I am attempting to find out how the funding of individual researchers works at universities in Britain and Italy. Alan Smith claims that university administrators have enough of a choke hold on the funds that they "hold hostage" the researchers -- which I suppose means that some research is allowed and other research is not.
Is this true? Does anyone know? My own take is that a tenured professor with funding is fairly autonomous and independent of local administrators.
which I suppose means that some research is allowed and other research is not.
You are supposing too much. The problem is that administrators use all the cash -ostensibly for research- for administrating, and there is little left for any actual research. So Unis eat like elephants and shit like mice.
So Unis eat like elephants and shit like mice.
Another failed theory of AS.
https://www.unibo.it/en/resear…rch-projects-horizon-2020
https://www.unibo.it/en/resear…operation-1/cooperation-1
https://www.topuniversities.co…ies/politecnico-di-milano
Your "1a link" is very interesting. For the curious; skip to the article about cold fusion, by Dr. Bostick (1989). Surprised you provided it to us believers to read, as it is very pro-CF.
Why surprised? We are talking about CF and I also consider the pro-CF documents the most interesting ones to examine.
In particular, the "1a link" shows how CF was used since the beginning for a political and ideological battle on the fundamental values of our existence on the Earth. The "21st Century" magazine was, until recently (1), an instrument of political propaganda in this epochal confrontation on the mankind future and Bostick was a member of its Scientific Advisory Board and therefore was in line with its editorial policy.
On this regards, the title of Editorial which opens this issue of the magazine can't be more meaningful: "The World Needs More People!" Its content should also make us think about the way CF was used in that ideological struggle:
| From http://wlym.com/archive/fusion/tcs/19890708-TCS.pdf - page 3 [bold added] […] Our generation is no exception. As the promise of fusion energy, laser technologies, and high temperature superconductivity shows, we do not lack the necessary technological potential—only the will to develop it. That the majority of people in the world today do not live as well as we do is the consequence not of their numbers but of our failure to carry forward the political mission of this nation as our founding fathers meant it. With the level of science and technology available today, there is no question that we can support a population of at least 25 billion people quite comfortably. And there is every reason to suppose that when needed, we will have the technological potential on hand to support further increases in population. […] |
Jeremy Rifkin -activist 1989 "1a link"
"Worst of all to some observers,its cheap inexhaustible energy
would let the planet support manymore people than its current population
of 5.2 billion. And this, theysay, would be a crowded Earth."
Presently we have 7.7 billion.. can't blame LENR for that
No, of course, LENR are not responsible of this outcome, the causes are much deeper, but the "1a link" shows how every imaginary technological breakthrough, including nuclear fusions at any temperature, has been used in order to counter all calls not to exceed the limits of the planet, as explicitly shouted by the cover of the Winter 1990 issue of the same magazine (2): "There Are No Limits to Growth!"
In the same issue, cold fusion is widely mentioned, since the opening Editorial (Fraud in Science), which ends with these words: "Even if Fleischmann and Pons were proven to have been mistaken in the end—something we do not believe will happen—honest mistakes are the lifeblood of science, as much a part of the progress of discovery as successful experiments."
Now, 30 years after the F&P mistakes, another gentleman who deals with "existential risk" (3) summarizes the current situation in two scenarios A and B (4), which are very different from those foreseen by the CF supporters of "21st Century".
(2) http://wlym.com/archive/oakland/docs/1990Winter-TCS.pdf
(4) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMSU6k5-WXg
(Note for mods: this topic is much more general than Rossi's exploits. For me it's OK, if you decide to move these comments in a more suitable thread.)
... administrators use all the cash -ostensibly for research- for administrating, and there is little left for any actual research. So Unis eat like elephants and shit like mice.
This is sort of, but not exactly, true in my experience. When I was winning grants my research needed research space, it needed sometimes expensive equipment, it needed technicians. All expensive stuff but stuff that needs to be in place. Putting it in place is partly what I think you are calling administration ... and to that extent I would ask how else you think it might be done? I certainly didn't want to supervise contracts for new buildings or bargain with the technician's union. I just wanted to do research. So having the administration do their thing was fine with me.
Now university vice-presidents and vice-deans do have a habit of proliferating and empire building. They like to build new buildings and attract new funding instead of concentrating on maintaining and improving the infrastructure that is already in place. To this extent I agree with you and could be made more efficient. But I don't see how any of that is holding researchers "hostage".
But I don't see how any of that is holding researchers "hostage".
This excerpt from a recent UK 'Daily Telegraph' article might give you a flavour of what is going on. Not only are they holding teaching staff hostage, but they are spending the ransom money on themselves.
The economists Dr Adelina Gschwandtner, from Kent University, and Dr Richard McManus, from Canterbury University’s Christchurch business school, used complex economic models to test the vice-chancellors’ claims that their average pay rises of 41% in 10 years were due to improvements in the performance of their universities.
The pair say the ratio between vice chancellor and staff pay is increasing with those at some universities earning 12 times more than the average of academic staff and 35 times more than the average workers in the local area. While vice-chancellors pay rose by 41% in a decade, academic staff’s increased by just 3%.
However, the researchers found no evidence for a causal link between vice-chancellors’ pay rises and the performance of their universities, based on analysing six criteria including expanding student numbers, the popularity of their institution, their league table positions and research excellence.
“There is not a statistically significant link between a change in pay being associated with a change in performance,” they say.
Apparently asking such questions is incendiary around here but I would be very interested to know just what is meant by a replication of an LENR experiment. In my experience, replication has a pretty specific meaning and I am not at all convinced that the term is used in the same way with regard to LENR results. Perhaps someone knowledgeable might have an answer. I know that Jed will only have a hissy fit and not answer the question, so he should recuse himself from the discussion.
If you allow people to set their own salaries, either overtly or through subterfuge, the result is quite predictable. Look at CEO "compensation" levels in the US for outrageous examples. Most American CEO's get the ridiculous pay regardless of the company's person and are even protected from firing for cause with the euphemistically named "golden parachutes."
But there is a grand total of zero progress that anyone can replicate.
but...
"NEDO funded work by technova was reproduced by another university
https://www.researchgate.net/p…_and_Hydrogen_Isotope_Gas
Technova have replicated Iwamura
http://dx.doi.org/10.7567/JJAP.52.107301
There is a line of replication from Fralick 89, Tsinghua/Inficon and Biberian around 2008, Nasa GRC 2008, reproduced by Fralick around 2012...
Of course there is a tons of electrochemistry experiments, but with only an improvement in success rate, not total control.
The problem is usability of the work replicated, I agree."
Apparently asking such questions is incendiary around here but I would be very interested to know just what is meant by a replication of an LENR experiment.
I suggest you read the papers by McKubre, Storms and Hagelstein that I referred you to before, and also Hagelstein's ICCF3 report.
I know that Jed will only have a hissy fit and not answer the question
On the contrary, I answered the question before, and just now again. Not with specific information but by pointing you to documents that answer it in detail. You will have a hissy fit and accuse me of demanding you read hundreds of pages of documents that you cannot find. Let me forstall that by pointing out they are featured on the front page at LENR-CANR.org, and they are 15, 30 and 52 pages long. Not hundreds of pages. So you could easily read them if you wanted to, but you don't want to, and you never will read them. Instead you will continue to demand this information while ignoring it when we give it to you.
Jed, I did not ask for any details of the replications of LENR nor a list of replications. I asked what is meant by “replication” in this context. That should not require reading any papers. i am just asking for a definition of the term. If defining your terms is considered “spoon feeding”, then the world needs more spoons.
noun
noun: replication
noun
noun: replication
- the repetition of a scientific experiment or trial to obtain a consistent result.
That sounds correct. Do the same experiment and get the same result.
So that is what Director means when he seeks a replication of the QX? Given that virtually nothing is known about details of the QX and really almost nothing about results obtained from it, I would contend that replicating it is impossible, except perhaps by unlikely accident.
...and get the same result.
adjective: consistent
Thank you Mr. Webster. And pardon me for saying “same” rather than “consistent”. It was not intended as upping the ante.
I assume then when people here speak of repetitions, that is what they mean. Good to know.
I asked what is meant by “replication” in this context.
You asked, I answered. At your service!
That should not require reading any papers.
Oh, I think it does. You haven't read them, so you wouldn't know, would you?
i am just asking for a definition of the term.
Well, if you want a 2-minute answer, the definition is the same as it is in any experimental science. Researcher A does an experiment. Researcher B uses the same materials and instruments, and sees similar results. The examples in the McKubre paper that I used in my video are excellent illustrations. The same loading produces the same results. The same materials produce the same results. The energy produces the same level of helium production per joule, in many different experiments.
The definition and the issues surrounding it become more complicated when you ask "how similar"? How similar is it when B does not measure all of the parameters used by A? A measures open circuit voltage but B does not. Or, A measures helium but B does not. It is similar -- but a little different -- when B uses a different type of instrument, such as a flow calorimeter instead of an isoperibolic calorimeter. That dissimilarity is either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how you look at it. It is good in that it shows the effect is not an artifact of the isoperibolic calorimeter. But it is bad because it makes the replication somewhat less exact. In a narrow sense, it is a different experiment. Not quite an exact replication. Another example of that would be using palladium-boride instead of pure palladium. Pd-B often produces better results, but then again it isn't quite the same experiment.
All of this is discussed in the literature in detail, as I said.
Thank you Jed. That is exactly the sort of answer I was seeking and it didn’t even require you to abandon your principles!
Boor's Bingo 2019:
Thank you Jed. That is exactly the sort of answer I was seeking and it didn’t even require you to abandon your principles!
It is exactly the same answer I gave you many times before, and I put in many of my papers, and I wrote in my my 6-minute video. So I have not abandoned any principles.
That is the main theme of the video. The video cost me thousands of dollars and months of work. So I have put a lot of effort into answering your question. Which is why I get miffed when you ask the same question again, and again, and again, but you never bother to look at the video or any of the other places I answered you. Perhaps you can appreciate how annoying that is, rather than accusing me of having a hissy fit.
The video introduction is here:
Boor's Bingo 2019:
