text:
Is it legal to upload preprint on ResearchGate?
I have few papers already published in certain journals which cannot be uploaded on ResearchGate due to copyright issues, now is it legal to upload my own version of the paper formatted in LaTeX or in other words the manuscript I sent for publication that was not typeset for journal publication?

"my own typset paper" is often referred to as a preprint.

I have changed the title accordingly.

As one of the other answers says, typesetting is completely irrelevant--the question is whether or not you are authorized to upload the content.
The RoMEO website has documentation on the precise legal authorizations of every major journal publisher, and of an extensive list of journals. You can consult it to quickly confirm what exactly the journals you've published in authorize you to do.
Their information is not always 100% accurate, but it's above 95% accurate. I've sent them corrections and they are quite conscientious to update their information, and they usually have direct links to the publishers' copyright statements so that you can verify what they say.
I will note though, that a very large amount of the time, it is not authorized to upload to general repositories like ResearchGate, Academia.edu, SSRN or arXiv (depending on the journal). If you want a safe place to load your articles, the most commonly authorized places are your personal website or your institution's open access repository.

Excellent answer that can be used by anyone in every field

In general, the typesetting is irrelevant, as far as copyright law is concerned; the law protects the content, not just the specific file.  If posting an exact copy would infringe copyright, then posting a re-typeset copy would also.  If the publisher owns the copyright, then you need their permission to upload anything that contains any significant amount of the paper's content (barring fair use exceptions, etc).
Some copyright agreements contain terms saying that they only cover the journal's typeset version, giving the author permission to self-archive their own version.  But if yours said that, you would know.
For a more certain answer, consult an intellectual property lawyer in your jurisdiction.

In some jurisdictions (Germany I think, hopefully France soon), if your research is funded by public money, it may be legal to upload your work to a repository even if you signed a copyright transfer agreement which prohibits it. So acceptable law should be also taken into account to determine whether the publisher's copyright agreement is applicable or not.

No, the typesetting isn't necessarily irrelevant. Many journals allow preprints to be posted online, but not the final PDF produced by the journal.

@semi-extrinsic: Right, that was the point of my second paragraph.  I've tried to clarify.

@a3nm: Could you provide a pointer to relevant German laws, please? I'm asking because my own impression (as a possibly ill-informed German) is that in Germany, fees are usually charged for all kinds of resources created with public money. (Having free access to such resources (comparable to, say, the U.S. Freedom of Information Act) is not exactly the same as having the right to upload such resources to public repositories, but certainly related.)

@O.R.Mapper: I think it's this https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/urhg/__38.html but my German is very rusty so I can't promise that this is applicable or that it says what I think it says.

@a3nm: Oh, interesting - indeed, (4) sounds similar to what you described, although it probably excludes book chapters, it only refers to the accepted manuscript, and it is only valid 12 months after the first publication and only for non-commercial purposes.

@O.R.Mapper: Yeah, I'm not surprised that there are such restrictions in place. My point was mostly to illustrate that sometimes it is legal to do things that are prohibited by the copyright agreement that you signed, because parts of that agreement may not be applicable given the law of your jurisdiction.

@a3nm: True, the last sentence of (4) in the link even explicitly says: "Any agreement that changes these rules to the effect of being disadvantageous for the author is (automatically) invalid."


text:
How to convince the faculty search committee to select/short list me at a place where my research interests are already actively being pursued at?
I am applying for a faculty position and thereby requires me to submit my research interests. The department I am applying already have two professors that have similar research interests to mine. The research topics demand a lot of collaboration and effort and people working in that area would know that an additional faculty could complement the work being done there. But for the faculty search committee not well-versed in the area, it may appear that an additional faculty is not necessary to do research in that area.
How can I tweak my research statement to convince the faculty search committee to short list me for interview? Any suggestions or advice.

"The research topics are extremely complicated" -- as are all research topics. Otherwise the problems would have been solved long ago and it would no longer be research. You would probably do well to not think of your area as more complicated than those of other researchers.

No offence intended, I didn't mean that. You are right all areas are complicated. I will change the wording.

Be the best candidate?

That is essentially not something you can do. Whether or not a department wants an additional faculty member in an area is something the department needs to figure out. As I mention, "The research topics are extremely complicated" is something that every researcher can and will (correctly!) say about their own research area, and having another colleague in their area will help them as well. As a consequence, if you claim that hiring you will be good for the research group then that will likely not have much of an effect -- the search committee members will know that this is true for a hire in any area already represented in the department.
In practice, figuring out in which areas a department wants to hire is often a difficult and contentious process. Everyone wants more faculty in their own area. An outsider will not generally have a voice in this process, and so you trying to convince them of something that they need to figure out themselves seems to me like a futile thing. Focus on making your application look good by having lots of publications in good journals, writing proposals and getting them funded, etc. What you can do is point out that your research would have natural connections to researchers already in the department, and who this is.

I would also say that if you know the other two faculty you can give them a heads up that you are applying.

Indeed. That's always a good idea.

This answer seems to be more devoted to attacking the question than answering it. Granted the OP phrased the question as a specific case ("how do I guarantee I get this job"), which is indeed pretty hopeless. But it can be viewed more generally as asking for suggestions on improving the odds with departments like this in a numbers game. In which case there is probably a lot of good advice that can be given.

@ASimpleAlgorithm Sometimes challenging the premise of a question is the best answer that can be given; in this case, this answer opines that the best advice is that the OP is focused on the wrong issue and they will be best helped in the numbers game by recognizing that.

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text:
How to email Faculty Search Committee for seminar without implying to hurry on my application?
I had recently applied to several prestigious institutes in India. Just to explain the recruitment process in these institutes a Faculty Search Committee goes through your application that comprises of CV, teaching statement, research statement, list of publications, etc. Based on your academic credentials they invite you for faculty interview/seminar.
If the candidates are abroad you could inform the Faculty Search Committee you are in India for vacation and usually they invite you for an interview/seminar before finalizing the application.
Now, I will be going to vacation and I need to email the Faculty Search Committee that I would be available during a certain period. I need to compose the email such that I do not imply in speeding up the application. This is what I had in mind:

Dear Faculty Search Committee,
I had applied for a faculty position in the Department of XYZ on
  D1-M1-YY. Please do not consider this email to speed up my application,
  but for your information I will be in India from D2-M2-YY to D3-M3-YY.
  During this period I would be happy to give a seminar at ABC.
Looking forward to hear from you.
Regards,
PQR

Please let me know if this email would affect negatively and how can I improve the same for a better email communication.

Why are you writing this email? Why do they need "this information" if you don't want them to interview you while you are already in India?

The way I read it, PQR does want to be interviewed while they are in India, but does not want to make a negative impression by trying to accelerate the committee's process.

@xLeitix In most cases the candidate is abroad doing a postdoc or PhD. There are proviisons to conduct the seminar bypassing some steps. That is to stay if there are couple of steps involved prior to your faculty seminar in a normal case. In special circumstances you can give the seminar before those steps are complete.

@cag51 Adding to my previous comment. The candidates usually conduct the seminar via Skype, but if you happen to be in India at any time during the application process  you can inform them that you are in India and would be happy to give a seminar. But should my email convey that I am not hastening the application process. I somehow want the email to imply this, any better ways of doing this?

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text:
What niche is PRResearch supposed to fill that the other APS journals don’t already cover?
I read the description of the new journal PRResearch on the APS website, but I am still confused.
APS publishes specialized journals, including PRA/B/C/D/E, for each major branch of physics, and journals with a broader scope and large impact, such as PRL and PRX.
My main question is:
How is PRResearch standing in comparison with the specialized and lower impact PRA/B/C/D/E and the broader and higher impact PRL and PRX?
What niche is it supposed to fill?
On one hand, PRResearch is multidisciplinary as PRL/PRX, and both PRResearch and PRX are full open access with publication charges, whereas the other APS journals are not full open access but only have open access options.
On the other hand, as it is written on their website:

The acceptance criteria for PRResearch are aligned with those of other long-established journals in the family, such as Physical Review A, B, C, D, and E.

They probably want to get those papers funded by grants that mandate Open Access publication. For my funding agencies, arXiv deposition (which is compatible with APS journals) is enough, but I guess some agencies demand the final version to be Open Access too.

Hasn't the second half of your question already been discussed here, in your very own question: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/155005/advantages-or-disadvantages-of-submitting-to-the-new-aps-open-access-prresearch  I suggest you remove that part.

@Miguel You can have this with PR[A-E] as well.

@user151413 PR[A-E] are not compatible with Plan S https://www.coalition-s.org/addendum-to-the-coalition-s-guidance-on-the-implementation-of-plan-s/principles-and-implementation/

@AnonymousPhysicist They also don't end with an R, but neither is something Miguel mentioned.

@user151413 I'm sure Plan S was what Miguel intended to refer to with the word "mandate."

What is the reason of this edit? Why asking about the IF is not allowed??

@sintetico: Because, as already explained, we cannot and do not want to predict impact factor. Such a question has many of the problems of shopping questions in particular that there is no objective answer and that this site is not suitable as a database (in lack of a better term) for such information.

@Wrzlprmft Physicist are used to make predictions, all the time. Why one would not want to predict the IF? Is it not politically correct? It is not a shopping question, I am asking for an educated guess. If you think this question goes against the website rules, please explain in details.

@sintetico: Asking to predict or even state current IF is a shopping question as per the current definition as it asks to assess an individual journal. It does not matter whether you ask for an educated guess or even something objectively measurable (such as current IF) here. If you want to debate this further, please take it to [meta].

what is the definition of shopping question? Maybe you have your own personal subjective definition of shopping question?? asking about a prediction about a measurable quantity is not a shopping question!

@sintetico: It is defined in this FAQ. And yes, this is primarily authored by me, but its purpose is to reflect the current community consensus as a status quo on which to base discussions as well as provide a FAQ. If you disagree with that, you have to suggest something else on [meta] and it has to get accepted by the community as reflected by votes.

@AnonymousPhysicist Which funding agencies mandate "Plan S"?

@user151413 https://www.coalition-s.org/funders/

@sintetico Some questions about measurable things are shopping questions.

@AnonymousPhysicist Yes, I had seen that, and I am not convinced: It says "endorse" it. That's doesn't mean "enforce". For instance, the EU is listed, but AFAIK they only insist on green open access, rather different from plan S and not requiring a pure open access journal.  I'd like to see an organization which right now actually enforces publishing in pure OA journals only.  Or are you saying this is going to come and that's why there is PRR?  (This is certainly not what Miguel said.)

One year later, the rules haven’t changed and the above instructions still stand: If you want to dispute these rules, take it to [meta].

APS clearly intends for Physical Review Research to be less selective than PRL/PRX, as they elucidated in two volume 1 editorials:
M. Thoennessen: "Editorial: Introducing Physical Review Research"

We are launching Physical Review Research to achieve three main objectives: (1) to cover the entire range of topics in physics and related fields, including interdisciplinary and newly emerging areas of research, (2) to offer an attractive option for all authors who prefer or are required to publish in fully open access journals, and (3) to align its quality standards and selection criteria with those of the other long-established topical journals in the family, such as Physical Review A–E, Physical Review Applied, Physical Review Fluids, and Physical Review Materials.

R. D'Souza, J.-W. Pan, N. Spaldin, and J. J. Liétor-Santos: "Editorial: Our vision for Physical Review Research" in volume 1:

Within the Physical Review family, Physical Review X provides an open access journal showcasing the most selective papers in pure, applied and interdisciplinary physics. Now, Physical Review Research will complement this title by providing a fully open access title with rigorous peer-review standards and with the same acceptance criteria as Physical Review A through E, Physical Review Applied, Physical Review Fluids, and Physical Review Materials. Our goal is to establish a publication that offers the same experience and quality that we value and trust, while increasing authors’ choice within the Physical Review portfolio. As such, we welcome authors of quality manuscripts not accepted by Physical Review X or Physical Review Letters to seamlessly transfer their work to be considered for publication in Physical Review Research.

Hence I would expect its initial impact factor (expected to arrive in June 2021) to be more aligned with the specialized journals, than with the flagships. But as you've already heard it is hard to tell exactly where it will end up.


text:
Are there examples of more efficient funding systems than grant applications?
Applying for research grants costs a lot of time and energy. Which would still be acceptable, if the success rates wouldn't be so depressingly low. Currently, it appears to be an incredible waste of time and energy of some of the most gifted people in our society.
So are there examples of systems, either currently in use, or in the past, that are more efficient (any country)? And how do/did they work?
Related question, but not the same:
How economically efficient is the grant system?

I'll post this as a comment because I can't find the proper links for other countries other than the US: http://www.fedspending.org. The big issue with grants is that the US doesn't fund grants at the same rate as other countries. The US funds more defense and military spending than education. (while not all research grants are 100% US Federally funded). With the low amount of money that can go out to researchers there's less people that can get access to it making it harder and harder for people to obtain research grants will less and less funding.

I'm not convinced that the inefficiency you describe has much to do with the grant system itself, but rather certain implementations of it.  My impression is that some areas have extraordinary competition, with seemingly random decisions.  However, most do not.  The success rate for NSF proposals overall is about 25%, and work put into rejected proposals is often recycled for the next proposal, so the average amount of work done per successful proposal is not incredibly high.  (I'm not convinced it's problematic if the community as a whole writes several proposals for each funded grant.)

Of course. Remember that in many countries, institutions get a lot of money based on solely being. As an example, in the Czech Republic, the Czech Academy of Sciences receives a lot of budget money for its operation, and some of the money is of course used "for research". Just as an example, until recently, almost all employment expenses (salaries, offices, building maintainance, etc.) was covered exclusively by budget money. Similar model exists in other countries, for instance in France with CNRS, but the difference is that most CNRS people are associated to particular universities, just without teaching duties.
It works well because you moreorless know what you get. Financial stability helps in establishing long-lasting projects etc. Of couse, some level of control is necessary so that good people get the money. In the Czech system, this is based on (AFAIK 5-year) audits which evaluate each person separately, and then whole departments, working groups and institutions.

Also, a lot of research money is distributed according to past research results entered  in a register called RIV. The points for publications are counted using impact factors of journals and similar criteria and the money from the government is split between the institutions (and even inside them) according to these points.

@VladimirF Yeah, that's sad but true...

First, the premise is a bit wrong, because applying for grants does generally involve a good deal of valuable work: careful review of what is known, careful consideration of what can be done, etc..  But that there is too much of that is probably true.
For alternatives, one can look to a variety of historical and current examples of low-effort funding within a particular institution.
Perhaps the classic example is Bell Labs.  With a gargantuan research budget paid for out of Ma Bell's monopolistic phone rates, Bell Labs could assign resources to individual investigators with a minimum of fuss.  The system there was relatively hierarchical, with people in higher tiers responsible for the scientific quality, and to a lesser extent the budgets, of those in lower tiers.
Another classic and current example is the U.K. Medical Research Council's Labs for Molecular Biology (MRC/LMB).  Researchers at the MRC/LMB have to spend only a minimum of time justifying their budgets, and a maximum of time producing high-quality science that justifies their continued position at the MRC/LMB.
A new example is the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Janelia Research Campus.  Lab heads at HHMI/Janelia have to do little more than specify the budget that they wish and justify that any large expenditures are likely to yield equally large rewards.  There are reviews every few years to ensure that researchers continue to do high-quality science.
These examples are not at all exclusive.  Researchers in many industry positions need spend relatively little effort on grants.  Likewise for various other research institutes (though many allow researchers to spend their time trying to get additional grants, if they wish).
So, in brief, the alternate model is: pick people, not projects, and trust that the best people will, on average, do the best work.  Have some sort of periodic review process to ensure that the best work is, in fact, being done.
Note that this is not necessarily any more kind to people who are having trouble with their current line of research.  In fact, it can be even harder--there is little mechanism other than having a high-productivity line of research that will keep one from being kicked out to make room for someone judged "better".  But this possible disadvantage may be worth the advantage in letting so many people with so much talent spend more of their time directly using it.

Grants may come from federal agencies, charitable and profitable organisations (e.g. B&M Gates Foundation, IBM), or universities (whole U, college, department). There can also be short-term research-funding entitlements, such as an annual amount for junior faculty, or a one-time gift again usually to junior faculty. One might, exceptionally, negotiate a permanent research fund as part of a job offer or gain such a perk as a consequence of recognition as an endowed chair or Excellent Professor. The latter types of gifts tend to be kind of on the nominal side. Generally speaking, though, there is no system of research funding that provides adequate funds and does not require writing a proposal which is evaluated for quality. There are, in addition, features of federal funding agencies in the US that makes grant-writing a particularly loathsome task.

If you're not familiar with it, you should take a look at the "Research Excellence Framework" in the UK.  This is a system of annual evaluations of academic departments that is used as part of the system of awarding research funding.

It's 5-yearly, not annual. I'm not sure it can be said to be very efficient either.

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authors: Vladimir F Героям слава


text:
Submit a new version of my paper if my supervisor only commented on an old, very different version?
As a PhD student, I face the requirement to publish at least one of my papers at one conference from a defined list of conference. In late November, I submitted a "draft version" of my work to my first and second supervisor.
In mid-December, I received feedback from the second supervisor. The feedback I received affected mostly writing style, making it appear more like a concise journal article instead of a book chapter suitable as part of a final PhD thesis, etc.
Since the holidays, I worked on my paper substantially, implementing ideas and criticism from befriended PhD candidates as well, and could send a new, final version to my supervisors Friday. My fist supervisor now explicitly told me that he read the first version of my paper, and now he wants to give me feedback, most of which he believes may have been included in the second supervisor's feedback and hence addressed in my new version.
However, he cannot give me feedback before Wednesday due to time constraints on his part, not even a phone call. Instead, he stressed that the first paper is not ready for submission.
I am now facing the problem that the submission deadline for the journal is on Tuesday. Hence, I must choose between

skipping the deadline and not submit anything,

which would be undesirable. Although there is nothing preventing me from choosing a later conference, the message this would send to my environment (and myself) about my work standards, communication flow and time planning would be demoralizing.

submit the renewed version anyway,

without my first supervisor having approved of it (the second supervisor promised to still give feedback in time). I submitted the draft, with two months left to the deadline, to identify problems with the general direction, and I knew it was not ready for submission. The fact that the differences between the draft and the current, polished version are very large now tells me that the current version may be very well suitable for publication, even in his eyes, if he read it.
Essentially, my possible errors here are:

submitting a paper that, even in the second version, is bad.
not submitting a paper that would have been perfectly fine.

Regarding the first error, how strong is the effect of having been rejected from one journal or conference, as to not being allowed to submit to other conferences work that was already submitted once before? The research field is the intersection between management and corporate finance.
Is there an effect on my, or my supervisor's, or my university's, reputation from submitted a (potentially still by far sub-par) paper--after all, this should be anonymous?
Furthermore, there could be a negative effect of my supervisor feeling undervalued if I meet him Wednesday for feedback on a paper (although not the same paper) that I submitted the previous night. However, my supervisor is quite pragmatic, and I am sole author of this paper, so I am convinced he would understand my reasoning--but also the possible negative effects I mentioned above.
Regarding the second error, I would lose time, the opportunity of valuable feedback, and disappoint my research group, as this conference was defined as my submission target past summer already; all this over underestimating a possibly quite nice paper.
Edit:
I saw this question, and want to stress that I honestly believe that my paper is not incomplete, and could be published (but then again, I am just a PhD student in my second year).

Not answer, just a tip for preventing such an issue in the future. When you send draft version of papers, also set a deadline for them. The smooth way is to plan a meeting (best with both supervisors). This doesn't have to be far away, as a PhD student you should not need to wait two months for feedback. Of course do not set the meeting single handedly, just ask them when they have time and can have read it.

Depending on how your supervisors work, it may be OK if you send it off if the second supervisor comments on the revised draft in time. But this is VERY much dependent on how your supervisors/your department works. - e.g. in my case, I could rely mainly on 1 supervisor out of 3 and it was his comments that were really important.

If you do submit the paper, you may be able to mitigate negative reaction from supervisor 1 by emphasizing your wish to hear his feedback to help your future writing, as well as the conference deadline.

Are both of your supervisors also coauthors on the paper? If so, it is unethical to submit it without both of their permission.

Is the extended deadline already announced?

Patricia, no they are not, I am the sole author.

Ask your second supervisor to talk to your first supervisor about it -- they may be able to agree between themselves that the feedback from your second supervisor alone is enough, given the time constraints.

this has proven as a very successful and disarming solution. Thank you!

If you are confident you have addressed all comments by the second advisor, and your PhD colleage students's criticisms, and you are confident it is now OK, send it off. You should get feedback from the referees for the conference too, and integrate your first advisor's comments in that round (or at the very least point any out major changes when presenting the talk).

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text:
How to describe teaching experience on an Industry Resume
Does anyone have any advice for how to describe teaching experience on an industry resume?
Based on this question we all think it is valuable, but how would you frame it if you were applying to a job with a consulting firm, or as a writer/editor for a think tank? (Or anything else)

Academics do a poor job of appropriately accounting for their time as teachers in a way that industry will understand. The point of industry resumes is to emphasize what you've done meaning the skills you bring to the table. CVs do not have the same intent, serving more like a 'Table of Contents' for your career. The assumption with a CV is that people will then go to your scholarly writings and read them, but you need to present as much as possible in that 1-2 pages of a resume, and know that they are not going to read more than that.
You want to:

play up numbers or other quantifiable achievements as much as possible. The more concrete the better.
explain how what you have done has created outcomes.
use terms that are accessible to an audience that may not be familiar with your field.
bridge any gaps between the way that things are done as an academic with how they are done in industry.
give context to the environment you were working in (i.e. Harvard is qualitatively different than working at a national lab. One is not necessarily better than the other, but identify where you were working right up front.)

Avoid:

jargon, either from industry or academia, especially if you are unsure of its use.
list of accomplishments.
assumptions about how much the audience will know about the things you are talking about.
lies.

Things that teaching demonstrates, which are highly valued, include but are not limited to:

presentation skills
organization and planning
leadership
ability to train others
knowledge of the subject matter
management of budget (sometimes)
cross cultural awareness

Try to include examples of all of these things in your resume.
In general, the standard seems to be as follows

Organization (flush left) Position (center, or to the right of Organization)  Date(s) (flush right)

verb number in order to create outcome
verb number in order to create outcome
verb number in order to create outcome

So it would look like this:

University of Fredonia, Instructor,  2010-2012

Developed 5+ curricula including 40 biweekly helping others to master underwater basketry
Counseled 100+ students on composition, research, career and professional development
Integrated Blackboard, git and multimedia allowing students with different learning style maximum opportunities
Taught underwater basketry, Pig Latin textual analysis and yarn theory

Finally:

try to fill the line (I find LaTeX is helpful for that) and don't go over one line per point if possible
no periods at the end of the lines
don't repeat verbs or outcomes if you can at all avoid it
If you taught multiple topics, and instruction makes up the majority of your resume have different entries for each topic so that the first line would read "University ..., Subject Instructor, etc."
Unless the subjects you taught are directly related to the job you are applying for, and if you need to make space, there is no need to list the topics you taught, in other words you could drop the last bullet point in the example above. (e.g. it might be worth knowing that you taught accounting if you are applying for a position that involves accounting, but the odds of any position involving "Medieval German Literature" are very low, so you can leave it out.) What you demonstrate as a teacher usually matters to businesses much more than the topic you taught.


text:
Should I submit a revised version of my paper before hearing back about the first version?
I submitted a paper to a decent mathematical journal more than six months ago. Later, after communicating with several people, I have come to find the notation that I used in the paper very confusing, and thus fear that people may have serious difficulty in understanding my work.
I have since revised my paper by eliminating some notations and adding more examples and explanations. I think the revised version is much better than the previous one, even though there are no changes affecting the results of the paper, and I haven't found anything wrong in the proof.
I am worried that the referees will be annoyed by the notation that I previously used, and thus lose interest in my paper. So, I am considering submitting the revised paper to the editor to help the referees better understand my work. But some people say the referees would be unhappy to see the revision if they do not ask me to submit one.
Two weeks ago, I got a reply from the editor saying the paper is still under review, but he did not say when the review would finish, saying something like "it is difficult to put excessive pressure on the reviewers." So, I guess the review may still require some time to finish.
Should I submit the revision or not?

Please note that we had to make an enormous number of corrections to the text. If this is the quality of the writing you submitted, that will also not help your case, and will slow down the review process as well.

You should not submit your revised version at this time. If it had been just a day or two since you submitted, it would be a different matter. However, more than six months later, it is quite likely that the reviewers will be angry to receive a new version of the paper, particularly since you have made a great deal of changes. This will be even more so if they are a substantial portion of the way through the review process. (It is also unfair to the reviewers and editors if the author can keep changing and revising the paper while it is under review.)
Your best bet will be to wait until the reviews have been returned, and use your revised version of the paper to "jump-start" the revision process.

As long as the changes are minor, I don't see a problem with updating the arXiv version however.  There's a chance the referees will see it, and help them understand the current version better.

I'm a mathematician who sometimes referees papers for math journals.  If I were the referee for your paper, I would prefer to receive the revised and improved version.  Quite possibly your referee has not started yet.  If they have started, they can choose to ignore the new version, or use the new version to make the refereeing process easier.
(For what it's worth, a shorter version of this answer received at least six up-votes on mathoverflow in the brief time before the question was moved to here.)


text:
How to structure a Ph.D. sandwich thesis?
Although some guidelines can be taken from this post, additional details would be appreciated.
When building the introduction, I have difficulty trying to join and describe all the aspects of the 3 published articles I have. This will be also the same for the final discussion. In fact, it makes me feel that I'm repeating what I've already written in the papers. I like the DRY principle.
Here is a preliminary outline:

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS USED

SUMMARY

INTRODUCTION

HYPOTHESIS AND OBJECTIVES

MATERIALS AND METHODS

RESULTS

Paper1

Paper2

Paper3

DISCUSSION

CONCLUSIONS

REFERENCES

ANNEXES

Results are already included in the papers, so I was thinking to just show the papers.

Why negative votes? There's no much info about this on the Internet.

"There's no much info about this on the Internet". Why should it? a) This is what advisors are for. ASK him. b) You should look at previous theses from your lab / institution and see how the previous students do it.

This is the structure that worked for me and number of my friends throughout western European universities:
Title: A title that reflects your contributions/publications.
Table of contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABBREVIATIONS
Abstract
INTRODUCTION
Note on Introduction: Most important of all is to highlight what you want to answer in your research. Also the problem/motivation should be discussed here.
Paper1 ... PaperN
Note On Paper-Based Chapters: The order of them are very important. Order them based on the content not the year of the publication.
Evaluation: In this chapter put both the discussion and results. Try to figure out the benefits and shortcomings of your research.
CONCLUSIONS and Future Work: conclude based on your contribution and highlight the future work.
REFERENCES
Note: Not so many students take time on organizing their references' style. Most of them just copy/paste the Bibtex code and don't look if all their references obey the same style rules.
ANNEXES

Is 'Evaluation' a chapter? Results are already included in the papers. Maybe you refer to discuss and at the same time use results to discuss them? Also, what's the recommended length of each chapter?

If you use bibtex, your references will obey the same style rules. It is its main benefit. You still need to re-read and check for errors, but the boring part is already taken care of.

You need to check the references for errors and in my experience there are always errors.  Most commonly the errors are capitalisation, missing information, and character encoding.

Your introduction has to wrap the rest of the thesis, not replace it. So, DRY partially applies here too.
A paper is directed towards other researchers working in your field, whereas a PhD thesis introduction usually is meant to be accessible by anyone in that discipline. Your aim is to write something that will allow your undergrad class mates to get up to speed and understand your papers. You should also give an overview of how all the pieces work together. For example,

"In paper I we showed that our new experimental technique works better than the previous ones, in Paper II we used it to solve a new problem that couldn't be tackled before, and in Paper III we combined it to improve another different technique".

So, a paper that uses machine learning in Bioitechnology would say "we used a SVM trained on this and that features over this dataset". The introduction to the thesis will include a chapter introducing machine learning, and explaining what a SVM is. If it were relevant, you could consider adding another one explaining why these features are relevant.
Discussion and conclusions are not a part of the sandwich thesis I am familiar with, because they would belong into the papers.


text:
GRE score submission
I wish to apply for M.Sc studies in Computer Science to 3-4 universities. Only one of them requires the applicants to take a GRE (general test), and my question is as follows: is it a good idea to send the scores to the rest of the universities even though they do not specifically require it? Will it affect my chances?
FYI: I did one practice test and didn't get a good Quantitative Score (only 145), although I took the test without preparation, without paper (soon after taking the practice test I've read that is allowed scraps of paper) and after 4-5 years after finishing undergraduate studies.  I think with 2 months or so of moderate studies I can get about 160. What do you think I should do?

A good GRE score can help your chances at admissions; a poor GRE score does not do anything to help your chances, but they can hurt you, particularly if you're already a somewhat "borderline" case.
However, if a school does not require GRE scores, then I would only submit them if they are strong (well above average). Otherwise, you're introducing at best a neutral "fact" into the conversation.

My philosophy in application processes is what you present should only serve to strengthen your case: "that you should be admitted/accepted to .... ". If you look at it with this perspective, I would say submit only what's required of you and what you think gives a fair but good image of your intellectual/social abilities. Anything else has the potential of raising questions in the admission officer's head.
Overall I agree with @aeismail's answer. Submit scores/GPAs/transcripts only if you are confident in them.


text:
Is it acceptable to take some exercises directly from the text book when preparing exercise sheets?
I want to prepare some exercise sheets for a course. I am wondering whether or not it is OK to take some exercises directly from the textbook.

How about just listing the associated problem number from the textbook on the sheet? For example, "Problem 7: Exercise 1.4 from Muller and Kamins" should work, no?

@user11192 What's a "textbook"?

@JeffE From the OP's question, I assumed that "textbook" means the text used for the course.

I want to prepare some exercise sheets for a course. I am wondering whether or not it is OK to take some exercises directly from the textbook.

Yes.
Regardless of the legality or scholastic integrity of copying exercises from required textbooks, recommended textbooks, non-required textbooks, other books in your personal or institutional library, course web pages, random pieces of paper found in classrooms, and the like, it is common and accepted practice to do so, typically without attribution of any kind.
Unless you're teaching a popular MOOC (which attract lawyers like certain substances attract flies) or writing a popular textbook (likewise), nobody is going to come after you for copyright violation.  But if it'll keep you awake at night otherwise, rewrite the problem in your own words before you distribute it to your students.
Of course, you should also include your own original problems.  (Just don't be surprised to see another instructor use them later.)

+1 - coming up with good problems is hard, and we all stand on the shoulders of giants (or more accurately, a pyramid of normal-sized people). That said, I've sometimes seen a particularly clever and/or unusual problem being attributed explicitly, which I think is a nice compromise. (And there's Knuth's Concrete Mathematics, which bucks the trend and devotes a whole appendix to attribute almost every problem in the book.)

To cite from the introduction: "Mathematicians have unfortunately developed a tradition of borrowing exercises without any acknowledgment; we believe that the opposite tradition [...] is far superior."

From a practical point of view, taking a few exercises for internal classroom use will probably not cause copyright problems, depending on the local laws. Teaching is one of the fair use possibilities in the US, but I am no expert in law, and I don't know how far it goes.
Assuming US law applies, here are a few rules for fair use, and I believe you fulfil them all: non profit, for educational purposes, on content more factual than artistic, extracting small parts, and no net effect on the market. Some other sources also add restricted access to the student as a point in favour. It is always safer and more ethical to add a reference to the original book.

"It is always safer and more ethical to add a reference": it's not just safer and ethical. It's essentially mandatory to a fair-use claim.

Well the website Davidmh linked says "Note that attribution has little to do with fair use," which agrees with other things I've heard about attribution and copyright. Certainly one should add a reference, but it would seem copyright law is not the (primary) reason for doing so.

Referencing on the exercise sheet is troublesome if the textbook has solutions or problems become googleable. Maybe references can be provided later, or like "Some exercises in this course are taken from books from this list: ..."?

@Raphael the point of an exercise sheet is for the student to practise; and in these cases, having solutions available can be good to check results. Of course, exercises used to evaluate are completely different beasts.

(I have had exams with book allowed, where the exercise was solved in full detail, but that is blatant carelessness by the professors)

@Davidmh Having solutions available may or may not be useful to the students, but that's the instructor's decision, not yours.

Beyond the issue of legality, you have to put in some effort in order to make it appropriate for students and TAs (if you have some) -- plain copying can be dangerous.

Cross-check definitions and results necessary to solve the exercise. Even small differences between the book and your lecture can render an exercise completely infeasible.

Skim the related chapter and prior exercises in the book. Sometimes problem 8 builds on the thought process or solution developed in problem 5, or uses a theorem you don't have in your lecture. If you skip 5 but copy 8, or don't give the theorem as hint, you are posing a harder (infeasible?) problem to your students.

Make sure the exercise works as you expect, i.e. solve it in detail (!) yourself. Not only are there many flawed exercise problems in books, but the level may also off.
Make your solution accessible to the TAs.

If you don't want your students to have an easy out, make sure to take the exercise from a textbook not on the syllabus and/or without solutions and reformulate a bit so they can't google solutions (easily).

These are lessons I've learned from painful experiences which were unanimously caused by me being short on motivation, time or both and just copy-pasting exercises onto sheets.
Regarding work ethics, provided what you do is legal (in your country) I'd say copying exercises is completely acceptable. Developing good exercise problems is hard and time-consuming. It helps nobody if you do half a job, or overextend yourself on this. It's somewhat similar to using an existing texbook vs writing your own.

The big concern is copyright. How important it is depends on how complicated the problem statements are. For instance, if the question is something like:

Using Rolle's Theorem and the Intermediate Value Theorem, prove the Mean Value Theorem.

then there's no worries about "reusing" a question like this, because the formulation of the question is not really "original."
However, if the problem involves a half-page of explanations and formulations, you can't simply copy it in your problem sheet verbatim without reference. You may or may not be able to make a photocopy of the relevant page and distribute it under fair use guidelines; you should probably consult your university librarians about this.
The simplest solution, though, would be to list the source of the problem, and identify the problem from the source:

Deen, Analysis of Transport Phenomena, 1st ed., Problem 1.6.

and then allow the students to look it up. (Of course, you should make sure that a copy of the text is available to them in the library via "reserve" policies, if at all possible.)

The simplest solution seems very impractical for the students.

Being there as a student, agree with @xLeitix. That could be very annoying if there are no free books at the library; but could be acceptable if there are digital copies.

If it's the required text for the course, the assignment of problems from the book by reference is typical and standard.

@BillBarth I've had courses whose required texts had only one copy at the library.

"If the problem involves a half-page of explanations and formulations" you'd better avoid using it at all. Noting is more irritating than spending 30 minutes just trying to understand what is asked. An ideal exercise should be a short and concise task (the difficulty should be in the solution, not in the statement). As to the main question, I guess we shouldn't step on the dangerous path followed by American doctors for whom the question of what would be the best treatment for the patient is secondary to the question of how to protect oneself from a lawsuit.

Textbook publishers and instructors have an agreement (in my experience, an unwritten one): if the instructor tells students the textbook is "required," then the instructor is allowed to use all the images, test bank questions, and animations as desired in the course. If you or the main instructor has therefore indicated that the book is "required," then I would say you can use examples from the text (with proper attribution) all you want.
If you are using a text that isn't required, I would say you are venturing into fair use territory, nicely summarized by Davidmh and commenters. An email to the publishers asking to use X number of questions with attribution over the length of the course would be the most legal way to use the resources.
Of course, saying a text is required does not mean students will purchase it. But that's a separate discussion, and publishers do not expect the instructor to enforce the requirement.

Most of these answers seem to be focused on the legality of using textbook but I would like to argue from a student's viewpoint that it is not acceptable.(And don't have enough reputation to simply leave a comment.)
These questions are from a textbook they should already have. Normally the questions are extremely similar to examples in the text and are most useful in the context of understanding the concepts. It is my opinion those questions should be reserved for students to reference while going through the book, as well as references while working on your slightly different or harder exercises.
What is the point of taking a class when you could have just got the book instead?
Edit: It is your responsibility as the instructor to add value to the course, giving students new (possibly tailored to skill level) problems is a great way to do that in addition to your in class explanation of concepts. Taking exercises from the textbook adds no value since they already have those questions.

This doesn't answer the question.

You seem to misunderstand the point of lectures: You have someone who is paid (and usually happy) to answer your questions if you don't understand something. That's something no book can offer. (And, conversely, if you don't exploit that opportunity, you might as well stay home and read a book.)

Taking exercises from the textbook adds no value since they already have those questions. I disagree. As a student, I've found that a mix of questions from the required text and the instructor's "home-brewed" questions provides an effective way to help tie in the lecture and text materials.


text:
Education or employment: What is a post-doc? What is a PhD student?
I’m afraid this question is mostly opinion-based, but I was wondering if there is any piece of material out there that covers the spectrum of opinions.
What exactly is a post-doc? Is it an education, an employment or something in between? This question is particularly bothering me, since in Sweden post-docs may be financed either through stipends – not paying taxes nor receiving social benefits (remember, in one of the most socially-oriented countries in the world) – or salary. One could argue that, on one hand, post-doc is an education towards becoming an independent researcher, on the other hand, a post-doc is expected to already produce knowledge for the benefit of humanity.
I tend to ask myself the same question about PhD students. Why would PIs bother recruiting PhD students for doing research, if an “army of post-doc-like researchers” would probably be more productive? For example, our university tends to recruit PhD students on H2020 calls which are for research, in addition to H2020 calls targeted for research training.

'H2020' = EU Horizon 2020 research framework, 2010-2020

Possible duplicate of http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2173/who-actually-is-a-post-doctoral-fellow

Obligatory PhD Comic: schwork.

The legal situation in Israel
I mention Israel first since am involved in a legal case before the Israeli national labor court on this very question: Arguing that those PhD candidates who are required to work all week long, who are forbidden from working outside the university, who can be required to teach up to a limit according to the needs of their academic departments etc. etc. - who contribute significantly to the research (and teaching) "outputs" of the university, should be considered its employees, and the monthly "stipends" that they get should be recognized again as their salary. This is case ע'ע 5439-04-16 (Labor Appeal 5439-04-16). I've authored a booklet on the history of this struggle, which has an English version:
"These are student recipients of prizes": On the erasure of the Technion's junior researcher class
Or get the Hebrew version; in fact, if you can read Hebrew, you can find the court case documents here.
The legal situation in the US
Another, perhaps more relevant, legal treatment of this matter can be found in the recent ruling of the National Labor Relations board, in the case of Graduate Workers of Columbia University, UAW, AFL-CIO vs the University of Columbia (NLRB 364-90: HTML PDF, all case files): The court has found that, indeed, Graduate students who perform meaningful research or teaching work as part of the course of their PhD program (and are paid), are considered university employees to the extent of the applicability of US labor law, especially the laws governing unionization and collective bargaining.
That decision reversed the unfortunate (3-to-2) decision in the 2004 case of Brown University (NLRB 342-42: HTML, PDF), which had itself reversed the 2000 decision in the case of NYU (NLRB 332-111: HTML, PDF).
See also the AAUP description of the Columbia U case and their position.
The actual answer
I can talk for hours, literally, about this subject, and I actually have... but in a nutshell:

Being an employee and being undergoing a process of education are not mutually exclusive; and you always learn when you're starting out in a new career path, be it in industry or in academia.
The common labor-legal criteria for being considered an employee can and do apply to many/most/all PhD candidates (depending on which state in the world, which kind of PhD work etc.)
A university is an organization whose ongoing objectives are to produce research findings and to teach students. If you contribute towards those goals (by performing research and teaching), even if you're also undergoing a process of education yourself, you should be recognized and remunerated as such.
Post-Docs only undergo any sort of education through their practical research work (which, of course, involves learning - but that's the case also for the most high-ranking Professors); they don't take classes, get homework and take exams to see whether they've studied well enough. so about them there should not be any doubt of being in relations of employment.

as for why have PhD candidates when you can have Post-docs - I've already written enough, let others discuss that :-)

Just wanted to say that the report you cited ("On the erasure of the Technion's junior researcher class") is worth reading.

@user1202136: It was published as a chapter in Precarious Employment: Systematic Exclusion and Expoitation in the (Israeli) Labor Market' - a book edited by Dr. Daniel Mishori and Dr. (and former MK) Anat Maor, available for download at the link - but again only in Hebrew. An English table-of-contents is available though.

In many countries, PhD students, like postdocs, learn and are educated through practical research work, and do not take classes, get homework or take exams.

@Significance: Really? I did not know that. At any rate, in those countries I would think the case of PhD is as clear-cut as for post-docs.

@einpoklum Agreed. The distinction is that PhD students are working towards a qualification, while postdocs are not.

@Significance, einpoklum: Germany is one such country. In fact, many PhD students are (part-time, depending on the field) employees, some have scholarships. Many PhD students are only funded part-time, so they are IMHO "in-between". Postdoc is usually employment. However, even though some (particularly heads of university institutes who have to run their institute on tight budgets) talk about PhD as "qualification", the Master/Diplom you do before the PhD legally makes you a fully qualified and responsible professional. In that perspective, requiring postdoc = ask for professional experience.

The distinction between postdoc and PhD student is orthogonal to that between employment and education.
First, both PhD "students" and postdoctoral "researchers" may or may not live on stipends. In Germany, for example, both PhD students and postdocs are in most cases employed by their university or research institutions. In some cases, PhD students live on a grant that is paid directly to them, without the social benefits etc. that come with a work contract. Less frequently, even postdocs may live on a grant. AFAIK, the prestigious Marie Curie grants are paid out directly as a stipend. On the other hand, many postdocs are indirectly living on research grants, but these are paid out to their host institution, which in turn pays their postdocs a regular salary.
Second, both PhD "students" and postdoctoral "researchers" continue their own education while, at the same time, preforming work in research and (often) teaching. A defendable PhD thesis is not only the "final" assignment in an education program. It also has to make a real contribution to its field and contains the published (or to be published) results of a research project. A postdoc does real research, but she will also have to continuously broaden her knowledge of the field she works in and her experience with the latest methods in order to make a living in academia.
Regarding your last question: PhD students are less expensive and in less scarce supply than postdocs. Moreover, the education of (many, talented) PhD students is part of a professor's assigned job, and it adds to their prestige.

In addition to your point about the cost of PhDs, I've always assumed it's easier to offload teaching onto PhD students than postdocs, at least when students are internally funded. Certainly, I've worked in departments with vast numbers of PhD students with relatively large teaching loads, whilst those of us who were postdocs did nothing but research.

@Ian_Fin Interesting. I would guess this depends (as often) on the country and the institution. For example, I had no research duties as a PhD researcher (regular employment contract in a soft-money project). The postdocs at my institution, who where partly financed by the university's core funding, and those PhD students who were outside my institution and entirely financed by the unversity's core funding both had teaching obligations (some small, some larger).

I used to work in a department where, on the People section of their website, you could figure out whose PhDs were internally or externally funded because while externally funded students had the title "PhD Student", the many internally funded students had a title that was instead a very low-level teaching position. As you say, it'll vary from location to location, but certainly in the UK there have been suggestions of PhD students as slave labour.

@Ian_Fin Do you have a source for the discussion on "slave labour"?

@user1202136 Here's a 2012 article from the UK's Independent newspaper. My recollection is that 2012 seemed to be something of a peak for people writing about their concerns with doctoral training in the UK. Times Higher Education had a few articles popular at the time on some of the issues.

@henning The ERC starting grant is just used to pay (part of) your normal postdoctoral salary (in Germany).

@Ian_Fin Interesting article! It seems to further highlight the discrepancy between PhD education as a study period vs. a first employment. Actually the article also goes into highlighting a "conflict of interest" between the two roles that PhD students are subject to.

When you say "PhDs" is that short for "PhD students," as in someone who doesn't have a PhD? It seems odd to contrast "PhDs" and "postdocs" in the last sentence if they both have PhDs.

@Azor-Ahai Fixed.

Side note: sholarships/stipends do also have advantages over employment contracts (particularly over part time contracts): e.g. no transfer of copyright and other IP rights. Which is better depends very much on the actual situation.

In the United States, post docs fulfill an important, but legally nebulous role, which is why you often see such confusion over tax status http://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2002/11/postdocs-and-law-meet-irs. Some institutions refuse to give advise about tax status, some do.  Many note that, basically, your income will not be reported to the IRS so the onus is on you. Moving on...
To answer your questions directly:
A post doc is a Phd who's role is primarily research. In many cases, a young Phd takes a post doc both to increase publication record as well as learn new techniques, theory, and analyses. Some take a post doc as a sort of continuation of graduate school, due to lack of adequate job opportunities, but the former is considered more fruitful, and more promising from a hiring perspective. It is becoming quite rare for a graduate student to migrate into a TT position without a post doc, unfortunately.
On why a PI should even consider graduate students over post docs:
If you haven't already suspected (h/t @henning), post docs are actually often cheaper from a financial standpoint. At least at top universities with graduate apprenticeships, PIs are responsible for paying grad student tuition on top of stipend. So grad students are more expensive and less productive. But, it's part of your duty as a PI, and newer faculty often receive some subsidization from the university until tenure comes up. Also, graduate students often become the front line labor that post docs make use of as they lead lines of research overseen by the PI. They are indispensable, and honestly a lot of fun to have around.  Furthermore, the 'half life' of a grad student might be longer than a post doc -- I'm speculating-- but in my experience true. If a PI wants to pass on a theoretical lineage it'll be through grad students foremost, less post docs.
You can convince yourself the above is true by comparing new vs established PIs. In many cases, the new PI has an army of grad students, a couple post docs, while the established PI has an army of post docs and a few graduate students. Not always true, but in my experience quite common.

Practices vary between countries.
Here in the UK PhD students usually get a tax-free stipend provided through the University (but ultimately funded by either a research council or sometimes an industrial partner), this stipend is not considered employment. They may also work for the University on the side doing lab demonstrating and similar tasks. The PhD is mostly research-based culminating in the assement of the thesis, some programs may also require students to take courses.
"Postdocs" (or PDRAs to use the technical term) on the other hand are employees. There is an expectation that postdocs will have either completed or be close to completing their PhD.
From the point of view of a research funder PhD students are cheaper than postdocs but obviously less experianced.

This situation in Australia is the same.

There is a more substantial differences from the point of view of a research funder. In most Research Council funding call, and in fact other funding bodies, salary is an eligible expense while a stipend is not. So paradoxically, it is much easier for a PI (supervisor) to obtain funding for a (single) PDRA (post-doctoral research associate) position than a PhD. PhD funding seems to be moving towards multi-year multi-position grants awarded to Universities (or specific Schools) to organise "training programmes" or "centres".

I am fully with the statement by henning that "The distinction between postdoc and PhD student is orthogonal to that between employment and education." I would argue that this holds for a lot of positions outside of academia as well. If you are hired by some company, there is often a large learning component in your job for the first years. If you are in  research and development this component may never really go away (buzzword "lifelong learning"). However, some things are special about academia:

Almost all contracts/employments/position are time limited (except tenured professors and a few more positions).
On top of that, most positions provide something that is seen as a necessary step to take to get to the next level. So you are expected to learn something and develop further in each career step.

Also, there are several distinctions between a PhD and a post doc (all of them having nothing to do with a distinction of education vs. employment):

As a PhD student you work towards one specific goal, namely the PhD. In that endeavor, you work on a project your supervisor formulated and work under his guidance. The goal (besides the PhD) is to develop skills to do independent research.
As a post doc you work on projects, often in teams and often more than one. You are expected to be able to do research independently. But you also should learn how to develop and plan your research independently. A goal is to develop skills to lead a research group.

One consequence is that "an army of post docs" is not necessarily more effective in achieving a specific goal since they are supposed to work more independently (and are also motivated to do so, since showing independent research work is crucial to proceed to the next career level).
But what is also true is that these distinction do not always apply. Some PhD students may also work on several projects, and some post docs will not be able to work independently…
A last thing: Being tenured does not mean that you are not educated anymore. You may not have a mentor research wise but you still may receive training (e.g. for administration or teaching) and of course you keep developing skills and acquire knowledge for your field.

As a PhD student I worked on a fairly broad topic. Explored many avenues, some you could call separate "projects", some collaborations. During my postdoc I worked on a very specific project that my supervisor formulated and obtained funding for.

Broadly speaking, A PhD is something you need to embark on your journey of research in your field. It will teach you everything you need to have in order to be a good researcher. Its duration varies from 3-5 years. Usually in Europe, you are offered a 3-year PhD and it is viewed as a job. On the other hand, in countries like the U.S. and India, it is a 5 year course. Starting two years are usually devoted to coursework and it helps you understand the basic as well as advanced topics in a better way. After two years, your complete focus is on carrying out research and publish at least 3-4 research papers and defending your thesis in the last year.
A post doc is something you can do after your PhD, as obvious from its name.In this way you can continue to work in your field with a supervisor and broaden your knowledge and experience. Usually 2-3 post docs are considered good. Speaking of duration, it can take around 18-24 months.
Hope it gives you a basic understanding.


text:
Is there a correlation between month-of-submission to arXiv and citations?
The plot shows the number of submissions per month (source) on arXiv:

July and October seem to be the months with the highest number of papers submitted, and August the month with the lowest number, in average. I wonder if there is a correlation between the month of submission on the arXiv and citations gained, regardless from other factors.
I can speculate at least one reason why this correlation is possible.
I imagine that, for example, in August and December most of researchers (at least in Europe and Northern America) are on vacation, and therefore less people are following new submissions in these months. Perhaps this could result in a different rate of citation, just because papers submitted in this period have not gained a critical mass of "early" readers?
Is there a correlation between submission date and citations gained by a paper on the arXiv?

Related: http://arxiv.org/abs/0712.1037

Is there any variance information, or just means? Without variance, effect size can't be estimated, rendering speculation meaningless.

@jakebeal means and variance? I just plotted the total number of submissions per month. My question regards the correlation  between date and citations. Citations are not in the plot.

@sintetico Your question is predicated on the existence of a significant correlation: "Perhaps this [correlation] could result in a different rate of citation..."  If the correlation is not significant, then a) it undermines your speculation and b) you can delete the first 2/3 of the question.

The plot and my "speculation" just add context to the question. I am not asking if there is a correlation in the data shown. The plot shows the submission rate. I speculate instead that a possible correlation between citations and submission rate can be caused by the different access rate (following the mailing list) to the website. Causation implies correlation (of course the converse is not true). However I am not interested so much in the causation...

The variation in publication rate among months doesn't seem to be very large, so unless there is a very strong correlation you won't detect it.

@jakebeal: If the correlation is not significant – FWIW, the reasonable null hypothesis is that submissions are the events of a Poisson process. Then you do not need any further information to perform statistics. If it were not for multiple comparisons, you could just feed the numbers into the C or E test. As a quick estimate, the standard deviation of a Poisson process is the square root of the number of counts, which here is about 300 and thus far smaller than the differences between months. So, it’s safe to assume that this effect is significant.

@Wrzlprmft For a complex and coupled system like this, I don't think that's a safe assumption at all. For example, the totals might be highly affected by a small number of high-weight events like outages, policy changes, or high-salience external events.

@jakebeal: That may all be, but that doesn’t change the significance of the effect, just the cause, which it’s very difficult to say anything about in general.

@Wrzlprmft I agree that we can reasonably rule out the hypothesis that submissions are a Poisson process. That doesn't say anything about the hypothesis that submission rates vary with respect to month. For that I'd want to do something like, say, slice up the dataset by years, so that we can see whether the distribution of "April" across years is significantly different from the distribution of "August" across years.


text:
Supervisor delays publication over style questions for years – can I remove him from the authors list?
I did my PhD four years back. I was funded from my home country and I have done all the work. I started writing papers before submitting my thesis.
I am sending my supervisor drafts every year until now. Altogether I have now done 32 drafts. Since last year alone, I have rewritten my paper 12 times but he still is not happy to submit it and not willing to make any changes by himself. He is even not letting me to show it to the reviewers.
My supervisor is a lecturer and I was his first PhD student. I acquired the opinion of two professors (one of them is my 2nd supervisor and is a co-author) recently about the quaility of paper and they recommended to send it to a good journal (impact factor of 10 and above). After many years of struggle my supervisor wished to publish it in a journal with an impact factor less than 1. Above all he is not willing to pay publication costs and he is not allowing me to try for good journal. I am the one who did all the work, who paid for work, who wrote paper and who is paying for publication costs and i am not allowed to try any good journal.
One thing about his recomened changes: He did not ask repeating any experiments, redoing any analysis or revisiting any conclusions. It’s only text style that is being changed over last four years.
I contacted the university services and they told me that I don’t qualify for university help as they only cover two years post PhD duration.
What can I do now? Can I publish my work without him as co author. Can I just acknowlege him for hosting me and remove his name from the author list?

Rewriting is very common. I think the vast majority of my papers had a number of large revisions, but nowhere near 4 years. Is your bibliographical section still current? Publishing work that your advisor reviewed and helped without his name is, imho, really unethical...

Such a long pause can easily nullify your results ( others publishing relevant data, making your results old), so your worry is grounded. However removing him from author list is rather unethical as he still has some contribution to the paper. Can you try contact senior professors in that department and ask some help from them to put pressure on your ex supervisor?

he is not willing to pay publication costs what are these? Publishing in reputable journals is free.

@CapeCode: That's not universally true.  There are definitely reputable open-access journals which have publication charges.

@NateEldredge: True, but on the other hand, I have not heard of a field, which is limited to such journals.

This paper is an interesting case study of what can happen to a paper when one of the authors disapproves of the way the paper is written. In this case his name was kept on the paper, but a footnote was added to note his lack of approval. The paper was never published in a journal, perhaps because of this disagreement, despite the fact that it actually contains a very interesting mathematical result.

Ronald you are right. But my supervisor has no doubts about quality of work but i believe he is showing his anger to me. He is telling me that i can submit my thesis without his approval but i cant submit my paper without his approval.

Use the [edit] link to add information to your post, rather than posting an "answer" to add information. (But try to keep it concise.) Thanks!

@Romik - well to be fair the second author was right - according to the footnote his complaint was that the paper was full of fluff, and after skimming it, yep.  The paper is entertaining, even tutorial, quite opinionated, but, yes, full of fluff.  It's too bad it was written just before the dawn of the blogging era; the first author could easily have made a very nice series of posts with it on his own blog, which would have been the very first math blog ever.

Can I just acknowledge him for hosting me and remove his name from the author list?

Probably not.  If he deserves to be an author based on his intellectual contributions to the paper, then it would be unethical to deny him authorship based on being difficult to work with.  He presumably thinks he deserves to be an author, or he wouldn't have spent years going over the drafts with you, and you apparently thought he deserved authorship at the beginning of the process.
Theoretically, you could declare that you have changed your mind and now think he never met the criteria for authorship.  That would be risky: he'll presumably be angry, and you'll need to have a very persuasive argument regarding authorship to avoid major damage to your career.  You should not try this unless you are certain that you are right and that the community will agree with you.  Would you make the same decision if your supervisor were cooperative and easy to work with?  If not, then you have no grounds for removing him as an author.

I acquired the opinion of two professors (one of them is my 2nd supervisor and is a co-author) recently about the quality of paper and they recommended to send it to a good journal (impact factor of 10 and above). After many years of struggle my supervisor wished to publish it in a journal with an impact factor less than 1.

Why aren't all the coauthors discussing this matter together?  That sounds like how the issue of where to submit should be resolved.  You can start an e-mail discussion or schedule a phone call, everyone can make a case for where they'd like to submit the paper, and then you can debate the issue.  Hopefully you are all reasonable people and can come to some sort of agreement.
If this doesn't happen, then hopefully your other coauthor will decide that your supervisor is being unreasonable and will be willing to have a private discussion with him and try to get him to behave better.  On the other hand, if your other coauthor doesn't think your supervisor is being unreasonable, then you probably won't get anywhere with your complaints.

In the following I assume that your assessment of the situation is accurate, in particular:

I have done all the work.

I assume that this means that your supervisor did not make any intellectual contributions to your work. Be aware though that setting the general direction of your work may be considered as an intellectual contribution.

he still is […] not willing to make any changes by himself.

I assume that this means your supervisor did not write anything himself and thus did not only fail to significantly participate in writing the paper in terms of authorship ethics but also does not hold any copyright on its content.

It’s only text style that is being changed over last four years.

So, your supervisor did not give you any signficant intellectual input that may qualify for authorship.

In this case, you may publish that paper without your supervisor as an author in terms of authorship standards and ethics. A central requirement for academic authorship is making intellectual contributions and it looks as if your supervisor may not have made any.
Just giving critical comments on a paper or reviewing it does not qualify for authorship – if it did, I could claim authorship of twice as many papers as I have right now and would have twice as many coauthors as well.
However, it may very well be that your supervisor accuses you of stealing authorship from him (we have some questions here about similar cases). To avoid any trouble from this, I strongly suggest collecting evidence and discuss the situation with your other co-author (in particular, if they are a professor at your supervisor’s university) and ascertain their support in this case. This should also serve as a sanity check of your assessment of the situation, as it sounds quite extraordinary.

It may be worth noting that the assumption is a rather generous one.  Rarely does one expect a graduate student to have an accurate assessment of how much of the work they have done.

I'd consider doing the following:
Send it to publication with him not on the author's list. Somewhere in the paper (beginning, or end, or what not) just say what happened: "Person X contributed to this work to the degree of meriting consideration as one of its authors, but does not agree with this form of presentation and/or with the choice of venue, hence he is not listed as an author. For details please contact the authors and/or Person X at personx@somewhere.org" . Also mention this point in the submission notes.
It's perfectly fair, I believe; nobody can accuse you of doing anything underhanded; and, well, it's the truth, right?`
Notes:

This is a suggestion which can be put in the practice despite the supervisor's objection. If you can reach some agreement with him, that's another story.
If your advisor says "hey, if you sent it, why didn't you make me an author?" - then just do that. There's always enough time for this before publication. Just make sure to inform him soon enough (e.g. on acceptance).

If the supervisor agrees, this could be a reasonable solution.  (But I'd be surprised if he agrees.  If he didn't care about being listed as an author, he would probably have given up years ago and suggested publishing it without him.  The topic would have to be brought up very gingerly.)  Doing it without asking, or after asking and not getting agreement, could be a career-ending mistake.  If his contributions merit authorship, then being honest about omitting him doesn't justify denying him that authorship, and if he didn't approve, then this note would basically amount to a confession.

@AnonymousMathematician: How could it be a career-ending mistake? The text of the article clearly states the advisor's contribution merits authorship. See my edit.

I would consider submitting an article for which someone who meets the criteria for authorship is not listed as an author as a practically textbook case of underhanded behavior. Or I might use the word "scummy" but the idea is the same, I think. And admitting to academic fraud right in the article itself just seems dumb.

@DavidZ: You can't be serious. Nobody is being defrauded, and full disclosure is made to all involved.

I can be, and I am. If someone who meets the criteria for authorship is not part of the author list (except in some cases with their consent), that is academic fraud.

@einpoklum: What you are suggesting is like all the people who repost copyrighted images, videos and similar with a note that they do not have the copyright and to whom it belongs and they will take it down in case anybody asks them to. It does not make what they are doing any more legal or ethical.

@Wrzlprmft: A better metaphor would be studios screening a film directed by Alan Smithee . The paper will not be retracted either way, it's just a question of whether or not the advisor wants to be listed as an author; and his/her contribution is acknowledged either way.


text:
Can good letter of recommendations offset bad GRE scores?
I'm applying to graduate math programs and my subject test score was abysmal, but I'm very confident that I will have excellent letters of recommendation from my professors. Will these LOR offset the bad test scores? I know every situation is different, but in general what is your opinion?

Disclaimer: I am a current graduate student and my experience is limited to being the student representation on the graduate admissions committee of my program.
One of my advisers always reminded me of the following principle:

GRE scores will not get you in but can keep you out

What does this mean? GRE scores by themselves will never get you admitted into any program worth its salt. However, they do act as a nice way of filtering candidates, especially in schools which received hundreds of applications for its programs every year.
Once you make the initial GRE/TOEFL filter, you are good. Your application will then be vetted on the basis of academic achievements, research, statement of purpose and letters of recommendation. Ergo, if you are removed at the initial stage by virtue of your GRE scores being rather low, then chances are, that nobody will even look at the rest of your application.
However, if your GRE scores are bad (but not that bad) then your good LORs might serve you better in the later rounds.
Of course, for quantitative oriented programs (like math), you might be expected to get a perfect (or near perfect) GRE Math scores and respectable Verbal scores.
I hope this makes the process a little clearer.

What is an SOP? Please don't use abbreviations unless you are sure it's clear to everyone.

Statement of Purpose.

As @mathandzen rightly points out, its statement of purpose. This is a standard abbreviation in the context of American graduate school admissions. I have edited my original answer with the proper expansion. I hope that is helpful.

@Shion I had upvoted your answer the first time I read it, I think it's a useful and informative answer. My objection was not to the content, just to the liberal use of abbreviations. :)

You state yourself that every situation is different, and that really is all we can tell you!
At a school that receives a high volume of applicants, your GRE score is likely to matter a lot more than at a school where lower numbers of applications are received. An overworked applications committee is much more likely to toss an application with a low GRE score (without even reading the letters) than a committee that has enough time to properly assess each candidate.
GRE scores (can) matter a lot, and then once you pass the gatekeeper they don't matter very much any more.

My reaction is pretty different from everyone else's here.
The short answer is: in my experience, yes, outstanding letters from credible, well-known letter-writers will outweigh poor GRE scores any day.  Few applicants get really outstanding letters from a credible, trusted letter-writer, but when we do see a letter like that, it carries a lot of weight.
It does make a lot of difference whether folks on the admissions committee know and trust the judgement of the letter-writer.  Does this letter-writer see a lot of students headed for graduate school, and see which ones are and aren't successful?  Does this letter-writer work with graduate students?  Does this letter-writer have a successful research program?  Do people on the admissions committee know this letter-writter and trust him/her?  What sorts of letters has this letter-writer tended to write for previous applicants, and if any of them were admitted, how did they work out?  These factors weigh heavily in the admissions decision.
It also matters a lot what the letter-writer says in their letter.  I don't know how you can possibly know how strong your letter will be.  A letter that says "this student did really very well in my class" is actually a weak letter (contrary to what you might think), because it gives very little information beyond what is already on your transcript.  In contrast, a letter that describes successful research you did with them and your contributions to the research project and how they were critical to the success of the research project carries a lot more weight.
Poor GRE scores might not trigger a kneejerk rejection, but they will certainly cause the admissions committee to ask questions and scrutinize your application closely before admitting you.  "Why did this applicant score so poorly?  Are they lacking basic knowledge?  We'd better go look more carefully at their grades in their undergraduate classes.  Is their poor performance on the GREs a hint of fundamentally insufficient preparation, or is it a one-off anomaly?"  That's the sort of conversation you should expect committee members to be having.  If the admissions committee can answer those questions to their satisfaction and the rest of your application package can survive close scrutiny -- if the rest of your application package is strong -- then I would not expect poor GREs to sink your application.  On the other hand, if your GREs are poor, your grades are mediocre, and you don't have incredible accomplishments to counter-balance those flaws in your application, then you might be in trouble.
This is based upon my personal experience with one particular admissions committee, so I have a very small sample size.  It is possible that other committees might do things differently.

This varies wildly from program to program. Most people on admissions committees recognize that actual graduate work does not resemble a multiple-choice timed test given one Saturday... but there is difference of opinion about how much it means, exactly.
If you are from a good university with letter-writers who are well-known, terrific letters from them can substantially compensate for a terrible GRE subject test, although elite programs would still use the GRE as a "weeder".
So, in summary, it's hard to tell what will happen... but only a matter of degree, really, since there are so many factors in play. E.g., if your coursework background is solid and letters are terrific, and your personal statement is both very positive and perhaps notes that you feel your performance that day did not indicate your preparation or ability, chances are only slightly worse...


text:
Job prospects after completing graduate studies in Geology
Background
I am in my mid-30s' and have recently found myself in a dilemma. Around 4 years ago I completed a MSc. (Geology) and two professional courses (in other fields) in Northern America as an international student. After concluding them I had to leave Northern America for personal reasons (I came back to Europe).
Problem
I applied for 1000s and 1000s of job worldwide (related and unrelated to my background) and consulted several career counselors to introduce myself to the industry at best, asking for help or suggestions to all the people within and outside my network. Unfortunately, I didn't find any job. I had even a lot of complications due to VISA issues.
Possible solution?
Now there seems to be the opportunity to take a PhD in my field. The fact is that I never really wanted to take a doctoral program, as I have always felt uncomfortable in academia and I am not very interested in research itself.
Question(s):

Is it too late to do a PhD at my age?
How do you know PhD is a good fit for yourself?
What job prospects are there for a PhD in Geology (in this challenging economy)?
Are my job prospects better or worse with a PhD?

Noone here (or elsewhere on the net) can tell you whether or not a PhD is a good fit for you, but I think you have already given the answer to Q.2: "The fact is that I never really wanted to take a doctoral program, as I have always felt uncomfortable in academia and I am not very interested in research itself."

Your question has several parts and may be considered too wide for this forum. From what I can see you have a question about your own motivation, which only you can answer. Doing a PhD is a hard job and you need to be motivated to do it successfully. Motivation does not have to be to love your task but also to do it for a goal further on. A PhD is furthermore not just an academic path-breaker. In a PhD are a number of useful skills that are sought after, which include critical thinking, writing, presentation, analysis, synthesis etc.
A second part of your question deals with the job market. To my knowledge geology PhDs do not seem to have problems finding jobs. There is demand for PhD level candidates within both exploration and environmental sectors of industry and government. Being from Sweden, it seems a very high percentage of our students do very well. I do not have any statistics for geology but have numbers for Physical Geography and in that field about 7% had "unknown" jobs whereas the rest had employment in academia, public sector, private sector, NGO, and a small proportion in other fields but all relevant to their education (y-scale is in number of PhDs, QG = Quaternary Geology; PG = Physical Geography):

Statistics from the University of Minnesota Geology department shows similar numbers (now, two data points is not much but I think this provides an indication of the value of a PhD in the field of Earth Sciences):

Adding to my second point is a point of social skills. With a higher ranking job, come skills beyond the factual content of an education. I already touched upon the skills but if I look at graduates who really have succeeded, in the sense they left academia and got high-paying and interesting, challenging jobs, most have been able to present themselves very well and this part is not to be understated.
In the end, the possibility of success in job searching after doing a PhD is definitely there but it will without doubt also depend on your own interest in pushing and present yourself and the quality of your work/skills and work ethics.


text:
Removing some citations between initial and final submission of paper
Is it considered bad practice or unethical to remove some references/citations between the initial paper submission and the final one? I submitted an 8-page conference paper, it got peer-reviewed, it got accepted, and now I have to submit the final 6-page version. In order to cut down on length, I'm thinking of removing some less important/relevant references that I included in the initial submission.
Are there any general "rules" against that? It's an IEEE paper btw.

Welcome to Academia.SE, Spyros! Just a quick note about the etiquette, it's usually not expected to write "thanks" or sign your name as we see your avatar/pic just besides the question. That being said, I can't imagine how else you would shorten a manuscript 25% without needing to remove chunks that contain references. I would be very surprised if there are guidelines that specifically prohibit that.

@dgraziotin: The procedure of accepting a submitted full paper only as a short paper because the reviewers felt the contribution in itself is valuable, but not major enough to warrant a full paper, does not strike me as particularly strange. Without any further information, that may well have been the case here.

@dgraziotin: Sure, but some conferences take the liberty to accept submissions submitted as full papers only under the condition that they be shortened to short papers. Of course, it should be pointed out in the notification message that the "full paper submission was accepted as a short paper" or similar; the OP doesn't make any statements about whether that was the case.

@dgraziotin: The initial and final submissions to these IEEE conferences can be up to 8 pages. It's just that they charge extra $ for the 7th and 8th page, which is why many authors shorten the final version of the paper to a maximum of 6 pages in order to avoid those fees.
Just thought I'd clarify :-)

You are of course entitled to add or remove parts of your paper to adhere to length and content guidelines of a conference or journal. If such changes lead to a change in the references being cited, then that is reasonable. Of course, it is also reasonable for the journal or conference to determine if the changes that you've made affect the overall quality of the paper. So it cuts both ways.

In general no major changes should be made to a paper after acceptance unless either requested by the editor or, if suggested by you, approved by the editor. There are of course trivial changes and there are major changes that can result from making removing materials in a paper. When a paper becomes accepted, it is considered ready for publication by the editor. If you then make changes to the paper (apart from correcting spelling or grammar) you need to communicate these to the editor and make a good case for why you need to make them and how you can ensure they do not alter the content and more importantly the basis for your conclusions. The reviewers have reviewed the paper with all the information included and in the worst case your paper may not have been accepted were not all of it there.
So making significant changes after acceptance is not to be toyed with and consulting the editor is necessary.
The problem in your case lies, as pointed out by dgraziotin, in that you need to shorten the paper after acceptance which is normally considered too late. On the other hand, if the editor asks you to do so, then I would assume the editor will see to it that the reduction does not significantly influence any vital parts of the logic and reasoning leading to your conclusions. In such a case you will need to follow instructions, the responsibility for accepting the paper with the final revisions still lie with the editor and you have not done anything unethical or wrong. I will, however, say that the order of matters seems jumbled within the organisation of the conference peer review system.

To the down-voter: It is difficult to improve an answer when no comments are left to guide such revisions. According to the help formulation for down-voting "voting down a post [signals the opposite]: that the post contains wrong information, is poorly researched, or fails to communicate information".

No idea why this was down-voted, it's as accurate as an answer could be to the question at hand.

A paper is not accepted until the editor says it is.  Having a glowing referee's report is not the same as an acceptance; at best it is "provisional acceptance".  In this case, the editor wants additional changes regarding length.  If these changes can be made to the editor's satisfaction (which may include sending the revised version to referees again), only then the paper is accepted.
My advice is to do the best you can, and to address your changes in your cover letter.  Honestly, how much space do your references really take up in an 8 page paper?  Most likely you can make the cuts you need in the body.

Every paper is written with one thing in mind: making a contribution to your field. If, by removing a citation you are impacting the quality of your contribution, then it needs to be left in.
Having said that, I think the section of your paper the reference is in could help you determine if it's making an impact on your contribution. If it's from the related works section, and you have plenty of related work, then no big deal - remove it. But ... if it's directly in support of your contribution, then removing it may have more impact on what your trying to accomplish, and you should find a way to keep it in.