On paper, data scientist Gunasekaran Manogaran has had a stellar scientific career. He earned an award as a young researcher from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and landed a series of postdoctoral and visiting researcher positions at universities in the U.S, including the University of California, Davis; Gannon University in Pennsylvania; and Howard University in Washington, D.C. His h-index — a measure of a researcher’s impact and productivity — is 60, a number that by one model would mark him as “truly unique” if achieved within 20 years. He did it in fewer than 10.
Emails obtained by Undark, however, suggest some researchers have doubts about his publishing record. The correspondence includes an initial message from someone claiming to have previously worked with Manogaran. It was sent to some 40 editors of scientific journals, many owned by major scientific publishers: Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley, and Taylor & Francis among them.
The sender alleges that Manogaran and others run a research paper publishing scam — one that both generates revenues and artificially burnishes the scientific bona fides of individual and institutional participants. In particular, the alleged scheme targets what are known in the scientific publishing industry as “special issues” — self-contained special editions that are not part of a journal’s regular publishing schedule, typically focused on a single topic or theme.
The email, dated April 12, 2022, informs the journal editors that they may have partnered with members of this alleged scheme and urges them to take action. “If you don’t do that there would be a next group doing the same scam in name of different persons,” the email states.
Read the rest of this Retraction Watch-Undark story here.
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I can’t recall the name of Manogaran popping up in my conversation with Jonathan. Which is a pity, because I’d definitely have my five cents to add.
To begin with, it’s odd to mention Manogaran, but not mention “tortured phrases,” since that’s how Manogaran made his first PubPeer appearance, back in August 2021. Some eight months before the tipster’s email. Thanks, Diradops cardena, whoever you are.
https://pubpeer.com/publications/0062971161E0186CC99E5CF127FED5
Less evident, special issues associated with Manogaran have already been flagged. Yes, that very Microprocessors and Microsystems story! A shallow analysis would immediately pick up the name of Ramachandran Varatharajan, who edited one botched special issue in MicPro, and at the same time had a few own papers co-authored with Manogaran.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.micpro.2021.104304
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.micpro.2020.103094
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11036-018-1060-9
If only Elsevier pursued this case seriously. But it was much easier for them to resort to the “misconfiguration” narrative.
The Problematic Paper Screener where Nick contributes to, has no XAI model and it is is biased. Thus the sensitivity might be more on certain nationals. In addition is some cases Nick handles things out of Problematic Paper Screener. See a recent contribution of Nick to Pubpeer:
https://www.pubpeer.com/publications/5F1825A8F94E77E400A090294142C1
What he highlights is not a tortured phrase.
A tortured phrase finds its true meaning if and only if the article concept, data and method is not original and the tortured phrases are used systematically throughout the article for the purpose of hiding the duplication. An original article that uses an alternative wordings has no ethical issue.
“if and only if … the tortured phrases are used systematically throughout the article”
The Problematic Paper Screener posits that a source text has been processed by “synonym spinning” software. There is no reason why the software should replace every occurrence of a standard phrase with an engarbled equivalent. Even less reason for it to replace every occurrence of the phrase with the same engarbled equivalent.
The postulated software is not a REGEX processor, running a systematic substitution of “s/standard phrase/tortured phrase”. It replaces a given level of words with synonyms, whether they are suitable ones or not. Recognisable, recurring “tortured phrases” are a symptom but not part of a hard-wired design.
A minor point: “alumni” is plural, but two of the three uses in the article should be in the singular.
A more interesting point: As an example, he said Masoud Afrand, an assistant professor of engineering at the Islamic Azad University in Iran, was likely part of a paper mill operation for a special issue in Mathematical Methods in the Applied Sciences, where Afrand was cited over 130 times. Afrand is now an editorial board member for Scientific Reports articles in mechanical engineering. His name is now no longer on the Scientific Reports website. Looking at the Wayback Machine captures, it vanished in between the 20th and the 25th. So, within a few days of the Undark article being published….
My email outbox contains an email to SciRep, in which I raised the issue of Afrand, dated May 31, 2022, i.e., over a year ago.
Why it should take a dedicated journalist to get things done, is beyond my understanding. But given that these are the rules of our crazy world, all I can say is: great job, Jonathan!
Another recent removal, and also after journalist reporting: Rafael Luque. See https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2023-04-02/one-of-the-worlds-most-cited-scientists-rafael-luque-suspended-without-pay-for-13-years.html Reported in the same email as Afrand, on May 31, 2022.
Let’s see how keen SciRep are about keeping Abdessattar Abdelkefi on their editorial board. Who happened to edit that same “special issue” at a Wiley journal which boosted Afrand. Reported on June 08, 2022.
Or Christophe Len, an associate of Luque with this entertaining PubPeer record: https://pubpeer.com/search?q=authors%3A%22christophe+len%22 Reported in the same email as Afrand, on May 31, 2022.
We might need a few more pieces of investigative journalism!
What science needs is unbiased investigative journalism!