Do these exist? How do we ensure that individuals or corporations don't get access to the crunching results before these are published? Because there seem to be fluid boundaries between the researchers and different corporations.

The issue is not whether the corporations eventually profit from the research, but when. Do we accept that some corporations get hold of the results in advance? If not, how do we ensure these corporations don't get partial or full access to post crunch data -- or informal pointers into which areas they should be steering their own experimental research -- and in doing so maybe getting an industrial head start against their competitors?

Has anybody in charge at WCG done any background checks on the project scientists and their experimental collaborators? Probably not, and maybe that's too much to ask for. But have you at least asked them to sign a letter of intent or any other type of agreement, where they ...

...list all their links to different commercial interest groups, and ...

...promise not to share with commercial interest groups, verbally or in writing, any knowledge derived from pre-publishing data?

This agreement, which also should be publicly accessible as a PDF-file on the project homepage, doesn't have to be legally binding, only morally. Is that too much to ask for, considering how many millions of dollars volunteers are spending on extra electricity every month [Edit: every day]?

Less sensitive projects, like those in the astronomic or subatomic field -- think LHC -- don't have to be this cautious. Projects that do research in all matters in-between, do.






Edit Oct 1 2015, Oct 7 2015

I've taken some of the points I've made in this long thread and condensed them into this edit, so that new readers don't have to read the whole thread.

Some, even a few who have crunched here for many years, still have the misconception that there are no additional costs associated with crunching. They believe the computer consumes the same amount of electricity regardless if some of the computer's resources are left unutilized or used for crunching. This is wrong. It used to be right, but not anymore. Modern processors, regardless if it's a CPU or a GPU, can lower their frequencies substantially when the computer is idling, meaning waiting for the user to do something, such as starting a new software or playing a game. Computers that are newer than 4-5 years use about 30% of their maximum power draw while doing mundane tasks, such as when the computer user reads an internet page, shops, sends email and perhaps also listens to music. But when we crunch for WCG and most other grids, we use 100% of the maximum power draw, and that's true regardless if it's a server, workstation, desktop, laptop, tablet or a smartphone. This is the standard setting in the BOINC software. This means crunching draws on average 3 times the electricity compared to when a computer is doing mundane tasks. Think about that for a moment.

We can ignore the processor's cycles, because discussing that is to unnecessarily complicate things. All we have to do is plug a kill-a-watt meter into the outlet and then watch how much electricity the computer needs. Start by pausing BOINC and measure the usage when you for instance facebook while listening to music. Turn on BOINC, wait a few seconds for BOINC to start crunching, then measure the usage again without interacting with the computer. If you have a newer computer, you'll see it uses about 3x watts when doing BOINC only compared to when BOINC is paused. Or you can reverse the reasoning by concluding it's possible to lower the computer's electricity usage by 70% if you pause BOINC.

Just because we want WCG to be successful, doesn't mean we should try to hide this fact: it cost electricity to crunch, which translates into money spent. Hopefully well spent ...

This is why it's so important that WCG and the researchers using WCG's grid are transparent, meaning being honest and forthcoming with how they use our donated computer resources. Because, there is a real cost associated with donating computer time. Donated power means donated money. That's why I argue we should be able to read, not only what kind of projects the researchers are running, but also who the researchers are themselves. From whom have they received financial compensation during the past 24 months? That should include any type of professionally derived financial compensation, such as income from employment, consultancy and also if they have a seat at a science advisory board. Because, not all researchers are the same. Some, who only receive money from nonprofit interests, belong to a group that I deem to be more trustworthy than those who also receive money from for-profit organizations, such as corporations. This means we need to know which group the internal and external researchers in a project belong to.

I argue there are three interest groups. First, the primary interest group, which consists of the people who will benefit from the research, often patients, but the primary interest group also include the nonprofit donors, such as the government and, yes, we. The secondary interest group consists of researchers who receive money -- personally and/or as project funding -- exclusively from nonprofit organizations, including the government. And lastly, the third interest group, which consists of for-profit organizations, such as corporations, but also researchers who receive money -- personally and/or as project funding -- from for-profit donors. None of the researchers fit in the primary interest group, because they all have an agenda. Even if the researchers are not motivated by money, they most likely are by peer recognition, which could possibly make them biased and therefore exclude them from the first group.

As it stands today, as long as the researchers also are moonlighting incognito for the corporations, we simply can't know which group they belong to. Are for-profit organizations getting access to prepublished crunching results, or advice based on those results, and then taking advantage of that? We don't know. And we wont know even with the changes I'm proposing, but we would be able to whitelist researchers from these type of suspicions. We would be able to determine who belongs to the secondary group. Also, I'm not saying the researchers can't moonlight anymore, I'm just saying it should be publicly stated on WCG's science information pages so that crunchers can decide on their own if they're willing to take that risk, meaning if they are willing to crunch these projects anyway. This is not the case today. We are crunching blind. Instead WCG is highlighting all the researchers' nonprofit activities while intentionally ignoring their for-profit activities.

Why?

I'm willing to crunch any project, regardless which group the researchers belong to. This is also something I've done since I began crunching here at WCG, even though I early on became aware of a CEP2 project affiliated researcher who also happens to have a seat on LG's science advisory board. But do all crunchers accept these fluid boundaries? And should every single cruncher be forced to do his or her own detective work, before they can make an informed decision as to which project they want to support? Today I'm aware of three projects that have researchers who belong to the third interest group: CEP2, OET and FAAH2. How many other projects, now and in the future? How many more corporations have spun an intricate web around WCG's projects without us knowing it? Because, even though the databases containing the crunching results are open to everyone, they are not updated in realtime. Equal right to access doesn't ensure simultaneous access -- nor does it ensure equal influence over which molecules the volunteers will crunch next.


This is why WCG should implement these income source disclosures on all future projects. Have the researchers sign a "code of ethics and best conduct"-letter and then publish that as a PDF on the projects' research pages for all future crunchers to see. With it, we'll achieve two things. First, the researchers will themselves become more aware of the potential conflict of interest and therefore become more cautious as to what information they provide to commercial interest groups. Secondly, we the crunchers will be able to decide if we want to donate computer resources to projects that have group three researchers. How can that be wrong?

Transparency is morally self-evident.





Edit Oct 7, 2015

WCG has commented in this thread:



Translation: Everything is fine. There's nothing to see. Go back to sleep -- but leave the computer on. : D


If everything is fine ...how come we have to turn to Bloomberg for information regarding the researchers' professional links to for-profit organizations, instead of turning to WCG's homepage?

On Bloomberg KLiK found this researcher, Dr. Olson, who contributes to both the OET and the FAAH2 projects, but also sits on the science advisory board of Sapient Discovery, LLC, a company that seemingly does similar research as these two nonprofit projects.


If there's nothing to see ...how come Zhenan Bao, a CEP2 affiliated researcher, changed her resume after I had complained in WCG's CEP2 forum over her seat on LG's science advisory board? Now her resume no longer lists this honorable position, nor does it mention LG, the worlds largest manufacturer of organic LEDs -- as in OLED TVs -- which is based on identical technology as organic solar cells, which is the CEP2 project's research field.

Also after I had complained, WCG removed a special mentioning of her laboratory, Bao Group, from the CEP2 project's science information page:

"The project is in many instances guided by input from experimentalist collaborators, in particular the Bao Group at Stanford University."

In the special mentioning above, which is now removed, CEP2 admitted that an LG employee has direct influence over the project and specifically which molecules we crunch next.


What else is removed, by WCG and other researchers, and how many similar for-profit links are waiting to be discovered by pure chance? Instead of answering these type of questions, the WCG admin, jhindo, in a second comment reverts to telling us how "important" we are. Please, spare us the verbal strokes, which we also get on regular basis from the project leaders. I want the researchers and WCG to behave in transparent manner. This is not the case today. From WCG's second comment:


It's too difficult to credibly enforce such a mechanism, considering that the databases are not updated in real-time. But, WCG could -- easily -- implement a mechanism where everybody involved in future projects have to disclose all their income sources derived from for-profit organizations during the past 24 months. Meaning, WCG could have all future researchers sign a document and then publish it as a PDF on the projects' research pages, so that all crunchers can see for themselves and decide if they're willing to crunch for a project whose researchers have deep links to a, for the project's science field relevant, corporation.

But, WCG is doing the exact opposite.

Why? Why is WCG highlighting all the researchers' nonprofit activities on the projects' research pages, while intentionally ignoring their for-profit activities -- and yes, even deleting details regarding the nature and depth of potential corporate influence? WCG doesn't provide any answers.


But I am thankful, for they stopped short of calling us paranoid. So I'm going back to sleep, while leaving my computer on ...

Crunchy, crunchy!






Edit 20151012

Why WCG's information deficit and their skewed contractual agreements feel like a stone in my shoe.

Here we have a huge corporation, IBM, which sets up a pro bono shop, WCG, in the .org section of internet, which is the more upscale neighborhood of the world wide web where higher, more refined moral values are said to be normative. This pro bono shop then sets about conveying two distinctly different messages -- one to the volunteer crunchers and another to the world's corporations. We, the crunchers, are told we'll be donating our computer resources, meaning money, to tightly regulated nonprofit research projects which will benefit mankind.

So far, so good.

But then they turn around and tell another, completely different story, one intended only for the researchers. Now they're saying, as long as the post-crunch data is released to the public as an open database, at some unspecified point in time after the ending of the project, the researchers will be free, if they choose to do so, to pass on any prepublished post-crunch data to the highest for-profit bidder -- not matter to whom or when -- perhaps to their corporate employers and maybe years before anyone else has access to the data, because some of the projects go on for many years.

This, to me, seems wrong.

This type of mindset, like the one WCG is condoning with its, from a moral point of view, laughably loosely written contractual agreements, does not go away on its own, and it is omnipresent, in all parts of the society and in all countries. Take the STOCK Act, for example, which is a new law that regulates how government employees, including members of congress, are supposed to act on insider knowledge. This law is a surprisingly late moral awakening among the leaders of one of the most advanced democracies in the world, and came about only after 60 Minutes did a story on insider trading among politicians -- not a radio story from 1932, but a TV story from 2012. And this is USA, not a poor and chaotic, developing country.

"As Steve Kroft reports, members of Congress and their aides have regular access to powerful political intelligence, and many have made well-timed stock market trades in the very industries they regulate. For now, the practice is perfectly legal, but some say it's time for the law to change."

From an information neutrality perspective -- not only in access rights, but also in access timing and in ability to influence future events -- WCG is running a setup which is the equivalent of what, until recently, took place in the US congress. Both setups were legal, now only WCG's is(?). For how long? Let's hope WCG reconsiders its position regarding transparency and abandons its present no-worries-everything-is-fine attitude -- before it's compelled, due to negative PR or law changes.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of the crunchers are still asleep while sucking their thumbs. Completely oblivious of the corporate web spun around WCG's projects, believing in WCG's contractual agreements' implied promises of fairness and leveled playground -- not suspecting these in fact are nothing more than a dog and pony show, intended to soothe them into a tranquil state of complacency. What a feel-good place to be in, knowing you're doing something good. Important. Because you're important. I, too ... We all are! : D