There is disagreement between me (a condo unit owner in NYC) and the condo association as to whether a leaking pipe beneath my floor is my responsibility or theirs. The bylaws are ambiguous and we don't yet know exactly where the leak is. The building's plumber says the best option to find and fix the leak requires removing our bathtub, though he also considered gaining access through our downstairs neighbor's ceiling. Doing what this plumber suggests will cost us at least $15K.  We already paid the super $800 to fix damage to the apartment below us (this was a few months ago, when the super thought the leak was from a shower knob and he had fixed it.) We are not sure how to proceed.

We have not yet involved our insurance company (USAA).  Should we? How would this work since there isn't actually any damage to our unit, and we already paid to fix damage to the unit below? Would they cover the cost to tear up our bathroom to find the leak? Could they help argue our case with the condo association and their insurance company? Note that this is a rental property, and our policy may cover lost rent while we deal with this issue.

Or do we risk losing our policy or raising our rates by telling USAA about this issue?  I’m a little worried because we had a big claim 5 years ago on a different property.

Thanks for any advice.

Private rooftop studio apartment at 110th and Amsterdam for rent by owner who is a Columbia medical alum. Available furnished or unfurnished. $2600/month includes all utilities except internet and cooking gas. Apartment is tiny but has private access to an unbelievable 5,000+ Sq Ft Roof Deck. Pets OK. Lots of condo paperwork. DM me for details and pics.

I don't have all the details, but a colleague said her application, a clinical trial submitted under the clinical trial required parent R01, is being kicked back because her outcome is efficacy - not underlying mechanism. This is NINDS. Anyone know about this?

Reach out if you are looking to rent a tiny studio on the UWS near Columbia with the biggest outdoor roof deck you’ve ever seen. I haven’t set rent yet. Current tenant just moved out.

I posted here trying to figure out how things work now with the new FARE law: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskNYC/s/wZVjfC1lKY

I have a FT non real estate job so I apologize in advance if I ignore responses/chat requests for a while.

TLDR: I'm pretty sure Elsevier purchases non-public information about scientists' google searches and/or AI interactions to speed their peer review process.

EDIT: Actually, they probably get info for free whenever we read or download articles from Elsevier journals or Elsevier-owned Science Direct or Scopus.

Scientific publishing is a broken system: Scientists typically pay article processing charges to publish their work. Other scientists peer review that work for free, and most scientific editors work for free. Academic institutions pay for subscription access to most publications.

So for-profit scientific publishers like Springer, Wiley and especially Elsevier have some of the highest profit margins of any industry.

Because I don't want to support this broken system, I try to only submit my own work to non-profit or academic-affiliated publishers, and I refuse to donate my time and expertise to for-profit publishers by reviewing articles for free (and nobody has ever offered to pay me.)

Yesterday, I received a request to review an article for Elsevier's Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews (APC: $4,740, excluding taxes). The article is broadly about the brain, and I am a neuroscientist, but beyond that, it is a topic on which I have never published. I also have never previously reviewed or been asked to review an article on this topic.

However, over the past month, I have been doing pretty intense google and pubmed searches and using AI (chatGPT and Claude) to learn about this topic in preparation for a grant I am about to submit. Clearly, Elsevier purchased access to information linking me to this topic, so that my name would show up as a potential reviewer in the Elsevier review system.

I previously served as an associate editor for a different journal where it was my job to choose reviewers. I could invite anybody I wanted, but it was especially easy to click on names suggested by the review system to send invitation emails automatically. I assumed the system produced particular names based on their publications or maybe other public information like their online biographies or awarded grants.

But now it seems that at least Elsevier's review system is suggesting names based on non-public, presumably purchased information.

It makes sense that they would do this - finding peer reviewers is very hard and very slow. I have had papers rejected because a journal could not find an appropriate reviewer. As an associate editor, I routinely sent out 50+ emails to get one reviewer. My first thought when being asked to review this paper on a topic that I am extremely interested in was "wow, now I get to learn state-of-the art, not-yet-published information on the exact topic of my upcoming grant application. Reviewing this paper is definitely worth my time!" My 2nd thought was "wait, why is my name linked to a topic on which I've never published?"

I'm reviewing all my privacy settings. I am certain I set up Chat-GPT to maximize privacy. I have to check everything else.