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Published online 8 October 2008 | Nature 455, 715 (2008) | doi:10.1038/455715a
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Entire-paper plagiarism caught by software
Thousands of 'similarities' found between papers.
When Eric Le Bourg, a French biogerontologist, came across a paper in a Korean journal recently, he almost fell off his chair; the entire article — text and graphs included — had been taken from one of his earlier articles. "It was plagiarism from beginning to end," he says.
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Please also compare these two PUBLICATIONS and voice your opinions, too: ---------- 1. a patent application submitted on June 28, 2000 to US Patent and Trademark Office and published by US PTO: Method and apparatus for producing age-synchronized cells (a patent granted in 2004 as US Patent 6767734B)./// Abstract: The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for producing cell population of the same chronological age. Cells of a predetermined age are collected onto an array of surfaces. The collected cells are retained on the said surface during their continuous cultivation and kept from mixing with their descendants by means of flushing away their offspring. Sampling of surface from the array at desired time gives cell populations of desired cell age for examination, assay and other different uses. . ------------- 2. A meeting reported published in Science on August 18, 2000 (289: 1131-1133) which described a new method of getting old cells by using a flow-cell chamber: Eventually, Ackermann came up with a special microscopy chamber, a modified microscope slide containing a small channel. Ackermann inoculates the channel with lots of C. crescentus, 20 to 100 of which grow a stalk and take up residence in the channel. Then he keeps a constant flow of media through the channel to remove newly budded progeny. In this way, he and his colleagues can monitor aging in the stationary cells. ------------------Shi V. Liu (SVL@logibio.com; http://im1.biz; http://blog.sina.com.cn/im1)
...so in 1999 you did an experiment, published in an obscure journal and then did nothing else? And 10yrs later someone else is working on it. That's not plagiarism...
compare these two publications: IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON EVOLUTIONARY COMPUTING, VOL. 6, NO. 4, AUGUST 2002 Rafael S. Parpinelli, Heitor S. Lopes,and Alex A. Freitas Abstract?This paper proposes an algorithm for data mining called Ant-Miner (ant-colony-based data miner). The goal of Ant- Miner is to extract classification rules from data. The algorithm is inspired by both research on the behavior of real ant colonies and some data mining concepts as well as principles. We compare the performance of Ant-Miner with CN2, a well-known data mining algorithm for classification, in six public domain data sets. The results provide evidence that: 1) Ant-Miner is competitive with CN2 with respect to predictive accuracy and 2) the rule lists discovered by Ant-Miner are considerably simpler (smaller) than those discovered by CN2. WITH: IJCSNS International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security, VOL.8 No.7, July 2008 P.V.Sarath Chand, Dr.A.Vinay Babu, Dr.A.Govardhan Abstract ? This work proposes an algorithm for data mining called Ant-Miner (Ant Colony-based Data Miner). The goal of Ant-Miner is to extract classification rules from data. The algorithm is inspired by both research on the behavior of real ant colonies and some data mining concepts and principles. We compare the performance of Ant-Miner with CN2, a well-known data mining algorithm for classification, in six public domain data sets. The results provide evidence that: (a) Ant- Miner is competitive with CN2 with respect to predictive accuracy; and (b) The rule lists discovered by Ant-Miner are considerably simpler (smaller) than those discovered by CN2. The main differences between the two papers are that Parpinelli et al published in an prestigious journal (IEEE) while the IJCSNS is an obscure one, and that the plagiarists "published" a shorter version. This is outrageous! I'm glad there are people watching out so this kind of behaviour doesn't go unnoticed.
To Shi Liu : I don't see any plagiarism in the work you shows. They are in the same field. But the similarity ends there. By just having worked in a field doesn't mean that nobody else should work on it. Grow up.
I have developed a plagiarism detection tool called DOC Cop which is on the web at http://www.doccop.com DOC Cop enables you to check papers against one another free of charge. Shi Liu the File Check/Cluster Check function of DOC Cop is exactly what you need to check those papers yourself.
If one has never heard of nor read a journal does not by any stretch of the imagination render a journal obscure. There are thousands of journals worldwide. Most are highly specialized with a specific target audience. Its one thing to be inspired by a work or get a few ideas from the presented research: It is theft to steal words verbatim or follow the a presentation's line of thought without crediting the investigators. One who does so may "appear" creative and smart to others but such cleverness cannot always be equated with true intelligence. Another question arises: Did the alledged plagiarist conduct any actual experiments? Such shortcuts to renown eventually are exposed. It is a shameful practice. Then again the practice of cheating on college exams leads to such behavior. The verbally challenged should team up with those that can present their own work in a scientific manner.
I applaud Dr. Garner's efforts to realize that editors often don't act. As I have written on other articles, my former PhD advisor published a paper with whole paragraphs copied from my dissertation. He copied the wrong paragraphs, so results and methods were mixed (see my story later). When I approached the journal's editor upon seeing the draft on their website, he said that he and the guest editor (who founded a company based on the compound which the paper was about), felt my advisor's actions were defensible. I had to file a grievance with my former university to have my content taken out of the paper -- resulting in a very flawed and incomplete paper. Still, the journal keeps the draft on their website, still today. They insist it was merely a dispute, not plagiarism. So I met with the same resistance that Dr. Garner did. ---- Plagiarized Grad Student, PlagiarizedGradStudent@gmail.com, Read my story at http://www.plagiary.org/responses.htm
The sequential world events in studying bacterial aging: 1. In 1990 Liu discovered the true meaning of bacterial life ? it has a limited lifespan and can reproduce more than once in a lifespan. So bacteria do age and die. 2. Between 1990-1999 Liu tried many times to publish his findings on bacterial cell polarity and aging in various top journals including Nature, Science, and PNAS but failed. The 1997 submission to Science is an Article entitled "Toward a new understanding of bacterial life" which can be read entirely at http://logibio.com/1997Science.pdf). 3. Liu presented his findings to 1997 American Society for Microbiology (ASM general meeting) and 1998 American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting and was invited by National Cancer Institute in 1997 and National Institute on Aging in 1998 to give formal seminars. Ackermann's PhD mentor, Urs Jenal, attended the 1997 ASM meeting and was in the same session where Liu presented his findings on bacterial aging. 4. In 1998 Liu submitted his findings to a top journal in China ? Science in China - which publishes in both English and Chinese and is in no way an "obscure" journal. After over one-and-half year careful peer review it was published in 1999 in both English and Chinese. The publication was indexed in the Current Content. 5. Between 1999 and now Liu has published many papers on bacterial/cell aging (see an incomplete list at http://im1.biz/Aging.htm ). Many of these publications were originally submitted to the top journals but were rejected. Some of these publications were in the official ASM magazine (originally called ASM News and now Microbe) and thus Liu's observations and views on bacterial life/aging should not be unknown to many microbiologists in the world. 6. In June 28, 2000 Liu filed a patent "Method and apparatus for producing age-synchronized cells" to US PTO and obtained a patent in 2004. 7. In August 18, 2000 Science published a meeting report in which Ackermann's PhD work on bacterial aging was described. The report stated that Ackermann was directed into studying aging in bacteria by his mentor Urs Jenal (the same Jenal who was there in the 1997 ASM meeting when Liu reported his findings on bacterial aging). 8. In 2003 Ackermann, Stearns, and Jenal published a brief report on bacterial senescence in Science (300: 1920) which did not cite any of Liu's prior publications on the exact same topic and gave people an impression that their study was the first such study in the world. 9. In 2005 Stewart et al. published a paper in PLoS Biology (3: 295-300) and claimed it is the first observation of aging in a symmetric bacterium (E. coli). But Liu's 1999 Science in China experimental research report actually already described aging in this bacterium. Liu communicated with Stewart and asked him to overcome his misrepresentation of research history in this field. Stewart refused to do so and continue to disregard Liu's publications later on. 10. Since 1990 Liu has maintained an unique opinion on bacterial/cell life that is one mother bacterium/cell can reproduce one or more daughter bacteria/cells but itself remains alive and ages until it becomes senescent (viable-but-unculturable, VBNC) and eventually dead. He openly criticized a "conventional wisdom" that "one mother cell divides into two daughter cells". 11. Ackermann et al. and Stewart et al. still maintained the "one mother two daughter" dogma even in their 2003 Science and 2005 PLoS Biology publications. 12. Ackermann et al. began to admit a mother-daughter relationship between two bacteria formed from one bacterium only since their 2007 publication in Ageing Cell (6:235-244). 13. Liu communicated with Ackermann after reading his 2007 Aging Cell paper and politely asked him to overcome his oversight of many prior publications in this field. But Ackermann refused and still ignored Liu's publication. 14. In 2008 Ackermann published a paper entitled "Bacteria as a new model system for aging studies: investigations using light microscopy" in BioTechniques (44: 564-567). He not only continued his ignorance of Liu's prior publications but even still stated that "It was never investigated if two cells emerging from cell division are indeed both young". However, Liu's discovery in early 1990s had already reached a firm conclusion that two bacteria formed from one bacterium bear a parent-child or, in other words, mother-daughter relationship. 15. Liu filed a formal complaint to BioTechniques. After a lengthy consideration and consultation with Ackermann and editors of Science and Aging Cell, BioTechnique concluded that Liu?s publications contained different observations from Ackermann's. However, is a study on bacterial aging really different a study on bacterial senescence? BioTechniques even accused Liu's patent application (filed on June 28, 2000) conforms to Science's description of Ackermann's equipment published on August 18, 2000. How could an early submitted patent conform to a later published description? ------- That is just an outline of the real history in studying bacterial aging. More detailed information can be provided if interested. ------Shi V. Liu (SVL@logibio.com; http://im1.biz; http://blog.sina.com.cn/im1)
"Royal Prince Alfred Hospital near Sydney, Australia" That'll be the RPAH *in* Sydney, Australia?
My Intention for a Deep Apology to You (Emailed to Martin Ackermann on August 11, 2008)/// Dear Dr. Ackermann,/// Over the past months I have made some accusations that you distorted the history of research on bacterial aging and rob the first discovery of bacterial aging from a true pioneer (me)./// However, I must to confess to you that my accusations may be invalid and I wish to offer you a sincere apology if you can further prove my mistake./// In making their decision to deny my charges against you, the editor-in-chief of BioTechniques has made the following statement to me:/// "We have completed our review of your charges of plagiarism and "credit robbery," leveled against the sponsored paper by Martin Ackermann that appeared in our April 2008 issue (Bacteria as a New Model System for Aging Studies: Investigations Using Light Microscopy, BioTechniques 44(4): 564-567). After reviewing that paper and the materials you supplied, and after seeking information from Dr. Ackermann and the editors of Science and Aging Cell who handled other papers by Dr. Ackermann about which you have also protested, we have concluded that your allegations are unfounded and without merit. We will take no action on the matter./// Touching your two most serious allegations: It appears to us that Dr. Ackermann's published research measures different phenomena from your own (senescence rather than direction of growth) using different methods (anchored Caulobacter in a flow cell rather than E. coli under a cover slip). It also appears that your patent filed in February 2002 conforms to a description of Dr. Ackermann's equipment published in Science in August 2000--and that both are, in any case, straightforward applications of flow-cell techniques dating back to the 1970s."/// With regards to the above conclusions, I have to admit that I was too naïve to proposed a new bacterial life model (presented in 1997 to the American Society General meeting in 1997 and American Association for Advancement of Science annual meeting in 1998, the invited seminar at the National Cancer Institute in 1997 and National Institute on Aging in 1998, in various manuscripts submitted to but rejected by Nature, Science, PNAS and other top journals since 1990, and in a 1999 peer-reviewed publication in both English and Chinese, and in many other publications in open-access and open review journals such as Logical Biology since 2000) which clearly stated the mother-daughter relationship between two bacteria formed from one bacterium when you now reached the same conclusion in 2008 in BioTechniques (44: 564-567, 2008). I was wrong in failing to cite your higher-impact publications and I am willing to offer my apology No. 1 to you./// With regard to the accusation that now BioTechniques presented to me that "(my) patent filed in February 2002 conforms to a description of Dr. Ackermann's equipment published in Science in August 2000", I feel deeply sorry for failing to notice your publication in Science in August 2000. Have I known that important publication I would never dare enough to cheat on the US Patent and Trademark office when I filed my patent application in June 28, 2000 (not February 2002). Nevertheless, I wish that I should had a common sense to anticipate that you would come up with a same knowledge as I clearly described in my invention description and give you full credit for later confirmation. Thus I am willing to offer you my apology No.2 to you./// With regard to the common accusation made by BioTechniques against me and you that "both are, in any case, straightforward applications of flow-cell techniques dating back to the 1970s" I think that we need to work together to come up with a defense strategy in case BioTechniques later will sue us for cheating on history and rob credit from other pioneers. To this end, I have re-read my US patent 6767734 (Filing date Jun. 2000) and found that I actually covered myself from this accusation. This is because I had already stated in my patent disclosure that "Another technique that holds a promise for obtaining cells of the specific age is flow cytometry, if cells can be labeled at specific age and such labeling molecules can be tracked by the flow cytometry." However, I also distinguished my invention from the flow cytometry by stating "if the collection process spreads over a long period of time, then a chronological age gap will still exist among the different cells. Thus, flow cytometry maybe inadequate and certainly is expensive for obtaining large number of age-synchronized cell population." Have you covered you self on this point? I cannot recall you actually cite any prior publication in the publications that I have read. But I may be wrong since I obviously overlooked your publication "in Science in August 2000". If I outrun you on this point and thus leave you alone to face the accusation by BioTechniques, I am willing to offer you my apology No. 3./// With regards to the conclusion made by BioTechniques that your research measured different phenomena from mine and used different methods, I wish you can have a little more patience and be a little more modest to read ALL of my publications on bacterial/cell aging (collectively listed at http://im1.biz/Aging.htm). Some publications may be offensive to you since they not only pointed out the critical mistakes in your earlier publications but also showed the reader how you progressively reached the same conclusions that I have made years ago. Nevertheless, I still wish to offer you my sincere apology No. 4 because you clearly did not rob me any thing./// I wish you will give me a response as to whether you are willing to accept my above apologies. If you think that I owe you more apologies, please feel free to tell me. I am very generous in making any sincere apology to credit-due person./// Sincerely, Shi V. Liu MD PhD///Shi V. Liu (SVL@logibio.com; http://im1.biz; http://blog.sina.com.cn/im1)
A scientific inquiry on "New Study" of bacterial aging (Emailed to Ackermann on September 4, 2008 but not responded even today)//////Dear Dr. Ackermann, You have not responded to my previous emails expressing my willingness to offer you an apology if you can prove how my (earlier) patent application conforms to your (later published) description. Now I wish that you live up to an intrinsic scientific responsibility of an author for a scientific paper to answer my scientific questions regarding your new publication in BioTechniques (44: 564-567, 2008)./// In that publication, you showed several images of a 45-minute recording of one E. coli cell becoming 4 E. coli cells. You labeled the zone of growth in the middle of a dividing cell and then an n old pole and a new pole for a cell just divided. You also labeled one cell in the four-cell image as 'mother' and one cell in the four-cell image as 'daughter'. My questions are:/// 1. Is the new material inserted into both sides of the zone of growth?/// 2. Which pole should be labeled as old pole in the other cell on top of the labeled cell in the two-cell stage?/// 3. How many generations are there in the four-cell family? What the other two unlabelled cells should be called?/// Depending on your answers to these questions, I may follow up with more questions./// Thank you for your cooperation in exploring the intriguing aspects of bacterial aging./// Sincerely, Shi V. Liu///Shi V. Liu (SVL@logibio.com; http://im1.biz; http://blog.sina.com.cn/im1)
Idea plagiarism may be more serious than word-copying but can easily escape detection of any "Doc Cop". More ironically, some editors have even blamed earlier documents for "conforming" later documents. Some ethical "officers" even blamed truth-seeking efforts of a pioneer as abnormal behaviors. More seriously, none of the journals involved in this serious credit robbery have even taken any action in condemning this high-level misconduct. ///Shi V. Liu (SVL@logibio.com; http://im1.biz; http://blog.sina.com.cn/im1)
I find it somewhat ironic that you can stir up a plagiarism argument on research that is often funded from public money, and at the same time produce an editorial implying that it is benefical to society in encouraging university research to undermine proprietary intellectual property; private enterprise is the hand that ultimately feeds all research, and perhaps we ought not to bite it?
Shi, why do you post another huge comment that no one cares to read?
There is no well defined limit between plegarism and being inspired by others, so it boils down to first whether you can document a previous publication and secondly if it's not obvious if the committee assessing the case is unbiased. Who is the true inventor of an idea? The relativity of time was a concept introduced by Einstein's mentor, not himself, even though Einstein put it in the context of the general theory of relativity. Likewise Darwin was surely not the first to see the resemblance between man and ape, as skeletons where posed next to eachother at museums at the time. The bottom line most probably boils down to whether the authors of a 'new' paper have performed experiments and/or analyses themselves or plainly copied them. A paper without anything new is then not really worth publishing. So I guess you have to be careful who you disclose your ideas to before you have them in print.....
Let us judge who is telling the truth? Please read this open-access article (http://im1.biz/albums/userpics/10001/SE2008V3N2A1_AckermannBioTech.htm or http://im1.biz/albums/userpics/10001/SE2008V3N2A1_AckermannBioTech.pdf ) and then let the public know your opinions. ///Shi V. Liu (SVL@logibio.com; http://im1.biz; http://blog.sina.com.cn/im1)
Is this an ethical way of handling an ethical complaint? Please read this open-access article (http://im1.biz/albums/userpics/10001/SE2008V3N2A2_ETH_Ethics.htm or http://im1.biz/albums/userpics/10001/SE2008V3N2A2_ETH_Ethics.pdf ) and then let the public know your opinions. ///Shi V. Liu (SVL@logibio.com; http://im1.biz; http://blog.sina.com.cn/im1)
"If one has never heard of nor read a journal [it] does not by any stretch of the imagination render a journal obscure." I rather think it does, by some stretch of the imagination. "SCP is always the first choice when they decide where to publish their best and most important research results in China." from their website. I am not Chinese, nor do I live in China. " Thus, to me, this an obscure journal. Obscure: Not readily noticed or seen; inconspicuous (OED) "I guess you have to be careful who you disclose your ideas to before you have them in print....." Exactly. And finally, "Is this an ethical way of handling an ethical complaint", I would reply, is this an ethical way of handling 'your' complaint?
Those who did not care about even reading a post, please do not comment on the post. This is because they really do not know what they were talking about. ///Shi V. Liu (SVL@logibio.com; http://im1.biz; http://blog.sina.com.cn/im1)
Those who read only a few "top" journals should be ashamed of their incomplete knowledge and go home to study more before complaining other journals as "obscure". A publication is a publication and a repetition is a repetition. If a person does not have this basic understanding of science then s/he should quit science. (SVL@logibio.com; http://im1.biz; http://blog.sina.com.cn/im1)
Posting scientific comment is my freedom of speech. If someone wishes to deprive this right from me, go ahead! (SVL@logibio.com; http://im1.biz; http://blog.sina.com.cn/im1)
Ian Brooks (Is this a real name or fake name. It sounds very obscure to me): Please read my long post which might be even longer if I list all my publications on aging over that 10-yr period that you suspected me of doing nothing. Then swear to God before you make any comment and tell public your opinion whether my study is far earlier and better than those ?top? journal?s much later ?first? discoveries. By the way, have you seen anyone saying that ?one bacterium/cell reproduces one or more daughter bacteria/cells and itself still alive? in the very ?top? journals? I guess even today this deep insight in understanding cell life is still above your comprehension since you cannot imagine how a cell can be ?divided? into two generations. But I am going to tell you now that finding a parent-child relationship between two cells formed from one cell is a Nobel Prize-level discovery that will revolutionize biology and life science. If that day of formal recognition comes and you are still alive, please say it again that Science in China is an obscure journal just because you do not live in China, do not understand Chinese, and even do not care about reading perfectly English publication in a Chinese-published journal. (SVL@logibio.com; http://im1.biz; http://blog.sina.com.cn/im1)
Besides outright plagiarism, I think a lot of the problem is what I call vanity publishing. That is publishing for the sake of publication not information. I see this all the time in the area of reviews which add nothing to the field in terms of originality. Second editors need tools to not only to detect plagiarism but also to check the high throughput datasets they receive which are, in many cases, riddled with inaccuracies. There has been a very poor gearing up by journals in regard to the presentation, accuracy and storage of these datasets.
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The Internet has made ?cut and paste? extremely easy, indirectly encouraging plagiarism to a confounding extent. Sadly this unethical practice is an open secret, and has fast become an epidemic. It cuts across a huge spectrum of knowledge pursuers -- from college and university students, to postgraduate researchers and academics. Just that some are more prone to copy others? work full scale without any qualm. This is but yet another form of human cheating, resorting to ugly tricks and most convenient ways to gratify the personal insatiable greed for instant diploma, fame, status, money ? irrespective of the ethnicity or nationality. There is now more reason for research paper reviewers to scrutinize every article with great care, and that each article ought to be properly vet by a panel of highly qualified researchers of similar field, especially when it comes to highly respectable international journals. Of course, the rampant ?cut-paste? college or university assignments can still be quite beyond control. (Tan Boon Tee)
Two of my comments have been removed by Nature's moderators. The reason for their actions is "Stop, cease, desist and leave". However, as a truthseeking scientist, I will NEVER stop, cease, and desist my dedication to science and leave misconduct in science unexposed. Nature may able to deprive my right is expressing some truth but its action will also recorded in open-access and open-review publication platform located at http://im1.biz (Shi V. Liu)
I am a young researcher, starting my career in this field, where your scientific temprament is directly measured to number of papers published. WE must understand the main cause and root of this problem, which is no less than a cancer in this fraternity. There is a tremendous pressure on researchers for quick publication, as their career would be at stake. If we can allow a "moderate" system of strict peer reviewing, perhaps we could see some change in temprament
Shi Liu, go look up "obscure" in a dictionary, stop taking offense at nothing and don't insult my intelligence.
..and while you're looking in the dictionary look up "conspiracy theory"...
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If we are talking plagiarism in terms of scientific content then that is awfully wrong, but in terms of using the language, I have my reservations there. For example if in an article someone says mary buys fruits everyday and someone else repeats that word verbatim, will that be considered as plagiarism?
plagiarism simply symbolizes horrific and dying need of personal identity and honor...