text:
Evaluating Recommendation status
For a submitted paper, what does the status "Evaluating Recommendation" mean and how long does it last?

Give some more context. Recommendations for what?

When in doubt about an aspect of paper submission ask the journal editor or conference committee. Only they can give you information as to how long the review process may take, and they can also let you know what the submission status terms mean for the particular journal/conference that you have applied to.


text:
Good data entry and management systems
I am a PhD student and am thinking ahead to when I start up a psychology lab---what are some of the best data entry and management systems?  To avoid the "it depends" answer, below I list what I'm looking for.  If you must say "it depends", it would be helpful to know what it depends on (i.e., what the good options are for different needs).  I've done some work with data management systems in SPSS and Excel, and have not been impressed.
Here's what I'd use it for:

Entry of ~100 variables for every one of ~100 measures and ~10,000 cases.  In other words, the entire (merged) data matrix could be about 100 X 100 X 10,000 cells (10,000 rows and 10,000 columns).
Data involve human subjects and are mostly from questionnaires

Here are some things I'd like it to be able to do:

Data entry can be restricted to specified, plausible values for each variable (string, number, integer, value from 0-2, etc.) in order to minimize data entry errors
Double data entry checking (users enter the same data twice and the system flags discrepancies to minimize data entry errors)
Data from different measures are entered in separate forms, but data can be easily merged by one or more matching columns (full outer join)
Data can be easily imported into R (ideally in base R with a .csv or .txt file)
Efficient (time & effort) to open and use
User friendly (undergrad RAs would be using it)
Can interface to import data from other sources so that not all data are entered manually (iPad-entered data, website-entered data, physiological data, .csv files, tab-delimited files, etc.)
Data can have appropriate safeguards because they involve human subjects (e.g., password protection, encryption, others?)

Not necessary, but ideally it would be:

Low (or no cost) and a one-time license that can be installed on an entire lab's worth of computers
Platform independent (can be run on Mac & PC)

I think this question would be a better fit for SoftwareRecs.SE.

/What you're describing is a concept called EDC (electronic data capture), which is used in a variety of fields. There's a bunch of software out there that does that. Full Disclosure - I used to participate in open source development for OpenClinica EDC.

I'll look into EDC.  I have an open question on SoftwareRecs.SE, but have yet to get any responses. I'd prefer to keep this question open on Academia, because other researchers may have a better feel for the kinds of software I'm looking for.  It's likely that other researchers have used or know of a good workable system that accomplishes my goals.

I never really understood the point of softwarerecs.se. Software is a category so broad that there is no unique category of "software experts" that can reliably recommend the best program for very specialized tasks. If I need a program to compute Z-function quantum group cohomology indices (just made up the term), I ask mathematicians, not "software experts".

Agreed. I got many more helpful suggestions here than on softwarerecs.se.  Here's the post: https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/13480/good-data-entry-and-management-systems.

I believe this question should be re-opened. "Shopping questions" do not include recommendations for software solutions: https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/3658/17886.  As noted here (https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/4679/17886), "Softwarerecs.se is a bad idea for specialized needs".  My question dealt with a specialized need.

It really depends, but more description would be helpful. For instance, if you're getting an NIH grant running a drug trial, then the system will be entirely different as if you're on another grant checking people's quality of life using questionnaires. A data set with 10,000 rows and 10,000 columns is definitely not considered as a big data set in today's data analysts' point of view. Of course, what exactly goes into the cell matters as well: coded responses like 1=male and 0=female versus thousands of genomic data inside one cell will mean a huge difference.
Assuming you're working on just collecting data in the level of questionnaires or clinical observation, I feel that general commercial software you mentioned (SPSS and MS products) should work.

Data entry can be restricted to specified, plausible values for each
  variable (string, number, integer, value from 0-2, etc.) in order to
  minimize data entry errors.

Excel and SPSS are the wrong tools for that purpose but their related products like Access and SPSS Data Collection Data Entry do that. For freeware, CDC's EpiInfo can also do that.

Double data entry checking (users enter the same data twice and the
  system flags discrepancies to minimize data entry errors).

The SPSS program and EpiInfo mentioned above do that. Even the SPSS base program can also do that. In fact, most statistical software have some of this capability. e.g. Stata compared file command (cf) and SAS command COMPARE, just to name a few.

Data from different measures are entered in separate forms, but data
  can be easily merged by one or more matching columns

To me, this is more of a management and planning rather than system. As long as there is a well developed ID assignment scheme, most software can pull up and merge data pretty efficiently. I agree that SQL would be nice, and most software have some of SQL incorporated into it as well: Access, SAS PROC SQL, Stata odbc, R, etc.
I'd consider a good documentation trumps all on any day. If there is a clear linkage between data sets or tables, even Excel's VLOOKUP is an okay tool.

Data can be easily imported into R

Packages like foreign, sas7bdat, and xlsReadWrite are readily available.

Efficient to open and use

Efficient on what? Time or effort? Some of these software suggested have a steeper learning curve but eventually can be highly efficient (R, SAS) while some are more icon-based point-and-click (SPSS, Access) that are easier to pick up but eventually will become a bit slower if the users do not advance into the script-based interface (aka running SPSS and Access using scripts.)

User friendly (undergrad RAs would be using it)

That depends on what your school is teaching the undergrads. But no matter what they know or what they claim they know, I still train everyone.

Can interface to import data from other sources (iPad-entered data, website-entered data, physiological data, etc.)

For iPad you'd need to talk to the programmer (if you have one) to make sure the exported data can be read. For website-entered data (I'm assuming you mean something like Survey Monkey,) SPSS and Excel are still dominating. But both can be easily read by most statistical software. Physiological data are device specific, you may get comma separated, tab delimited, or even proprietary encoded data, you'll need to check with the device makers.

Low (or no cost) and a one-time license that can be installed on an
  entire lab's worth of computers

I'd check if your institute has any site license agreement with the major software retailers and start from there. If no license agreement, then expand your search to educational discount agreement. A statistical software that is about US$2,000 can be bought at less than $200 if your institute has agreement with the retailer.
I like R (as a free stat software) but am other totally ignorant when it comes to free database or research management platform, can't help here.

Platform independent (can be run on Mac & PC)

Then you probably want to avoid SAS unless you are willing to install Windows parallel onto your Mac. Most others mentioned in this answer can run fine on these operation systems (like Stata) or have separated versions for each system (like MS Office.)

If you're not sure what is a "good system," I'd suggest looking for general guidelines from data repository organizations. They often have guidelines like this one which delineate what are good enough data sets to be hosted by them.
Books on "data cleaning," "data management," and "work flow management" may also help you refine the system. The tools are important, but the rules of using them are a lot more crucial for a less frustrating data management experience.
And finally just a disclaimer, I don't have financial affiliation with any product that I mentioned in this answer.

Lots of great suggestions here.  I modified my question to clarify some of my needs/goals based on your points.  A couple points of clarification: I'm going to use R for data analysis (not SAS, SPSS, Excel, Stata, etc.).  Ideally, the data management system would be able to export data that can be read in base R (e.g., .csv or tab-delimited text files).  I've had trouble with SAS/foreign/Excel packages that interface with R.  I'd like to be able to efficiently merge data using MySQL (or similar) before importing to R.  SPSS and Excel have been slow for merging large data sets in my experience.

Too long for a comment, hence an answer:
What kind of data are you entering? Is it psychology, biology, public policy, engineering, marketing, ..., philosophy?
If you are dealing with human populations and recording what people tell you in response to your requests, you may want to ask it in the professional statistical circles on lists like AAPOR net (American Association for Public Opinion Research), SRMSNET (Survey Research Methods Section of the American Statistical Association) or Government Statistics Section of ASA. In the company where I work, our interviewers enter may be single digit % of your estimated data daily, and we are talking about a substantial interviewer workforce in one of the largest survey organizations in the U.S. Entering the data by a human in a small assistant professor lab with three undergrads at the scale that you are thinking about is simply impossible.
If you are coming from hard sciences, you really ought to consider automatic data entry from your instruments. It is silly to have an undergrad look at a scale and record the number down in Excel.

Thanks for the suggestion to ask those professional listservs.  I am entering psychology data involving human subjects, so I'll look into the listservs.  I also have data from instruments (in .csv and tab-delimited text files), so I would prefer the system I use to be able to import those files, as well (so human entry is not necessary, as you point out).  Thanks!

For people who come across this post in the future, I eventually decided on using REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture).  REDCap meets all of the requirements noted in my above post, and is widely used by many researchers at many universities across the globe.

You want to avoid 'it depends' answers but the reality of the situation is that 'it depends'.
That's a bit of a pat answer but I'm reasonably sure that there is no such magical software or data management system that meets all of your requirements. Which means, ultimately, you'll have to pick and choose which of those requirements are hard requirements and which are soft.
My gut tells me that (depending on your data), when you're talking about 100 x 100 x 10000 x 10000 you're starting to talk about databases rather than traditional 'data entry' systems. It's true you can(and a lot of labs do) do a lot of data in desktop spreadsheet environments but once you start getting over a couple thousand points of data opening and managing those spreadsheets becomes nearly impossible. That combined with your desire for a low-cost or no-cost solution points me towards my-SQL as a backend. For ease of DB entry(especially with undergrads) I would recommend a web based front end - this means it's available on mac or PC and does not necessarily require an install  for the user. This will require some work/ramp up but the bonus of data in a true database is that all of your other requirements(exportability, flexibility, etc) are handled as long as you design it intelligently.

Thanks for the answer. Can you say what it depends on (ie what are good options for different needs)? MySQL sounds like a good option. Are there good frontends for MySQL? Also, it doesn't have to be low-cost but that would be ideal.

source: Stack Exchange

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

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

sort: votes


text:
Should the table of contents of a thesis include beyond heading level 3?
Should the table of contents of a thesis include beyond heading level 3?
I would like to know if there is a rule specifying this issue either in MLA or APA?

The table of contents of what?

Of a thesis. Sorry.

What do the university rules, guidelines and style guide say? What did your supervisor say?

In general, tables of content shouldn't span more than two pages, otherwise they lose their utility of being a quick guide to the structure of the content.
A good keyword index at the rear of the document can handle many of the issues in their stead. That is, if you want people to be able to quickly see where you described the laser engraving process, then "laser engraving" can have a keyword in the index. Or if you make an argument against Talcott Parson's sick role, similarly you can note both "Talcott Parsons" and "sick role" at the back.
(note: I do encourage my grad students to CREATE extremely detailed tables of contents that lay out their entire argument. This helps them write their dissertations as it gives a roadmap and structure. But when it comes time to submit their thesis to the university, or revise for publication, they should strip their table of contents back down to a minimum of one or two levels).

A ToC (Table of Contents) serves two purposes:

Giving readers an overview of your document (hence chapter/sections titles), and
Guiding them towards the content they are looking for (hence page numbers).

In order to be efficient, your ToC must thus delivers enough information (one hierarchical level might not be enough if you have three chapters only), but not too much (hence the "two-pages limit" RoboKaren refers to). In the , the ToC is not very useful; in the other, readers are overwhelmed with information and thus perceive even less of the intended message.
It is based on these rules that you should define how much is enough. My advice would be to even strive for a one-page long ToC, with a clear contrast between hierarchical levels (I'd say indenting is not enough). I would also suggest you to use only two hierarchical levels.
Calling the first hierarchical level "Chapter" and the second "Section", here is the "official" answer from the "Chicago Manual of Style" (§1.37 in the 16th  ed.):

[Sections] are usually omitted from the table of contents, but
  if they provide valuable signposts for readers, they may be included.

Note that in some cases, chapters are clustered into parts - where chapter numbering is not reset after a new part.
In this case, parts are not a hierarchical level strictly speaking; and ToC would thus be divided in Parts/Chapter/Sections.
TL;DR: Two hierarchical levels in the ToC. If necessary (long thesis), you can include "sub-ToC" at the beginning of each chapter (again, with two hierarchical levels). Parts doesn't count.

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


text:
Will graduating a semester early hurt applications to grad schools?
I am a math major who will be a senior next year and hope to graduate a semester early for financial reasons. During my semester off, I plan to continue my (mostly trivial) research in algebra and independently work through three graduate level texts. However, I am going to apply to grad schools for pure mathematics in the fall and worry this may ultimately hurt my graduate school applications.
Will this have a negative effect on my math grad school applications? How can I best communicate that I will not slack off in the spring semester, but will continue working?

Your application will be essentially complete by the end of fall term, but it should very pointedly mention what further work you will be doing in the spring term, whether or not you are paying tuition for the privilege of studying and thinking about mathematics.
There really needn't be a formal structure imposed on your work/study/research, and it needn't have any official label "research" versus "study". But do write what you plan to do, and do mention the guidance you hope/expect to have from more-experienced mathematicians (as opposed to just doing whatever strikes your fancy off in some closet). That is, do be sure to make the point that you will be engaged with actual contemporary mathematics, arguably more intensely, and at a more serious level, than the usual homework-exam model would encourage or allow.
If you can describe your plans for "spring term" in vivid and enthusiastic detail, you can make it sound far better than "taking classes". I'd not worry about hype-ing "research" too much, although, yes, it would be intellectually dishonest to not follow one's curiosity. But, of course, one's personal discoveries, however novel to oneself, may be old news to experienced professionals, so one should not presume.
Just tell your plans!

Volunteer to do a research project with a professor in the department.  This will demonstrate a continued effort in the field.  Ultimately, however, what matters most is your grades and recommendations.  If they say you're good, a semester off won't hurt.

There was another question (can't look for it right now) for which the answers suggested this is probably not possible when not enrolled as a student.

It's possible as a volunteer.  What's tricky is getting paid to do this project.


text:
Made some great course slides, now what?
I just spent a year preparing a set of course slides for an introductory course in engineering, and they now look really good.  In addition to posting them on my web page, what more can I do to get use out of them?
For example, it would be nice to see if there's a MOOC that would be interested in them, but it doesn't seem like any of the major ones ever solicit such things.
I'm not aware of any examples of "publishing" slides either, so I'd be curious what more experienced users here have done.

How do you know those slides contain correct contents?

Taught the course with them, made corrections as I went along.

This is what many of us do every day of the week. Use them to teach your students well.

what more can I do to get use out of them? Use them to teach. Publish them as free content on your personal website or your university website sub-domain; or sell them electronically. What more are you expecting from educational slides?

If you can, release them on an open license (e.g. CC BY) - it will allow others to benefit from it (and cite/refer to your original slides). Of course, if you are allowed to by your univ.

Seconding Piotr Migdal's suggestion, I'd recommend being very explicit about what sort of adaptation is allowed, preferably through an appropriate Creative Commons license.  The key question is whether people can modify the slides or extract content from them.  If not, then the slides are useful only for inspiration or to people who plan to give more or less the same lecture as you did.

Here are some ideas:
Make a video of yourself presenting the slides (either to a class, or just to the camera), and upload it to YouTube (or similar). Others have done this, and as a result there are some great free resources available for people who otherwise would not have the time or money to take the course. For example, N J Wildberger has several maths courses online. If you don't want to be on the video, you can just have the slides, with your voice presenting them. (See the videos of Bill Shillito, for example.)
Put the materials on your website, and spread the news.
Turn the materials into a wikibook, where others can add to them.
Put the materials on OER Commons, Curriki, MyOER, or Share My Lesson. I haven't used any of these myself (yet), so I don't know which would be most appropriate for university-level or postgraduate teaching materials.

Your university may have a digital institutional repository where you can post the slides together with related course materials.


text:
Are both GRE and TOEFL a must for a PhD program in the US? Or only TOEFL will suffice?
I have completed my masters in English Literature from India and now want to do my PhD from the US. Should I take both the tests, i.e. TOEFL and GRE? Or only TOEFL will be enough? And if I need to take the GRE, then is it a must to take the subject test as well?

I count 4 different questions in your "question," none of which can be reliably answered by random people on the internet.  For information on which tests you need read the information page of the programs you're applying to.  I don't know how you think we can answer when we don't even know what the programs are.

Answers only depend on the minimum requirements of the school to which you are applying.

The TOEFL and the GRE are quite different. The 'point' -- in as much as standardized tests have one -- of the TOEFL is to figure out if you have sufficient mastery of English to study (and potentially be a Teaching Assistant/Instructor) in an English-speaking environment. The TOEFL is generally required of all non-native English speakers. Graduate programs often waive this requirement if the student is enrolled in and about to complete a degree from a US institution (or did so recently). It's possible that they might waive the requirement for a similar student from a university in other English-speaking countries such as the UK, Australia/NZ, etc. but I am not sure (I don't know anyone who has tried.) Sometimes graduate programs will state that they will waive the TOEFL requirement for a student from a bachelors/masters program with English as a language of instruction. Most Indian colleges/universities I know of are English-medium, but I've never heard of an Indian student applying from India who has had the TOEFL requirement waived this way. (I am an international student from India. I was an undergraduate in the US, and the TOEFL requirement was waived for me by all the graduate programs I applied to.)
The GRE on the other hand is generally required for all applicants, domestic and international. Wikipedia says that it aims to measure ''verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, analytical writing, and critical thinking skills that have been acquired over a long period of time and that are not related to any specific field of study.''
The TOEFL is more of a checkbox - programs just want all their international students to have some minimal mastery of English so they can perform the usual duties of a graduate student. The GRE is more of an actual comparative tool for all the candidates which can actually affect an admission decision. The two tests are quite different in content and questions --- the TOEFL might contain a question which will play an audio clip of a 'usual' conversation between a student and a professor and ask you whether you can understand what was said; whereas GRE questions might ask you to critique the logic of an argument or perform some high-school level problem-solving task.
Notably the TOEFL obviously does not have a quantitative section whereas the GRE does.
At this point in the US, I believe there are very few graduate programs that do not require at least the general GRE of all its applicants. Subject tests are not as widely required, but in my experience the better programs require them.
tl;dr: you will probably need to take both the GRE (general) and the TOEFL. Look into the programs you want to apply to to figure out whether you should take the GRE subject test.

There is no general rule here. The only solution is to look up the requirements of each program you are interested in applying to. Some schools may require both, others the TOEFL but not the GRE, or vice versa. (As for the subject test, it will most likely be required of all applicants or not required for all students. Domestic versus international likely won't matter.)


text:
I am applying to many universities, how should I ask my professors to re-write recommendation letters?
I applied for PhD  but  I have not been accepted, and now I want to apply for another university and I want to request  recommendation-letter from the same professors,  what should I write in  my email to the professors to request recommendation again!

Not being a PhD student... I would recommend simply asking for their approval to re-use the recommendation letter for all applications. Personally I don't see a problem with it (assuming that you ask first), but perhaps academics who have encountered this situation before can supply a different perspective.

Asking for more than one recommendation is perfectly normal. Unless you've given them specific details about a particular position, once a reference is written it isn't too hard to send it out again. However, it is polite to keep the effort required from your referees to a minimum. It is quicker for them to send out 5 references at once, than to do one a week for 5 weeks.
Exactly what you ask for from your referees will depend on how references are requested - are they actively sent with the application, or will the place applied to write to referees? Even with the latter, one of my referees said they needed explicit instructions to respond to each.


text:
PhDs in the arts - what exactly do they do?
I met someone who was doing a PhD in dance.  What exactly do those people do?  Do they do research in dance?  Conduct experiments in dance?  Prove theorems about dance?  Do they become dance professors when they graduate?
Do they mostly focus on the history of dance, and compare different styles of dancing?

Seems to me that the person you met would be a good person to ask.

@GregoryJ.Puleo I met her years ago, at a first-year orientation event, and we're no longer in touch.

Ah, I got the impression that the "I met" was recent.

In short: yes, and a whole lot more.
A PhD in the arts usually most closely resembles other PhDs in the humanities, like English or History, but often have a more experiential/practical component as well. Depending on the program and field of study, it might be somewhat of a mash-up of psychology, anthropology, physiology, literature, history, political science...whatever relates to one's area of research and study!
I'll give a concrete, real-world example: in the Psychology department of my present university there are faculty and students (undergraduates and those preparing for masters/PhD studies) conducting cross-departmental research with the Theatre & Dance department on the "Psychology of Dance". In one experimental study they looked at inter-rater reliability of those who are not particularly trained or experienced in interpretive dance, and then showed them specially created dance performance videos. They were looking to see if interpretive dance really is a genuine form of communication: can the artists/performers communicate specific emotions consistently to the audience such as anger, fear, affection, companionship, etc? Or is it all just people assigning arbitrary meanings, like people giving serious meaning to a randomly generated drawing? Their results so far indicate that especially for some emotions, there is a very strong inter-rater reliability: even those who have never studied/seen interpretive dance before can identify certain emotions, activities, representations, etc - and as usual they work on writing up and publishing such results, giving talks, etc.
As another example, at NYU they have a Performance Studies program and they have a lot of detail on their website about the kind of things student's are doing. These include things like studying different styles of dance, dance in other cultures, documenting and studying modern performance art, and so forth.
As with most PhDs, the purpose of them is research and instruction, but what one does with it varies. Some will be instructors, professors, researchers, owners of studios, contributors in community organizations, lecturers, writers, performance artists...some will go into 'industry' as choreographers, directors, producers, and so on. It's a far cry from Underwater Basket Weaving!
One thing I'll note from personal observation: many, many people working in the arts choose not to go by the title "Doctor" or even "Professor". This seemed odd to me, but it's a culture thing - they just don't do it. So, many people who have a PhD in the arts, especially in music and dance, don't advertise their education in any way - so you've probably known more people with a PhD in the arts than you realize!

+1. Although I am almost certain that I don't know more Ph.D.s in the arts than I realize. Which may just show how impoverished my social life is.

I am not familiar with PhDs in Dance, but in Music and Art the thesis consists of a traditional written document and usually an original piece of art. There are some history and theory only degrees, but these are often then degree is Art History. I wouldn't describe what they do as experiments, but you could argue that they prove, or provide evidence, in support of Art theory. For example, a PhD in poetry might consist of a book of poems and then a scholarly introduction of how the poems fit into the broader field of poetry. A PhD in music might involve composing an album and the thesis would place relate the album to past types of music. Alternatively, a PhD in poetry could also just examine a particular poet's work, or a group of poets and a PhD in music could look at a particular musician.
Getting a doctoral degree in the arts is relatively new. It used to be that an MFA was a terminal degree. I think most doctoral students in the arts are looking to be professors

There are several approaches to a PhD in dance. One of the first that pop up into my mind is understanding how we interpret and classify movements in different cultures, or in intra cultural communities.
Other can be the analysis and interpretation of traditional dance, and their role in a society.
The output can be teaching dance theory, but there can be also some jobs in robotics (most of them use Labanotation Analysis for classifying movement, that it was actually invented for writing down dance movement)!
It is only a matter of research questions, but let's not forget that dance is about movement, and movement it is a big research field right now :)


text:
Do I have any chance to apply to a graduate school after a bad junior year?
I am a senior at a top 15 public university in the states and planning to apply for graduate school in mathematics. Having been a top 100 Putnam performer and won a couple of medals at IMO in my high school, I believe I have a strong enough mathematical background to be a competent student at a top 5-10 graduate program. However, my application will not be stellar.
In the beginning of my junior year, I got severely addicted to a computer game and my grades suffered from it. Now I have one C in an economics class and an F in summer English class as well as two B's in upper level maths classes. Luckily, I have completely recovered now and performing very well in all of my current classes.
On one hand, my addiction problem in the past would certainly make it look like I am not strong enough to get through long and hard five years of a maths PhD student. But I do know that a researcher in pure maths will be my career and is what I am passionate about the most.
On the other hand, my adviser at the current university believes that I belong to a top school. He said:

...a student of your talent really needs to go to one of the best maths programs...

Now I am taking a second course in complex analysis with him and he seems to like me.
Because of my financial problem, I can apply to at most a dozen schools and want to make the best out of it. I thought that top 20-40 is my reach and top 40+ is my safety range. I had completely ruled of the idea to apply to a top 20 program. But what my adviser told me made me confused.
So my question is will it make sense for me to apply to a top 20 school? I have a really tight budget and do not want to waste spot for a school that I do not have a shot at.

I can apply to at most a dozen schools — As opposed to what?  I think most students apply to about half that many.

I was unaware of that. But it is somewhat different for an international student like me. I can not stay in the states if I can not get into a grad school. So I need to apply to as many school I can afford. Applying to more than 10+ schools is very common for international students who are determined to pursue graduate studies in the US.

Your explanation of what happened makes sense and would be appropriate to include in your application materials.  Some evaluators might still hold this against you, but many would appreciate that you have taken responsibility for what happened and corrected the situation.  I'd suggest applying to both some "reach" schools and some "safety" schools to be sure that you'll get in somewhere and still give yourself a chance to go to a better program.

PhD admissions is largely based on letters of reference, so if your advisor thinks you belong to a top school, you should have a much higher chance of getting into a top school.

I think you should not worry about the 'junior' days. You are now equipped to apply anywhere.  If you are concerned about not making at the top schools, also apply at say five second choices.  If you get accepted at one or more top schools, you can pass the others. Get best testimonials in your hand so you are ready for the next move up.  Best of luck.


text:
How can I get a paper published urgently for my degree?
How can I make sure that my research paper gets published in the first attempt. Getting a paper accepted as it is compulsory for my master’s degree and the deadline is in a month.

is it necessary for your paper to publish for you to aquire the degree?  I thought that was a rare practice.

What is your field? (Please [edit] your question to clarify.)

Related: Is it ethical for departments to have publication requirements for students

@artificial_moonlet: Master’s programmes?

If you knew this was a requirement then you should have started earlier... there is no “fast track” publication system afaik.

Why yes, of course. You need it right now so the journal will simply make a huge exception for you.  /sarcasm

How can I make sure that my research paper gets published in the first attempt

Write a good paper. That’s it really.
That is, unless you’re ok with compromising on venue. Most disciplines have low rank journals/conferences that will accept papers based on very low standards (in some cases, just paying a fee). That’s generally a bad thing for science and your work in particular, but it may be your only real option if you have to graduate.
I personally think that requiring publications in order to graduate leads to perverse incentives such as these and should not be done.
If this is not an option, you can submit your work to workshops. There you can present it to a smaller crowd who’ll be more forgiving and if that counts you’re all good.
Good luck!

While I like the answer of Spark, it isn't quite complete. The more accurate answer is that you cannot guarantee anything about publication. The rules and practices and decisions are up to others, not to you. Certainly writing a good paper increases the chances, but most reputable editors will still ask for a review report (or three). The reviewers will accept or not. If they accept then they will take time.
Etc. Etc. Etc.
There are no guarantees. The most you can do, in reality, is to submit a good paper and hope for the best. Then take the fact of submission to whoever it is that has control over your graduation and see what can be done.
Only a predatory journal will "publish" it in one try and that is because it wants money from you for doing so. But that isn't likely to help you, especially if you want to build a career.

Here's what I would do:
Create a spreadsheet that contains a list of all of the journals that you are interested in publishing in (include only the kinds of journals that are acceptable in your area/department - if you're unsure, look at the journals that other students have published in), then create a new column for acceptance rate, and another column for average time for acceptance. I assume what you need is for it to be accepted for publication (and not necessarily having been published), correct?
You can then search for data on all the individual journals that you listed; what is the average acceptance rate and what is the shortest average time to get a response. You then publish in the journal that has the highest acceptance rate and the shortest average time for decision on acceptance. If that data is not available on the journal's website, you can always ask the editor and usually you can get a response.

And, by the time you finish it will be past your graduation date.

I don’t think that’s time well spent or a realistic expectation

Maybe I was unclear in how I stated this, I'm not talking about ALL the journals the person is interested in, only the few one's that are relevant. We are talking about a few journals, no more than 5-7. Finding that info would literally take minutes. @Spark

That was my exact point @Heutl. I'm a bit confused at the negative reaction to be honest. Perhaps I should have worded it differently? Anyway, best of wishes!

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
What is limit for the number of students for one supervisor in India?
How many number of students can be supervised by a supervisor in India? Is there a limit imposed by the government of India?

I recall an anecdote from a prof in my grad work. During his PhD he gave a talk to the department on his work. The Big Name Prof sat in the front row asking useful interesting questions and showing great interest. At the end of the talk, BNP stood up, shook his hand and said "That was a very good talk. Who is your supervisor?"  "You are Dr. BNP."  "Oh! Oh! Well come to my office tomorrow and we will talk about your work."

@puppetsock I have a similar story about a master student - at the thesis defense the professor allegedly entered the room and asked "I am the advisor or the chairman for this thing?". (He was the advisor.)

To those voting to close this as depending on individual factors, please keep in mind that we decided to explicitly allow questions on regulations on the national level.

My supervisor is having 32 students under his belt to guide. Still he recruiting new research scholar.

I did a quick search on this and I could find a document that suggests this:

At any given point of time, the maximum number of Ph.D. students allowed should not exceed 8 students for a recognized Professor, 6 students for a recognized Associated Professor and 4 students for a recognized Assistant Professor.

Read point number 4 on page 2 of the guidelines for the Recognition of Fellow Programme of Self-Financing Autonomous
Management Institutions recognized by AICTE towards Equivalence to Ph.D Programme of Indian Universities.

I don't think this is an answer to the question, as this seems to be about requirements for "Fellow Programmes" to be considered equivalent to a PhD. I would not expect that this document has any implications for faculty at an Indian research university, right?

@xLeitix If you open the document and go to the section "Faculty and Research Guidance", point 4 suggests the answer.


text:
Research-assistant classification in C.V
I was a research assistant at a university when I had a master’s degree. Now I got a Ph.D from a different university. I want to apply for a faculty position.
In which of the following CV categories can being a research assistant be considered:

Work Experience
Training Course
Qualifications and Certificates

Needless to say, I have a report letter from the head of department, where I was a research assistant.

Is being a research assistant not a job where you are from? Why would it not be work?

I'm going to suggest that among your option, Work Experience is probably best. I doubt that you were given a formal "Certificate" for your work. A letter isn't the same thing. It is probably more easily evaluated as work experience in any case. The letter will stand for itself. Don't embellish it.


text:
About the meaning of the title Priv-Doz
In Germany there exists the title Priv-Doz before the name of some professors. What does it mean? Do these professors allow to hire postdoctoral applicants?

A comment 'cause it's not what you are really interested in. PD, a Privatdozent title gives you a fancy diploma, an obligation to teach for, like two hours a week, and hopefully an incentive to be hired as a professor. All other standing is related to the actual position that person holds, but not this title.

@OlegLobachev: Is the diploma really so fancy? If yes, why?

Udank: At least my diploma is. Not sure what's the reason, but the habilitation diploma is much less fancy that PD one, at least at my university.

Formally it is a title given to a university teacher, translation: private lecturer. It means you are able to teach, but not yet a professor.
In practice it is the required step-up from the PhD degree, to get a permanent position.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatdozent

Can they hire postdocs?

Yes - I know of at least two examples. The would most likely need external funding to do something like that.

"In practice it is the required step-up from the PhD degree, to get a permanent position." At least for some fields, this information is outdated. There are alternative routes to permanent positions, including junior professorships (see the specified Wikipedia page).

A Privatdozent (PD) is a university scholar who has a Habilitation and is thefore allowed to supervise PhD students, but is not (yet) a professor. They may hire postdocs if they can obtain funding. Unlike professors, their position usually doesn't come with funding for PhD students or postdocs. In fact, the title PD ist just that - a title. It doesn't indicate anything about the position that the PD may or may not have, except that they don't have the position of a professor.
In other words, in Germany and Austria a PhD thesis makes you a doctor, and a subsequent Habilitation makes you a PD. Traditionally, you need a Habilitation to be hired as professor.

Yep, that's the traditional way to a professorship. Still, there is "junior professorship" in some places (basically assistant professor in Anglo-Saxon world, with or without tenure-track), the "habilitation-equivalent accomplishments", leadership of elite research groups, such es Emmy-Noether programme, etc.


text:
How to find out whether my advisor expects to be author of a paper to which she did not contribute?
I am a postdoc and I prepared a paper that is now ready for submission.
I did this work by myself.
I know that adding my advisor as an author would violate authorship standards, but it is a widespread practice and therefore my supervisor may still expect it, which I have to take into account when making a decision.
How can I tactfully find out, whether she would like me to put her name on it or not?

I took the liberty of editing your question rather strongly to avoid it being a duplicate and attracting discussions about authorship ethics we already have had several times. I moved comments in answers and the discussion about authorship ethics and what is common to chat.

So, none of the material or concepts for this paper were ever discussed with your advisor during the time you have worked with them?

I'd also ask about funding: Are there grants that paid for salaries or facilities that need to get mentioned in the paper's acknowledgements?  Sometimes those grants come with a requirement to publish.  Asking about acknowledgements might be a good tactful first step.

For almost every paper (and particularly if you are the sole author), it’s a good idea to have an “internal peer-review”, i.e., have a colleague who is not an author read the manuscript and give feedback before actually submitting it to a journal.
(The main reason for this is that it is much faster and interactive than peer review.)
Usually this internal review is done by other advisees of the professor, other professors within a collaborative project, or close colleagues.
Now, if you are authoring a paper on your own, your advisor is the most obvious choice to perform the initial peer review¹.
Moreover, in many cases you also have to report to your advisor about your research not due to authorship reasons, but due to her being your superior (in the employment sense), because the rules of your PhD programme say so, or similar.
This gives you enough reason to talk intensively about your work, without delving into the issue of authorship first.
Now, the details depend on how much you already communicated about this piece of work and how you generally communicate within your group, but here are a few suggestions:

Ask your supervisor to internally review your paper, but leave the author field blank. This may prompt your supervisor address the topic herself, telling you what she wants. There are some variations of this, which differ in risk and effectiveness, such as to giving her a paper which only lists you or both of you as the author or thanking her for constructive feedback in the acknowledgements.
If your target journal requires a list of explicit author contributions (“X and Y designed the experiments; Z held the Giraffe, …”), you may be able to elicit a response by having a title for this segment, but leaving a big and fat “TODO” below it.
If this did not yield any feedback, you can now bring up the issue of authorship mostly neutrally, saying something like:

It seems that the paper is ready for submission now. Now, we only need to talk about authorship.

Maybe the internal review prompts creative contributions from your supervisor that would justify authorship and you avoid the dilemma altogether (but lose your sole authorship).

Be aware that if you really want to be the single author of this paper, giving the paper to your boss for review may be a slight risk, as it may give her a reason to think that she should be a co-author in the first place.
Finally, do not forget that authorship is not only about writing the paper. So, if your supervisor gave constructive input to your work, this may qualify her for authorship even though you did all the work and writing.

¹ unless this is a “hobby” paper in a completely different field

Note that in mathematics and some similar fields in the US (at least), the advisor/supervisor isn't your employer. The university (or possibly the department) is. All you "owe" your advisor is respect and your best efforts. Employment may not be for anything related to research. Other fields are very different, of course, as are other places.

@Buffy: I didn’t say that the advisor was the employer (that would be the university or similar), but that they are the boss. Still, I acknowledge that this may differ (if you are paid by a scholarship, etc.).

If you are a TA then the advisor isn't the boss in any employment sense. They direct your research, but that is all. But they don't control your complete academic life. Only you do.

@Buffy: At least for all postdoc and PhD positions in Europe I have seen, you are actually hired to do research de jure, and not only as a TA (a teaching obligation may be also part of the contract though). I have never heard about this being different for postdocs in the US, but I wouldn’t be surprised either. Anyway, as long as you are hired to do research, you usually can’t just research whatever you want but have to report to somebody about it, and that’s usually the supervisor, be they technically your superior or not.

In math in the US, on the other hand, a postdoc might be "hired" by the department and not associated with any particular project. The position is offered, then, to bring new ideas in to the department and the individual is pretty free. S/he might be associated with a research group, but not otherwise constrained.

@Buffy This is one of those differences that creates a lot of misunderstanding on this site when it comes to issues between PhD students, postdocs and their supervisors. Many people answers assuming that PhD students and postdocs have a freedom that, actually, they don't have in many parts of the world. E.g., in my country, PhDs and postdocs are usually hired to work on specific projects: we certainly expect them to bring new ideas, but first on the projects they are hired for and from which they get the salary. And who decides of their future is the supervisor.

@MassimoOrtolano - Good point. But, in such cultures, because the supervisors "decide the future", are they default co-authors irrespective of whether they contribute or not? Are there documents in place which make it mandatory (as in, legally binding) for them to be honored with co-authorship? Or is this just a convention followed by the vulnerable, because they fear for their future?

@299792458 There is no convention, but if a supervisor tells you to put their name on a paper, there's not much a student or a postdoc could do to oppose such a request and have a chance of staying in that position for another year.

@MassimoOrtolano - I agree with that. While a student is not in a position to debate,   let's nevertheless draw a line between a rule and a convention. Rules may be legally binding, conventions are followed because for whatever reasons, no one chooses to oppose it, though they themselves realize that it is unjustified, both ethically and legally. If it is the latter, I am totally sympathetic towards a student caught in this situation. That's why I ask explicitly, is it a rule, or merely a convention followed by the weak because they fear for their future?

@299792458 There is no convention and no rule, but if a supervisor tells a student to put their name on a paper, well, I can hardly imagine the student opposing such a request unless they have decided to drop the position anyway.

@299792458: On top of what Massimo said, I think you are conflating issues here: What I was talking about in the sentence that started this discussion is not authorship but the advisee’s duty to report to the advisor for reasons other than authorship (such as them being their superior in terms of employment). This is less an aspect of culture but how things are legally handled. So far, I wrote two (non-hobby) papers without my supervisor at that time, but when I worked on them, he knew very well what I was doing with my time (because he was my superior).

@Wrzlprmft - I understand. But if you read my comment again, I addressed only what I intended to discuss, that's why the comment ping was aimed at Massimo, and not to you and Buffy. Thanks :)

In the real world, what is necessary and what is right are sometimes at odds. This seems to be the case in all such questions of including advisors/supervisors as co-authors on papers.
In mathematics, which I consider to have a sensible approach, advisors are never included (well almost never) unless they make a direct contribution to the paper. They are actually often omitted even when they do and are happy for just an acknowledgement. I think that Philosophy is like this also. Neither myself (mathematics) nor my daughter (philosophy) included advisors as co-authors. Never. Even. Considered. It.
In some lab sciences, especially, a supervisor has created the conditions under which the work can proceed and even funds lab assistants, etc, that make all work possible. In those fields it is normally considered necessary to include the supervisor as a co-author, and even as first author in some cases. I think of that as less sensible, but it is the norm.
The other answers so far given here seem to be suggesting ways to make the supervisor a real contributor to the work so that they can be rightly considered a co-author. But that isn't how the world works in those fields that traditionally include supervisors in the author list. No one, for example, caries out completely independent work at CERN on the Large Hadron Collider, for example. Lots of people participate in some way, including those who built the thing in the first place.
The solution to the dilemma here, is just to ask. But ask in person. Provide the supervisor with a near-final draft and ask "Should you be co-author of this or not". Simple and clean. There are three possible responses: (1) of course not, (2) of course, and (3) let's see....
Only 3 requires any real thought and you can work it out, depending.
I'll note that, depending on your field, it may also be either an advantage or a disadvantage to have the advisor (or anyone else) as co-author. In some fields, co-authoring a paper with a prominent researcher can boost your career, as you are seen to move in the halls of power. In other fields, where they count "chits" and "split hairs", only sole authorship (or at least "first" authorship) is valued, including the supervisor can hurt. I don't know what is the case in your field and assume you don't either or you wouldn't be asking. But your advisor certainly knows, leading to responses (1) or (2) in most cases.
But if the response is (1) you need to ack the advisor. If it is (2) it could be a career killer to refuse, since you need letters to advance. If it is (3) then the other answers here from lordy and Wrzlpmft give a way to work out a way forward.
But it is the traditions of your field that dominate here - whether sensible or not.

You are forgetting option 2.1: “How dare you even consider submitting a paper without my name? I’ll make your life difficult from now on.” – Given what I know about some supervisors out there and what we sometimes read on this site, this is an option you seriously have to consider – and probably the reason why this question exists in the first place.

@Wrzlprmft, I think it pretty likely that the OP would know already if that were the attitude. There wouldn't be a question at all.

Unless you have evidence to the contrary, you should assume that your advisor is ethical, and would not demand co-authorship of a paper to which he/she has manifestly not made a contribution commensurate with authorship. If you were to ask him/her, you would appear to be either naïve (that is, you do not realise that 'honorary' authorship is unethical) or insinuating that you think he/she may not be ethical.
If, having submitted your paper, your advisor complains about your not having added him/her as co-author, you should explain politely that, since he/she had not made a contribution commensurate with authorship, you did not add his/her name, but that if you had misunderstood what constitutes authorship, perhaps the advisor would be so obliging as to enumerate the contributions you had neglected to notice, and help you draft a joint letter to the editor to explain why the name should be added. That way, the onus on your advisor to explain why he/she should be included. If your advisor is unethical, he/she will find it quite awkward.
One solution is to invite your advisor to review the paper before submission. Mark it as a sole-authored paper, and do not suggest co-authorship on your initiative. There are several possible outcomes:

If your advisor does not answer the invitation, submit as a sole-authored paper.
If your advisor gives feedback but does not comment on the matter of authorship, act on the feedback and submit as a sole-authored paper.
If your advisor gives feedback and requests co-authorship, make sure that he/she pulls his/her weight in helping you revise the paper to an extent that would actually warrant it (this is what an ethical advisor would do).
If your advisor acts as per §3, but fails to make sufficient contribution, you should make the point, politely but firmly, that he/she has not yet contributed enough, and ask whether you should:

  delay submitting (until he/she has contributed more); or

  submit as a sole-authored paper.

Do not take the initiative of suggesting anything unethical yourself; if your advisor wants to act unethically, the initiative must come from him/her, not from you.
As scholars, we have a responsibility not to make it easy for unethical behaviour to happen. Of course, we may often be powerless to stop unethical behaviour we see (or suspect), but the least we can do is make it awkward for the perpetrators to hide what they are doing. Offering co-authorship to your advisor will either facilitate unethical behaviour (if he/she is unethical) or offend him/her (if he/she is ethical).

The most tactful way to ask is possibly to ask your supervisor what he thinks about the paper and if he would be willing to "critically revise" the paper. The "critically revise" is under quotation marks as many journals accept this as a "significant" contribution to a paper which justifies authorship.
Above was the formal part. When we talk about your paper itself now then you can see the cirtical revision also as something to benefit from. If you are not a (very) experienced senior postdoc that knows the literature and each wording of each method etc exactly then your paper might actually benefit greatly if someone more experienced (or even just someone with a slightly different view) works over it as many things that seem logical to you might not be logical to someone else. I do not know your exact field but in most fields papers of single authors are rather uncommon for this reason.
Please note that this post does not answer if your supervisor should be author but rather how to tactfully ask (as this is the question here).


text:
How to become a reliable researcher?
I am a biology student with major interest in neuroscience and molecular biology. It's my first year at university.
What should I do if I want to be a reliable researcher in biological sciences, especially in neuroscience?

"Some extra tips" is too broad and opinion based. See https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask especially *You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face. Chatty, open-ended questions diminish the usefulness of our site and push other questions off the front page.
Your questions should be reasonably scoped. If you can imagine an entire book that answers your question, you’re asking too much.*

Keeping your data organized and reachable for others sounds like a good idea that is applicable across the fields.

Moderator’s notice: Please only edit this question if you attempt to make it reopenable. This particular means narrowing down the scope of the question, e.g., by focusing on a particular part of the scientific workflow. Adding evidence that the problem in question exists does not make the question less broad. However, neither does removing it. I’ll leave the question at the version without the quote because it is just a dump from Wikipedia without reference. This does not mean that adding the quote (in a proper way) would be a problem, but it does not make the question reopenable.

If you mean how do I conduct reliable, high quality work? my advice is to always let the data do the speaking. In this publish or perish atmosphere, along with biases of colleagues and mentors, it is easy to begin to  interpret data in ways not totally objective. I’ve always tried to step back and as best I can, ask myself ‘what is the data really trying to say?’
If you mean how can I be an outstanding, promising scientist I’d say do the above, but also be present and visible. Go to talks and functions, speak with other students and PIs, and be a good departmental citizen.


text:
How to find a journal for publishing my method without applying it to specific real data?
I have developed different algorithms as PhD studies. My algorithms work fine and have some limitation as with any algorithm. My work basically is developing models that help other people in their area. While, my work is very useful for many areas, especially finance and health, I had no specific real data (e.g., finance, health, etc.) to work with. Therefore I worked with general real data sets. For each model, I used several data sets.
My study was on my behalf (so there is no third-party funded project). My supervisors were very happy with my works.
Now, after I have been awarded my PhD. degree (as a monograph), I am really upset to not have published my works.
I tried to publish but all journals I submitted to rejected my papers as I do not use challenging data that they are interested in.
How can I find a suitable journal to publish my work?
Are there journals that are not interested in a specific area of real data?

Welcome to Academia SE. Since your two questions (“How to find an application?” and “How to find a journal?”) are very different, I took the liberty to remove one of them. Feel free to ask it separately. In order to get more helpful answers to either question, please clarify: 1) Do you wish to publish only for the sake of sharing your work or do you aspire an academic career? 2) What is the difference between “specific” and “generic real data sets”? —  Note that you can [edit] your question.

To clarify: Did the editors desk-reject your papers because you didn't use data appropriate to their journals, or did the reviewers recommend rejection because you didn't use data appropriate to your intended application?  You can address the former by submitting to different journals, but satisfying reviewers may require you to bite the bullet and run experiments with better data.

@JeffE Yes, they rejected my paper because the data is not appropriate to their journals.

I know that Elsevier publishes MethodsX or journals that focus solely on “Materials and Methods.” Perhaps those may be a better fit.
I don’t see why a typical journal wouldn’t consider that just because of the data set. If thats the case, I would put more emphasis on the model’s strengths and implications in the field.


text:
Choosing a PI for my MS/PhD degree in EE based on the h-index?
I am an EE undergraduate senior who is about to become a graduate student next semester.
I applied for integrated MS/PhD and there are two PIs I can choose. However, the problem is that I do not know choosing which PI will benefit myself in long term perspective.
Their research fields are 90% the same. Furthermore, they are currently assistant professors who came to this school this year which means that they have no alumni yet. The only apparent difference is the h-index based on Google Scholar where that of one PI is almost twice that of the other.
Is this case, is it obvious to choose the one with the higher h-index? First, I thought choosing the PI with the higher h-index would be a wise choice because they are almost the same age, studying the same research field with same alumni status which is 0 since they are both new. If all conditions are the same, considering the h-index difference would be a relevant comparison.
However, thinking another way, the department committee are not idiots; they would have hired the PI with the lower h-index for some reason that cannot be explained by the lower h-index. So, maybe, choosing the one with the lower h-index will be a harmless choice or even might be a good choice for me.
I heard hundreds of pieces of advice that comparing PIs in terms of h-index is not relevant due to different research fields, ages, alumni status, etc. However, in my case, the fact that they are so alike in everything except the h-index makes me confused. What will be a good choice for me? Or at least, even if you don't have a definite answer, please give me advice.

Neither, yet.  First you need to meet them and have actual face-to-face (or at least skype-to-skype) discussions about their interests, their working style, and their expectations for students.

I've voted to close, because this a shopping question.  I'll comment that the h-index is a particularly bad measure of research quality/productivity and future prospects of an assistant professor.

See the Advisor section of I've been admitted to multiple PhD programs, how should I choose between them?

"If all conditions are the same, considering the h-index difference would be a relevant comparison."  I don't see the logic in that.  You might as well say "If they are the same in every other way, considering their difference in height would be a relevant comparison", and conclude that you should choose the taller one.

H-index really does even vary hugely within subfields, and even between approaches to publication -- do you publish a lot of short papers or a few (hopefully) groundbreaking ones?

@NateEldredge I know that the bibliometrics are unfashionable on this website, but your comparison doesn't reflect reality.

The only apparent difference between the two being h-index means you don't know enough about these two PIs. Work habits, advising styles, perspectives on the roles of their students...all of these matter.
With that out of the way, lets pretend they are, actually, identical.
The h-index is still a bad choice. There are a few reasons why:

Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
The h-index is something that can be, and is, gamed. But just being "good" at said game does not actually ensure that you are good as an academic, or as an advisor.
The h-index has no context. Are the highly cited articles commentaries with no students on them? If so, they will be of no value to you.

You need to do more investigation. At the very least you need to engage with their body of work in a way much deeper than a single citation metric.

"Are the highly cited articles commentaries with no students on them?" - or, on the other hand, are the highly cited articles mainly written by students and the professor with the higher h-index has their team always put their name into the authors list, whereas the other professor doesn't?

I cannot upvote this enough

Research can be extremely mercurial and exhausting. It can also be really fun and exciting. Either way, you want to have a mentor that is in your corner so to speak. I would say that is more important for your advisor to be an agreeable person rather than somebody who has a high h-index. As an incoming graduate student, you may think that you can just work on what you have a passion for and your success will follow regardless of how you get along with your advisor. But you will be working with them for several years. If you have a terrible advisor than you cannot get along with, neither your enthusiasm nor their h-index will mitigate anything. Nothing is worse than being stuck in a PhD program because you are at odds with your advisor. I have seen it happen before my own eyes.
Choose the advisor you like the best. It may be personal taste, but I think the best graduate students flourish under the advisors that uphold mutual respect and curiosity for science.
I'll echo what others said as well: h-index is circumstantial to some degree. Younger faculty probably still have some high impact stuff to publish eventually (which you may help with!), so h-index can change.

From your question, it looks like their research areas and metrics like h-index are similar so you've judged them to be the same. This just isn't true. I'm a current PhD student and I can tell you, all that's going to matter is how well you work with them.
Go meet the two of them. Find some time to have half an hour to an hour's chat with each of them about their work and what they'd like their next student to work on. If you can, ask their current students what their work schedule is like and what their relationship with their supervisor is like.
You want someone you can work with. Someone who leaves you to it if that's how you work or is more hands on if you want that. You also don't want someone who expects a student working 9-5 monday to friday if you're somebody would like to turn up late and work all evening.

A lot of the important qualities or characteristics in science do not quantify well, no matter how hard people try.
For example it's nigh impossible to quantify how well a person teaches what s/he knows to others. Pedagogics isn't something that is easy to boil down into numbers...
Another good example is human chemistry and social intelligence. A person might be a successful academic, but that certainly does not imply that it's easy or nice to work with him/her. For example the person might not understand or sympathize with the difficulties (physical, emotional or psychological) others might be experiencing.
Bottomline here is that you should prioritize the person you can work the best with  and thus get the most out of, scientifically and socially. Because that person would presumably be one of the most significant persons shaping your life in the next couple of years if you choose to pursue graduate studies. A mismatch in expectations or personalities might be quite detrimental to how things turn out for you.
Lastly, "twice the h-index" might be misleading. Having two comparable people with one having an h-index of 3 and the other 6; I'd say "meh"... That does not really say much. But two comparable people at similar age, with similar backgrounds one with h-index 20 and the other at 40?? That's a different story...


text:
Vetenskapsrådet (the Swedish Research Council) international post doc - criteria
I'm currently working on finding some funding opportunities for a post doc project. I'm currently in my final (4th) year of my PhD in Uppsala (Sweden) studying evolutionary biology. I'm looking to do a post-doctoral project (in the UK).
Vetenskapsrådet - the Swedish Research Council - offers a fund for International Post Doctoral positions of two years abroad and one year repatriation in Sweden.
I am struggling to find any information about qualifying criteria, can anyone offer some insights about who can apply and what can be applied for? I have two questions right now...
1) Is it required that the PhD must be attained before applications are made or can I apply before being awarded my PhD?
2) Is the fund open to people without Swedish citizenship?

It appears this information is made available on the webpage once each call for applications has been issued.
On this webpage here you can find this year's call for applications. Or you can visit vr.se/inenglish and follow the links to Research Funding > Apply for Grants > Call for proposals > Closed call for proposals, all past funding rounds are listed.
The last round of applications closed on 2 September, so you'll have to wait until next year. It looks like you need your PhD before the closing date. I can't see a specific mention of citizenship as a requirement (you can always email the research council).

Thanks, appears that the requirement is that the PhD is from a Swedish university, and awarded before the closing date for applications (they have calls twice per year)


text:
Is there a benefit to registering digital identification via both ORCID and ResearcherID?
This question is in continuation to the discussion from about a year ago, concerning researcher digital identification: Why use unique digital researcher ID?.
It appears that researchers, who would like to identify themselves within research community, today have two options: ORCID and ResearcherID. The former relies on open source code and open directory, while the latter is a subsidiary of Thomson Reuters, a for-profit company. It seems to me that ResearcherID is essentially a tool for Thomson Reuters for increasing information flow to their commercial systems Web of Science and Highly Cited Research.
If my observation is correct, then I'm interested about whether it makes sense to register with both directories (fortunately, ResearcherID seem to be compatible with ORCID)?

As a matter of principle I only registered for ORCID. But I do benefit from the fact that mathematicians typically do not use Web of Science so keeping a presence via Thomson Reuters is less important for me.

@WillieWong: Thank you for your comment. It makes sense to me.

These two reseacher identifications fill somewhat different purposes, beside the point that one is more open (Orcid) and one more controlled (both with regard to access and data). Below, I've highlighted the main diffences I see:
Orcid provides a way to connect many different types of "outputs" with your profile, both by manually adding information or importing from a number of databases. Beside article publications you can also add posters, presentations, software, grants etc to construct a more full representation of your output, basically a full CV.
ResearcherID is more focused on connecting published journal articles with your profile, and this is mostly geared towards importing data from Thomson's Web of Science. However, since ResearcherID is connected to a citation database it also provides citation metrics in your profile, and in that sense overlaps with a personal Google Scholar page. Orcid does not provide this functionality (at least not yet).
Since the two identification systems contain different types of information (at least for the time being), it can make sense to use them both, and as you've noted an Orcid profile can be linked from a ResearcherID profile. In terms of visibility it is probably also useful to use both, since their user bases are likely to differ. If you do not want to support ResearcherID because it is a closed Thomson Reuters product, Orcid + a Google Scholar citations page would provide basically the same information (but based on a different citation database), but with the drawback of two separate pages/profiles. I can also imagine that used exclusively, ResearcherID will probably be more useful for researchers from STEM fields compared to researchers in the humanities and social sciences, since the cover in Web of Science is known to be poorer in the latter fields.

I just thought that it might make sense to include digital researcher ID (for example, ORCID) information in a final dissertation report. That way, an appropriate two-way connection between a researcher and her/his artifact will be established. However, I expect that this would need first to be approved by my Ph.D. program and then by an official dissertation repository organization (which, I believe, in US is ProQuest). What do you think about all this? Is it worth the effort?

It would probably not hurt not include it in address/contact info, if you get the permission. At the same time, people that find your thesis interesting will probably go online and search for author + title, and if the thesis is included in your profile they will find the full profile either way. This would be marginally more difficult that to go directly to e.g. Orcid and enter your Orcid ID number. Therefore, I think including Orcid in your thesis works mostly as increased exposure for Orcid and is less important for the individual researcher.

You're probably right. One potential benefit though would be, if dissertation repository organization and journals would parse digital IDs from artifacts and this info would automatically be populated into researchers' profiles. That's not me speaking, but a "lazy programmer" in me that wants to automate things as much as possible and feasible :-). But, seriously, another benefit of this approach is increased artifacts' metadata accuracy, which is a major pain point, at least, for research papers, as far as I know.


text:
How do I get physicists to listen to something that they do not want to hear?
I have discovered a mistaken assumption that was made three centuries ago and has somehow been overlooked since then. It is a principle that was initially and remains to this day "proven" by a perceptual error. If we put the demonstrations and examples to the test of measurement, it is clear that the principle is mistaken. It has deep rooted effects on almost every aspect of science.
It is actually a very simple problem which makes my task more difficult because I face the argument that the theoretical physics papers I have produced are too short to be of importance. This is nonsense. Bear in mind that there is no restriction on the minimum length of a physics paper and I have discovered that the more material that is available to a person who is determined not to accept something, the more hooks there are available for a confirmation bias to manifest. I have discovered through my attempts that brevity is key to overcoming confirmation bias. There is good reason that there is no restriction on the minimum length of a physics paper. Unfortunately, I have not yet discovered the key to overcoming the cognitive dissonance that confirmation bias quickly evolves into.
My papers have been rejected without peer review more than a hundred times despite having had them professionally edited to ensure that they are properly formatted and error free.
I am censored on every science forum upon which I have tried to post anything related to this in most cases before any discussion has taken place. This post itself is being marked as a duplicate with nonsensical reasoning.
It is bad science to reject a submission without even addressing the presented argument. It is bad science to reject a logical proof without showing that the premisses are false or the deduction flawed. It is bad science to base your beliefs on tradition and ignore and censor any information which might conflict with them. It is bad science to immediately accuse someone of crackpotism the moment they say something which threatens your beliefs. It is bad science to drown someone out with ad-hominem, ridicule and mockery in order to prevent that anyone else might hear what he has to say lest they be open to correct thinking.
This is a very important issue and I am not prepared to give up on it because people would prefer not to hear it.
Once the denial is overcome, this will resolve many of the anomalies that are floating around in the world of physics. Not only that, but many of the worlds greatest minds are wasting time on problems that are a result of this mistaken assumption and once they realise that, their attention can be applied to issues that are realistic instead and this might result in progress the likes of which we have not seen in many years.
It is extremely important.
How do I get my arguments properly addressed?

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

How does one get a scientist to listen to what the scientist doesn't want to hear? By providing overwhelming evidence.
In the case of physics, overwhelming evidence will be experimental data. Design an experiment where your claim can be tested, carry out the experiment and report the results.
Carefully identify possible sources of errors and uncertainties. As your claim goes against what is traditionally predicted, you should check whether the data is consistent with the predictions of textbook physics, your work, or perhaps both or neither.
Notice that even if everything else goes well, a single experiment with unexpected results will not be enough to cause a paradigm shift. The experiment must be repeated by different research groups and the results must agree before something like that is possible.

I do understand where you are coming from and can provide some pointers:
(1) Are you talking to the right people/submitting to the right journals? It might not be effective to try to demonstrate some premises are wrong in a journal which publishes primarily in a sub-field where said premises are taken for granted. Evidently, the work that has been built on top of said premises is effective and likely shown useful in real-world scenarios. Therefore, it is very likely questioning said premises could be be considered 'out of scope' in such journals, which can result in desk rejects.
(2) It is easy to argue other people have committed a certain fallacy in their reasoning. However, try to be open to the fact that you might be doing the same. Possibly there are some underlying assumptions you are making to disprove this 'mistaken assumption' which you are not communicating clearly, and which might even be widely accepted/proven to be erroneous. Listen to the reviews you do receive, and use them to better tailor your argument to a specific audience. Elaborate where needed by reading up on related work where previous people have originally proven this 'mistaken assumption'.

Most of my rejection letters can be found here: http://www.baur-research.com/Physics/rejections.txt

It is not easy to argue that others have committed a fallacy in their reasoning. As far as I understand it, if a logical proof is presented, it must be shown that the premisses are false or the deduction flawed before the proof can be rejected. My proofs have been rejected irrationally. I have not received any reviews (see the rejections). There have been a few people who have pointed out this mistake, but they have all been treated with hostility to the extent that they gave up. I am not able to quit because this is important.


text:
Do details of my undergraduate title matter?
I'm a third-year undergraduate student yet to experience the graduate world.
Currently, with the course choices I made, I can choose between two degree titles, namely “BSc Mathematics” or “BSc Applied Mathematics”.
I will be taking the same courses regardless, but I'm wondering if it matters to have a different degree title.
E.g., might one of the titles benefit me or does it not matter at all (in terms of job prospects, continuing to my master’s, …)?
Moderator’s notice: Do not take this as a shopping question as to which of these specific titles is better (you can use them as examples though). Instead, focus on the relevance of such differences in the title in general.

I think that's a perfectly reasonable question! As an undergraduate it's not clear whether the name of a degree has any effect. My gut feeling is not very much at all. It's not worth losing sleep over! In the grand scheme of things it is probably negligible. But I'll let someone else answer this with more experience (both inside and outside academia!). Maybe I'd suggest you just pick what you want to call yourself when you introduce yourself. Would you want to call yourself a mathematician or would you prefer applied mathematician? And then pick your degree title similarly.

Maybe just to clarify: how you introduce yourself (at a party or a job interview) is of course independent of your degree title. But if you identify more with one over the other why not pick the corresponding degree title.

I disagree with the close votes. This is a perfectly reasonable in-scope question, whose correct answer is “Nobody cares.”

I edited this question to focus on the relevance of the title in general, instead of which of the specific titles the asker can choose from is better. This is also the question that the existing answers address.

@Wrzlprmft nice edit!

In the long term it won't matter at all. There might be a small effect in moving to your next position depending on whether you go to grad school or to industry, but after a few years no one will notice anymore. You will be responsible for your own reputation and people will look to that, not to the specific degree you earned - especially its title.
I also studied math, but in the US. Here we have a very broad undergraduate education, studying many things beyond the major subject. At graduation I had qualified for either a BS or a BA and was given the choice. I chose BA as it seemed to me to be more "interesting". I had taken extra courses both in math and in other subjects. But it never mattered. Literally no one cared. For entry to grad school the transcript shows what I had done.
But, you might use the opportunity to think about what you want to do for the next ten or so years. Grad school and academia, or industry.

By about 10 years into my career as a programmer nobody much cared that my bachelor's degree was in mathematics, not computer science. What I had done since graduation, and could do, was much more important.

I don’t think it matters even in the short term. People don’t hire (and grad schools don’t admit) based on the name of your major; they look for specific skills, accomplishments, and interests.

No one cared even past the initial interview for me. (I have a degree in Psychology and English). Since I could do the programming I got the job, and after that it's moot.

It's mostly irrelevant, but it might come up in a few weird situations.
If you want to take the US Patent Bar, for example, you need to establish that you've had some kind of scientific or technical training. Often, this is done by showing that you have an Batchelor's Degree in a recognized technical subject from this list (see page 4).. Any degree in Computer Engineering will sail right through, but Computer Science degrees need to be ABET-accredited (and fairly few programs--especially the 'good ones' are). Likewise, pharmacology is on the approved list, but "pharmacy" is not. This seems like ridiculous hairsplitting, but there you have it.
Similar situations occasionally crop up in federal hiring and immigration, especially when point systems are used. Quebec gives potential immigrants "points" based on their Bachelor's concentration. I suspect you might be able to finagle Math vs. Applied Math, since those seem pretty similar to a layperson, but something like Psychology vs. Neuroscience vs. Biology might be harder (even if the coursework is identical).
I wouldn't necessarily plan your whole life around the major you choose, but if you have something specific in mind for the near future, do check!

Surprised about your comments on ABET. Wikipedia reports that 637 colleges have programs that are ABET accredited (various fields).

Yeah, but look for computer science specifically. It doesn't include Stanford, CMU, Yale, Cornell, Columbia, or Princeton. It does include Devry Tech though....

They aren't all like Devry, though. The standards are actually pretty high.

I think it probably does make sense in certain fields, but computer science may not be one of them. (This is the argument Stanford makes --their EE program is accredited, but CS is intentionally not). Anyway, that's sort of my point here. You may want/need a degree that checks some box (like ABET-accredidation) and if so, that should inform your choice of declared major.

As far as I can tell, (almost) nobody cares. (I am saying "almost" because I am working in a very "pure" mathematics group and the professors in my group often speak with disdain (sometimes jokingly, sometimes not) about "applied" mathematicians. Their impression of you would probably be slighly better if you were a mathematician. On the other hand, some people in industry might be slight unconsiously biased in favor of applied mathematicians. (Keep in mind that many people in industry in charge of hiring do not understand what the courses on your transcript are about.)
But this is only a slight thing. It is not so important. Just follow your feelings about what you feel more for.
Another recommendation: If it is common that people in your school choose their title, ask around what the advantages are. Maybe those people can give you better information why it should matter than this site.

As a former recruiter and employer of graduates, I would say that the words you use to describe your degree are of negligible importance. What is vitally important is that you should be able to explain, in plain English as to a non-expert,  why what you have studied for your degree is highly relevant to the job that you wish to obtain  - or not. People are recruited to do jobs that bear no relation to the detail of their undergraduate degree.

You might be heading towards graduate school right now, but you may also end up looking for work in industry. In that case, many (most?) people involved hiring processes will not take the time to check what courses you've actually taken, and may categorize your application based in part on your degree title. I'm not saying what's better than what, but the connotations for "math" and "applied math" are different. So it matters at least in that respect.
Also, on a personal level - I would want my title to reflect what I feel I've focused on in my studies. What would you rather say you studied? Abstract/general mathematics, or applied mathematics? Maybe make your choice that way.

I would lean towards applied math because it sets you up for more, well, applied jobs, and even grad schools.  If you want to head into pure math grad school or even pure math professor jobs (post Ph.D.), they will just look at your actual accomplishments.  All that said, many schools don't have a math versus applied math difference (just one general degree).  And math undergrad remains a somewhat flexible degree, so it's not like people will completely pigeon hold you as a purist, just from listing math.
Maybe a better way to think about the question is where are you headed (work or school, if work what field, if school what field).  There may be a (still weak) match of some opportunities versus particular major slant.


text:
Why bioRxiv instead of arXiv.bio?
In view of the need of a preprint repository for biology science, why was it necessary to start bioRxiv, instead of a biology section in arXiv?  Is there any fundamental difference between the two?  If bioRxiv becomes popular now, why weren't biologists willing to use arXiv?

Not really an answer, but as far as my research (cell/molecular biology) is concerned, my work would simply be out of scope in the "quantitative biology" section of arXiv. It seems to be mostly for papers about modelling of biological processes, machine learning-based analyses... but no room for wet lab papers and classic "knock out a gene and see what happens" type of biology

@Mowgli, I'm aware of qbio and it's limit.  But one could request arXiv to open a new section for biology.  arXiv has opened many new sections for new disciplines during its development.  I don't understand why that was not an option for biology.  I would like to hear about the considerations that leads to a new bioRxiv.

They are different organizations driven by different people and different funding sources. Arxiv doesn't accept biology papers so I wouldn't submit my biology papers there.

@BryanKrause arXiv started as a physics archieve, was not accepting maths or computer science papers neither.  I don't see how this is a problem.

Paul Ginsparg, the arXiv founder, is on the biorxiv advisory board, so there's clearly been some communication between the two entities. I would speculate that the biorxiv folks either i) wanted something less LaTeX-integrated, or ii) wanted a heavyweight sponsor/host to help legitimize the idea of preprints in the eyes of the community and journals.

@Anyon I agree.

ArXiv was not interested in expanding into biology (apart from quantitative bio). A 2013 Nature news article about the establishment of bioRχiv explains:

ArXiv’s quantitative biology section, launched in 2003, has seen exponential gains in the past two years [. . .] But arXiv does not plan to expand into other areas of the life sciences, such as cell and molecular biology, and the site is not designed with biologists in mind.

In 2018, arXiv Operations Manager Jim Entwood discussed how the arXiv decides whether to expand into new subjects, saying that they ask "How does the proposed category fit into the rest of arXiv?" and that they are "fairly conservative when it comes to adding new categories".

This comes in part from our general principles, and our commitment to those communities we already serve. We also need to ensure sustainable growth both in terms of active engagement with research communities and the financial and organizational capacity of arXiv. Decisions for category expansion are ultimately up to the arXiv Program Director and Scientific Director with input from arXiv staff and the Scientific Advisory Board.

Thank you for the references.  I think biology may also come negative in regard to "How do e-prints fit into the research and publishing practice of the community?"