just one. This, hopefully, should be sufficient.
The second stage -if needed- is a serious warning in class, in front of everyone. Other students need to see you are taking things in hand. He has been forewarned.
The third level is OUT, plus whatever disciplinary measures are current in your institution.
Unfortunately, just ignoring him will not help him see his errors.

Introduction
I have responsibility for students with alternate needs in my academic department (of a UK University). I also have responsibility for quality in teaching and learning. There are two issues that you raise here which are different, and being aware that they are different is necessary to understand routes to a solution.
There are different kinds of talking in class. There is the situation where two (or many) students are talking to each other whilst the teacher/lecturer continues with teaching. We teach in very large theatres (in hundreds) and this sometimes happens that the noise level at the back prevents students hearing the lecture, but the lecturer is unaware of the chatting until there is a complaint; or on some occasions the lecturer is aware of it and continue regardless!
There is the situation where the talking is from one student alone, either to themselves or chatting to you, interrupting you or asking questions of you with great regularity.
Tourette's
You have implied it is the one individual situation in your question, so I will constrain my answer to that situation specifically. One individual may be talking a lot for several reasons, some of which may be due to a specific condition. For example, a student with Tourette's may call out, involuntarily, and sometimes convert the interruption into a question to cover the situation. This is unlikely to be the position you have but I wanted to highlight it for others. This situation needs handling with some diplomacy and tact to avoid overly embarrassing yourself or the student in question. A student with Tourette's may appear overly aggressive or even acting improperly with respect to your gender. If this is the case you should seek advice from your special needs advisors.
Autistic Spectrum
A student on the Autistic Spectrum, which may include Asperger's, will relate to you differently an needs handling differently. For a student on the Autistic Spectrum they have more difficulty accepting that other people are present and see the class as a one-to-one conversation with you and treat it as such. They would respond to as if no one else was present. If you asked a rhetorical question, such as "What do we think of this?" - they will answer immediately! If you ask "Do we all understand" they will very likely say no (another aspect of Asperger's). One of my students used to answer his phone in class (quite loudly) because he had overlooked the fact that he was not alone.
Several things that a teacher can do with one (or more) student on the Autistic Spectrum in their class at University. We need to make it clear when question can be asked and when not. "I will explain how ..... and save any question until later. You can ask me questions after the end of class." is a simple statement that can make the protocol clearer. Avoid saying "Ask me any questions". They will take it literally, including asking non-related questions. If you want a Q&A session you again have to be clear: "I will take a small number of clarifying questions from different students." - this makes it clear that you cannot answer all the questions from one person and that the time is finite.
Once the protocol is clearly established such students are happy to work within such a regime. It is likely that it has never been explained to them how it works. Their condition makes it difficult to work it out for themselves how this aspect of human interaction operates. It has to be spelled out for them, even as adults and even at very high levels of knowledge. If you're not sure, watch a bit more of The Big Bang Theory!
Psychosis
A final note, that we also teach students with Psychosis which can manifest itself in various forms. This can include paranoia, delusional behaviour, threatening behaviour and so on. It can cause them to talk aloud in class (answering the voices they are hearing). Again, there may be gender related issues with this category of student and one should seek advice of the support professionals.
Summary
So, when in context, you can see that talking to the student in a quiet chat is a good place to start as you may learn the reason for their behaviour, but not all categories of "chatters" are necessarily self-aware. We have to remember that in many cases we are the responsible adult in the relationship (to use a legal term). The responsibility of doing the right thing is ours.

Some resources:

Teaching Students with Asperger's at College
Teaching Students with Asperger's at University

Very informative; I'd never heard it termed as losing track that others are around, but that makes sense.  I think I'm often interpreted as deliberately rude when showing a lack of consideration, but, reflecting on it, I think 'losing track' is an apt description.  It takes a lot of effort to imagine what everybody is thinking and try to act appropriately for the overall context, so especially if focusing on a problem for a class, it's easier to set the other-people model aside to have more mental space for the focus of the discussion.  I can see how this is a problem for the teacher, though.

Some people who never were allowed to express their opinions in their family in their childhood , e.g. because of old-school parents, they later in their life just want to say their thoughts in response to any question/talk. And those also believe that their opinions are (sometimes most) important so everybody should/would eager to hear. I believe this can be the reason of his talking (?)

This is a great answer on a not so great question


text:
Should Research Associates apply for Post-Doc research positions if they want to?
I live and work in the UK and my training is in Computer Science and Mathematics. I defended my PhD thesis eight years ago and since then gained work as an engineer, then a Post-doc Research Assistant, then a Teacher, and now a Research Associate. Is it fine for me to apply for another post-doc research assistant position, or is that not the done thing? I ask because in job progression terms the job title may seem to some University employers like "going backwards". I'm slightly bohemian when it comes to research positions - I'm not really concerned about fluctuations in pay, but rather whether the research is interesting.

You may want to clarify what country you are in, and what field.  I just don't understand the context of those position names.  "Post-doctoral researcher" is not usually a job title; in fact, the usual official title for a research post-doc is "research associate."

I've updated the question, so hopefully it's clearer now.

You need to read the job postings carefully. In many fields, it is not possible to get a postdoc if it is more than a certain number of years (rarely more than 5) since you obtained your PhD (this has at least been the case for all the postings I have seen in math).

@Buzz, Postdoctoral Researcher and Research Associate are definitely distinct titles at UT Austin.

There's no prohibition in most job postings against people like you applying for postdoc positions. In many cases, it will be rare, though, that someone would be selected who is 8 years past their PhD simply because most people recognize that postdoc positions are supposed to be training positions for people on their way to faculty jobs. That doesn't seem to be your trajectory, and so departments would probably pass you over. As they are training positions, postdoc positions are typically also strictly limited to 3 years which may or may not interest you.
The situation may be different if a postdoc position is paid for from grant money. In that case, the principal investigator may decide that to heck with training, I need to get this work done and this is the right person for it.
I don't think that you're doing yourself a disfavor if you apply. If it's a small enough community where people talk about each other, you may start to acquire a reputation as a bohemian without a clear career trajectory, but you already know that and so no harm done.

Thanks for the answer. All my research has involved mathematics, but mathematics has not been the main department involved. However, I now know it is on mathematics I want to focus so I would like to get a position within a maths department and stick to it. I don't think this is impossible if only I can get my foot in the door so to speak.

The claim that there is no prohibition is directly counter to what I have seen in most job postings. They almost always include a maximal "PhD age".


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Does an economics degree qualify for the 17 month OPT extension?
(This question is about US work authorization for foreign students.)
The list of STEM fields which will permit one to get a 17 month OPT extension include only two fields that containing the word "economics".

45.0603 Econometrics and Quantitative Economics
51.2007 Pharmacoeconomics/Pharmaceutical Economics

The latter is definitely not applicable to me, so I am interested only in the former.
According to this page, "45.0603 Econometrics and Quantitative Economics" is defined to be

A program that focuses on the systematic study of mathematical and statistical analysis of economic phenomena and problems. Includes instruction in economic statistics, optimization theory, cost/benefit analysis, price theory, economic modeling, and economic forecasting and evaluation.

My question is: If my diploma says simply that I have a degree in economics (as is often the case with degrees in economics), would I automatically qualify for the 17 month OPT extension? If not, is there any way I could go about proving that I satisfy the above definition? (It seems to me that any decent degree in economics would arguably satisfy the above definition.)

I have voted to close as off-topic as this question is asking for legal advice.

Words like "automatic" are very uncertain concepts when they come to US immigration law: I think you really need to talk to a lawyer or to the foreign students office at your institution (who have lawyers to consult with).

ANSWER: Look at page 3 of your I-20. Near the top there is an item "Primary Major". You are eligible for the 17-month STEM extension if and only If the code listed there appears on the ICE's list of STEM fields.

Note though that I-20 forms issued from July 2015 onwards will look slightly different and the information will appear instead on page 1. Sample of I-20 form from July 2015 onwards.

I do not understand why those who know nothing about this matter simply presumed that there could not be a definite, general answer to this question, and were so eager to vote to close. It turns out that there is a definite, general answer that will be useful to the many thousands of non-US economics graduates in the US every year.

@Kenny LJ, If you add your answer (maybe include links to the ICE list, etc. and rewrite the question to be something like: Is my major is eligible for the 17-month STEM OPT extension?, the question could be reopened.

CIP codes in economics include:
45.0601) Economics, General.
45.0602) Applied Economics.
45.0603) Econometrics and Quantitative Economics.
45.0604) Development Economics and International Development.
45.0605) International Economics.
45.0699) Economics, Other.
Your registrar's office should be able to tell you what the CIP code is for the degree program that you're in.  I would expect the list that you have referenced to include other codes if they were approved for OPT.

The foreign student's office at your university is responsible for your OPT application and the accompanying paperwork.
They are the best place to ask not only because they're doing the paperwork and would know of previous successful applications, but also because they have the discretion to make the application based on their knowledge of your university's economics program and your particular course of study.
Note that even if your university agrees with your argument and puts it forward, the USCIS also has the discretion to disagree and reject it, falling back to the standard OPT.


text:
What is actually the difference in student experience between a world famous university and others?
What would be the practical difference in terms of quality, experience, and future prospect if a student studies at a 4-year undergraduate degree in a world famous university like Harvard compared to a top university in a developing country, like, for example, in an Indian IIT?
Suppose the syllabus contents are the same and and the major is highly technical like Electrical Engineering. My question is not limited to Electrical Engineering, any technical subject will do.
Future prospect means: researcher (academic/industry), entrepreneur, professional, anything that gives him money or/and fame.
The aim of this question is not to understand the career prospect of a student who graduates from a world famous university. The goal is to understand the academic atmosphere or academic culture and academic productivity of the university. My question talks about Undergraduate for a reason. Graduate and PhD degrees are mostly related to research. So, it is natural that a world famous university will offer more scholarships, source more funding for research and deal with more advanced technologies than that of a university in the developing world.
To my understanding the teaching methods, psychology of people, and goal of higher education play big roles there. For example, in the developing world a degree doesn't always mean that you learned something useful nor does a degree doesn't secure one's career because of various socioeconomic realities.
Given that the syllabus is the same, instructors may need restrict themselves into theoretical discussions only or conduct lesser labs because of the lack of sufficient instruments because of budgetary constraints. Moreover, in developed world teaching methods and syllabuses are also subject to continuous research and improvement which is not always true in the developing world.
Salary of professors and their living condition is also a factor in the developing world. Above all, the feeling of not being a part of developed world plays a big role in their motivation.

Syllabus contents mean not too much in my opinion. They should look similar anyway. Also, I think you could improve your question if you are a little more specific about e.g. what you mean on "future prospect". Experience shows that you can build a computer/software company and be successful without even finishing a university, so it really depends on what kind of career you think about.

I think one of the things that makes a big difference is "who gets in". Since only very brilliant people are accepted, they develop in an extremely stimulating environment that allows them to flourish.

Could you edited those clarifications into your question?

IIT is a good school, and one can get into a top Western grad school after going there.  Is Harvard even good at EE?  Anyway, possible duplicate: http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/90/19607

My perception is that for a technical subject, a school like Harvard would get you precisely nothing, and might even be a detriment.  Ivy League-type degrees are beneficial in areas like finance, law, & politics, where who you know is far more important than what you know.

There have been similar questions for PhD students and faculty members. As questions specific to under-graduate education are generally off-topic here, I'm not sure this question fits.

@Miguel, if 'only very brilliant people are accepted', how come some of them exit with 3rd class degrees or worse (in UK classification terms)?

Even if you could learn exactly the same thing in both places (you can't), another difference is your peers. If you are surrounded by people who are smarter and more driven you'll be more likely to raise your own standards. The best project in the class at Leading University will be different from the best project at Third Tier U.
Also, if you attend school with people who are likely to get great jobs, you'll have contacts with people who have great jobs, increasing your own opportunities.

I had listened to a talk from a 'top' school in the US while in asia.  One student asked that question.  The answer the speaker gave was that the most notable (although not only) difference was resources.  In the mechanical or aerospace department, it's the difference between having a car engine testing unit and a full wind tunnel, in architecture it's the difference between computer simulation software or laser cutters and industrial 7 axis robots with water jet cutters, etc.  Most of which are open to students in many departments.
This stems from both research funding, tuition, and a culture of large donations from alumni.
When students have access to these resources in an open way, they gain knowledge in leading methods in both academics and industry.  This makes them highly capable of immediately integrating or impacting a research team or company.

I think the broadness and vagueness of the question severely limits its value. The specifics are dependent on which country you ask about (both the university, and career), if you are an academics or else etc.
Remark 1:
When I speak about good or less good universities I am not referring to one or another pointing system or international list. I am talking about what qualities I believe can make a university good or one may consider when choosing a university.
Remark 2:
University is not high school. It is not about sitting in a room and learning a book from page 1 to page x and you win if your x is bigger than others.

So along remark2, syllabus doesn't matter much. I am pretty sure that the syllabus of many mediocre university for Calculus 101 is pretty much the same as in Harvard or MIT. The difference is not that they teach 3 theorems more in MIT.
Universities with international reputation makes an impression on your resume/CV. If you go for a career where it counts then it counts. Again, effect may vary by career, major, continent/country and industry.
Better university attracts better students and better faculty. Better students mean better peers, healthier social environment for study, also potentially better and more influential alumni network. Better faculty may mean better teachers or better researchers. An internationally famous researcher may be a mediocre teacher for low level undergrad classes, but can be an invaluable mentor or recommended. Again, effect may vary by career, industry etc etc
Better universities are often leading research universities, which means students has better access to cutting edge technology, better equipped labs and  wider research networks. Also, higher probability of exchange programs for grad or undergrad students for short research visits or attend conferences. Universities are also regularly invite leading scientists to give talks - again, internationally reputed places has better selection to pick from.

" I am pretty sure that the syllabus of many mediocre university for Calculus 101 is pretty much the same as in Harvard or MIT." I have taught calculus at several different universities. We definitely covered more, and covered it deeper, at the "better" universities.

Since you mentioned MIT, the first semester calculus curriculum at most universities is not nearly as ambitious as this: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-01sc-single-variable-calculus-fall-2010/syllabus/

@Anonymous Any speculation on the extent to which the "covered more, and [...] deeper" was enabled by having a better or more uniformly prepared student intake?

@dmckee: That, combined with its natural consequence of higher expectations on the part of instructors and peers, is (IMHO) essentially the entire reason.

Most universities, especially early undergrad years, follow a handful of textbooks. I know it is generalization, but any number of the textbook market backs this up. I agree that the depth can be different, but depth most cases do no meant one more chapter in the same book or one more line in the syllabus. The devil is in the details. Also, if this would be the only difference between universities, it can be easily corrected by yourself reading the relevant extra chapters in one of the standard textbooks.

Well, even though the syllabi of both the institutions are the same, there are two main differences that always occur:

The teaching method that is followed at each institution. For example, at one place the same material is taught very extensively with a lot of assignments, group works, presentations  as well as DIY type of learning which might not be the case at the other place.
Studying at a world famous university may give your career a kick start as you become a brand after completing your degree from there. Of course, studying from other institutes will also make you eligible for masters degree or other jobs but what might be lacking is the brand name.


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What matters most : published papers or GPA? (for scholarship and future career)
I studied BSc chemistry and because I didn't like it, my BSc GPA is 2.46. Alongside with BSc duration, I studied mathematics at home as a self-learner. Since my BSc-GPA was too low, so I got admission to a very low ranking university in MSc-Maths. However, in my first year of MSc I got GPA 3.78 p. I am discouraged to apply for a PhD for a nice university because:
1- My current university's world ranking is >>4000 and I doubt that it would be a 'university' from the viewpoint of universities that I am trying to get my PhD admission.
2- I don't have BSc in math and very low BSc-GPA in completely different field.
My questions are:
1- Is it possible to get admission for PhD (with full scholarship) to a high-ranking universities in mathematics with such a conditions that I have?
2- If I have to study my PhD in the same university or a little better one, do my university reputation and and low GPA-in-BSc threat my future career after PhD (even if I show strong research ability and good recommendation letters)?
My target for PhD admission is countries: Canada (first priority), Europe and Australia. And I am not targeting USA.
Thank you for your helps. And, sorry for my terrible English.
Please feel free to edit the question to improve it.

I am discouraged to apply for a PhD for a nice university There is no reason to be discouraged from applying. The worst they can say is no.

Would you clarify what you mean by "admission for PhD to a high-ranking universities in mathematics"? How high is enough for you? You said your current university is >>4000. Is top 200 high enough for you?

@scaaahu: Of course top 200 is high enough! McMaster Uni, Uni of Waterloo and Uni of Calgary are between 100 and 200 in world ranking but very nice universities I believe.

@user231343 I saw the "Canadian," but marked as possible duplicate because the Canadian process is pretty similar to the US, and I'm unclear what information you are seeking that's not already in the linked answers.

Maybe you can another MSc in a better university? That (assuming good results) would increase your admission chances as well as readiness level greatly.

The whole package is important.  An admissions committee will be very interested in your ability to pass their coursework. It doesn't make a difference how productive you are, or how deep a thinker you are if you flunk out on grades, which would just be wasting their resources.
You would need them to believe that your MSc grades would be indicative of future performance.
By all means, apply, and do the best to make your package look right.  Lot's of students can have mediocre undergrad grades, but figure things out as they mature.  The MSc with good grades was step 1.  Good GRE's would be important, as would letters from the profs of your most difficult coursework confirming that you breezed through it without trouble.
You might also pay attention to those programs with a big die-off at qualifiers.  If a department PLANS that 1/3 of their students will not successfully reach candidacy stage, then their grad program is built in a certain way that can deal with this efficiently.  For example, programs like this do not tend to offer much in the way of financial support until you're paired up with a mentor, and then you're in the budget of that person for support.  In a way, those programs are willing to gamble on you so long as you're willing to gamble on you.

I do not think that when universities look for a PHD students, they are mainly concerned if they pass the courses. They are mostly interested in the candidate's potential for research.

@Alexandros There are exceptions, but I think there's a general feeling that if you can't pass courses (which is lightyears easier than doing research), that's a very bad sign for your potential.

Not only that, @Alexandros -- If you can't pass courses, you can't meet the academic requirements for continuing in the PhD program.  Regardless of your potential, you will flunk out.  Now, you've eaten up a slot, you've been stipended for three semesters, you've eaten up the time of the groups you've rotated through.  Then, you get two C's, and the department has no choice but to dismiss you.  If an admissions committee doesn't think you can hack the coursework, they won't offer admission.

But I haven't had any course in BSc math and any course in math that I had was high mark (but just in MSc). Unfortunately number of courses in MSc is much less than BSc. How can I show them that I am well-learnt BSc courses?

I'm referring to your MSc courses.  Presumably, with a good MSc GPA, even with the low course count, there are some advanced courses in your discipline that you did well in.


text:
Thanking a "shepherd" in acknowledgments
I often find in many conference papers submitted by US research groups that paper writers would thank their "shepherd" in the acknowledgment section. What is the exact contribution of a "shepherd" to a paper submission?
I'm speaking about my domain which is computer science and I'm not sure about the situation in other domains.

CS conferences often ask a member of the Program Committee who reviewed a paper which is accepted but has some problems to help the authors fix it up for publication. This person is usually called a "shepherd" for the paper with the overt connotation to people who mind sheep in a field. The problems with such a paper can include English language problems, other kinds of bad formatting, the need for a few additional results or cases, or the elaboration of some component of the work that was insufficiently described. This is all done in order to increase the quality of the presentation of otherwise excellent work.

In computer science, "shepherding" is often essentially a means of adapting the journal Major Revision decision for conference publications.  Because conferences normally have only one round of review, it is generally the case that the only two decisions available are "Minor Revision" (i.e., the authors are trusted to fix their paper without need for further review) or "Reject."
Shepherds allow a conference to accept papers that need more serious revision without endangering the quality standards of the conference.  Rather than simply accept the paper, the conference gives it a conditional acceptance and appoints somebody from the program committee to work with the authors to ensure that the paper ends up acceptable (or to ultimately reject it if the authors cannot reach acceptable quality).
As such, thanking shepherds in acknowledgements often makes a lot of sense, since this is a person who has given volunteer time to work directly with the authors to ensure their paper is significantly improved from its original form.


text:
English Bachelor of Computer Science - Germany
I've googled so much for English Bachelor of Computer Science in Germany and I just found Jacobs University which teaches Computer Science in English. Though Germany is a place I would like to study, I am open minded for other places.
I checked Bachelor's portal, and setting Germany as a country and English as language, it gives me a full list of universities, but unfortunately when visiting the course site it's always set as taught language: German or 50% German and 50% English.
Other than Bachelor's Portal, is there anywhere else I could search for? Any good links I could be making use of?

Hi, and welcome to Academia.SE!  Unfortunately "shopping questions" that request recommendations for particular programs, are off-topic on this site.

@jakebeal, ah, didn't know that. My bad, not even asking for universities that teaches in English?

Maybe you can revise your question to ask about resources to find English-language academic programs in Germany, or continental Europe.  (Note this site also is for graduate level and above, so you should also make your question applicable to say Master's programs.)

@Kimball, better?

I don't think there are many CS Bachelors taught in English in Germany. At my current university a basic knowledge of English was a requirement for the Master but they have changed it and now it's just a recommendation. Even though English is very important throughout your study I guess they have problems to make it a requirement here.

@flo I guess offering an international bachelor degree is not worth the effort for most German universities. And if it is not an international degree, students need to be able to complete all necessary requirements in the national language, meaning all required courses must be offered in German anyways.

@silvado: "if it is not an international degree, students need to be able to complete all necessary requirements in the national language, meaning all required courses must be offered in German anyways" - are you sure about this? It is true that courses are often not provided in English unless it is absolutely necessary because some material is already available in German and it is seen as too cumbersome to translate everything. However, students at German universities (at least as far as I've seen in CS) are routinely required to understand English, e.g. when parts of the material are ...

... already available in English only, or if members of the teaching staff do not speak German. Also, quite some lectures are taught in a mode where slides are always in English, and the professor will speak German unless any of the students present points out they do not understand German, at which moment the professor will switch to English, too. As far as I know, none of these observations were related to anything specifically called "international degree".

@O.R.Mapper For Bachelor obligatory courses, I haven't observed this, but I can imagine that it may be done informally in some places. However, doing it "officially" is a different story and would mean to designate the study program as English language program.

@silvado: I still somehow doubt that, and there are countless examples of lecture descriptions on websites of German universities (including descriptions in "Modulhandbüchern", which is as official as it can possibly get, such as this, or this) that explicitly state some classes are given in English, some in German, and some ...

... in a mixture of both (lectures in English, accompanying assignments and problems in German, etc.). Granted, it is possible these are not required courses (that is, without any alternative), although it completely escapes me how, for instance, certain basic CS courses could possibly be offered under the assumption that only knowing German would suffice, when evidently various required assignments within these courses cannot be solved by students who are unable to read e.g. the certain software documentation or certain research papers.

You can try out the Hochschulkompass (Higher Education Compass) of the Hochschulrektorenkonferenz (German Rectors' Conference).
Searching for international programs granted with a Bachelor degree in Informatik (computer science is mostly called that in Germany) ends with 13 results. Maybe you can find a fitting study program for you there.

This is a good database, but not often kept up-to-date by the program coordinators. There is currently a push to offer more courses and even programs in English, but communication with the outside world is not the strength of many CS departments (called something with "Informatik" ususally). There has to be some pain for the free tuition: you need to learn German.

Debora Weber-Wulff. This is not only a weakness of the CS departments. It's of less priority to keep portals like this up to date for the universities as long as they offer 1 place to study to 10+ applicants. :-)


text:
How common is it for a paper to be wrong?
I am a student in computer science and I recently started working on my M.Sc. thesis. Now I am reading a 2011 paper with about 170 citations that was published in a well-known conference.
In part of the paper, the author briefly states the complexity of their algorithm (in just one line) and claims a complexity order that I believe is false. But I am really in doubt because I think if there was a problem with that paper, that should have been caught earlier by the editorial board.
I want to know, actually how common is it for such errors to be found in papers published in a well-known conferences?

The general question is hard to answer. The specific question is answerable, but might be better on the computer science stack exchange.

Which error? Have you proved the author's claim wrong? For the moment, you just think it wrong: prove your idea, first, and then claim that the paper is wrong.

@MassimoOrtolano they wrote their algorithm and mentioned that its complexity is X. I went through the algorithm and found that Its complexity should be Y (but even with a formal proof there is the risk of a mistake). anyway as that is a (another) technical problem, in this question let  focus on a more general problem to find answers or similar experiences.

You (probably) found such a problem in just one paper. How can you claim it is "common" to find errors?

@nplatis I never had such claim. I just asked about how much is it common to estimate a "prior probability" for my issue.maybe the problem is with my title(I will change the question title to clarify).

Related to the general question: http://meta.skeptics.stackexchange.com/q/2125 (I thought we had a question like this on this site, but I can't find it)

one way to operationalise this would be to count the ratio of retractions and errata to all published articles (in a sample).

Also ask the question: does it matter? For example, QuickSort is worst case O(n^2) but in practical use much faster than any of the guaranteed O(n log n) methods because of the neglected constant terms. Furthermore, they may have used approximations or simplifications you didn't use; or may have seen a property or used a datastructure you overlooked. But of course, they may also just have made a mistake. Corrections to papers are not published, because any reviewer would reject them as "too incremental".

I'll try to give a general answer from a non-CS perspective.
tl; dr: yes, there are errors out there. A lot of errors, clerical and not, even in oft-cited papers and books, from any field. It's inevitable: though they do their best to avoid errors, authors are human after all, and reviewers are humans too (I know, you never find a damn robot when you need one). Thus, whenever you read a paper, maintain critical thinking.

EXAMPLES
I'll start the too long section with an anecdote. When I was working at my master's thesis, some twenty years ago, I needed a result published in a much cited paper from a renowned author in the field of electromagnetics. At the time, (almost) young and inexperienced, I thought that papers were always absolutely right, especially when written by recognized authorities. To practice the technique of the paper, I decided to rederive the results: after a week spent redoing the calculations over and over again, I couldn't find the same final equation. I was able to discover the correct equation – the one I was finding – in a book published later by the same author. Indeed, it was a clerical error that absolutely didn't change anything in the paper, but it was annoying and taught me an important lesson: papers and books contain errors. And, of course, I later published papers with mistakes in equations (not for revenge!) [*].
After that first experience, I've discovered that you can find more fundamental errors, even in well known books and papers. I'll give you here a few examples, taken from different fields, to underline how broad the phenomenon is (in bold, the mistaken claim; within parentheses, the field):

(Classical mechanics) In Newtonian mechanics, the correct equation of motion in case of variable mass is F = dp/dt. This statement can be found in many classical books about newtonian mechanics, but it is plainly wrong, because that equation, when the mass is variable, is not invariant under Galilean transformations as it is expected in Newtonian mechanics (actually, the concept of variable mass in Newtonian mechanics can be misleading if not properly handled). For a deeper discussion see, e.g., Plastino (1990), Pinheiro (2004) and Spivak's book Physics for Mathematicians, Mechanics I. As a curiosity, that wrong equation is used by L. O. Chua in this speech (14:50 min) as an example to introduce the memristor.
(Circuit analysis) Superposition can't be applied directly to controlled sources. It was just a few years ago when I came across this statement for the first time, and I was stunned: hey, I've applied superposition to controlled sources since I was in high school, and I've always get the right result. How it possibly can't be used? In fact, it can be applied, the important thing is to apply it correctly, but there are really many professors (I have several examples from Italy and US) who don't understand this point and fail to notice that the proofs of several theorems in circuit analysis are actually based on the applicability of superposition to controlled sources. For more on this, see e.g. Damper (2010), Marshall Leach (2009) and Rathore et al. (2012).
(Thermodynamics) The Seebeck effect is a consequence of the contact potential. This false statement can be frequently read in technical books and application notes about thermocouples.

À propos of my own errors, a couple of weeks after having written this answer I discovered an error in an equation of a published conference paper which I co-authored. A fraction that should have been something like -A/B became B/A. Hey – I told one of the other authors – how could we possibly have written this? And how did it get past the reviewers? The fact is, that that equation was associated to a simple, well-known, example given in the introduction, an example so simple that probably neither us authors nor the reviewers gave a second look at the equation (of course, how can anyone write this wrongly?). I feel that many clerical errors like this one happen because of last-minute changes to notation: you have almost finished the paper and you realize that you could have employed a better notation... so, let's change it on the fly! And here is where certain errors sneak-in. Avoid last-minute changes, if you can.

Absolutely concur.  Heck, I know somebody who recently found an error in Einstein's math, in which Einstein used the incorrect domain for some functions in general relativity.  It doesn't affect any of the results, because for every case that mattered the incorrect domain happened to be identical to the correct domain, but nonetheless the error was there and none of the vast number of physicists who'd tangled with those equations had ever noticed before...

I once had to review a paper. They claimed a result which I knew from a (privately, not yet published) communicated effort to have a counterexample. I had to go through the proof line-by-line, and found the error in the statement "Obviously, it holds". To any sentence starting with "Obviously", I'd like to add "Yeah; right".

@CaptainEmacs You could have written a one-line review report: Obviously, wrong ;-) One "obviously" in a paper might be acceptable, two are too much!

Fearsome are "as one easily sees", "trivial", "obviously", but most fearsome of them all is "it can be shown"

@jakebeal What is the error in Einstein's math?Can you point on a specific paper/equation?

@MikeyMike I'm afraid that I can't: I'm not involved in the work. But I trust the investigator involved, and know from experience that his methods (automation-assisted symbolic mathematics) frequently tend to expose errors like this as a byproduct.

Needs a +2 just for the dependent sources part. I now normally says that "you can do it, but it's better avoided" (cause normally doing it correctly will null the advantages of using superposition, that is. And most people will simply open the source in example  5 of your Rathore reference, and wreak havoc. ). Very nice answer.

@Rmano Thank you very much! Since you seem to be Italian, we had several years ago a discussion about this topic in an Italian forum. The discussion, which started as a poll, can be found here and I write under the nickname DirtyDeeds: see the messages [12] and [13] in particular. If you want to discuss this or similar topics I'd happy, just ping me in the Ivory Tower chat: I might not have much time at present but I'm hoping for better times.

TL;DR: The number is probably a double digit percentage.
I made a outlier detection algorithm for neuroscience data extracted from neuroscience journal articles. It is detailed in "Modeling of activation data in the BrainMap(TM): Detection of outliers" http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hbm.10012/abstract The redundancy in coordinates and text allow me to catch 'strange' data, some of which are typos in the original article. I have not made a statistics on the number of articles with errors but perhaps 1% or more have the issue. Note here that the typos are rather minor (e.g., a sign error in a single coordinate among many other reported numbers). It does not affect the overall conclusion. (For the interested: Results for my database available here: http://neuro.compute.dtu.dk/services/brededatabase/index_lobaranatomy_novelty.html)
Within the medical domain John Ioannidis has made a number of studies for estimating errors in claims in articles. The famous "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False" http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124 gives a theoretical estimate where the assumptions are probably not entirely correct, but following his argument there might be a double digit number of percentage "false". In "Contradicted and initially stronger effects in highly cited clinical research" https://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=201218 he found that in 16%-32% of the cases with highly cited original clinical research studies their claims were contradicted by subsequent studies.
Peter C. Gøtzsche in "Data Extraction Errors in Meta-analyses That Use Standardized Mean Differences" found discrepancies in 37% of meta-analyses. Ironically there was a comment for the Gøtzsche-paper pointing out a discrepancy in that paper.
These examples are perhaps not so relevant for computer science. I do think that typos occur now and then. I recently found what I believe were typos in equations in applied computer science articles. The typos does probably not affect the results. I would say - generally - that errors in computer science articles are not necessarily rare.
Update 28 August 2015:
There has just been published a description of a large series of replications of psychology experiments, see http://www.sciencemag.org/content/349/6251/aac4716.abstract
Among its reported results are: "Ninety-seven percent of original studies had significant results (P < .05). Thirty-six percent of replications had significant results".

(-1) Unfortunately, finding "false" claims is much more complicated than this. The fact that "Ninety-seven percent of original studies had significant results (P < .05). Thirty-six percent of replications had significant results" is not strong evidence (in any way) that roughly 2/3 of the original claims were flawed.

I am not entirely sure what you, @CliffAB, allude to wrt. the Open Science Collaboration study. They claim "high-
powered designs": "median power was 95%". While they (and I) acknowledge "There is no single standard for eval-
uating replication success" the various methods, p-value significance, effect size-effect size plot and "subjective" replication, make a good case for that the majority of the original studies over-estimate the effect size to a considerable degree.

If the claim "median power [should be] 95%" was made somewhere, then I see your point (although again, it's more complicated than that). I can't find that in the link, is it in the full text? But in general, the results shown in the link is very consistent with the "p-value filter" of publication; we should expect the results that lead to publication have an upward bias. But that's much different than being wrong.

The power analysis is described in the supplementary material http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/suppl/2015/08/26/349.6251.aac4716.DC1/Aarts-SM.pdf page 3-4, last paragraph page 3, first paragraph page 4. That PDF is also linked from http://science.sciencemag.org/content/suppl/2015/08/26/349.6251.aac4716.DC1

Thanks for the explanation. My (-1) turned to a (+1).

Massimo Ortolano gave many non-CS examples, so I give a CS one: in the paper of Alan Turing that gave birth to Computer Science, there were many errors in the proof.
However, in my opinion, although there are many errors in papers, these errors are only in the small details. For papers published in well-known conference, their main idea are very unlikely to be wrong.
As you mentioned that the statement about complexity is only one line, obviously without proof, this is not the main focus of the paper. I will not be surprised if there is error in such a small detail.
If I were you I would try to prove what you are thinking, this will help you to understand the paper deeply. And if it is actually wrong, you can notify the authors or publish your proof if the error is important enough.

I guess you mean: most errors are in minor details for papers in good volumes.  Certainly crucial errors do happen, even in top journals.

@Kimball: yes, that's what I mean. My English is not so great.

As part of my graduate study we had to analyse several somewhat well-known papers in very reputable journals, published some 5 to 10 years before with no negative comments (yes, it was the time before Internet made such searches trivial). We found a glaring error in the central theorem of one of them. Not just the proof, the result was wrong. Sorry, I don't remember details (it's been some 25 years).
Yes, the plural of anecdote isn't data. But a data point to be considered.
To your question: If you are in doubt, check it carefully. Ask others to help you out if you get stuck. Yes, checking if previous work is right is part of research, as is trying to extend or simplify it.

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