National Taiwan University (NTU) professor Kuo Min-liang (郭明良), who has been embroiled in an academic fraud scandal since last month, was yesterday accused of accepting nearly NT$7 million (US$220,105) in exchange for letting other academics be listed as coauthors on papers written by his research team.
The Chinese-language Next Magazine, citing an unnamed source, yesterday reported that from October 2002 to December 2014, Yen Men-luh (嚴孟祿), a doctor at National Taiwan University Hospital’s Department of Obsterics and Gynecology, made 16 check or wire payments to Kuo’s account totaling NT$6.73 million.
Online academic forum PubPeer last month said that Kuo’s team may have forged 11 articles, including four that listed NTU president Yang Pan-chyr (楊泮池) as a coauthor.
Photo courtesy of Kaohsiung Medical University’s Web site
Yen could have acted as a middleman who helped other academics be listed as coauthors in the articles, Next Magazine said.
Minister of Education Pan Wen-chung (潘文忠) yesterday expressed surprise at the allegation.
The ministry will instruct the Department of Civil Service Ethics to investigate and forward its findings to prosecutors, Pan said.
Department of Higher Education Director Nicole Lee (李彥儀) said that the university would submit a report on the allegations by the end of this month.
Although Kuo had tendered his resignation, which is still pending, the government research grants issued to Kuo and his team could be reclaimed if the allegations were found to be true, Lee said.
Yen denied the allegation in an interview with the magazine, saying that he offered to lend the money to Kuo to help him pay a mortgage.
“Even though Kuo is a professor, he had not been in an ideal financial situation,” Yen was quoted as saying.
Yen said that he and Kuo were friends since high school and that he had been providing Kuo with financial assistance.
He said that the bank wires were loan repayments, adding that he has a contract for the loan signed by Kuo as proof.
NTU secretary-general Lin Ta-te (林達德) said the university would launch an investigation.
If Kuo or any other people involved in writing the papers were found to be have accepted bribes, they would be punished in accordance with the rules governing academics and public-school teachers, he said.
Additional reporting by CNA
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it is building nine new advanced wafer manufacturing and packaging factories this year, accelerating its expansion amid strong demand for high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The chipmaker built on average five factories per year from 2021 to last year and three from 2017 to 2020, TSMC vice president of advanced technology and mask engineering T.S. Chang (張宗生) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “We are quickening our pace even faster in 2025. We plan to build nine new factories, including eight wafer fabrication plants and one advanced
‘WORLD’S LOSS’: Taiwan’s exclusion robs the world of the benefits it could get from one of the foremost practitioners of disease prevention and public health, Minister Chiu said Taiwan should be allowed to join the World Health Assembly (WHA) as an irreplaceable contributor to global health and disease prevention efforts, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. He made the comment at a news conference in Taipei, hours before a Taiwanese delegation was to depart for Geneva, Switzerland, seeking to meet with foreign representatives for a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the WHA, the WHO’s annual decisionmaking meeting, which would be held from Monday next week to May 27. As of yesterday, Taiwan had yet to receive an invitation. Taiwan has much to offer to the international community’s
RSS