Yes you are.

Point 4 is downright abuse of power. You are not in any way obliged to provide free tuition to your advisor’s child! If your institution has reasonable management, you reporting this would result in severe disciplinary action (I think I would have my tenure clock pushed and have something on my record for something like this). Even if you were paid to do it I’d feel weird about having my students tutoring my kids. Depending on where you are on the planet, not getting paid for tutoring is illegal. Your advisor would be in serious legal trouble if you are in, say, the US or Europe.

Drafting emails seems like an odd practice. It’s abusing power to some extent but if the emails are relevant to your work it might be construed as acceptable by some department heads. That said, you’re a student, not a personal assistant, seems like a waste of your time.

You should not be reading and correcting others' work with no credit, this is the advisor’s job. I would be upset if I were the one of the students who didn’t get their advisor’s feedback!

Being an ass about authorship is another bad sign, though in itself may not be too bad. Disagreements about authorship do occur, though the response you describe seems wildly disproportionate. Getting students to the point where they have to 'beg' for your forgiveness is never okay. His job as an advisor is to educate, teach and advise - you are not his pawn or slave.

Taken together, what you’re describing is a toxic and abusive relationship.

What you can do depends on where you are in the world and your department. Most reasonable universities have ombudspersons or student support centers whose job is to help people in your situation. If no such thing exists you can try to approach your department head or dean.

You need to have clear-cut evidence. Emails, records of your visits to tutor the advisor’s kids, written proof that you corrected the thesis of others (say, an email exchange, files sent to you with request for correction, or any other acknowledgement) etc.

I’m sorry you’re in this situation, hope you get things settled. The tone of your post does not make it sound like you are in severe emotional distress, but of course it's impossible to tell. Make sure you get emotional support through what is undoubtedly a rough experience. You do not deserve this, and you should not feel like this is normal.


Writing a paper on a smartphone implementation of previous work

Stepping away from the details of your particular study, what you are more generally asking about is the distinction between studies of theory and of practice.

The first paper you speak of introduces a method and demonstrates that it can work, but does not characterize its performance.  The second paper would then be characterizing its performance in a particular environment of interest.  From a scientific perspective, that is certainly a contribution of new knowledge (even if incremental).

To determine whether it is of sufficient interest to be published, you need to focus on the question of motivation: who will want to know about the performance and why?  What else will they need to know, such that you can create a complete and informative study.  The answers to these questions will depend critically on the precise details of your work and its context.


Chance of getting into engineering PhD if I have good references and research experience but don't satisfy 3.0 GPA requirement?

My undergraduate GPA was much lower than yours. My MSc GPA was also lower than yours. I got admitted to a top 40 US school (engineering and fully funded). I had good recommendation letters and few journal publications. This was five years ago. I know there are few guys here who have similar GPA, etc as your. So, It's very possible!


How to deal with the tenure case of a colleague who has avoided teaching the classes they were hired to teach?

Based on the information you've provided (and certainly the part of it that is not based on unsubstantiated rumors, which I think it would be quite problematic to take into account), I do not see any cause for concern of a sort that would cast a serious shadow over your colleague's tenure case.

The reason is that individual faculty members do not decide what they teach, but instead the assignment is made by the department (the chair or a dedicated committee) based on its needs, and it is the duty of faculty to teach what they are assigned. It is completely fine if your colleague requested not to teach courses in area X - we all have preferences in such things; it would only not be fine if he were to be assigned such a course and refuse to teach it, and that does not seem to be what happened. If the department can meet its future teaching needs without this person ever teaching a course in area X, why would you or anyone else find fault with that? To summarize, your interpretation that the faculty member "flouted" the teaching requirements of the position seems quite questionable to me, at least in the absence of additional details you haven't provided.

I should add that I have seen cases of faculty members who actively resisted teaching courses they had been assigned. Such conflicts usually involve people with very difficult personalities, and unless the department chair is a total pushover, they will likely escalate quite rapidly to a higher level involving the dean and/or disciplinary action being threatened or pursued. And when this happens, you can be pretty sure that the miscreant is already tenured...


How to refuse to work with graduate students?

Assuming you really do not want to work with them and not even check them out if they are suitable candidates, the response is simply: "I do not currently have available slots for grad students." Not funding, but "slots". It means time, nerves, energy, whatever else could come into their mind.
If they have no funding, you say you have no funding for them and you do not accept students without funding.
However, if it is simply a case of you not being sure whether you should take them on, then I recommend preparing a few tasks that are relevant to the work you like to do. These should be pieces of homework that are introductory, but relevant to your field and take about 2-4 weeks of time to cover the entry literature and carry out. If they manage to do it, then you may want to reconsider not taking them. You may have a catch on your hand. Alternatively, you can set conditions of your choice.
Yes, if they want to work with you, you can set the conditions, no apologies. There is a reason for the classic "reluctant sensei" trope. It is a real technique to deal with this.
However, a student that thinks they can bully you is an absolute no-no, no matter how good they are. They are going to be nothing but trouble. So, here the answer is simple. First time: "Unfortunately, I cannot take you on as a student. Thank you for your interest." Don't give reasons. Second time: "As mentioned in my last mail from ..., I cannot take you on." Third time: silence. If they continue bugging you, divert their mails to spam or block them. If you cannot or are not allowed to do that, simply archive their mails without opening. Don't open them or you will be tempted to answer them.
You do not need to be outright rude yourself, but if they are, they have deserved the silent treatment. Keep in mind: if you know you will not change your mind, no matter how insistive they are, that will shine through and most of them will desist. If they believe to smell insecurity, they will pounce on it.


Is it fine to mail the Associate Editor in his personal email provided in his homepage?

I would avoid doing that, except as a last resort. The person is likely to be confused (best) or offended (bad). Try to work first through the journal itself.

But also, it often takes quite a while for information about progress to filter through the system and it often takes quite a while for reviews themselves to be conducted.

If it just "wanting to know" for informational purposes, I recommend patience. If it is "needing to know" for some other purpose then you can press it, but, again, go to personal accounts only as a last resort.

You could, of course, ask the journal itself how to contact the editor and whether it is appropriate for your needs.


Tips to organize LaTeX presentations for a semester

I use a different file for each topic. Each file covers 1-2 hours of teaching, more or less.

All files are in the same per-course folder, and their names start with numbers which define the order of the topics, for instance 1-introduction.tex, 2-polynomials.tex, 2.5-rationalfunctions.tex, 3-analytic.tex... If I have to insert an extra topic at the last minute (or in the next year), I can do it by adding decimals like in the example with 2.5. :)

Dates are a bad idea because if you want to re-use the same material the next year you have to change all file names. :) Lecture numbers can also be quite fragile, so I prefer to use topics like this.

I just copy the same preamble over to each file, because I don't change the preamble too frequently. If I had to make more frequent changes to the preamble, probably I'd consider a custom Latex class, but for now it works for me like this so I keep it simple.

I suspect that this works well for me only because I have a good set of tools though: for instance, a file manager that uses natural sort order and an editor that can compile Latex without clobbering the directory with lots of .aux and .log files.

Another tip is: sometimes you notice weak points and mistakes only after giving a lecture. If there is a chance that you will be giving the same course next year, keep a file called notes where you note down all the things you'd like to change.


Consequences for publishing final-version PDF, in violation of publisher policies?

Much of the answer on this question is dependent on the specifics of copyright transfer and the specific policies of the journal. Here is a journal article about copyright and author self-archiving. Among authors, the topic of copyright transfer is not very well-understood.

What consequences are typically enforced:

According to this article by chroniclevitae.com , the typical consequences for authors who publish their site to a social media site (Academia.edu in this example) is a notice to the violating website to remove the copyright'd content, However, even this action is somewhat limited, as academia.edu received a peak of 2,800 requests over a few week span for a site that hosts over 2.3 million journal articles.

  Remember: As Bledsoe points out, this is still murky territory. Publishers, journals, and scholars are all feeling their way around.

Possible extent of consequences:

When an author agrees to publication from a publisher, the publisher receives not only the words and graphics, but also (sometimes) the copyright from the author. If the publication required a copyright transfer, a copyright violation is being committed by uploading a published paper, even by the author of the paper. The possible consequences are as diverse as typical copyright violations, but can be up to and including paying money to the publisher for loss of revenue.

  Money damages in copyright infringement actions are commonly awarded under three legal theories, actual damages, profits, and statutory damages.

Source for additional reading and understanding of copyright infringement and the possible monetary consequences from a legal point-of-view.


Why would a journal accept my previous paper for publication, but reject latest manuscript due to being "outside of the journal's scope?"

Four ideas:

It was really out of scope last time, but they either

didn't notice and mistakenly accepted it, or
didn't have enough in-scope papers to fill the issue, so they accepted yours even though it was slightly out of scope.

They made a mistake and your new paper is actually in-scope. However, you won't win any friends or improve your chances by trying to convince them of this.
The journal has changed scope slightly in the last year, or is trying to change scope slightly now, or different editors have different ideas of what the scope is (as suggested by NateEldredge)
There was some small detail about the first paper that made it in-scope which the second paper lacks, which we couldn't possibly identify for you.


Research Proposal for PhD - Rude or Good

The first point to consider is whether you have a prospective research area in mind. Ideally at this stage you should have some specialisation, and a general idea of the field out would like to enter. If this is the case, it makes sense to write a proposal reflecting your interest. Don't make it too specific, but let it show that you have done your homework.

On the other hand, if you are unsure and open to exploring different fields, first select the groups you would like to join, see what work they do. Find a common area of interest and write a proposal based on that. This means you could potentially be writing many different proposals for different universities. The focus would be to ensure that the proposals are relevant to the audience in each case.

Either way, my opinion is that you should have a proposal ready. When you first contact the supervisor, you needn't attach the proposal, just convey your interest to work with him/her, mention some areas of interest and attach a CV.


How to diagnose problems in a paper rejected in pre-review?

The pre-review stage is generally a very quick assessment of the manuscript in which editors go through it to check primarily whether the article matches the scope of the journal, the level of novelty of the study, and how interesting it would be to the target audience. For a journal that has a 70 percent rejection rate, I don't think they would give enough time to a paper at the pre-review stage to reject it on the basis of the writing style, unless the style is really very bad. They would probably just read the cover letter, abstract, and results and discussion section carefully and skim through the rest of the paper.

I don't think there is any way to learn more about the reasons for rejection from the journal. However, don't get upset or think that the quality of your paper is not good. Since this journal has such a high rejection rate, it is natural that only the very best or the most path breaking studies will find their way to this journal. This journal might not consider your study novel enough or interesting enough, but there are many other journals that will find it interesting. At this stage, there isn't much that you can do to improve your paper, as you haven't received any reviewer comments. You will have to just submit it to the next journal and hope that the paper goes through peer review.


No response to formal Chair application. Is this normal?

This is the typical situation normal but all fouled up (SNAFU) of job searches in the United States. Often you are lucky to get a two line e-mail or a postcard at the negative conclusion of a search.

In the case of Chair searches, though, the fouled-up nature is usually much worse. I'm assuming this is Chair-as-in-Head-of-a-Department rather than a Named-Chair-as-in-Benefactor-Sponsored senior position.

Usually universities search for external Chairs when there are problems with the existing senior faculty that make it impossible for a Chair to arise from within the department. This means that search will be similarly confused, with possible internal conflicts in the department as well as external interventions from the Provost's office.

Because of these competing interests, external Chair searches can take even longer than the usual search.

I would write to the Search Chair and ask what the status of the search is.

Postscript: The OP has clarified that this is a search for a named chair. These tend to go smoothly as the institution already has the money vested by the benefactor, who usually wants to see the position filled quickly (and is likely to give again if pleased by the results) and often puts enough parameters on the position (theoretical field, area of study) that political factions within the department can't mess it up too much. So whatever is going on in the OP's situation seems strange and rather unique.


How are best reviewer awards given (in a computer science conference)?

Here are the criteria used by the ACM 2012 International Conference on Multimedia Retrieval (ICMR) for the "best reviewer" award:

  The criteria are that the reviewer should have demonstrated the expertise to provide insightful and knowledgeable feedback, should have provided quality reviews which are helpful to the authors of papers, should have displayed collegiality and constructive feedback, and should have completed reviews on time. The award is selected after examining all of the 400+ reviews from the 101 reviewers.

Conferences with an author response phase may use the authors' replies to help choose the best reviewer. For example, the CFP for the 2014 Conference on Software Language Engineering says:

  Authors will be given a brief opportunity for a reply to the reviews. The replies will be considered in the PC's discussions, and considered in the selection of the best reviewer.


How to explain to a student that it is common to include a supervisor as a co-author?

If the student truly is writing a paper independently of the advisor, then the advisor shouldn't be a coauthor and it would be inappropriate for the advisor to demand this.

In the more usual situation in which the advisor provides the the dissertation  topic and works directly with the student in developing the dissertation (holding regular meetings, reviewing drafts of the thesis, meeting with the dissertation committee) and then papers based on the dissertation are published, the participation of the advisor would normally merit coauthorship.  In these situations the authorship of papers should be settled before the research work begins.

I make it a point to explain this to students before starting work with them on their theses and dissertations.  I simply wouldn't agree to supervise a student who would not agree to sharing authorship in this way.


Can a paper accepted as an extended abstract be submitted to other conferences?

I would guess not, unless you take some steps. First, contact the conference organization of the AI conference and pose your question there. And make sure that the organizers of any conference you want to submit to in future know about the abstract. Make it transparent.
Second is that if all of your "innovative" results are present in the extended abstract, then the other conference probably won't be interested, even if they consider it a "separate" work, which they might not.
But if the full paper is sufficiently innovative as an extension of the extended abstract, then you should be fine.
It will take some finesse, quoting and citing the abstract as necessary in the "new" paper.


Is there an easy way to check for the "expert appeal" of some reference?

The easiest way is to type the title of the reference into Google Scholar and to look at its citation counts.
There are other databases which calculate the number of citations a document receives, such as Web of Science, Scopus, or Dimensions.


How serious should I regard the "compliments" in an email denying my application?

I would take it as simply a polite way to decline your application.  They no doubt really do get a lot of strong applications (every decent program does), and in many cultures such as the US there is a tendency to "sugar-coat" bad news with compliments (I don't know if your application was in the US, but I believe this practice turns up elsewhere as well).  You would actually probably get less praise if you got in---after all, the acceptance is compliment enough.


What kind of questions can I expect to see on a qualifying exam?

I think you shouldn't believe everything you hear.  Mathematicians like to tell stories about posing various famous open problems to certain brilliant young students, the idea being that these students don't have the respect and fear for these problems that an adult mathematician would and that maybe, just maybe, they will innocently work on them and even solve them.  And it seems to be true that every once in a great while a student solves a serious open problem this way.  The vast majority of the time they don't, of course: a problem that the experts in the field want to solve but can't is not going to be accessible to a young student, however brilliant, 99.99% of the time.

So maybe every once in a while a faculty member decides to put a "ringer" problem on an exam.  What do you think is going to happen?  With probability very close to one, no one will solve the problem, and the writer will have to own up to the fact that the question was not an appropriate one and make sure the students were not in any way penalized by its appearance on the exam.  How many times have I seen this happen on exams I have taken, written, or otherwise encountered?  Zero.

In fact qualifying exams test a standard syllabus; they certainly do not test research level mathematics.  Every department does their exams at least a little differently (a very few departments, like Princeton, don't even have written qualifying exams!) so I don't think there's much point in preparing / worrying about quals until you enroll in a specific graduate program.

Conversely, when you arrive in a graduate program, you should start asking for information about the qualifying exams.  And you'll get it: most programs have posted syllabi for quals.  Many programs, including those I've personally been involved with, have years and years of old quals for you to page through.  Nowadays a lot of these are freely available online: in fact, please see Ohio State's webpage: not only do they do they have posted all of their own qualifying exams going back at least ten years, they helpfully post links to qualifying exams at almost 20 different departments.

Thus the way to study for and pass quals is to go through old quals learning the material and techniques that come up again and again until you can do most of the problems on a given qual in a reasonable amount of time.  It's not really any more mysterious or romantic than that...


Minor revision- Editor implied to do the experiment, however a rebut would clarify the issue

Answer: Contact the editor and ask if they would consider a rebuttal.

Reason: Had a very similar situation: one of three reviewers wanted an extra experiment and the editor indicated we needed to consider running another experiment. We contacted the editor and asked if they would be willing in principle to consider a rebuttal rather than running an extra experiment. They said that they would consider it but would give us no guarantees other than that. We were successful: the reviewer backed down.


Can a co-author prevent me from submitting our joint paper to any journal except the one he prefers?

Jointly authored papers require permission from all authors. If he is a co-author and you can't convince him, then you are pretty much stuck. Editors will expect it.
And fighting with your PI is probably not the wisest career move.
It is a different story if the PI isn't one of the authors, but that only applies to the first point above, not the second. The "we" in your question wasn't completely clear about who is included.
It may not be too strong to say that a good letter of recommendation from your PI is one of the most valuable things you get out of a post doc. It lets you move on and get away from improper behavior. Winning a battle, but losing a war is sub-optimal.


When to follow up with a potential supervisor after sending referral contact details

It is impossible to say in general. It is a busy time for many academics. If you are friendly with your two referral contacts you might ask them first if they have been contacted. If they have not, then there is some delay and you should probably just wait a bit longer.

If the start time of the degree program isn't soon, there is little reason to panic. But if you want/need to start soon, you may want to contact the potential advisor sooner.

However, in some places, acceptance to a program isn't controlled by the individual faculty member but by the university. In that case, make sure that your application is proceeding normally. He may need to wait for a signal from them before he spends time on a potential student. Other places, professors directly hire into their own labs.


Should I ask permission of my co-authors when republishing an article?

Yes.

As a courtesy, one should always inform co-authors of such things. One doesn't necessarily expect replies (since no action is required...), but one is taking action on "property" that is partially "owned" by other people, so some notification, or even request for permission (which would presumably be unhesitatingly granted), is entirely reasonable.


How to tactfully refuse to be listed as a co-author

Well, there were a lot of mistaken decisions here, including by the journal to list your name.
To answer your title question, you should have, before the paper was submitted, told the group you didn't want to be involved, whether you said something like "I disagree with the conclusions of this paper, and don't want to be an author," or a white lie like "I don't feel I contributed enough to be an author."

You can also offer to be happy to be acknowledged; I find this is an option for authors who do not wish to hide an unwilling collaborator's contribution without making them co-responsible for the publication. This can soften the blow of disagreement without requiring to lie. - Captain Emacs

Upon getting the form, you shouldn't have silently declined, you should have talked with the other authors and informed the journal you were included accidentally. With everyone's consent, they would have taken  you off.


What are differences between various indexing service: SCI, SSCI, SCOPUS and others?

There are lot of questions embedded in your question. Follow the following links:

Difference between SCOPUS and Web of Science
What is the difference between SCI and SCIE?
SSCI-Wiki

Googling further would result in more comprehensive answers. See the related question on the right-hand side of your academia SE page.

  My paper that I submitted to "The Internet and Higher Education" has already gone for review process. Is there any way to get rid of it?

Answer is YES and NO. YES: You can write email to editor and ask for withdrawal. NO: You should not do it.


Asking the faculty for PhD research proposal tips

Why ask? You can infer this yourself by simply looking into their prior research. Researchers don't change trajectories if they want to become experts in their domains.


How should I inform my advisor about struggles with Aspergers syndrome?

Most scientific places (at least in the STEM) are nerdy, or at least, nerd-tolerant. I have yet to see a physics or mathematics department where mind-reading or maintaining eye contact are required.

The contact with your (potential) advisor is always a tricky thing, so it depends much more on your common ground than your individual personality (for some advisors you may be better than a neurotypical). I wouldn't be afraid that she rejects you only because you say that you have Asperger syndrome.

But, to be honest, most people do not distinguish lack of social skills from rudeness, insensitivity, ignorance or showing off - even if they are told beforehand.

If you want to tell your advisor that you have Asperger syndrome (or to be precise, high-functioning autism), be sure to explain how does it impact your needs (and in which other you can cope well). Letting her guess won't do any good (either she will ignore it (~= not telling at all) or take wrong cues (especially as the spectrum is quite broad, and coping skills vary a lot)).

The sound-sensitivity thing may be the hardest part - it depends a lot on the place (both in term of the building and culture). But even there you might get some adjustments (e.g. being put in a room with reasonably quiet lab members).

Before getting admitted, I would ask about adjustments you need (e.g. it is possible that there is no quiet enough place for you). I wouldn't bother telling about any personal struggles (unless she is your friend or she asks and you want to tell).

How to start? It depends on her. But since her topic is autism, it should be always on topic, so you may start with "As you may have noticed, I do exhibit autistic traits. (Actually, I am diagnosed with ...). [the content ]". Use any moment she is not busy.

Source: I am into the topic (see links and collected research papers). I did my undergraduate course in a nerdy place, and my PhD in a nerd-tolerant place.

If you want to read a success story, I really recommend The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius  by Graham Farmelo (see a nice review/summary).


What are some uses for clickers/pollers?

The question basically says, "I have a tool, tell me some uses for it." That's fine, but we could also approach this from the opposite side, and ask why the tool was invented in the first place. It's good to know that a flat-head screwdriver works as a makeshift ice pick, murder weapon, or hair pin, but its original purpose was to put in screws and take them out.

There was an educational innovation that was widely popularized by Harvard physics professor Eric Mazur in a 1996 book, Peer Instruction: A User's Manual. The book is still in print. It describes a particular active-learning technique, but it also contains a handy summary of the evidence that traditional teaching techniques work badly in freshman physics, and that active-learning techniques in general (not just this specific one) work better. The findings have been replicated in fields other than physics [Freeman 2014].

In Mazur's technique, a purely conceptual multiple-choice question is displayed to the students. The purpose is not to find out whether the students understand the topic already. In fact, the technique works best if the questions are carefully chosen based on past experience so that you know that roughly half your students understand well enough to get the right answer, and half don't. After a couple of minutes of silent thought, students are polled. Mazur originally did the polling using pieces of cardboard that the students held up. I currently do it by having them hold up fingers (one for a, two for b, etc.). If there is a total consensus for the right answer, the technique has failed and you move on. If some students get it right and some get it wrong, you have them break up into groups and discuss it. Once they've had 5-10 minutes to discuss it, you poll them again. If they now all give the right answer, then the technique has worked correctly. The purpose of the technique is to get students talking about concepts, in their own words. Regardless of the specific technique used, what the research seems to show is that the crucial thing is to get students to talk about concepts.

Over time, some people started using expensive electronic clickers to do what could just as well have been done using cards or fingers. As more time passed, the expensive electronic clickers became "edutainment" devices, designed to make students feel that sitting through a boring lecture wasn't quite such an unendurable waste of time.

Freeman et al., "Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics," http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/05/08/1319030111


Attending job talks when you are leaving the department

Impossible to answer well without knowing more and I don't think it is appropirate to post more on a public forum!

I think it really depends on your relationships with your colleagues who you are leaving behind. In some situations it is better to absent yourself from situations where people are looking forward to the future of your old department. In other situations your experience may be helpful and it may be supportive to your colleagues who you will leave, but I guess who you want to stay on good terms with and continue to support. (I have not exactly been in this situation before, but similarish ones)


What should I do if I find two suspiciously similar conference publications by different authors?

The programme committees for the conferences would be the appropriate authorities to contact (it is their responsibility to deal with plagiarism within their conference). This is of course complicated by the fact the conferences are in the past; the current programme committee may have little or nothing to do with the earlier committee, the steering committee may be more appropriate in this case.

If neither are responsive, contacting the publication venue may be required. If the proceedings are published by a journal or reputable publisher, they should be able to resolve the issue (they have copyright laws to deal with!).


Reputation of university versus quality of work for research assistantship

All other things being equal I'd take the Germany option. Reasons:

You can't be sure if you want to do research yet. I know you said you do, but if your undergraduate was anything like mine then this thesis work is your first real contact with research. Research is nothing like coursework, and it's possible you decide afterwards that you don't actually want to do a Masters / PhD. I would therefore try to hedge a little, and in my experience with job searches, the institute's brand name is more significant a factor than the identity of your supervisor or the topic of your thesis (this assumes you'll complete regardless). Exception: if it's likely you'll work in India and the Indian professor is well-known in the country, then consider staying.
You can't be sure which project is more interesting. Yes, you can say that the ultimate aim of one project is more interesting than the other, but the actual research work is different. For example you might start the project and then find that the best way to proceed is to make your code more efficient. If you dislike figuring out how to vectorize code, then the ultimate aim matters less than the fact that you still have to do something you dislike to get there. Taken together with #1, this means I would not place much importance on first impressions of which project is more interesting.
Exposure. Assuming you did your undergraduate studies in India, then going to a different country gives you experience you cannot get by staying. You'll see a different culture, different way of life, different people, different currency, and so on. This can't be quantified, but it's valuable.
Networking. You will reach a different group of machine learning specialists by going to Germany. The wider your personal network is, the better.

Other things to think about:

Timezone. Going to Germany puts you in a very different timezone from India. You'll also be able to visit home less often. Will you still be able to socialize with your friends / family / significant other?
Finances. Germany is more expensive than India. Can you afford it?
Personal happiness. Will you be happy in Germany? For example my mother, if she went to India, would probably be eating at McDonald's every day because she can't stand Indian food. If something similar may happen to you - stay in India.


If you already have a supervisor, ask him first, he would need to agree either way and might have some ideas or contacts. If you don't have a supervisor yet, look for one before thinking about co-supervisors.


How can an undergrad absolutely impress Research Professor during a research internship?

The solution is straight-forward.

Gain enough knowledge of what your research group is progressing on
Develop skill-sets that would aid to to work in the group

Better yet, contact the professor and ask if there is anything you could do get prepared for the research internship. This would not only portray your enthusiasm and dedication, it would give you a clearer idea on what exactly to improve.


Tongue slip problem in presentation even after a good amount of practice

Years ago, I transcribed raw film footage to earn a little extra money. These transcriptions had to be verbatim, with all the ums, ahs, stuttering, etc. included. It's surprisingly difficult to do a verbatim transcription, because there is a strong tendency for listeners to hear what is meant, rather than what is actually said. We transcribers had to listen to things three or four times to record the speech exactly. The first time I listened to something, I wouldn't even notice the mistakes!

Some of the transcriptions I did were of people famous for being well-spoken, people I admire very much. I was surprised to learn that they make frequent speech errors/hesitations/disfluencies, just like the rest of us.

As a result of that experience, I realised that while we are all painfully aware of the imperfections in our own speech, others hardly notice them at all. Most mistakes are filtered out by the listener's brain, and aren't truly "heard".


Maximum/reasonable number of authors for a (conference) paper

In my field (software engineering), having papers with 6+ authors is uncommon but not unheard-of. Most often I see papers coming out of larger international research projects having many authors, presumably simply because in a large project more hands tend to touch any given piece of research outcome. Further, in larger studies, you sometimes need more manpower to actually carry out the study. If you have a chance to do an interview study with a large group of people, just having one or two interviewers might simply be infeasible because it would take too long.

If you are worried that your large author list will be considered a negative during the review process, this may happen if it is not clear how the large author list is warranted. That is, if you were to publish work coming more less directly out of the PhD thesis of the first author with 7 co-authors, one may ask what the remaining 7 people actually added. In such cases, it is not uncommon to drop subtle hints into the paper about the role of each author. For instance, when you describe your research methodology, you could mention that the first three authors conducted the study, while the remaining three authors were mostly involved with analysis, and the last two authors provided domain feedback and validation of  the achieved results  (if interdisciplinary).


Getting a Ph.D. is establishing that you are capable of doing a significant piece of research.  A postdoc is then your opportunity to start defining the direction in which you are going to take your research, professionally.

As JeffE says, it is usually (though not always) a good idea to be doing something different in your postdoc than you were for your Ph.D.  The reason for this is that otherwise you risk getting "stuck" in your little niche and never really moving beyond whatever happened to be your thesis and into the wider worlds of research.

A postdoc, then, is a chance to broaden yourself, to shift your direction (within reasonable bounds), to build momentum in a direction, and generally to start spreading your wings and leaving the nest.  How exactly one does that is as varied as are the people who pursue science as their career.


When and how did journal publications start to have such an important role in evaluating researchers?

Widespread peer review in journals is a relatively recent phenomenon. Famously, Einstein and Rosen wrote an incorrect paper arguing that gravitational waves don't exist, which was rejected by a reviewer for Physical Review. The rejection made Einstein angry, and he wrote:

Dear Sir,
We (Mr. Rosen and I) had sent you our manuscript for publication and had not authorized you to show it to specialists before it is printed. I see no reason to address the—in any case erroneous—comments of your anonymous expert. On the basis of this incident I prefer to publish the paper elsewhere.
Respectfully,
P.S. Mr. Rosen, who has left for the Soviet Union, has authorized me to represent him in this matter.

This was in 1936, and Einstein had already published many papers by that point. It appears from his response that peer review was not yet common at that time.
(Source: "Einstein versus the Physical Review" in Physics Today.)
Googling this I stumbled across a blog post by Michael Nielsen who links to some historical papers on the growth of peer review that may interest you.


Typically, you will be better off studying mathematics with additional knowledge in X rather than a studying X with additional mathematics. Why? Because you can always enter X as a mathematician, they will welcome you with that. At least for academic jobs.

Talking about mathematical biology: it is mostly mathematicians who do biology rather than the other way around. Granted, you will also find physicists and computer scientists there.

A friend of mine claimed that the members of mathematical biology groups get their biology from Wikipedia and then apply their mathematics to it, most of which is settled in analysis of PDE and numerical analysis. He certainly exaggerated a bit, but there is truth in that statement.

Hence my recommendation: if these topic interest you, then pick a math graduate school that feature collaboration with math biology/physiology.


Professor Isn't Teaching the Course we Signed up for

In the absence of really bad things, department chairs are going to defer to the course teacher, just as you saw. The department chair may reprimand the teacher, but this will be in private and you will never know it happened. Bringing the issue to the Dean will not result in any changes as they will also simply defer to the department chair, unless of course it is something really bad. The Dean may reprimand the Chair, but you will never know.

In terms of is there anything you can do, there is nothing you can do to change the course. The Chair, however, should hopefully work with you (and possibly the department administrator or undergraduate/graduate chair) to withdraw without it showing up on your transcript, getting a tuition refund (if appropriate), helping you add a different class, and helping you get into the version you want next semester.


Is it safe to commit to the hiring process of an academic research position without an official offer letter?

I wouldn't be concerned.
In German academia, it is rather common to make PhD/postdoc offers informally (i.e. just via email etc.), and the formal process is only completed at a much later point.  I know of many cases where people only sign their contract on their first working day (in particular in pre-Corona times, administration wanted to do the signing in person, so if you were in a different place, this would be postponed until you arrived).
On the other hand, even without the contract, you can get a confirmation that you will be hired in the future, once the necessary paperwork is completed.
However, it will be impossible to get such a confirmation without having the required paperwork completed - just imagine that in the course of that, it turns out that you don't have the required qualifications (no PhD, no degree, ... ) - the administration will not sign that they will hire you unless they are sure that this is legally possible.
One thing you can do to speed up at least part of the process - to make sure that you don't "accidentally" miss a qualification (very unlikely) - is to supply all required documents as soon as possible and check that they are sufficient. Even if the process is not completed yet, this should give you additional security that things will not go wrong for formal reasons (again, rather unlikely - they hire people all the time).
Finally, while on the one hand I understand that you want a more formal "safety" that you will get the job, as I said this is rather normal, so no need to worry.  But more importantly, you should note that even if you have a contract, within the first 6 months you can be usually fired on short notice and without a reason given (I'm pretty sure this is more or less the same in other places, that there is an initial period where both parties can terminate the employment on short notice, not to speak of places like the US), so even if you have a written offer or even a signed contract, there is still some amount of risk involved, like essentially always in life (unless you have a tenured position).
Edit: Maybe to add a comment, hiring decisions typically have to be approved by the personnel council, and possibly other bodies (equal opportunities, etc.), which can take its time, especially at large universities or research institutes. In addition, if this a position funded by public money, it has to be publicly advertised in one way or the other, and the advertisement has to be open for a certain amount of time (I think 2 weeks at least), before the whole process can even start.
So putting all these processes together,
2 months might well be the minimum time it takes.


Monolithic Reference Collection, vs Per Paper Reference Collection, or Both?

I usually go with a single database, arranged in folders and/or tags. So the references are present one time, and then I just move them around according to what I need to do.

If you have separate databases, you risk to duplicate records, and save the same reference many times.

This also depends on the type of system you use: Zotero and Mendeley (the tools I mostly use) go with the single-db solution arranged in folders and tags, whereas EndNote allows to create separate libraries.


Should I apply to schools I am not sure I would attend?

The reason this is the “most common advice” is that it is the correct, logical, and ethical thing to do. You’re overthinking things. Asking for letters of recommendation does not imply any commitment on your part to attend a specific school, or to pursue a degree at all. The assumption the professors are making is that you are considering doing such a thing, among the various opportunities that may be available to you - nothing more.
Good luck with your applications!


Tables or Stadium seating for a conference?

Since it's a one-day conference, I'm assuming it's a little more relaxed than a powerhouse 3-day affair. But even then, I think the classroom format is a little more appropriate. Here's what happens with the table format:

either people will have to move chairs around to see the speaker, in which case you've effectively created a classroom format with much less desk space.
or people start talking to each other and ignoring the speaker. I've seen this happen in particular at business meetings, where arguably it's less important to listen closely, but the level of noise created is still annoying.

Either way, it's not serving its purpose. By all means use the table format for the coffee area or break spots. But I don't think it makes sense for the conference itself.


ABD information and assistance with statistical information

I was never ABD.  Datapoint to help your survey.


Pursuing Ph.D abroad vs staying in a stable job abroad

Those are big questions and I can't give you answers to them. It is your call and yours alone.
BUT, I can give you my point of view. I fairly recently finished a 6-year-long PhD in the UK. I was already a bit older than the average student when I was starting it and moved to the UK from Austria.
Personally, I don't recommend doing a PhD unless you want to stay in the academia.
If you want to become a university professor, there is no other way than doing a PhD. From a professional point of view, it often not worth it (money is not always better than with a Masters & you get harder a job, because you are suddenly overqualified). However, if you really want to do one (because of whatever reasons) and you would end up regretting not doing one, then do it. (consider also the next points)
How is it to do a PhD:
It really depends on who your supervisor is!!! (I can't stress that enough)
While it is for some people a great experience, and they love their PhD times, in my experience, the majority of people don't have a great time.

You are under a lot of stress for long periods
You write and try to publish a lot (many supervisors pushing for publications because it benefits their own profile).
In many cases, you need to do a lot of work on the side that doesn't add to your PhD.
Generally you work significantly more than 40h a week.
The pay is not great (depends on the country). In the UK you have 1200 GBP/month to live from. That's not much. The payment usually goes for 3 years, but most people needed 4. (I needed 6).
Depending on your supervisor this can be a bit more relaxed or very stressful and frustrating. In my group of friends, most people didn't have any social life and other activities. They just lived for their PhD (me included).
However, it is not all bad. It can be quite interesting (the work), you go on conferences where you meet other scientists and exchange ideas (if you can afford to go).

Where matters:
Doing a PhD in the UK is very different to doing one in Germany (for instance).
In the UK, you are treated like a student (similar to an undergraduate student). You don't have a salary and you're not employed.
In Germany, you are treated more like an academic/colleague and you're usually you are employed. It doesn't sound like much, but that makes a big difference on how you are treated.
In the UK, you can do a PhD in 3 years with very strict deadlines. In Germany, it is more open. It takes as long as it takes. (This can reduce stress)
Mental Health during a PhD:
OK I make this a specific point because it is important to say.
A PhD is very stressful and demanding on your mental health as well.
I had many co-PhD students that ended up with a bad depression; one even suicidal. This stems for many things: for instance, from high stress, sometimes social isolation, insecurities (being not sure about their work, their skills, their progress ..),...
A lot of PhD students just dropped out because they couldn't take it.
Social Contact:
The good thing in a PhD is that you have other PhD students going through the same as you and you can bond very well. (depends also on you personally). I got great friendships from my PhD times. But that also depends on how you approach people. Many PhD people (especially in engineering) are a bit socially awkward; if that's not a problem then you're fine :).
Having said that, if you worked before and do a PhD a bit later in life, it can be also tricky as many PhD students just finished their degree (23-years old in the UK). They are in a completely different stage in life.
Applying for a PhD:
If you still want to do a PhD, pick a Supervisor carefully. Email them, ask them for ideas or upcoming projects. Try to visit them in advance and see how they are and maybe talk to some of his/her PhD students separately. You WILL spend years working with him/her! I didn't do that and there were moments when I really regretted it.
In most cases, they want you to come up with an idea. That's really difficult, particularly if you haven't work in that area for long. Try not to be too practical. Have a theoretical component as well.
If possible try to get a funded project. A funded project is usually well-defined and most PhD students with such pre-defined projects finish in very short times and had great experiences. In contrast, a good friend of mine started his PhD without any boundaries and suffered for long period as couldn't define the focus of his work (even after two years). In the end, it turned out well.
So this was a longer post (sorry). But. I want you to be aware of how it is. I was oblivious to most of these point.
Overall, I can't tell you what you should do. Try to see if your local University offers interesting PhD places, then you don't need to move and PhD-salaries are generally better in Germany. Try socializing apps, if you feel isolated. Germans can be a bit distance and one feels easily isolated, but in my experience, they welcome you if they see you making efforts. If you want a restart, then moving is also a great opportunity.


Diplomurkunde and Diplom (Diplomlehrer) in English?

Pre-Bologna process, a German Diplom (which is no longer being awarded, and [see cbeleites's comment below] is mostly replaced now by a Master's degree) was generally the rough equivalent of a US Master's degree, attaining it is one of the requirements to start Doctorate studies.

Your applicant sent you two documents:

The Diplomurkunde is roughly the Master's diploma in the US. It is called a "certificate" (Urkunde) to distinguish it from the Diplomzeugnisse which also includes the transcript of grades. It is the one that one may consider framing and putting on the wall.
The Diplomlehrer tells you what subject the applicant received his "masters" in. In particular, he received it in Lehrer, which translates directly to Lecturer Teacher. Or, as we may say, it tells you that he received something like a Master's in education.

To clear up any doubts, though, you could just ask your applicant to ask the Akademisches Auslandsamt of the place where he received the degree to send a letter attesting to the equivalency of the degree. (That shouldn't be too hard, since now they should've converted to a Bachlor/Master system anyway.)


Will applying for multiple master programs in the same department improve or worsen my chances of getting admitted to my preferred program?

Speaking as someone who did apply to his own undergraduate institution for a graduate program, and as someone whos institution has two programs within the same department (although I did not apply to both). I don't think it will have a big impact on your chances of getting accepted into a single program, here is why I say this.

At my institution they have different people reviewing the applications into each program, meaning it is likely at your institution the same person will not see nor know that you applied to another program as well.
I was actually advised to apply to both, though I did not apply to both.

As others have mentioned, you can ask around and get a final confirmation from someone at your institution on how they feel about you doing this.


Should I publish work from my undergrad now that I am in graduate school and no longer working in the same field?

The experience of having gone the whole way through the publication process is very valuable and will benefit you when you start writing up your new research.  In the long run (say by the time you'd be applying for tenure-track jobs) having a publication in another field won't help your CV much because people are looking at your research program.  But in the medium-term if you apply for postdocs you may not have many (or any) actual publications (given the time it takes to write-up and submit research) and it's going to make you look better because it shows to potential supervisors that you're responsible and capable of completing a project.


How should a new professor speak to prospective PhD Students?

It would probably serve you well to find a local experienced mentor to work with and learn from. They can help you with what to say, but they can also help you get the skills you now know you lack. They might even serve as a sort of backup for you in working with students over time. Having a more experienced and well-established member on a student's committee from the start can be a big help to everyone.

If the work of the lab permits, it is also probably best to start small. Not too many students and work hard to promote their work so that they will promote you in the future.

But for a more direct answer to the question, I assume that you have established an idea driven research trajectory that you believe has a future. Talk to them about that. Hopefully you are enthusiastic about it, but also have already had some success, if only during your doctoral studies. Try to express your own enthusiasm and what you see as the goals and that you have some ideas about how to achieve them.

They are taking a risk, of course, if you don't have a track record. You need to work, over time so that any risk of failure is mitigated.


How do I deal with sending low GPA to a potential supervisor?

I wish I had a better answer for you, but the only thing that can fix a semester like that is more recent semesters with better grades, and the more of them the better.

Irrespective of the current situation, I think what you need is to focus on getting several solid semesters between you and this rough one.  Then when someone who is interested in your academic performance asks, you can show them that, yes, you had a rough semester, but you've gotten back on track.  In my experience, recent good performance will very quickly outweigh more distant struggles.  This is true regardless of the reason - you could have the best excuse in the world, but if you haven't shown you're past it and doing better now, who's to say you won't continue to struggle with whatever you're being considered for?

Given that your rough term was just last year, however, the only recourse you have right now is to be open and upfront about it; explain why you struggled and what happened to address the cause.  If you have no excuse, then just say that too.  It was a rough term, but you're back on track.  This is totally reasonable and far from uncommon in undergrad.  Unfortunately it may be a hard sell if you're currently struggling in this professor's class too.  Do you know why the professor made this offer to you in spite of this?  That might offer some insight into what they're looking for.

In short, send the transcripts, point out that you struggled but mention what you did to address the cause, and then the ball is in their court.  Be prepared for the possibility that the professor is alarmed by what they see, and know that it may take time for you to build up this kind of credibility again.  Then focus on your grades.

Good luck!


Authorship issues in numerical mathematics

Authorship

Being a researcher in numerical mathematics myself, I think that just "financing the research" is not a sufficient argument to include your advisor as co-author. The notion of "some discussion" is very imprecise and may mean that the problem, the idea of the solution and the composition of the work belong to your supervisor, and your work is purely technical; oryour supervisor checked your manuscript briefly just once and made a couple of comments regarding your English. Without knowing the level of involvement, it is impossible to judge whether or not you should include your supervisor as co-author.
To answer this question, you may wish to read your journal's policy regarding the authorship. For example, the Elsevier's definition of authorship reads:

  Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors.

Order of authors

From my shoes, it seems that many researchers in the numerical mathematics prefer to list the authors alphabetically, i.e. the order of authors does not reflect their contribution. However, when I personally publish together with researchers in applied areas (like Chemistry and Physics) in journals like Phys Rev B, we prefer to follow their convention, where the first author is the "main" author, and the last one is the one who "finance" the research. This leads to a certain amount of confusion, when all these papers appear together on your CV. Arguably, a good decision is to describe the contribution of all co-authors in a special section at the end of your paper.


Is it possible to get a PhD in molecular/cell biology/genetics without work with mice? How to find such a lab?

Coursework that uses live animals is exceeding rare (unfortunately, IMO), so you should have very little trouble completing PhD coursework without using live animals

As to your research, this is an entirely different matter, but not all labs do in-vivo work. I suggest looking up faculty in the specific departments you are interested in, and seeing if there are enough labs that don't use mice to offer you a fair opportunity to land in a lab that doesn't.

Also, I recommend giving the animal work a try, possibly through a rotation.  Some students really change their minds once they start doing animal work.  This goes in both directions.  Some students find it to be not so bad as they thought it was going to be, and others who really thought they were to have a career doing animal research just have no taste for it when they actually try it.  Try not to let preconceived notions about how you will react dictate your research career.  Find a way to expose yourself to it in a small amount, and see if you're right about how you actually will react.


In deciding between Options 1 and 2, be sure to think about what your personal situation might be like ten years from now.  In particular, do you want to get married?  Do you want to have children?  If you have a supportive spouse who makes a large income and no children at that time, quitting your job and restarting your Ph.D. will probably be relatively easy.  If you're the sole breadwinner for a household of five, and your spouse's income prospects are limited, it may be nearly impossible for you to do this;  you're probably better off toughing it out now.

Concerning Option 3:  as a general rule, one has to be truly exceptional to get hired as a full-time professor without a Ph.D. in the USA.  This is because of two factors:

Universities are judged on what fraction of their faculty have "terminal degrees".  This is one of the metrics used in the U.S. News & World Report rankings, for example.
In almost every field, the number of Ph.D.s granted each year is far greater than the number of full-time academic jobs that become available.  This means that every academic job vacancy in the US could be filled several times over and still leave many Ph.D.s without employment in academia.

All of this means that if you apply for such a job without a Ph.D., and all other things being equal, it is unlikely that a hiring committee will seriously consider your application over the dozens/hundreds of candidates with a doctorate.  The situation may not be as bad in CS as it is in other fields, since CS Ph.D.s can (presumably) more easily find employment outside of academia;  but it's still a factor that's working against you. Neither of these factors is likely to lessen over the next decade or so;  if anything, universities have been steadily moving away from employing full-time professors and towards employing adjunct professors, so the latter point is likely to get worse.

This is not to say that you can't teach at the college/university level without a Ph.D.  However, your options will probably be limited to two types of jobs.  One is two-year colleges, where it is expected that teaching will take up all of your time and so the research experience & credentials conferred by a Ph.D. are of minimal importance.  However, you mention that you want to be a "researcher" at a university, so this is probably not the sort of job you want.

The other is adjunct professorships:  piecemeal employment which is not full-time.  If teaching one course per semester at the local college/university as a "side hustle" while holding down a full-time job in industry appeals to you, then this might be a viable option; the above-mentioned growth of adjunct faculty positions could even work in your favor here.  Some people try to cobble together multiple adjunct positions into full-time employment, but honestly, this is a recipe for stress and heartbreak and I cannot recommend it as a career plan.


My suggestion, actually, is that you don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. You aren't satisfied with what you did. Fine. But something was learned because of it. Better.

I'd let it go. If the PI thinks you are a co-author then defer to their experience and judgement. You haven't set science back because you tackled a difficult problem and weren't able to reach a perfect conclusion. That is, in fact, the nature of scientific research.

But if you really don't want to be co-author, just say that. It should be fine. However, if you also don't want to be listed at all, even in acknowledgements, then you leave the others with a serious dilemma. They will have to write the paper in such a way as to avoid plagiarism of your work, if you won't let it be attributed to you. That seems to me to be the worst outcome. Something is known that wasn't previously, but it becomes difficult to let the world advance upon it.


Can my PhD main supervisor claim the "corresponding author" role for papers from my thesis even if he didn't provide much support during my study?

In general, no.

There might be exceptions, but those should have been communicated to you in advance by your supervisor, rather than after-the-fact.


What is necessary for mathematics graduate school?

It's hard to say.  Your background sounds strong.  Your interests are more to the applied side of pure or the pure side of applied.  Really, a bit more towards applied than pure from my impression (e.g. CS interest).

I don't think you could go wrong taking another stats class (applied or theoretical, time series, whatever) or an operations research class.  (Not on your list, but a guess.)

If you restrict to choosing from the list, consider number theory.  Kind of useless but a lot of fun. Don't grind something you don't like just to look good.  I would pass on the second semester of theoretical calculus.


How do universities deal with loss in productivity post tenure?

The cynical answer is "nothing". But in truth there are other ways to monitor progress and dole out rewards/lack of reward.

If your productivity drops off a cliff after tenure, you're unlikely to get promoted to full professor (US-specific), and get the associated salary increases etc. You may be comfortable with this (less service is a good thing!)
Some universities do 5-yearly post-tenure review. Doing poorly on such reviews can lead to loss of raises, reduced access to new space and facilities, increased service load (if you're not pulling in funding or teaching well for example), and so on.

but ultimately, the final incentive is your own desire to perform. It's very hard to fire faculty. But administrators can try to kill entire departments.


Contact with the IEEE conference mail and the edas system as soon as possible.

The edas mail is: help@edas.info

The IEEE conference you should search in its website. At contact section probably.

If there's an incongruence between the document and the system they would detect it, but there's no guarantee. So, notify them there was an erratum before the publication is done.
Despite it could have author's incongruence, the document might be published with or without the forgotten author in the systems.

In the best case, it will be accepted, added the author at the systems and published the documennt including the author.
In the worst case your document will be rejected.


As Galileo has said, "[The universe] is written in the language of mathematics," and it is no different for computer science.  To be a strong computer science researcher, you need to at least be fluent in the forms of mathematics that describe the work you wish to be engaged with.

Mathematics, however, is not a single thing, but a broad domain, and what you need to know will depend on what sort of research you are engaged with.  For example, if you go into computer vision, you'll probably need to know a lot of complex geometry, whereas if you go into cryptography, you'll probably need really deep understanding of number theory.  In some particular paths of work, you might in practice need very little mathematical knowledge at all.

What you absolutely must have, whether for computer science or for any other scientific pursuit, is a comfort with mathematical and scientific thinking in general, enough general mathematical fluency to acquire new expertise at need, and a solid working knowledge of statistics and data analysis to aid in interpreting experimental results.  In almost all computer science work, you will also be greatly aided by fluency in algebra, general discrete maths, Boolean logic, and asymptotic complexity theory.  Beyond that, it all depends on what you're doing.


US postdoc application with one-page research statement (no cover letter!) [psychology/linguistics]

The best answer to this comes from the institution itself and it is really impossible to know exactly what they expect. But your CV should cover your past work and general position.

In the absence of any other information, I would think it best to focus on what you want to accomplish in the first year and an idea about how you will attack the issues. So, yes, pretty precise, but not pedantic. As always, write for the expected readers. If you know who you will be working with, it is probably them.


How long to wait before contacting another arm's length referee?

You are very considerate to your referees, and I hope you get this postdoc position!
There is no exact number of days for these things and you would know the person's emailing habits better than me. Perhaps in another 2 days (4 days total), you can write him something like:

Dear Prof. XXXX,
I am just writing to follow-up on my email below.
Of course there is no rush for your assistance with refereeing my application package, because it is not due until 13 August. I wrote to you this early because I wanted to make sure that you had plenty of time, since I wanted to inconvenience you as little as possible.
If I may, I would just like to ask whether or not you might be able to act as one of my arms-distance referees for this application package: The deadline is not until August 31st, but I would just like to first establish who is going to have enough time to do it and who doesn't, so that if for example you are not able to do it, I don't end up asking someone else with not much time available. The idea is for me to be as considerate as possible to the time and energy spent by my external referees.
Sincerely,
user125706

Please feel free to adjust this letter, or write your own based on it, or copy-paste it. Whatever makes you feel most comfortable.
Good luck on getting this position!


What to say in one-minute presentation of a poster in a scientific conference?

I've seen this before and it can work very well.
Your only task in the one minute slot is to convince people that they should come and see your poster. Say what you've been doing and why it's interesting. You could use your abstract as a starting point but don't just read it out. Keep the slide really simple with the paper title and authors and a single, striking figure.


Reporting error in publication after copyright transfer

This is a question (or series of questions) for the editor. You can ask what they intend to do beyond taking down the online version. Ask if you can provide a correction (assuming that is possible). Ask if there is anything else you can do.
And an email "yesterday" won't get a response for a while.
But look for some mutually acceptable outcome.
I don't think the copyright transfer has any bearing on this, actually, other than that they have the responsibility now.


Should an engineering product research at a university be always released in a journal?

Unless you have an established relationship with the developers and are willing to, perhaps, sign a non-disclosure agreement, I doubt that a request would be honored.
Sometimes the "work product" is a bit embarrassing ("mistakes were made") and sometimes it contains proprietary information and trade secrets. There may be things in it that lead to future developments and the team wants to keep those to themselves.
If the work is patented then you can read the patents themselves as they are intended to be public.


Do European PhD programs offer the opportunity to take on teaching assistantship duties?

But, in European PhD contracts/programs, are there countries, or universities even, that set conditions under which you have to TA? Or can you even TA in the first place?

The European universities I am well aware of generally don't distinguish that strongly between TAs and RAs. In reality, in my current university in Switzerland, the "formal" job title of each employed PhD student (which is to say, practically all of them) is German for "Teaching And Research Assistant". Everybody is expected to teach a little, and (clearly) everybody needs to conduct research, so this job title seems appropriate.

What courses each student is responsible for, and what they are expected to do, is typically assigned by the professor / lab head (sometimes after extensive negotiations / arguments within the group leading up to the start of the semester).

Typically, PhD students are expected to only "assist" in the running of a course done primarily by a designated lecturer ("Dozent") or professor. However, in practice, often a large part of the actual work is done by TAs. in my old university, it was also possible to essentially become a lecturer already during your PhD, and from then on do courses officially on your own, without involvement of a professor.

It is not possible to "take on" additional TA jobs to improve one's monetary situation (but then again, standard salary is already around 60.000 Swiss francs for a first-year student - other universities outside of Switzerland pay less, but still substantially more than the stipends that are common in other places of the world).


Do you need to get permission to publish a quote or small excerpt?

Citations are how the academic world works. Any copyright law that I know of respects this system, and covers quotations under "fair use". Also, academics love to get cited - in the proper way. Presumably, they wrote the original source with the hope that they will get cited. Asking if they agree their text to be cited is as counterproductive as asking a supermarket employee if the peaches in the produce section, with the price tag on them, are meant for sale.

You still have to make sure that it is what academics understand as a "citation". That is, if you make a claim in your own words, you still mark it with a reference. If you reuse a snippet, you put it in quotation marks and mark with a reference. The boundaries between "a phrase" (you don't have to attribute it, because it's too short), "a snippet" (it is a quotation, you may use it as long as you attribute it) and "too long" (you reused too much to count as a quotation) are fluid. They depend on the actual length of the text copied, on the length of your text, and on the function of the text in both the original work and yours. Still, with something like 1-3 sentences (attributed!) you are typically on the safe side.

Images are a different beast. They don't "work" like quotations. Even if the author is not interested in pursuing copyright for them, their publisher may well do it. I don't know why this is the case, it may be because images are more salient than sentences, because they frequently contain too much information (often representing the core of somebody's theory), or because it used to be much more work to create an image than to type text. Anyway, the appropriate thing is to always get a permission to reprint images. You can even place a notice in the caption, for example "A concept for creating world piece, from [Smartass2016]. Reprinted with permission".

Bottom line, if you quote a sentence or two, that's OK, just add a reference and it is a proper citation. If it is an image, ask for permission. If it is something else, best to contact your publisher and ask for advice.


Meeting professor for the first time to discuss ideas

Even Houdini can't provide a to-the-point answer to this question; because guessing about the flow of a conversation sounds tough.

But, as this situation has been occurred, with high frequency, among the applicant and the potential supervisors, you might be eager to consider below subjects, will which be, probably, taken into account, within the target discussion.

The professor has already heard your ideas. His/Her tendency to hear
them, face to face, is maybe due to his/her propensity to assess your
tone and realize how confident you are about them. Wrap up your
self-reliance and put away any hesitation within talking about the
ideas.
You had, noticeably, claimed about any potential abilities within
your emails, such as programming capabilities, acquaintance with any
specific scientific theme and etc. The professor might ask something
about them, trivially, to find out any proof for your claims.
Evaluating your mental status and personal reflections would act as
an important factor for the professor. He/She will focus on your
excitation, manner of presentation and the temper. He/She would maybe try to
trap you by anything just like bombardment by questions to see
whether the anxiety will overcome you or not. This case often plays
an important role for professor's final assessment upon you, as
he/she must decide about the gratifying characteristics, presented
by the applicant, to work with him/her, efficiently, within long
graduate-level studies.

Based on my own experience and the fellows, have who crossed this bridge, the main context would be within the aforementioned stuffs.

Good luck


How can I collect popular questions from my students?

At one time I had a lot of success running a private wiki for my courses. Students could edit pages as is typical for wikis. I could distribute material, etc. But the advantage was that the wiki lived on from year to year, building up a resource.

There are a lot of servers, though they require a bit of management. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wiki_software. Work with the university's IT department to deploy one of them, perhaps. There may be security concerns they can help keep track of.

But a simple email list server that subscribes students and course staff gives a way for students to ask questions at any time. And an answer you give to one student will be seen by all. This can help you avoid repeat questions from individuals.

There is more at this link than you ask about here, but notice at least the advice about short videos rather than full lecture videos.


What is/are the most important thing(s) you wish that you have known/done before considering to apply to a PhD

1) To know how bad/abusive/ morally evil/sexist supervisors/academics can be (and academia in general).

2) To know other (ex-)students from the target institution and talk to them. This really helps!

3) To know how unimportant good schools/doing much work is compared to things like family, friends, health etc. Indeed, I've often wished to have done less work during the PHD and to have spend more time with friends and hobbies.

I hope this helps, maybe more later!!!!


What is the difference between "Green" and "Gold" Open Access?

The term "Open Access" has been used in numerous ways (see How Open Is It?), but in this context, Gold stands for publications available directly from the publisher, where as Green means that a version is available somewhere else (e.g. on an author's institutional website, or in a repository), a practice commonly referred to as "self-archiving". Note that neither of these two terms imply anything about reuse rights or about who shoulders the costs of publishing.

That colour spectrum has been expanded a bit to include Platinum, Titanium, White and Copper as well as Diamond, but these terms are used neither widely nor consistently. For instance, both platinum and diamond have been used to describe models where OA is provided by the journal and neither readers nor authors have to pay.


Should I include a reference for an image that is released into the public domain?

Should I still include a reference to indicate this image is not my
  own work

YES If the idea is not yours, you need to reference it.

  Who should be given credit

That is a harder question. Ideally, you should find the original author/source. Given a reasonable attempt to find the original author/source fails then reference the secondary/reproduction (i.e., wikipedia/wikimedia).


Does Canada have similar tenure-track system as the USA?

This study reviewed tenure-track positions across Canada. The time range from first probationary appointment to tenure is 3 to 7 years, with an average of 5 to 6 years.

Simon Fraser University's tenure track policy states that professors and associate professors shall be considered for tenure no later than the 4th year of the appointment, with options for early consideration or extensions. Assistant professors are considered for tenure no later than the 6th year of the appointment, with automatic promotion to Associate Professor if tenure is granted.


Should I email potential supervisor when I've already applied

Assuming that they are involved in your application process (which is common in some places but not others), then you should contact them now. Explain that you saw the announcement late and want to give them whatever information they might need at this time.
I wouldn't flood them with information in the first contact but be ready to supply information if they ask for it. But an introduction and expression of interest in their work won't hurt and might help.


Should I contact the journal after "with editor" for two months?

You can always send a message to an editor to enquire about the status of your manuscript. But, you need to consider a few basic points.

First, try to assess how the journal operates, for example what time frames are usually met by people submitting work to the journal. Try also to see what is considered the norm in your field (assuming this journal is in that field). Since the way journals operate varies between both fields and amongst the journals themselves, you need to assess what is a reasonable time.

Second, Try to see if you can figure out what this message "with the editor" means. I would interpret it as not having been sent out for review yet. If that is true then it seems like posing a question would be timely. If the message indicates the paper may also be under review or possibly even back after review for the editor to evaluate, then two months is certainly not too long. So, understanding the process stages and how the messages relate to these may help you decide whether a request is timely or not.

Editors, should not mind responding to brief questions of this sort but if it is clear from their point that the request is clearly premature, it will add to the stress. In other words, an assessment from your side of the normal waiting time along with an appropriate question is a good ground for the communication. Such an assessment can be made by asking your peers and others who have submitted to the journal. You can also kindly ask the editor to provide some insights into the time frame of the review process. It is after all not uncommon that authors may be more or less ready to handle revisions at different times and knowing what to expect is therefore useful.


Publishing in Mathematics and Computer Science related journals

The rules for Elsevier are stated on this page.  Essentially, as long as all authors of your paper work at institutions in countries in "Group A" then you get a full waiver.  If any author's affiliation is outside this set of countries, you don't (there is also a set of countries that get a 50% waiver).
It's unclear whether you can get a waiver if you don't have any institutional affiliation.  I suspect it may be difficult, since Elsevier is huge and the system is supposed to work automatically by detecting your country of affiliation.  If they don't even respond to an email to support, I wouldn't be optimistic.


What is the German equivalent of "in press"

You can write "Zur Veröffentlichung angenommen in...".

I think this is the most common phrase in Germany ("Im Druck" would sound weird).


Is it wrong to cite your own definition of a concept in thesis viva-voce presentation

In other countries, the viva-voce is called "defense" for a reason. The onus is on you to defend your use of the definition, in particular, if it deviates from the industry standard.


Is it worth doing a poster presentation?

I have some experience publishing in CS, so I'll give you my point of view.

  The conference requires the authors to pay full delegate registration fees as is required for authors of published works. Is it a common practice ?

Yes. In general, every participant is expected to pay in full, no matter what kind of contribution he/she has submitted. You are paying the conference, not your publication. One could argue that this is the main point why many (weaker) conferences even have poster and short paper tracks - to get more people to pay full registrations and attend the conference without having to accept too many papers.

  I was a novice student in the field when I submitted the paper, but have worked a lot in past few months in the area. And I am not looking for any specific inputs into that work anymore.

I should comment that this is a somewhat questionable attitude. Even if you are not planning to continue a certain line of research, hearing what others think about your work will help you a lot in future research projects and papers. Also, I don't think that you can go from novice to can't learn anything in the field anymore in the timeframe of a conference paper review process, so I'll wager that some in the audience will still have reasonable input on your work.

  Is it worth doing a poster presentation in such case ?

I would say this depends on practicalities. Is your advisor OK with paying your conference trip without a full paper to show? Is it far, will the travel be expensive? Is it a top conference that you want to attend for the conference's (and associated networking's) sake? Have you done many presentations, or will it at least be good training?

That being said, from a scientific point of view, most poster presentations are not very valuable. They don't count a lot on your CV (except, maybe, if it really is an absolute top conference), and you will not get that much feedback, realistically.


Emailing potential supervisors in the US before submitting application

As @Buffy comments, the other answers do not seem so accurate about R1 and R2 grad math departments in the U.S. That is, funding is mostly as Teaching Assistants, administered through the department, not by individuals, and funding-and-admission decisions are also made at a department level, by a committee.
Yes, having a faculty person ardently promoting your case to the admissions committee is definitely a good thing, but is not necessarily decisive, depending on that faculty person's record of following through (or not), mentoring, etc.
Yes, asking faculty ... not whether they "have a spot", but... whether they are currently taking PhD students can be a relevant question. Both people with lots of students already, or who aim to retire very soon, might say that they are not currently taking more PhD/research students. It would obviously be useful to know that, rather than show up and be negatively surprised.
In any case, as other people have commented, do NOT write generic emails with a huge bcc list. Take the trouble to address people by name (!!!), at the very least! And if you describe your own interest as X, which is not much connected to what the faculty person does, don't email them at all.
True, people seem to often "reckon" that sending inaccurate emails to people is harmless, because they can just delete them. It's not that I myself keep a grudge list of people who've sent me spammish emails... but it is fairly antisocial to spam people, in my opinion.


What are the benefits and drawbacks of a professor being interdisciplinary when they seek tenure?

If you've been doing interdisciplinary research for five years, and now approach the tenure process without a clear idea of how to sell your case, consider it failed, and start looking for a job elsewhere, before you are under an immense pressure of finding a good job in a one-year grace period after the end of the world as you know it.

If you were hired specifically for interdisciplinary research, and your offer letter stated that, and your time was split "50% + 1 hour in computer science + 25% in department of Roman languages + 25% in agriculture", with a clear explanation as to how you are to be evaluated by each of the parties involved, then these explanations should have served as the guidelines to build your research program. If you were hired to do the theory of parallel computing, but later decided that it would be cool to do some extra work in Roman languages because you liked their research questions, and thought you could contribute with your data mining algorithms that would uncover nuances of how Latin and French are interconnected (and you did, by their standards); and you proposed some GIS tools for horticulturalists to use that have become the industry standard software -- that's all fun and fine, but if you did not discuss that with your CS chair, this was likely a waste of time, as in terms of parallel computing, this time was as good as playing squash. Your annual reviews in the main department should have indicated so, if your department would ever care to guide you (not all departments do, though).

Spending time in another discipline is very fruitful for finding interesting research problems (as typically most disciplines don't talk to one another, and there's a wealth of problems to be solved using other disciplines' tools), but it also means that you have had less time to spend in your home discipline, which nearly inevitably means a weaker CV: fewer grants, fewer publications, lower quality research. (That's essentially Suresh's last point).


Do PIs contact other references which are not listed on CV?

The fundamental problem with your question is that there is a very, very wide range of PIs. Has one of them, at one time, stepped out of the confines of the reference letter system and asked about someone?

Of course.

I know because I've been asked. And considered asking people.

For a competitive application process, I generally try not to. I don't think it's fair to the applicants who I don't happen to have personal contacts with some people in their own network. If the "extra" recommendation is good, that person has had more opportunities to impress me. If it's bad, they've lost the opportunity to curate their references the way everyone else got to.


Yes, you can withdraw a journal submission at any point before it is accepted.  Some journals with online submission systems have an option where you can withdraw the paper, but -- curiously? -- not all.  Within the last two years I had to withdraw a submitted paper -- there was a mistake! -- and I believe I ended up leaving an "I withdraw this paper" note in the journal's submission system.  It took them about a week to get back to me and corroborate that the paper had been withdrawn.  (In case anyone cares: our mistake was to use a false result in the literature; we fixed it, resubmitted to the same journal, and the paper was published there, all within six months!) In fact though it doesn't really matter if they respond to your withdrawal in a timely manner or not: if they never respond to you again about the paper then that is exactly the same as if it is withdrawn, and if they do later you can show them your earlier correspondence that you withdrew the paper.

I do want to mention that it is best to be a bit patient and more than a bit persistent when trying to publish one's work.  For instance, I believe I currently have two papers that have been under review for over six months.  I wish they went faster, but I honestly don't (yet) feel that anything is seriously amiss.  Of course this depends a lot on your academic field -- in mine (mathematics), it really does take a long time to referee papers, especially if you include the traditional "1-5 months on the referee's shelf".  It is really not acceptable for a reputable publisher to totally ignore your messages.  So if I were you I would proceed under the assumption that they don't mean to do that and the wires are somehow crossed.  I would send multiple emails to editors in charge, spaced out a week or two apart, to several email addresses.  You don't want to jettison a process with a solid chance of reaching the desirable conclusion for one more spin of the big wheel of journal submission.


How do I get mathematics recommenders out of undergrad?

All graduate schools want to admit candidates who will succeed in their program, which is why most require an undergraduate degree.
Here is a quote about a Physics Master's Admission from the University of Tennessee.

  A student who enrolls in graduate study with the intention of attaining an advanced degree in physics will have completed an undergraduate major in physics or its equivalent.

Nevertheless since there is such a high overlap in math, physics, and computer science/engineering; you will likely be able to find a graduate program that will accept you -- especially if you are willing to take a year of prerequisite classes. Here is another quote about a master's degree in Applied Math

  The following prerequisites must be satisfied in our program or in course work passed elsewhere and judged equivalent by the
  department

  Numerical Analysis, Numerical Algebra, or Numerical Algorithms
  Methods in Applied Mathematics or both Differential Eqns. II and Partial Differential Eqs.
  Advanced Calculus
  Matrix Algebra II


How do I get back into Mathematics after graduating with BSc 14 years ago?

Sarah, why not just register to an MSc? It will give you an opportunity to refresh your memory and your skills and to test yourself. Also, if you'll do well, you should be able to get support letters and might even open the door to a PhD in the same place.


Should I ban electronic devices (smartphones, tablets and laptops) from a course?

(I'm a student)

Why do you want to ban the laptops?
Just because some students get distracted? If this is the only reason, that is almost a question of philosophy: Should you force the students into a situation that you think is best for them or should you assume them to be mature enough to decide what's best for them?
If your students were around the age of 12 years old, I'd agree that you should ban the laptops. But I'm assuming that your students have to be somewhat self-disciplied anyways to study for the courses in their 'free-time'.

I like writing my notes on the laptop. If you or the content of your course requires the students to take notes, please allow electronic devices. If the course is entirely focused on participation and taking notes would actually be useless, it might actually make sense to forbid using the devices because then the students would probably participate more.

In a class with only ~30 students, the following does not apply, but regarding your observation that some students are playing games during your lectures:
You will never be able to give the lecture in a tempo that fits every of the 100+ students perfectly. Some may be constantly bored and it suffices for them to listen with one ear while they are gaming or working on something else. Some are perfectly happy with your speed but get bored once somebody who was a bit slower asks a question.
In my experience, when I try to listen to a (to me) boring lecture, my thoughts just drift after a few minutes and I have not much to take away from the lecture. If I instead find a balance so that I can listen to you while it's interesting and keep myself awake and active by doing something else while it's not, I get more out of it.

  Is banning electronic devices in my course a good idea?

In general a big no from me, because students don't like to be told how they should behave. Why would you need to enforce something like that when they are here because they want to learn. However, I encourage you to mention your observations to them and that you think the electronic devices might be detrimental to their learning, so they can make an educated choice.

In your case however, with only 30 students where you expect them to actively participate instead of just listen and understand, it can make sense.
But if only one student is presenting and the rest are supposed to sit and listen (opposed to interactively asking questions and discussing) then I feel like it's a similar situation to my usual lectures.

  I have noticed that I work better without electronic devices because I am less distracted and can focus better.

True. On the other hand, I can learn better with electronic devices because it is easy to look something up that I didn't understand without having to interrupt the lecture to ask a question. It's also imo better for note-taking because you can paste parts of the slides and freely rearrange them.

  How do I enforce such a rule?

First of all, please provide a good reason to the students along with the statement that it is forbidden. Otherwise you will get a few of them on the wrong side and they will still try to use the devices. Without cooperation, enforcing this would be very hard I imagine.

Secondly, give them a good reason not to get distracted. If they are required to be present anyways, it might be an idea to give out grades for participation. Or ensure that the content of the lecture is really interesting.

Think also about when you want to make exceptions. What if somebody has special needs, e.g. does not see the screen from afar? What if some student has an important deadline incoming and wants to work on that during your class, but still came to not miss completely everything? Etc.

Alternative Solution:

  Some of the best instructors I had knew at which point of their lecture they should ask questions and took the time to learn students names. Then you can first ask the questions to people goofing off, and follow up with someone paying attention.

This is a quote of DBB's answer, and it reminded me of a tutor we had who everybody considered to be really great. The thing that set him apart is that he noticed when somebody was getting bored, distracted or lost, and asked that person a question. It might be a really simple one just to get their focus back, or it might be one that tests whether they are bored because they already know the content or rather because they're getting tired. Often, when one student would not know the answer, a different student would know the answer (and could explain it to everybody who lost track) or nobody else knew it either and the tutor knew what he had to explain again.
Such questions make people who are zoning out focus again, even if they are not the ones who were asked. And if it is fine to say "I don't know", nobody is afraid of being asked either, so they can answer honestly and give the tutor information about what they got and what not.