Rejecting a paper after final acceptance notice

For a respectable journal (which I would assume an Elsevier journal to be), this behavior seems so weird and unacceptable that I am tempted to assume that you are only telling us parts of the story here.

Specifically, the part about "but they gave no real explanation for what happened" is curious - what was the reason they gave? This will very much influence the advise you get here.

If, for instance, they said that the previous accept mailing was sent out in error and the new reject notification is correct based on review results, well ... then it would definitely suck for you, but I see no way to fight this decision. You are then basically in the crowded boat of people that feel like their journal paper was rejected even though the reviews were not that bad. That you received an accept notification first does not fundamentally change this. I also do not share the hope of Ben Voigt that you could potentially sue for compensation - as far as I know, journals typically reserve the right to cancel publishing a manuscript at any point in the process, so legally they should be fine to change their mind even at a very unusually late point.

If they said that they have in the meantime learned that parts of your paper are already under copyright elsewhere, then you can either clear up the misunderstanding (if it is one) or alternatively propose to revise the paper.

If they really give literally no useful explanation (don't answer your mail, or answer with no actual information), then I would fall back  to the answer of Wrzlprmft and contact Elsevier.


What is the average salary of Assistant Professor in South Korea?

Quite good: $43-50k

Since foreign faculty members are common in South Korea, likely it isn't any tougher than for local faculty.

source: https://www.chronicle.com/article/South-Korea-Brings-in-Foreign/126508


Whether and how to thank a girlfriend or boyfriend in the acknowledgements of thesis?

The acknowledgements section is really yours to do with as you wish.  You can thank anybody who has been of help and support to you, no matter how formal or informal your relationship with them is.  You can make the relationship explicit or not, however you prefer.  Thus, for example, it is equally valid to write:

  Thank you to Jane Smith, for all her love and support

or

  Thank you to my girlfriend Jane Smith, for all her love and support


How would teaching during the last year of a postdoc be perceived on the academic job market?

In my, undergraduate-only department we aren't looking for teaching experience as a check box on the incoming CVs, we're looking for evidence that the candidate likes teaching. Because that's what we're hiring someone to do. Of course, if you haven't logged some time in the classroom then there is no way for you to know, but we are perfectly willing to listen to "When I was a TA ..." stories to get a sense of how the candidate thinks and feels about teaching.

And of course, we're looking for a research background that will give you a chance of doing something here, but with five years of post-doctoral research you look good on paper. We'd want to hear you talk about getting some research done with limited resources.


Do non-English academic journals pay for a translated paper?

I think you'd have a better chance of getting more reliable information if you go to popular online forums for translators like ProZ and TranslatorsCafé, where you can talk to professional translators and browse job ads. A very quick search already gave me one recent (but already closed) ad that seems to be looking for a translator for an academic journal:

http://www.translatorscafe.com/cafe/job146043.htm

  I am currently in search of French to English Translator with a mathematics & engineering background to translate an academic journal.

Also, AMS seems to have a list of translated journals here:

http://www.ams.org/msnhtml/trnjor.pdf

Anyway, there seems to be a demand for that kind of job, so you might be able to find a job if you know where to look. So, maybe the question is more about how to become a professional translator (and find jobs) than about academia.


Does the usage of mathematical symbols work differently in books than in theses?

So why not just define a tau with a subscript v and a tau with a subscript r - make it clear in your nomenclature and you're sorted.

See:


How to answer questions in a conference talk that I should know the answer to, but don't?

It will depend on the research field but there are ways to get out these situations quite well, in most cases. I also don't see any problems in admitting you don't know the answer.

Usually you won't get questions exam like style. No one will ask you:

  What's the formula for calculating XY?

Here some types of questions I've heard a lot before and some simple answers you can give without talking about the subject:

  Have you tried to use this approach?

In that case you can answer with

  No we have not but thank you for your input, we will look into this!

If the question is:

  [Name] has used this approach, how does it differ from yours?

You can, again, simply answer with

  I am not familiar with this work but I will look into that.

The following question is tricky:

  I think there might be a problem with this part of your work, can you comment on this?

Here of course you somehow have to defend your own work and this is the part you should know. What I would do is ask the person who asked the question if I understood it right (a lot of the time that's a problem) and then if you still don't know the answer you can eitehr go with something like before

  We haven't investigated this yet, we will have to look into this in detail, thank you for your comment.

or you shift the whole discussion to a more "private" setting:

  This is an intersting point, maybe we could discuss this after this session? (in view of the time)

This is quite common to do and usually there's only time for a few short questions.

The same is true for a question like:

  Why did you use this method?

where it's easy to shift the discussion to after the session.

Whatever you do, don't try to hide the fact that you don't know the answer with strange answers. At the last conference I attended a speaker answered every question with:

  This question is spot on, but the project is still ongoing and there's a patent filed and I don't know if I can reveal that right now.

Which told anyone in the audience: that guy has no clue.


How long to wait before sending a follow-up email asking for a letter of recommendation?

Professors receive many requests for recommendations.  Speaking for myself, I appreciate reminders because it lessens the organizational burden of keeping track of everything.

As a rough guideline I would wait 2 weeks between requests (so, go ahead and try again now).  Just be polite and re-send the request with a note to the effect that you know she is busy, so you are re-sending your request.

I would also add that if you aren't close with this professor it may be hard for her to remember enough about you to write a strong letter in support of your application.  To remedy this, it would be helpful if you also reminded the professor about what you did for her/in her lab when you contact her again.


How do you deal with extremely timid/shy students in small classes?

I think stating very clearly that you are available to answer questions (and not just while in class) like office hours or before/after class is important. Some students are more comfortable with email, make sure they know they have your email and that it's ok to use it. Give some positive reinforcement when students ask questions.

I teach graphic design so I don't have a lot of students (20 at most usually) and a lot of classroom time is dedicated to problem-based learning and most of my teaching is coaching. I go see every student to check how they're doing and ask if they have any questions. It's difficult for them to get their work criticized in front of everyone at first so I'll do small group meetings instead of whole class presentations.

I think most shy people can open up when they're around people they trust so I think establishing trust with the student as a teacher is crucial. You can make them work in small teams so they get to know each other better and build up slowly from there.

I don't think it's something you can fix in a single course so there is only so much you can do without affecting the whole classroom.


Is my paper under review (or similar) for too long and if yes, how should I react?

How can I decide whether my suspicion is correct? What handling times should I expect?

First note that there is no general answer to this as average reviewing times vary widely between fields and even within a field.
Therefore, you need to resort to the following:

Read the documentation about approximate times on the journal’s website.
Look at some sample articles – at the dates of submission/revision/resubmission/acceptance that are on the articles – this gives you a bit of a guide. It is potentially more useful to to look at these details on an article similar to the one you submitted or are intending to submit.
Ask colleagues who are experienced with publishing in that journal or at least your particular subfield.
Familiarise yourself with the general workflow of academic journals.

  Given some expected handling times, when should I act? How much leeway should I give?

Check if there have been any holidays etc. since the submission.
Send an inquiry about a fortnight to a month after the timeframe determined in the first step.  But this time can vary – it is a bit of a judgement call, depending on the timeframe that is stipulated and the amount of time that has passed.
Keep in mind that the main reason why peer reviews take so long is not the time required by the review itself but that the referee has to find time amongst their other duties (see also this question). Therefore review durations are subject to high variability.
Additionally, before you take any action, be sure to check the status of the submission. There is little point in nagging the editor if the status tells you that some progress was made recently, e.g., the reports have just arrived or a new reviewer was appointed.

  How should I act? Whom should I contact and what should I (roughly) write?

Send a polite email to the editor assigned to my manuscript – after the introductory pleasantries, politely get to the point, asking something along the lines of:

  I am inquiring about the status of the manuscript [title], as X months have passed, which is considerably longer than the Y months stated on the journal’s website.

Then sign off, thanking the editor for their time and the usual closing pleasantries.


Sending email to editor about reason of rejection of paper

It is not the editor’s job to give you advice on how to improve your paper or where to submit it. And it is the editor’s job to do lots of other things, which usually keep them pretty busy. So at the very least, you’d be imposing on them by contacting them with such questions. You might get lucky and get some advice, but be aware that you are essentially betting on the editor being willing to spend time answering a question from a random person they don’t know and whose question they have no professional obligation to answer. If you lose the bet (or even potentially if you win the bet) it might not leave the best impression.

As a general rule, it makes more sense to discuss these sorts of questions with your adviser, a mentor, or a colleague you are on friendly terms with.


How to cite the same source across an entire subsection of a thesis?

The following section summarizes the process as described by Smith [16, pp. 14-22].

Then summarize the process.


Is it illegal or unethical for a publishing company to pay in exchange for including a co-author?

It sounds not ethical to me; if it is legal or not you should ask a lawyer;

Consider the following point: This is definitely at least borderline to scientific misconduct (depending if the co-author actually contributed anything at all), and either you will have to publish in a journal with bad reputation or risk retraction if you publish in any journal caring about it's reputation.

And if your PHD gets delayed (and possibly stalls as a consequence of resulting bad relationships with your team/university), anything which you possibly got from it will turn out not to be worth it.

(As a small side remark: Academic life often forces you to walk the line between ethical and not ethical very carefully. But don't participate in anything like this on your own will)


Responding to a prof's email about acceptance in a PhD program

I'm at an R1 and have been sending those happy informal e-mails to students ahead of the formal notification from the graduate school. And I've been corresponding with a few who have responded.

My expectations are that you should be thrilled but I also think you should hold your cards close to your vest, just in case. For example, maybe your 'B' school offers you a much better financial package. In that case, you can ask us if we can match. And even if you don't have a competing offer, you have leverage while you haven't made a decision.

You could also ask if there is a campus visit day for prospective students. We plan ours in mid-March and it's a good way to meet other grad students and your future advisor. You might be able to get some travel funding to attend.

If you're going to say no, you should say no as soon as possible, as you might open up a slot in the waiting list for another student. But if you're thinking about saying yes, then there is no disadvantage and considerable good reason to delay saying yes until near the deadline. Advisors not only know this - but if they are good advisors, would advise you to do this.


Are there avenues/options to pursue a medical degree (with funding) after a Ph.D.?

Speaking as a graduate of an MD/PhD program:

You will not learn what you seek in medical school.

Medical school is largely worthless unless you pursue residency. Very little basic science is taught in medical school. The education is closer to word association that builds the foundation for the pattern recognition that is diagnosis. I found nearly no overlap between my medical school training and graduate training (PhD in electrophysiology, lots of electrical engineering, software development, and surgery on large and small animals). The most notable overlap was that I knew how to tie sutures for my surgery rotation.
If you pursue residency, most academic places will require you to practice medicine and do research. There are only 24 hours in the day. Seeing patients brings in more money more reliably than most research. A background in engineering suggests a surgical subspecialty. There is a reason most neurosurgeons and orthopedic surgeons consult or participate in a research group rather than run it.
Medical school is a full-time job. It is not like law school where you can attend night classes.
Attending physicians will not have an equal conversation with medical students Medicine is hierarchical. If you mark yourself as a student, you may find it difficult to have substantive scientific conversations with those above you in the medical ladder until you finish residency (at best 10 years after you start).


What is the proper email etiquette when contacting potential supervisors on short notice?

The first few tips is be cordial and be brief and to the point.

Make sure you use the correct title and spell the name correctly, in fact make sure the entire mail is spell checked and grammatically correct, anything else sends a bad signal.

Begin by stating your purpose for the mail and provide a short but detailed reason for why you approach the person in question. In your case you should also explain the "short notice" and excuse yourself very concisely for the inconvenience this could bring on.

Follow up by providing a brief statement of why you are interested in the subject but also the school and/or research group. Continue by describing your background and how you see your background being an asset in working in the PhD field.

All this should not be more than 2-3 paragraphs of maybe 5-10 sentences. A short e-mail which manages to say the essentials will be more likely to succeed than a long and very long-winded detailed account (that no-one would take the time to read).

The tone of the mail should be respectful but do not excuse yourself or play "underdog", be confident, brief and to the point. that will impress more.

Finally attach a CV and provide any MS thesis papers you may have.


I like taking notes separately in an infinitely zoomable online outliner and include hyperlinks there to the papers in question. Dynalist supports KaTeX and Markdown, and there's a MathJax Chrome extension for WorkFlowy called MathFlowy, although it's broken right now since WorkFlowy redesigned. WorkFlowy and Dynalist also have a lot of user-defined tweaks on Stylish. There's a zillion other outliner options, both online and offline, but I personally like these two.

Since you can hyperlink to other items in the outline and tag individual items, it's easier to keep stuff both organized and connected. It's also possible to export portions of the outline to plain text or RTF.

EDIT: I forgot to mention Gingko, which supports both Markdown and MathJax and has a variety of export formats. I haven't used it in a while, but it's an interesting UI which is especially useful for organizing projects and long notes. The dev also recently released a desktop version if you prefer something that works offline.


Mention engagement for mentally disordered people in application?

Many medical research jobs require interfacing with patients, stakeholders, family members, potential study subjects, etc. Therefore, people-skills can be a great asset. Furthermore, it sounds like your friend started a support group on her own initiative and successfully ran this group for some period of time with a fairly large number of person. This speaks to being a 'self-starter', and to good organizational and time-management skills, since she was doing this will completing her degree. The volunteering aspect is not as important as the other aspects, in my opinion since volunteering usually provides evidence of being motivated/'self-starter' which creating the group already emphasizes.

My feeling would be that this is a good thing to mention as it highlights several desirable qualities. In my opinion, whether or not your friend has mental health issues is her own personal business and not that of potential employers, unless it requires special considerations, so I would advise her to describe this work without reference to her personal health situation, framing it in terms of interest rather than personal experience - i.e. her interest in mental health issues led her to create this group which she managed for a certain period of time with however many clients.


What's the difference between German TV-L and TVöD pay scales?

This is one of the wrinkles of the federal structure of the German education (and research) system. Since the universities are run by the federal states, they are covered by the TV-L (Tarifvertrag für den öffentlichen Dienst der Länder, payment agreement for the public sector of the states), while institutes run directly by the federal government (e.g., the Max-Planck institutes) are covered by the TVöD (Tarifvertrag öffentlicher Dienst, payment agreement of the public sector). (Before 2006, this was the umbrella agreement for (almost) every public sector position, but then the states split off from the negotations; after the TVöD was successfully negotiated, they did not (could not?) rejoin and negotiated their own version based on the TVöD agreement.)

The differences are minor to the point where they should not be relevant in practice; in particular, the difference in pay scales within the TV-L for the different states is larger than the difference to those within the TVöD. The only possible point is that they are different agreements and therefore negotiated independently (with the same union, though), so a new round of negotiations might be completed earlier for one than the other.


Yes, high grades and excellent letters of recommendation from the master's program can help overcome poor grades from earlier.

Remember you will apply for the PhD program a year in advance, so the professors you have the first two semesters in the master's program will be the ones you need to ask for letters. You need to be excellent from the start of the master's program.

The other thing that can help overcome bad grades (to some extent) is a high score on the math subject GRE. You want to study thoroughly for that, unless you already have a high score. See e.g.  What is the median math GRE subject score for admission to a Group 2 or 3 PhD program in applied mathematics?


After publishing my manuscript, can I withdraw the manuscript and publish it at a different journal?

The question is: is this possible?

If you have signed over the copyright of your paper to this journal, or given them an irrevocable license to distribute, then they don't have to take down the paper just because you have asked them. In fact, if they are a reputable journal and the paper has already been published, they shouldn't just take down the paper without a very good reason, because that would distort the scientific record.

  and what is consequences for submitting the same manuscript to another journal?

Submitting a manuscript to a journal that is already published in another journal is called "duplicate publication", and it is considered a kind of research misconduct. Consequences can include retraction of the duplicate publication, being banned from submitting papers to that journal for some period of time, or being banned from submitting papers to that publisher's journals for some period of time.


Is it normal for US PhD programs to require students to pay tuition for extra credits beyond 9 credits/semester?

Yes, this doesn't sound too unusual.  It's certainly pretty common to have restrictions on the number of courses that grad students can take.  Some schools might make you pay for any extras, and at others they might not let you do it at all.

This may be a result of the university's internal budgeting: tuition is charged by the credit, and the student's tuition waiver is limited to a certain dollar amount.  This helps the institution keep some control over the "cost" of supporting a graduate student.  The tuition fees may be fictitious to the student (up to a point), but I assure you that to the departments within the university whose budgets are affected, those dollar amounts are very real.

I'd also interpret this as a warning that you are taking more classes than the standard load, which may not be a good idea.  It's very common for PhD students to take on more work than they end up being able to handle, and the results are often not pretty; sometimes this sort of thing starts a spiral that ends with the student dropping out of the program.  So I'd suggest caution before trying to push through the restriction: it might be a blessing in disguise.

Note that PhD students generally exist in sort of a gray area between "student" and "employee", and so your analogy of an employee paying her company is not really apt. Some academic cultures put them closer to one side than the other, but as you're finding, it's often necessary to balance aspects of both.


Applying for Masters when Family Member is Associated with Department

I think you should say nothing.  If your name is uncommon and your parent also teaches in the same department, it seems certain the admissions committee will twig to the connection.  If they do that on their own, human nature being what is, you'll probably inherit a slight glow.  But if you make any mention, I think that will sound like name-dropping.


Trouble with advisor in final Ph.D. phase

I'm sorry to hear about your situation. I had to change my Ph.D. advisor (and I'm very glad I did), but it was in the early phase of my dissertation process. I'm quite surprised by your "discovery" about a potential of your advisor not caring about your career. Firstly, it is unlikely (why would she "tolerate" you for 5+ years then?). Secondly, if your advisor would truly not care about your career, it should have been pretty clear early in your collaboration, so either your assumption is not true, or you paid no attention to this aspect at all, which is quite difficult to believe in.

Anyway, in regard to your potential actions. I strongly recommend you to consider all possibilities to avoid changing your advisor, considering how far are you in the program. Changing an advisor is not only a administrative / logistical nightmare, but, if it would require you to start your research from the scratch or almost from the scratch, it would be extremely depressing, to say the least.

If you could save five years of work and life by defending your dissertation and graduating, even if parting with your advisor not very amicably, I would say that it is worth a serious consideration. The two obvious dangers in this case would be: 1) being able to defend dissertation successfully; 2) potential problems with obtaining a recommendation letter from your advisor (she could either decline, or give a negative or not so positive one). The second aspect is quite important, as your postgraduate applications, not listing your dissertation advisor as a referee, might raise quite a lot of eyebrows, with potentially negative consequences in regard to your postdoctoral offers / career.

You have to carefully think about all these (and other) aspects, consider feedback from people here and your own environment, but, ultimately, only you can decide the best course of action, based on various details, known to you only, as well as your gut feeling, as some new research suggests.

Regardless of what you decide on the subject and how you part with your advisor, I wish you to successfully graduate and achieve your professional and personal goals in the future. Be strong in staying your courses, but flexible in ways of reaching your destinations. Or, as Lao Tzu has said,

  Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist
  it.


how to format computer code in APA style

APA 7 provides for computer code: "To present computer code, use a monospace font such as 10-point Lucida Console or 10-point Courier New."
For my APA 6 thesis, I used italics for my coding examples following APA 6 4.20 (a letter, word, or phrase cited as a linguistic example), taking the position that JavaScript is a language.


Should I do a thesis, no thesis, or a capstone project in a master's in statistics?

Could you give us some more detail about what the capstone project would entail? That seems pertinent to the question at hand. I'd say that you should try to get a perspective from people currently at work in the industry, rather than academics. My two cents worth is that a thesis would look good if it could showcase your written communication abilities and demonstrate an ability to do self-directed work. But consider the time involved and ask if the time spending acquiring/demonstrating these skills might be better used doing something else equally or more applicable to entering industry, such as networking, internships, or the like. The question isn't whether a thesis is good: it is. The question is whether it's the best use of your time, which we aren't going to be able to tell you a priori, I don't think.


My supervisor is trying to "steal" my collaborators: what can I do?

Leave this place immediately and find better support elsewhere.

As a postdoc you're independent and well-aware of it. You have your own network of collaborators, reputation. You know your job better than others. Nonetheless, some bureaucrat who depends on you is openly sapping your career, and you find that "understandable" and believe there's a friendly way around so that everyone is happy. I think you hold all cards there.

My advice to focus completely on networking and finding a new place. The situation will not improve. Make use of the time and resources you have now to take the best advantage of your freedom to move and communicate. Why not move closer to your collaborators? It's fairly easy finding another postdoctoral position nowadays, visas, etc. There's no point in holding such bad ground.

Networking will also naturally broaden your horizons, through revealing other career possibilities which steer away from academic parasites. Whatever you decide, just don't allow some parasite to win a game where you hold the cards.


An equivalent of arXiv, but for tabular and other experimental data?

Do you know about zenodo which is a CERN initiative? It may be interesting for you https://about.zenodo.org/


Can you present data on non-participants?

This is standard practice. And it is necessary in order to detect selection bias.

The CONSORT initiative (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) provides a flow chart that includes entries for "declined to participate" and dropouts in various follow-ups.

The American Psychological Association, in its Ethical Principles for Psychologists and Code of Conduct, section 8.05 "Dispensing with Informed Consent for Research", writes:

  Psychologists may dispense with informed consent only (1) where
  research would not reasonably be assumed to create distress or harm
  and involves (a) the study of normal educational practices, curricula,
  or classroom management methods conducted in educational settings; (b)
  only anonymous questionnaires, naturalistic observations or archival
  research for which disclosure of responses would not place
  participants at risk of criminal or civil liability or damage their
  financial standing, employability or reputation, and confidentiality
  is protected; or (c) the study of factors related to job or
  organization effectiveness conducted in organizational settings for
  which there is no risk to participants' employability, and
  confidentiality is protected or (2) where otherwise permitted by law
  or federal or institutional regulations.

The kind of summary statistics you cite falls squarely under point 1b.

Of course, you do need to exercise some caution, in particular to ensure that confidentiality is maintained. Listing the names of non-participants, for instance, would certainly cross the line. As would giving out "too much" information from which one could reasonably deduce the identities of participants or non-participants (if you work with a small, easily identified population, say).


Can a recruiter contact a postdoc's recent supervisor who was not listed as a reference on the application?

At least in US academic culture, the fact that P is applying for a given position, or is applying for jobs at all, should be considered confidential.  As such, if you're the recruiter, you should not contact S or T or anyone else regarding P's candidacy, unless you first get permission from P.  (Obviously, you have implicit permission to contact A, B, C, since they were listed on the application.)

Asking S or T for a general assessment of P's abilities, without saying that they're applying for a job, is a gray area.  I would advise against it, since people will tend to infer that your reason for asking is because P is a job candidate.

If you're the candidate, on the other hand, you should be prepared for the possibility that the employer might contact S or T anyway, even though they're not supposed to.

Expectations might be different in different cultures.


When can scientific publications have a dedication?

(Mathematics:) I have dedicated a few journal articles "to the memory of" recently deceased colleagues (one in a "special issue journal" for this purpose, but others in regular journal issues). I just included the dedication in the submitted paper, and no-one complained about or commented on it, and it appeared in the published version.

Regarding placement: The place of the dedication seems to depend on the journal style; in most cases I encountered it was between the author list and the abstract.

Actually, the first time I dedicated a paper I put the dedication into the acknowledgment section, the (copy) editor then moved it to the proper place. From that time on, I placed the dedications there myself, using in LaTeX (amsart class) the command \dedicatory{Dedicated to the memory of N. N. (1930--2010)}. So far all journals left the dedications there; apart form one who moved it to an own section between the abstract and the acknowledgment section.


How to cite a technical report for a double blind review process?

I hate to suggest it here, but in some ways your best option is to work to rewrite the paper within the page limits. It can be a difficult task to use fewer words without losing meaning, but it is part of the history of good writing to work at that. George Bernard Shaw famously said "I'm sorry this letter is so long, I didn't have time to make it shorter."

Mathematical proofs, if that is what it is, can often be shortened, especially if the techniques are standard and the audience is sophisticated.

But the prose in the other ten pages may be more amenable to reworking.

If you can do it the reviewers will be happier as will the rest of your audience.


Is my authorship undeserved, and if so how do I address this in a professional setting?

What's past is past and can't be changed. It is good that you have learned about this issue, but I suggest that you ignore it and just list it like any other publication. There is no major harm done here, even though such "gift" authorship is frowned on in many (not all) fields.
If asked to explain it, just say that you were, at the time, less sophisticated as you were an undergraduate.
Alternatively, you could leave the paper off of your CV, but that can look strange if the paper surfaces.
But the bottom line here is that, as an undergraduate, inexperienced in such things, you did nothing wrong.
And, in some fields, a lot of people get listed as authors even if  their intellectual contribution was minimal, since their work is essential to carrying on the work of the lab. Whether that applies in your case, I can't say. Your advisor, PI, might be worth having a conversation about this issue. They may assure you, or not, but their opinion is worth hearing.

I need to add a few things for context. There are certainly a lot of people who don't accept what they call "gift" authorship in any form and so hate on answers like this one. But the question of what is a gift and what is earned can be subtle. In most fields, where one or a few people work together, without need of extensive and long running laboratories with all of the technicians that are required for that, it is a pretty simple question and gift authorship is heavily frowned on in those fields.
But there are some fields in which nothing gets done without a lot of people contributing over a long period of time. When a paper comes out of CERN, for example, the list of authors might be very long. An experiment might take years to set up and require hundreds of technicians, without whom there would be no breakthrough at all. The work is simply impossible without them. In those situations, lots of people get authorship for their contributions.
There have been a few papers, in fact, where the list of authors has been longer than the paper itself. But, in those fields, it is understood what it means and the order of authorship might be vitally important to help sort it out.
It is, I think, a mistake, for those in other fields with a different work process, to judge these people.
See, for example this paper with more than 5000 authors


How do I cite an unpublished work in my paper? which incidentally is my second submission to the same conference

Many people, including myself, use the following style:

  Author. “Paper Title,” manuscript, year.

  e.g.:
  [13] A.N. Author, “Paper Citation Rules,” manuscript, 2013.

If it's your paper you can also cite it as

  Author. “Paper Title,” submitted, year.

The proper citation style may depend on the conference you submit your paper to. In my area, theoretical computer science, there are no strict citation rules.


How should I respond to "no research position available" from a cold email?

There’s no need to respond.

An (uninvited) question has been asked and (kindly) answered. Answering required the professor’s time. There’s no need to follow up, because that will require more of the professor’s time.

  Obviously, [the answer] is not positive.

I don’t know whether you mean “the professor answered that the lab has no open research positions” or the professor does not see you as a promising candidate or similar. Regarding the latter, you should not be concerned. The professor probably receives many such requests and simply doesn’t have the time to provide lengthy replies. (That’s why I recommend not to respond.)

  Why would a professor waste their time with evaluating the suitability of a candidate if there are no positions available

The professor might not have even read the email, let alone evaluated the suitability of the candidate. Indeed, the professor might be using canned responses, which can be sent almost as quickly as an email can be deleted/archived and are perhaps better than non-responses.


Grading unsuccessful team work in a seminar

This post might be relevant to you: Should I hide the fact that I did a group assignment completely by myself?

Regarding your question:

You put them together a few months ago, and still you only get a complaint a few days before the deadline. Now, there are two possible cases:

They don't have a finished report by the deadline. In this case, I would take the appropriate steps. They had months to discuss the topic with you, to get into another team, etc., if they only come to you five days before the end, they have to take the consequences.
They have a finished report, but one of them claims to have done most of the work. In this case, you already took good steps, I would continue along this path. If the student doesn't answer, assume he dropped the course and act accordingly.

Regarding your evaluation, you should know that it is common for students who get a bad grade (like it might be the case for the lazy student here) to give a bad evaluation. The people reading these evaluations should also be aware about this and as long as it is only a single one that stands out negatively, it shouldn't affect you too much. Be prepared to explain and justify the steps you have taken, e.g. offering the students to split.


Difference of a PhD program for students entering with BS and MS

PhD programs in the US typically have coursework requirements in addition to the PhD dissertation, and depending on the program, these course requirements can be quite significant (as much as 50 credit hours or 2-3 years of course work.)  A student who enters the PhD program after an MS will often be given credit for much of these course work requirements based on their previous MS degree.  However, it is often the case that students are required to "make up" particular courses that they have not previously taken.

Most programs have minimum credit hour requirements (total credit hours including courses and dissertation credits.)  A fairly common rule is "60 credits past an MS degree or 90 credit hours past a BS degree."

These rules vary a lot between universities and even within the same university, so it's important to understand the local rules that will apply to you when you apply to enter a PhD program.


Physics PhD personal statement: including a figure

I would much prefer that the applicant give me a plot to look at than that he tries to explain everything only in words. A balance of text and graphics can be beneficial in many pieces of academic work. Adding a graphic may actually speed up the understanding of an applicant's application materials. This is why most of us can read a comic book much more quickly than a novel. I am actually more prone to drifting off while reading paragraph after paragraph of text with no "graphic relief."

As academics, we are quite used to being told to refer to figures. If an explanation of your work can be aided by use of a graphic or two, by all means please include them.

At the very worst, if someone feels they only have time to read text, they can just ignore the graphics. This would likely be to their own detriment.


Teacher put all of the answers to the homework in white font?

There are several reasons you should do the work yourself, ignoring the filled in answers:

It is the honest thing to do.
You will learn far more from the homework that way.
The filled-in answers may not be the right answers. For example, the teacher could have used a file from someone who had done the homework for calibration, and made some mistakes.
If the teacher sees a lot of 100% correct answers, with exactly the same wording and formatting, they may become suspicious and realize what was going on. In that case, it may be very important to be able to honestly say you did the work yourself.


My professor has told me he will be the corresponding author. Will it hurt my future career?

First, take time to read this question to understand what does the Corresponding Author mean for different publishers. The definitions vary, but in principle CA is the author who can be contacted about the paper results after the publication, including the long-term period (10+ years). Perhaps, you are the best person to act as a CA for this paper? Do ask yourself the following questions:

How certain is that you will be working in academia in the next 1 year? 3 years? 5 years? 10 years? What about your Professor?
If you provide your current contact details (address, email) as a CA, how likely is that your correspondence will reach you at this address in 1 year? 3 years? 5 years? 10 years? What about your Professor?
A CA may receive some specific questions about the study, but also broader questions about possible ways how it can be changed, adapted for a new problem, applied to a particular area in another discipline. There may be questions on how the methods used in the study compare to what other groups were doing or are planning to do. Are you fully prepared to answer these questions? What about your Professor?

If based on the answers, you decide that you are the best person to act as a CA, simply initiate a discussion with your Professor, using your answers as key points of your proposal.


Which department does a professor in a joint appointment get his/her graduate students from

Both.

In general, a faculty member with an appointment in a given department normally has full rights to having graduate students from that department. Typically, though, the relative ratio of recruiting tracks well with the relative "weight" of the two appointments. A professor with a true joint appointment (50% funding, etc., from each department) is much more likely to recruit from both departments than a professor with a merely "courtesy" appointment.


How can I thank a senior faculty who's written me a good reference which helped me land a desirable job?

A thank you card is definitely a good idea and I cannot see that it would be considered inappropriate. If you are from abroad, a little something typical of your country of origin may also be appropriate. Like a small box of traditional sweets, a little traditional doll, a fan, or something like that. I have had this kind of little things given to me by students.

Also, the university will probably have a policy on gifts which you may be able to locate on their web site. The general idea is that it should not be something worth a significant amount of money.

Rather than asking a classmate, I would ask a junior faculty for what goes as the norm. A classmate may be as inexperienced in this as you are, because the rules in academia can be significantly different from other parts of society.


How is European habilitation viewed in the US?

For the most part habilitation is restricted only to Europe.
No real equivalent exists in the United States or other parts of the world. The closest equivalent in the United States would be a promotion after tenure and before reaching a (Full) Professor rank. At many institutions I know, however, there would not be such a rank because the jump to Associate Professor happens before or with tenure.
Many in the US may not have even heard of habilitation, but anyone with close European collaborators will likely know about it. I first learned about it, for example, when I was asked to support a colleague for their habilitation.  For those who do know about it, I would not expect there to be any special awe, just a recognition that this is an academic rank and its approximate equivalence in their own system.


Should I optimize the content of a first page of a research statement (risking typography)?

I think the spirit of the statement above is not to overwhelm or overload a hiring committee, because they do not have the time to go through everything thoroughly and are probably reading many research statements.

You need to make your key points stand out and make it as easy to read as possible. Make it something they want to read if you can. Think of this as more like writing a newspaper article than a science article - the most interesting stuff goes first, follow up with details further into the text if needed.