A researcher proposes a study to test how drivers react to sudden, confusing changes in digital highway signage at high speeds. The goal is to design safer signs in the long run. Why would an Institutional Review Board (IRB) likely reject this study on ethical grounds?

An engineer is testing the tensile strength of 10 steel coupons. Nine coupons fail at exactly the required $400\text{ MPa}$ mark. The tenth coupon fails prematurely at $320\text{ MPa}$ due to a visible flaw in the metal that the engineer didn't notice before testing. The engineer deletes the $320\text{ MPa}$ result from their final report, claiming it was an "obvious outlier" and only reports the nine passing scores to make the data look cleaner. Is this acceptable?

A graduate student is running behind on their thesis deadline. They need 50 survey responses from construction workers about safety habits, but they only have 20. To finish on time, the student fills out 30 blank surveys themselves, guessing what typical workers might say. What type of misconduct is this?

A Ph.D. student conducts all the experiments, does all the data analysis, and writes the entire manuscript for a journal article. Their advising professor, who secured the grant funding but did not contribute to the research design or read the paper, demands to be listed as the first author. The student is afraid to say no. What ethical issue is occurring?

Three researchers collaborate on a paper. Researcher A designs the study and writes the majority of the manuscript. Researcher B conducts the laboratory testing. Researcher C performs the complex statistical analysis. How should the authorship order generally be determined?

A researcher wants to study how construction workers react to sudden authority challenges. They hire an actor to pose as a high-level OSHA inspector who aggressively (but falsely) accuses workers on a site of severe violations. The researcher secretly records the workers' reactions. Why does this violate informed consent?

An engineer surveys 100 municipal water plant managers about their facility's vulnerabilities to cyber-attacks. Method 1: The survey collects names and emails, but the engineer promises never to publish the names. Method 2: The survey is completely blind; it collects no identifying information (no names, emails, or IP addresses). Distinguish between the ethical protections in Method 1 and Method 2.

A structural engineering professor wants to test a new type of reinforcing bar in concrete beams. They plan to mix the concrete, cast the beams, and break them in the university's structural laboratory. Do they need to submit an application to the Institutional Review Board (IRB) before starting?

The same structural engineering professor from the previous example now wants to study how visually impaired pedestrians navigate around temporary scaffolding erected on sidewalks. They plan to ask volunteers to walk through a test course while wearing biometric sensors to measure stress levels. Do they need IRB approval now?

A university researcher publishes a paper concluding that "Brand X" seismic dampers are $50\%$ more effective than the industry standard. It is later revealed that the researcher owns significant stock in the company that manufactures "Brand X" and did not disclose this in the paper. Explain why this is an ethical issue.