text:
Can I cite a report that says it "should not be used or relied upon by anyone else"?
I have found a report with a lot of useful data in it. It is very easy to get ahold of; the organization that ordered it actively promotes it on their website. I would like to cite it. However, the report includes a "General use restriction", stating:

This report is prepared solely for the use of the [organization]. This report is not intended to and should not be used or relied upon by anyone else and we accept no duty of care to any other person or entity. The report has been prepared for the purpose of estimating the [useful data] in [country]. You should not refer to or use our name or the advice for any other purpose.

Does this actually mean that I cannot use the data at all? And/or is the best approach to cite that specific data, to instead cite the organisation's summary of it, even if that is in a summary report, or even just on a webpage?
In the latter case, it is also unclear to me if I should include the actual report in the reference or not.
I have reached out to the company (no individual authors are listed). Regarding quality, the only thing I can say is that the organization that ordered it seems very happy about it, as seems several other advocacy groups who have cross-links the report.

I'm curious how you acquired the document itself, considering the apparent wish for secrecy! :)  Is it actually semi-public, with that disclaimer? If so, then why make it semi-public ... if they also want that disclaimer. Strange, unless it really is a clumsy and over-stated "use at your own risk", as opposed to discussion of something proprietary.

@paulgarrett I would challenge that premise - on the contrary, they may believe that this work is very much decent. That is, if a company A does some work for a company B, this work becomes a part of their portfolio. They are interested in impressing companies C, D, E etc. with this data so they can get a similar contract with a nice pouch of money attached to it, but are not interested in providing support for free or working with small fry (you may be willing to pay, but anything under say $10k is not worth the effort for them). Or the company's policies are just not consistent. Who knows.

@paulgarrett I have seen completion reports to funding agencies that are public, but not citable. For example, http://www.glfc.org/publication-media-search.php is a database full of reports like http://www.glfc.org/pubs/pdfs/research/reports/2019_LAR_440830.pdf that are not citable per the authors.

@RichardErickson, hm! Seems strange to me. A different world from mine. Thanks for the data points! :)

Does this actually mean that I cannot use the data at all? And/or is the best approach to cite that specific data, to instead cite the organisation's summary of it, even if that is in a summary report, or even just on a webpage?

You have reached out to the authors, but not heard back.
I think you have answered your own question with:
cite the organisation's summary of it, even if that is in a summary report, or even just on a webpage.
This will allow you to acknowledge the existence of the work, but not use the data as part of your work.
If I were doing research on a topic covered in a situation like this, I would likely cite ongoing research for the topic in either the Introduction or Discussion. I would write something like:

[My really important research topic] is important to [country] who [commissioned/requested/funded] research on the topic.
[A grey paper/report/preliminary data/summary] has been posted to [the organization's webpage/other public venue (cite here in appropriate style)], but are not publicly [citable/available].

Depending upon the venue, you might even mention that you reached out to the authors, but they did not respond. I have seen this done when people try to recreate other studies, but the data is only available upon request and authors do not share their data.
Lastly, I have seen examples of these types of disclaimers with completion reports such as those for US FDA studies (sorry, no link to a database) and NGOs such as the The Great Lakes Fisheries Commission who publishes completions reports and abstracts with a disclaimer such as

ABSTRACT NOT FOR CITATION WITHOUT AUTHOR PERMISSION.

"reached out to the authors, but they did not respond" No answer yet does not mean "yes".

And, that is why I said cite the organisation's summary and not use the data.

In medical settings a grey area of activity is the quality improvement (QI) project. One of the hallmarks of a QI project according to HHS is

... quality improvement activities do not satisfy the definition of “research” under 45 CFR 46.102(d), which is “…a systematic investigation, including research development, testing and evaluation, designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge…”

As a QI project does not contribute to generalizable knowledge, our research support office requires all publications of QI projects to include a similar disclaimer that states the purpose of the QI project and that the results should not be used for anything but that purpose.
Ideally,the limitations of a QI project should make it so no one wants to generalize based on it, but in reality some researchers use QI projects to conduct research without IRB requirements. There is a lot of grey area in between where the methods, data and analysis may all be solid and the ability to generalize appropriate apart from the disclaimer.
The disclaimer does not read to me as a cannot, but rather a should not. If you are going to use the data/report to generalize, you should be cautious and add the appropriate disclaimers to that section of work.

I disagree with the accepted answer. I think you should cite the work.
First, the gold standard for whether to cite does not exactly have to do with the paper quality or with such disclaimers, but whether it is relevant. Did it influence your work? Is it related to your work? Did it make a contribution to your research area?
Second, it's always safer to include a citation than to exclude it. If you're not sure how accurate the data is, you don't have to use the data (you can even say why you didn't use it), but you should cite any prior work on your research problem.

However, the report includes a "General use restriction"

This use restriction reads more like legalese than anything else. It does not say you shouldn't cite it. Rather, it tries to absolve the authors of any responsibility or liability for what you do with the report.

Does this actually mean that I cannot use the data at all?

Certainly not! The disclaimer even specifically says that you can use the data "for the purpose of estimating the [useful data] in [country]". Beyond this, you can likely use it and use your judgment or use it with a disclaimer.

Regarding quality, the only thing I can say is that the organization that ordered it seems very happy about it, as seems several other advocacy groups who have cross-links the report.

This seems like good evidence that this work is already considered to be useful in your area, and has made a contribution to the field. If so, then it would be prudent to cite such a contribution.

I read the disclaimer as: 1) it should not be used, or relied on [i.e. referred to] by anyone that is not affiliated with [organization], AND 2) it should not be used for any other than the stated purpose. So since point 1 is not fulfilled, it does not matter if 2 is or not.

@JohanPI That's the literal reading, but not mine. Legalese is often overly cautious; they always overstate the restriction so that they could never reasonably held responsible for someone else to use it. I don't think they can prevent you from citing the work.

It depends. Why do you want to cite it? Until you are able to get more information about the provenance of the data, you shouldn't be making any direct references to it as support for any claim of yours. You have no idea how the data was gathered or what standards were used. If you can't get any more information, I would be careful about using it for anything substantive in a paper.
If, however, you merely wanted to make reference to it in a section addressing further research that is required into a topic (e.g. "an area requiring further research is whether x, a report by company y suggests blah, however, their sources and methodology were not disclosed [cite]), I don't see anything wrong with that.

The report methodology is both well-documented and, as far as I can tell, quite sound (otherwise I would likely not be as interested). The question is if I can and should use it at all.

@JohanPI, well, are you trying to use it for something other than the "purpose of estimating the [useful data] in [country]"? If so, then you are using it for something other than what it was created for. That would be problematic even if it didn't have these disclaimers on it.

After not having received a response from my inquiries from the company that authored the report, I have decided to play it safe and disregard it entirely from my work.

Please see my answer. I would include it if I were in your shoes.

I think you did the right thing. When an author specifically states that "You should not refer to or use our name or the advice for any other purpose.", the only way for you to cite it is to get their permission first.

I disagree with this answer. The gold standard for whether to cite has not much to do with the paper quality or with such disclaimers, but whether it is relevant. Did it influence or was related to your work? Did it make a contribution to this area?

Additionally, the general way to "play it safe" with citations is to include them, not to exclude.

I really appreciate all the thoughts on the matter. You raise a lot of good, albeit conflicting, points. I have opted for @RichardErickson's answer as it seems like the safest in this particular case, though in other cases another answer might be the way to go.


text:
Should I color the edited sentences in a minor revision?
My paper has been accepted with minor revision.
When I revise the paper, should I mark the edited sentences by using a different color like for a major revision?

Please run your edits through a color blindness simulator to make sure that it's not something that is invisible to color blind individuals.

@user while this is essential for the published version, it’s unlikely to be an issue for the final revisions unless the entire editing team is colour-blind.  Indeed the American Physical Society produces “red-line” galleys with colors for easy reference by the authors.

@user - Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't colour blindness normally prevent you from distinguishing between a pair of colours, rather than black and a colour? I'd assume you're only going to be submitting to a journal in black text... Then again, as I'm writing this, I suppose figures can be coloured in some journals

@ScottishTapWater There are various types of color blindness. In the case of total color blindness, you'd be expecting someone to pick out revisions that are slightly different shades of black from the regular black text.

@user - To be honest, I didn't even realise total colour-blindness was a thing... Every day's a school day. I suppose in that case, the better option would be to weight the text differently?
I don't actually know the rules of what journal they're submitting to, but if it's minor changes in latex, and they're allowed, I'd submit a patch file along with my submission. Can't be clearer than that.

You should follow whatever instructions you were given to the letter.  Anything else can just interrupt the workflow involved in getting the paper into press.  If not instructed to highlight changes, you should not highlight changes.

You should:

make a list of detailed corrections, indicating the lines and the changes in text, and referencing the referee report or comments of the editor,
and/or change font color.

This last is especially good so the referee or editor can easily check that suitable changes have been made.  I usually do both, irrespective of the “level” of revision required.

I’d add that if you’re using LaTeX, there are ways colouring text that can be easily undone by editing a few, localised lines in the tex files. I suspect if you’re using "styles" in Word, it also might be possible to define (and redefine) a style to be coloured (or, later, uncoloured), or you could use the "review" tool which can be easily turned off. Make sure you save your future self (and/or the journal typesetters) some effort if you’re adding colour.

For latex, latexdiff has turned out to be a really useful tool.

@Pam Don't do that!  Latexdiff.

Thanks @AnonymousPhysicist and@WolfgangBangerth, I hadn’t heard of it. It looks effort saving!

should I mark the edited sentences by using a different color

You should use a tool that automatically marks the changes, like Latexdiff or track changes.

“Track changes” gives me nightmares….

And if you use an alternative it should be readily "turn off-able". (Wish I’d thought to put this as an actual answer! +1)

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What is meant by "representative of a University" in French universities?
I am planning to visit a British laboratory. They asked me to sign a form by the representative of my home university. I do not understand who this representative is supposed to be: our director or which other person?

Guessing a bit, but it is probably anyone authorized to "speak" for the university. A department head might be enough. I'll tag this UK to wake up our British members

Might help to have some context about what the form is to have a better idea of what exactly they need.

How would anyone here know what an unspecified British laboratory means by this in the context of some unspecified form? Just ask them if it's not clear to you.

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What are some ways to legally get around or postpone the J-1's 2-year home country residency requirement?
I am currently on a J-1 visa in the US. I have been a postdoc in the US since November 2019, therefore with the J-1's 5-year limit, I will have ~2 years left to be in the US unless I change to another visa or get a green card.
In about two months, I will do my second postdoc in a different US institution than where I am at the moment, which means I can only stay at my second postdoc for less than two years. For the kind of research I am doing, it is very likely that during the entire less-than-2-year course of my second postdoc, I will not have any papers published yet, or maybe just one. So, being able to stay at my next institution past my fifth year in the US is much more preferable for me.
I have heard about asking for the 2-year rule exemption, switching to O-1 or EB-2 NIW. I know that O-1 is based on achievements, but I am not very familiar with EB-2 NIW. If possible, I would like to avoid asking for an exemption by asking for permission from my country's consulate, because my skill is listed as being needed by my country. The other exemption route is government agency request, but I don't think public universities are government agencies (are national labs ones?).
I would be grateful if somebody could give a list of possible legal ways to avoid or postpone the J-1's 2-year home country residency rule, including O-1 and EB-2 NIW above. If possible with a brief explanation of what they are and special points to pay attention to. In case it will be helpful, I currently have 6 articles published in peer-reviewed journals, one article, and one chapter coming possibly in May 2023. My J-1 5-year limit will run out in November 2024.

Ask the new institution to help you with this.

+1 to Buffy's suggestion.  Each university has an international office whose staff are well versed in visa rules for academics, and can give personalized advice.

I'm a little confused, though.  What is the term of your upcoming second postdoc?  It sounds like it is less than two years.  So unless you are expecting that it could be extended, your visa status wouldn't really be an issue for that university, but for wherever you might find a job after that.

I disagree with Buffy, unless your international office is extremely experienced, they are unlikely to fully understand the possible legal maneuvers. You need a specialized immigration lawyer. Assuming you are not a medical doctor, you have identified the two reasonable ways out of the two year physical presence requirement. The first, is O. Unless you have multiple Cell, Science or Nature papers, I wouldn't expect this to work out. The second is the waiver. Some countries (like India) issue them all the time. Others, flatly refuse to issue them. If you are wealthy, there is EB-5.

You may also find this handy chart helpful. (I have no business affiliation with this firm, although they represented me in the past.)

@NateEldredge, the contract of the job is for one year with a possible renewal of up to three years. But the problem is more about finding a more permanent position after my second postdoc. Unless you are lucky, you won't find any faculty opening that matches your expertise in a short period of time, or there are but you got rejected. The higher your publication number is the more likely you will land a faculty job. To be able to do this in less than two years sounds like a very lucky life to me.

@Ian, what about waiver through a government agency request? I may be able to get my second postdoc at a national lab, does national lab qualify to be a government agency?

@nougako I don't know how the government agency requests you mention work, but, e.g., US Department of Energy national laboratories are ran by federal contractors, and aren't agencies themselves.

It wasn't relevant in my situation, so I'm less familiar with the precedent, but I understand that say, an intramural lab at the NIH would count as an "interested government agency." However, the federal government has substantial bureaucracy and remember that you'd be dealing with both the HHS side and the State Department side. I think that would be a big ask for a potential PI with a big risk that you'd have to go "home" if it didn't work out.

In case it's useful. Here's what the NSF writes about acting as a 'interested government agency' https://www.nsf.gov/od/oise/visa-waivers.jsp


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I haven't paid APC but they published my paper
My paper got accepted for publication in an ISI/Scopus index journal, and they charge the APC. We requested to extend the deadline for APC paying because we are looking for money. In the meantime, the journal's production team also asked us to do some tasks to publish our paper. Today, my paper got published by that journal, although we haven't paid the APC. My questions:

What should I do right now? Should I tell them I haven't paid the APC yet or keep silent?
Do they remove our paper if they realize that we haven't paid the APC? If that happens, does it negatively affect my profile?

Is the APC for publication itself, or for open access?

@WolfgangBangerth It is a Gold Open Access journal so I think it's for publication itself.

It's been this way for many years, before the advent of open access. From personal experience paying overlength charges, voluntary page charges, and color fees from the early 2000's is that publishers will often assume you will pay and send an invoice to be paid later.
I think this is due to the bureaucracy at institutions. It can often take 2-3 months for large sums of money to work their way through the system, and such unexpected delays will wreak havoc with publishing processes, especially if there's topical or special issues.

You've assumed they made a mistake publishing your paper. That's not necessarily the case. It's possible they published anyway because they trust you will pay the APC. Why would they trust you will pay the APC? The most obvious reason is because you published previous papers with them and always paid the APC. Other reasons could be because you or your co-author are a Big Name (or member of their editorial board, etc.) and they are accommodating you.
So: don't worry about it, keep looking for the money, and pay them when you get it.

We requested to extend the deadline for APC paying because we are looking for money ...
What should I do right now? Should I tell them I haven't paid the APC yet or keep silent?

Keep calm, continue looking for the money, and frantically make payment.
While at it, you can, though I'll think not compulsory, inform the managing editor (or handling editor) about the 'slipped through' publication and your commitment to making APC payment nonetheless. Doing so would fulfill moral reasonableness.
PS: there might be *unseen" nuances/underlying factors leading to the publication or it might just be an inadvertent error.


text:
When going through research papers statistical studies of political science phenomena, how do I know which sources I can trust?
So far, I've learned mostly from textbooks but I'd like to read actual research papers and gather information from the sources themselves. My question is: how can I assess, as a stranger to the field, what research material can be considered relevant to a certain topic I have in mind and which is not?
The reason I ask specifically for political science is that if I were to talk about something like Mathematics, then I could probably run the calculations or logical reasoning myself and conclude the truth of the argument myself. In the case of political science, I can't really do much as I won't be able to recreate such studies.

Are you following an educational program with instructors or is this all self-study?

Self study @Jeroen, and, If I actually had competent instructors who I could ask get helpful answers to question like this, then I would have asked them only to begin with

Reproducibility of research in the social sciences is an ongoing and unresolved issue. The problem is our current model of 'good' research is derived from the hard sciences but often the axioms that apply in a field like physics or chemistry are just not suitable in the social sciences. Primarily because social sciences aren't experimental. A physicist can describe in detail the experiment they used to produce a result and then another researcher can follow the same steps and see if the find the same outcome. In a field like political science, you can't go out and run another national election just to test results published by someone else. Consequently, to evaluate high quality work, you're going to have to put some effort into understanding the statistical tools and methods used by the researchers and think critically about whether the published analysis really supports the conclusion.
Some things I might recommend looking for:

What is the sample size of the analysis?
Are the authors trained political scientists, economists etc. or are they from some other field trying to prove their own pet hypothesis?
What is the quality of the references used? Are they citing known journals/work in the field or are they citing 'freemdomeagle.biz'?
Are the data used in the research available in an online repository? Most high quality journals these days have a requirement that data sets be made publicly available on platforms like ICPSR, CKAN, Dataverse etc.
Are the statistical methods they used appropriate and do they make an effort to explain any statistical anomalies in the data or the results?
Have they published the code they used to produce the results? Sadly, this is less common than publishing data but it is a good sign if it is available.
Is there a statement that addresses any author conflicts arising from affiliation or funding?

That's what I can think of off the top of my head. Maybe others can add more in the comments?
This is of course all focused on quantitative research. If you want to evaluate qualitative research, that's a whole other question

A lot of data used in political science is publicly available, so you can replicate what the authors did. That is how you know what studies to trust. I'm not telling you to replicate all studies you read. That would be too much work, especially because you are an outsider in this field. However, you should look at whether you could replicate that study, and if you could do so, then that should increase your trust.


text:
Masters in mathematics after bachelors in mechanical engineering
I am in a bit of dilemma regarding my career aspirations.
I am a mechanical engineering graduate from one of the top 5 IITs in India.
I have a average CGPA of 8.87/10 (top 20 in my class).
I have taken close to six mathematical courses like: Maths1(grade A), Maths2(grade B), Transform Calculus(Excellent grade), Partial Differential Equations( Excellent grade), Probability and statistics( grade A), Control systems( Excellent grade).
Currently I am working as a quantitative analyst for credit risk team at an investment bank, the job here has drawn me closer to the field of mathematics and statistics and through a lot of self-study, I have decided to pursue a masters course in statistics/applied mathematics and possibly use that masters degree for phd applications later.
I am in my mid-twenties currently.
I have self studied the entire statistical Inference book from Casella and Berger to supplement my knowledge/fill in the gaps.
However the problem lies in the application part for the masters program as they require an undergraduate degree from mathematics and letters of recommendation, while I can arrange for letters of recommendation from my manager here at workplace and a few professors whom I did my bachelors project with/took their courses, however I am not sure how relevant they will be.
I understand that because I don’t have a undergraduate in mathematics, even if I get admissions, they won’t be into any top coveted programs but I am willing to put in the extra effort/fill up the gaps using my experience in that college for graduate school admissions later on.
Does this sound like a plausible plan or am I working for a lost cause?
Do I stand a chance with my profile for admissions into decent masters courses in mathematics in US?
Can attending a decent mathematics masters program work as a stepping stone into some good graduate programs?
Any insights would be helpful.
Thanks in advance.

This sort of dilemma is often country and culture-dependent. Some areas of the world will be far more strict about what is / isn't a 'maths degree'. Usually here (UK) I see it phrased as more like 'a degree with a high quantitative component' which includes computer science, physics, engineering, etc, but I don't know much about the Indian academic culture.
My recommendation would be to just contact someone at an institute you're interested in and ask them. Either they say yes, and now you know, they say no, and you don't need to bother applying, or they don't answer, in which case the only thing you lost was the time sending the email. This also might vary by instutite, it's unlikely any answer will apply to every institute, even within the same country.

Thanks @H.Green for your suggestion, I will try this method out for all colleges I am interested in UK, US and Canada as well.

I think your plans for your future are quite reasonable, but my thoughts count for very little. Many engineers have a mathematical bent of mind and I believe many mathematics departments (especially in applied fields like statistics) will recognize that. An example of an engineer who became a mathematician is: Raoul Bott. In all probability, you are not going to be Raoul Bott (prove me wrong), but I think it's worth pursuing the career goals you want. Your job, is to make a convincing case for yourself and to find the right department for you. You can do this by talking with people who have achieved what you are trying to achieve, getting their feedback on their department and your application (especially statement of purpose).

thanks for your reply and suggestions. I will get in touch with people on professional networking sites like LinkedIn as well as departments themselves for their feedback and suggestions as well.

I am a mechanical engineering graduate...
I have decided to pursue a masters course in statistics/applied mathematics...
the masters program ...require[s] an undergraduate degree from mathematics

If your degree is in Mechanical Engineering, and the masters course "require[s] an undergraduate degree from mathematics" then that raises one question: Is your Mechanical Engineering degree a degree in mathematics?
If the answer is Yes, then you "stand a chance."
If the answer is No, then you are "working for a lost cause."
In case my answer is confusing, I'll explain by saying that I don't know what qualifies as a "degree from mathematics" but I assume it might include more than just a Mathematics degree. Since many degrees require intense mathematical study, other degrees might be considered "degree[s] from mathematics." For example, Statistics or Geometry or Calculus might be subtypes of undergraduate mathematics degrees. And perhaps Mechanical Engineering, which does require intense study of mathematics, is one of those which would be counted as such.

Take the GRE subject test in Math.  If you do well few will care about your background.

This is not correct. There is far more to your academic background than a test that's not used very much across the world. Far more likely is that very few will care about your GRE test.


text:
PhD forced out of university: Hong Kong
(Too Long; Didnt Read members of academia.stackexchange, read the text in bold only)
I am a PhD student in one of the Hong Kong Universities. For those that do not follow news, Hong Kong has been through turbulent social and political changes for more than a year now. As it happens, these changes correlate with ever increasing pressure on me through-out the last year.
To the best of my knowledge, I have not associated myself with any political stand, nor showed support for either side. Despite my non-involvement, there are situations where I was at the wrong place at the wrong time, since the university was directly affected by the unrests and people have noticed (supervisor, other PhDs).
Also, to the best of my knowledge, I am not involved in academic sins, such as improper communication (quarrels with supervisor, other PhDs, technical staff, department leader, department staff), academic dishonesty (faking progress/results/documents) or similar. Further, I can truthfully say that I do not have conflicts with people around me in general, nor family, friends, and especially in academia I keep my opinions down, since it is a very small place. Further, I am not unproductive, lazy or stupid, but I have several publications as the first author (conferences and journals, that are relevant to my field).
In summary, I do not think I am a problematic PhD or evil person, and I believe there is a cause to the issues described below, that is external to my doing (it is not caused by my wrong doing, but I do not speculate as to what exactly it can be).

Situation now: I feel I am actively being pushed-out of the university. I do not have support from my supervisor, neither material/financial, nor on personal level. The supervisor kicked me out of PhD groups used to share information. Further, my forms do not get processed at the department level (no one is willing to provide signature, even if the form is rejected). I was directly told not to contact anyone (Professors) /  cooperate with anyone (Companies).
There are other unflattering situations which I will not list, to keep identity secret. But all of this correlate with the unrests. Before October 2019, my progress and relation with supervisor, staff and PhDs was normal.
From comments: I pointed out correlation and I am not here to judge causation or specific relations among academia and politics. I can add that my supervisor lost a (non-specified due to anonymity) position, which s/he didnt take lightly. This also correlates with the unrests as it happened right after the main wave.

My view: I think I have formally proven myself as a researcher/PhD. I have produced and published relevant work. And as such, I should technically finish my PhD by the summer 2021. But considering the current situation, this is unlikely. Further, the ranking of the university is not bad, neither the impact factor of my publications.
Can I resolve this situation, such that I receive the PhD degree (somewhere else)? If I reach to someone, how do I describe my situation? Can I address the political pressure in front of other professors from unaffected regions, if enquiring about potential solution/help/opinion?
P.S.
This is not a dispute with single person (supervisor or other). The department leader is not impartial. There is no third-party committee (the supervisor is at the top of everything, no relevant co-supervisors or other staff). I am willing to relocate myself to Europe, Singapore, South Korea or Taiwan. I do not want to start again, technically there is no reason.

Thank you for suggestion. I am actively working on reaching out to people. My worries are related to presenting the situation, I have no idea why this is happening to me, but as I mentioned, there is a clear starting point.

"academic sins, such as improper communication (quarrels with supervisor, other PhDs, technical staff, department leader, department staff)" -- how can these be sins?

You can always switch university.  However, it is unlikely you will graduate on the stated timeline.  Other universities have their own process; e.g., at my university, you need to be some number of years before you can submit your thesis.

although recently Taiwan seems to fall into similar situation as Hong Kong I don't understand what you mean here. Please clarify. I live in Taiwan. It seems to me everything is business as usual in Taiwan. Taiwan is no HK.  HK is a special region of China. Taiwan is not. Very different story

@scaaahu I didnt mean this to be controversial and deleted it from the text. I just pointed out the potential political tension. Please, do not downplay the situation by referring to mask-wearing.

@Prof.SantaClaus "academic sins" = misconduct that could somewhat cause the events.

I deleted the mask comment. I had it was because I thought that was one of the reasons, my wild guess.

I expect that typical European professors will be sufficiently aware of the situation in Hong Kong to understand that some PhD students will feel pressured to leave; and to be sufficiently sympathetic to the democracy movement to not think any less of those students. Mentioning political pressure should do a lot to overcome the usual stigma against people changing PhD positions. That you have not actually engaged in activism is not going to be relevant.
Some universities will have minimum candidate periods for PhD students, and will be more or less flexible in waiving them for you. I would not worry about that too much in advance, contact suitable supervisors and ask about what accommodations can be made for you. They'll know best how to work the local administration.
Since you will want to complete a particular project for your PhD, you really want the right people as new supervisor. Someone who already knows your published work will be ideal.
For context, a few years ago the Saudi government decided that all Saudi-funded PhD students in Canada (of which there were a lot) had to immediately leave and move to a different country. While this was undoubtedly very stressful for the students, my impression was that there were plenty of understanding European professors willing to help.

Well, taking PhD students without knowing their background is a huge risk.  Even within my school, we have an unspoken rule whereby we do not take accept another colleague's students.

@Prof.SantaClaus Surely a PhD student has more background than a PhD applicant: The work they've already produced. So, surely, accepting a colleague's students is beneficial. (Poaching students from a colleague within a school remains the unspoken rule!)

@user2768 well, in many cases, students jump ship because they are weak students and want to work on 'easier' projects.

North American universities are also likely to welcome students fleeing political conflict.  However, I think the asker had better come up with a more detailed explanation than "I was at the wrong place at the wrong time."

@Prof.SantaClaus Of course, sorry, I was commenting in the context of students in HK

@AnonymousPhysicist Isn't: I need to leave HK enough?

@user2768 Not really.  You need to explain why you need to leave now, and not before you started your PhD.  It seems the current conflict started in March 2019, and it's not like it wasn't a predictable conflict.

@AnonymousPhysicist Explaining would surely require faith that communications are untappable, which seems misguided

@AnonymousPhysicist I am not here to explain interactions between academia and change in political system, since I do not see the links directly. As mentioned, the changes correlate with increasing tension around the university and specifically the supervisor and the department.

@Prof.SantaClaus regarding "easier projects", as far as I know, there are PhD studies that are project based and then there are publication based. I am publication based.

@Anonym 'easier projects' in my school means less mathematics or less theoretical.


text:
Can I and how to offer to translate papers (on COVID-19)?
In light of the recent pandemic of COVID-19 spreading in the world, there have been many Chinese papers with only English abstracts published in Chinese journals. Some western papers have cited the Chinese papers, but only based on the abstract as the author would say they do not understand the Chinese full text.
I am a graduate student in the medical field with a good grasp of Chinese and English. Can I translate without permission, or offer to translate, these papers and publish in an indexed English journal/source? If I make the offer, what is the appropriate etiquette and considerations?

Try asking the journals.

I applaud you for your initiative: Under present circumstances, I should think that there we could see relaxations on copyright issues. You also may want to contact your area's Medical Association, they may be able to direct you to someone who has the authority to make such a possibility formal. Thank you for your offer to benefit mankind.

At the scale of one person, you could do the following. If you find a paper that you think merits translation, contact the authors and offer your services directly to them. They might not be able to help much if their research is ongoing, but would, I think, respond positively. You could also suggest appropriate English language journals to them that might publish the translations. I can't predict how that would work, but archives might be appropriate.
I think that a lot of researchers in China (as everywhere) have a working knowledge of English and so could probably vet any translations you do for accuracy.
As for the etiquette, just ask, introducing yourself. Or even send along a sample translation of a part of a paper as a calling card.
I don't think that copyright can be ignored unless governments intervene to change the rules. It might happen due to the seriousness of the issue.
But being in contact with researchers who have been with this since the beginning might actually be an advantage to your career also.

+1 for working with the author. A translation mistake could have disastrous consequences.


text:
Pros and cons of sharing dissertation on a specialised website?
I am wondering what are the advantages/drawbacks of sharing a dissertation on a specialised website (for example Social Capital Gateway). There are a number of repositories available and they seem to be more widely known. Are these sites more for the benefit of the facilitators than the contributors (who in this case are the PhD researchers).

why not just place it on your webpage and let google do the rest ? I find a number of theses that way.

Best way to get your dissertation read is to publish it (as book or articles, depending on your discipline).

@Suresh It's great thing to do, but it is only a short term solution. Webpages don't last forever. [But putting it on a webpage is always good.]

@PiotrMigdal Why is it a short term solution? I don't agree. The other day I downloaded and read a dissertation from 1994 from a professor's personal website.

@Shion Because most of webpages die after a few years, for one reason or another. There is quite some materials I have been linking to but now are deadlinks, as someone have changed affiliation, or forget to pay for the domain. Sure, some pages stay for 2 decades; but it is hard to guarantee such... and if one is a professor, then most likely one can enjoy a "permanent" univ. website, what cannot be said about any other position.

but your webpage should last forever :)

...especially if you're using it to distribute your dissertation, which means you have an incentive to keep it alive.

I doubt there are any drawbacks to posting on such a site, other than the time required.
But I also doubt there are very many advantages.  I don't think very many people will look on such sites for theses.  If I need something from a PhD thesis, my algorithm would be something like this:

Look for published papers by the student which discuss the work.
Google the student's name and thesis title.
Look for the student's website.
Look on the department's website.
Look on the institution's library's website.
Try to contact the student (via website or Google search) and ask if they will send me a copy.
Try to contact the student's advisor and ask if they have a copy.
Contact someone else I know at the institution, and ask if they can find the thesis in their library.
Try to get a copy from UMI (last resort).

Searching other repositories would probably come somewhere between steps 8 and 9.  So if you can try to make sure your thesis is findable at some earlier stage of this process, you probably don't need to bother with much more.

You should make the thesis freely available somewhere that Google will  find it, and that there are no paywalls or clickwalls.
If you have a web site and you plan to keep it available, putting your Ph.D. dissertationon your web site is a perfect solution.
If you don't have a personal web site that you will keep available, then another great solution can be to "tech report it": make it available as a tech report through the institution where you graduated.  Many institutions make their tech reports freely available on the web and commit to ensuring they remain available.  So, that's a great solution.  (If your institution doesn't make their tech reports available over the web, you might want to bug your institution to suggest they do so.)
If neither of those is applicable, a third choice can be to make your dissertation available via arxiv or some other preprint server that is appropriate for your field.

I think the question is,
sharing the dissertation on

specialised sites vs. widely known repository sites

The advantage of specialised sites is that you get experts in your discipline to read your paper. I believe that's the purpose of sharing your dissertation in the first place.
On the other hand, widely known sites would have more visitors. You would have more interested readers. Whether they are experts is another matter.
However, I would like to raise an issue here. Many sites have paywall/clickwall. In particular, many require sign-ups. I often have trouble with links provided by users on this board. I follow the link, then find out I need to sign in to read the full text. More often than not, I give up at that point. I simply don't want to sign up unless I am really interested in the article.
I truly like arXiv because I don't need to sign up to read the papers. The time I need to sign in is when I upload my papers there.

Check with your school. Legally, the work usually belongs to them (it does so here in Chile), you might not be allowed to share it freely. I doubt they will object (the school is interested in becoming known, like for your work here), but they might place some restrictions on it (say state specifically that this is your thesis at the school, cite your advisor, whatever)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
As a self-learner, what to do with books providing exercises but not solutions?
Lately I've been reading lots of statistics books. Many of them have exercises after each chapter that I'm eager to solve, but I'm a beginner and can't solve most of them, and those that I think I can solve I can't check because there are no solutions and no solution manuals available.
I think the point in providing exercises without solutions is that this way the book can be used in class, where the teacher can use them as homework assignments. However, I'm self-learning and have no teacher to ask/to correct my work.
This frustrates me. I like solving stuff, but without knowing even if my solutions are correct (left alone anything beyond that) it's no fun.
What is the best way to deal with this?
Are there any resources on the internet where solutions for the more popular books could be found maybe? Should I trust that trying to solve them is the most instructional part anyway and let go of my childish craving for seeing my and the book's answer are identical?

As with many things, it depends on the specific textbook, the field, how popular that text is (in college/university classes), and how basic the topic. For example, a very popular introductory physics textbook that's used by many schools will probably have some answer sets or even student-produced study guides or solutions than some high level text on some esoteric branch of a sub-sub-specialty of some field.

I think the point in providing exercises without solutions is that this way the book can be used in class, where the teacher can use them as homework assignments. — Or maybe the author doesn't want to rob the readers of the fun/experience/torture of figuring stuff out for themselves.  Remember: The goal is not to answer the exercises, but to figure out how to answer the exercises.

I don't see that: I'd be happier with having the fun/experience/torture of figuring stuff out for myself PLUS afterwards the security that my reasoning is correct. It would give me more confidence in the acquired knowledge/skills.

@miura: There are psychological difficulties: if you provide solutions, then some (many?) students will give up and look at the solutions much earlier than they would have otherwise.

For self-learning, one of my more important criteria for book selection is whether there are a reasonable number of exercises with supplied answers. If not, don't buy it.

This practice in the text book business is old-fashioned and takes power away from student. The way to deal with it is to vote with your money, only buy textbooks that provide solutions. Alternatively, one can use free learning resources like Khan Academy that have online tests with immediate feedback.

An inability to confidently answer the questions in a text book in general is an indication of not having mastered the material.* If you are not 100% confident that you are solving the problems correctly, go back and read the material again. You will not be able to use the skills in research unless you know the material without an answer key.
*For a graduate class I used to teach there was a problem in the textbook that I could not solve. No matter how I thought about the problem, some information was always missing. I am friends with the author so emailed him for a solution set. I was too embarrassed to admit I couldn't solve the problem and figured the answer key would be helpful anyways. The answer for the problem in question was "Not possible with supplied information."

Well, even if I am 100% confident in my answers, it still is not certain that they are correct. All my confidence stems from my own unproven belief in my understanding. This entails a risk of false confidence. With solutions I have the possibility of external reassurance that I have understood. I can't see how that's a bad thing.

There is a complex analysis book that lists the Riemann Hypothesis (one of the most important open problems in mathematics) as an exercise. There is only a note at the end saying "if you can't solve this, ask your teacher".

The absolutely beautiful paper by J Kruger and D Dunning in 1999 called "Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments." show s how self-assessment can be really missleading.

What is the best way to deal with this?

The best way to deal with the uncertainty is to go through other works (textbooks, videos, examples etc) that contains the subject area for which problem you are trying to solve. Make certain that these works does have answer sets that you can compare your work to. Then, once you have gained the confidence and more experience in solving the problem set, go to the original textbook and do the questions again. In theory you should be more confident that your answers are correct/incorrect.
As an example. Lets say you are working through math textbook1, the algebra chapter. You do all the algebra questions, however textbook1 does not contain the answers for the algebra chapter hence you are not as confident that you have the correct answers. What you should do is to find math textbook2 that contains a chapter on algebra with questions that contains answers. Work through the examples in textbook2 and confirm that your answers and methods you followed to obtain the answers are correct. Once you are confident you have a proper understanding of the work, doing the questions in textbook1 should be easier and you will be in a better position to know if your answers are correct.
Another alternative would be to use software to confirm that your answers are correct. E.g. math problem? use SAGE to confirm the answer. Bear in mind that the software may only provide an answer and not the method on how to get to the answer. But this can be used to your advantage in the scenario that your answer is incorrect, hence you could deduce that the you are not following the prescribed solution method correctly.

That is a reasonable approach. However, with these statistics problems, my mathematical ineptness is often not the primary problem. It is even knowing how to approach the problem or what the question really means, grasping the concepts.  It is a difficult topic to self-learn, that's why solutions would be such a relief. Solutions for the math are often easily found e.g. using software/the internet.

Ah, I understand where you are coming from. I chose mathematics as it was easiest to use as an example. As with learning anything new, it sounds as if you are going to have to give it the good ol' blood, sweat and tears. Perhaps emailing the book author or speaking to others who are knowledgeable on the matter. Approach a few people and clearly state your case by describing how you have interpreted the problem and explaining where your currrent dilema lies. Also make a note of all the options you have taken to solve/understand the problem.

I abandon and don't pick the book up if it does not have the answers, whether explicitly or implicitly earlier on in the text, unless the answers can be achieved through an internet search. Why? Because an important part of becoming an expert in something is having the confidence in the answers you give, and that can't be achieved if no one ever confirms your answers.
I also think that it makes learning less fun. You can get stuck and lose the drive to learn since you never understood those few questions in that book. It also wastes quite a lot of time which could be spent more wisely, or you may not even realise your mistake.
People often fail an exam due to stress which maybe partly is due to lack of confidence, rather than lack of knowledge. There is many books which would support a self-learner better than one intended for teachers who already have that confidence - at times wrongly held.

Pick some problems that you're most interested in and attempt to write up full solutions.
Perhaps you will feel 100% confident in your answer. If so, great, and move on.
Otherwise, you will get stuck. Either you won't know how to solve the problem, or you won't know how to verify that your solution is correct.
Try to answer these: meta-questions yourself: why can't you solve the problem? why can't you verify that the answer is correct yourself?. This process will probably involve re-reading the material that was supposed to prepare you to answer the question. It will often involve convincing yourself that you understand terms fully. If you are still stuck, ask for help in a constructive way. A great way to know if you are asking for help in a good way is if you can write a good question on a StackExchange site. If there is no one around to ask, you can literally ask on a StackExchange site.
This takes a while and you'll answer less questions, but it means that you will know something more important than whether or not you are right: you will know why you're right.

Find examples on the internet that do contain detailed solutions for the concept you're trying to understand.
This can be from pdf files of solutions posted online for a homework, other textbooks, forum posts or even youtube videos.

Some grad students/advanced undergrads tutor for spare money. I imagine it wouldn't cost too much to convince someone to grade your "homework" for you and provide suggestions. It would even be cheaper if you can find someone already TAing a relevant class. [This works better if you are physically near a university, but could potentially be done online. Just make sure to look for someone who is advertising - academics occasionally get "I want you to tutor my child" emails that are scams.]
This would add up over time, but at $10/hr or so, it might be cheaper than buying a more popular book with well-known solutions, and it would serve as an external reference point.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
Is a cybersecurity career rational goal?
I love cybersecurity. Linux is amazing, programming is enthralling, and I have not found much else in my life I enjoy, as well as, (well I suppose used to) believe I could make a career out of. While researching the best programming languages for cybsersecurity I came across some advice on Quora that said cybsecurity professionals should know basically every language.
Even more than that though. Evidently I was a bit indignant but it makes sense. To really be a competent cybsersecurity professional you have to know assembly, TCP/IP, a lot of other programming languages, the ins and outs of kali, and more. This simply seems unattainable. How could anyone understand this much about computers? Even the BA IT with a cybersecurity option at my college does not cover this much.
So, my question is a cybersecurity career rational for me? I'm still (a sophomore) studying basic/intermediate C++ with a absolute dearth of knowledge in Linux. I'm like a peon compared to other programmers on Github/StackExchange. I know everyone says go in the direction of your dreams but what if my dream is just not attainable? What if I just realized my passion too late? I've set myself up (with anthro, phil, and english) for a Policy/English/Business degree. Would I better off just going in that direction? I apologize if this question is too specific to me, if that's the case please just downvote and move on. I'm already down, I don't need anyone being superior or patronizing. No not thank you.

I know abusing the community is more cathartic, but the reason your question should be closed is that we simply can't tell you if a career is "right" or "rational" for you—that's a decision you have to make on your own. If you want to pursue it, then don't let some talking heads on an online forum stop you.

Let's start by quoting

"Nobody said that it would be easy, they just promised it would be
  worth it." -Harvey MacKay

You mentioned earlier you have to know everything and I don't think there is any human being who knows everything or every programming language according to your context. Learning is a slow and painful process but the fruit is so sweet you're going to forget the pain.
The thing is, nowadays the computing world is so vast that even in a specific area there are many places or position.
Go to the Offensive Security site https://www.offensive-security.com/about-us/ there you'll see that everybody in the team has a different role to play. Everyone with a unique skill set that's what a makes a team that's what makes a human being social, collaborative, working together to make the world a better place.
You don't need to know everything, I don't know where you're getting those ideas from but trust me all you need to know is you must be very good at what you know and can do. What you can do with what you know must be something that nobody can do except you. Tools are not what makes us capable of doing something great its if you know how to use the tools to its breaking point.
That was the intro lets get to the point:
Go to this link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_programming_languages
you will see a list of "Comparison of Programming Language" from there you will also learn every programming language has many similarities so if you know one very well, learning another will take only a little amount of time. Don't worry too much cause you will learn in the process.

Stop comparing yourself to others and just do the work.
If you want to do cybersecurity, study it. All those programmers on Github and SE didn't  bash script their way out of the womb, they got there by hard work. They likely have at least a bachelor's degree, and quite possibly higher degrees, not to mention many years of experience in multiple languages.
I'm not a computer scientist, so take this advice with a pinch of salt, but I think it's much more important to be able to write good code than it is to know as many programming languages as possible. Writing good code is hard; learning the syntax of a new language is easy (that's what Google and Stack Exchange are for).
So, if you enjoy programming that much, devote more time to it. Study code written by others and understand why it's so good. Write your own code and work hard to optimise it. Talk to your personal tutor/ academic advisor and see whether you can switch to the computer science course or take more programming modules. Think seriously about a Master's or PhD, or at least getting some research experience with someone working in cybersecurity. If it's what you want to do, get out there and make it happen.


text:
Is having your hand in your pocket during a presentation bad?
Someone I know has given a presentation at a American University.  He supposedly had his hand in his pocket while giving the presentation.  A foreign student attacked him for this.  The person supposedly said "how would you like it if I gave a presentation with my hand in my pocket."  At the end of the presentation, more people started ridiculing him
I am not sure if he was attacked for the content of the presentation, because unfortunately, I have heard this through the grapevine.
What is the proper way to give a presentation?  Did the students act appropriately?

My teachers used to ask: "Where do you want to travel to, because you already packed your hands?"

What is wrong with people? We should care about the content and clarity of the presentation, not the number of visible hands.

@CarlChristian Indeed. That should be the short version of my response!

Both behaviours were rude and bizarre. What is exactly the reason you are asking this question? I would certainly notice such a speaker, but I would be equally if not more surprised by a public comment on place, not to say a verbal attack

@CarlChristian The question is not what "we" "should" do, but why a particular situation occurred and how to avoid similar situations. Over-generalising the question sometimes makes it less meaningful.

When somebody considers this bad style, they should think about how you may be doing it, because you're insecure yourself and refrain from attacking you. But they should refrain from attacking you in any case. You should probably have asked them if they don't have any questions about the content of your presentation. Or just told him, that he is rude.

Aside from anything else, the answer to "how would you like it if I did the thing you are currently doing?" quite frequently is, "yeah, I think it's completely fine otherwise I wouldn't be doing it". Rhetorical questions only really work if you both agree on the answer.

@SteveJessop Yeah, I was wondering why they would ask that in this context.  It's like... why do you think they would care?  Did they expect them to say "I would be upset that your hand is in your pocket", because it seems like they would just answer "I wouldn't care" in this context.

Well, my guess is that the student believed and/or had been taught that it's extremely disrespectful to put your hand(s) in your pockets while speaking to someone, and so they thought they were berating the speaker for something the speaker already knows was wrong. Hopefully that student learned something about cultural relativity, or at least that good manners are not just "common sense". But I do agree with others the speaker probably could find something more productive to do with that hand, and with less potential to distract the audience. So hopefully they learned something too.

@SteveJessop It may have been because they find themselves too distracting when they let that hand move.  Obviously just playing devil's advocate; but if they were prone to very large distracting hand gestures, putting a hand in the pocket might be a really reasonable strategy for presentations.

This was completely inappropriate escalation for minutiae. The students and others contributing to the negative input were not typical. There are faux pas around poorly managed body language but never so much as to interrupt a presentation, let alone insult and attack said presenter.

If you want a short and binary answer, it is likely yes — keeping a hand in a pocket during the presentation is not the best habit, because:

You lose yourself a chance to use that hand for communicating with the audience via gestures.
Your body language and posture is more likely to be perceived as you can't be bothered with what you are doing.

Having said that, there may be examples of excellent use of almost anything which is normally not recommended in a presentation, if you plan for it and do it consciously. For example, if you ask your students the famous Bilbo's question: "What have I got in my pocket?" — and put your hand in your pocket, your gesture is playing nicely with your explicit voice communication to create an interesting and intriguing setting.
A binary answer to your second question is likely no — students acted inappropriately by interrupting the presenter and commenting on the presentation style, rather than topic of the presentation. Unless, of course, the whole aim of the exercise was to receive comments about the presentation skills and strategies. From your question, we cannot tell.

From a students perspective, I might add that a hand in your pocket is only one aspect in a range of behaviors that make a lecture look "not bothered". For some lectures or "presenters", a hand in the pocket could be equivalent to fiddling with the pointer, or any other habit some do when thinking hard.

Note that the interrupter was a foreign student but ethnicity not identified.  Hand in pocket means different things in different cultures or different circumstances.  A friend of mine was scolded in Russia for being so “rude” as to have his hand in pocket while standing in the back of a church.

I see Dmitry is in the UK, and I just want to back up that yes, in the US, a hand in the pocket is not a good look. It's not offensive, and I can't imagine an American getting as upset at it. But I would certainly notice, and if we were providing feedback on the presentation, I would mention it. I find the audience's reaction bizarre, and wonder if it's grown in the retelling.

US perspective here, but I've never heard of hand in your pocket as a sign of "can't be bothered;" it's more of a sign of being socially awkward and/or submissive. I think the students "attacking" the presenter for this demonstrates the power upset reflects the submissive part. I second @AzorAhai 's comment about the audience's reaction being bizarre...

@AzorAhai I completely second your thinking. But, indeed, in the UK, hand in pocket is a mannerism of the "upper classes"; so, under a stretch of imagination it can be considered as dismissive. Frankly, so can posh speech. Nonetheless, somebody clearly has too much time on their hands. Personally I think the heckler should have been put in place.

Agreed, it's equatable to slouching in an interview or wearing informal clothing, there is no written rule, but it just comes across as meaning that you can't be bothered. That said, the student should have had a quiet word with the professor to let him know this is how it came across, rather than publicly ridiculing him.

@CaptainEmacs: at the very least, it's characteristic of looser trousers than are really the norm in the UK at the moment! At least, I'm assuming here a kind of relaxed look, one arm hanging down with the hand essentially by the side but inside the pocket. If it was more of a teapot-arm, "trying to get my bus ticket out of my jeans with one finger" look, then maybe the presenter was showing fairly severe nervousness...

May I make a suggestion? Your bolded yes doesn't actually answer what the OP asked even if it does address the essence of the issue. This will cause people who are skimming to potentially assume Americans somehow have irrational hatred of people having hands in pockets while talking; ridiculous tripe which while obvious to Americans and those who have spent time in their country won't be for people like the confused and possibly disturbed OP. Emphasizing a part of your answer that addresses the actual question instead of the general issue would increase the quality of this answer.

@CaptainEmacs I disagree about the "mannerism of the upper classes" part. If anything I'd associate it with school children, particularly ones being told by the teacher "speak up, sit up straight, don't slouch" and all the other overly-strict clichés. I also somewhat disagree with the 'posh speech' part. People talk how they've been taught to talk - speaking in a 'posh' way is no more indicative of dismissiveness than speaking in a 'rough' way. I agree about the heckler though.

@Pharap That's why I said "under a stretch of imagination it can be considered as dismissive". I do not agree with it. Nonetheless, living in the UK, I have learned that there are quite subtle hints by which "dismissiveness" can be signalled here. And mannerisms such as hand in pockets are prototypical to certain upper-class contexts - not in isolation, of course, there is a whole cluster of body language linked to that, but some people just note the obvious one: "hands in pockets".

@CaptainEmacs This is the first I've heard of supposed 'upper class body language'. (I've lived in Britain all my life.)

@Pharap They say "the fish is the last to discover water". It was commented upon to me by a non-British person as an ultimate mannerism and, myself being an immigrant, once sensitised for that, I started noticing it as striking and hard to overlook. Anyway, Germans do not like to be reminded of the war, and British not about snooty mannerisms; fortunately, now jokes have shifted away to be more about towel-based seat reservation and parliament-based Brexiteering.

Hand in pocket can mean a number of disparate things, depending:

I am a cool person;
I do not care/I am better than you;
I do not know where to put my hand and am embarrassed letting it hang around (check out Merkel's famous Hand Triangle as an alternative strategy).

Depending on presenter type and assuming it's not 2., it is perfectly fine to put the hand into the pocket. I have never seen anything berated for this, and in my opinion the foreign student was totally out of line. I thus assume the presenter belongs to group 3, because if they were 1, i.e. the cool guy, they would have found the words to put the heckler in their spot; and if 2, being heckled would not have bothered them in the least (I assume via the question that they were bothered).
Maybe it's a cultural thing, but the heckler was the foreign person and thus should have been doubly careful to berate someone on unfamiliar turf.
That being said, hand in pocket may come across as haughty or snobbish, and is thus not usually recommended in presentations, unless one is really sure that it sends the right relaxed and comfortable attitude (aiming to induce similar relaxed attitude in the listeners).

There's also 4. "I've injured my hand/arm/shoulder and rest it this way - and that is  none of your [audience] business." and 5. "I'm freezing cold and try to keep at least one hand warm" (though in that case moving around would probably help more)

In regards to #3, I find putting one's hand behind one's back can work.

I have to respectfully disagree in part. With some narrow exceptions, I think having your hands in your pockets during a presentations comes across rather badly and would strongly advise people giving presentations against doing it.  With that said, I also cannot fathom calling someone out on it publicly unless there was an actual solicitation for public feedback on style.

@TimothyAWiseman Richard Feynman, one of the best and most charismatic scientific speakers who we have a recording of quite regularly puts a hand in his pocket, e.g.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM-zWTU7X-k It doesn't come across as bad or unnatural.

@CaptainEmacs I'm well aware of Feynman's presentations. He was magnificent, but he essentially overcame that flaw in his presentation. Just because he can do it and still have a good presentation doesn't mean that it is generally a good idea or even that it was a good idea for him.

@TimothyAWiseman I cannot follow at all where your judgement comes from, as I do not feel it disrupts his presentation in the least. I know other (great!) speakers who do that, and it is part of their presentation personality. The discussion appears to me to be one of matter of taste and style. Let's agree to disagree.

This may be a cultural thing. But not something I've heard of.
I've been told that in Europe (or parts), at the table you keep both hands above the table. In the US, you keep the left (non primary) hand below the table. I doubt that these old "rules" are widely observed most places, but they might be in some. My mother would have slapped my hand if I tried to use my left hand with a fork to bring something to my mouth. You could hold the fork in the left if you were cutting with a knife, but then had to put down the knife and switch the fork to the right hand. Everyone in England is now laughing.
Yes, the reason for keeping both hands above the table is that putting one below can be considered rude. People wonder what you are doing with that hand, anyway. I leave it to your imagination. Maybe the same imagination has led to the situation described by the OP.
But if you know about cultural taboos, you can observe them, or suffer ridicule or worse. Give presentations naturally, of course, and put the audience at ease.

I think that the fact that the university is in US is likely not relevant. We have students from all over the world, and often they cluster in some classes. For example, I've had classes of about 30 where ten or so were from parts of the former USSR. They grew up with different cultural norms, as did many of the other students.

Haha, but there were no tables involved from what I know.

Quite! My Mom would have slapped me from keeping the fork in my right hand. The difference being that the knife I use (with my right hand) is not a steak knife but a tool with a bit less cutting power, expected to slice through a potato, a meatball, a slice of pizza or whatnot.

I'm not sure which alarms me more: that people would leap to such conclusions, or that such leaps might not be unmotivated.

@JyrkiLahtonen Cutting a potato with a knife?! My mom would faint if she read this!

Having both arms on the table makes it easier to sit up straight. On a european table you don't cut your food once but you cut as much as you eat at once. You need both hands/tools all the time - except to eat soup, maybe.

Downvoted by accident.  Sorry.  I should take my hand out of my pocket when trying to use the mouse!

@WalterMitty, I've heard of "pocket dialing" but "pocket mousing" is a first.

@sgf: the UK is more or less out of the era in which we thought that if a potato requires a knife to cut it then it needs another hour in boiling water ;-) But, during that era as now, the way it's done is to use the knife to cut pretty much anything that needs separating, one mouthful at a time, regardless of whether a knife is massive overkill for the job.

I've known people who use a knife in their right and a fork in their left and others who do the opposite within the same family, let alone the same culture, so I for one think anyone trying to argue for one or the other being superior is being Lilliputian.

Just be yourself
The most important thing is to appear clear and confident in what you’re saying. Things like “hands in pocket” are general rules, but not definitive. You’ll be more effective if you stick to your own style and comfort. Some speakers are “understated” and “hands in pocket” might look humble and work with that. Others are more animated.
I would do a dry run with colleagues and ask them what they think on your speaking style. Then keep practicing if there’s anything you want to edit out (like “umms” or hand in pocket). But be gentle here as you really just want to be your best self.

Sorry, but “just be yourself” is terrible advice in the context of giving presentations. Giving a good presentation involves many subtle and not always intuitive nuances of behavior, body language, posture, intonation and lots of other things. Those things come naturally to some people and don’t come naturally to a lot of other people, who therefore need to actively try to not “be themselves” in order to improve their presenting skills.

"Just be yourself" is terrible advice in almost any social situation, not just presentations. It assumes that "yourself" in the natural state of being is the best possible fit for the situation. It rarely is.

@Hugo: well, it at least assumes that "yourself" is adequate.

Guys, have you read the rest of the answer from the second sentence on? Playng somebody you are not is worse advice. Do a dry runs, ask more expirienced ones for advices, practice on removing bad habits. It is "Find what is good and incorporate it into you" advice to me. Be the best yourself you can be.

@HugoZink It is terrible advise if taken too literally, but great advise if taken with a pinch of salt. The opposite of 'beiing yourself' means 'trying to act', and actor which didnt have 3 years of full time acting training are even worse to watch. What one shd do is to gently improve beeing oneself.

For me, "Be yourself" and "Just be yourself" sound very different, with the latter sounding very much like "Don't be bothered".

It is likely context or culture specific, but I have given presentations with my left hand at least partway in my pocket (thumb outside) while using a laser pointer/clicker in my right. There is a delicate balance between coming across as confident/relaxed and coming off as not being serious/professional enough. Heckling a speaker is never a good thing (unless the speaker really deserves it for the content of their presentation in extenuating circumstances, but certainly not within an academic context).

Having a hand in your pocket during a presentation is in no way a bad thing.
Being disengaged, unfocused, and showing a complete lack of interest in your presentation or your audience is a bad thing if you're trying to give a presentation. And while having your hand in your pocket may add to the image of that, your hand in a pocket isn't a bad thing in and of itself.
However what is actually a bad thing in this case is the willingness for the wider academic community to be so eager to jump on a bandwagon of declaring having one's hand in a pocket as a bad thing, because it is a disgustingly ableist point of view over something that doesn't actually have a direct impact on someone's presentation.

For context, I have a shoulder injury that will result in a great deal of pain by the end of the day if I leave my arm/shoulder relaxed and let all the weight of my arm bare on my shoulder. As such I actively try to keep my hand in my pocket or resting on a table or desk as much as possible.
By highlighting the idea of having one's hand in a pocket while giving a presentation as being a bad thing, you are effectively saying that you care far more about an extremely non-issue thing for your own engagement with a presentation than you do about my physical comfort...

I also know several professionals and academics who use stress balls or holding something hidden in a pocket for various coping mechanisms that allow them to even give a presentation.
By allowing the negative viewpoints on having a hand in one's pocket to persist, you are saying you care more about yourself than their being able to actually give you their presentation...

In short, anyone insisting that having a hand in one's pocket is a bad thing in and of itself isn't helping the world improve the quality of academic presentations, but rather they are helping build additional barriers to presentations being given.

A few teachers for presentation skills told me (I live in Germany) that a hand in your pockets is not generally a bad thing. It shows you are relaxed and laid-back. Usually that's good, but I would think in more formal presentations (e. g. for potential customers) it could seem unprofessional.
It is a problem when your hand is stuck inside your pockets and you don't get it out every now and then to use it for some gestures or when your hand is 'restless', making a fist and relax your hand again in your pocket.

It is like a spice. A tiny bit of chili makes the meal taste different, but try to make meal from chili peppers only.

Adding to Dmitry's answer and reflecting on the presentations I've seen, putting a hand in a pocket as a gesture can be an appropriate technique, keeping a hand in a pocket comes across as disinterested in the subject and disinterested in the audience. For me, a person who kept their hand in their pocket during a presentation would undermine whatever content they were trying to present. I see responses saying 'we should only care about the content' but in my experience the content and the way the content is conveyed are inextricably linked. And the 'clarity' of a presentation is subjective and must take into consideration the response of the audience.
As far as the response. University, as far as I am aware, is a place where learning happens. And in my opinion when it comes to presenting, everyone is a student. Presenting is something that doesn't come naturally to many people, and the university environment should be a safe place to hone the craft. "Ridiculing" a presenter isn't useful for the same reason that ridiculing someone for getting a question wrong on a quiz isn't useful. However - at the same time and for the same purpose - the presenter should be open to receiving feedback about their presentation style. If I am right that everyone is a student of presenting, peer review is best type of learning. Even if the feedback is mostly critical and delivered poorly, there may well be gems of advice that if implemented could take your presentations to the next level. Ignoring all negative feedback isn't useful for the same reason ignoring quiz questions marked as incorrect isn't useful. Nobody is a perfect presenter, and the best presenters will be the ones who don't take criticism as a personal identity attack but as a chance to improve.
The best advice I can give an academic presenter is that the best presentations I've heard are where the speaker served the audience rather than expecting the audience to serve them. Ask someone to record your presentation with video and sound, and with many cringes watch it - it forces you to be a member of your audience. Watch presenters you find engaging and think about the verbal and body cues they use. And especially in the university context, ask for positive and negative feedback often, try new things and don't be afraid to fail.
In short, at least in the academic environment (but probably in general), all feedback should be given with grace and respect, and all feedback should be received with grace and respect.

"Ignoring all negative feedback isn't useful for the same reason ignoring quiz questions marked as incorrect isn't useful" - indeed. But equally, I found that people get upset when their criticism isn't taken. People criticise for many reasons, and more often than not, not to help the criticised person. Listen to criticism, but reserve your right to select which to follow.

@CaptainEmacs I totally agree. I was going to add that giving feedback follows the same principle as presenting, that it's something we need to learn how to do, that it's something we need feedback on. We need feedback for our feedback. But I felt it was starting to get recursive and I'd waffled on enough :)

And we need to remember to give positive feedback too! If we want our feedback heard maybe say something that the presenter can reinforce rather than just stuff they "should" change.

Having hand in a pocket is a part of body language. Smile, joke, walk, rhetorical question, silence,... This all are tools used in presentations.
If one use them willingly and well, there is no objection to using them. If one use them too much, the presentation is disballanced and it undermines the overall performance.

Was it the proper way to give a presentation? Hard to say, but probably yes. The presenter did it for a reason.
Was the response to the presentation appropriate? No. The presentation style should be the last argument when attacking the presenter, starting from the major flaws. Usually it is the first trigger to carefully look for flaws.

"The presenter did it for a reason." - Yes, but it may not be a good reason. I have seen a lot of people who are not used to talks doing things like not looking at the audience, having hands in pockets, standing directly in front of the blackboard and thus making the contents unreadable etc. Their reasons are that they are not yet comfortable in giving talks. And I think one should definitely point out those issues - even more so since the other students can profit more from this than from specific flaws about the contents. Ridiculing is wrong, of course.

@user114568 I don't say it was a good reason either. It may be, may be not. Doug T. gave a really good advice how to cope with a bad habbit and when to criticize them. Conference stage is not the place to give any "lecture on presenting". The conference dinner, coffee break etc. are times to discuss those issues politely.

Iff you care about making a good presentation, it's crucial to NEVER put your hands in your pockets during presentations. It's also crucial to EMPTY YOUR POCKETS before delivering a presentation.
It communicates low-confidence, low social status, and low effort/energy/caring for the topic and audience!
Why empty your pockets before delivering a presentation? Because so many presentations are ruined by hands going into pockets, jingling keys, jingling change, cell phones going off, etc. Items in pockets will become distractions, and you don't want to be distracted (again iff you care about making a good presentation).
Default hand position during a presentation should be arms at side with elbows bent 90 degrees, hands outstretched. To communicate friendliness, warmth, enthusiasm, and confidence, use expansive gestures by going wider from the default hand position and making overhead gestures occasionally, smile, tilt your head, and don't be stiff or robotic. A relaxed but upright posture. NEVER cross your arms, put them in your pockets, put them behind your back, cover your crotch (the Adam and Eve pose). Don't point with a finger, point with a hand. Use palms-up (assertive/submissive/friendly) gestures whenever possible, and avoid palms-down (dominant/unfriendly). Sometimes, you can emphasize or punctuate a critical point with a dominant body language, and it shows tremendous confidence. But don't overdo it, or you seem unfriendly.
Watch good presenters and politicians. You will notice they never put their hands in their pockets while speaking/presenting. Maybe they pull something out of a pocket dramatically to demonstrate something. They never have anything in their pockets for their fingers to wander off and jingle.
I abstain from comment on what you heard "through the grapevine", and you shouldn't care about gossip and rumors, either.

Your answer is full of sweeping generalizations and psuedoscience. Johnny Carson put his hands in his pockets all the time. Example: https://youtu.be/c7fCJb8LhVI?t=67 . Also, are you aware that "iff" is used in logic to mean "if and only if"?

How in the world does putting your hand in your pocket communicate "low social status"???

@Acccumulation Yeah, David Letterman and Stephen Colbert also put a hand in the pocket during similar part of their LNS. It's to make host seem more casual and simulate a 1 on 1. Yes, I know wtf iff means. There are generalizations. There's no pseudoscience. Note that no LNS host jingles keys or feels a phone in their empty pockets during those segments.

@aquirdturtle Notice in the youtube link above the host keeps removing his hands from his pockets to do expansive gestures as I described. If a host just kept their hands in their pockets and didn't gesture or use over-the-top facial expressions, it'd get weird, fast. High-status people 1. don't care what other people think, and 2. aren't afraid to express their emotions openly. Keeping hands out of pockets shows emotions more openly, but also shows that the communicator doesn't care what others think of their emotions, and isn't trying to hide actions or emotions by hiding their hands.

@aquirdturtle It's low-status to conceal or avoid expressing your emotional state to other people because you're worried about what they think, which hoodies, hands-in-pockets, and contracted body language do. Of course it's possible to wear a hoodie or put a hand in a pocket without concealing your emotional state, as the Johnny Carson clip or most any clip of a LNS host in similar segment demonstrate. For nearly every academic reading this, they're better off just unstifling themselves by keeping hands out of pockets, not hiding behind lecterns, and using expansive gestures.

"Yes, I know wtf iff means." So the only situation in which it would be crucial to not put your hands in your pocket is if you want to make a good presentation?

Iff you care about making a good presentation