Frontiers of Amway

Amway is an American institution, one of the first and most profitable of the multi-level marketing schemes, where what is really being sold is participation in the scheme not so much the products and the focus is on motivation, but not only motivation to sell, motivation to recruit new sales people, and the payoff is a cut of what the new sales people sell as they order through you.  It is not illegal, but MLM exploits the newbies at the bottom who have to buy their stock and are not always able to sell it as explained at the Skeptic's Dictionary

An Amway customer is not just buying a detergent, but is recruited into being a minister of a faith with a complicated bookkeeping scheme. Why not just go to your local store and buy soap, you ask? Because the agent is someone you know, or who knows someone you know, who's invited you over for coffee to tell you about a great opportunity. Odds are good that you'll either buy something out of politeness or a genuine need for soap or vitamins, etc. Perhaps you will become an agent yourself. Either way, the agent (distributor) who sold you the soap or vitamins makes money. If you become an agent (distributor) then part of every sale you make goes to your recruiter. The new recruit is drawn into the system not primarily by the attractiveness of selling Amway products door to door, but by the opportunity to sell Amway itself to others who, hopefully, will do the same. The products seem secondary to the process of recruitment. Yet, the distributors will learn to talk about little else than the product and its "quality." What justifies MLM schemes is the high quality of their products. What entices the recruit, however, is likely to be the attractiveness of making money from others' sales, not the products themselves.

 Today at Resource Crisis Ugo Bardi pops the cork on Frontiers, describing their business model

Once an editor, I discovered the peculiar structure of the Frontiers system. It is a giant pyramidal scheme where each journal has sub-journals (called "specialties" in Frontiers' jargon). The pyramid extends to the people involved with the scientific editing: it starts with "chief editors" who supervise "chief specialty editors", who supervise "associate editors", who supervise "reviewers". Since each steps involves a growth of a factor 10-20 in the number of people, you can see that each journal of the Frontiers series may involve a few thousand scientists. The whole system may count, probably, tens of thousands of scientists. 

This is the classic multi-level marketing scheme but with a devious twist, because the "chief editors"  (maybe, where the money stops is not clear) the "chief specialty editors"  the "associate editors" and the "reviewers" are working for the titles and glory and the contribution that they are making to Frontiers, not the money that the Frontiers journals charge for open publication, which means for all the services, whatever they are, of publication.   Ugo continues

But my impression is that the pyramidal structure of Frontiers was not created just for speed; it had a a marketing objective. Surely, involving so many scientists in the process creates an atmosphere of participation which encourages them to submit their papers to the journal and this is where the publisher makes money, of course. I cannot prove that the structure of Frontiers was conceived in these terms from the beginning, but, apparently, they are not alien to use aggressive promoting tactics for their business. 

The beauty of this scheme is shown by what Stephan Lewandowsky wrote when the second retraction statement was issued by Frontiers towards the beginning of the current unpleasantness,

Although there has been considerable media attention, the authors have made few public comments since the paper was retracted. I have continued to serve as a co-editor of a forthcoming special issue of Frontiers, I accepted a reviewing assignment for that journal, and I currently have another paper in press with Frontiers. After the retraction, I was approached by several Frontiers editors and authors who were dismayed at the journal’s decision. In all instances I pointed out that I continued to serve as author, reviewer, and co-editor for Frontiers.

Stephan was (Eli trusts the blinders are off now) a motivated Frontiers editor.  But wait, there is more, Frontiers generates papers and publishing charges by motivating the lower depths of the chain to publish with Frontiers and the upper levels to push their friends to.  One of the ways Frontiers does this is by selling itself as the scientists' journal, their thing, but Frontiers also raises money through the Frontiers Research Foundation which raises substantial funds to "supplement" the publishing charges.

Sweet.

UPDATE:  In the comments John Mashey points to Frontiers' fee schedule which has, toward the bottom, this very Amway statement "Frontiers awards annual honoraria to field and specialty chief editors at threshold levels of success of their journals."

Sweeter still

This explains the over the top way that Frontiers has been handling the Recursive Fury Affair.  If the better parts of the editor network decide that they don't want to donate time and papers to Frontiers, Frontiers is dead, just another fly by night open access publisher begging for papers (paid of course).

His nudges are somewhat forceful, could get worse

Like everyone else I'm trying to figure out what's going on in Putin's head. He assembles the military force to conduct an invasion of Ukraine and then sits there, giving Ukraine's sad-sack military six weeks and counting to get ready. Maybe it's the sad-sack part he's counting on, although I'd expect there's a cost to it. This recounting of untrained cannon-fodder sent to guard the border, OTOH, doesn't suggest the cost currently would be high.

My original explanation was Putin hadn't actually decided whether to invade and the buildup is there until he decides one way or another. That's a pretty stupid substitute for a plan, so I'm somewhat doubtful about it.

So a variation, maybe - he's doing a Nudge Invasion right now with an undetermined number of covert operators, to see if them plus local tough guys plus undetermined number of civilian sympathizers are enough to take over the province. Then, maybe rinse and repeat next door. The military buildup across the border serves a purpose of heartening pro-Russian supporters while intimidating the Ukrainian government from using force. The invasion forces could actually invade, or not, depending on how the situation unfolds and whether Putin ultimately decides the price is right.

I disagree with claim that this a repeat of Crimea - that was a barely-covert invasion, and although the locals were mostly supportive, their help wasn't essential. I see it somewhat similarly to our defeat of the Taliban - our military forces swung the decision but the locals did the fighting. It's unclear to me still how many Russian soldiers are operating in the province, but they can't be the majority of the occupiers.

As to what we should do, my latest is that we should be arming Ukrainian forces, covertly, and secretly let Putin know we're doing it and that they'll get more as he gets worse. We should also be flying Ukrainian troops out of the country 500 or so at a time, training them for two weeks, and rotating them back. But what do I know.

One other relevant factoid - much of the Russian military-industrial complex relies on eastern Ukraine. It's not something they can give up easily. I hope Ukraine continues to sell Russia whatever they've ordered while this all plays out.

Satellite Games

ICE/ISEE3 International Cometary Explorer-International Sun Earth Explorer was launched in 1978 to explore the magnetosphere-solar wind interactions and repurposed in 1982 to visit Comet Giacobini-Zinner.  A reasonably close approach to Halley yielded more information, and like the little engine that could ICE was placed into a heliocentric orbit to monitor coronal ejections and cosmic rays.  ICE/ISEE3 was shut down in 1999.

Which brings us to today.  ICE is catching up with the earth and the carrier signal has been captured by amateurs.  The Planetary Society thinks that it can be recaptured and placed into the L1 Lagrangian point.  NASA wishes well, but is broke.  Keith Cowling and friends at NASA Watch and the Space College are trying to crowd source the new new mission but time is short, with commands to fire the on board rockets having to be sent in the next month or a bit more

Working in collaboration with NASA we have assembled a team of engineers, programmers, and scientists - and have a large radio telescope fully capable of contacting ISEE-3.  If we are successful we intend to facilitate the sharing and interpretation of all of the new data ISEE-3 sends back via crowd sourcing.

NASA has told us officially that there is no funding available to support an ISEE-3 effort - nor is this work a formal priority for the agency right now. But NASA does feel that the data that ISEE-3 could generate would have real value and that a crowd funded effort such as ours has real value as an education and public outreach activity.

Time is short. And this project is not without significant risks.  We need your financial help. ISEE-3 must be contacted in the next month or so and it must complete its orbit change maneuvers no later than mid-June 2014. There is excitement ahead as well: part of the maneuvers will include a flyby of the Moon at an altitude of less than 50 km.

In more space news, yesterday NASA  released a call for proposals to provide new and better data processing algorithms for Earth observation instruments on DSCOVR (aka GoreSat) which will sit out at L1 looking at the Sun and Earth.  As the bunnies may recall, DSCOVR rose from the dead because of the impending failure of ACE which was well past its due date and ailing, severely limiting space weather observation capabilities.

NASA has integrated two Earth - observing instruments, the Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Advanced Radiometer (NISTAR) to the DSCOVR satellite. User guides and descriptions for these two instruments are available at http://avdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/DSCOVR
.
Proposals are sought in two topical areas:

1. To develop and implement the necessary algorithms and processes to enable various data products from EPIC sunrise to sunset observations once on orbi(such as ozone or cloud maps),
as well as proposals to improve the calibrat ion of EPIC based on in - flight data;

2. To determine the Earth reflected and radiated irradiance with an accuracy of 1.5% or better from NISTAR, as well as proposals to improve the NISTAR calibrations based on in - flight data.

The short dates for the NOI and proposal indicate that a "pre-selection" might have occurred;) given that one would have to know a lot about the instruments to make a proposal.

Notices of Intent are requested by May 12, 2014; proposals are due July 14, 2014.

but the description of the instruments and their capabilities caught Eli's eye

EPIC images radiances from the sunlit face of the Earth on a 2048 x 2048 pixel CCD in 10 narrowband channels (ultraviolet [UV] and visible) with a nadir sampling field of view of approximately 8 km and an estimated resolvable size of 17 km for visible wavelengths. The 10 spectral bands, their Full Width at Half Maximum (FWHM), and some primary applications are:

Wavelength (nm)	Full Width (nm)	Primary Application
317.5 ± 0.1	1 ± 0.2	Ozone, SO2
325 ± 0.1	2 ± 0.2	Ozone
340 ± 0.3	3 ± 0.6	Ozone, Aerosols
388 ± 0.3	3 ± 0.6	Aerosols, Clouds
443 ± 1	3 ± 0.6	Aerosols
551 ± 1	3 ± 0.6	Aerosols, Vegetation
680 ± 0.2	2 ± 0.4	Aerosols, Vegetation, Clouds
687.75 ± 0.	2 0.8 ± 0.2	Cloud Height
764 ± 0.2	1 ± 0.2	Cloud Height
779.5 ± 0.	3 2 ± 0.4	Clouds

Four pixels will be averaged onboard the spacecraft yielding downloaded images of 1024 x 1024 elements at an estimated resolvable size of 24 km. The time cadence of these spectral band images from EPIC will be provided on a best effort basis given existing ground system and network capabilities and will be no faster than 10 spectral band images every hour. The DSCOVR project will provide raw instrument data, EPIC Level-1 images in CCD counts that are geolocated and both dark-current and stray-light corrected. Calibration into radiances (Watts/m2/sr) will be given based on prelaunch calibration data. However, improvements in the Level-1 calibration, stray light, and dark current corrections are also solicited based on in-flight data imaging of Earth and the Moon.

The project will generate the "Earth from sunrise to sunset" Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images. This ROSES element is soliciting additional products from EPIC sunrise to sunset observations such as:

• Global ozone levels
• Aerosol index and aerosol optical depth
• Ultraviolet (UV) reflectivity of clouds over land and ocean
• Cloud height over land and ocean
• Cloud fraction
• Spectral surface reflectance
• Vegetation index and leaf area index

These measurements could contribute to assessing the utility for using L1 observations of Earth to integrate data from multiple spaceborne, as well as surface and airborne observation platforms, to develop self-consistent global products. Proposals are, therefore, sought to develop algorithms to provide other products of utility to the Earth science research and applications communities.

NISTAR measures the absolute "irradiance" as a single pixel integrated over the entire sunlit face of the Earth in four broadband channels:

1. A visible to far infrared (0.2 to 100 μm) channel to measure total radiant power in the UV, visible, and infrared wavelengths.

2. A solar (0.2 to 4 μm) channel to measure reflected solar radiance in the UV, visible, and near infrared wavelengths.

3. A near infrared (0.7 to 4 μm) channel to measure reflected infrared solar radiance.

4. A photodiode (0.3 to 1 μm) channel for calibration reference for the cavity radiometers.
Proposals are sought to determine the Earth reflected and radiated irradiance with an accuracy of 1.5% or better. Also, proposals to improve the NISTAR calibrations based on in-flight data are solicited.

Missing the Trees for the Forest

As some bunnies have noticed recursive fury has broken out about Recursive Fury.  There are long threads at Shaping Tomorrow's World, where Stephan Lewandowsky hangs out, the blog of the publishers Frontiers and at Retraction Watch.

Eli would like to make a small contribution about the latest hand grenade lobbed by Harry Markram, one of the founders of Frontiers and evidently an editor with a pretty much unrestricted portfolio

My own personal opinion: The authors of the retracted paper and their followers are doing the climate change crisis a tragic disservice by attacking people personally and saying that it is ethically ok to identify them in a scientific study. They made a monumental mistake, refused to fix it and that rightfully disqualified the study. The planet is headed for a cliff and the scientific evidence for climate change is way past a debate, in my opinion. Why even debate this with contrarians? If scientists think there is a debate, then why not debate this scientifically? Why help the ostriches of society (always are) keep their heads in the sand? Why not focus even more on the science of climate change? Why not develop potential scenarios so that society can get prepared? Is that not what scientists do? Does anyone really believe that a public lynching will help advance anything? Who comes off as the biggest nutter? Activism that abuses science as a weapon is just not helpful at a time of crisis.

Without getting into minutia about the unbolded (and there are several falsehoods in there, but Markram is fighting for his baby), this has been greeted by mighty huzzahs from the ilk of Barry Woods, Carrick,  Nik from NYC and others.   Markram makes major errors in dumping on Lewandowsky and his co-authors, because he assumes that the Woods, Carrick and Niks are just fools who no one listens to.  But then again Markram lives in Switzerland where denial has perhaps not made such a major impact on policy and one can ignore the symphony of denial.

Driving the fact home that 97% of climate scientists are aware of the planetary threat is necessary.  Mole whacking to keep the moles in their blogs, well yes, that is also necessary.  And yes, Markram appears unaware of the facts of how his organization handled Recursive Fury.   He has not followed the smokescreens constructed by the Breakthrough Institute, Lomborg and others to stop any real preparation for the coming deluge.   Yes.  Steven is for sure shrill, pre-mature anti-denialism as it were, and those who see and understand existential threats are often treated so by those munching grass. 
 
Markram apparently believes that singing folk songs with the denialists will work.  Eli, on the other hand, suggests that Markram might also consider the lesson of Admiral Byng.

But as to what is bolded (by Eli), well yes, that is the real issue, but we have to get to it

UPDATE:  For some time now Eli has been pointing out that quoting somebunny's public statements is not exactly verboten in scientific literature.  John Mashey below points to a new post at Shaping Tomorrow's World.  Turns out that Frontiers convened an expert panel to consider the question and sent the recommendation to the Recursive Fury authors

“among psychological and linguistic researchers blog posts are regarded as public data and the individuals posting the data are not regarded as participants in the technical sense used by Research Ethics Committees or Institutional Review Boards.   This further entails that no consent is required for the use of such data.”  Although this view is held by many researchers and their ethics boards, it is by no means a unanimous judgment and it is to be expected that legitimate challenges, both on ethical and legal grounds, will be raised as web-based research expands in scope.  But to the charges that Fury was unethical in using blog posts as data for psychological analysis, the consensus among experts in this area sides with the authors of Fury. 

Let the parsing fest begin.

CNBC covering the carbon bubble

For your TeeVee entertainment. Ran across this while visiting my local Charles Schwab office, two days after I was speaking at a panel sponsored by Santa Clara University students on this issue:

(If it doesn't display, click here for the 3-minute video.)




Turns out it's not the first time CNBC has covered the issue, talking previously about the risk that carbon stranded assets pose to investors.

So Eli has found a revised final draft

So Eli has found a revised final draft submitted by the WGIII working group and there is also a copy on SCRIBD for the bunnies Sunday morning reading pleasure.

There are, of course, any number of take homes.

First that properly done mitigation is low cost, 0.06% of global GDP

Second that nations trying to do it alone will fail, raise costs

Effective mitigation will not be achieved if individual agents advance their own interests independently. Climate change has the characteristics of a collective action problem at the global scale, because most greenhouse gases (GHGs) accumulate over time and mix globally, and emissions by any agent (e.g., individual, community, company, country) affect other agents

Third, that energy systems will have to be substantially altered

Scenarios reaching atmospheric concentration levels of about 450 ppm 1 CO2eq by 2100 (consistent with a likely chance to keep temperature change below 2°C relative to pre‐industrial levels include substantial cuts in anthropogenic GHG emissions by mid‐century through large‐scale changes in energy systems and potentially land use (high confidence).

Fourth that delay is the devil

Delaying mitigation efforts beyond those in place today through 2030 is estimated to substantially increase the difficulty of the transition to low longer‐term emissions levels and narrow the range of options consistent with maintaining temperature change below 2°C relative to pre‐industrial levels (high confidence)

Fifth that costs are not zero, but bearable, very bearable compared to the nothing at all, and even the adaptation only or primarily scenarios.  this is a bit tricky because the 0.06% annualized estimate corresponds (as is the habit for such) of 3-11% total in 2100

Of course, if you think the costs of a 580-650 ppm world are fine, the cost is less.  Good luck with that, and also of course there are some optimistic assumptions

Scenarios in which all countries of the world begin mitigation immediately, there is a single global carbon price, and all key technologies are available, have been used as a cost‐effective benchmark for estimating macroeconomic mitigation costs

and, reading the next section of Table 2 reveals a very very optimistic take on the possibilities of carbon capture which, even including reforestation as it does, depends at least in substantial part on unproven technology.

And making everyone unhappy

Nuclear energy is a mature low‐GHG emission source of baseload power, but its share of global electricity generation has been declining (since 1993). Nuclear energy could make an increasing contribution to low‐carbon energy supply, but a variety of barriers and risks exist (robust evidence, high agreement).

GHG emissions from energy supply can be reduced significantly by replacing current world average coal‐fired power plants with modern, highly efficient natural gas combined‐cycle power plants or combined heat and power plants, provided that natural gas is available and the fugitive emissions associated with extraction and supply are low or mitigated (robust evidence, high agreement).

Carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) technologies could reduce the lifecycle GHG emissions of fossil fuel power plants (medium evidence, medium agreement). While all components of integrated CCS systems exist and are in use today by the fossil fuel extraction and refining industry, CCS has not yet been applied at scale to a large, operational commercial fossil fuel power plant.

Finally on various methods of restraining emissions

Since AR4, cap and trade systems for GHGs have been established in a number of countries and regions. Their short‐run environmental effect has been limited as a result of loose caps or caps that have not proved to be constraining (limited evidence, medium agreement).

In some countries, tax‐based policies specifically aimed at reducing GHG emissions–alongside technology and other policies–have helped to weaken the link between GHG emissions and GDP (high confidence).

The reduction of subsidies for GHG‐related activities in various sectors can achieve emission reductions, depending on the social and economic context (high confidence).

And Then Unmasks or Not

And Then There is Physics is taking a break and wondering whether he should unmask.  Eli left some advice, which is worth repeating as it is often discussed

Keep the handle and don’t worry if some “out” you. The nym provides important space where you don’t feel the need to respond to every last bit of abuse, and to look at the world with fresh eyes. There are two other advantages. First it annoys the right people. Second, you can manipulate the nym in ways that amuse you and yours.

Being better known as somebunny else is uplifting and offers wonderful escape fantasies.  For example, Eli and Ms. Rabett have taken to virtual weekend tours, to Paris, to Venice and to points beyond.  The Rabetts get to take private jets, stay in top hotels, engage in romantic strolls and  museums, and oh, those candlelight dinners, although having to order carrots is a bit limiting.  In short, to escape the humdrum. 

WGIII on WGIII

With the release Sunday of the WGIII report on mitigation of climate Change Eli thought it might be a good idea to invite the leaders of the working group to explain themselves to the bunnies.  So, for your entertainment, Ottmar Edenhofer.  Some of these require fast links, take it as it comes.




Youba Sokona


In English


and Ramon Pichs-Madruga

In English

Coordinating Lead Authors discuss their chapters at Vimeo

Everybunny Talks About the Weather

but maybe not this way?

Go read John Fleck on the Colorado river pulse filling the delta

Eli is marking tests this weekend.  Entertain yourselves reading John Fleck's posts on following the pulse flow experiment filling the Colorado River Delta.

Setting the scene
Morelos Dam, Minute 319 and replumbing the Colorado River Delta
Ives in the Colorado River Delta
The fate of the Colorado River delta: shared blame
Presa Morelos: when in doubt, make a bird list
“La Cuenca is dead right now”
Four guys walking down the Colorado River
Memories of water
Hydrology at the end of a river

The water flows
A pickup, stuck in the Colorado River sand
Multiple meanings of “presa”
Following the Rio Colorado west
Plumbing the pulse flow
A river underground
A boy and his river
“The most beautiful sight”
I think I just violated the Colorado River Compact
Following the flow
Updated Pulse Flow Map
Land and water: Colorado River pulse flow arrives at Laguna
Pulse flow progress

Afterwards
Colorado River pulse flow: managing expectations
“Water hoarding” on the U.S. side of the border
Colorado “pulse flow”: fighting deeply held perceptions
Minute 320?
Abandoned citrus
A river means different things to different people
Declining Colorado River Basin groundwater reserves
After the rush, getting down to the science
Welcome, pulse flow readers. Buy my (old) book!
The Colorado River is no one thing
Via Nature podcast, Alex Witze on the grand pulse flow experiment

The Mysterious Mr. Revkin

UPDATE:  In the comments

CapitalClimate said...

Well, he was on their speaker list for 2012 (which reference links to the page in question):
http://breakthrough.turing.com/journal/article/speakers

which may be the explanation.  Not to Lucia this, Andy is very close to the Breakthrough Institute which does raise suspicions, as did his UTurn on Years.


With all the goings on, Eli was poking through Dot Earth, you know, today's edition where Andy Revkin is against "Years of Living Dangerously" after he was for "Years of Living Dangerously".

The background to that is the Breakthrough Boys are against it and with someone perhaps to be named later in an interesting way, managed to jackhammer their hate it into the New York Times Op Ed page.

Well, for one reason or another Eli Yahooed  -Andy Revkin and Breakthrough Institute -, and what do you think came up

1. The Breakthrough Institute - Andrew Revkin

   thebreakthrough.org/people/profile/andrew-revkin   Cached
   

   Andrew Revkin Environmental writer, The Times. Download Hi-Resolution Picture. Andrew C. Revkin is an American, non-fiction, science and environmental writer.

Interesting said the Bunny, and followed the link.  Well what do you know, a picture of Mr. Fair and Balanced with a blurb

This file is in the part of the Breakthrough Institute web site which gives little bios of the Breakthrough People, folks like Roger Pielke, Jr., Dan Sarewitz, Bruno LaTour, bunnies know the types, but you only find Andy's Page (btw, Eli has a webcite) hanging out there without a link to it.

Now, some, not Eli to be sure, might think that it a bit curious that Andy Revkin flacks for the Breakthrough Guys on a NY Times Blog.  Others might ask why he did not disclose in the post that he is or was one of the Breakthrough People, although evidently under deep cover .  That there might be a bit of a conflict of interest even if it were printed in a deep footnote on some obscure web page.

Still others are wondering why Andy is truncating comments that have already been posted on the current post with extreme prejudice, you know the ones that call him, Teddy and Mike S out for their acts.  Perhaps some of those questions are now answered.

Eli has inquired of the New York Times Public Editor.  Perhaps she will reply

We Are In the Years of Living Dangerously

The first episode of a new Showtime (US Cable channel) which will premiere April 17 starting April 13 at 10pm ET/PT." (US) [Thanks to Susan Anderson in the comments for pointing this out].  More at the website.  Unfortunately others are in the years of lalala