Publish a thesis that summarizes papers on arxiv - copyright issues?

All sources are cited appropiately, down to each lemma, but I wonder whether rephrasing could actually lead to getting sued for copyright infringement.

It depends on what you mean by "rephrasing."  If you are genuinely writing in your own words and citing everything appropriately, then there is no problem at all.  Copyright does not protect ideas, just how they are expressed, so writing your own version is not copyright infringement.  Academic norms require citation, but it is certainly OK to write expository papers on other people's research.  Your thesis sounds like a valuable contribution that should be made available to the community, and arxiv.org would be a fine place to do so.

On the other hand, if by "rephrasing" you mean starting with their text and editing it (rearranging a little, changing some wording, making additions, but keeping the underlying framework), then your paper would be considered a derivative work under copyright law.  I've never heard of anyone actually being sued for this in an academic context, but you might be asked to take down your paper, depending on how closely you followed the original papers.  You might also offend the authors if you copy too much from them, even if there's no legal trouble.

The basic question I'd ask is whether you had the other papers (or near-verbatim notes on them) open in front of you while you were writing yours.  If not, then you should be fine, because everything you wrote came from you.  If you wrote your paper while actively studying theirs, then there's more risk: the fact that you needed to constantly look at their writing suggests you hadn't fully internalized their work.  In that case, you should look through your paper and make sure you didn't accidentally paraphrase too closely.


It depends what you do instead of school.  But I would not worry about falling behind your cohorts.

A lifetime is a very long time, enough time to do and get good a lot of things.
 My rule of thumb is that it takes about 4 or 5 years to good at something new, meet an important new life goal, get bored, want something new, then start over.  And you get to keep doing these rinse and repeat cycles as many times as you like.  Figure you have a working life of about 45 to 50 years, meaning you get to have at least 9 or 10 important phases in your career.  That's a lot.

If you think of it in that context, I can't really imagine anything much less important than worrying that taking a year off in between your MS and PhD to go do something else might place you behind your cohorts.  After a few years, no one really has meaningful class of cohorts anyway because everyone follows a different path.

Your actual life outcomes will depend more on what you do instead with that year off.  Could you go find an interesting job with your freshly-minted master's or find something else you'd like to do?


How to find a suitable summer internship university/department abroad?

I am assuming you are an undergraduate; correct me if I'm wrong and I'll amend my answer.

It has been my experience that summer internships at a university that you don't attend are very rare.  My advisor explicitly ignored all cold emails from students asking if they could work with her during the summer (even if they were not asking to be paid).  Logistically, without being enrolled in the school, things like getting access to school servers, badgeing/keys for offices, etc. is just that much more difficult, and professors just don't have the time to vet students from external schools, nor much of an incentive to do so.

With that caveat:

  Ask home university/department/professor for contacts and use that connection?

Absolutely, but it is going to take more than getting contacts to get a summer internship. Unless your professor reaches out to those contacts himself/herself, you're probably not going to get much traction.

  What if I have no prior research experience and professors only know me from classes?

Then you are less likely to entice them to help you.  You're better off trying to work with those professors at your own university instead of trying to use them to work somewhere else.

  Google and send CV + Statement to (many) professors via email and hope for the best

Please don't bother them -- they get too much spam to begin with.  You'll not only waste your time, but theirs as well.

  Google for positions that are explicitly offered for 8-10 week summer internships

This is the best option, but I suggest not limiting yourself to universities and to branch out to look for internship experience in industry (if this is such a thing in your field).  For one, there are probably more opportunities, and secondly, they are generally more structured and you might get more out of the experience.

Incidentally, many professors use the summer months for work-related travel and to take vacation.  This makes it even more unlikely that you will find a position, as the number of professors around during the summer is minimal.  On the other hand, if you happen to find a professor that will assign you to one of his/her graduate students, you could potentially still work in the lab under the grad student tutelage instead of directly for the professor (and, indeed, this is probably what will happen in any lab -- as an undergraduate you will probably work more for the graduate students than for the professor, although this obviously varies by school and professor).


Can I join two different research labs as a Ph.D. student?

Generally speaking, these sorts of relationships are encouraged. People like to see collaboration, not only from a scientific perspective, but from a networking and professional development standpoint.
Usually, nothing is needed to join a lab, other than a willingness on your part to participate. If you want a mentor-mentee relationship with an advisor who is not in your department (i.e. the department you were admitted to), that is something you will have to negotiate with them. As I mentioned in the comments, students in the advisor's own department are their first priority for mentorship and time.
You say in the comments:

I would have to verify this, but my primary advisor may officially be in my dept, but I would be working more closely with prof. outside my dept.

While possible, I just want to warn you that this is probably not the most likely outcome, although it's possible standards in your fields may be more permissible.
You should also keep in mind obligations to your home department. If you are funded on an RAship (or an internal fellowship, likely), then you are expected to devote 20 hours/week to your funder's lab, not leaving you much time to work for the other advisor. Of course, the other advisor may fund you, but again, it is probably hard to devote a line of funding to a student outside of the department. Your primary advisor may make your duties including working for the other professor, but I can't tell you how likely that is.
If you are on an external fellowship, your time is much more flexible.
Tl;dr: Having a primary mentor outside of your home department is probably not likely, but a good mentor would help you arrange something to the best of their ability, as long as you are a good communicator with all three parties.


When to add a coauthor to a paper I am working on?

First, yes, you should speak with him. There different ways how to approach him and I would suggest to inform him about your progress (something you should do anyway) and to just ask him how to proceed regarding co-authorship.

In general, merely posing a conjecture does not merit co-authorship, but you could ask, if he would like to contribute to the paper (e.g. by checking/rewriting the proof/statement of the conjecture, providing more intuition as to why this conjecture is true, putting the conjecture in context with references…).


How should I start my own private post-doc research project?

Partial answer: start reading!

Read for both breadth and depth, and be sure to occasionally step outside the boundaries of what you are familiar with, even exploring fields that seem only tangentially related. In the process, you will almost certainly discover an area that is begging to be explored further. Indulge yourself, dive into the literature, buy books and attend conferences (for which you say you have a budget), and keep excellent notes while doing so.

You may discover that you can write a literature review fairly easily, and will probably also find that you have identified exactly what you wish to pursue for your research project. At worst, you will have spent many enjoyable hours increasing your knowledge; at best, you will be well on the way to completing your research.


Are professors at a public university in the U.S. considered to be "employed by the U.S. government"?

The reason this question is asked by journals is that except in some limited cases, the US government may not, by law, hold the US copyright in a work created by its employees, and, therefore, cannot transfer it to the publisher of the journal as is traditionally done in most academic publishing agreements. As such, the journal can't ask those authors who are US government employees to sign the copyright transfer and must use a different agreement. If one or more of the authors is not a US government employee, then those authors will still need to make the transfer.

Employees of US state governments, which includes most public university employees in the US, do not have this limitation, and can make the copyright transfer or other licensing arrangement that the publisher requires.


How should I write a statement of interest about how my research will fill gaps in the field, when I don't know enough about the field yet?

This statement of interest is both a persuasive and reflective piece. You need to sell yourself as best as possible. Below is one good way to do that.

  General advice: Sell yourself, but be honest. Be specific and concrete - a few detailed examples are better than lists of stuff you did (which goes in a resume if one is requested). Highlight experiences that suggest you are ready for graduate-level research. Relate your experiences and interests to the research going on in the department/program to which you are applying.

Paragraph 1 - State your intention (admission to M.S. program). Here is a good place to very quickly summarized your qualifications and to highlight your general research interests.

Paragraph 2 - Why the admissions/selection committee should give you a spot. This paragraph is the place to mention your experience, your TA activities, and your thesis. If you have a lot to say, group it by categories (like coursework, research, service/teaching) and make more than one paragraph. Do not worry so much about how your current experience is shaping you to contribute greatly to the field. Instead, focus on that thesis experience and what you learned from it. Do you think you are more prepared for graduate-level research than other undergrads might be because of this experience?

Paragraph 3 - This paragraph is an opportunity to be frank about anything that others may see as a limitation and/or weakness. Then you should describe how these limitations are not so serious or are counteracted by some additional experience/strength that makes you stand out. You can also describe how you are addressing these limitations so that they will go away. You should mention your grades in this section. Do not hide from them, but do not fixate on them either.

Paragraph 4 (optional) - If you have some unique story about how you because interested in a field, subfield, or research project. If your reason boils down to "it sounds neato", then incorporate this content into another paragraph. You can bring up your thesis again and discuss how you chose the topic and how the work has shaped your interests.

Last paragraph - Wrap-up. Restate your intent and summarize the key factors why they should accept you. This is a good place to write some specific wordage for the program you are applying to: "My undergraduate thesis was on the effects of X on Y, and I would like to continue study in subfield Z. Projects being undertaken by professors J, K, and L at Institution M are especially interesting to me because..." If you do this, you are showing that you did your homework about the program. You can also put this kind of stuff up front.


Why do people hang up papers on their doors?

In addition to the reasons mentioned by others, I think there may be something of the big-game trophy hunter about the practice:  "Behold, visitor, I am a mighty scientist, capable of hunting the fearsome [prestigious journal]!"


Is paper reviewing for journals that are not JCR-listed worth the time?

My general answer would be yes. Doing reviews provides several benefits, first, you will see manuscripts before they are published. You will spend time reading new research in detail in a way you probably would not otherwise. You can use the experience to learn about how to write (or how not to write) a manuscript. You will contribute to your field as is expected from all scientists. Being appointed to review also signals someone has identified you as a possible expert in the field.

There are, however, some possible caveats. You should not spend time on manuscripts from disreputable journals. One way to gain insight into this is to ask your advisor about the journal if you do not feel you have the insight yourself. If the manuscript is far removed from your own work, you should probably also decline with the comment that it is not within your expertise.

It is true that this will take time off from your PhD work to some extent but you will be able to learn from the experience if you consider the process of evaluating work and assessing the standard in which manuscripts are submitted. Of course, one review, will not give you all insights, but given that you do a few during your PhD time, you will gain new insights into the publishing world other than submitting and revising your own work.

A final point: reviewing for a JCR journal or a journal that is not listed should not differ. The review work is equally important for all publications. A journal that is not listed can become listed if published work is of high quality and thereby referenced sufficiently.


How to supervise an undergraduate student if I am a PhD student coming from a different field?

The situation may be challenging, but you don't need to be uncomfortable with it. In academic research, it is not uncommon that the one doing the actual project is more familiar with the material than the one supervising it. While it's probably rarely the case in an undergraduate - PhD student relation, it almost becomes the norm in the PhD student - professor relation, at least as the PhD student becomes more senior. Keep in mind that supervising is not only about teaching the material, but also about how to act and conduct research professionally. I hope you feel more confident about the latter aspect!

In your specific situation, there seem to be two possible steps if you feel you need to do something about it.

Talk to the student you supervise, explain that your background is in a different field, and openly state that you may not be able to fully help on the content side of the project. If the student is sufficiently confident in working more independently, you should be able to be more relaxed as well.
Otherwise, you may need to talk to your supervisor again and explain the problem. Maybe he can point out an additional member of the group who would be able to help with the aspects you can't cover.


Personally, I think that (in academia) sticking to official e-mail addresses is an atavism.

Currently, one's personal e-mail (say, ...@gmail.com) is better because:

usually more efficient/stable/etc,
lasts for longer than 1-4 years.

While names like mad_theoretican_666@... may sound ridiculous for professional communications (but it's rather a matter of taste than anything else), I don't see anything wrong with e-mails like name.surname@ or n.surname@.

However, I heard quite a few times that non-institutional e-mails sounds less serious.

But honestly, if someone builds his/her value depending on how his/her e-mail sounds (and doing it against very practical reasons), it is the thing that is ridiculous.


Graduate course taken during undergrad: counting them for the course load in Phd

I'm a bit confused about terminology here. In the US, "course load" typically means the courses that you are currently taking, not those you have taken in the past that might support an application. I think you may mean something different.

However, graduate courses taken in the past will almost certainly support an application. But they may not reduce the number of courses that you need to take within the program you are accepted into. Some programs (not all) have actual credit hour requirements. If you have taken certain courses, you won't be required to repeat those (most likely) but would substitute other, more advanced courses or seminars. Sometimes, however, it is appropriate to re-take a course you've already had if there is some assurance that it is at a higher level than the one you previously attended. Some programs can be quite flexible and others not. Some programs, in fact, only require that you pass certain exams and write an acceptable thesis, with no course requirements at all.

So, the correct answer to your query is "it depends". But most likely the decisions won't be made in some fine-grained way. Acceptance into a doctoral program depends on an overall analysis and a decision that you are a good candidate with high probability of success in the program.


Are there many countries in which universities pay PhD students a wage comparable to a basic job in industry?

I'm not sure how much Scotland is different from the rest of the UK, but from my experience of UK PhD funding, I'm not sure why you're worried.

A standard PhD stipend is a little over £14,000 per year, paid quarterly. Fees are covered, and additional money can often be earned by taking on teaching or marking duties, up to about £1500 per year. Taking into account that students do not pay tax this is approximately equivalent to a salary of £17 or £18 thousand per year.

While I appreciate that circumstances may vary for different people, I wouldn't really call that

  a real struggle to get by upon

Outside of London, that is enough to rent a decent sized one bedroom flat or share a nice house, pay your bills, take a nice holiday and still have the weekly cash to go out for dinner or drinks. In London, the stipend is increased but I don't have personal experience of the living expenses there, so it may be different.

As I said, circumstances may be difficult for some people, but most universities will have support for childcare or special needs, so unless you are trying to support a family as the sole earner, I don't think it's really a worry.


Writer's contact information in recommendation letter

Yes, probably.  In general when you communicate with someone it is good practice to make it easy for them to get in touch with you again.

Many recommendation letters (admittedly mostly at the higher levels) end with "Please contact me if you want further information."  And while doing graduate admissions in my department I have (occasionally) contacted a recommender for further information.

It is hard to see the downside of this.  The people who read these letters are conscientious, busy professionals: they're not going to start spamming you or calling you up for frivolous reasons.  The lack of including contact information might possibly be perceived negatively, but we well know that such letters are written quickly by busy people, so it is more likely to be perceived as an oversight.  Furthermore, increasingly many academics have a website which tells how to reach them, so if I can google the professor's name and find out their email address that way, no problem.  I would still feel free to contact them if I had a question to ask.


Is the "okay" hand gesture now unacceptable to use in class?

The whole "White-power" hand sign started as a joke from 4chan or something like that. It was kind of a ploy to get the more gullible liberals all worked up for nothing. It was kind of laughable at first. However, it would seem that it's becoming more and more accepted as an actual WP symbol. I believe that some white-supremacist groups have even ended up adopting it. Still, I wouldn't worry about it as long as it doesn't seem as if you are actually pushing the agenda.

You could always swap it for "thumbs up" or, my favorite, good ol' finger guns.


From a historical perspective, when did impact factors become so important?

I'll speak to my experience in the social sciences, and others are free to add their experiences from other disciplines. I see your question as part of a bigger question: more than scientometrics, when did quantification become prominent? And within what context? A recent paper published in The American Sociologist (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12108-017-9348-y) gives some insight to the question. The move towards quantification was gradual in America, from the 1960s onwards, when governments and institutions (i.e. Ford) began pouring more funding into quantitative research and essentially allowed it to become a privileged method of knowledge production.

People started inspecting results, doing research, and even seeing reality in different ways, where everything was broken down into data. This was a big deal in the social sciences. We were beginning to measure what had been unmeasurable. New subdisciplines were springing up. But we needed a way to order and evaluate these rapidly growing disciplines. Impact factors entered into this picture down the line. They complemented these changes by providing an effective way of quantifying and measuring output, and, by extension, prestige.

By contrast, in places where this quantification didn't happen the same way (Europe), impact factors are not used or referred to widely. In Europe, prestige has traditionally been more known, than it is measured in a quantitative sense. Rather, impact factors surely still exist, but don't carry the same weight. Particular journals and publishers, for instance, carry old-school, sedimented prestige from having published notable scholars in the past, etc. Today, this picture is beginning to change, and for the same reasons it did in America in the past. "Big-data" and quantification has begun dominating more funding, attention, and research, so impact factors are also becoming a bigger deal.


Asking for an invitation letter before applying to the Fullbright Scholarship?

I want to do Masters in Computer Graphics and there are very few universities in the US that deeply explore that area namely, Utah, Cornell, Stanford etc.

Are you sure there are very few? This website is a very good resource for seeing which programs are active in an area: CSRankings -- Computer Graphics. It lists many universities with faculty who are actively publishing, including in order: Stanford, MIT, UCSD, CMU, NYU, Cornell, Texas A&M, etc. (Utah is only #19 in this ranking, which is based on number of publications at the top venues).

  Since I've a couple of personal research projects already on my Github, I was hoping to email a professor asking for an invitation letter from his university if I appear promising.

This is perfectly appropriate, but it does sound like the kind of email many professors are likely to ignore, especially since you are looking into Masters programs and not PhD. So I would be careful to keep it brief, to the point, and state your qualifications / accomplishments early (and/or link to your CV or webpage which states those things).

  However since, this is a Masters, I certainly don't want to get bound
  and give my Master's thesis under the same professor as I haven't even
  explored all the sub-areas and haven't developed my interests fully.

You would ideally email professors who you would broadly be interested in working for; to not do so is misleading, as you are essentially emailing to open up a connection of mutual interest between you.

However, you should not be worried about being formally bound at this stage. Sending an email is not a formal binding, and as long as you are honest, there should be no hard feelings if your plans change after you join the program or after you are admitted. Research interests inherently change over time, and many people switch to entirely different areas (let alone sub-areas). You can also check with the program to see if students are formally bound to advisors on admission, or later.

  should I explicitly mention that I've not made up my mind regarding a specific research area?

I would briefly mention this, yes -- it's along the lines of being honest and not giving a bad impression. Be as specific as you can without being dishonest -- "broadly interested in computer graphics" is fine if that's all you are sure about, but if you know some sub-areas you are interested in (that might align with the professor's), that can help as well.


How to advertise an academic job in a small Asian country to US/European candidates?

Try conferences. I'm not in math but in my field most of the job news comes via conferences and academic societies.

It helps if the jobs are for specific subfields, so you can advertise them to the smaller conferences/societies for those subfields.

You may also try focusing on conferences/societies outside of the US, like Australia, NZ, Canada (e.g. Canadian Mathematical Society). Jobs in smaller countries like Canada are harder to come by and people on the market might appreciate seeing other non-US options.


How can I switch from an MBA to a Masters program in a different subject?

Contact the school and department you're interested in, send them your transcript, and ask which and how many of the credits you've already taken would be accepted if you applied as a transfer student.  Don't expect to keep too many of them.


Benefit in listing major rejections in one's CV?

I don't see any particular benefit from doing so, but I know a number of faculty who are taking a sort of principled stand toward showing that, in a lot of cases, academia is just persistently slogging through failure.

There may be some slight benefit in showing productivity that doesn't result in a clear output ("I submitted X R01 proposals, they just didn't get funded...") but I think primarily this is a personal stance and at best will cause someone to nod in sympathy.

I've also seen this talked about a lot in the somewhat more ephemeral and less formal spaces of social media.


It might help, if the people writing those emails are law-abiding.

However, since, a large proportion of such emails are trying to get money out of you by fraudulent means (publication fees or conference fees), they're probably not fussed about breaking another law as well.


How to properly credit other people when writing a text book?

Generally speaking, textbooks have the same responsibility to cite their sources as any other type of scholarly work. The one reasonable exception I can think of is a textbook about a very old and established subject like calculus, linear algebra etc. It is already sufficiently well-documented who deserves credit for these old ideas.

One slight difference in how the responsibility for citing sources is interpreted for textbooks as opposed to research publications is that the ideas in a textbook are not by default assumed to be the author’s. Thus, if an author fails to cite their sources, their readers will probably assume that this is due to sloppiness or laziness on the author’s part, may be annoyed by it or in an extreme case might even consider it a mildly unethical thing to do, but will likely not regard it as a form of plagiarism, unless the author phrased their words in an obviously misleading way to create the impression that the idea they are writing about is their own.

In other words, not giving detailed sources in a textbook is definitely bad practice, but may not get you into the same kind of trouble as it would in other contexts.

As for how to include the citations, it’s true that including them in the body of the text (especially if you also want to add a discussion with more details about the contributions of different authors) can be tedious. One common method, which I used in my book and I have seen used in many other places, is to add endnotes at the end of each chapter or at the end of the book.


How important is Master thesis when applying for a Ph.D.?

Sometimes choosing a famous name backfires.  If it's a hot shot with tons of students, he will distinguish among his students, when writing his letters, by giving strong letters to the strongest among his flock, and mediocre letters to the less spectacular.  Such a mediocre letter from a big name can be quite damaging to an application.

Even aside from that -- choose the person who fits best:

you are interested in their work
you admire the person ethically
they bring out the best in you
their management style suits you


Did they specifically ask for change tracking to be turned on?  If so, then you should contact the editor and send in an updated version that meets their requirements.  If not, then don't worry about it.

Having to handle additional versions due to an author's mistake could be a little irritating to an editor or reviewer, but if they're expecting change tracking, then it would be more irritating not to have it.  Anyway, administrative issues like this, which do not affect the content of the paper, should not be a reason for rejection.


Addressing the recepient on the cover letter for a PhD application

In most places any of those would be fine. Some places are very formal about titles, though, such as Germany. But if his were the case here, I think you'd already know that. The important thing is that it get to the right person. It is relevant to the entire committee, of course, not just the "main contact".

But something simple is fine.


For a student, what is the optimal usage of a solution manual?

Never use the solution manual before trying everything else; talk to friends, visit the professor, go to class and listen (!), check the internet. Once you use the solution manual for a problem, the potential gain from that problem is significantly and irrecoverably reduced.
Use the solution manual to check your work. (Duh.)
For problems you aren't planning on solving, you can use the solutions manual to create flashcards and other learning aides (if the course material is anemable to such a construct).
If you have a friend/roommate/spouse/trained monkey who can compare your answers to the manual for you, such that you don't actually read through the manual, that may be useful for certain topics.
You can make some good money selling it when the semester is over :)


Marie-Curie individual felowship - current organization

It's clearly allowed and even encouraged:

  Individual Fellowships provide opportunities to researchers of any
  nationality to acquire and transfer  new  knowledge  and  to  work  on
  research  and  innovation  in  Europe  (EU  Member States  and
  Horizon  2020  Associated  Countries)  and  beyond.  The  scheme
  particularly supports  the  return  and  (re)integration  of  European
  researchers  from  outside  Europe  and those who have previously
  worked here, as well as researchers displaced by conflict outside the
  EU  and  Horizon  2020  Associated Countries.  It  also  promotes  the
  career  restart  of individual researchers who show great potential

http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/wp/2018-2020/main/h2020-wp1820-msca_en.pdf (p. 13)


What does assigning the copyright of a paper mean?

By default, you hold the copyright for everything you write (note that some things such as contracts of employment may change this default).

When you "assign" the copyright, as often one must to an academic publisher, you give them control over your work. At that point you are correct that you would not be able to put it on your personal webpage without permission from the copyright holder - although in practice many publishers have policies that grant you permission to do this.

The part of the article that you quote appears to be promising that the publisher in question will grant you permission to use parts of your own work in other work, under certain conditions.


Should I try to avoid being the single author of my patent/paper?

As the proud author of many papers with all sorts of numbers of authors, anywhere from just myself to dozens of co-authors, I see no reason to avoid being a single author.

In evaluating a researcher, I would only have concern with their ability to collaborate if they show a preponderance of single-author papers.  If somebody has a mix of single-author and multi-author papers, then my reaction will instead be more positive, because it shows they are both capable of collaboration and also capable of initiating truly independent work.

So: go for it on your single authorship (and/or inventorship)!  Just make certain that your co-workers agree with you that they should not be authors/inventors, or else you may have an entirely different type of problem on your hands.


How to balance project tasks with finishing old work and how many publications should one have as an early career PostDoc?

I am a researcher in a related field.

Some general answers to your questions, which was advised to me when I was in a very similar situation.

To maintain a balance, it depends if there are 'cross overs' in your prior and current research. If there is very little or none, then you could do what I do, I set some time every alternate weekend and a couple of evenings every so often - depending on what is needed for the research.
One way to tell how many papers would be considered 'normal' - or rather, a representative amount of papers, would be to do a search on Google Scholar or similar - of particular authors in your field, in specific years.


How to find research topics and publish more?

You're thinking about this the wrong way; if do not have a topic you want to write about - then don't write.

I'm not being flippant: You should write and publish something if you feel it's important to express in writing and to disseminate. Don't try to produce publications for publication's sake.

But maybe it's the other way around: You're frustrated about being so passive - like you said, just "reading, reading, reading" - rather than producing something written. Well, in that case,  instead of thinking about what to write, think about what you want to know or figure out. What questions about human society (be it history, sociology, psychology or whatever you're focused on) intrigue you?

When you have your questions, you look for what's already been written or said. If it's sufficient - then you had an interesting read and can perhaps put the knowledge to some use; and if there isn't a definite answer to your question - that's what you can contemplate, explore, study, and eventually publish about yourself.

Edit: I gave a general answer, but your tags suggest you are in grad school. If that's the case, then also consider:

You have an advisor. Talk to him/her about this - that's what s/he's there for.
If you've submitted a research proposal, then you've asked yourself some of these research questions already. Are you actually looking into them? Do you have satisfying answers to them?


Should one mention the prestige of the target university/advisor as motivation in a statement of purpose?

When applying for a graduate degree, the prestige or other characteristics of the university as a whole are generally irrelevant, compared with the specific department or graduate program.  I would strongly recommend against mentioning the university's prestige at all.  (You definitely don't want to give the impression that you see being able to list Harvard on your CV as comparable in importance to intellectual issues.)

It's common to discuss characteristics of the department or potential advisor, but you shouldn't focus on fame or prestige.  Instead, you should highlight the more fundamental aspects that matter to you.  There's no point in saying something vague like "I hope to attend your graduate program because everyone agrees it's great."  (Assuming this is not just empty flattery, the admissions committee already knows they have a great reputation, and it's irrelevant for your admissions decision.)  Instead, you could say something like "I hope to attend your graduate program because of the opportunity to work with leading experts in X and Y."  This might be highly distinctive if few departments have strength in both X and Y, and even if this is common it's still more substantive than just talking about prestige.


Textbook that is a combination of other textbooks?

A publication that compiles parts of several other publications is sometimes called an anthology, at least when it is approved by the copyright holders of the publications that were used. If this is done without the copyright holders' approval, it could be called an illegal (or unsanctioned, or pirated) anthology.
No, it is not legal or ethical unless the "compiler" has obtained the permission of the copyright holders for the works that he/she has translated and compiled.
I can't evaluate how bad it is exactly from your description, but it is illegal, and as such, at least somewhat bad. Some alternatives are to use open-access teaching materials (as Daniel Collins suggested), to use a local library, to purchase cheap used editions of textbooks A, B, and C, and to contact the copyright holders and ask for their approval for this project on a charitable basis and for limited distribution to the professor's students.

Perhaps the first step I would suggest to this professor is to stop making rationalizations for why it is okay to violate copyright law. After this step, I suspect that several perfectly reasonable alternatives will naturally suggest themselves.


Is it bad to apply for a second postdoc immediately after starting a first one?

(This answer assumed the OP was going to be job hunting after a few months for a new position following his current one.  Clarifications given in the comments shows the OP expects to leave the current one-year position after a few months, instead.)

If your first position is only a year long, then it is expected that you will already be searching for a new position before you've even arrived at the current one.  There's simply no choice: most committees are already forming short lists a month or two into the academic year.  This is what makes one year positions brutal: as soon as you get one you've got to start hunting for the next one, but your current post-doc position still expects to see you engaged and active in research and whatever teaching you may have.


Legality of universities posting sections of books online

First of all, copyright infringement on this scale, which is not done for financial gain (in most common law countries) is not illegal but unlawful. The difference between these two things is that illegal behavior can lead to punishment, whereas unlawful behavior is simply not protected by law - if you are doing something lawful, you are protected from someone seeking redress. If someone seeks redress from you because you have distributed their copyright work, you cannot argue that your behavior was permitted by law.

With this in mind, it's not necessarily an important question whether or not your university is doing something which infringes copyright. In theory, everything is either lawful or unlawful, legal or illegal, with nothing in between. In practise, the only person who might reasonably be able to determine this is a judge (assisted by several lawyers). Partly because the time of judges and lawyers is costly, whole areas of human behavior exist in gray areas which are not in anyone's best interest to resolve one way or the other.

People break the law all the time. Some laws are never enforced, and some laws are unenforceable. Everyone is familiar with urban myths about various commonplace things such as Christmas pudding, or kissing on a Sunday being illegal in various jurisdictions, other practices such as outdoor nudity or urination being technically legal although they might be expected to lead to arrest, and yet further things such as weekly archery practice being required by law. Some of these stories are completely true, by the letter of the law. Large organizations such as Apple and Microsoft agree on wide-ranging 'patent swaps' rather than try to figure out who is infringing whom. Doubtless any organization as large as a university is constantly breaking some law or other, if you include building codes, employment regulations, health and environmental restrictions, tax codes, immigration requirements, etc. Probably lots of people are employed to do nothing except check that the university meets the regulations, but these people are constantly playing catch-up to new rules, as well as trying to make sure that the thousands of people working within the institution are obeying the internal policies which call for compliance to the law, rather than disregarding them (as they usually are).

Now, most academic publications are both written by academics and mainly bought by them, as well as by academic libraries. Academics are paid by universities to do research which includes the writing of books, and while lots of textbook publishers are corporations, some belong to universities, or work in joint ventures with universities. Thus publishers, authors, editors and readers of these books together with university organizations form a community. For publishers to spend their time trying to investigate instances of copyright infringement like the one you mentioned, would be the equivalent of you constantly remeasuring the borders of your backyard, trying to determine the exact boundary line ever more precisely, asking your neighbours to tear down fences and re-erect them a few inches over, and snipping the branches of plants which overlapped by a small amount. While your legal right, it would be very detrimental to the community, in this case the community of people who live in your neighbourhod, of which you are part. It would also be a huge waste of your time, for little or no benefit.

Far more important than legality is the question of ethical behavior. Unlike the law, one is not expected to attempt to conform as best one can, but to behave completely ethically, and make it clear that one is behaving ethically, at all times. The flip side of this is that you cannot behave unethically by accident, or without your own knowledge.

For a textbook publisher to reprint (say) a complete collection of one academic's papers which were published on her website, without notifying her or asking her approval, would be completely unethical, even if they were stated to be in the public domain. Similarly, it would be unethical for that academic to turn her university homepage into a site called 'FreeTextbookz' with a large collection of files and paid banner advertising. Many things which fall in between this are accepted by consensus of the community as being benign or trivial.


Chances at funded cs PhD with high GPA and GRE scores but no research experience or professor connections?

Your big challenge—and this would be true regardless of the field—is that you have no "professor connections." This is a major challenge for you, because one of the most important parts of a graduate application is the letters of recommendation. If you don't have people who know you and can vouch for your capability to be a successful graduate student, you're going to have a tough time getting admitted to a graduate school, and especially top-20 programs.

The good news is that in most science and engineering graduate programs, if you do get into a reputable program, you should be able to get a guarantee of funding (either as an RA or TA) for the length of your graduate career (assuming you make "normal progress" and are a good departmental citizen, etc.). I would be leery of accepting an offer from a school that doesn't make such a commitment!


Miswritten reference in (in press) paper

Definitely yes. It's in your best business to have your work cited properly so that it can be disseminated in the community, and the editor's/publisher's responsibility is to provide texts of highest possible quality. Even if they say (some journals indeed do this) that they are not responsible for authors' mistakes, it's a situation where the journal might gain a reputation of one that doesn't care about the quality of its content (so people won't take the research published there seriously), makes poor editting and is sloppy. That's exactly what I thought when trying to find a cited paper with completely messed up metrics (and couldn't, eventually; also the authors didn't respond to my e-mails). So in fact the editor should be grateful for pointing out such a mistake as you're partly doing their job - and for free, even!


Where should I place the citation in this sentence?

I think the bigger problem is with your sentence structure.

However, location controls should control for variation common across
regions, while my placebo test does not provide evidence that an
unseen trend in weight gain is responsible for my results (Mincy & De
la Cruz Toledo, 2014).

By starting the sentence with "However" a contrast is implied.  I'm assuming the contrast is against a (hopefully simple) point made in the prior sentence.
What really kills comprehension is the "while" in conjunction with the "however".  "While" is "coexisting in time" and since we have two items in contrast, it is not clear if the commentary is referring to the placebo test or the contrasted item.  This uncertainty impacts the citation, making it equally ambiguous.
I'd just start with the subject, the placebo test:

The placebo test does not support that an unseen trend in weight gain is responsible for
the results.

With this simple idea as an independent sentence, it is easier to place the citation with it or not.  The citation will be fully clear if placed in this sentence, as it is only supporting one idea; not a portion of a compound idea containing a contrast where one of those items occur simultaneously with a third item.
Incredibly long sentences and complex grammar are superficially brilliant; true brilliance is making a complex idea simple.


Have there been famous/documented cases where people die from working too hard in the lab?

The term that is typically used for this is karoshi (unsurprisingly, a Japanese term).  To the best of what I have been able to determine, there have not been any cases where an academic at a university has been diagnosed as having died through Karoshi.  There are some significant deaths, however, of people in industry who could certainly be considered as being part of the broader community of scientists, notably a lead engineer at Toyota and more than one engineer in Taiwan.

Note, however, that there is also a strong cultural component, both in the manner of death and the classification of that death.  An American, for example, might be less likely to die quietly at their desk and more likely to commit suicide or engage in criminal activity (see, for example, the tragedies in the development of the Apple Newton).  Moreover, since karoshi is not generally recognized in American culture, deaths that might be attributed to it in a Far East nation would likely be blamed on the proximate cause of death instead.


Differences between research in private labs and university (computer science)

Salary: Private labs will 90% of the time pay more (with slight variances when comparing small companies and large university labs).

Freedom: Unfortunately freedom isn't vary high no matter where you UNTIL you become well-established. At Universities, you have to research where you can get grants and people won't give grants unless they like what you propose. Companies obviously need you to be doing research that is their best profit interest. When you get well-established some universities and companies will want you so much that they will give you the liberty to do what you want because of how successful you have proven to be. This doesn't happen very often.

Competition: They are about the same actually. A renown university like Carnegie Mellon is just as competitive as places like Apple and Google.

Stability: Typically, companies are more known to give out longer contract agreements, so even if your project fails, you are guaranteed to be moved around to other research areas. Sometimes at Universities, if the project you are working on tanks, there goes your grant and sometimes there is no where else to transfer to.


Giving talks on ongoing, unpublished research (dangers of getting scooped?)

Getting ideas stolen is a common fear when starting out (or at least all my Ph.D. students had that worry, and I did too when I was one) but it is much less common that one would think. While the risk does exist, the benefits of opening your research to get feedback from other people greatly outweigh it. Keeping your research secret is just not worth it.

In any case, if you want to reduce the risk, something that you can do is (paradoxically) open up even more! Announce the talk at your website, put your slides online, tweet about it, etc. This means that there will be publicly available evidence that you had ongoing research on topic X by date Y, so prospective scoopers would be easily exposed.


How to motivate students to take a "gauge" test that helps us with statistics but does not contribute to their grade?

I have always seen this done not by issuing bonus points, but by issuing required points for taking the test, e.g. taking each test is work 5% of your grade. The poor students will do it for the free points, and the good students will do it to keep their grade up.
Don't be too focused on "statistical validity." You're trying to reflect on your teaching, not publish a paper. You can look at who took the test(s) and how well they did, whether there was a bias in who self-selected. After all if the strongest students went from 0.8 to 0.95  on how good they were, there is not much room to examine your teaching: a ceiling effect. You will find room for improvement in  whether you are helping the weaker students effectively. They will respond for bonus points.


Some people are spectacularly slow. I got a phone call inviting me to an interview for a PhD at one university four months after I'd given up, applied elsewhere, had the interview, received the offer, and accepted that offer. Wait as little or as much time as you feel like waiting, frankly. I'd certainly be looking for other PhD opportunities, regardless.


First-year PhD giving a talk among well-established researchers in the field

Let's flip this question around and imagine that you, as a first year anthropology PhD student, are now visiting your high school. One of the students asked your former teachers if you would be interested in a local, anthropology-related research project they were doing (e.g., they could be investigating the attitudes of people towards those who are HIV positive, and contrasting how that varies between countries). The teacher promptly arranged for them to give a talk on their results while you were there.

The student feels excited but afraid at having to give this talk. She knows she doesn't have the pedigree you have, she doesn't know if she should apologize, maybe you don't know she flunked her latest exam, and she thinks she is not deserving to be giving the talk because she doesn't have as much experience as you. Should she go ahead and give the talk or would it be counterproductive to her future career?

I'm pretty confident you will say she should go ahead, and the same applies to you. These well-established researchers probably know (or can tell) you're a PhD student, and will not demand that you have done groundbreaking work on par with theirs. Instead of focusing on all the things that could go wrong, think of all the things that could go right: you get to present your work to a well-established audience. They're the people you most want to know your results. You get to network with them. You get to practice skills that you'll undoubtedly need later in your career. What's the worst that can happen anyway? Even if you give a truly atrocious talk they'll probably all have forgotten about it by next year.

tl; dr: stop worrying and do it.


How far can I go when requesting presentational changes in a review?

A lot of journals "retype" the submitted works and the formatting of the version of the paper that appears in the journal will be different from what the authors submitted initially. I would not point out LaTeX problems in the peer review unless they severely limit the clarity/correctness of the paper.

You probably need to justify the text restructure - if it's going to majorly improve the flow of the paper and highlight certain important features. However, you should balance between "I think it is just better to write it this way" (use this judgment for your own papers) and "Providing the definition of A is important to avoid ambiguity in B" (certainly include in your review).

Since you explicitly added the question about the title change, I would advise applying an even harsher standard on personal taste vs. necessary changes judgment for the title.

Anyway, especially in your first review, I would focus more on the major questions:

Novelty of the scientific contribution
Correctness of the proofs
Proper coverage of the previous work
Justification by numerical results and visualization (if applicable)

Pointing out typos and grammar mistakes is also important, but that should probably constitute the minor part of your review.


Is it okay to email the authors of a paper questions not directly for research?

Answering the more general question, sure. A polite email will never hurt you, the worst case scenario is that they are too busy to reply, or that their contact information is no longer valid. The best possible outcome, you get a nice explanation, an interesting conversation, and perhaps a couple of anecdotes about the research. Just make sure that question is:

Relevant to the research. Obviously, I don't email Linus Torvalds every time my linux computer doesn't boot.
The information is not easy or obvious to find.

Just liquid refrigeration of computer components doesn't really meet any criteria, but you could ask for the specifics. Just make sure to understand the basics first, if your question looks "dumb", it will probably get lower priority.

Reading a paper for my own research, I found a somewhat old paper (about 10 years) explaining the analysis of some data. One of the key points is setting the noise threshold, that they set as the maximum of the histogram. The thing is that in my data the maximum of the histogram was at 0, following a very good power law. In short: the procedure would be invalid for my data; but actually irrelevant for me.

I commented it with my advisor and he said that I should email the author about it, and that it will probably start an interesting conversation. (I haven't gotten to it yet, but my bet is that modern instruments are quite different).


Human-Computer Interaction PhD in Computer Science vs Information Systems: Does the department title matter?

If you are referring to high-tech industry job (vs academic jobs) I can only tell you that for me, if I'm looking for R&D, design, development roles I would hire someone with a CS degree over IS degree without even looking into qualifications. It is unlikely I will look at you resume farther than the part that mentions your degree.  Unless of course I am unable to find people and am rather desperate.

Think about it this way:  this is degree from Business/Economics department which translates into a non (engineering/technology) degree which is not what a job with CS requirement would be looking for.

But again, it depends on kind of a job you are thinking about and can't claim  that this is the view of everyone although I can comfortably say it would cut your chances a good deal for the kind of jobs I mentioned above.

Sorry if I sound harsh.


The easiest way to switch from one reference style to another is to manage the references using softwares. You may use Mendeley or Zotero, which are free reference management softwares. EndNote is another option but you need to purchase it. A free version of EndNote with basic functionality is also available.


How should I proceed if the author of a paper doesn't reply to my query?

The reason for no response may be anything from what Anthony Labarre mentions to what you list. I would wait at least a month before writing off an answer; I have received answers even later than that. It is possible they are working on improvements themselves as well. In short, if you do not get a reply, you can only try again and perhaps express your request differently.

You seem to have contacted all the authors. Sometimes the project leader may be too busy to pick up on questions and the younger team members may be more inclined to answer. They may, however, want to talk it over among themselves, and it is probably not a high priority.

So try again in a couple of weeks. If you do not get any response, then there is probably not much you can do. You probably need to think about what can do to improve the chances for a reply. The word "collaboration" is sometimes a good way to "sweeten the deal". Sometimes, just to give a perspective, I get requests for data that are of the sort, give me this or that, give me everything, and I often end up asking myself, why should I? having laboured to generate the data. I am not saying you must follow such an approach to be successful but considering why the other researchers would want to help you may also help towards solving the communication problem.


How to respond to an unsolicited offer to publish work I have posted on arXiv?

As you become established as a scholar, you will receive more and more of such invitations, most of which are either scams or trash publications attempting to trick you into giving them content.  A small fraction, however, will actually come from legitimate colleagues who are inviting you to a special issue, editorial, or similar such opportunity.

Thus, when receiving an invitation, you should thus begin by evaluating the quality of the venue and the person who is inviting you, just as you would if you were choosing where to submit without an invitation.  Be aware, however, that some disreputable publications will lie about the identity of people involved, and that some careless academics may have been tricked into lending their name to disreputable publications.

In the specific case of Lambert Academic Publishing, I will note that they appear on Beale's list as well as a number of other highly critical analyses, including on Wikipedia and this site.  You can make up your own mind about their credibility, but I wouldn't recommend soiling your C.V. by publication with them.

Finally, to answer your question about arXiv vs. other publications: being in arXiv is fine for being accessible and citable.  If your work is good, however, I would recommend submitting to a reputable peer-reviewed journal.  If you are published in such, it will improve the reputation, notability, and value of your publication.


How to find people who do similar research?

MathSciNet is a pretty powerful tool for finding things in math, and some parts of applied math (from the question, I think it cover your areas).  (There's also Zentralblatt--I'm less familiar with that, but I think MSN will have more relevant tools for you.)  See about getting access to that as a guest at a local university.

Then here are some things you can do:

Starting with papers you know that are close to your area, look them up in MathSciNet and look at the papers citing them or citing their reviews (of course you can do the first with Google scholar also, for papers that are available online).  Read the reviews to see if they are of interest.  For the ones that look interesting, repeat.  You can similarly look up all publications by a given author.
You can also search in MathSciNet by Math. Subject Classification codes to look for papers in certain subareas of applied math.
Without MathSciNet access, you can search for things on the arXiv or Google Scholar with keywords/authors/etc.  I guess this is what you have been doing.  Note, unlike Google Scholar, arXiv has subject classifications and anyone can read any paper listed there.
The subject has probably advanced a lot in 50-60 years, so it's may not be strange if most of the stuff going on now doesn't seem (at least on the surface) too close to the papers you were reading from the '50s and '60s.  So you might try looking for and reading some survey papers/lecture notes/textbooks to get a better sense of the area first.
If possible, try going to some conferences/local seminars and talking to people.


How to approach Professors from other institutes (without potentially offending the ones at mine)

Most important, I question your statement that you need to "make it clear" that you are dissatisfied with your current faculty. That seems like a terrible idea unless you wish to break ties with your current institution.

You can, of course, reach out to people about topics of interest without giving motives beyond your interest in their work and the answers they might give you.

But there may be little incentive for people to give you very much support, as they are busy and have their own responsibilities. But I don't think you improve that incentive, at all, by complaining about your current situation.

If your emails are subject/topic based then word getting back to your current professors should have no consequences. But if you say offensive things, you can expect that people will take offense.

But you might also ask yourself whether you are at the right institution or whether you should be looking for another.


Is it ethical of a professor to ask students for recommendation letters during a class?

First of all, as a general rule there is not necessarily something wrong with a professor encouraging their students to provide feedback to the university about the professor’s teaching, including in the form of letters, if this is done in an appropriate way. For example, I regularly encourage my students to fill out teaching evaluation surveys at the end of the quarter, saying the feedback is very helpful for my department. Is that unethical? Well, no, because I don’t tell them what to write, don’t insinuate or imply that I am referring only to positive evaluations, or that some harm would come to those students who don’t follow my suggestion, and know that my students know that I have no way of knowing who filled out the survey, which is anonymous.

What is quite concerning in this case is that the professor requested that the letters be routed through them. That creates a real concern that the professor may only pass along letters with positive (or very positive) feedback to their department and withhold less positive ones. It also means the professor will know who wrote what about them (and who didn’t write anything), and gives them an opportunity to practice favoritism and/or retaliation based on this information, particularly since as you say the course is not over yet.

To summarize, the way this was done  is certainly not the best practice for how such letters can be solicited, and would represent either extremely careless and thoughtless behavior on the professor’s part, or (which seems a bit more likely) outright unethical behavior. I might perceive it less or more seriously depending on various other factors, including the precise words and tone of voice the professor used when making their request, but you would certainly be quite reasonable in looking for ways to bring this up with officials at your department and/or university and express your discomfort to them.


Submitting a note on the falsehood of a conjecture to the journal the conjecture originally appeared in

Submitting your manuscript to the journal the original conjecture was published in is probably a good idea. After all, if the journal published the original conjecture, then the conjecture is obviously in the journal's scope... and so should be a counterexample.

In addition, your submission may well be handled by the same associate editor, who may be able to call on the same reviewers as for the original conjecture. (Of course, it would be a good idea to get at least some new eyes to look at matters, to avoid academic inbreeding.) This could accelerate the review process somewhat.

Beyond that, you likely won't get any preferential treatment beyond what the shortness of your manuscript and the immediate relevancy of your counterexample warrant.


Should I work at a lab prior to getting my PhD in Education?

I'm in an educational psychology PhD program at a large R1 university that's not especially competitive or prestigious and there are many students who had no research or lab experience before starting.  That being said, working in a lab may help your application to be more competitive, particularly if you work in a lab at the university you're applying to (so you can meet people) or you have opportunities to publish or present research (which I think would be sort of rare for a non-student employee, but I could be wrong).  In fact, my program has a lot of part-time students who teach (or do some other school-related position) during the day and take classes towards their MS/PhD in the evenings, who have never worked in a lab, and who intend to go back into teaching (or school admin or school psychology or whatever) after they finish the degree.


How to describe the relationship with writer of recommendation letter?

Both don't seem like unusual "relationships" at all, so I don't think there should be any issue describing them just like you did here.

If there is a drop-down list, you can select whatever is the most appropriate (presumably there are options amounting to "colleague at my current department" and "collaborator" - I think it counts as "collaborating" if you have visited them occasionally, even if you happened to not have published a paper yet). If there is a freetext field, you can just write what you wrote here.


What is the proper method to give credits in lecture material

Do you include the slides verbatim (e.g., by copying a pdf or image into your slides), or do you just base your slides on those other slides in the same way in which you might base them on a textbook?

In the first case, I think that a note on that slide (on the first slide, if you copy several slides in a row) is mandatory – probably not only a reference, but a copyright notice.

In the second case, I'd include the reference in a bibliography section, like for other journal papers or textbooks that you base your slides on. If I can avoid it, I prefer not to clutter every slide with details that are irrelevant for understanding the content.


Is it impolite to ask to which journal a preprint was submitted?

Yes, I think this question is impolite.  The submission history of an article is usually considered a private matter, because if the paper doesn't appear in the journal where it was submitted, one can infer that it was rejected.  It's a little like asking about their sex life.  If someone I knew well asked me where I had submitted a paper, I might tell them - but if a stranger or casual acquaintance asked me, my reaction would be "That's none of your damn business."   (My actual reply might be a more polite version like "I'd rather not discuss that.")

I suppose that, as Anonymous Physicist says, you could ask Smith if he has any advice on where to send such a paper.  But since you seem to be competitors, he might not be inclined to help you out in this regard - in fact, if he does offer a suggestion, you may not really want to trust it.

It would also be reasonable to contact Smith and propose a joint paper, though of course he is free to decline.


What are issues to consider when making your code for an experimental paradigm, which was conceived by someone else, publicly available?

Are there legal issues, such as copyright infringement, to be considered for commercially or non-commercially available software? Note, I created all of the code and all images based on low resolution prints in publications. I'm merely copying the concept.

Unless their method is patented, no. Software is covered by copyright which protects a given implementation, not the general idea. Just as you are allowed to write an own novel on a topic that is covered by existing novels already.

  Would such a release conflict with common etiquette in the case where the software is simply not available from the original authors (remember, I asked but got no reply)?

No.

  Is it necessary to ask each author before releasing my code?

You need to get permission from all copyright holders. Depending on the actual settings, that means: for each author who contributed to "your" code the acutal holder of the copyright (could be the author or the author's employer).

The authors of the "original" software are not involved at all.

  Can I be held responsible morally if the software is used and turns out to be faulty? I'm less concerned about legal responsibility because the license I intend to use does not provide warranty. More importantly, I certainly intend for the software to work since I'll use it my self but you never know.

moral responsibility: just like you will be held responsible for any other scientific publication.
legal responsibility: while no liability clauses are common for FOSS licenses, completely excluding liability is not possible in all legislations (e.g. in Germany a general no liability at all clause is/can be invalid).

  If my study ends up being published and points to the availability of the software, can this benefit the citation count of the publication?

Definitively, yes


Etiquette on sending a thank you e-mail to respondents who gave me helpful information

To send a short mail saying thanks for a service provided is never wrong; in fact, it is good etiquette. Sending such a mail also serves as a receipt acknowledging you received the information. I recommend a very short mail; do not overdo it, the show of gratitude is enough.


Should I decline a request to tutor a class I will be taking?

You need to tell the professor. I would suggest that you tell them you want to tutor the class and believe you have the skills and knowledge, but that you are being required to take the class for credit. Then ask if it might be possible for the tutoring to satisfy the requirement.


Is acceptable for international conferences to use your own simulator in your paper?

The important thing is to use the right tool for the job, and justify it.

The existing simulators have the following advantage: a great deal of time and effort went into their development, and they have been used, debugged, and extended by many people. Therefore, they are likely to be more complete and/or more accurate than anything you could come up with on your own in a reasonable amount of time.

However, if you have a compelling reason why these are not suitable for the particular bit of research you want to do, by all means write your own simulator; but you should be able to justify this in your paper.

For some objective numbers, I refer you to this survey of papers published in MobiHoc from 2000-2005. 80 of the 114 papers that used simulations stated what simulator they used. From those, 22/80 said they used "self-developed or custom simulators" (27.3%).


Professor only teaches what is already in textbook. Should I quit going to the lectures?

This is a common frustration faced by college students, especially in lecture-oriented STEM majors. Unfortunately, the truth is that the lectures may be a waste of time and there is little you can do to change that. If you can cover the material more efficiently on your own time (especially since you're commuting), you shouldn't necessarily feel guilty in doing so. You can see similar sentiments expressed on ratemyprofessor where students often question the value of lectures and simply go to the library as opposed to lecture.

Yes you're paying for the lecture, but if it doesn't help/contribute to your understanding, there is no point in going. I knew students who went every time out of habit, but it was an absolute waste of time.

I've had physics professors who wrote starting problems on the board and then the solution only to say that if we were at his level, we should 'see' the dozen steps in between. Needless to say, lectures were fairly empty after that. He was very well versed in the material and many students would come to office hours, it's just that he couldn't lecture.

Depending on the age/tenure of the professor, they may be receptive to making the lectures more engaging, or they may "brush" you off. Simply express your interest in the subject to the professor and ask them to make the lecture more engaging/be better prepared. Depending on the college/class, the professor may be unable to accommodate you because your peers may not be at your level. Be aware that some professors cannot lecture effectively, or have had unwanted courses foisted upon them. No matter your school ranking or major, you will encounter lousy enthusiasm-killing professors whom you'll have to endure. For many professors, your best shot for a more engaging experience would be to visit them during office hours.

In a certain sense, to quote Mark Twain, "Don't let schooling interfere with your education." You won't have this professor forever, though you may unfortunately have them or those like them again. Don't let them dampen your passion for the subject.


How can I avoid being "the negative one" when giving feedback on statistics?

I would suggest approaching your colleague in a humble and inquisitive way (especially since you're a junior member of the team). If you start the conversation with "your conclusions are wrong and here's why" you're going to set a combative tone for the rest of the meeting. There may be reasons that they interpreted the data the way they did that you're not aware of.

Instead try approaching the situation with something similar to "I looked at the data and came to this interpretation, can you explain your interpretation to me?" You're a researcher in your own right, so junior or not your opinion should be valued. But at least with this approach you indicate that you are open to the idea of being wrong, and hopefully that will start a constructive conversation where you can debate the merits of analysis type A over type B, etc.


Why do W (i.e., Withdrawn) grades exist?

Like most administrative things which don't seem to make sense, it boils down to accounting and financial aid. Students can take federal financial aid and withdraw from individual classes provided they maintain at least half time status. There are a bunch of caveats & rules and making sure everyone's complying and not accidentally (or intentionally) embezzling requires record keeping.
https://studentaid.unc.edu/special-circumstances/withdrawing-dropping-classes-and-underloads/

Dropping a course after University census date will generally result in receiving a withdrawal indicator of “W” on your transcript.  If you had already received your financial aid for the term, this generally will not result in a change to your financial aid, so long as you do not withdraw from all classes.

https://sfa.osu.edu/contact-us/consumer-disclosure/drop-and-withdrawal

Most financial aid will not be adjusted for hour drops after the Student Financial Aid census date. All hours for which you are enrolled as of the fourth Saturday of the term or which you schedule thereafter, will be counted as “hours attempted” for determination of whether you are making Satisfactory Academic Progress for financial aid.

There's no other long term way to prove that the initial financial aid disbursement was correct than a transcript imo and any alternative will just be more complicated and probably screw people years down the line.


Is there typically a pre-screening process for doctoral admissions in the US?

For US universities applications are almost universally prescreened for completeness and meeting any stated minimum requirements. The prescreen in process is almost always extremely rigid when minimum requirements are set. The wording on website is often confusing since sometimes schools want to be able to make special acceptances to people who do not meet the minimums. This requires someone from the department to beg and plead with the admin team. One place there is generally no flexibility at all is TOEFL requirements. It would be perfectly reasonable to call/email the department and ask, large departments get many such requests every year. Just realize that the answer will likely be the minimum is the minimum.


At what point in the writing process should one contact an academic book publisher?

Book writing is a very thankless task—it takes a long time, and the profits probably don't make up for the cost of the time it takes you to write the book, unless you happen to write a textbook that becomes the default for a field. On the other hand, in some disciplines (particularly in the humanities), a published book is practically a requirement for tenure, so you'll want to make sure that you do things right.

So my advice would depend upon where you are in the process. If you haven't already started writing, I'd shop around a prospective outline of the book plus an introductory chapter or two before you get too much further. Then you'll have a sense of what the publishers would be interested in. If you've gotten a lot written, then you just need to start shopping the full idea around.


My fears and resentment about my supervisor

Many supervisors do not help their PhD students (I do not have statistics, obviously, but experience from different universities and research areas). These students often feel lost and also unsure about their PhD thesis. At least in Germany it is not uncommon that PhD students who have these kinds of supervisors drop out or take exceptionally long for their PhD.

I think the best you can do in such a situation is to get help from other sides (often difficult), and if this does not work out you should finish as quick (and as good) as possible and leave that particular environment.

It is unlikely that you'll fail if you submitted a proper PhD thesis. It is also unlikely that your supervisor will directly use your data or results if she is not really involved in your research. She might give them to the next PhD student, but you (as a postdoc) will probably be much more experienced so that it is unlikely that this PhD student publishes something you also tried to do.

So, I would not worry too much but look for a better place for your future research.


Citing/Attaching unpublished papers in a Research Statement/Profile for a faculty job

Yes!

Your task is to make the strongest possible case for your expertise as a researcher.  Your case would likely be stronger with a few first-author publications, but having compelling first-author work in the queue is certainly better than not having compelling first-author work in the queue.

In fact, even if you have first-author publications, your research statement must describe your ongoing research agenda, in specific, credible, and compelling detail.  Faculty hiring committees are just as interested in your future research plans as they are in your past research accomplishments.  Preprints and submitted papers that support that agenda are definitely appropriate.


Are Polish PhD compatible with Germany and UK?

All the mentioned countries are members of the Bologna process: http://www.ehea.info/pid34250/members.html

Bologna process unifies the structure of higher education to levels of bachelor, master and doctoral degrees; see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna_Process. As far as I know, doctoral degrees from the various countries are generally accepted in the others, but I could not find a clear statement to the effect.


Is it advisable to cite a lot of commecial product web references in a survey paper?

After a deeper thought, I've come to a conclusion not to cite commercial product pages as it would turn part of my academic paper into an online shopping catalogue.

The following are the alternatives adopted:

Include the name of the company along with product name
Cite patents of the products
Cite product-specific publications


How to inform the editorial office that a special discount has been received?

From the details given in the question it's a bit hard to tell what exactly happened. Still, my read is that the journal is accepting papers for both the special issue and regular issues. You're asked to contact the editorial office to identify your submission as part of the special issue, since otherwise they wouldn't know how to tell one from another. So you write something similar to what you wrote in the question: I'm submitting this article that's part of this special issue, and I'm told there's a discount applicable / free.

On a side note, it's unusual to me that you're asked about payment upon submission, since usually payment only happens upon acceptance (and then only for open access articles). You might want to check if the journal is a genuine one.


Talk to your editor. Their job is to help you disseminate supplemental information, while keeping paper to style and readable.
As Libor mentions in comments, modern journals accept wide range of supplemental materials, and either will host the files (CSV) or suggest the ways to deposit it


Why do research faculty pursue administrative positions, such as dean, provost, president, etc. ? Do such positions spell the end of one's research?

In these positions, one gets to influence the direction of the whole university, rather than the direction of the research of 1 to n individuals. At such magnitude, one can effect more change.

Often people get disgruntled with the way things are run at the level they are currently working. The only way to fix things is to move to more managerial positions. Don't like the way the Masters program is run? Become Coordinator of the Masters Programme. Don't like the way the faculty is being run? Become Dean.


A simple declination to discuss should suffice.

  Hi (Person),

  I will not be able to discuss (Mr/Mrs student). Sorry for the
  inconvenience.

  Sincerely,
  (Professor)

Don't make up a reason. It only gives someone an opportunity to continue asking if they have a way to mitigate said reason. Also, if it is indeed a nefarious as others have suggested, there is nothing for them to take and run with.


Will I be treated differently from funded students if I attend graduate school without full funding?

Confession:  I've tried this myself TWICE in the field of mathematics, so what I say comes from my own experience.

You need not worry about the existence of a caste-system among graduate students.  You will not be treated any differently than any other student if you are accepted into a program and not funded.  The main question is whether or not you will get into the program in the first place if you have no external funding sources...

In science-related graduate schools, it is quite often the case that students will not be accepted into the program unless they have some sort of support (i.e. department assistantship, scholarship/fellowship, etc...).  Students who try to do it all on their own often find themselves under even more pressure than a funded student.  On top of trying to pass extremely difficult courses and pursue original, cutting edge research, they may find themselves also working multiple unrelated jobs that barely make ends meet for rent, much less tuition and all other debts incurred along the way.  Often, unfunded students succumbs to financial pressures and drop out to pursue more financially stable opportunities.

Students dropping out of graduate programs also make their host departments' statistics look bad in the eyes of their superiors (i.e. deans, university president, provosts, etc..) and can lead to diminished support for those graduate programs.  Since universities don't want to hurt their own reputations (or lose state/donated funding), they tend to be selective of their graduate students.  And I believe this is a major reason why self-funded students are often not even allowed in graduate programs:  statistically speaking, their success rate is likely too low to merit taking a chance.

Of course there are exceptions (e.g. having wealthy parents, pursuing non-science graduate programs, education doctorate degrees often earned by people who work full time as teachers), but it is certainly a red flag if a student willingly tries to pursue a graduate degree in the sciences without any source of funding.

My advice to you:  If you're offered funding, take it!.  If you are accepted into a graduate program and are not offered funding  and don't have any other source of funding apart from yourself, then don't try to do it all on your own.  The sheer cost of graduate school, combined with the uncertainty of you graduating from the program, along with the nightmare of trying to pay off student loan debt for the rest of your life (even bankruptcy will not save you from student loan debt); it's just not worth it to you.


Should I tell the university supporting my fellowship application if I apply for other jobs?

No.  You are a postdoc.  Everybody knows postdocs need to apply for multiple jobs because the success rate is low.  There is no need to say what other jobs you are seeking.  Treat your fellowship application like a job application.


How should I present data written in another language?

It would depend how much your translation of the story makes a difference to your thesis. If it doesn't particularly matter with respect to the finer details, it would be sufficient to provide the entire story in Arabic and then give a synopsis in English. If it's more critical that the audience knows what each line means, then give each sentence with its English gloss.

If you wanted to go to the extreme, you would have an interlinear gloss, which means that each word, or even morpheme, is glossed individually, and then a free translation given at the end. Here's a Hungarian example (from the Leipzig glossing rules):

Gila abur-u-n      ferma  hamišaluǧ  güǧüna  amuq’-da-č.
now  they-OBL-GEN  farm   forever    behind  stay-FUT-NEG
‘Now their farm will not stay behind forever.’

In linguistics we use these literally hundreds of times in a thesis, because this is where our data really is. It's probably more depth than you'd be willing to go into, and I would advise against it unless the Arabic syntactic and morphological features are absolutely critical to your thesis. The conventions that most linguists use (and tweak to their own subject language) with respect to the names of various grammatical features (OBL and GEN, for example) can be found in the Leipzig Glossing Rules.

I think you'd be fine to select from either giving the entire story followed by a synopsis of whatever detail you'd prefer, or a line-by-line transliteration.


Is there an upper limit on the number of students interested in a particular specialisation that a university will admit?

Admissions are always limited, because students consume finite resources: classroom space, lab and computing equipment, advising and grading time, funding,  and more generally faculty attention.  Even in online professional masters programs, admissions are restricted to students with a certain expectation of success, because failing students make the program look bad.  For research oriented MS and PhD programs, money and advising time are probably the most limited resources.

Different departments approach the limits differently.  Some define strict quotas in advance, depending on number of faculty and available funding levels.  Others (like my department) have softer quotas, which are influenced by prior belief that specific students will accept admission offers.  Others accept every student with a high enough GPA and GRE scores, and let the students fight each other for advisor attention.  But there are always limits.


How much preperation is required for GRE

The ETS (makers of the GRE) offer two free practice tests as part of what they call their POWERPREP offering. You can simulate authentic test conditions on your own, and they'll even give you an estimated score that I personally found to be within 5-10 percentile points of the real test I took later the same week.

So there is really no need to go into the process blind. Spend a few hours going over their practice questions to understand the types of questions they'll present you and how to answer them, and take the practice test to get an estimate of where you are now (takes about an afternoon of your time).

However, no one can give you any meaningful guess on your score based on self-descriptions, nor is there any guideline on how long to prep. The main thing to know is that, beyond perhaps a week of study to get comfortable with testing methods and types of questions, the GRE is quite resilient against short-term efforts massively changing the score on a retest. If you want to change the score you get by more than 10 percentile points, you'll need to put in a lot of work over a significant period of time to do so, because the ETS is quite good about making tests for which there is no easy way to 'cram' or make large leaps quickly.

As a rough guideline, if you are below the 50th percentile on a portion of the test and you want to get over the 80th percentile, I have not heard of any reliable way of doing so without a month+ of sustained, full-time effort, and even then there is no guarantee whatsoever. Some people train for the GRE for 1+ year and still don't do very well, while some only spend a few hours to prepare and find it reasonable easy to do 90%+ on at least 1 part of the test.

Regardless, the GRE is only one part of the process of applying to graduate school in the US, and every program (and individual involved) puts their own value on what it means. No one gets accepted to a top program just because of a great GRE (not even with a perfect score), but a very low score is a disadvantage.

My advise is to take the free test after a few hours of getting to know the types of questions, and then you'll know just what kind of situation you are in and can plan ahead.


How can I communicate that the word limit prevents you from elaborating something in an essay?

How to communicate that word limit prevents you from elaborate something in essay?

You don’t. You take the time and put in the effort to make your argument in the available space. If you do that, more likely than not the resulting essay will be a better piece of writing that does a better job of putting your argument across than if it had been longer. Thus, you will have nothing to excuse or apologize for.
And don’t take it from me, many famous thinkers have expressed similar thoughts about the benefits of conciseness (and the difficulty of achieving those benefits). My favorite one of these quotes is Woodrow Wilson’s reply when he was asked how long he takes to write a speech:

“That depends on the length of the speech,” answered the President. “If it is a ten-minute speech it takes me all of two weeks to prepare it; if it is a half-hour speech it takes me a week; if I can talk as long as I want to it requires no preparation at all. I am ready now.”


Do the papers go through the same process when submitted through open access

Open access fee payment is after the paper is accepted. This is to prevent conflict of interest. It means peer review is conducted without knowing whether the paper is open access, and it means the editorial board / publisher is under no extra incentive to accept the paper because of the article processing charge.

In other words, if you submit your paper to Discrete Maths, you should make it all the way to the decision stage (i.e. an accept/reject decision) before you are asked whether you want to make your paper open access. If you say yes, then the production process changes - for example the publisher will use a different imprint on the first page that says you continue to hold the copyright. But that happens after the decision stage. Before it, everything remains the same.

As for why pay a large sum of money for open access: open access is not meant as a shortcut to skip peer review, it's meant as a way to make your paper publicly visible for free. If you publish something in a subscription journal, only those who subscribe to the journal can read it. If you publish something open access, anyone can read it. The core "idea" behind open access is that scientific research should be free to help progress humanity's knowledge as a whole. You can read more about it on the Wikipedia page.


PhD Candidate to resign and reapply; Asking recommendation from thesis advisor

[1]. No funding.
[2]. Work for 7 - 10+ years in PhD.

Combining [1] & [2] gives an unrealistic expectation from the supervisor for you to stay.

I had to assume you are doing your PhD part-time. Getting a reference letter does not immediately require resigning or quitting. Even if you apply now, you will mostly wait till the next academic year before you quit. That is almost another year.

Your work so far may not even be wasted. When you join the US school, you may still collaborate with your local school, and even have more joint publications. With funding, your focus will be higher anyway, as a full time student.

There is nothing that should prevent a fair supervisor from writing such a recommendation letter. You may even convince him that you are not quitting - but, rather halting. Given that you are in your 7th year, it might be just months away for your graduation.

Hope your supervisor will understand and provide you with the letter. I have a friend who got a recommendation letter from his ex-PhD supervisor and successfully joined this another funded program in a foreign country. What you are encountering is not really a rare case.


Tips for being a good jury member for Master's defense

I suggest that your first presumption about the student and his/her work is that it is well done. After all, it was taken under the direction of the advisor. However, depending on your field, it may not be possible for you to understand everything in the thesis. That is natural in Mathematics, for example, as people with different specialties use somewhat different thought processes. But, for a Master's level thesis you should understand most of it, at least in general.

Read the thesis and do a mark-up as you go. Work from a paper copy if possible. Be sure to mark things that you don't understand unless that amounts to nearly everything. Marking grammar etc is also helpful. Write your name on this document and at the end of the presentation session give it to the candidate. They will find it very helpful.

During the presentation, see if the questions you marked in the thesis are answered or not. It is easy to check them off as you go.

As to the questions you ask, since you are new at this, stick to asking for clarification on things you didn't understand in the work or in the presentation. Ask for simple, not complex, explanations. Some candidates won't be very good at this and will be overly pedantic since they, too, are new to this.

An experienced person (senior professor) might want to ask a more complex question of the candidate to explore either deeper knowledge of the topic or even general knowledge of the field, but I'd stay away from that sort of thing as a newcomer to this process.

You probably work on different problems than the candidate did so you have a somewhat different perspective. One thing you might suggest is future directions for the candidate. I would prefer to to this by annotating the markup rather than bringing it up in the presentation, however. You can be helpful.

Assume it is fine. Ask for clarifications. Be as helpful as you can. As a beginner, keep negative comments "offline" unless something is essentially wrong. But if you think something is seriously wrong, you can, perhaps, communicate that before the presentation. Perhaps to the candidate's professor through your own, rather than directly.


How to deal with journals requesting incomplete / incorrect attribution for images taken from other sources?

I don't know whether you can insist on the exact wording the copyright holders asked for, or whether you should, or whether you or the journal faces legal consequences if you don't.
I suggest you write the editor quoting the specific requirements directly as they came to you in support of your wish to honor those requests. If the editor says no and there are consequences that's the journal's problem, not yours.