There has been so much evidence to sully the reputations of Chen Chen-yuan (陳震遠) — also known as Peter Chen — and his twin, Chen Chen-wu (陳震武) — that they have no chance of continuing their academic careers, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Lin Yi-bing (林一平) said yesterday.
An initial investigation by the ministry has found that the Chen brothers not only lied to Journal of Vibration and Control (JVC), which has withdrawn 60 papers bearing the name of Chen Chen-yuan, including some that list former minister of education Chiang Wei-ling (蔣偉寧), but also to a German journal, Natural Hazards.
Chiang stepped down on Monday amid the growing uproar over the paper scandal. He has claimed no knowledge of being connected to the retracted paper until the scandal erupted last week.
SAGE Publications, publisher of JVC, has said that Chen Chen-yuan, a former associate professor at National Pingtung University of Education, created a number of false accounts to subvert its peer review process.
He resigned from the school after it began probing the peer review process at the request of SAGE Publications.
Chen Chen-wu is a professor at National Kaohsiung Marine University.
It has now come to light that in the first 12 pages of a paper he contributed to Natural Hazards, 111 of the 124 sources cited — or 90 percent — were his own.
In another paper carried by the same journal, a single term “man-machine interface” cites 87 references, all from his own research.
The speed with which his papers were reviewed and passed aroused suspicion.
Of the 21 papers he contributed to Natural Hazards, 15 were approved within one month — compared with the six-month period the ministry said is normal.
Lin said the ministry has asked Natural Hazards to explain why some of the papers contributed by the brothers could pass the review process and be published in as little as two weeks.
Although an academic ethics review committee has yet to examine the brothers’ cases, Lin said it was unlikely the Chens would be able to survive in the academic world.
What Taiwan should do now is not hound the brothers and debate their punishment, but build a good mechanism to avoid a repeat of such a scandal, Lin said.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
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