Significance of differences of significance: Erroneous statistics in neuroscience

September 10, 2011

Experimental work where a difference between tests is observed must also be analysed statistically to show that the difference observed is significant. But when the significance of difference observed in one group of tests is compared to that observed in another group, then the significance of the difference of the differences is often wrongly analysed according to a new paper in Nature Neuroscience.

The authors  analysed 513 behavioral, systems and cognitive neuroscience articles in five top-ranking journals (Science, Nature, Nature Neuroscience, Neuron and The Journal of Neuroscience). Of the 157 papers where this error could have been made 78 used the correct procedure and 79 used the incorrect procedure. Suspecting that the problem could be more widespread they “reviewed an additional 120 cellular and molecular neuroscience articles published in Nature Neuroscience in 2009 and 2010 (the first five Articles in each issue)”. They did not find a single study that used the correct statistical procedure to compare effect sizes. In contrast, they found at least 25 studies that used the erroneous procedure and explicitly or implicitly compared significance levels.

Erroneous analyses of interactions in neuroscience: a problem of significance by Sander Nieuwenhuis, Birte U Forstmann & Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, Nature Neuroscience 14, 1105–1107 (2011) doi:10.1038/nn.2886

(These) statements illustrate a statistical error that is common in the neuroscience literature. The researchers who made these statements wanted to claim that one effect (for example, the training effect on neuronal activity in mutant mice) was larger or smaller than the other effect (the training effect in control mice). To support this claim, they needed to report a statistically significant interaction (between amount of training and type of mice), but instead they reported that one effect was statistically significant, whereas the other effect was not. Although superficially compelling, the latter type of statistical reasoning is erroneous because the difference between significant and not significant need not itself be statistically significant.

Full paper is here: PDF Nieuwenhuis et al 

Abstract: In theory, a comparison of two experimental effects requires a statistical test on their difference. In practice, this comparison is often based on an incorrect procedure involving two separate tests in which researchers conclude that effects differ when one effect is significant (P < 0.05) but the other is not (P > 0.05). We reviewed 513 behavioral, systems and cognitive neuroscience articles in five top-ranking journals (Science, Nature, Nature Neuroscience, Neuron and The Journal of Neuroscience) and found that 78 used the correct procedure and 79 used the incorrect procedure. An additional analysis suggests that incorrect analyses of interactions are even more common in cellular and molecular neuroscience. We discuss scenarios in which the erroneous procedure is particularly beguiling.

The authors conclude

It is interesting that this statistical error occurs so often, even in journals of the highest standard. Space constraints and the need for simplicity may be the reasons why the error occurs in journals such as Nature and Science. Reporting interactions in an analysis of variance design may seem overly complex when one is writing for a general readership. Perhaps, in some cases, researchers choose to report the difference between significance levels because the corresponding interaction effect is not significant. Peer reviewers should help authors avoid such mistakes. … Indeed, people are generally tempted to attribute too much meaning to the difference between significant and not significant. For this reason, the use of confidence intervals may help prevent researchers from making this statistical error. Whatever the reasons for the error, its ubiquity and potential effect suggest that researchers and reviewers should be more aware that the difference between significant and not significant is not itself necessarily significant.

 

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Science | Comments Off on Significance of differences of significance: Erroneous statistics in neuroscience

Another harsh winter is expected as La Niña returns

September 9, 2011

Yesterday the NOAA finally confirmed that  La Niña was back. 

The Indian monsoon has been reasonably good and we can expect  greater evaporation leading to increased rains in the Western Pacific and in Australia. There should be less rain in the Eastern Pacific on the western coast of S. America (coastal Chile and Peru) but increased rain on the east coast in southern Brazil and  northern Argentina. Dry conditions should persist in the Southern US but the Northern hemisphere can now expect another harsh winter for the third year in a row. Forecasters are beginning to warn about this and local authorities are preparing to stock adequate amounts of salt and grit.

Sweden: Forecasters promise another harsh winter 

While Swedes are still enjoying the relatively clement weather of early autumn, weather experts are already forecasting another freezing winter to follow the last two. ”It is true that they generally follow each other,” said meteorologist Lisa Frost from the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) to daily Aftonbladet.
According to experts, the last two winters have been the coldest for the last few decades and statistics from the institute all point to cold winters coming in threes. …. The three extremely cold winters 1940-43, during the war, were followed by four very clement winters. Since then, the weather would seem to have followed this 3.5 year pattern.

Scotland: New bid to avoid repeat of winter road chaos 

The Scottish Government has called in the Red Cross to help prepare for the possibility of another harsh winter. In a bid to avoid a repeat of last year when motorists were stranded for hours on snow- bound motorways, transport minister Keith Brown has called a ‘Get Ready For Winter’ week next month.

Ireland: Heavy snow promised in Ireland  

The Irish Government has told Irish households to stock up on disposable barbecues to avoid disasters during the freezing weather promised for the forthcoming winter. After studying the last two years bitterly cold winters and the situations which arose the Government has advised that citizens should have “some barbecue trays” to hand in case they get snowed in.

UK: Forecaster Predicts Early Winter Snowfall For Ireland And Britain 

A long range weather forecaster is predicting an early start to winter 2011-2012 for many regions of the United Kingdom and Ireland.  James Madden of Exacta Weather says heavy snowfalls are likely in places as soon as late October and early November.

US: Resurgent La Niña may enhance snowfall for northern Colo. ski areas this winter 

… the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA ) has issued a La Niña Advisory. This means La Niña conditions are likely to drive weather trends this winter. … “At this time, the Climate Forecast System (CFS) models are predicting an episode rivaling the same strength as last winter, but that forecast may change quite a bit as we get closer to the winter.”

Last winter, a moderate La Niña in the Pacific Ocean helped generate conditions just right for continuous massive snowfall in the Rocky Mountains of central and northern Colorado.

Related: Newborn La Niña: An Illustrated Guide

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Climate, Natural Phenomena, Weather, Winter | 3 Comments »

Internet forum unveils the compulsive photoshopping of an award-winning nature photographer

September 9, 2011

It started on August 26th when Gunnar Glöersen, a wildlife management expert for the Swedish Hunting Association (Svenska Jägareförbundet) received a call from a journalist – Jan Henricson of  Svensk Jakt – asking him to comment on the authenticity of a suspicious photograph of a lynx taken by Terje Hellesö. Hellesö is a well-known nature photographer who received the 2010 Swedish Environmental Protection Agency’s Nature Photographer of the Year award.

On the 26th Glöersen wrote in his blog about his suspicions not only about this photograph but also of other wildlife photographs by Hellesö. His blog post was taken up in the on-line Flashback forum which exploded with all Hellesö’s photographs being investigated by the on-line community (and the knowledge and expertise and ingenuity with the amateur investigators is truly impressive). In the 2 weeks since Glöersen’s blog post the Flashback forum post has had over 800,000 readers.

Last Monday (5th September) The Local reported:

Photographer Terje Hellesö, recipient of the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency’s Nature Photographer of the Year award, has been reported to police after admitting that he manipulated a number of his pictures of predatory animals. …

“Doesn’t this lynx in the July greenery have a winter furr? How about the lynx that’s reflected in the pool, is it walking in the air or on land, and can you really see the paws in that angle?”, Glöersen wrote in a blog post dated August 26th. Glöersen also questioned the authenticity of the picture, and decided to examine more of Hellesö’s work. Based on his wildlife expertise, he began to suspect that Hellesö’s alleged accomplishments were simply too good to be true.

Among Hellesö’s claims called into question by Glöersen are reports that the nature photographer had seen 150 lynx in nine months, when Glöersen himself had only seen 15 in 52 years. Glöersen also questioned Hellesö’s claim to have photographed a raccoon dog from a meter away, in an area where they’re not even supposed to exist.

In a debate between Glöersen and Hellesö on Sveriges Radio (SR) on August 30th, Hellesö at first denied the allegations that he had doctored his images. “No no no, of course not. Not under any circumstances,” he said. However, four days later, on September 3rd, he changed admitted the forgeries to his wife. “I didn’t know about this myself. I’m still in shock,” Malin Hellesö told SR. …..

On Monday, Tommy Berglund, an inspector and wildlife tracker at the County Administrative Board of Västra Götaland, reported Hellesö to the police for fraud.
While he filed the report as a private citizen, rather than as a part of his official duties, Berglund is nevertheless concerned about the affect Hellesö’s claims have meant for local wildlife management efforts. “Raccoon dogs are among the worst carriers of rabies,” Berglund told newspaper Dagens Nyheter (DN). “Tons of resources have been used in vain to find wildcats and raccoon dogs that don’t exist.”

Because of the time and money they’ve spent, and the fact that numerous concerned people have called the Administrative Board, Berglund thinks this is an important issue, and certainly a matter for the police.

But what is truly impressive is the speed and skill with which the investigative work was done by the on-line community and in a way which I think the main stream media would not dare to do. The depth of knowledge and skill available on-line is now beyond the ability and the competence of the main stream media.  In general Hellesö seems to have used stock pictures of wildlife from the internet, flipped them, resized them and then inserted them into forest landscapes which he presumably had photographed himself. The following are animations of how just some of the pictures were manipulated by Hellesö:

The award winning Lynx picture

Another lynx in the woods

And Lynx No.3

A raccoon dog in the wild

Update: The latest count gives at least 19 manipulated (Terjade) photographs.

Hellesö’s career as a wild-life photographer is over but he probably has a new book and a new career in the field of “How I fooled the world”!

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Ethics, Fraud, Media, Sweden | 3 Comments »

A hotbed of intrigue: Bahman Bakhtiari sues Peter Sluglett after being fired from Utah University’s ME Center

September 8, 2011

Two months ago Bahman Bakhtiari was fired from the University of Utah’s Middle East Center for a pattern of plagiarism. Now he has filed  a suit last Friday in 3rd District Court against Peter Sluglett, the center’s senior-most faculty member and a former Director of the Center himself.

Deseret News:  Bakhtiari alleges that two senior faculty leaders at the center conspired to eliminate him after personality conflicts. He also alleges in the lawsuit that a senior faculty member, who was a former center director, lied about having a Ph.D. from UCLA and that faculty conspired to cover it up.

Bakhtiari served as center director from July 2009 to June 2011. He was brought in from the outside by the Dean of the College of Humanities to replace an existing faculty member. The suit states that from the onset, Bakhtiari was disliked by senior center faculty and that the political science department, which oversees the center, refused to support his tenure. The suit states that the dean of humanities ended up granting him tenure through the department of languages and literature.

Last June, a U. faculty committee investigated complaints of alleged plagiarism against Bakhtiari. In a unanimous vote, the committee found that Bakhtiari committed “a pattern of plagiarism that is harmful to the university’s academic integrity.” …

Although the committee stopped short of termination and revocation of tenure, University of Utah Interim President A. Lorris Betz overrode the decision and terminated Bakhtiari on June 30. ….

Bakhtiari alleges in his suit that center faculty actively dug through his career history to find justification to get rid of him. According to U. documents, evidence of plagiarism was found in six scholarly publications, including Bakhtiari’s 1984 Ph.D. dissertation, an online newsletter and an op-ed piece published in The Salt Lake Tribune. The suit states Bakhtiari is seeking damages for interference with economic relations, invasion of privacy, breach of contract and defamation.

Both Peter Sluglett and the Middle East Center are no strangers to internecine dispute, intrigue and academic “dirty tricks”. Sluglett gets mixed reports as a teacher.

Sluglett is also apparently  a self-anointed expert in recent Iraq history:

February 03, 2006  

Sluglett gets Slugged: I noted with some pleasure that Wafaa’ Al-Natheema knocked Peter Sluglett down a peg or two. She posts the full email exchange on her blog. Professor Peter Sluglett considers himself an expert on modern Iraqi history with good reason – he has studies the subject for 30 years. Along with his late wife, Marion Farouk Sluglett, they wrote one of the important books on modern Iraqi history called “Iraq since 1958”. However, he uses that position to stifle any debate on Iraqi history. He considers himself the expert and nobody has the right to contradict him. The problem is that in many cases he is wrong.

The Middle East Center itself is no stranger to controversy where Sluglett was Director before Ibrahim Karawan – who resigned and was then succeeded by Bahman Bakhtiari.

April 4, 2008 

Karawan Resigns over Middle East Center Dismissals  

Ibrahim Karawan, director of the Middle East Center, announced his resignation yesterday before a lecture at the Hinckley Institute of Politics. Karawan said he is resigning because two of his colleagues were forced out of the center by Dean Robert Newman of the College of Humanities. “They were basically moved out of the center, not according to what they wanted, and moved to other departments,” Karawan said.

He questioned whether the action was justified and what the impact will be on the governing structure of the center and its ability to receive funding from the U.S. Department of Education. … Peter Sluglett, a professor of Middle Eastern history, and Harris Lenowitz, a professor in Hebrew, both received letters from Newman informing them that they could continue teaching but would no longer be able to hold leadership positions in the center. Sluglett and Lenowitz both have joint appointments in the center and their departments — history and languages and literature, respectively — and both teach cross-listed courses. ….

On March 13, Lenowitz said he received a letter from Newman that read: “It has come to my attention that you have contributed consistently toward creating an atmosphere in the Middle East Center that lacks collegiality and can no longer be tolerated.” Sluglett said he also received this letter, but he doesn’t think other faculty members have any problems with his behavior…….

Leaving aside the legal positions and claims and counter-claims which will run their course, the Middle East Center and its faculty strike me as being a bunch of  rather petty, uncivilised, amoral and childish group of academics. Petty intrigue, academic dishonesty and scientific misconduct seems to come quite naturally to them.

Playing their games of intrigue appears far more important to them than academic rigour or integrity. Whether they should be getting any funding at all from the US Department of Education ought to be a question being asked.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Academic misconduct, Education, Middle East, scientific misconduct | 6 Comments »

Was Tony Blair just doing Murdoch’s bidding on Iraq?

September 5, 2011

Even the distance of history may never reveal all the real reasons for the Iraq War.  That Rupert Murdoch through his media outlets was one of the most strident advocates of the Iraq war because of their (non-existent) weapons of mass destruction was always clear. But quite how close he was to Tony Blair is becoming apparent only now.

The latest revelations – let-slip by Wendi Deng Murdoch in an interview with Vogue – show that Tony Blair was very close indeed to Rupert Murdoch. The claim of Tony Blair being in Murdoch’s pocket is no longer so far-fetched. His just following Murdoch’s orders regarding the Iraq war would also explain Blair’s obduracy in “sexing-up” the Iraq dossier with a bunch of lies and half-truths.

BBC News

Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is godfather to one of Rupert Murdoch’s young children, it has emerged. Mr Blair was present last March when Mr Murdoch’s two daughters by his third wife, Wendi Deng, were baptised. The revelation comes in an interview with Ms Deng in a forthcoming issue of fashion magazine Vogue. Tony Blair’s office declined to comment on the report, which sheds new light on Mr Blair’s ties with the media mogul. Mr Blair, who is said to have been “robed in white” during the ceremony, is the godfather to Grace, the second youngest of Mr Murdoch’s six children.

As The Guardian puts it 

So much falls into place with the revelation that Tony Blair became godfather to one of Rupert Murdoch’s two young daughters and attended their baptism on the banks of the river Jordan last year. …. Murdoch’s third wife, Wendi Deng, who let slip the information in an interview with Vogue, described Blair as one of Rupert’s closest friends. Blair’s account of the relationship in his memoirs is somewhat different, portraying Murdoch as the big bad beast, who won his grudging respect. That is clearly disingenuous. As other memoirs and diaries from the Blair period are published, we see how close Murdoch was to the prime minister and the centre of power when really important decisions, such as the Iraq invasion, were being made.

image : guardian.co.uk

But bringing this back to what is known about Rupert Murdoch’s views and what was thought to be his staunch support of the neo-conservative cause suggests that Murdoch may have been a leader rather than just a supporter. And in that scenario Murdoch led Tony Blair by the nose into the quagmire of Iraq.

Before the Iraq war Murdoch declared that the war would ensure oil at $20 per barrel which would be the equivalent of a tax cut. The three members of the Coalition of the willing were Australia, the US and the UK — all countries where Murdoch is the most powerful media player. Spain was the tentative fourth member of the Coalition and when Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar was defeated in 2004, Rupert showed his loyalty to those who backed the Iraq invasion by promptly installing him on the News Corp board.

After running the unsuccessful Tory campaign in 2004, former federal Liberal Party director Clinton Crosby publicly stated that News International backed one last term for Blair because of his support for the Iraq invasion. John Howard received similar treatment. Some Murdoch papers may have endorsed Kevin Rudd at the 2007 federal poll, but Howard was strongly supported by the Murdoch press in 1998, 2001 and 2004. Besides, News Corp’s Harper Collins book division ended up paying John Howard the biggest six-figure cheque of his career for his memoirs after leaving office.

Rupert Murdoch Profile

Considered a close ally of neoconservative activists, Murdoch has helped bankroll neoconservatism’s more important media outlets, including the William Kristol-edited Weekly Standard, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, and Fox News. A sign of Murdoch’s commitment to this rightwing faction’s causes was his willingness to support the Standard in spite of yearly losses in the millions. The magazine is widely credited as a pivotal force in building support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. According to a report by Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, “With a circulation of about 65,000 and annual losses estimated from $1 million … to $5 million … the Standard represented only a tiny fraction of Murdoch’s vast media empire.”

Murdoch is frequently criticized for using his media empire to advance his political agenda. During the lead up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, for example, the editors of Murdoch’s media holdings vociferously supported President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair’s pro-war campaign. One British newspaper opined: “You have got to admit that Rupert Murdoch is one canny press tycoon because he has an unerring ability to choose editors across the world who think just like him. How else can we explain the extraordinary unity of thought in his newspaper empire about the need to make war on Iraq? After an exhaustive survey of the highest-selling and most influential papers across the world owned by Murdoch’s News Corporation, it is clear that all are singing from the same hymn sheet. Some are bellicose baritone soloists who relish the fight. Some prefer a less strident, if more subtle, role in the chorus. But none, whether fortissimo or pianissimo, has dared to croon the antiwar tune. Their master’s voice has never been questioned.”

It does begin to seem very plausible – and not just some conspiracy theory – that Rupert Murdoch – and not Bush or Cheney or Blair – was the “deep” force behind the entire Iraq adventure and all the hundreds of thousands killed there. And the price of oil at $80 – 100 in these days is a long way from $20.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Business, Media, Politics | 1 Comment »

Sangiliyandi Gurunathan on his way to another private University in South India

September 5, 2011

Kalasalingam University recently took strong action against a Professor and 6 PhD students for scientific misconduct which included data manipulation and plagiarism. Dr. G Sangliyandi, Senior Professor and Head, Department of Biotechnology, and Dean, International Relations, Kalasalingam University was directed to resign from the University. The 6 PhD students involved had their registrations cancelled.

His name has been removed from the Department of Biotechnology page at the university website but still appeared on the International Relations page last week.

It seems that Dr. Gurunathan has been offered (and is said to have accepted) a position at another private University in Southern India – also at a Department of Bio-technology but it has not been possible to confirm this. 

One reader comments that all the six students involved are still continuing at Kalasalingam University

All the 6 research scholars, whose Ph.D registration has been cancelled are still doing (continuing) their research work in the department itself on the support of Prof. Dr. K. Sundar.

If this is true then it seems that Sangiliyandi Gurunathan is being assigned all the blame for the wrong-doings at his lab and not primarily the students he had initially blamed. Presumably the students have new PhD registrations and stern warnings about maintaining good conduct and about the ethics of plagiarism and image manipulation!

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Academic misconduct, Education, scientific misconduct | Comments Off on Sangiliyandi Gurunathan on his way to another private University in South India

UN is only as good as its worst member: Uruguay troops misbehave in Haiti

September 5, 2011

As if Haiti hadn’t enough problems.

The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) was established in 2004 and was given a new mandate to help maintain order and security following last year’s devastating earthquake. Earlier this year the UN mission was heavily criticised in the handling of the cholera outbreak which killed some 6,000 people. To make it worse it seems that the cholera was introduced into Haiti by peacekeeping troops from Nepal (where cholera is endemic).

Related: Whole-Genome Study Nails Haiti-Nepal Cholera Link

Now the UN and the Haitians have been let down badly by part of the contingent from Uruguay.

AFP: 

MONTEVIDEO — Uruguay announced it has sacked a navy commander with the UN mission in Haiti after a video was circulated of an alleged sexual assault on a young Haitian man by members of a Uruguayan peacekeeping unit.

The Defense Ministry said in a statement that in addition to the dismissal of the official — who was not immediately named — a military justice board had been convened and paperwork for the return home of the five allegedly involved had been started.

“The navy wants to go beyond the simple fact of the video (to determine) if there are other violations of conduct,” spokesman Sergio Bique told local media. The suspects will be tried and sentenced appropriately, he stressed.

In Haiti, Magistrate Paul Tarte said Friday that officials were examining testimony from the alleged suspect and images of the incident taken by a cell telephone camera at the base in southern Haiti, which have also been circulated on the Internet. Medical evidence of the attack also was obtained.

UN peacekeeping spokesman Kieran Dwyer said the United Nations acted immediately after hearing about the incident late last week.

The UN is an easy target for criticism and is often castigated from all sides of the political divide (and I am just as guilty in indulging in some of the criticism). But of course the UN is only as good as its worst member and it is the Lowest Common Factor which applies.

UN in Haiti (MINUSTAH): Current strength (31 July 2011)

  • 12,252 total uniformed personnel
    • 8,728 troops
    • 3,524 police
  • 564 international civilian personnel
  • 1,338 local civilian staff
  • 221 United Nations Volunteers

Country contributors

Military personnel – Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Ecuador, France, Guatemala, Japan, Jordan, Nepal, Paraguay, Peru, Phillipines, Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka, United States and Uruguay.

Police personnel – Argentina, Bangladesh, Benin, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Canada, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, China, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, Croatia, Egypt, El Salvador, France, Grenada, Guinea, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, Madagascar, Mali, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Philippines, Romania, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Senegal, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Turkey, United States, Uruguay and Yemen.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Behaviour, Politics, UN | 3 Comments »

Remote Sensing: A case of editorial cowardice in the face of bullying from the orthodoxy

September 3, 2011

If this had been the middle ages there would have been witch-hunts and burnings at the stake (but of course it would then have been during the Medieval Warm Period).

Spencer and Bracewell had their paper On the Misdiagnosis of Climate Feedbacks from Variations in Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance published in the Journal Remote Sensing. The paper was refereed in the normal way and gained a lot of attention because it went against global warming orthodoxy. The global warming cabal were not amused and their blogs were full of objections to the paper. (This was all before the CERN CLOUD experiments).

The Editor-in-Chief of the Journal – a certain Wolfgang Wagner – obviously faced a lot of heat from the members of the global warming orthodoxy for publishing such heresy. He was clearly threatened by having the flow of scientific articles to his new journal throttled. But he could not retract the paper – not having any basis for doing so. Instead he has resigned in a blaze of publicity saying that the paper should not have been published!! Where peer review failed to find any fault with the paper, the editor has resorted to grandstanding to attack the paper.

It seems a simple case of the high priests of a religion threatening to excommunicate the poor little editor-in-chief of this new journal who has caved in on the basis of blog comments (and no doubt some irate telephone calls). A simple case of editorial cowardice.

The full story is detailed in these posts:

Editor-in-chief of Remote Sensing resigns over Spencer & Braswell paper

Critiques and responses 

Comment On The Resignation of Wolfgang Wagner

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Alarmism, Behaviour, Climate, Media, Science | 1 Comment »

Are Universities cracking down on academic and scientific misconduct?

September 3, 2011

It may just be a passing gust of a cleansing wind but I do have a perception that universities are becoming much more responsive to allegations of academic dishonesty and scientific misconduct.

Investigations of misconduct at academic institutions have long been notorious for the amount of time they take (usually many years) and for always protecting “the establishment”. But I think I detect a change.

Investigations are speeding up and sanctions against those found guilty are beginning to be more than symbolic slaps on the wrist. The frequency of enforced resignations and dismissals seem to be increasing. I perceive a trend and I hypothesise that it is partly in response to the on-line scrutiny and negative publicity which comes from the blogosphere. 

Close on the heels of the recent Ahluwalia resignation /dismissal come these two cases:

1. Academic impropriety with Professor Julius Nyang’oro considered to have improperly helped athletes to cheat at the University of North Carolina. He is tied to two athletes who were kicked off the football team. In one case he did not detect or ignored blatant plagiarism and in the other he allowed a freshman to take a senior graduate level course and awarded him a suspiciously high grade. Nyang’oro apparently rarely gave low grades in his classes:

College athletes and accommodating professors

UNC professor resigns amid football investigation

UNC’s Afro-American studies head resigns amid questions of football …

2. A well known cardiac researcher Zhiguo Wang has been dismissed from the Montreal Heart Institute for scientific misconduct following retraction of two papers in the Journal of the Biological Chemistry just a month ago.  Wang also has an appointment at the University of Montreal, and is senior research scholar of the Fonds de Recherche en Sante de Quebec, a ChangJiang scholar professor, and a LongJiang scholar professor of China. The dismissal comes less than a month after the publication of the retraction notices.

Authors retract two JBC papers on how heart rhythms go awry; Montreal Heart Institute looking into why

Montreal heart studies ‘withdrawn’ – Zhiguo Wang’s arrhythmia research being investigated after retractions 

Montreal hospital dismisses cardiac researcher over misconduct allegations

There have been a number of other cases recently in Germany as well where the speed of the investigations by the academic institutions have been unprecedented (zu Guttenberg and Bulfone-Paus as examples).

Perhaps it’s all just in my mind – or even wishful thinking – but I have the distinct impression that a cleansing wind is beginning to blow. The world wide web may already be having an impact on combating academic dishonesty and scientific misconduct by forcing institutions to be more responsive. There is much on-line which is still malicious or untrue or just plain rubbish. But the amount of “solid” comment has achieved a  “critical mass”. The blogosphere can no longer be merely ignored it seems.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Academic misconduct, Education, scientific misconduct | Comments Off on Are Universities cracking down on academic and scientific misconduct?

Chasing losses for Corporate tax planning

September 2, 2011

Loss making companies have acquired a new value in M & A activity, especially if they have accumulated losses which can be carried forward against future profits.  In some countries carry-forward losses are as high as 25% of GDP.

Shifting profits to tax havens has been used by corporates (and individuals) increasingly since the 1970’s, but shifting losses to high-taxed countries can be just as effective. A new report has just been issued by the OECD, Corporate Loss Utilisation through Aggressive Tax Planning, ISBN Number: 9789264119215, Publication Date: 12/08/2011, Pages: 92

An OECD press release  states:

30/08/2011 – Due to the recent financial and economic crisis, global corporate losses have increased significantly. Numbers at stake are vast, with loss carry-forwards as high as 25% of GDP in some countries. Though most of these claims are justified, some corporations find loop-holes and use ‘aggressive tax planning’ to avoid taxes in ways that are not within the spirit of the law.  

This aggressive tax planning is a source of increasing concern for many countries and they have developed various strategies to deal with it. Working cooperatively, countries can deter, detect and respond to aggressive tax planning while at the same time ensuring certainty and predictability for compliant taxpayers.

.. countries have identified financial instruments that create artificial losses or obtain multiple deductions for the same loss. They have also seen loss-making companies acquired solely to be merged with profit-making companies and loss-making financial assets artificially allocated to high-tax jurisdictions through non arm’s length transactions.

Reuters reports that

The OECD report, which singled out one industry — financial services — said banks headquartered in high-tax countries were buying and selling derivatives among operating subsidiaries in low-tax jurisdictions and then shifting losses to higher-tax jurisdictions to “manage large loss-making financial assets” held on their balance sheets.

Martin Sullivan, an economist at Tax Analysts, a trade publication, said he thought the majority of the loss-shifting described in the report “pertains to banks, since they are the ones that had huge losses in 2008 and now are making profits.”

The tax-boosting principle at work centers on loss carry-forwards, a legal accounting technique that allows corporations to apply their current year’s net operating losses to profits in future years. While the move is designed in part to help companies avert bankruptcy, it also allows them to reduce their tax bills. ..

The OECD report identified what it called three high-risk schemes designed to maximize the tax value of carry-forward losses. They are:

  • Corporate reorganizations, in particular those in which profitable companies buy money-losing companies solely for the tax benefits of their losses, which is illegal in the United States.
  • Certain financial instruments, including currency swaps and schemes that “refresh” soon-to-expire losses.
  • Non-arm’s-length transfer pricing, or the prices companies charge between subsidiaries for goods and services. This is not legal in the United States and is a subject of growing scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Business, Economy, European Union, International Trade | Comments Off on Chasing losses for Corporate tax planning

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »