Purdue panel finds misconduct by fusion scientist

[Celebration]

http://www.physorg.com/news135611730.html

Rusi Taleyarkhan made headlines in 2002 when he published a paper in the journal Science claiming that he had produced nuclear fusion by making tiny bubbles collapse in a liquid. The new report found misconduct in subsequent papers.

The Purdue committee, which includes representatives from other schools, said that in a follow-up paper published in 2006 in Physical Review Letters, Taleyarkhan falsely claimed that his 2002 work had been independently confirmed.

The panel also found that in a pair of 2005 papers, Taleyarkhan added another person as an author even though that researcher did not substantially contribute.

The committee did not investigate the 2002 paper itself, in which Taleyarkhan and colleagues reported signs of nuclear fusion in a small laboratory device. Scientists have long sought a simple way to produce fusion in hopes of harnessing it as an energy source.

Hmmmmm. I think I would have to know more about this. At face value, it seems like a witch hunt. As an example, "substantially contribute" sounds like a subjective criteria.

Here is the 2006 letter--

http://www.physorg.com/news10336.html

A team of researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Purdue University, and the Russian Academy of Sciences has used sound waves to induce nuclear fusion without the need for an external neutron source, according to a paper in the Jan. 27 issue of Physical Review Letters.

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“To address the concern about the use of an external neutron source, we found a different way to run the experiment,” says Richard T. Lahey Jr., the Edward E. Hood Professor of Engineering at Rensselaer and coauthor of the paper. “The main difference here is that we are not using an external neutron source to kick the whole thing off.”

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The latest experiment was conducted at Purdue University. At Rensselaer and in Russia, Lahey and Robert I. Nigmatulin performed the theoretical analysis of the bubble dynamics and predicted the shock-induced pressures, temperatures, and densities in the imploding bubbles. Block helped to design, set up, and calibrate a state-of-the-art neutron and gamma ray detection system for the new experiments.

The research team leaders are all well known authorities in the field of nuclear engineering. Lahey is a fellow of both the American Nuclear Society (ANS) and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Block is the longtime director of the Gaerttner Linear Accelerator (LINAC) Laboratory at Rensselaer, and he is also a fellow of the ANS and recipient of their 2005 Seaborg Medal, which recognizes an individual who has made outstanding scientific or engineering research contributions to the development of peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Taleyarkhan, a fellow of the ANS and the program’s director, is currently the Ardent Bement Jr. Professor of Nuclear Engineering at Purdue University. Nigmatulin is a visiting scholar at Rensselaer, a former member of the Russian Duma, and the president of the Bashkortonstan branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS).

What I get from all this is that Purdue is not as supportive of the work of Taleyarkhan as Resselaer is of Lahey. When the scientific community is divided, it isn't too hard to stack the deck in a committee......

[TZ]

1. I've been in the middle of this type of thing

If this guy falsely claimed that his work HAD BEEN VERIIFIED than he should indeed have the boom on him..It sounds like scientific fraud
Both of these statements here..
Taleyarkhan falsely claimed that his 2002 work had been independently confirmed.

The panel also found that in a pair of 2005 papers, Taleyarkhan added another person as an author even though that researcher did not substantially contribute.

Are VERY troubling to me. This DOES NOT sound like a witch hunt. THis guy is trying to claim he has done something which he probably has not been able to reproduce and to add another author WHO did not due the work...Uh huh--sounds like he was trying to get a "friend" to legitimize his results
Bad news. Bad science.

[Celebration]

2. you could be right

But why isn't Lahey in trouble?

I have really heard of tons of people being listed on papers as authors who haven't had all that much to do with it.

Of course the worst example is MDs who let the drug companies do most of the work, and even write the papers, yet their names are on it--and this as main authors. While reprehensible, I don't think anyone has been fired over it.

The 2006 paper does *seem* to confirm the 2002 study. However, there were some technical differences in the way the experiment was done. Are the other scientists in trouble for this "claim"? If not, why not?

The problem with this line of work is that apparently these things are very hard to replicate......the effect almost seems to be random.

[Indenturedebtor]

3. Most MD"s use research coordinators for clinical trials

Not Drug company employees. That's not where the bias comes from.

[Celebration]

4. well, apparently sometimes the "writer" has been recruited

Certainly I am not saying that all or even a majority of research is handled this way, but my point is that there are often have been people on the named article that do not do the hands on work. As far as I know, though, nobody has been under investigation or censured by their university for doing this. I could be wrong, though.

And, sometimes even student interns get their names on articles. It helps when applying for post grad schools, etc. They may or may not have done a lot of the work

http://chronicle.com/news/article/3125/drug-industry-said-to-exert-vast-power-over-research-by-ghost-managing-articles

Drug companies play a far bigger role than previously suspected in managing how academics publish articles in medical journals, charges Sergio Sismondo, an associate professor of philosophy and sociology at Queen’s University in Canada. In an essay this week in PLoS Medicine, published by the Public Library of Science, Mr. Sismondo says that “a substantial percentage of medical-journal articles (in addition to meeting presentations and other forms of publication …) are ghost-managed, allowing the pharmaceutical industry considerable influence on medical research.”

Mr. Sismondo bases his case on an examination of internal company documents revealed in a lawsuit and also on his research into so-called medical education and communication companies. Those businesses help pharmaceutical companies promote their products by preparing academic articles and then recruiting university scientists to put their names on the manuscripts, says Mr. Sismondo. “Ghost management of medical-journal publications is clearly a substantial business, employing thousands of marketers, writers, and managers,” he says.

It will take teamwork from journal editors, academic administrators, and scientists to solve the problem, he says. Editors could refuse to deal with third-party publication planners and insist that the listed authors specify the exact roles they played in preparing articles. Universities should not sign contracts that give the sponsors of research projects the authority to write or edit articles. And administrators should punish scientists who sign their names to articles written by others. Investigators, he says, should refuse to participate in projects where a company secretly writes the academic paper.

I am hoping that things have changed since 2007. But note that this article was written *after* the 2006 article referred to in the OP.

[TZ]

5. Non reproducible results

Means worthless research. Seriously. Nobody will take anyone's results seriously until they can be reproduced in different labs.
This is what happened with the table top cold fusion a few years back..Nobody including the researchers could reproduce the results..And thats why this seems very fraudulent to me..the guy being disciplined seems to be hiding the fact that he could not reproduce his results which for all intents and purposes makes his research worthless..And probably would damage his reputation..Thats the motivation for a lot of scientific flawed..Researchers protecting their reputations.

[Celebration]

6. something being difficult to reproduce

Means just that. It doesn't mean that it is not reproducible. He is studying anomalies that happen a certain percentage of the time, but apparently not always. With something like this, it is important to try to figure out why this effect happens sometimes and not others. His name is not the only one on all his research, and his institution is not the only one involved. There would have to be collusion among a lot of different people who all have great credentials for them all to be lying. Stranger things have happened of course. But none of the others have had difficulties like this.

Why not attack them for the real issues? Just say they all made up the results, if there is a problem. Instead it is all this cloudy, murky stuff that is not on point. Can you give me a single other example when someone has been censured because someone else listed on a paper didn't do enough work on it? It seems to me the person whose name is on the paper, who didn't do enough work on it, should be the one censured--not someone else who is listed.

Again, we don't have access to all the facts. I am giving you my first glance opinion that this looks suspicious to me, given that university researchers are supposed to have academic freedom. Now, if the guy cheated on the research, let's hear it.

Yes, he said in the 2006 paper that his earlier work was confirmed, but so did they ALL. Although that was his conclusion, someone could read the research itself and see if they agreed with that. I think that is probably open to interpretation, given that the protocol was slightly different, in order to address some concerns in the earlier research. It seems bogus. Charge them ALL with lying and cheating, but not one person with charges that are tangential to the main issue.