From: bai@msiadmin.cit.cornell.edu (Dov Bai-MSI Visitor)
Subject: Fraud and extortion at Concordia University (Canada) (part III)
Organization: /usr/local/lib/news/organization
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1992 13:52:18 GMT

Department of Mechanical Engineering<
1455 De Maisonneuve Blvd. West<
Montr\aigu/[e]al, Qu\aigu/[e]bec  H3G>1M8<
Canada
<
Tel.>(514)-848-3159 >>>FAX: (514)-848-3494
< 
Bitnet address ccyfk56@vax2.concordia.ca




To: addressees of my first letter
From: V.I. Fabrikant

Dear Colleague:

I have received a letter from Vice-Rector, Academic (Appendix 1) which she 
feels necessary to bring to the attention of everyone who had received my
first letter. Since my letter was sent to more that 40 individuals, I feel 
morally obligated to help her by sending the letter to everyone concerned. 
Please print this letter and show it to your friends and colleagues. If you
did not read my first letter, you do not have to read this one either.

Some comments are in order.

1. I am unaware of any document stating that E-mail can not be used for 
transmitting information related to CUFA. Unless and until such a document 
is produced, I would advise Dr. Sheinin to refrain from using the word 
"misuse", without a proper justification. 

2. The University, as well as "persons affected" are very welcome to sue me 
for libel. May be, this is the only way for the truth to come out. 
Someone has asked me if I am afraid that the "persons affected" might hire
someone to stage my "accidental death" or to frame me in some kind of a crime. 
Well, I am no longer afraid of anything or anybody. We all have to die one
day. Whenever I die, I shall die an honest person. I just wonder, how many
administrators can say the same about themselves. Gandhi considered jail 
as a must for an honest person. I am prepared for that too. 
I just regret that I put up with all this filth for twelve years. 
Make no mistake, I am dead serious in what I am doing. I can not fight 
all the crooks in the world, but I shall not rest until the bogus 
scientists in this university are exposed and the Justice is served. 

Someone told me that I should have waited quietly till I get the tenure, and
then start fighting. Well, that might be more prudent, but that would not be
me. I do not fight from hiding, I fight in the open, and face to face. This is
why I include in Appendix 2 a copy of my letter sent to the Members of the
Board of Governors. 

Realizing that anything can happen when big sums of money are involved, I have
decided to make public additional documents (Appendices 4, 5, 6). Some are so
shocking that one has to see them to believe. The first prize goes to the
minutes of the secret Meeting of "senior" members the Department of Mechanical
Engineering (Appendix 4, Exhibit #9). Even Soviets did not go that low: when
they denounced Sakharov, he was invited to the meeting. As ridiculous as the 
document is, it is easy to understand why people like Hoa or Xistris signed
it: both had received several papers from me to which their contribution was
zero, so they were prepared to do anything to scare me so that I keep quiet. 
It was more difficult to explain why people, like Habashi, would sign it. This
is why I have requested the workload information, and this is why CUFA refused
to provide me with one, but what I have is sufficient. If one looks at
Habashi's workload for this year, it seems normal: four courses, until one 
realizes that MECH 464 and MECH 612 are not two different courses but the same
one, and given to the same group. So, he has one course remission, (and may be
some other favors) and he is prepared to sign anything what the Dean or Chair
ask him to sign. The main difference between Soviets and Canadians: Soviets
did dishonorable things because their life or freedom was in danger, Canadians
do the same when they are afraid that they might get $10 less in the next
salary raise. And it was quite an experience to see Rakheja's signature
there, he pretended to be my friend, just look how disgusted he was by
dishonesty of S. Sankar (Appendix 3). He still has not bothered to explain his
actions. Look at Exhibit 6.1 (Appendix 4) where T.S. Sankar claims to be
"incensed". Well, he still has not filed his complaint which is the best proof
that I was right. For more detailed criticism of Appendix 4 see Appendix 5. 

The Department plans to introduce a plaque of fame. I suggest to put a plaque
of shame and engrave there the minutes of their secret meeting.

One might find it difficult to comprehend how the DPC evaluation of my work 
(Appendix 5, Doc. 1) gave me highest mark for excellence, and the same people,
analyzing the same file, have recommended that I be fired (Appendix 4, DPC 
"reasoned" report). Only people with total lack of integrity can sign such 
self-contradictory documents. Explanation itself is very simple: praising
documents were signed when Swamy and Co. thought that I was not going to blow
whistle on them, bad documents were signed when the opposite was true. 

3. My accusations, as serious as they are, do not represent something new
neither to the Administration, nor to the community. Everyone knows about them 
(and much more than what was said) and everyone keeps quiet. I am the only 
one who dared to speak openly. Here are just a few examples. Everyone knows
that Dean Swamy  has not written "his" book, it was written by Thulasiraman, 
who in exchange had got an appointment as a Full Professor of .... Mechanical 
Engineering, though he is a specialist in Electrical Engineering. How could
this happen? Very simply: T.S. Sankar was then the Department Chair, and as
Swamy himself once mentioned to me that they were "like a family", the whole
thing was arranged in a "family" manner. It is "you scratch my back, and I
scratch you back" relationship which prevails in this university.

Everyone knows that Swamy's contribution  to the majority of "his" about 
four hundred(!!!) publications is zero. The number itself is obscene to
everyone who is involved in scientific research and knows how difficult it is 
to write just one paper.  I know, first hand, that over 50 papers
(to which his contribution was zero) were provided to him by Drs. Roytman and
Plotkin. I have personally included him as a co-author in two papers and three
conference presentations, and he does not understand a single thing in any
of them. 

I have counted total of 16 single-authored papers (about 4% of total 
publications), 12 of them published between 1962 and 1966. His last paper 
was published in 1977 when he became Dean, (of course, this is just a 
coincidence) after that there was not a single single-authored paper. 
His name goes first in less than 1 out of 10 publications. If one assumes 
that Swamy made major contribution to all of them (which is not the case 
in at least 14 of them provided by Roytman and Plotkin, and it is very 
doubtful in the case of co-authorship with graduate students), 
we still have over 90% of "his" publications where his contribution
was "not major", and this person is a Fellow of at least 9 Learned Societies. 
Something must be very wrong in the peer review process!

One reference is so revealing that it deserves to be presented in full:
J.L. Brown, J. Delansky, E. Plotkin, L.M. Roytman, M.N.S. Swamy,
"Stability test for multidimensional digital filters", Electronics Letters, 
Vol. 17, 1981. This is a one-page(!) paper, and 5(!) co-authors. 

Everyone knows that T.S. Sankar has not written a single research
paper of his own, at least, for as long as I know him, just because he is not
capable of doing any significant research of his own. Recently I have received
by  internal mail copies of several of "his" papers with others, with 
handwritten notes indicating the names of real authors. This
means that people do know and do care about honesty, they are just too afraid
to talk about it openly. Well, I am going to be their spokesman. We have 
a bogus scientist T.S. Sankar as President of Canadian Society for Mechanical 
Engineering and Fellow of several Societies, and we have Dean of the Faculty 
Swamy - Fellow of numerous Societies and "honorary" co-author of books and 
incredible number of papers. 

4. Dr. Sheinin had implicitly asked me to substantiate my accusations. 
Here we go. 
a) The contract "Study on liquid tanker stability" was awarded in
1985 by DSS on behalf of Transport Canada to a private company S&S Inc. 
(S&S is an abbreviation of Seshadri Sankar) in the amount of $225,000 for 
three years. Additional funding was provided in 1988-1990. The contract 
number is 14SD T8200-4-4584 (OSD85-00055). The work was done 
by graduate students Ranganathan and Popov. Ranganathan was supervised by 
Dr. Rakheja (see Appendix 3), Popov did his job independently, since none of 
his official supervisors (S. Sankar and T.S. Sankar) is familiar with 
fluid dynamics. Comparison of the final report with Ph.D. dissertation of 
Ranganathan proves the point: the final report is an abbreviated version of 
the dissertation. The thesis defense took place before the final report was
ready. 

This is a copy of the title page of the final report:

                                      TP 10690E

            LIQUID TANKER STABILITY

                 Prepared for
        Transportation Development Centre
        Policy and Coordination Group
        Transport Canada

                 Prepared by
                S & S  Inc.
               Montreal, Quebec
                  and
            CONCAVE Research Centre
       Department of Mechanical Engineering
            Concordia University
            Montreal, Quebec
             Nov. 1990
(end of quote)

This is a classical example of conflict of interest: owner of a private
company collaborates with a research centre where he is a Director. 
The address of S&S Inc. is given as 4476 Ste-Catherine St. W., Suite #102
Montreal, Quebec H3Z 1R8. This is Sankar's condo which is rented to somebody
else. A nice way of doing business: you do not have to borrow money
to make an initial investment, you do not have to rent office space: your
domicile is a good address for your company, you do not have to hire employees
and to pay their salaries, the university does it for you, you will never 
go bankrupt. You do not have to work on the contract either, your only job 
is to count profit, is not life good?

Yet another contract "Development of vehicle dynamics expert systems" in the 
amount of $444,121 was awarded to S. Sankar's private company CIE-TECH  in 
1990 by DSS on behalf of Transport Canada. The contract number is 
16SD-T8200-8-8584/01. If one wishes to verify that CIE-TECH belongs to 
S. Sankar, it can be done by phone, just dial 873-5324. Again, it is the
CONCAVE Center which does the work, and this is also a conflict of interest
situation.

b)The fact that T.S. Sankar was "honorary" co-author in all my publications 
was well known. Here is a quote from my conversation with Hoa in early 1988:

Fabrikant: I mean, if you are called to testify, and I put you a question
about the papers I have written: "What was the contribution of T.S.[Sankar]?"
<<
Hoa: He did not contribute, except for the fact that he paid you. (Laughing)
(end of quote)

Hoa has "forgot" to mention that his own contribution to my papers was exactly
the same: both he and Sankar contributed to my salary which was at that time 
$7,000(!) per year.

In the quote below (summer of 1988), T.S. Sankar admits himself that his 
contribution to my papers was zero:

Fabrikant: ............... You mentioned several times, "we were doing", 
"we were investigating", we do this, we do that. I am kind of wondering, 
how do you feel when you see in print "Method of Fabrikant, Sankar and Swamy"? 
What is your internal feeling? 
<<
T.S.>Sankar: What do you mean: "What is your internal feeling?" 
<<
Fabrikant: OK, let us call a spade a spade. What was your contribution to that
method?
<<
T.S.>Sankar: Which one?
<<
Fabrikant: Fabrikant, Sankar and Swamy, remember, I gave you a copy? (I refer
to the paper by Love et.>al.,>entitled "On the method of Fabrikant, Sankar and
Swamy ...") What was your scientific contribution to that method?
<<
T.S.>Sankar: I do not know, some of these things we discussed ...
<<
Fabrikant: Discussion is not a contribution. Contribution is contribution, and
you know this better than anybody else. Could you name at least one single 
paper published, I understand that I have given you 16 papers, and you did not
overpay me, and at least 18 conference presentations, in the best journals 
around the world, and, as I mentioned it to you, the papers are bound to
become classic, and they are, little by little. I can show you a paper by Rice 
(T.S.>Sankar tries to interrupt). Would you agree, that actually none of
the papers published has any scientific contribution of yours, whatever? 
Would you agree with that?
<<
T.S.>Sankar: Let me tell you. People have short memory. As long as this is
fine with them, they do not mind establishing exactly what they have done, 
and what others have not done. When I hired you, part time, when you came to
me, I hired you ...
<<
Fabrikant: You are not answering my question.
<<
T.S.>Sankar: Listen very carefully. I could have asked you to work on the
problems that I was trying to do, in which case I would have asked you to come 
and report to me, in which case it would be my contribution, and you would be
a work servant, paid to do what I asked you to do. The very fact that I gave
you the freedom to do the things that you thought were best, now you are
asking me: "What was your contribution?" I can even write letter of 
retraction that I have no contribution.
<<
Fabrikant: I don't ask you to do this.
<<
T.S.>Sankar: No, no, no, I will do that, but you have to remember one thing, 
if I wanted to do the way I wanted, I could have done it, in which case 
your contribution would be zero, except that I would pay you to do certain 
things. Now, what I did, because I always considered you, even from the
beginning, when you told me you worked with Bolotin, I always considered you 
as a colleague, and if you felt comfortable, you said you have some new
approaches, I said: "Go ahead, do it".  Did I, at any time, ask you to put
my name on any of your papers? Say, any time I asked you, I want my name? 
I do not want your papers. You did it voluntarily. So, do not do it like
giving some charity and saying: "What did you do for me?" You did it
voluntarily, and this point has to come out. You did it voluntarily, I did not
at any time pressed you I needed any part in your papers. But I could have
done something else. I could have asked you to work on the problems I was
interested in, in which case it would be my contribution, and you would be
like everybody else, just a worker, like a computer programmer. I could have
done that. But I gave you full independence, I treated you like my colleague,
my equal, whenever you came to discuss with me, I said it looked fine, it was
you who went out and put my name on your paper. The only time when I asked you
to put somebody else's name on your paper, Xistris came and requested: "I 
will support this guy, I need some publications". And I asked you: "Could you
put Xistris?" Never, I asked you ... You are talking to a very proud person,
OK? And I have established myself in this world ...
(end of quote)

T.S. Sankar could not possibly use me as a programmer, as he claims in the 
quote above, because he did not do any research of his own, he could not 
even pose a problem. Hoa, at least, did pose a problem which he did not 
know how to solve, and I have solved it.

The most repugnant part of what is politely called "honorary" authorship, and 
what I call "scientific prostitution", is that T.S. Sankar never explicitly
asked me to put his name on my papers, but I knew very well what will happen 
to me if I don't. Here is what happened when I stopped including T.S. Sankar 
in their own words:

T.S. Sankar: Seshadri called me (beginning of 1988) and asked me: 
"The contract for the people is coming to an end in June, what do you want
me to do with Fabrikant?"
(end of quote)

This is the way the slave owners talk about their slaves. As a result of their
conversation, this is what S. Sankar told me later, when he tried to extort 
papers from me and realized that I was not going to include him in my papers:

S. Sankar: .....................................So, in the present situation,
in order to be fair to you, we will have one more year, I do not want to have,
because I have known you, I feel responsible, in the sense of the human nature,
and because of that, I am prepared to make a recommendation to the appropriate
body, because appropriate body acts on a recommendation, to the appropriate
body, that you would have contract for one more year, up to 1989, at which time
the position will be terminated. (Fabrikant tries to interrupt) I am talking
one thing at a time, let me finish with that, and then we will come to the
other aspects. So, at which time it will be terminated, and I also would like
you to go and talk to T.S.>(T.S.>Sankar), before you go and talk to anybody
else. After we talk, go and talk to him, and then I cleared in my mind, I spoke
to a few other people, because he is an immediate person, who knows you more
than anybody else, OK, and then I thought about it, I wanted to make this, I
conveyed to T.S.>also about it, this is what I would like to have, so, it will
be one more year, nothing, no problem, and it will be terminated at the 31 of
May, 1989. 
(end of quote)

When confronted, T.S. Sankar denied everything:
Fabrikant: Seshadri mentioned several times, that you are well aware of
everything ...
<<
T.S.>Sankar: I am not aware of anything. ...................
(end of quote)

This was a breach of contract. My contract stipulated that in the case of
positive evaluation (and it was positive) I should get a two-year 
reappointment. I tried to complain to the Chairman Dr.>Osman, and he only 
told me that all this was between me and S.>Sankar. My conversations 
with other Full Professors in the Department were of similar nature. 
Professor McQueen, who is well known for his "fearless" fight for freedom 
and democracy in South America, got pale and started stuttering. I have never 
met a person more false and hypocritical. It seems much easier to fight 
for justice thousand miles from home then to do the same in your own home. 
If all the fighters for justice in South America are of similar moral 
qualities, one should not be surprised that they still do not have any. 
Professor Lin just asked me: 'What does the Chairman think about it?' And there
was no way for me to find out what does Professor Lin think about it. It seemed
incomprehensible to me: both are tenured Full Professors, they had absolutely
nothing to be afraid of, nevertheless they were afraid, probably more than
Sicilians were afraid to speak against mafia. 

I went to Dean Swamy and told him to fix the situation himself, otherwise I
would have no choice but to go outside the Faculty. This threat got an
immediate effect: next morning I was called by Chairman Osman to his office,
and it was a very different Osman, now he was fully involved in my dispute with
S.>Sankar, and he was completely on my side. I have got the two-year extension
of my contract but it was clear to me that the fight was far from over. 

In December of 1988 I have asked S.>Sankar if he would support my promotion to
Research Professor. He promised to help and said that we need to talk. I
already knew what this talk would be about, and I was right: he again asked me
about my contribution to his group. This time I have answered point-blank that
I was not going to include him or anybody else in my work, ever. And of
course, I did not get any promotion. This time I have decided to complain to
the Rector hoping that he would protect me from extortion. I was wrong again.
The Rector refused to talk to me, I could only tell my story to his Assistant,
Dr. MacKenzie, but she pretended not to believe me and refused even to ask 
both Sankars and Swamy whether what I was telling was truth. The material 
proof, which I had, was also disregarded. 

I believe, by now Dr. Sheinin regrets that she asked me to substantiate. 
Well, I have much more, Dr. Sheinin, just ask for it! I shall be happy to
oblige next time.

5. I have received yet another letter from Dr. Sheinin (Appendix 1a). This 
letter might look strange in view of the following facts: in 1990 she received 
from the Faculty recommendation for my promotion to Professor (Doc. 9 and 10,
Appendix 5), and she just ignored it, I was not refused the promotion, and I
was not promoted either; in June of 1991 I was awarded prestigious "Poste 
Rouge" award from the National Research Council of France (100,000FF for four
months), I was not allowed to accept the award; she denied my request for
sabbatical (see for details my letter in the Link, Jan. 17), and I could
continue the list of lawless actions. Why did she do all this?  Because I
am the only one in this university (and, probably, in the whole country) who
stood up against the system of fraud and extortion in scientific research. 
I am a great danger to such people like Osman, Sankars and Swamy. If everyone,
like I, would refuse to include them in the research work, then everybody
would understand that they are bogus scientists, and their power and money
would disappear. 

Since I was dangerous, they have decided to eliminate me. But how this could
be done legally? They could not fight me in research - I am a world class 
scientist, they could not fight me in teaching - my evaluations are in top 10%, 
so they had to invent something, and they did. They know how everyone hates 
violence, so they have decided to use this, but they needed facts that I am 
violent or potentially violent, like threatening someone. This is the main 
reasons for all the lawless actions: they figured out that the more lawless 
the action, the greater is the probability that I loose my temper and do 
something outrageous. In view of this all seemingly senseless actions 
(like ambush by the DPC members or calling police to arrest and search me) 
become easily explainable: they try to destabilize me psychologically and 
to damage my reputation, so that nobody would pay much attention to my 
accusations. Well, it is about time to understand that all these attempts 
are total failure. The tactics of "stick and carrot" (Appendix 1 and 1a) 
will not work either. I would advice Dr. Sheinin to try, for a change, 
an honest approach: apologize for previous lawlessness and rectify it, 
and start respecting Collective Agreement - this might work. 

My only crime is my honesty, and this is the worst possible crime in this
university. If you sexually harass you employees, CUFA will support you all
the way, if you are trying to be honest, even CUFA does not support you. I am
not saying that the alleged harasser should not get all legal support from
CUFA, quite opposite: this is what the union is all about - protection, and
this is what the dues are paid for. I understand that women complained for
many years, well, who was the administrator who ignored those complaints? Why
is not he on trial? He is not less guilty than the harasser. Had he reacted
then, one warning, probably, would be sufficient, and nobody would need to be
suspended, and women would not need to suffer for so long.

This university needed a woman Vice-Rector, so that women be protected. What
kind of Vice-Rector is needed to protect honest people?

Newsgroups: sci.research.careers,alt.grad-student.tenured