text:
My advisor cited her colleague's papers in her own methodology even though she did not use those methods. Does this qualify as scientific misconduct?
I'm currently working on my MSc thesis under a PhD candidate's supervision. She has very recently published a paper as first author in a well-known journal where she claims to have followed methodology used by her colleagues and co-authors (in their other papers). However, I know that this is not true and that the PhD candidate is fully aware that she's lying too. I know that she has lied because the thesis of MSc students who worked under her previously state something entirely different from what the PhD candidate has cited as source in her paper.
Question: What I don't know is if this act qualifies as scientific misconduct and/or how severe this is. If yes, then what is an act like this called?
Some of the differences between the methodology she has actually used, and the one she claims to have used are minor. The issue is that there are so many of these "minor differences" that they might end up having major influence on the results. e.g for how long samples were centrifuged, rpm of centrifuge, temperature settings of gas chromatography machine, etc.
The major (?) difference pertains to composition of nutrient broth (microbiology) which I'm confident she has never even prepared throughout the course of her PhD.
Unfortunately, it's clear to me that the PhD candidate's supervisors don't care about this since they seem to be working in tandem to increase each other's h-index. So, reporting to them won't make much of a difference. But for my own sanity, I would like to know just how big of a deal is this kind of act?

[a PhD candidate] very recently published a paper...where she claims to have followed methodology used by her colleagues and co-authors...However, I know that this is not true and that the PhD candidate is fully aware that she's lying too. I know that she has lied because the thesis of MSc students who worked under her previously state something entirely different... How do you know the MSc students are right and she is wrong?

The issue here is not citation, it is correct reporting.  If a method varies from the cited version, the appropriate thing is to say something like "Method from FrozzBozz et al.[73], modified by change of RPM from 3000 to 6000, growth media from LB to M9, and phase of the moon from new to full."
But did the method actually differ?
Now, there are definitely arguments to be made about the level of detail that is necessary and appropriate in protocol reporting.  For example, the details about how a sample is shaken may or may not matter, but are often omitted because people are often simply not very systematic about this.  Likewise, layout of samples on a 96-well plate is typically not reported, even though there are sometimes locality effects. Thus, many of the things that you are concerned about might be reported by one group but not by another.
The key distinction between reportable and non-reportable method details is whether a reasonable reader might expect them to have a significant impact on outcome.  In many fields, this is more clearcut: for example, an algorithms paper reporting the number of iterations required to solve a problem would not declare the system the algorithm is run on, but one reporting the time of execution would.  In biological sciences, however, it is often quite unclear and reasonable people have very different perspectives here.  Thus, the Ph.D. candidate might not even believe that they have meaningfully changed the method at all!
My advice it to start by approaching it from this perspective, in a non-confrontational manner.  Start by just asking for help in understanding the differences in method.  If they do not explain in a way that makes sense, then it would be appropriate to escalate to the PI that ultimately supervises both of you, and ask for help in figuring out what details of method variation are appropriate to include.  No need to get into accusations of lying at this stage, and you both might end up learning new things in the process.

Normally centrifuge settings would be expected to impact the outcome.

@AnonymousPhysicist Certainly yes, and yet I often see well-cited and reputed papers that simply say "grown at 37C with shaking" or "shaking, 3mm, normal speed."  There's simply no well-agreed on standard for appropriate level of detail in many biological communities.

@AlekhinesDefence: It would be more helpful to give specifics of those, not just your summary of them as serious misconduct. As this answer says, everything you’ve said about this specific issue sounds like you may be perceiving it as more egregious than it is — at least, you haven’t given us enough specifics to justify why it’s as bad as you say. This suggests your judgement may be a bit inexperienced. Because of that, it’s difficult for us to rely on your summary of the other claimed misconduct without more specifics; and it might be worth reconsidering that judgement yourself.

@AlekhinesDefence Sounds like you've got a lot of concerns outside of the scope of this question as well.  If you want to ask about them, I would advise opening a new question that can focus on those concerns. This question was specifically about the methodology issue, and that is what my answer addresses.

@AnonymousPhysicist that really depends on what you're doing. If you're purifying ribosomes, they certainly matter and I'd expect full and exact details in a paper. If you're centrifuging a cell pellet you want to lyse, the exact settings are pretty much irrelevant, almost any setting above a certain threshold would work fine and the details don't matter at all.

Indeed, you might even need to vary some parameters to control others that matter more. 1400 rpm on a centrifuge with a small rotor exerts a less force than the same speed with a bigger rotor. To the extent that it matters (and, as @MadScientist points out, it often does not), some changes might be in keeping with the 'spirit' of the cited work rather than the exact text.

@AnonymousPhysicist: Well, no actually, centrifuge settings often make no difference at all in microbiology. A common use case is to pellet the living cells so they can be washed and re-suspended in something different. Provided the centrifugation is strong enough to pellet the cells and not so strong that it lyses (kills) or overly stresses the cells, there's a very wide range of values that will work.

Hanlon:

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

This appears to be an error or laziness, rather than misconduct.  These things often happen when a student does an experiment and the supervisor writes about it.  The supervisor thinks they know what the student did, but they don't.
Usually it is not a big deal.  However, if the error has life safety implications, you might still need to point it out.

There are a lot of experimental details in this area of science that often are really arbitrary in the end. Centrifuge settings are a very common example of that. In many cases it really doesn't matter if you keep stuff in the centrifuge for too long or at higher g than necessary. But on the other hand there is often no real benefit to trying to determine the actually necessary settings. For non-critical steps it is very, very common to use somwhat excessive settings that you know are generally reliable, but almost certainly are not optimal. In those cases, if someone would centrifige a bit harder or a bit shorter, it wouldn't matter at all.
In chemical reactions there is another case that happens very often. Reaction times up to 8 hours are kind of common, above that you'll quickly get to "over night". Performing a reaction for exactly 14 hours is kind of annoying if you also want to sleep, and in many cases keeping the reaction for a bit longer doesn't do any harm. So it makes sense to just try the reaction over night, and if that works without issues, you generally don't try to figure out if anything between 8 hours and over night would work, it simply wouldn't get you any benefit.
Knowing which parameters are critical, and which ones are arbitrary is a very important skill. It's often impossible to determine that from papers alone. Even the composition of the growth medium can be irrelevant, depending on what exactly you do with your bacteria.
Strictly speaking, you really should mention any deviations from the protocol in your paper. If you deviate, you didn't do it exactly as mentioned in your reference and you should mention that even if it doesn't matter at all. Personally I'd strongly prefer to list the methods explicitly in every paper anyway (at least for the major methods used), chasing down a series of "as performed in citation XYZ" is no fun at all. But in the area I worked, there are quite a few changes that might look significant that I probably would ignore entirely. Depending on the exact topic, there can be a lot of non-critical steps that don't affect the result in the end. They might affect the yield a bit or something like that, but not the conclusion of the paper. Of couse omitting these details isn't entirely correct, it would be better to be exact here, but it's also not really scientific misconduct.
Answering your question is impossible without the exact details and domain knowledge. It really depends on whether the parameters that differ are important or not. I personally wouldn't assume misconduct from these facts alone.


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Does it make sense to apply for assistant professorship positions before Ph.D. graduation?
In the course of browsing a couple of positions for brand-new (STEM-related) assistant professorships (in North America), I am wondering whether it does make sense if one applies for such positions before her Ph.D. graduation. For example, an advertisement asserts that

These positions require a Ph.D. or equivalent in engineering or a
closely related discipline at date of hire

The job announcement has only supplied a period for application submissions, say, Nov. 2020 until May 2021. My Ph.D. defense is around early 2021, but I think if I wait till that time, the positions may have already been occupied without any chance of competition for me. But if I act before graduation, will my potential application be considered when I have not yet sealed my Ph.D.?

I think you could reasonably email the contact person listed in the advert and ask them this question.

@avid absolutely not. People who advertise positions can’t comment on your chances of being offered a position, for legal and ethical reasons. They will just tell you you are free to apply if you satisfy the minimum requirements.

@DanRomik Indeed. But at least part of this question boils down to "please clarify precisely what your minimum requirements are".

@avid the language of the job ad is perfectly clear. An applicant will need to have a PhD at date of hire. There isn’t anything more to say on the subject of minimum requirements.

Regarding the "date of hire" requirement: If they want to hire you, they can probably set up the contract to start a few months later, when you have your PhD.

Depends if you want a job after graduation...

"Date of hire" means "start date" not "date offer issued"

@avid From my side of the table, if I state VERY clearly you have to have a PhD once the contract starts (and it's a teaching position, so the term is very clear when it starts), and then you're either too clueless or wordblind to read this so you start bugging me with unneeded emails, I make a note that this person will be a nightmare to work with/against/above.

That said, the academic job market is such a massacre at the moment that you can hire someone that should easily be associate prof but for the salary of a lecturer; you'll need to bring something to the table that the others with their PhD and many years of teaching are lacking.

Most people apply for positions while still students. That is normal. The "date of hire" could mean various things, depending on the institution. Don't worry too much about it, and apply. If there is any sort of issue they might be able to finesse it a bit, but likely they intend that early 2021 graduates are part of their intended outreach.
The date of hire is not usually interpreted as the date you get an acceptance letter, but the date you actually become an employee (with a paycheck).

"Most people apply for positions while still students."  But most engineering PhD students do NOT have a chance at getting an assistant professorship.

@AnonymousPhysicist Depends on the type of school. For an R1 you are correct; for a primarily teaching school, on the other hand...

@BryanKrause Check recent faculty profiles in engineering, and I think you will find I am correct almost everywhere.  Engineering schools are overwhelmingly at R1s anyway.

Not every program with engineering faculty is part of a true "engineering school".

@AnonymousPhysicist this may be country specific. For instance in India, a PhD suffices in almost all universities to get an assistant professorship.

Most people apply for positions while still students. --- For departments I'm familiar with (U.S., 1980s-2000s, math), "most" is "virtually every". Where I got my Ph.D. there were several of us on track to finish that year (you pretty much knew this by late Fall of that academic year). Since the ads had deadlines roughly Dec. to March, and graduation wasn't until May (or sometimes July), there was no choice. I think most offers had clauses saying tenure-track reverted to a 1-year position if your Ph.D. wasn't awarded by a certain date. (continued)

Usually, however, final orals were done by the time an offer was made, so there only remained bureaucratic formalities and waiting until the next graduation date for it to be official. In my case (tenure-track), the interview was in March, I was hired in April or early May, final orals were in April or May (don't remember), I didn't formally submit my dissertation until mid July (I was adding a lot of extra historical and bibliographic material until the last minute), I began the tenure-track position in August, and the official awarding of my degree wasn't until December.

Talk to your advisor.
It is absolutely possible for a person to get hired for a tenure track position straight out of their PhD (and when that happens, the person must have applied before they graduated). I know several people who had that happen to them. So in that sense, you are overthinking things. However, I’ll repeat: talk to your advisor. Just because something is possible doesn’t mean it’s likely, and the likelihood and difficulty of securing a position in such circumstances will vary wildly between research areas, countries, and different tiers of universities in any given country.
So again, sorry to sound like a broken record, but you’ll have to ask your advisor to find out whether applying to such jobs makes sense in your situation or not.

"I know several people who had that happen to them."  Were they engineers?  Was this in the past decade?  And are they a tiny minority of new faculty?

@AnonymousPhysicist they were mathematicians, and this was around 8-12 years ago. But I think those data points are beside the point. The main points I am trying to convey are: 1. It can and does happen. 2. We can’t advise OP on whether it is a realistic thing to aim for given their specific situation.

I agree it does happen but I think we should be clear it only happens in engineering under special, unlikely circumstances.

@AnonymousPhysicist if you say so. I don’t consider myself qualified to comment about that.

The job listing says

These positions require a Ph.D....at date of hire

So the requirement raises one question: Will the applicant have the degree, at the date of hire?

But if I act before graduation, will my potential application be considered when I have not yet sealed my Ph.D.?

Yes, your application will be considered if it notes that you will have your degree on the date of hire because you will then satisfy the requirement found in the job listing.
This obviously makes you responsible for sealing your Ph.D. If a job applicant asserts that the applicant will seal a Ph.D. then whoever assesses that applicant's application will assume the applicant is correct.

In the 21st century, > 90% of assistant professors of engineering (and other STEM fields I am familiar with) have a PhD in hand and postdoctoral experience before they get their job.
Even if you already have completed your PhD, you face steep competition.

These positions require a Ph.D. or equivalent in engineering or a closely related discipline at date of hire

This statement is traditional boilerplate which in no way indicates the (much more difficult to get) qualifications needed to actually get the job.
Note that in some humanities fields, it is traditional not to hire people who already have PhDs as assistant professors.

'Note that in some humanities fields, it is traditional not to hire people who already have PhDs as assistant professors.' Could you explain why?

@JonasSchwarz No, no idea.  Second hand information.

@AnonymousPhysicist then it's maybe is worth to remove the sentence? I can hardly imagine an assistant professor without a PhD, so a quotation would be highly appreciated.

@Mayou36 You've misunderstood; the assistant professors usually have PhDs.  They got them after they were hired but before they started the job.  I don't do reference requests, I'm sure you can google the data as well as I can.

I strongly suspect there is not a good reason for the tradition.

@AnonymousPhysicist I suspect the reason for the tradition is that there is an oversupply of PhDs and that people with successful post-docs are more competitive candidates.  Whether that is a good reason or not is an exercise for the reader.

AP, can your last sentence be recast as "traditional to hire people who don't have PhDs yet as assistant professors"? I think that would make the meaning clearer, if that's what you intend.

Unless you can back your last sentence you should remove it.  I actually do not think this is a tradition or generally true, but I’d be happy to learn otherwise.

I'd really wish people would stop pestering me with reference requests.  This is quite easy information to find.

@AnonymousPhysicist People pester you with reference requests, and downvote and even flag your answers, because you make many "general" claims which are actually not generally true by the experience of many, experience which, for some, is probably much longer and broader than yours. So, try to reflect on this and make an effort to improve your answers.

@MassimoOrtolano I have no complaints about the downvotes.  Furthermore, I have almost never chosen to give answers which require effort on my part and I see no way I could be convinced to do so.  Please stop asking.  Use the downvote button instead.

Also, if you don't think my claims are true and you can't check with minimal research, I do encourage you to post a new question.

@AnonymousPhysicist You fail to understand that it's not me: the complaints arrive from many different users, and these users will keep on complaining until you don't improve your answers.

@MassimoOrtolano I @ mentioned you, but I did not think it's you.  People are not entitled to answers, with our without references.  They are entitled to downvote.

@AnonymousPhysicist people are not entitled to answers, but they entitled to use the flagging mechanism, and it’s the moderators’ role to deal with flags regarding answers that make dubious claims. Of course no one can force you to do anything you don’t want to do, but don’t pretend that there can’t be consequences to making irresponsible claims in your answers.

@DanRomik If you can explain why an answer could cause harm I would delete it.

@AnonymousPhysicist spreading misinformation has the obvious potential to cause harm in many different ways. In the specific context of academia.se it can cause people to make incorrect career decisions for example.

@DanRomik That's not what I asked for.  Specific harm particular to a specific answer.  Don't tell me discouraging engineering PhD students from applying for engineering assistant professorships causes harm, because on average it does not.

@AnonymousPhysicist I was mostly referring to the last sentence of your answer - the baseless remark about the humanities that everyone here is complaining about. As for the engineering issue, I don’t think your advice is terribly helpful to OP (a specific person, who may very well not be “average”), which is probably why your answer was downvoted (fair game according to you). But that doesn’t rise to a level that requires a moderator’s intervention or for you to delete your answer because of, so again that’s not what my comment was addressing.

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Active voice: Using "I" to show my contribution and "we" to include the audience?
I've read the other questions on active vs passive voice. But my question is slightly different.
Let's say I'm writing in active voice and using "I" as I'm primarily writing a thesis-like document. When I present results, is it okay to say "we" as a way include the audience? For example, consider the following paragraph:
Option 1:
"I used algorithm X to perform Y on data Z. [...] In Figure 1, we can see that A is greater than B."
Is that acceptable? Or is it more proper to rewrite as:
Option 2:
"I used algorithm X to perform Y on data Z. [...] In Figure 1, I show that A is greater than B."
My intuition tells me option 2 is more correct; however it just sounds slightly awkward to me in certain places. Are there better/other options than the aforementioned options?

What about "we" in both cases?

Just say "Figure 1 shows ..."

There was a case when using we in a single-author paper resulted in including a cat to the authors list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._D._C._Willard.

Apart from issues of singular versus plural first-person in active voice, ... it is often possible to use third-person (active), simultaneously shorten the sentence, and perhaps only refer to the objects, phenomena, and processes in play. E.g "Application of procedure X to stuff Y produced whatever-Z..." (Or "Procedure X applied to stuff Y ...")
That is, often, "unwinding" the grammar can show that there are redundant or functionless phrases, which can be dropped, and in fact clarify.
(In my field, mathematics, in English, in the U.S., there certainly is a tradition to use plural first person, but, truly, I've found that often unwinding the grammar allows shortening. And, often, unwinding allows active voice rather than passive, and shortens and simplifies.)

This depends to a very large extend on the field. In my field there is a very strong sense that using "we" in a single authored paper is completely inappropriate. You make the argument, so don't hide behind some annonymous others by using we. If you make a statement, then make that unambigous by using I.
In other disciplines the use of we is more common.
So the best thing you can do is look at your intended audience, and find out what they expect. It is much easier to communicate if your style corresponds to their expectectations. You could try to fight those expectations, but that is a very hard fight, which you will likely loose. So I would recommend against that. After all getting your research across effectively is much more important than opinions about "proper" style.

You can use:

I used algorithm X to perform Y on data Z. [...] In Figure 1, we can see that A is greater than B.

or

I used algorithm X to perform Y on data Z. [...] In Figure 1, I show that A is greater than B.

I prefer the former, since you performed the operation and we can see the results. However, I'd opt for:
We can use algorithm X to perform Y on data Z. [...] In Figure 1, we can see that A is greater than B.
Because both you and the reader can use the algorithm.

Technically, you can, but I've never seen it used in a paper.
This is borderline to a personal opinion, but based on what the papers I read, the 'pedagogical "we"' is rarely used in a paper or thesis (I have seen it used in summer schools, but never in talks). In such situations, authors tend to use the neutral 'one' (as in 'one sees from figure X, that' or 'plugging equation (a) into relation (b), one obtains'), which is a bit clumsy but apparently the accepted solutions.
My personal opinion is that the 'pedagogical "we"' comes across as somewhat condescending ("How are we doing today?"), but again, that's just a personal opinion. In the end, it is your paper.

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What is the etiquette in using honorary names in the title of North American professors?
Academic titles of many professors in U.S. (and maybe in Canada) include one or more honorary names the samples of which are be Jean-Lou Chameau Professor of X and Thomas E. and Doris Everhart Professor of Y. I am curious about the mechanics of using such titles in view of academic norms. To be specific,
1- Are such titles something that any professor at any level (assistant, associate, or full) may pick for herself or academic individuals need specific advantages to use honorary names?
2- Is there any restriction or ethical norm, such as permission, to select an honorary person's name? I am wondering the necessity of permissions because in many cases an honorary person of interest might be already died.

These are called named professorships. If you put that term in a search engine you will get explanations from many schools.
Typically, a large donation is made to fund the named professorship or named chair. The name can be the donor or someone the donor wants to honor.
The person who gets the named professorship is selected by the school. It is often already a faculty member or can be somone recruited for that specific spot.  It comes with prestige of the name and additional resources.
Since the OP examples are Cal Tech, here is what they say about it.  Note: this press release was not from the year that either OP example was listed.

During the 2018–19 academic year, Caltech recognized three faculty members with the Institute's most distinguished award for individual faculty—a named professorship. This honor provides faculty with additional funds and resources to pursue their best ideas while they continue to mentor future generations of leaders.

Each named professorship brings its own distinct legacy. Many professorships, for instance, have long-standing histories and pass on through each appointment a tradition of discovery and exploration from one academic generation to the next, from one colleague to another. A professorship may also provide a faculty member with an opportunity to forge meaningful connections with the philanthropists who provided the donation that made it possible.

So the answers are 1. No and 2. Not applicable to an individual taking a name, but the donor would want to have the prominent person’s assent or his or her estate/foundation/relatives’ assent.


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What does "Top 10%" mean in edge cases?
Imagine you want to apply for a stipend. Only the top 10% of ones class are eligible. The final grade distribution (German grades) is like this

1.0 - 3%
1.1 - 2.5%
1.2 - 7%
...

The complete table comes as an official addendum to your transcript of records, which shows your own final grade.
Obviously the university screwed up the grading in the past years and gave out way too good grades, which led to a kind of inflation. In other fields at the same university it's more like

1.0 - 0.1%
1.1 - 0.3%
1.2 - 2 % ...

Imagine now one has a 1.2. Can he just say he is top 10% based on this table? IMO one has to be opportunistic here and not think much about it: Less than 10% have a better grade than you -> you are top 10%. People will probably not even check the table, as 1.2 is usually much better than top 10%.
But my friend in question has a bad feeling about it and is "scared" it will be conceived as cheating. What's your opinion on this? Is there any authoritative legal information on this?

Nuclear Wang is technically right. In practice international comparions are always fuzzy due to different grading and reporting systems. For example, a German scholarship would never be advertised with a Top-10% requirement, it would ask for a grade of 1.3 or better. If the international scholarship doesn't have country-specific requirements (like many university admssion system) I would contact them.

In the US, the overwhelming expectation would be that there is no authoritative legal information on this, and every institution, or even every department or every person, will have their own interpretation - in part because it's their own rule they're interpreting.

@heuamoebe Actually it is a German one. Two different ones even. They try to appeal internationally. The most funny thing is that one of them is offered by the very university, where he did his bachelors and got his grades from.

Then I would just apply. Nobody knows if you are actually within the requirement and ultimately it is at the scholarship's discretion if they accept you in this situation. These things likely depend on many more factors anyways. One "maybe satisfied" minimum requirement like this won't make or break the application.

I don't follow - in both of these a grade of 1.2 is given as either the top 7% or top 2%, as far as I can tell. How is this an edge case, or need clarificiation?

@AzorAhai--hehim It's not accumulated. 7% of people got a 1.2. Which should not have happened in the first place, but somehow did. Usually in Germany things aren't graded in percent, but in fixed grades from 1 (best) to 6. Only they have any legal meaning up to the first decimal. Which makes this conversion so delicate.

@TheoreticalMinimum Oh, I see. This 1.2 is a grade for a class, or an overall grade average?

@AzorAhai--hehim It's the final bachelors grade average that has been calculated and rounded by a precisely defined process (it's specified in a legal document, the "Prüfungsordnung").

@TheoreticalMinimum Oh I see. I agree with heuamoebe that your friend should just apply and let the people decide if the ambiguity is close enough - nothing would happen if they decide it's not good enough.

The requitement "only the best 10%" seems silly. Let the stipend giver figure out this mess.

Is there any authoritative legal information on this?

I am not aware of any jurisdiction in which applying for a stipend for which you are not eligible is illegal. For obvious reasons, eligibility is bindingly determined by the stipend giver, not by the applicants.
The rule "top 10%" does not seem to be stated clearly. If the students that got 1.2 in your class are included, then the statement

12.5% of the students in the class are in the top 10%

would be true, which seems to be a contradiction. If, as Nuclear Wang proposes, the students with 1.2 are not included in the 10%, then the statement

Only 5.5% of the students in the class are in the top 10%

would be true, which also seems a contradiction. As both plausible interpretations lead to apparent contradictions, it is reasonable to have doubts about the actual meaning of the rule. So if the rule is not stated more clearly, just apply and let the stipend givers decide. That is their job, not yours (or your friend's).

From the distribution given at the start of the question, 12.5% of the class got a score of 1.2 or better. Therefore, a score of 1.2 is not in the top 10% of the class. The score may be in the top 10% of scores nationally, but it is not in the top 10% of the class. The scholarship may purposefully use the "within class" measure in order to eliminate this school-specific effect - simply attending a school that inflates grades is not sufficient to be eligible, a student must outperform 90% of their peers in the same academic setting.
I'll also note that the notion that "if less than 10% of people have a better grade than you, you are in the top 10%" is not correct - if less than 10% of people have the same or better score than you, you are in the top 10%. Imagine a test with only 2 scores, 1 and 2, which are evenly split among the class. If you score a 1, there is nobody with a better score than you, but you are not in the top 0% of the class, you are in the top 50% of the class.
It would be disingenuous to describe this score as being in the top 10% of the class, even though it might have been in other years. While it's quite possible that no one will ever notice, the misrepresentation could be fairly easily spotted if the class' grade distribution is shown alongside an individual's score.

So even if he is within the 10% of his class, which may be true, he should not be eligible? Seems absurd. In this view only 5.5% of the students from this university (one of the big 5 in Germany) should be able to apply, but 10% from the other universities?

@TheoreticalMinimum He's not in the top 10%, he's in the top 12.5%. With this measure, 10% of every university's class is eligible.

This is not as well defined as you make it out to be. This gives an edge to other schools.

@TheoreticalMinimum What's not well defined? A score of 1.2 is higher than 87.5% of class. That's not top 10%. If not done on a per-class basis, the edge goes to schools that inflate grades - they can make an arbitrarily large portion of their student body score in the top 10% nationally. Here, 12.5% of students score in the top 2.4% nationally.

So if 12% of the students get 1.0, no one is eligible? I would just apply and see what happens. If the stipend givers want the students to decide by themselves whether they are eligible, they should post much clearer rules than just the two words "top 10%".

@NuclearWang "With this measure, 10% of every university's class is eligible" no, see my comment above. A class where 12% of students get 1.0 has 0% eligible students with your interpretation of the rule.


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Are math grad students increasingly consulting SE and Wiki, ignoring research librarians and libraries, to their own detriment?
Judging by posts and comments by graduate students in math.stackexchange.com and mathoverflow.net, I have come to the conclusion that a large part of their knowledge comes from SE sites and the Wikipedia, as opposed to traditional publications such as books and papers.
I was deeply shocked the first time I heard of a student researching the literature through Google, which spits out at least as many SE and Wikipedia answers as references to books and journals.  But, of course, nowadays I do the same, certainly more often than going to the library!
Are traditional publication forms becoming obsolete, in the face of purely electronic forms? Or, contrariwise, do younger people who ignore traditional forms miss out on essential information?

What you learn from SE or Wikipedia does not really have much to do with what you learn from the latest journal publications. There is a lot of background information researchers need here and there, and in the old days one might go over to the library and find an advanced textbook or a monograph to catch up on things.

I think wikipedia is good for mathematics topics that are fairly settled. There are few errors and the ones that do appear (I've found some) tend to disappear quickly. You can get a good overview and if you follow up on the sources provided you can get a more complete view. So, I hope students use this for background on things they need to study.
But, by its nature, it is less useful to bring you to the state of the art: stuff that isn't yet "settled".
I think SE is the opposite, in some ways. You  might find answers to contemporary questions, but the sources may be less reliable. Wikipedia has many editors (formal and informal) keeping things right, SE, less so and not everyone commenting really has a good answer. So, again, I hope that grad students use it when necessary, but with caution.
If the alternative is to set for ten hours at a time in a library, pulling older and older books from the shelves, it is no contest.
But reading things and being given answers isn't the best way to gaining insight into a mathematics problem. Not deep insight, anyway. For that you need to do some work yourself.
And, as you say yourself, it is a professional approach to use such resources. You do it yourself. And, I would say "to the detriment", actually. It is a supplement and/or a place to start.

I have seen PhDs be done through a list of mathoverflow questions.

@FourierFlux, anything is possible, I suppose.

@Buffy, could you please read the comments in the original post?  Thanks.

@anon SE is like an eternal coffee break with a bunch of knowledgeable people across the planet. You get the informal background information, hidden tricks etc., but not the solidity of textbooks or the depth of properly vetted publications. It has its role, but it's only one part of the game.

@FourierFlux sounds like a topic for a PhD on its own. Or for a self-help book: "how to do a PhD in math in 100 SE questions".

I don't have any empirical evidence to contribute relating to use of SE and Wikipedia versus traditional literature searches.  However, they all have a reasonable place in academic work when used properly (i.e., in conjunction and with care).  The advantage of SE and Wikipedia is that it often allows you to rapidly find details on the problem you are looking at, without necessarily knowing the name of that problem in advance.  In the latter case there is also usually citation to some basic literature on the problem that can act as a starting point for a more traditional literature search.  In largely non-politicised fields (e.g., mathematics, physics, chemistry, etc.) the answers on Wikipedia are usually quite reliable and well-crafted, and there is usually good referencing to some basic peer-reviewed literature.
Of course, if grad-students rely solely on SE and Wikipedia, and fail to follow this up with adequate searches of scholarly databases then this will very likely miss out on important information and references.  I would think that this would be easy to spot in their research work --- e.g., by a paucity of references on a topic or failure to understand the full context of their work.  This is something that good supervisors can provide guidance on, to assist the student to rapidly find material when needed, but also follow this up with in-depth research on a topic.
Traditional academic publications are all moving online/have moved online, so you would usually just search and download papers from your office now (through online subscription services with academic publishers) rather than "going to the library".  Occasionally you will have to go to the university library for books, etc., that are not available online, but often you can do most of the literature search from your computer.  Consequently, while the journals themselves are not becoming obsolete, printed copies of the journals are becoming rarer and foot-traffic in the library is probably also reduced.

I do observe that many of the Wiki entries on sophisticated mathematical topics are literally/formally correct, but do not quite penetrate to the intention of the concept... I suspect that this comes from the relative new-ness-to-the-subject of the people enthusiastic about composing those Wiki pages, so it's not surprising, nor is it a serious failing. The point is that one will invariably receive a relative newcomer's opinion, even if generally competent. Could be worse! :)

@paul garrett: do not quite penetrate to the intention of the concept --- Although many Wikipedia math articles are excellent, I sometimes see examples of what you describe. Indeed, a few days ago I found an example by accident (I was googling for something, don't remember now). Compare the Wikipedia article for Strict differentiability (1 reference, doesn't even mention Peano, overly focused on p-adic analysis) with this and this.


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How to deal with animosity between different "factions" in a certain field?
In academia, there are sometimes sort of "feuds" between different researchers. For example, one such situation is described here: https://www.quora.com/Mathematicians-What-is-the-story-behind-the-feud-between-Shing-Tung-Yau-and-Gang-Tian?share=1
Lately, something like this has affected me. People I work with will bad-mouth other researchers in our field, or other researchers will bad-mouth people I work with. Sometimes, they will say that so-and-so's results are trivial or that they stole the results from someone else, or that they got a lot of help from a different mathematician and aren't actually very talented. The bad-mouthing seems to happen on both sides and seems to be born out of a kind of vicious competitiveness. Here are some of the ways this has disrupted my PhD:

I am really paranoid about people's intentions and even though it seems like, from the outside, that my PhD is going very well (going into my third year I have one publication already and am making good progress on other projects), I am certain some people in my own university even, have the impression I am not a very good mathematician because they think my advisor is a fraud.
I have recently had the opportunity to work with someone from the "other side" of this conflict and have not yet told my advisor about that. I am afraid she will be very angry with me if/when I do. To complicate things, my advisor has told me some of her research ideas in the past and is extremely secretive about them. I just don't have the same sense of secrecy about my own research ideas. Luckily I don't work on what my advisor works on but she still might be quite upset that I've been "talking to the enemy" so to speak.
Although no one has directly been "mean" to me the ways in which I have seen people try to tear each other down has contributed to my total disillusionment with academia and made my field seem like a place where people compete for reputation rather than trying to do real work motivated by curiosity rather than ambition. It's just very depressing and stressful to imagine having to deal with this kind of thing.

As a young PhD student, I am shocked by the way the "adults" in my academic life behave. My instinct is to pretend this doesn't exist and focus on my math. I do not make any judgments about who is right and generally shut my ears whenever these topics come up. To some extent, it seems very inappropriate to me that my professors and collaborators discuss these kinds of things with me at all. Furthermore, I think one reason I have been successful as a PhD student is because I am very friendly and open to people. This has allowed me to learn a lot and collaborate with a lot of people despite having little to no contact with my advisor most of the time (we are on good terms, she just doesn't really make time for me).
These conflicts seem to have been started long before I was even in college so from my perspective, it has nothing to do with me, it's not really my business, and I don't even pretend to know all the details of who did what and why. And yet people I respect a lot gossip to me like school girls as if they are trying to convince me of a particular position.
Question: Has any of you had to deal with this kind of mean-spirited competitive research environment? How did you handle it? Should I avoid working with people "across the aisle" in order to stay out of conflict with them? Am I being naive to try to be friends with everyone and not hide what I'm working on like it's a secret recipe?

"My instinct is to pretend this doesn't exist and focus on my math." Your instinct is right. Keep your head down, do your work,  graduate, and get into a nicer community. If being "naive" works for you, keep doing it until you have to stop doing it.

This isn't an answer to your question, but boy does it seem like a bad idea to avoid telling your advisor about a current collaboration.  Eventually the paper will get finished and your advisor will know, so I'd really suggest talking about it sooner rather than later.

@NoahSnyder Yeah... that could be the topic of another post. To be fair to myself, I probably would have told her by now if she would meet with me about research but she never makes time for me and hasn't responded to an email about research since pre-covid. She only talks to me when it involves my TA duties and doesn't seem mad at me or anything then but still... it puts me in an uncomfortable position.

@pictorexcrucia: Yeah, I don't mean to blame you or say it's your fault, and I see why you'd be worried.  But it just sounds really bad given the rest of the context.

How is this about academia, as opposed to any other field of human interaction? How could any Answer not also apply to every part of commerce, industry or politics, for three?

Academia has a culture which is quite different from other fields. Although similar things happen, I would think people would deal with them in different ways.
Also, the advisor-student relationship is quite unique, as is the job market. I think getting the perspective from more experienced researchers actually in academia is extremely important given these facts.

The same happened to me. I stayed friendly towards everybody and participated in both groups. I think it worked for me. It leaves all doors open. I think a key point is never agreeing with any bad-mouthing, ever. Sometimes this is socially difficult. I would play dumb and say "Oh" or "I understand", but never "You're right" or "Yes, totally".

"Interesting" is my reflex reply to gossip and bad-mouthing. I also keep the Spanish proverb at the front of my mind: "Those who gossip to you will gossip about you."

@Jason What's the proverb in Spanish?

I wish I knew. I've only seen it written as "Spanish proverb". I just tried to google up an answer, and could only find "Spanish proverb" or "Lebanese proverb". Anyone reading this would be perfectly justified speaking behind my back about my carelessness with citations.  :)

"Participating in both groups" only works if both groups keep sufficient good judgement to tell who actually is their enemy. I have seen academic feuds where participating in both groups could very easily lead to you being targeted by both, or at least get splash damage from both. My normal reaction is to disengage from both feuding groups - but this may not be practical if the conflict encompasses most of your field or academic unit...

If you're in mathematics, then these kinds of feuds are unusual enough that the best strategy is simply to move to a different subsubfield that doesn't have them.  (If you're a PhD student just starting research, just do something else; if you're more established, it's fine to gradually move into a neighboring area.)  Even if you manage to succeed despite the feuds, other capable mathematician will avoid the area, and hence the area will become less popular over time.

It seems odd that you 'd suggest that the feuds of others should drive you out of a research area.

I wouldn't mind working in a different field but at this point, it seems way too risky: I've invested three years studying pretty much one thing and I'm going to just write the best thesis I possibly can. Trying to move into another field would be a huge distraction. Although it is something I could consider when I look for jobs, although even then I doubt I will have much (if any) choice about where I work.

@pictorexcrucia: You don't have to make a sudden break.  When you choose your next project (and it sounds like you're at the point where you have more ideas for projects than time to work on them), one of the factors you should consider in your decision is whether the project is affected by the feud, or takes you in directions not affected by the feud.

@Buffy: From a tangential direction - one phenomenon I've observed is that the distribution of women in pure mathematics is nowhere near even.  Some subsubsubfields will have a reasonable proportion of women while a neighboring (close enough that a mathematician from a different subfield of mathematics won't know the difference) subsubsubfield will have no women.  Sometimes it's just chance, but often it's because of one or two toxic old men.

@Buffy If a field is poisoned, you need to have a very good digestion to stay there.

@AlexanderWoo "Toxic old men" - sorry, but I have seen quite my share of toxic academic battlefields produced by quite different genders of quite different ages. I recommend leaving the dissemination of prejudices to political agitators.

I feel the need to point out that it actually makes me uncomfortable when a person (usually a man) brings gender into a conversation when there was no real reason to. I am of course aware that there are situations where "toxic men" perpetuate unwelcoming environments, but it is weird to have attention drawn to my gender without any reason for that. In my question, I don't think gender plays a roll and I think my advisor is just as guilty of these bad behaviors as the men in my field. I don't think I mentioned anything about gender in my question... Women can also be competitive to a fault.

The really specific action item in the direction of this answer is to try to find a postdoc advisor who is outside of this conflict.  It still needs to be someone near your research, but often there are people who are nearby research-wise but sociologically have their background in a different subfield where the conflict isn't as relevant, or even just were educated on a different continent and thereby avoided the conflict.

downvoted b/c I don't believe one should change their interests based on other people's conflicts.

@pictorexcrucia You haven't mentioned your gender anywhere I can see.

Has any of you had to deal with this kind of mean-spirited competitive research environment?

Yes. It's REALLY not that unusual, and it's very unpleasant. Some academics are very unpleasant human beings. There is sometimes a tendency to put academics on a pedestal, because they are intelligent, but that doesn't stop them from being, sometimes, remarkably flawed individuals from a human/ethical/emotional perspective.
(It's not you, it's them)

How did you handle it?

Don't bite the hand that feeds you (your main allegiance should ALWAYS remain to whoever is funding you)
Keep your friends close, and your enemy closer (you want to know what the lab next door is up to, so they don't publish something you want to publish just before you publish it... Or at least you can change your angle early so that your contribution remains original)
And if you can't beat them, join them... (collaboration is a safer choice in the long run than bitter competition)
Building collaborations is very useful, and making friends is good (and these are two separate things, even if there can be an overlap!), but be wary of politics, it NEVER goes away. You may think everyone is good friends, up until discussions on who should be "first author" turn up, and then it's WAR (except in Maths, where thankfully, the order is alphabetical... Can't understand why that's not universal!)

Should I avoid working with people "across the aisle" in order to stay out of conflict with them?

Depends. Maybe for your own mental health, if interactions are really unpleasant.
But I don't think that's necessarily wise in the long run. Even from a selfish "self-preservation" perspective, it's good to know what the competition is doing...

Am I being naive to try to be friends with everyone

Being friends never hurts. Just remember friends can also be competitors. And friends don't tell each others everything.

and not hide what I'm working on like it's a secret recipe?

I don't know if you're being naive. Collaboration and dissemination is very much in the spirit of Science. But from a pragmatic perspective, scientists are competing for scarse resources (grant money...), so be careful who you share information with, and don't disclose more information than you need to (until you've established whether the person can be trusted)
Maybe think of it as a Prisoner's Dilemma. Honest mutual sharing is mutually beneficial, not sharing at all is harmful (and everyone loses in the long run)... But sharing assymetrically (giving without receiving) will mean you get screwed, and other benefit unduly.
The best strategy, IMO, is to start with cautious good will (share harmless bits, see if other reciprocates) and build from that. You will soon discover who is worth interacting with, and who isn't.

-1 "your main allegiance should ALWAYS remain to whoever is funding you" Like any person, funders are capable of being: unethical, immoral, abusive, obtuse, misguided, unfruitful, discouraging, and just plain not someone one happens to get along with.

Sometimes it's reputation, others legitimate disagreements; if latter, you may gain a lot by sticking around. For example, I wish there was a professor in my University who disputed existence of "voltage" in a circuit, or complained about explaining convolution only from the output-side. It takes plenty of work to disagree in an educated manner, and you'll be reaping their fruits in much less time.
Naturally if they expect anything of you in their disputes (except asking politely whether you agree), I defer to the other answers.

I'll guess that this is pretty common, actually. It was certainly true in the place I earned my doctorate. There were a couple of factions. They might be research based or some other division, such as politics or religion.
Usually the feud is fundamentally based on some topic or idea, I'd guess, though it may not be universal. If you have to deal with people from different factions, just avoid all discussion around that topic, whatever it is.
One of the reasons for this in academia is that most people who make it to senior faculty positions are smart. Being smart they think a lot of their own ideas and, to often, might think less of other's ideas. This can spill over. And extreme levels of competition just adds to the problem.
Just deal with these sorts of people transactionally on the things and ideas you need and not on the hot-button topics that set them off. Don't agree or disagree with them. Just step away as needed. Since the are smart, they may have something to offer you as long as you stay in the safe zone.

Sometimes it's not avoidable.  When you go up for tenure, your chair is going to ask experts in your area for letters, and there's a fair chance that they won't know any better and end up asking someone who will write that you're a terrible mathematician and shouldn't be granted tenure under any circumstances without even reading your work, simply because they hate one of your coauthor's guts.  If the people reading the letter and evaluating you for tenure are astute, they might figure out what's going on, but possibly not.

@AlexanderWoo, I suspect (a) that that is rare and (b) a person who would do that likely hurts themself more than anyone else. Call it out if you see it happening. Don't cower under the bed.

I am surprised by your statement "One of the reasons for this in academia is that most people who make it to senior faculty positions are smart. Being smart they think a lot of their own ideas and, to often, might think less of other's ideas.". In my experience, the exact opposite happens. The smartest people I've met were also, without question, the humblest.

@Stef, yes, that happens too.

Full disclosure: I recently obtained my PhD and have no experience whatsoever in similar situations within academia. My answer below is an approach based on what I've observed in other social groups where similar things take place.
Edit / Warning: Please read Captain Emac's words of caution in the comments regarding the advice given here.
I think there are two stages to this problem. First one is as a student and the other one once you graduate and get a postdoc.
As a graduate student I would avoid interacting with the other group. If any person you're working with found this out you would be considered a traitor and so on. So for now just continue doing what you're doing and focus on graduating.
Once you graduate there's no single person who has as much power over your career as your adviser did during your PhD. I believe at this point you can openly communicate with your own group that you don't want to take part in these antics. Request to keep the badmouthing to meetings where you are not present and so on. Establish clear limits when it starts happening. You will have to do this with both groups. It might even be a good idea to have a face-to-face conversation with your adviser at this point.
This will solve one of your issues, however, it will complicate your life in other ways. The people most involved in the conflict will probably try to shun you out. However, as long as your contributions keep being valuable this hopefully won't be a bigger problem(*).
It's likely that the older and more established members of each group will distrust you. However, I'd bet the younger folks will be more open to follow your steps; or at least don't try to punish you for what you're doing. They must be as uncomfortable with the situation as you are.
(*) It sounds like you're doing great so far, so I don't see why this shouldn't be the case moving forward!

I'm not sure the part about the supervisor is good advice. After the Ph.D. you usually still need reference letters for a while. A tenure-track application without a reference letter from the supervisor will raise a few eyebrows.

The advice is dangerous. There are some people who can get away with an assertive position. However, these people will not in general need help from SE. This field is in a bad shape, socially. OP will have to fight against the collective if following this advice. Not a good idea in general, and quite possibly career-limiting. OP should at the very least be warned of that. No, the "younger folks" will not necessarily be more open. This is a bet with long odds on a political shift. OP should first establish a foot in an adjacent field permitting them to leave if they want to play this game.

Thank you for your comment, @CaptainEmacs !! It's always interesting to hear the perspective of more experienced invidivuals. In this case it's something I'll keep in mind.

What you are describing is a situation where by analogy you are stuck at home and mommy and daddy (the ‘adults’) are arguing a lot. You are afraid that mommy will be angry with you and you describe yourself as being paranoid about other people’s intentions. In other words there are, as you perceive the situation, at least two causes for your getting anxious, upset, even depressed.
Some contributors have recommended experiential avoidance which is not ideal but if you choose to do this you still have to confront why this situation is making you feel so anxious.  According to much traditional philosophy and modern knowledge of psychology (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy in particular) it is easier to change your perspective on things than the things themselves. When you do this you find the problem is not in the situation or in what other people are doing and saying but in your distorted way of looking at what they say and do. What are you telling yourself that is making you so anxious?
It is likely you are engaged in mind-reading (other people’s intentions) which is not evidence-based or that you are catastrophizing which is a kind of fortune telling and again not based on evidence. You have to put some of your assumptions about yourself to the test and you also might want to get your feet wet by talking to your supervisor and geting that relationship on to an honest footing instead of second guessing what each other is thinking. Phd research is both an outer and an inner journey of discovery and I do not believe many young researchers realise this until later on in life. I recommend ‘The Feeling Good [about Yourself] Handbook’ by Dr David Burns Phd which requires some more homework on your part including completing Mood Logs on a daily basis until you have thrashed out your own ‘invisible’ contribution to the problem.  This will put you back in the control seat and enable you to sit with the adults in the room as another respected adult, possibly also as a friend to some.

"It is likely you are engaged in mind-reading (other people’s intentions) which is not evidence-based or that you are catastrophizing which is a kind of fortune telling and again not based on evidence."
I appreciate your answer, however, in this case I do not think it applies at all. My anxiety is a rational response to humans being hostile to each other and I have plenty of evidence that I am not making it up. The reason I am "paranoid" is because how I fit into this and how other people fit me into it is unknown.

I do agree that I should talk to my advisor however, there is nothing dishonest between us. I just haven't talked to her in a while.
Furthermore, I do not really suffer from not feeling good about myself beyond the very normal doubt most PhD students of math often feel. I don't think there is anything pathological about that. I am an overall happy and confident person so I'm not sure that completing "Mood Logs" would somehow lead to me being respected more.


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Referencing a question on research level from StackExchange in a footnote in a thesis?
Is referencing a question on research level from StackExchange in the footnote of a thesis appropriate?

Maybe
I couldn't find anything specifically on footnotes, but there are some threads on acknowledgement and citation concerning SE contributions.
Acknowledgement
There are some questions concerning the acknowledgement of stackexchange discussions, with the accepted answers saying that is appropriate to acknowledge both the general SE community, as well as specific questions/answers.
Citation
Since citations are different from acknowledgements, the same does not automatically hold true for them. However, quoting from this answer:

Does something learnt from StackExchange need to be cited?
A lot of learning goes into a journal article. This learning comes from many sources. That which gets cited is only a small fraction of that. A scientist might (a) read a statistics book; (b) ask a friend; or (c) ask a question on Stats.StackExchange.com to learn more about how to analyse his or her data. In both cases, the person has devised an analysis plan based on having learnt something. However, generally these sources are not cited. In each case the scientist has learnt how to do something, but ultimately the knowledge is already established in the literature.
I also think that the vast majority of posts on StackExchange do not constitute a citable unit of original research. That said, where this does occur and it it influences your work, it makes sense to cite the source.

It's not in Academia.SE answers, but check this out:

So yes, you can cite an answer.

This is an excellent answer, as it's point out this useful function, I did not know about.


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Is that proper to get messages about your work from your lab head at the early dawn?
Is that proper to get messages about your work (almost critique no constructive feedback) at the early dawn, I freaked out from my sleepings not the first time to expose that besides the high pressure to get results as soon as possible. I feel my body is exhausted and sick and sometimes crying, is this behavior normal in academia?

Two simple rules for maintaining sanity: Don't check your email first thing in the morning nor before going to bed. Don't charge your phone at the bedside.

I hate check email or even phones, but is this normal? besides kind of accusing or distrust if we go outside lab track me and record the time (although i went to other lab to do work related to the research)

No I receive this frequently even in normal days

No it is completely different please read my question

While the question is different, the accepted answer also applies here and answers this question.

Are you expected to answer immediately? If not, it's fine. If the issue is a different one, please reformulate the question.

It isn't clear, at least to me, whether these are email messages or something more intrusive like a text message.  If email, read when you're ready to start your workday.  If something more intrusive, please revise your question with that information.

This is the good of emails. Can you think of phone calls?

In the US it's not uncommon, even outside of academia. I regularly got emails from my PhD advisor late at night on Friday or Saturday telling me to have something ready for him first thing on Monday. Obviously he expected me to read and act on them. Now, I might get emails from my lab PI on weekends, holidays, etc., but there's no expectation that I'll read them outside of normal work hours. He even made a point to tell me he's not legally allowed to require I work weekends (even though some of my experimental protocols would say otherwise).

It is entirely proper to send emails at whatever time anyone wants to. It is up to the recipient to read them as they see fit.

Your question mentions two problems and you only think they have to be related:

He sends "almost critique no constructive feedback"
He sends it at early dawn

The second point is nothing you should worry about. In academia it is quite usual that people work (or read mails, write mails, look into papers or proof read what their students sent them) at all kinds of times.
I got mail really early and really late and sometimes I was asked if I like to call the professor.
It would have been okay to just ignore the mail until the next morning, but I was happy to get early feedback and had a constructive discussion. The professor probably wouldn't have had time in the morning and I would have had to wait until he has time in the usual working hours. But there is no obligation to read the mail late in the evening, let alone answer it.
The other point is the kind of feedback. I think you'll find here other questions that address this in detail. This can mean two things:

Your professor may provide harsh feedback and may even be nonconstructive.
Your professor provides concise feedback that reads harsh but is not meant this way. This type of feedback is quite common and the cases in which other people misunderstand it as harsh feedback are common as well. Try to assume good faith if there aren't more signs.

Messages are asynchronous. The whole benefit of asynchronous communication is that the sender can send them at whatever time is convenient for them to send it, and the recipient can respond at whatever time is convenient for them to do so, with no requirement for those two times to be particularly close to each other.
If you don't want to receive emails early in the morning, the solution is simple: don't check your emails early in the morning. Turn off whatever is alerting you to them arriving in real-time until whatever time you do want to start checking them.
You have absolute and complete control over the hours do not receive emails, irrespective of when they might have been sent, and should not expect others to adapt their working schedule for your convenience when you have such a simple solution to the problem available to you.


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Equivalent of french CAPES or agrégation exam without having to teach
I am a mathematics student in a French university.
But I have studied many other subjects on my own with university books.
So I would like to have a diploma or an exam that proves that I have a certain level in these subjects.
I had thought about the CAPES or the agrégation exam but I don't want to have to teach after I have obtained them.
Note. I am moving towards an academic career.

Agrégation is not a diploma

Note that if you pass the "agrégation" (i.e. successfully pass the exams) but don't teach after, then you cannot call yourself "agrégé de mathématiques" (as it's reserved for people who then teach) but you are allowed to say on your CV that you successfully passed the exams (I think it's "reçu au concours de l'agrégation", but not 100% certain). I shall not comment on the morality of potentially taking up a place in a competitive exam with limited number of places (the Mathematics one always has more places that admissible candidates, but still...). However it sounds like a lot of effort just to get a diploma.
The more traditional route is to get a "Licence" in another subject by taking online classes -- so there aren't any mandatory classes -- for the year of L3 at a nearby University (provided you can get an equivalency for the first two years of L1-L2), and taking the exam. It's not uncommon for students in Physics, Mathematics, or Computer Science for instance to get one or more degrees in related topics this way. If the secondary discipline is less closely related to Mathematics (say Philosophy or Ancient Languages), then it may be trickier to get the equivalency, although it's always easier to go from Mathematics to anything else than the reverse.

I was just thinking about computer science (that I studied in a preparatory class), philosophy and Latin, your guess' quite impressive. Apart from that, thanks for the very complete answer. I think I'll " just" go for a license then

Note that this is not a diploma. Success at the "concours de l'agrégation" guarantees a job position as a public servant, but no certification or diploma

First, the CAPES and the agrégation are not "exams" in the sense of a final exam that grants a diploma if you get a minimum grade. They are civil service entrance examinations, in the sense that they are a competition between all applicants and the top performers get the job. Putting on your CV that you went to a job interview, got the job, and then refused it, is relatively pointless.
So to answer your question, no, there is no equivalent of the CAPES or the agrégation without the requirement to teach afterwards (if you take the job), because they are literally formalized competitive job interviews to become a teacher at a secondary school.
Second of all, merely getting the certificate/agrégation also does not prove that you are particularly competent, only that you outperformed enough other candidates to be in the pool of candidates selected to get the job. Since the state of the éducation nationale is so bad and the number of applicants so low, for the CAPES it basically means that you showed up and have a basic knowledge of the subject. For the agrégation, it means that you have an undergrad level of proficiency, pretty much.
The CAPES is a complete waste of time if you plan to have an academic career. It used to be that getting a very top ranking (say, top 10-20) at the agrégation in some subjects could give a boost to your early career as an academic. Nowadays, getting an academic job is so competitive that your research output will be enormously more important than some job competition you went to before your PhD. This is especially true since the agrégation (like most civil service jobs) is reserved for EU nationals, but academic job searches are largely international today.
The closest thing to what you want would be to get a license ("bachelor" for American speakers) in your field of choice. But again, I am highly doubtful that this will have any sort of impact on your future academic career. Anything you will do as an undergrad will be dwarfed by what you do during your master's degree and will essentially be forgotten as irrelevant. And what you did during your master's degree will essentially be forgotten after your PhD – only your research output will count. Even if you end up going out of academia, getting a license in a different topic would only be a very small boost to your CV after you get your master's and especially PhD.
The only worthwhile thing I can think of would be if you somehow managed to self-study a topic to the level of getting a master's degree without taking classes. But this is a feat that few can attain. And even then, you would need to prove that your diverse background will enable you to perform research at the interface of two different fields. It's not the kind of things you can learn in self-study books, to be perfectly honest.

"It used to be that getting a very top ranking (say, top 10-20) at the agrégation in some subjects could give a boost to your early career as an academic." -> I still know some professors in theoretical computer science who won't take on PhD students who didn't prepare/pass the "agrégation", and they see that as "proof" the student has a solid mathematics background. Whether this attitude is common or not I couldn't say.

I don't worry too much about the PhD in Mathematics, the majority of the students in my school are going to do one so I will be properly guided. Maybe I'll do a question/answer on that next year.


text:
Exam requires self-imposing a time limit: what should I do when others are likely to use more time?
I am enrolled in an upper level STEM class.
My teacher has recently announced that we have a "downloadable" midterm. The midterm is not officially timed, and we have a week to submit it, and there is no way the teacher can track how much time we have used. Now, in class and in a clarification request, it was stated that we have a total time to "work on it" for 3 hours tops, even though we can "look at it" for longer.
I have no clue how to deal with this. A good number of my (normally obsessive/honor code) friends have already told me that they will use more time than what is officially allowed to work on the exam. Based on the sample I've conducted with the people in my year in the class, I would say its highly likely at least 50% are planning on using more time than allowed.
Ngl [not going to lie], I've had to deal with "other people using more than they should be" for at least two of my classes (all of which are online) this semester and I don't want to deal with it in a third. I'm frustrated.
Is there anything I can do?

Solutions I consider:

Students protesting — I don't think anyone is being obsessive about
this mess apart from me.

Confronting the teacher myself — for one thing, I'm not sure if I
am liked by this person (LOL) but I'm guessing if I say "yo there
are students planning on cheating", this person will simply send out
an email stating "don't cheat" to the class.

Notes:

The people in the class of my year already know about all this mess of a situation because I discussed the strange rules in our group chat, so I suspect if the professor sends out an email I can be immediately linked as "the person who prompted the kerfuffle".  also I'll be known as the rat. I don't care too much about my reputation, but nonetheless this isn't super pleasant. I probably shouldn't have done this, I see now that it is kind of coming back to bite.

Certain details have been changed or obfuscated to avoid identification.

I'm estimating likelihood of cheating based on an informal "poll" I gave in a high-effort group chat; to get a picture of this group, its a bunch of overachieving underclassmen who I don't think would ever cheat in normal circumstances. I have evidence of intention to cheat, I am not willing to submit it to my teacher.

What I would hope from my teacher would be that the "time cap" of 3 hours would be removed; this obviously is going to get violated anyway.

I specifically asked the professor whether we "must not" spend more than 3 hours on the test; he confirmed that 3 hours is a hard limit.

The class is graded on a curve.

What I'm probably gonna do:
I don't think I should contact the professor directly, mostly because I think this person doesn't like me that much. I think my solution is just going to be to email this person anonymously and express that I have concretely seen evidence of people intending to cheat, though I'm not ratting out any fellow students, and I'll request that the time limit is lifted.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

The biggest problem is the grading-on-a-curve.

You’re in an unenviable position and I don’t have clear suggestions how to proceed. But at the very least, it’s worth calling attention to the fact that

your instructor is neglecting their duty to maintain an acceptable level of academic integrity, and

this may rise to the level of being more than just a “feeling” but an actual violation of university policy.

For example, at my university, our guidelines about faculty responsibilities in connection with academic honesty state (emphasis mine):

Academic honesty is an integral part of the University's educational mission. According to the UC Davis Code of Academic Conduct, all members of the academic community are responsible for the academic integrity of the UC Davis campus.
[...]
Faculty are encouraged to promote an atmosphere of honesty in the classroom. For example.
[...]

Use exam and assignment formats that discourage academic misconduct.

Now, to be clear, I’m not suggesting that this is grounds for an official complaint or to ask for the instructor to be punished or anything like that. But the point is, if and when you choose to complain either to the instructor or to other campus authorities (department chair, office of academic integrity etc), citing relevant university guidelines or policies can be a good way of strengthening your case and reminding people that academic honesty is a two-way street in which both students and teachers have responsibilities. When the teachers are neglecting their own responsibiltiies by creating such obvious opportunities for a “thought crime” form of cheating that cannot possibly be detected, they can’t very well expect students to fulfill their side of the bargain.
Good luck! Sorry you have to deal with this nonsense.

I think this is completely valid provided that the situation really is one where grading has competitive elements. But if the instructor's attitude is that I will provide you a grade based on your own work, rather than I'm grading the class as a whole, then the issues disappear. If you can get full marks in three hours independent of anything anyone else does, then I don't see much of an issue. The worst part, then, is just causing anxiety.

Poignant and to the point. +1

Thank you for your suggestions. Frankly though, I don't think this will work; my professor I think will likely see any email saying  "this is kind of encouraging academic misconduct" as an affront... and I think this person already dislikes me. Though I'm likely being pessimistic.

@anon.jpg yes, I understand and as I said it’s clear that your position is awkward/tricky, and that’s why I didn’t recommend a specific course of action. Perhaps one semi-reasonable way to go about things is to email the department chair rather than the professor, bring up your concern and ask for help getting the professor to take a more reasonable approach, while at the same time asking them to keep your name out of it. This way you can (hopefully - there are no guarantees unfortunately) avoid antagonizing the professor.

your instructor is neglecting their duty to maintain an acceptable level of academic integrity - I think this depends on the school/situation.  Some universities want professors to trust their students and not even proctor exams during normal times.  During the pandemic, a lot of confusing guidelines are being passed down to faculty and at the end of last semester I think I was discouraged from proctoring online exams.

@Kimball: Then the professor should remove the "curved" grading. As it is, this is just unacceptable.

@Kimball there is a difference between not proctoring a home exam and giving the instructions that OP’s professor did. The former makes cheating possible. The latter makes cheating undetectable and lowers any mental effort associated with such cheating to zero. It’s like the difference between a bank not turning on their alarm system on the weekend, compared to leaving all the doors and safes wide open and putting a big sign in front saying “come in and help yourself”.

Dan, I agree it's probably not a great format for most undergrad classes.  And there should be clear instructions---e.g. you have 3 hours from the time you open the exam, and you write your start and end times and sign an integrity pledge.  I'm just saying I think timed take-home exams can be fine in some situations.  They were normal when I was in grad school, and I think there are some schools with a strong honor code culture where this would be acceptable at the undergrad level.

@Kimball thanks for clarifying. That makes more sense.

I would consider the possibility that your professor phrased the rules more strict than they intented to. That is the 3 hours are a recommendation and they would not consider it cheating if students where to take much longer. It is also possible that the professor just didn't think about this too much beforehand and if you point out the mess they will just retreat to this recommendation because it makes life much easier for them. I don't know whether this covers your situation but consider that this is how it could play out.

I recommend you comply with the exam instructions yourself, and inform your professor that others intend to bypass the instructions (you can report this anonymously if you wish).  With regard to the first piece of advice, university is a good time to develop good character by learning to avoid doing things that are unethical, even in situations where you are incentivised to do so.  This is more important than getting a few extra point on an exam and it will pay dividends in your life.  With regard to the second piece of advice, it is good feedback for your lecturer to know that their examination process is flawed, and that it is unfair for students who comply with the exam instructions.  You can let your lecturer know that you are aware of other students who have said that they intend to take additional unreported time on the exam.  (Feel free to report this anonymously if you wish, and/or to omit the names of the students in question; the important thing here is feedback on the process, not reporting of students intending to cheat that process.)

Most of my graduate exams were take home and pretty much everyone talked to each other. I mean even the professor knew it was going to happen.
Exams were basically there to force you to keep up with the course, projects had as much or more grade.

Not sure how the second paragraph is relevant here, as there is no mention of the weight given to the exam in the question. And overall, are you recommending doing nothing and ignoring the time limit? If so, maybe that could be made clearer.

Yes, ignore it.

I would presume the teacher took this course of action because they know the exam will take less than three hours.  Probably the there is no benefit to spending more than three hours on it.  In my experience, students who take the longest to complete an exam are not doing anything to improve their grades during the later part of the exam.
What should you do?  You should follow your honor code (we do not know what it says), just as with any other exam.  If you are required to report other people telling you they will cheat, report it.  Otherwise, spend your time studying.

If there is “no benefit” to spending more than three hours on the exam, why is the teacher going to the trouble of forbidding it?

@DanRomik Two possibilities:  So students do not waste more time, or because "I've always done three hour exams as that's how the exam schedule always worked and I don't feel like changing it because of a pandemic."

This does not sound like a situation where a lot of thought was put into it.

I agree that laziness and/or thoughtlessness are the likely reasons for the prof’s behavior. My point is that there clearly is a large potential advantage to thinking about an exam for a whole week as compared to three hours. So I disagree with the reasoning of your answer. OP is correct to complain, and you’re incorrect to dismiss their concerns.

@DanRomik "advantage to thinking about an exam for a whole week as compared to three hours."  Sometimes, sometimes not.  Context suggests not.

I don't see why you think it is worthwhile to complain.  I can't discern any benefit.  It's not like the instructor is suddenly going to decide to proctor the exam during a pandemic.

@anonymous physicist the professor did mention that the exam shouldn't take long, but frankly this has had some heavy speculation in my group chat, haha. Do you think I should email the professor about all this?

No, seriously, you must have something better to do.  Remember there's a pandemic and people a dying.

Of course that's hypocritical as I am posting on Stack Exchange.

@AnonymousPhysicist ??? I am not asking for my professor to proctor, I am asking for this person to remove the 3 hour cap; its obviously silly at this point.

@AnonymousPhysicist but thank you for the suggestions anyway


text:
Research statement for second time PhD applications to a different graduate program
Context
I was admitted to a graduate program(in chemical physics) in US during the fall of 2019 and after a year of coursework I realized that my research interests were more aligned towards another subject(condensed matter physics/ quantum information). As an international student I had some exposure to research in these related fields and it was until I got into graduate school that I could explore different research areas. When I first applied to graduate programs, I decided to apply to certain programs(in chemistry) based on my majors in undergrad. I decided to graduate from my program with a terminal masters' degree(M.S.), having taken basic graduate courses that align with my research interests and a summer research credits by working with a professor in the other department.
Question
How would a statement of purpose for the second time applications to graduate programs differ from the previous one? Are there any specific details that the admissions committee would expect me to include in my application package?

Since you are entering a different field, the new SoP should be specific to that field. What are your future plans and how do you expect to achieve them? The "tone" of it can be similar to what you wrote before, but the details will be different.
What areas do you hope to explore? What do you intend to do with the knowledge you gain? What sorts of research do you want to work on?
Let the SoP speak to your proposed future in the new field. Having a bit more experience than you did before you can probably be a bit more specific.


text:
Is re-taking a course seen negatively in PhD applications?
I am re-taking a course I was registered to during a somewhat rocky exchange semester. I was too far behind on the assignments to get a good grade, and chose to wait and re-register now, two years later, after having graduated.
The subject is quite central to my field, and it is one of the hardest and most useful courses I have taken during my studies.
Assuming that I get the good grade I am aiming for this time, will this delay in passing the course be seen negatively in a PhD application, since the committee will think I have had much longer to learn the material, and presumably failed to get a good grade the first time?

Where are you applying for study? US? France? Other?

@Buffy I will apply to several places, most probably in Europe, not sure yet. It won't be this year, as I want to improve my chances.

It's not like you can change the fact that you had to retake it, so what would you do with the information if we did say it would be a negative?

@AzorAhai--hehim If it were really a negative, I might avoid re-taking it. I don't technically need that grade since I've already graduated.

But presuming you can do better now, won't any grade now be better than a drop?

@AzorAhai--hehim Yes, that's true. I'm just curious about how much the delay before passing the course could lessen the impact of the improved grade.

I doubt that it would be seen negatively by most reviewers, but who can speak for everyone. It shows some evidence of seriousness.
But it might not be necessary, in fact, especially if this is for application to a US institution where the acceptance is based on an overall assessment of the likelihood of success without individual small things having much effect. If you have letters of recommendation predicting your success then it probably isn't necessary to retake the course.
But the "hardest and most useful" comment suggests that it might be worth it.
But if you are ready to make application now and the course would delay that, then there is no reason you can't do both. Send off a few applications and also register for the course.

Caveat: In France things might be different, especially if you have a masters and not just a bachelors. But in the US you would likely have an opportunity to learn the required material as part of early doctoral studies.