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# Flagging suspect publications and crowdsourcing post-publication reassessments: the ‘Problematic Paper Screener’

Guillaume Cabanac, Cyril Labbé, Alexander Magazinov

► To cite this version:

Guillaume Cabanac, Cyril Labbé, Alexander Magazinov. Flagging suspect publications and crowdsourcing post-publication reassessments: the ‘Problematic Paper Screener’. 2022. hal-03603538

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# Flagging suspect publications and crowdsourcing post-publication reassessments: the ‘Problematic Paper Screener’

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UNIVERSITÉ
TOULOUSE III
PAUL SABATIER

Université Fédérale

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Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées

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UNIVERSITÉ
Grenoble
Alpes

Yandex
If I have seen further it is by
standing on the shoulders of
Giants.

- Isaac Newton

<figure><img src="image_6.png" /><figcaption>Science as a <u>knowledge wall</u></figcaption></figure>

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Growth in a Time of Debt

By CARMEN M. REINHART AND KENNETH S. ROGOFF

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⇒ austerity measures

May 5, 2013

Errata:

“Growth in A Time of Debt”

Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff

Harvard University

corrigenda, errata, and retractions

One flawed paper = weakened edifice

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Merton, R. K. (1942). *Science and Technology in a Democratic Order*. *Journal of Legal and Political Sociology*, 1(1), 115-126. Réédité dans (Merton, 1973, Chap. 13).

# A NOTE ON SCIENCE AND DEMOCRACY

by ROBERT K. MERTON

une revue :

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Peer review

## Four Norms of Science

### 1. COMMUNALISM

→ All scientists should have common ownership of scientific goods (intellectual property), to promote collective collaboration; *SECRECY* is the *OPPOSITE* of this norm! *Scientists should SHARE!*

### 2. UNIVERSALISM

→ Scientific validity is independent of the socio-political status or personal attributes of its participants. "The intensity of a conviction that a hypothesis is true has no bearing over whether it is true or not." - Sir Peter Medawar

### 3. DISINTERESTEDNESS (a mouthful!)

→ Scientific institutions act for the benefit of a common scientific enterprise, rather than for the personal gain of individuals within them. This is why a LOT of people are freaked out by pharmaceutical companies, for example.

### 4. ORGANIZED SKEPTICISM (Yow!)

→ Scientific claims should be exposed to critical scrutiny before being accepted, both in methodology and institutional codes of conduct. All scientific claims are pending, awaiting the critical scrutiny of other scientists.

<figure><img src="image_16.png" /></figure>

Robert K. Merton

(7/24/1910 - 2/23/1903)

American Sociologist

Awarded the National Medal of Science!

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# La spécificité du champ scientifique et les conditions sociales du progrès de la raison

PIERRE BOURDIEU

Sociologie et sociétés

71 (1975): 91-118.

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Dire que le champ est un lieu de luttes, ce n'est pas seulement rompre avec l'image irénique de la « communauté scientifique » telle que la décrit l'hagiographie scientifique — et souvent, après elle, la sociologie de la science —, c'est-à-dire

La sociologie de la science repose sur le postulat que la vérité du produit, — s'agirait-il de ce produit très particulier qu'est la vérité scientifique —, réside dans une espèce particulière de conditions sociales de production; c'est-à-dire, plus précisément, dans un état déterminé de la structure et du fonctionnement du champ scientifique. L'univers « pur » de la science la plus « pure » est un champ social comme un autre, avec ses rapports de forces et ses monopoles, ses luttes et ses stratégies, ses intérêts et ses profits, mais où tous ces invariants revêtent des formes spécifiques.

knowledge in his field ». Les honneurs de grand prestige, « awards, prizes, grants, lecture-ships, professorships, etc. », sont les signes de reconnaissance réservés aux « great men » (B. G. Glaser, « Comparative Failure in Science », Science, mars 6, 1964, vol. 143, n° 3610, pp. 1012-1014).

> Du fait que toutes les pratiques sont orientées vers l'acquisition de l'autorité scientifique (prestige, reconnaissance, célèbrité, etc.), enjeu intrinsèquement double, ce que l'on appelle communément « l'intérêt » pour une activité scientifique (une discipline, un secteur de cette discipline, une méthode, etc.) est toujours à double face ; et de même les stratégies qui tendent à assurer la satisfaction de cet intérêt.

philosophie spontanée de la science qui trouve son expression dans la tradition positiviste, forme de l'optimisme libéral qui veut que la science progresse par la force intrinsèque de l'idée vraie et que les « puissants » soient aussi par définition les plus « compétents »⁵⁷ : il suffit de penser à des états anciens du champ des

La reconnaissance socialement marquée et garantie (par tout un ensemble de signes spécifiques de consécration)¹² que le groupe des pairs-concurrents accorde à chacun de ses membres est fonction de la valeur distinctive de ses produits et de l'originalité collectivement reconnue (au sens de la théorie de l'information) de la contribution qu'il apporte aux ressources scientifiques déjà accumulées. Le fait que
UNESCO
SCIENCE
REPORT

Towards 2030

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Human resources

In 2013 there were
an estimated **7.8 MILLION** SCIENTISTS WORLDWIDE

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Publications

In 2014 there were
an estimated **1.27 MILLION** SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS

THIS REPRESENTS A 23.4% GROWTH SINCE 2008

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Dimensions

PUBLICATIONS 1665 - 2022
120,787,316

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16,000 a day

<figure><img src="image_23.png" /><figcaption>Fig.17 Growth in articles* by authors affiliated with national research institutions, 2017 to 2020 (Source: ScImago Journal and Country Rank, 2021)</figcaption></figure>

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<figure><img src="image_25.png" /><figcaption>Total STM Market Value (Source: Outsell, Inc. 2021)</figcaption></figure>

STM Global Brief 2021

<figure><img src="image_26.png" /><figcaption>Growth in Number of Journals 2000-2020</figcaption></figure>

(Source: Ulrich's Web, 2021)

Twice more journals in 20 years.

Twice more experts on the globe?

STM Global Brief 2021

Elsevier top of the league

Global market share of journal articles by leading publishers, 2013 (%)

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Movie "Paywall: the Business of Scholarship"

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ELSEVIER

Bank of America.

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TOYOTA

Walmart

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# Predatory journals

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## The definition

The consensus definition reached was: "Predatory journals and publishers are entities that prioritize self-interest at the expense of scholarship and are characterized by false or misleading information, deviation from best editorial and publication practices, a lack of transparency, and/or the use of aggressive and indiscriminate solicitation practices."

**210** | Nature | Vol 576 | 12 December 2019

Nature | Vol 598 | 28 October 2021

## Predatory publishers' latest scam: bootlegged and rebranded papers

Kyle Siler, Philippe Vincent-Lamarre, Cassidy R. Sugimoto & Vincent Larivière

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NATURE | VOL 534 | 16 JUNE 2016

## Ban predators from the scientific record

Predatory journals are threatening the credibility of science. By faking or neglecting peer review, they pollute the scholarly record with fringe or junk science and activist research. I suggest that every publishing stakeholder could contribute to reining in these journals.

...

**Jeffrey Beall** Auraria Library,
University of Colorado Denver,
USA.
jeffrey.beall@ucdenver.edu
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MODUS OPERANDI

1. Algorithmic Text Generation: SCIgen

2. Plagiarism and Tortured Phrases

3. Peer Review Hacking

4. Paper Mills

5. Citation Hacking
## Computer conference welcomes gobbledegook paper

### Philip Ball

Most graduate students would be delighted to have a paper accepted for presentation at an international scientific conference. But Jeremy Stribling, a computer-science graduate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, wasn't sure whether to be amused or alarmed.

His paper, “Rooter: a methodology for the typical unification of access points and redundancy”, co-authored with Daniel Aguayo and Maxwell Krohn, was accepted for the 9th World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics (WMSCI), to be held in Florida, in July. But Stribling didn't write it; he let a computer do it.

Stribling and his colleagues have developed an 'automatic computer-science paper generator' that cobbles together articles adorned with randomly generated graphs. The 'results' are totally spurious.

The MIT researchers say they hoped to cause “maximum amusement” by aping the jargon of the less illustrious papers in computer science. But they also had a more serious goal: to test whether such

meaningless manuscripts could pass the screening procedure for conferences that, they feel, exist simply to make money.

‘Rooter’ passed the test: the WMSCI accepted it, albeit without peer review. The paper claims, among other things, that “the famous ubiquitous algorithm for the exploration of robots by Sato et al. runs in $\Omega(n+\log n)$ time”.

It's not the first example of a hoax paper aimed at exposing poor reviewing and meaningless jargon. In 1996, US physicist Alan Sokal published a paper on the “hermeneutics of quantum gravity” in the journal *Social Text*. Sokal's paper parodied the post-modernist language of some contributions to that publication and prompted a vigorous debate about the intellectual respectability of 'cultural studies'.

The WMSCI conferences have been running for ten years, and last year's meeting attracted nearly 3,000 papers. WMSCI 2005 advertises itself as “trying to bridge analytically with synthetically oriented efforts, convergent with divergent thinkers”.

The MIT team regards it as one of many

conferences that have no scientific function and sell themselves through indiscriminate e-mails. “You see lists of speakers, and there’s no one you’ve ever heard of,” says Stribling. “They spam us.”

Such conferences have sparked anger in the field, as demonstrated by a WMSCI submission from David Mazières of New York University and Eddie Kohler of the University of California, Los Angeles. The title, text and figures of their ten-page paper consist entirely of the phrase “Get me off your fucking mailing list”.

“I don’t know why these conferences exist,” adds Frans Kaashoek, a member of the MIT computer-science group to which Stribling and his colleagues belong.

But the WMSCI's general chairman, Nagib Callaos, who is based in Venezuela and has no listed academic affiliation, has defended the conference's decision. “We did not receive reviews for some papers,” Callaos says. “Since we thought that it was not fair to reject those, we accepted them as non-reviewed ones.” The MIT paper has now been pulled.

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## How three MIT students fooled the world of scientific journals

A decade later, CSAIL alumni reflect on their paper generator and reveal a new fake-conference project.

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Watch Video

Adam Conner-Simons | CSAIL

April 14, 2015

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# Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy

Jeremy Stribling, Daniel Aguayo and Maxwell Krohn

## ABSTRACT

Many physicists would agree that, had it not been for congestion control, the evaluation of web browsers might never have occurred. In fact, few hackers worldwide would disagree with the essential unification of voice-over-IP and public-private key pair. In order to solve this riddle, we confirm that SMPs can be made stochastic, cacheable, and interposable.

## I. INTRODUCTION

Many scholars would agree that, had it not been for active networks, the simulation of Lamport clocks might never have occurred. The notion that end-users synchronize with the investigation of Markov models is rarely outdated. A theoretical grand challenge in theory is the important unification of virtual machines and real-time theory. To what extent can web browsers be constructed to achieve this purpose?

Certainly, the usual methods for the emulation of Smalltalk that paved the way for the investigation of rasterization do

The rest of this paper we motivate the need for work in context with dress this obstacle, we tauted autonomous algorithm-to-analog converters by oriented languages can signed. Along these same concentrate our efforts on algorithm for the explo- Ω((n + log n)) time [2]

## II.

Our research is principled by Martin and Smith; overcome this grand challenge, a claim at first glance, a previous work in the field, secure theory will cle-

## REFERENCES

[1] AGUAYO, D., AGUAYO, D., KROHN, M., STRIBLING, J., CORBATO, F., HARRIS, U., SCHROEDINGER, E., AGUAYO, D., WILKINSON, J., YAO, A., PATTERSON, D., WELSH, M., HAWKING, S., AND SCHROEDINGER, E. A case for 802.11b. *Journal of Automated Reasoning* 904 (Sept. 2003), 89–106.

[2] BOSE, T. Deconstructing public-private key pair with DewyProser. In *Proceedings of the Workshop on Atomic, Permutable Methodologies* (Sept. 1999).

[3] DAUBECHIES, I., AGUAYO, D., AND PATTERSON, D. A methodology for the synthesis of active networks. In *Proceedings of OOPSLA* (Mar. 1999).

[4] GAYSON, M. The impact of distributed symmetries on machine learning. *Journal of Lossless, Extensible Methodologies* 6 (Aug. 2000), 1–13.

[5] HOARE, C. Moore's Law considered harmful. *Journal of Lossless Models* 17 (Jan. 1999), 1–14.

[6] JOHNSON, J., AND JACKSON, Y. Red-black trees no longer considered harmful. *TOCS* 567 (Aug. 2001), 1–18.

<figure><img src="image_41.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 1. The relationship between our system and public-private key pair [18].</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_42.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 2. The schematic used by our methodology.</figcaption></figure>

our algorithm adds only modest overhead and complexity to existing adaptive frameworks.

<figure><img src="image_43.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_44.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 3. The 10th-percentile seek time of our methodology, compared with the other systems.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_45.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 4. These results were obtained by Dana S. Scott [16]; we reproduce them here for clarity.</figcaption></figure>

## A. Hardware and Software Configuration

One must understand our network configuration to grasp the genesis of our results. We ran a deployment on the NSA's planetary-scale overlay network to disprove the mutually large-scale behavior of exhaustive archetypes. First, we halved the effective optical drive space of our mobile telephones to better understand the median latency of our desktop machines. This step flies in the face of conventional wisdom, but is instrumental to our results. We halved the signal-to-noise ratio of our mobile telephones. We tripled the tape drive speed of DARPA's 1000-node testbed. Further, we tripled the RAM size of our embedded testbed to prove the collectively computed
<figure><img src="image_46.png" /></figure>

Check 02 - Cyber informatics and Contrasting Extreme.pdf

<figure><img src="image_47.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 2** A plagiarism report (right) that Dimensions indexed in lieu of the original paper (left) shown with the allegedly plagiarised passages Tab. 1R.</figcaption></figure>
Anecdotal evidence
of SCIgen-generated
papers published...

Google Scholar

# SCIgen - An Automatic CS Paper Generator

About Generate Examples Talks Code Donations Related People Blog

## About

SCIgen is a program that generates random Computer Science research papers, including graphs, figures, and citations. It uses a hand-written **context-free grammar** to form all elements of the papers. Our aim here is to maximize amusement, rather than coherence.

One useful purpose for such a program is to auto-generate submissions to conferences that you suspect might have very low submission standards. A prime example, which you may recognize from spam in your inbox, is SCI/IIIS and its dozens of co-located conferences (check out the very broad conference description on the **WMSCI 2005** website). There's also a list of **known bogus conferences**. Using SCIgen to generate submissions for conferences like this gives us pleasure to no end. In fact, one of our papers was accepted to SCI 2005! See **Examples** for more details.

We went to WMSCI 2005. Check out the **talks and video**. You can find more details in our **blog**.

Also, check out our 10th anniversary celebration project: **SCIpher**!

## Generate a Random Paper

Want to generate a random CS paper of your own? Type in some optional author names below, and click "Generate".

Author 1: Jeremy Stribling

Author 2: Daniel Aguayo

Author 3: Maxwell Krohn

Author 4:

Author 5:

Generate

Reset

SCIgen currently supports Latin-1 characters, but not the full Unicode character set.

https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/archive/scigen/

"in fact, few scholars would disagree with"

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Environ 47 résultats (0,04 s)

## [PDF] Decoupling Interrupts from the Internet in Markov Models

R Wang - JOURNAL OF SIMULATION, 2015 - journalofsimulation.com

... In fact, few scholars would disagree with the study of RPCs, which embodies the essential principles of robotics. But, the usual methods for the study of A* search do not apply in this area. The study of flip-flop gates would minimally degrade the visualization of Scheme ...

<figure><img src="image_49.png" /></figure>

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Autres articles ✧ park

## Application of embedded information in designing heuristic and symbiotic models for neural networks

Q Zhiming - 2009 2nd International Conference on Power ... - infona.pl

... users and physicists in the last several years. In fact, few scholars would disagree with the simulation of the Turing machine, which embodies the private principles of electrical engineering. In order to achieve this objective, it ...

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## Synthesizing Sensor Networks and the UNIVAC Computer with Meathe.

D Subbarao, KMVV Prasad - International Journal of ..., 2011 - search.ebscohost.com

... RK University Rajkot, India prasad.rku@gmail.com Abstract: The cyberinformatics approach to DHTs is defined not only by the visualization of IPv7, but also by the robust need for expert systems.

In fact, few scholars would disagree with the refinement of telephony ...

<figure><img src="image_55.png" /></figure>

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Autres articles Les 3 versions

## [CITATION] Evaluating the simulation of replication

A Mccarty - Systems and Software Engineering Publication, 2019

<figure><img src="image_57.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_58.png" /></figure>

Cité 1 fois Autres articles Les 2 versions

## [PDF] The partition table considered harmful

A Varni - Citeseer

... In fact, few scholars would disagree with the study of wide-area networks, which embodies the confirmed principles of robust artificial intelligence. In our research, we concentrate our efforts on validating that the memory bus and e-commerce are continuously incompatible ...

<figure><img src="image_59.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_60.png" /></figure>

Cité 3 fois Autres articles ✧ park

## [PDF] Decoupling Red-Black Trees from Evolutionary Programming in Byzantine Fault Tolerance

B Naves, JA Naves, P Pino, E Naves, Y Moreira - ian.morere.free.fr

... pervasive. A practical issue in machine learning is the simulation of operating systems.

In fact, few scholars would disagree with the emulation of super- pages. To what extent can IPv7 be improved to solve this grand challenge ...

<figure><img src="image_61.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_62.png" /></figure>

Autres articles ✧ park
<figure><img src="image_63.png" /><figcaption>Table 4: List of 258 fingerprint-queries extracted from the SCIgen grammar (https://github.com/strib/scigen/blob/master/scirules.in).</figcaption></figure>

JASIST

asis&t

RESEARCH ARTICLE | Open Access

Prevalence of nonsensical algorithmically generated papers in the scientific literature

Guillaume Cabanac Cyril Labbé

First published: 25 May 2021 | https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24495

<figure><img src="image_64.png" /></figure>

Dimensions

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ID 42

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<figure><img src="image_68.png" /></figure>

N = 262 papers (often sold!) with 197 not retracted
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MODUS OPERANDI

1. Algorithmic Text Generation: SClgen

2. Plagiarism and Tortured Phrases

3. Peer Review Hacking

4. Paper Mills

5. Citation Hacking
counterfeit consciousness

man-made brainpower

artificial intelligence

sun oriented force

solar energy

pinnacle flag to clamor proportion (PSNR)

peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR)

credulous Bayes

Thomas Bayes

<figure><img src="image_70.png" /></figure>

Naive Bayes

<figure><img src="image_71.png" /></figure>

bosom malignancy/peril

breast cancer

Nucleic corrosive enhancement tests (NAAT)

Nucleic acid amplification tests (NAAT)

Extreme intense respiratory disorder

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SRAS)
<table><caption>**Table 1** Tortured phrases we found in the literature along with their usual, correct wording.</caption><thead><tr><th>Tortured phrase found in publications</th><th>Correct wording expected</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>profound neural organization<br>(fake | counterfeit) neural organization</td><td>deep neural network</td></tr><tr><td>versatile organization</td><td>artificial neural network</td></tr><tr><td>organization (ambush | assault)</td><td>mobile network</td></tr><tr><td>organization association</td><td>network attack</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>network connection</td></tr><tr><td>(enormous | huge | immense | colossal) information</td><td>big data</td></tr><tr><td>information (stockroom | distribution center)</td><td>data warehouse</td></tr><tr><td>(counterfeit | human-made) consciousness</td><td>artificial intelligence (AI)</td></tr><tr><td>elite figuring</td><td>high performance computing</td></tr><tr><td>haze figuring</td><td>fog/mist/cloud computing</td></tr><tr><td>designs preparing unit</td><td>graphics processing unit (GPU)</td></tr><tr><td>focal preparing unit</td><td>central processing unit (CPU)</td></tr><tr><td>work process motor</td><td> workflow engine</td></tr><tr><td>facial acknowledgement</td><td>face recognition</td></tr><tr><td>discourse acknowledgement</td><td>voice recognition</td></tr><tr><td>mean square (mistake | blunder)</td><td>mean square error</td></tr><tr><td>mean (outright | supreme) (mistake | blunder)</td><td>mean absolute error</td></tr><tr><td>(motion | flag | indicator | sign | signal) to (clamor | commotion | noise)</td><td>signal to noise</td></tr><tr><td>worldwide parameters</td><td>global parameters</td></tr><tr><td>(arbitrary | irregular) get right of passage to</td><td>random access</td></tr><tr><td>(arbitrary | irregular) (backwoods | timberland | lush territory)</td><td>random forest</td></tr><tr><td>(arbitrary | irregular) esteem</td><td>random value</td></tr><tr><td>subterranean insect (state | province | area | region | settlement)</td><td>ant colony</td></tr><tr><td>underground creepy crawly (state | province | area | region | settlement)</td><td>ant colony</td></tr><tr><td>leftover vitality</td><td>remaining energy</td></tr><tr><td>territorial normal vitality</td><td>local average energy</td></tr><tr><td>motor vitality</td><td>kinetic energy</td></tr><tr><td>(credulous | innocent | gullible) Bayes</td><td>naïve Bayes</td></tr><tr><td>individual computerized collaborator</td><td>personal digital assistant (PDA)</td></tr></tbody></table>

<figure><img src="image_72.png" /></figure>

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# 1. Machine Translation

https://translate.google.com

<figure><img src="image_77.png" /></figure>
## 2. Machine Paraphrasing

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Probabilistic text generators have been used to produce fake scientific papers for more than a decade. Such nonsensical papers are easily detected by both human and machine. Now more complex AI-powered generation techniques produce texts indistinguishable from that of humans and the generation of scientific texts from a few keywords has been documented. Our study introduces the concept of tortured phrases: unexpected weird phrases in lieu of established ones, such as 'counterfeit consciousness' instead of 'artificial intelligence.' We combed the literature for tortured phrases and study one reputable journal where these concentrated en masse. Hypothesising the use of advanced language models we ran a detector on the abstracts of recent articles of this journal and on several control sets. The pairwise comparisons reveal a

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### Rewritten Text:

Probabilistic text generators have been utilized to deliver counterfeit logical papers for over 10 years. Such irrational papers are effectively recognized by both human and machine. Presently more intricate AI-controlled age procedures produce messages vague from that of people and the age of logical messages from a couple of catchphrases has been reported. Our review presents the idea of tormented expressions: surprising odd expressions in lieu of set up awareness' rather than 'man-made reasoning' for tormented expressions and study one of these concentrated as a group. Conjecturing the unique language models we ran a locator on the digests of late articles or this diary and on a few control sets. The pairwise examinations uncover a centralization of edited

<figure><img src="image_79.png" /></figure>
## 3. Machine Generation

https://transformer.huggingface.co/doc/arxiv-nlp

<figure><img src="image_80.png" /></figure>
# OpenAI GPT-2 Detector

<figure><img src="image_81.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_82.png" /></figure>

Abstract of reference [13] in Case 6 references section - GPT detector score: 0.02%

This work includes processing and classification of tweets which are written in Turkish language. **Four different sector** tweet datasets are vectorized with Word Embedding model and classified with Support Vector Machine and **Random Forests** classifiers and results have been compared. We have showed that sector based tweet classification is more successful **compared to general tweets**. Accuracy rates for Banking sector is 89.97%, for Football 84.02%, for Telecom 73.86%, for Retail 63.68% and for overall 74.60% have been achieved.

Questionable text in case 6, rewritten from [13] - GPT detector score: 59.20%

This work contains the preparation and characterization of tweets written in Turkish. Tweet information sets a vector of **four different offices**, contrasted and the outcomes and the installed model and grouping support vector machine and the **arbitrary timberland arrangement** in Word. Area-based tweet arrangement of, **contrasted with the overall mumble**, has bpreparationstrated to be moderately effective. The exactness rate for the financial area 89.97 percent, soccer 84.02 percent, 73.86 percent for correspondence, it has been made 74.60 percent of the absolute of the 63.68 percent for retail.

'Lazy' surveys

<figure><img src="image_83.png" /><figcaption>**Table 6** Elsevier journals from Control E with 25+ articles published in 2021 whose GPT detector score for abstracts is 70% or higher. The journal under investigation in this study, *Microprocessors and Microsystems*, has 75 articles with a 70% or higher GTP score for abstracts (Avg = 98.6). These 75 articles represent 72.1% of all articles published in this journal that are in Control E.</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_84.png" /></figure>
## Problematic Paper Screener

Feedback

nobody

## Tortured Phrases Detector

Matches with 2+ tortured phrases (e.g., credulous Bayes, counterfeit conscience, etc.)

* Cabanac, G., Labbé, C., & Magazinov, A. (2022). "Bosom peril" is not "breast cancer": How weird computer-generated phrases help researchers find scientific publishing fraud. *Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists*. Online

* Cabanac, G., Labbé, C., & Magazinov, A. (2021). Tortured phrases: A dubious writing style emerging in science. Evidence of critical issues affecting established journals. *arXiv preprint*. https://arxiv.org/abs/2107.06751 (supplementary materials)
▷ Featured in Nature (Else, 2021)

<figure><img src="image_85.png" /></figure>

Last Update: 15/02/2022 22:32

<figure><img src="image_86.png" /></figure>

View results by publisher, venue, or year.

<figure><img src="image_87.png" /></figure>

Home

<figure><img src="image_88.png" /></figure>

Media Coverage

<figure><img src="image_89.png" /></figure>

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<figure><img src="image_90.png" /></figure>

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<figure><img src="image_91.png" /></figure>

Detectors:

<figure><img src="image_92.png" /></figure>

Tortured

<figure><img src="image_93.png" /></figure>

SCIGen

<figure><img src="image_94.png" /></figure>

Mathgen

<figure><img src="image_95.png" /></figure>

SBIR

<figure><img src="image_96.png" /></figure>

Suspect

<figure><img src="image_97.png" /></figure>

Seek&Blastn

<figure><img src="image_98.png" /></figure>

Problematic Cell Lines

<figure><img src="image_99.png" /></figure>

FAQ

<figure><img src="image_100.png" /></figure>

Admin

<figure><img src="image_101.png" /></figure>

Check potentially problematic papers and report on PubPeer: the last column will link to your PubPeer comment.

<figure><img src="image_102.png" /></figure>

Report True/False Positives, ideas, or else using the Feedback feature.

<table><thead><tr><th>Year</th><th>Doctype</th><th>Publisher</th><th>Venue</th><th>Title</th><th>Citations</th><th>Altmetric</th><th>Tips ↓</th><th>Tortured Phrases</th><th>Assessor</th><th>PubPeer Users</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>2021</td><td>article</td><td>Institute of Advanced Engineering and Science</td><td>Indonesian Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science</td><td>A comparative and comprehensive study of prediction of Parkinson's disease</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>20</td><td>Alzheimer's infection • Parkinson's infection • Parkinson's sickness • R2 esteem • arbitrary backwoods • backing vector machine • dimensionality decrease • fake neural • fluffy C implies • guillible Bayes • head part investigation • help vector machine • inertial estimation unit • invulnerable framew...</td><td>Cabanac</td><td>Guillaume Cabanac</td></tr><tr><td>2020</td><td>chapter</td><td>Springer Nature</td><td>Internet of Things Use Cases for the Healthcare Industry</td><td>AI and IoT in Healthcare</td><td>2</td><td>0</td><td>20</td><td>Alzheimer's ailment • Alzheimer's infection • Alzheimer's sickness • Parkinson's ailment • Parkinson's sickness • attractive reverberation • brilliant AND keen AND savvy AND shrewd • calculated relapse • creating nations • help vector machine • hereditary programming • information distribution cente...</td><td>Cabanac</td><td>N. H. Wise</td></tr><tr><td>2017</td><td>article</td><td>World Scientific Publishing</td><td>International Journal of Wavelets Multiresolution and Information Processing</td><td>Applications of wavelet transform on power engineering problems — A brief review</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>19</td><td>back proliferation • back spread AND neural • bolster vector machine • concealed layer • cross breed model • discrete Fourier change • fake neural • fast Fourier change • fluffy deduction • fluffy rationale • hereditary calculation • manufactured neural • molecule swarm • moving normal (ARIMA) • sel...</td><td>Cabanac</td><td>Guillaume Cabanac</td></tr><tr><td>2021</td><td>chapter</td><td>Wiley</td><td>Green Internet of Things and Machine Learning</td><td>Machine Learning-Enabled Techniques for Reducing Energy Consumption of IoT Devices</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>18</td><td>brilliant metering • brilliant AND keen AND savvy AND shrewd • counterfeit neural • field programmable entryway exhibit • irregular woodland • keen city • keen gadget • keen home • man-made brainpower • savvy metering • shrewd city • shrewd home • shrewd metering • sun oriented force • uphold vector...</td><td>Cabanac</td><td>Guillaume Cabanac</td></tr></tbody></table>

<table><thead><tr><th>Year</th><th>Doctype</th><th>Publisher</th><th>Venue</th><th>Title</th><th>Citations</th><th>Altmetric</th><th>Tips ↓</th><th>Tortured Phrases</th><th>Assessor</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>2021</td><td>proceeding</td><td>Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)</td><td>2021 International Conference on Advances in Computing, Communication, and Control (ICAC3)</td><td>HVAC Hybrid Control methods for HEE in Buildings: Overview</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>9</td><td>back spread AND neural • counterfeit neural • enhancement calculation AND optimiz • fluffy rationale • hereditary calculation • profound neural organization • square blunder • warm solace • warmth move</td><td>Invitation for human assessors</td></tr><tr><td>2019</td><td>proceeding</td><td>Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)</td><td>2019 4th International Conference on Recent Trends on Electronics, Information, Communication & Technology (RTEICT)</td><td>Handling 3vs of Big Data Through Swarm Intelligence</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>7</td><td>computerized reasoning • enhancement calculation AND optimiz • figuring asset • genuine esteemed • hereditary calculation • molecule swarm • wellness esteem</td><td>Invitation for human assessors</td></tr></tbody></table>

<figure><img src="image_103.png" /></figure>
Microarray Gene Expression Analysis Using Fuzzy Logic (MGA-FL)

First International Conference on Sustainable Technologies for Computational Intelligence (2019) - 1 Comment
doi: 10.1007/978-981-13-1951-8_16 issn: 2194-5357 issn: 2194-5365

Daksh Khanna 👤, Tanupriya Choudhury 👤, A. Sai Sabitha 👤, Nguyen Gia Nhu 👤

#1 Elisabeth M Bik

<figure><img src="image_104.png" /></figure>

This article costs € 27.20 / $ 32.20 on the Springer website. I would not recommend to purchase it, however.

This paper appears to contain "Tortured Phrases": non-sensical, synthetic text generated by synonym converter tools, as described in this preprint by Cabanac, Labbé, and Magazinov, arXiv:2107.06751 - https://arxiv.org/abs/2107.06751. As explained in the preprint, text might have been 'synonymized' to mask plagiarism.

<figure><img src="image_105.png" /></figure>

Parts of this paper appear to contain synonymized paragraphs from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_microarray):

* Wikipedia: "Each DNA spot contains picomoles (10EXP-12 moles) of a specific DNA sequence, known as probes (or reporters or oligos). These can be a short section of a gene or other DNA element that are used to hybridize a cDNA or cRNA (also called anti-sense RNA) sample (called target) under high-stringency conditions. Probe-target hybridization is usually detected and quantified by detection of fluorophore-, silver-, or chemiluminescence-labeled targets to determine relative abundance of nucleic acid sequences in the target. The original nucleic acid arrays were macro arrays approximately 9 cm × 12 cm and the first computerized image based analysis was published in 1981."

* Khanna et al. (2019): "Each Deoxyribonucleic Acid spot consist of micro-moles (appx. 11 mol) of a particular Deoxyribonucleic Acid progression, justified as tests (or writers or oligos). It can be a small territory of a quality or other DNA segment which is used to hybridize a complementary DNA/complementary RNA (in like manner called antagonistic to identify Ribonucleic Acid) test (called centre) under high-stringency terms. Test object hybridization is normally recognized and acquired through distinguishing proof of "fluorophore-, silver-, or chemiluminescence"—named centres to choose relatively abundant nucleic destructive game plans for the goal. The principal nucleic destructive displays were expansive scale groups around 9 cm × 12 cm and the fundamental modernized picture based examination was circulated in 1981."

Figure 1 looks identical to a Wikimedia file found here:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Microarray_exphorizontal.svg

<figure><img src="image_106.png" /></figure>

Text from Section 3 appears to be a synonymized version of Fernando Díaz et al., Using Fuzzy Patterns for Gene Selection and Data Reduction on Microarray Data, IDEAL 2006, LNCS 4224, pp. 1087 – 1094, 2006, DOI: 10.1007/11875581_129. Here is an example:

<figure><img src="image_107.png" /></figure>

tortured

<figure><img src="image_108.png" /></figure>

878 results

AI Techniques for COVID-19

IEEE Access (2020) - 2 Comments
doi: 10.1109/access.2020.3007939 issn: 2169-3536

Adedoyin Ahmed Hussain, Ouns Bouachir, Fadi Al-Turjman 👤, Moayad Aloqaily 👤

<figure><img src="image_109.png" /></figure>

#1 N. H. Wise

<figure><img src="image_110.png" /></figure>

This paper already has 34 citations, I guess because Covid-19 and AI are both very hot topics, but appears to have been written using a thesaurus engine to avoid plagiarism detection.

The abstract alone contains the tortured phrases 'neural systems' for 'neural networks', and 'edge significant learning', which only gives 10 results on Google, most of which are for this paper.

The first paragraph of the introduction is in unusual language and contains telling incorrect definitions of abbreviations, such as 'mad-made brainpower (AI)', and ends with 'Meanwhile, Insilico Medicine situated in Hong Kong as of late declared that it's AI calculations had planned six new atoms that could end viral replication'.

The rest of the introduction is in a similar style and contains the tortured phrases 'twofold tree' (for 'binary tree' for 'dual tree?) and 'convolutional neural system (CNN)'.

Many other sections of the paper contain tortured phrases and nonsensical sentences, suggesting much of the paper has been plagiarised.

<figure><img src="image_111.png" /></figure>

report

<figure><img src="image_112.png" /></figure>

perlink

Reply

#2 Salsola Zygophylla

<figure><img src="image_113.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_114.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_115.png" /></figure>

This paper contains a prime example of thesaurus gone wild: "extreme intense respiratory disorder (SARS)". Given that those who use the PubPeer brower plugin are going to be directed to this page whenever this paper turns up in a search or on a web page, it seems both fair and useful to ask the authors: What contribution to knowledge do you think you have made with this publication? The same question could fairly and usefully be asked of those who cited it.

<figure><img src="image_116.png" /></figure>
## Polymers, responsiveness and cancer therapy

Artificial Cells Nanomedicine and Biotechnology (2019) - 1 Comment

doi: 10.1080/21691401.2018.1559176 issn: 2169-1401 issn: 2169-141x pubmed: 30688110

Anil M. Pethe, Khushwant S. Yadav 👄

**#1 N. H. Wise**

This paper contains tortured phrases suggesting the use of a thesaurus engine to avoid plagiarism detection.
Specifically, it refers to 'corrosive' instead of 'acid', leading to:

* 'nucleic corrosive' - nucleic acid

* 'acrylic corrosive' - acrylic acid

* 'phosphoric corrosive' - phosphoric acid

<figure><img src="image_117.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_118.png" /></figure>

https://nanobubbles.hypotheses.org

## Cloud-Based Breast Cancer Prediction Empowered with Soft Computing Approaches

Journal of Healthcare Engineering (2020) - 1 Comment

doi: 10.1155/2020/8017496 issn: 2040-2295 issn: 2040-2309 pubmed: 32509260

Farrukh Khan, Muhammad Adnan Khan 👄, Sagheer Abbas, Atifa Athar, Shahan Yamin Siddiqui, Abdul Hannan Khan, Muhammad Anwaar Saeed, Muhammad Hussain

**#1 Diradops Cardena**

This article shows clear evidence of 'tortured phrases'. To give a few examples:

* **bosom malignancy** (breast cancer)

* **Prepreparing** (preprocessing)

* **crusty logic** (crisp logic, a term anyone who is writing a paper on fuzzy logic could be expected to know!)

* **imitation** (simulation)

<figure><img src="image_119.png" /></figure>

Considering that this paper deals with the clinical applications of ML for a potentially fatal disease, it's rather inappropriate and dangerous that it slipped past controls.

There's also a lot of extremely trivial maths, which appears to have been included for no other purpose than to 'bulk up' the paper (see eqns. 5-10, which might be appropriate in a high school textbook but not an academic paper).

## Low cost Covid-19 preliminary diagnosis utilizing cough samples and keenly intelective deep learning approaches

Alexandria Engineering Journal (2021) - 1 Comment

doi: 10.1016/j.aej.2020.09.032 issn: 1110-0168

D. Sudaroli Vijayakumar 👄, Monica Sneha

**#1 N. H. Wise**

This paper contains

Examples include:

<figure><img src="image_120.png" /></figure>

* 'Nucleic Corrosive Enhancement Tests (NAAT)' - Nucleic acid amplification tests

* 'real-time Turn around Translation Polymerase Chain Response (rRT-PCR)' - real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction

* 'flag to clamor' - signal to noise

* 'sifted flag' - filtered signal

<figure><img src="image_121.png" /></figure>

Despite the paper being on 'cough', 'cough' only appears in the title, abstract and **once** in the body of the text.
Instead, 'hack' appears over 40 times, including in section titles.

Tortured Phrases as a tip from an informant...

Many other flaws to detect!

<figure><img src="image_122.png" /></figure>

Expert knowledge needed
Guillaume Cabanac @gcabanac · 1 Mar

The 'Problematic Paper Screener' has just turned one 😂. It flags 5,716 articles as problematic with 7 detectors. They are cited 38k times 😞 Only 1,516 reported on @PubPeer. Let's depollute the scientific literature: 3,226 tortured papers to re-assess 👥 irit.fr/~Guillaume.Cab...

<figure><img src="image_123.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_124.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_125.png" /></figure>

Citation count

15,717

<table><thead><tr><th>Tortured Phrases</th><th>Assessor</th><th>PubPeer Users</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Alzheimer's infection • Parkinson's infection • Parkinson's sickness • R2 esteem • arbitrary backwoods • backing vector machine • dimensionality decrease • fake neural • fluffy C implies • gullible Bayes • head part investigation • help vector machine • inertial estimation unit • invulnerable framew...</td><td>Cabanac</td><td>Guillaume Cabanac</td></tr><tr><td>Alzheimer's ailment • Alzheimer's infection • Alzheimer's sickness • Parkinson's ailment • Parkinson's sickness • attractive reverberation • brilliant AND keen AND savvy AND shrewd • calculated relapse • creating nations • help vector machine • hereditary programming • information distribution cente...</td><td>Cabanac</td><td>N. H. Wise</td></tr></tbody></table>

1 - 20 of 4421

<figure><img src="image_126.png" /></figure>

3/10,000 problematic papers published in 2021 :

- 68% affiliated to India

- 9% affiliated to China

<figure><img src="image_127.png" /></figure>

<table><thead><tr><th>Tortured Phrases</th><th>Assessor</th><th>PubPeer Users</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>back proliferation • back spread AND neural • district of intrigue • genuine esteemed • locale of enthusiasm • viewpoint proportion • yield layer AND neural</td><td>Invitation for human assessors</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><td>directing convention • hereditary calculation • hub assault • man in the center • molecule swarm • pernicious hub • steering convention</td><td>Invitation for human assessors</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><td>directing convention • malevolent hub • malignant hub • middle of the road hub • noxious hub • steering convention • versatile hub</td><td>Invitation for human assessors</td><td>-</td></tr></tbody></table>

1 - 20 of 3248

<figure><img src="image_128.png" /></figure>
nature

NEWS | 27 May 2021 | Clarification 28 May 2021

# Hundreds of gibberish papers still lurk in the scientific literature

The nonsensical computer-generated articles, spotted years after the problem was first seen, could lead to a wave of retractions.

Richard Van Noorden

NEWS | 05 August 2021 | Correction 10 August 2021

# ‘Tortured phrases’ give away fabricated research papers

Analysis reveals that strange turns of phrase may indicate foul play in science.

Holly Else

NEWS | 08 November 2021

# Scammers impersonate guest editors to get sham papers published

Hundreds of junk-science papers have been retracted from reputable journals after fraudsters used ‘special issues’ to manipulate the publication process. And the problem is growing.

Holly Else

"It is very worrying," says Guillaume Cabanac, a computer scientist at the University of Toulouse in France, who has worked to uncover nonsense science papers in special issues. He adds that it is shocking to see such papers in journals from 'flagship' publishers and that "it is not only predatory journals that publish bullshit".
<figure><img src="image_129.png" /></figure>

July 19, 2021

<figure><img src="image_130.png" /></figure>

Adam Marcus

'Tortured phrases', lost in
translation: Sleuths find even
more problems at journal that
just flagged 400 papers

<figure><img src="image_131.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_132.png" /></figure>

February 23, 2022

<figure><img src="image_133.png" /></figure>

Ivan Oransky

Publisher retracts 350 papers
at once

IOP

Institute of Physics

<figure><img src="image_134.png" /></figure>

August 26, 2021

<figure><img src="image_135.png" /></figure>

Ivan Oransky

Guest editor says journal will
retract dozens of inappropriate
papers after his email was
hacked

<figure><img src="image_136.png" /></figure>

September 22, 2021

<figure><img src="image_137.png" /></figure>

Adam Marcus

"[T]hese shit comments": Author
of a nonsense paper responds on
PubPeer

<figure><img src="image_138.png" /></figure>

September 28, 2021

<figure><img src="image_139.png" /></figure>

Ivan Oransky

Springer Nature slaps more than
400 papers with expressions of
concern all at once

<figure><img src="image_140.png" /></figure>

November 4, 2021

<figure><img src="image_141.png" /></figure>

Adam Marcus

Springer Nature geosciences
journal retracts 44 articles filled
with gibberish
## "Sunlight as disinfectant"

The Nature's 10 list explores **key developments in science** this year and some of the people who played important parts in these milestones. Along with their colleagues, these individuals helped to make **amazing discoveries** and brought attention to **crucial issues**. Nature's 10 is not an award or a ranking.

The selection is compiled by Nature's editors to highlight key events in science through the compelling stories of those involved.

### Feature Nature's 10

## Guillaume Cabanac
### Deception sleuth

This computer scientist helped to uncover a new kind of fabricated paper.

By Diana Kwon

Underground creepy crawl state. Bosom malignancy. Sun oriented force. These might sound like expressions from a work of fiction, but they are actually strange translations, pulled from the scholarly literature, of scientific terms – ant colony, breast cancer and solar energy, respectively. Guillaume Cabanac, a computer scientist at the University of Toulouse, France, spots such bizarre phrases in academic papers every day.

...

<figure><img src="image_142.png" /></figure>

### Feature

# NATURE'S 10

Ten people who helped shape science in 2021.

Winnie Byanyima / Friederike Otto / Zhang Rongqiao / Timnit Gebru / Tulio de Oliveira / John Jumper / Victoria Tauli-Corpuz / Guillaume Cabanac / Meaghan Kall / Janet Woodcock

The Nature's 10 list explores key developments in science this year and some of the people who played important parts in these milestones. Along with their colleagues, these individuals helped to make amazing discoveries and brought attention to crucial issues. Nature's 10 is not an award or a ranking. The selection is compiled by Nature's editors to highlight key events in science through the compelling stories of those involved.

<figure><img src="image_143.png" /></figure>

ILLUSTRATION BY ELENA GALOFARO BANSHI
<figure><img src="image_144.png" /></figure>

MODUS OPERANDI

1. Algorithmic Text Generation: SCIgen

2. Plagiarism and Tortured Phrases

3. Peer Review Hacking

4. Paper Mills

5. Citation Hacking
Weak signals of manipulation

<figure><img src="image_145.png" /><figcaption>**Table 2** Top 5 contributing countries and organizations of *Microprocessors and Microsystems* over 2017–2019 as per the *Journal Citation Reports* (N = 378 articles).</figcaption></figure>

<table><thead><tr><th colspan="2">Countries</th><th colspan="2">Organisations</th></tr><tr><th>Name</th><th>Articles</th><th>Name</th><th>Articles</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>India</td><td>55</td><td>CNRS, France</td><td>22</td></tr><tr><td>China (mainland)</td><td>43</td><td>Czech Technical University</td><td>9</td></tr><tr><td>France</td><td>38</td><td>University of Montenegro</td><td>9</td></tr><tr><td>Germany</td><td>32</td><td>Technical University of Munich</td><td>8</td></tr><tr><td>USA</td><td>30</td><td>Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul</td><td>8</td></tr><tr><td>Iran</td><td>28</td><td>Indian Institute of Technology System</td><td>7</td></tr></tbody></table>

<figure><img src="image_146.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 2** Number of articles included in the volumes 56–83 of *Microprocessors and Microsystems*.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_147.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 3** Editorial assessment at *Microprocessors and Microsystems*: duration in days elapsed from submission to acceptance of the 1,078 articles published in volumes 56–83 issued between February 2018 and June 2021. The same data are presented with three complementary visualisations. The volumes of early 2021 (v80–83) show a 186% increase in number of accepted papers and an editorial assessment duration divided by 4 (v80–83, N = 499, Med = 25 days) compared to the volumes of early 2020 (v74–77, N = 174, Med = 108), see Tab. 3.</figcaption></figure>
## Retraction Watch

Tracking retractions as a window into the scientific process

<figure><img src="image_148.png" /></figure>

July 19, 2021

<figure><img src="image_149.png" /></figure>

Adam Marcus

# ‘Tortured phrases’, lost in translation: Sleuths find even more problems at journal that just flagged 400 papers

What do subterranean insect provinces and motion to clamor have to do with microprocessors and microsystems?

That's an excellent question. Read on, dear reader.

Earlier this month, as we reported, Elsevier announced that it had concerns about some 400 papers published in special issues in one of its journals. The publisher said that “the integrity and rigour of the peer-review processes were investigated and confirmed to fall beneath the high standards expected.”

<figure><img src="image_150.png" /><figcaption>Guillaume Cabanac</figcaption></figure>

Update, 1140 UTC, 7/21/21: An Elsevier spokesperson gave us this statement:

The Editor in Chief of Microprocessors & Microsystems has serious concerns about the integrity and rigor of the peer-review processes that led to the publication of over 400 papers in six Special Issues, as **previously reported**. Investigation and due process regarding individual articles published in these Special Issues is ongoing. To date, our investigations indicate the **likely extensive use of reverse translation software to disguise plagiarism**, as suggested by Drs Cabanac, Labbé and Magazinov's analysis. We appreciate the authors helping bring this issue to light. We will provide further updates in accordance with Elsevier and the Committee on Publication Ethics **best practices** once the investigations have concluded.
The official journal of the Saudi Society for Geosciences, the Arabian Journal of Geosciences examines the entire range of earth science topics focused on, but not limited, to those that have regional significance to the Middle East and the Euro-Mediterranean Zone.

1.827 (2020)

Impact factor

Use Case: the *Arabian Journal of Geosciences*

► August 23, 2021: Eраcon Lachesis and Alexander Magazinov reported on PubPeer issues with a publication from *Arabian Journal of Geosciences*. See this annotated example:

<figure><img src="image_151.png" /></figure>

SpringerLink

Original Paper | Published: 21 August 2021

Research on **coastal atmospheric change** and **Latin dance performance** based on target detection network

Fan Rao

Arabian Journal of Geosciences 14, Article number: 1853 (2021) | Cite this article

9 **Accesses** | **Metrika**

**Abstract**

In recent years, with the progress of industrialization, human demand for natural resources has increased, China's environmental degradation, and the management and treatment of volatile organic pollutants, etc., will not only become the cause of ozone pollution, but also have a huge impact on human health. In response to this problem, China issued the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan on Air Pollution Prevention and Management in Major Regions" in 2012, which for the first time clearly pointed out the policy on the management of volatile organic pollutants and the strengthening of corporate production, and management of volatile organic pollutants during transportation. Increase the use of low-volatile organic solvents, reduce the use of high-volatile organic solvents, promote the management of organic waste gas pollution, and strengthen the recovery and utilization of organic waste gas. Establish a monitoring system for volatile organic pollutants in major industries and improve the emission standards for volatile organic pollutants.

Latin dance is a dance sport introduced to China in 1980, and now China holds Latin dance competitions every year. From an aesthetic point of view, Latin dance is a kind of artistic performance. Skilled Latin dance dancers during the performance can bring wonderful beauty to the audience and stimulate people's love for this dance movement. Based on the summary of the related content of Latin dance art performance, this article further analyzes the current situation and development trend of Latin dance art performance, hoping to provide some valuable reference materials to promote the development of Latin dance art in China. Through survey methods such as questionnaire surveys and expert interview methods, the artistic performance of Latin dance is investigated.

Without transition,
just concatenated!

<figure><img src="image_152.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_153.png" /></figure>

Cartoon by Hilda Bastian (license)

A total of 436 papers in two Springer Nature journals are being subject-ed to expressions of concern, in the latest case of special issues — in this case, “topical collections” — likely being exploited by rogue editors or impersonators.

https://retractionwatch.com/2021/09/28/springer-nature-slaps-more-than-400-papers-with-expressions-of-concern-all-at-once/

We observed an impressive and questionable shrinking of the duration of editorial assessments:

• 282 days in 2019-S2

• 159 days in 2020-S2

• 47 days in 2021-S2

► September 28, 2021: Springer published *Expressions of concern for 436 publications in the Arabian Journal of Geosciences*.

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MODUS OPERANDI

1. Algorithmic Text Generation: SCIgen

2. Plagiarism and Tortured Phrases

3. Peer Review Hacking

4. Paper Mills

5. Citation Hacking
We must decontaminate the scientific literature

**Villains:** scammers who are pseudo-authors

**Motive:** promotion, recognition, symbolic capital

**Modus operandi:** plagiarism, journal hijacking, buying of citations

**Consequences:**
pollution of the literature
erosion of the trust society places in science

**Detectives:**
professional and scientists and hobbyists
volunteers contributing *pro bono*

**Aim:**
curative → decontaminate the literature
preventive → anticipate new manipulations

**Means:**
Decentralised re-assessment supported by the
*Problematic Paper Screener*
AI to detect errors, paraphrasing, data fabrication

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https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dépollution

Volunteers decontaminating a beach after the *Prestige* spillover of 2002.
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MODUS OPERANDI

1. Algorithmic Text Generation: SCIgen

2. Plagiarism and Tortured Phrases

3. Peer Review Hacking

4. Paper Mills

5. Citation Hacking
—MARA HVISTENDAHL

www.sciencemag.org

SCIENCE

VOL 342

29 NOVEMBER 2013

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# China's Publication Bazaar

A Science investigation has uncovered a smorgasbord of questionable practices including paying for author's slots on papers written by other scientists and buying papers from online brokers

> "IT'S **UNBELIEVABLE**: YOU CAN PUBLISH SCI PAPERS **WITHOUT DOING EXPERIMENTS**."

—Banner on Sciedit's website

# THE BATTLE AGAINST PAPER MILLS

Some journals have admitted to a problem with fake research papers. Now editors are trying to combat it. By Holly Else and Richard Van Noorden

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## Industrialized cheating

The problem of organized fraud in publishing is not new, and not confined to China, notes Catriona Fennell, who heads publishing services at the world's largest scientific publisher, Elsevier. "We've seen evidence of industrialized cheating from several other countries, including Iran and Russia," she told Nature last year. Others have also reported on Iranian and Russian paper-mill activities.

In a statement this year to Nature, Elsevier said that its journal editors detect and prevent the publication of thousands of probable paper-mill submissions each year, although some do get through.

China has long been known to have a problem with firms selling papers to researchers, says Xiaotian Chen, a librarian at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. As far back as 2010, a team led by Shen Yang, a management-studies researcher then at Wuhan University in China, warned of websites offering to ghostwrite papers on fictional research, or to bypass peer-review systems for payment. In 2013, Science reported on a market for authorships on research papers in China. In 2017, China's Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) said it would crack down on misconduct after a scandal in which 107 papers were retracted at the journal Tumor Biology; their peer reviews had been fabricated and a MOST investigation concluded that some had been produced by third-party companies.

Physicians in China are a particular target market because they typically need to publish research articles to gain promotions, but are so busy at hospitals that they might not have time to do the science, says Chen. Last August, the Beijing municipal health authority published a policy stipulating that an attending physician wanting to be promoted to deputy chief physician must have at least two first-author papers published in professional journals; three first-author papers are required to become a chief physician. These titles affect
# For Better Science

BY LEONID SCHNEIDER, ON RESEARCH INTEGRITY, BIOMEDICAL ETHICS AND ACADEMIC PUBLISHING

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ACADEMIC PUBLISHING GUEST POST MEDICINE RESEARCH INTEGRITY SMUT CLYDE

## The full-service paper mill and its Chinese customers

An investigation by Elisabeth Bik, Smut Clyde, Morty and Tiger BB8 reveals the workings of a paper mill, its customers are Chinese doctors desperate for promotion. Apparently even journal editors are part of the scam, publishing fraudulent made-up science.

<figure><img src="image_162.png" /></figure>

BY LEONID SCHNEIDER

JANUARY 24, 2020

In China, clinicians are expected to publish a certain number of research papers in international journals if they want to be promoted. The easiest way is to pay a paper mill, which seem to provide a full service: an English-speaking research paper containing Photoshop-generated fake research data, in a respectable peer-reviewed journal, with your name on it. Entire journals published by Wiley or Elsevier succumb to such scams, presumably because certain corrupt editorial board members are part of it. This was uncovered in an investigation by Elisabeth Bik, as well as the pseudonymous Smut Clyde, Morty and Tiger BB8, and narrated below by Smut Clyde.

The presently **almost 500 papers** were traced to one specific paper mill not because of direct image reuse, but because the data showed same patterns of falsifications: same blot backgrounds, same shapes of bands, and similarly falsified flow cytometry plots.

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**Morty** @mortenoxe · Jan 20, 2020

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Published by Wiley, indexed by the US National Library of Science, and read by scientists. Payd by public funds, all profit to the publisher and some laughter in China. #BetterJournallIndexing #PubPeer #NIH #Wileyinresearch

Upregulation of long noncoding RNA TUG1 contributes to the development of laryngeocarcinoma by targeting miR-145-5p/ROCK1 axis.

Zhuang S, Liu F, Wu R.

J Cell Biochem. 2019 Aug;120(8):13392-13402. doi: 10.1002/jcb.28614.

Figure 1

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Figure 3

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WHY?

Figure 5

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MODUS OPERANDI

1. Algorithmic Text Generation: SCIgen

2. Plagiarism and Tortured Phrases

3. Peer Review Hacking

4. Paper Mills

5. Citation Hacking
#4 Schizomeris leibleinii commented November 2021

187 results

Mohamed Elhoseny has an impressive Output, Citation Count, H-Index and Publons score. According to his website (http://www.mohamedelhoseny.com/academic-qualifications) he finished his PhD in 2015. Since then he acquired an impressive H-index of more than 50 according to google scholar.

Cited by

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#8 Marianne Alunno-Bruscia commented November 2021

Re #4. M. Elhoseny is part of the 2021 annual list of Highly Cited Researchers™ from Clarivate™ "recognizing influential researchers in the sciences and social sciences from around the world".
https://web.archive.org/web/20211116210755/https://publons.com/researcher/1196537/mohamed-elhoseny/

As stated by Clarivate™:

* "All Highly Cited Researcher records are reviewed. Factors such as retractions, misconduct, and extreme self-citation—all of which would detract from true community-wide research influence—may lead to an author being excluded from the list."

* "There is no unique or universally agreed concept of what constitutes exceptional research performance and elite status in the sciences and social sciences. Consequently, no quantitative indicators will point to a list that satisfies all expectations or requirements."

While producing between 40 and 60 papers a year according to Scopus, he also managed to review up to almost one paper per day for several journals in 2018.

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#1 Guillaume Cabanac commented February 2022

This article Cited 32 times contains several *tortured phrases* that make some passages hard to parse. These typically result from an attempt to avoid plagiarism detection using a paraphrasing software.

need to know the channel state data at the transmitter. The most testing features in VANETs are their dynamic topology and versatility, where vehicles are moving at variable high speeds and in various directions. Conversely, the test in the WSN is in dealing with the constrained energy assets of the nodes, since the execution of WSNs emphatically relies upon their lifetime by Mohaisen et al. [11]. To conquer these difficulties, this exploration researches the impacts of various Quality of Service (QoS)

framework of the PSO algorithm. The progression vector demonstrates the course of the development of the dragonflies and characterized as pursues:

$$ \Delta V_{i+1} = (sSe_i + aAl_i + cCo_i + fFood_i + eEnemy_i) + w\Delta V_i \quad (4) $$

**Energy Consumption:** It is referred to as total energy depleted during data transmission of packets from source to destination.

Table 2 clarifies the outcome examination of a proposed model for an alternate number of vehicle nodes. In light of the node quality (efficient course), vehicles are

Can the authors explain why they departed from the established phrases?

How come these incorrect wordings survived proofreading by the coauthors, editors, referees, copy editors, and typesetters?
https://doi.org/10.53053/MGSA7457

# Why was a study about autism cited by a paper on plant beauty?

BY DALMEET SINGH CHAWLA

21 JANUARY 2022

Citation inflation: Autism studies, among others, are appearing in the reference lists of unrelated papers, possibly in an attempt to artificially boost authors' metrics.

**#1 Rhipidura albiventris** commented February 2022

A typical citation pattern of GW Wei, the first author of this paper.

**1. Introduction**

The ordered weighted aggregation (OWA) operator (Yager, 1988) as an aggregation technique has received more and more attention since its appearance (Merigó & Casanova, 2009; Merigó & Gil-Lafuente, 2009; Merigó, 2010; Wei, 2008a, 2008b, 2008c, 2009a, 2009b, 2010a, 2010b, 2010c, 2010d; Wei, Zhao, & Lin, 2010; Wei, 2011a, 2011b, 2011c; Wei, Wang, Lin, & Zhao, 2011a, 2011b, Wei, Wang, & Lin, 2011c; Wei, 2011d, 2011e, 2011f, 2011g; Wei & Zhao, 2012; Zhang & Chu, 2009; Xu & Da, 2003). One important step of the OWA operator is to determine its associated weights. Many authors

dures to obtain a collection of second one or two arguments used in a new dependent variable. Xu (2012) weighted ag

3439–3447.
Wei, G. W. (2008a). Maximizing deviati

making in intuitionistic fuzzy setting
Wei, G. W. (2008b). Interval-valued int

Journal of Information and Computati
Wei, G. W. (2008c). Induced intuitionistic
operator and its application to *n* Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence.
Wei, G. W. (2009a). Uncertain linguistics

application to group decision makir
International Journal of Uncertainty
251–267.
Wei, G. W. (2009b). Some geometric ag

dynamic multiple attribute decisi
International Journal of Uncertainty
17(2), 179–196.
Wei, G. W. (2010a). GRA method for
incomplete weight information in ir

Systems, 2(3), 243–247.

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References [6-10] are irrelevant to the subject and the short sentence in the above text!

References
[11-14, 16-17, 19-26]
are irrelevant to the
subject and the short
sentence in the above text!

......
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* Slide 2 : https://www.facebook.com/hyperconsciousness/photos/if-i-have-seen-further-it-is-by-standing-on-the-shoulders-of-giants-isaac-newton/3650241855102416/ https://www.canstockphoto.com/texture-of-old-brick-wall-with-broken-50415102.html

* Slide 3 : https://www.istockphoto.com/fr/photo/trou-dans-le-mur-gm175183459-22041615

* Slide 4 : https://sciencenorthwest.com/so-how-do-scientists-ensure-honest-and-truthful-results/ https://twitter.com/h_sjastad/status/1207323854873473025

* Slide 22 : https://www.20minutes.fr/monde/2643491-20191104-maree-noire-bresil-pire-venir-avertit-president-jair-bolsonaro
bioRxiv

THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY

Posted July 31, 2021.

Human gene function publications that describe wrongly identified nucleotide sequence reagents are unacceptably frequent within the genetics literature

Yasunori Park, Rachael A West, Pranujan Pathmendra, Bertrand Favier, Thomas Stoeger, Amanda Capes-Davis, Guillaume Cabanac, Cyril Labbé, Jennifer A Byrne

doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.29.453321

This article is a preprint and has not been certified by peer review

Publication : https://doi.org/10.26508/lsa.202101203

doi:10.1007/s11192-021-03871-9

<table><thead><tr><th></th><th>Claimed status</th><th>Verified status</th><th>Consequences</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Claimed targeting yet wrong target</td><td>5'- gene X -3'</td><td>5'- gene Y -3'</td><td>Irrelevant and/or impossible data</td></tr><tr><td>Claimed non-targeting yet targeting</td><td>5'- no target -3'</td><td>5'- gene X -3'</td><td>Use of invalid negative control</td></tr><tr><td>Claimed targeting yet non-targeting</td><td>5'- gene Y -3'</td><td>5'- no target -3'</td><td>Impossible data</td></tr></tbody></table>

nature

NEWS | 04 August 2021

Errors in genetic sequences mar hundreds of studies

Misreported nucleotide reagents may be rife in papers on human gene function.

Holly Else

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A computer-aided analysis of almost 12,000 human-genetics papers has found more than 700 studies with errors in the DNA or RNA sequences of their experimental reagents¹. That amounts to a “problem of alarming proportions”, because it suggests that a worrying fraction of studies on human genes are not reliable, says the team that conducted the analysis, led by cancer researcher Jennifer Byrne at the University of Sydney in Australia. The mistakes could be accidental but, researchers suspect, might sometimes point to fraud.