Plagiarism and fake certification fell top French Rabbi

April 11, 2013

I suppose this counts as a case of academic misconduct in the world of Man and one of “bearing false witness” in higher circles.

Picture of Chief Rabbi Gilles Bernheim

Chief Rabbi Gilles Bernheim (wikipedia)

Rabbi Gilles Bernheim  is considered a leading Jewish intellectual who has clearly been lifted high on the shoulders of giants who came before him. He has blamed one of his assistants who helped write his book for him for the plagiarism. The fake certification he had claimed was from the Sorbonne.

Does it count as as plagiarism if he didn’t even write his own book?

But it was surely all done in good faith.

 Yahoo News: France’s top rabbi is taking leave from his post after he acknowledged “borrowing” other people’s work and lying about his education, a top Jewish leader said Thursday.

Rabbi Gilles Bernheim asked for leave at an urgent meeting in Paris of leaders of the Central Consistory of France, which accepted the request, said Richard Prasquier, the president of France’s largest umbrella group of Jewish organizations.

Prasquier, speaking by mobile phone, said two other rabbis would temporarily fill the post of Grand Rabbi of France, which Bernheim will leave for at least six months. Talks about whether he might return at all will take place in the coming months, he said.

He said many people in France’s 500,000-strong Jewish community have been shaken over the case.

Bernheim faced accusations by a French academic who tracks suspected plagiarism that parts of his 2011 book “Forty Jewish Meditations” and part of a text he wrote about gay marriage, same-sex parenting and adoption were lifted from others. That text, written last fall, was cited in the Christmas address of Pope Benedict XVI last year.

Asked about the claims on Tuesday, Bernheim confirmed having carried out “borrowings … what others might call plagiarism” from others. “Not only do I deeply regret it, but I recognize it as a moral flaw,” he said of one instance.

Bernheim had also come under scrutiny for claiming nearly four decades ago to have received an “aggregation” — or high-level certification — in philosophy. On Radio Shalom, he acknowledged he did not actually have one, but had made the claim 37 years ago during an unspecified “tragic event.”

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US Interior Department clears itself of misconduct

April 11, 2013

Internal inquiries set up to look into alleged misdeeds of any organisation always have a vested interest in protecting the organisation. Even those which have “independent members” but who are “hired” by the organisation are never truly independent. But what is often forgotten is that no internal inquiry about wrong-doing can ever in fact prove innocence by proving the negative – that wrong-doing did not take place. The only two options that are open as conclusions are that “wrong-doing did take place” or “no evidence of wrong-doing was found”. The latter is not a declaration of innocence.

Internal inquiries are usually the result of specific allegations and such inquiries are established mainly as a political ploy and to deflect criticism. Most such inquiries take the default position as being that no wrong-doing has occurred and require wrong-doing to be proven. But this is exactly the opposite of what they ought to be doing. They should – and maybe this should be mandatory for all internal inquiries – use the null hypothesis “that the alleged wrong-doing did take place” and the task is to see if there is evidence that this hypothesis is false. The presumption, I think must be that of guilt and cannot take the comfortable and rather cozy position of presumed innocence. Especially so in cases of alleged scientific misconduct. The onus should be on the impugned researcher to demonstrate the integrity of his evidence or data or images and not the other way around.

And therefore I take the findings of this internal inquiry conducted by the US Department of the Interior about alleged misconduct with a very large bushel of salt. Ironically the complaint was made by their own Integrity Officer. And considering that they have introduced new policies about integrity and have thereafter rejected all allegations of misconduct, it could be thought that the new standards are more about protecting the organisation rather than of protecting integrity.

The Record Searchlight:  

The U.S. Department of the Interior has rejected complaints of scientific misconduct made by its former scientific integrity officer, who accused the department of skewing information in favor removing dams on the Klamath River.

A panel hired by the department did not agree with Paul Houser’s claims that officials falsified scientific materials and circumvented policy on scientific integrity to garner public support for dam removal.

Houser filed a complaint last year, claiming a press release announcing the release of a draft environmental analysis cherry-picked facts to garner public support for removing four dams on the Klamath River. The press release also included a summary of key findings in the report that Houser said failed to include possible uncertainties about the information.

The panel’s report, titled “Independent evaluation of the scientific record pertaining to the allegations of Dr. Paul Houser,” says there was nothing unusual about the press release and key findings.

“It (the press release) was not intended as document on which to base a secretarial decision or to announce to the public such a decision,” says the report, which was written in August 2012, but not released to the public until this month.

Houser issued a rebuttal to the report blasting the department’s scientific integrity policy and the panel, claiming it was not independent, that its members were not qualified to investigate his claims and that the probe was inadequate. …….

………. 

The Interior Department has a web page listing the findings from all of its closed scientific integrity cases over the past two years. The findings on the 12 complaints say they were without basis.

“We seem to be getting more and more excuses why there was no misconduct,” Ruch said.

Prior to the department’s press release being issued in September 2011, Houser took his complaints to Interior Department officials, who changed it. But two weeks after raising issues over the release, Houser was placed on probation within the department.

Houser’s position was abolished last year and he was told he was “not a good fit” for the job of scientific integrity officer, PEER said. After losing his job, Houser filed a whistleblower complaint with the government.

Houser and the government “resolved” the whistleblower complaint last year. The resolution included an agreement that neither Houser or the department would comment on it. The department’s panel did not consider Houser’s claims of retaliation during its investigation.

“If Interior’s own scientific integrity officers are not shielded from reprisal for doing their jobs, how in heaven’s name could one expect a staff scientist to push back against political shenanigans?” Ruch said.

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Prolific Cardiff Professor cleared of misconduct

April 11, 2013

The Shenanigans at Cardiff University led to an investigation by the University  into alleged research misconduct in the laboratory of its dean of medicine, Prof. BP Morgan. He has now been cleared of any misconduct but one of his former co-workers, Rossen Donev,  has been singled out for the manipulation of images. ( Dr. Donev is listed as a lecturer at Swansea University’s College of Medicine). The investigation seems to have found that Prof. Morgan could not have known about his co-worker’s image manipulation even though he was a co-author. Some 40 papers were investigated and image manipulation was found in 4 instances all by the former researcher. Some of the papers have been retracted.

It is laudable that the source of the misconduct has been identified though there is a tiny hint of  a whitewash and some scapegoating when the only guilty person is no longer at the University and every body else is completely exonerated. Does Prof. Morgan have no responsibility at all for misconduct conducted within his group?  The ubiquitous practice of the head of a lab or research group automatically being included as a co-author is not quite satisfactory when the “leader” takes no responsibility for his soldiers. There is something not quite right when there are “lots and lots of papers published by the Dean, Professor B P Morgan, (172 papers and 35 review articles or chapters since 1998 – giving 207 publications in about 180 months!)”. You can’t just take the credit for authorship of more than a paper a month and then not take any responsibility for any wrongdoing. Apart from Dr. Donev, everybody else seems to have “had Doctor’s papers”!

BBC: The dean of Cardiff University’s school of medicine has been cleared of research misconduct after claims images were manipulated in academic articles. Professor Paul Morgan and other members of his research group were cleared by a formal investigation panel.

But four allegations of image manipulation in articles were upheld against a former staff member. Prof Morgan, who researches diseases, said the actions of one individual had a “profound effect” on his reputation. A clinical academic, the professor heads a team which Cardiff University’s website said is “internationally recognised for its expertise and contribution to the field of complement biology”. He remained in his post during the investigation by the panel, which was chaired by a former Cardiff circuit judge. …. 

…. The inquiry rejected all allegations against Prof Morgan and members of his research team, but upheld four allegations of misconduct against the former university employee.

The panel also said that Prof Morgan – the co-author of the four articles in question – would not have been aware that the individual had included manipulated images in the articles.

Cardiff University said it took allegations of academic research misconduct against staff extremely seriously. “The panel did find that allegations of data manipulation against a former member of university staff were substantiated and recommends that protocols are put in place to ensure that data and original image files are in future viewed and assessed prior to submission for publication,” a spokesperson said. “Cardiff University accepts these findings and recommendations and will now take action to put in place procedures to ensure that incidents of this sort do not recur.” …

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Doomsayers confounded as Gulf of Mexico heals itself

April 10, 2013

It was touted as the greatest environmental disaster of all time when Deepwater Horizon exploded in the Gulf of Mexico killing 11 and spilling vast quantities of crude oil. But two years later in April 2012 it was clear that the Gulf was recovering much faster than expected. It was soon clear that the effect of oil eating microbes had been grossly underestimated. And now 3 years after the accident an expert in bioremediation reported  at the 245th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS)  that “the Gulf of Mexico may have a much greater natural ability to self-clean oil spills than previously believed”.

“It shows that we may not need the kinds of heroic measures proposed after the Deepwater Horizon spill, like adding nutrients to speed up the growth of bacteria that breakdown oil, or using genetically engineered bacteria. The Gulf has a broad base of natural bacteria, and they respond to the presence of oil by multiplying quite rapidly.”

From ACS: Terry C. Hazen, Ph.D., said that conclusion has emerged from research following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, which by some estimates spilled 4.9 million barrels (210 million gallons) of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. His research team used a powerful new approach for identifying microbes in the environment to discover previously unknown bacteria, naturally present in the Gulf water, that consume and break down crude oil.

“The Deepwater Horizon oil provided a new source of nutrients in the deepest waters,” explained Hazen, who is with the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. “With more food present in the water, there was a population explosion among those bacteria already adapted to using oil as a food source. It was surprising how fast they consumed the oil. In some locations, it took only one day for them to reduce a gallon of oil to a half gallon. In others, the half-life for a given quantity of spilled oil was 6 days. This data suggests that a great potential for intrinsic bioremediation of oil plumes exists in the deep sea and other environs in the Gulf of Mexico.” 

Hazen spoke at a symposium, “Environmental Fate of Petroleum Oils and Dispersants in the Marine Environment,” that included other reports relating to the Deepwater Horizon spill. They were among 12,000 reports being presented at the ACS meeting, which continues through Thursday. Abstracts of the oil spill symposium appear at the end of this press release.

Oil-eating bacteria are natural inhabitants of the Gulf because of the constant supply of food. Scientists know that there are more than 600 different areas where oil oozes from rocks underlying the Gulf of Mexico. These oil seeps, much like underwater springs, release 560,000-1.4 million barrels of oil annually, according to the National Research Council.

Hazen’s team used a powerful new approach for identifying previously recognized kinds of oil-eating bacteria that contributed to the natural clean-up of the Deepwater Horizon spill. In the past, scientists identified microbes by putting samples of water into laboratory culture dishes, waiting for microbes to grow and then using a microscope to identify the microbes. The new approach, called “ecogenomics,” uses genetic and other analyses of the DNA, proteins and other footprints of bacteria to provide a more detailed picture of microbial life in the water.

“The bottom line from this research may be that the Gulf of Mexico is more resilient and better able to recover from oil spills than anyone thought,” Hazen said. “It shows that we may not need the kinds of heroic measures proposed after the Deepwater Horizon spill, like adding nutrients to speed up the growth of bacteria that breakdown oil, or using genetically engineered bacteria. The Gulf has a broad base of natural bacteria, and they respond to the presence of oil by multiplying quite rapidly.”

 

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Posted in Alarmism, Environment, Oil, US | 1 Comment »

Durham University finds that fracking is not very significant in causing tremors

April 10, 2013

The fears of earthquakes and water contamination are being wildly exaggerated by all those who would prevent the hydraulic fracturing (fracking) of the vast deposits of gas shale available around the world. But research at the University of Durham puts the threat of micro-seismsity into perspective.

BBC reports:

New research suggests that fracking is not a significant cause of earthquakes that can be felt on the surface. UK scientists looked at quakes caused by human activity ranging from mining to oil drilling; only three could be attributed to hydraulic fracturing.

Most fracking events released the same amount of energy as jumping off a ladder, the Durham-based team said. They argue that the integrity of well bores drilled for fracking is of much greater concern.

The research is published in the Journal of Marine and Petroleum Geology.

 …. Fracking, as it is called, utilises a mixture of water, sand and chemicals pumped underground at high pressure to crack open sedimentary rocks and release the fuels within. But opponents of fracking have long been concerned that the process could induce earthquakes such as the one that occurred near a shale gas operation in Lancashire in 2011.

Now researchers from Durham University’s Energy Institute say that the pumping of fracking liquid does indeed have the potential to reactivate dormant fault lines. But they say that compared to many other human activities such as mining or filling reservoirs with water, fracking is not a significant source of tremors that can be felt on the surface.

“We’ve looked at 198 published examples of induced seismicity since 1929,” Prof Richard Davies from Durham told BBC News. “Hydraulic fracturing is not really in the premier league for causing felt seismicity. Fundamentally it is is never going to be as important as mining or filling dams which involve far greater volumes of fluid.” The researchers detailed just three incidences of earthquakes created by fracking – one each in the US, the UK and Canada. The biggest at Horn River Basin in Canada in 2011 had a magnitude of 3.8.

“Most fracking related events release a negligible amount of energy roughly equivalent to, or even less than someone jumping off a ladder onto the floor,” said Prof Davies. ….. 

 

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Bitcoin still soaring

April 9, 2013

Updating my previous post, the Bitcoin value  continues to soar and had reached about $240 today. The Bitcoin hoard of 21 million is now worth about $5 billion.

Three months ago the value of a Bitcoin was less than $10. Simple arithmetic tells us that around an additional $4.8 billion has come into this market and  is now locked up as Bitcoins. Some of this enhanced value may be due to intentional circular trading but if that is the case this bubble will burst and some will make a killing and others are going to take a big hit. Anybody who has entered recently without a well thought out exit strategy is taking a big risk.

Last price:$235.70000, 

High:$240.11100, Low:$180.00000, 

Volume:108657 BTC 

bitcoin value 9th april 2013 in USD

bitcoin value 9th april 2013 in USD

Bitcoin value in US Dollars

Bitcoin value in US Dollars last 6 months to 7th April

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Posted in Business, Economy, Politics | 3 Comments »

“Global warming is the opiate of the upper middle class”

April 9, 2013

That “global warming” is a religion I have no doubt. But we could be going through a Martin Luther or perhaps a Galileo Galilei  moment for this religion as its foundations crumble. “Heretics” are gaining ground steadily as the high priests of the global warming religion continue to roar and bluster and threaten hell-fire and damnation.

The “religion” theme is succinctly put by Henry Payne in The Detroit News. Considering the soporific and addictive nature of the religion and its ability to induce a feeling of being superior I thought that being “an opiate of the upper middle class” was particularly apt.

Paris, France – From Anglicanism to Catholicism, Europe’s history is full of state-based religion. In secular 21st century Europe, the unofficial state religion is the GreenChurch. Environmentalism inspires a devout, pro-Kyoto devotion here quite different than the more skeptical American outlook.

But France’s strident green political and media voices are curiously silent this year. Perhaps it’s the bone-chilling spring.

Parisians used to leafy April vistas shiver past leafless trees on Paris’s beautiful, tree-lined parks. Temperatures are in the mid-40s, well below the 60s-normal. Average temperatures across the continent are, on average, 4-8 degrees below normal with March registering colder average temperatures than January. Snow fell in England, France, and Germany this spring- an unusual occurrence. The cold snap follows the frigid London Olympics last summer and over a decade of flat temperatures worldwide. Hardly the stuff of global warming. But the GreenChurch is firm in its doctrine – and the global warming high priests must be obeyed.

If Christianity was the opiate of the masses in centuries gone by, then global warming is the opiate of the upper middle class.

As such, politicians here have imposed draconian laws on their masses, from high gas taxes to high utility costs – a situation so extreme in Germany that the term “electric poverty” has become a common term. Unable to afford high energy costs imposed by government censor of sinful coal power, thousands have had their power shut off.

Here in Paris, French citizens suffer under $7.50 a gallon gas even as hey huddle at the pumps in winter overcoats. They pay their sin taxes, but, they may ask, to what end?

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Illusion of vibrating motion

April 9, 2013

From http://ilusoesoptica.blogspot.se/

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Corruption is rife among municipal politicians and officials – believe Swedes

April 9, 2013

The Swedish Ministry of Finance publishes a report today by their Expert Group on Public Finance which shows that every other Swede suspects that corruption is widespread among municipal politicians and officials. Unlike other parts of the EU, in Sweden local politicians and officials are suspected far more than at national level and around 60% believe that cronyism, bribery and nepotism are common at the municipal level. The study was set up partly in reaction to the Gothenburg corruption scandal.

The report by the expert group consisting of Prof. Anders Bergh, Lund School of Economics, Prof. Gissur Erlingsson, Linköping University, Prof. Mats Sjölin, Linne University and  Richard Öhrvall, Institute of Industrial Research, is published today. The report proposes a system of random independent audits and that information available to the public under transparency regulations must be much more understandable.

I don’t think that the public perception presented here is that far from reality.

Dagens Nyheter: 

Our central proposal for action is for a system of annual external audits of financial statements of a number of randomly selected municipalities. We also suggest that municipal finances disclosures shall be made accessible and that citizens who suspect fraud should be able to request external review of the municipality.

The legal aftermath of the corruption scandal in Gothenburg has now been running for two years. Despite some convictions, it is clear that morally reprehensible behavior does not necessarily lead to prosecution or heavy penalties. The Gothenburg scandal fits well into the general pattern.

In the new report presented today, we argue that corruption problems in Swedish municipalities are in an ethically gray area that does not fall clearly within narrow legal definitions. Corruption is a special case of abuse of power where politicians and officials benefit themselves or their relatives at taxpayers’ expense. Precisely because the boundaries are not clear, it is important that we do not rely only on the law to counter the problems. A positive side effect of the Gothenburg scandal is that the discussion about what we should expect from our elected officials and civil servants seems to have been established on the political agenda. ….. 

….. It is difficult to say if the scandals are exceptions to the image of Sweden as free from corruption problems or is the tip of an iceberg. More newspaper articles, more prosecutions and convictions does not necessarily mean that corruption has become more common. But when more people perceive widespread corruption problems it damages the credibility of democracy. Here Sweden differs from the other Nordic countries: Compared with Denmark, Finland and Norway,  Swedes distrust the honesty of public officials to a much greater extent. Studies show that 9 out of 10 Swedes believe that public officialsbehaviour depends on personal contacts, a remarkably high figure by international standards. The pattern is repeated in several studies. ….. 

Transparency principles are well established in Swedish government. In many municipalities  however, significant parts are run as businesses in corporate form, which often leads to ambiguities of the status of Freedom Of Information principles. Nor is it sufficient that the documents may be requested by anyone. To combat corruption documents must be understandable and encourage reviews and comparisons  with other municipalities. Many municipalities use information technology inspired by the trend in open data. But it rarely occurs in a way that makes it easier for citizens, researchers and journalists to examine, for example, how the municipal councils are using their money, or what municipalities pay for various construction projects. ….

….. An analysis of, say, a dozen municipalities annually may not lead to new scandal revelations. But the audit is a strong reason to avoid precisely the kind of behavior that would be considered problematic if it was discovered. ….

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Argentina joins the shale gas bandwagon

April 8, 2013

The shale gas bandwagon is now truly rolling and countries all across the globe are scrambling to catch up. The wide-spread reserves mean that, more than any other energy source, shale gas has the potential of making concerns about energy security and reliance on foreign sources a thing of the past. South America also has its share of gas bearing shale. Argentina and Brazil have substantial shale deposits which the EIA estimates could give 774 and 226 trillion cubic feet of gas respectively. Even Chile and Bolivia have substantial deposits. The Argentinian deposits are only smaller than those in the US and China.

Shale Gas deposits South America SOURCE: USGS

Shale Gas deposits South America SOURCE: USGS

In April last year Argentina nationalised the YPF unit of Spanish Grupo Repsol which in turn had been acquired by Repsol on privatisation of YPF in 1999. There is a dispute ongoing between Repsol and the Argentinian government regarding the compensation for the nationalisation. One of the reasons for the nationalisation was a perceived reluctance from Repsol to invest in Argentina. While Repsol acquired YPF in 1999 for $15 billion, the nationalised assets of YPF are now valued at only around $9 billion.

OilPrice: Argentina shale gas reserves exceed its 13.4 trillion cubic feet (tcf) conventional proven gas reserves. The largest shale play is the Neuquen basin with more than 250 TCF. YPF discovered 4.5 TCF of shale gas in the Loma de la Lata Field of Neuquen in December 2010. Gas transportation and field services infrastructure are already in place making it attractive for further development. There are also additional Argentine shale deposit reserves in Chubut and Santa Cruz provinces near the Golfo San Jorge in the Atlantic southeast part of the country.  The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) says Argentina’s technically recoverable shale gas reserves are the third largest in the world after the United States and China at 774 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) with more than half of that in the Neuquén Basin on the western side of the country. ….

To exploit its shale potential Argentina needs the active participation and assistance from large international oil field services companies and deep pocket investors. … Argentina’s shale resource potential is large enough to attract the biggest companies. But in the rapidly changing world of global shale development there are many places where investors can participate in the growth of shales without the risk Argentina presents. 

In any event Argentina is looking to make YPF a flagship for the country in the Oil & Gas space (with Petrobras across the border as an example to follow). And YPF will need both fracking technology and investment if they are to make something of their vast gas shale reserves in the Neuquén basin. There are a number of potential suitors from the US and even from China who may be prepared to take on the perceived country risks of Argentina, but Dow Chemical seems to be the first:

Chemical & Engineering News: With eyes on what could be the first shale gas project in Argentina, Dow Chemical has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Argentinian oil company YPF to develop a gas-rich area of the country.

The memorandum envisages YPF ceding Dow a 50% stake in a shale formation in Neuquén province. Dow and YPF also would explore expanding petrochemical capacity in the country on the basis of additional raw material supply. The firms are still negotiating the terms of the deal.

In the U.S., abundant shale-based feedstocks are leading to a renaissance in the petrochemical industry. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration and consulting firm Advanced Resources International, Argentina has 774 trillion cu ft of recoverable shale gas reserves, the third-largest amount after the U.S. and China. But energy companies are so far only drilling exploratory wells in Argentina.

Dow already operates an ethylene cracker and polyethylene plants in Bahia Blanca, Argentina. In 2001, the company completed $720 million in expansion projects at the site.

And Dow is involved in chemical feedstocks in the country. In Bahia Blanca, it has a 28% interest in Compañía Mega, a natural gas liquids fractionation joint venture with YPF and Brazil’s Petrobras. The venture takes in natural gas liquids from Neuquén and supplies the ethane to Dow to feed its ethylene cracker.

The U.S. firm has been keen to expand its polyethylene business in the region but has been stymied by feedstock supply. Dow recently delayed a plant in Brazil that would get its ethylene from sugarcane-derived ethanol.

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