Abnormal Data on 10.1371/journal.pone.0309101

Abnormal data was published on the article [1], with title "Development of Timolol Maleate-Loaded Poloxamer-co-Poly (acrylic acid) based hydrogel for controlled drug delivery", and authored by Raneem Mansoor, Kashif Barkat, Irfan Anjum, Muhammad Aamir, Syed Faisal Badshah, Riaz Ullah, Zafar Iqbal, and Muhammad Ahmer Raza.

(1) Unusual giant shift of the infrared peaks

[Updated 2024.12.25] VR commented: That is not possible in a legitimate IR. The shift is also global for all peaks in these "spectra". This is unphysical. Also, I see that at least "b" and "c" have been duplicated. The noise is pixel-identical.

(2) Repeated patterns were observed on multiple images



Reference

[1] 10.1371/journal.pone.0309101






Author: WU Guangheng

Founder and Chair of the 5GH Foundation

E-Mail: wu@5gh.org.cn

Document ID: 5GH-WuGH-2025.000001

Publication Date: 2024.12.25

This article is licensed under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International License

A Paper Mill Is Targeting Scientific Reports, Authors from China and West Asia May Be the Costumers

Jalil Manafian, an author from Iran, published 7 articles on Scientific Reports in 2024. All of them have fishy authorship patterns: (1) Chinese authors were listed as first authors for the articles, the 8 Chinese authors (one as the second author) were from 8 different institutions; (2) the others authors for each article were from multiple nations in West and South Asia, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, India and others. The widespread cooperations between these authors suggesting the articles potentially originated from paper mill, although the 5GH team has no details whether Manfian is running this paper mill.


Paper Mill behind the Unusual Case where PRC Authors Called Taiwan "Republic of China"

Nowadays, the name "Republic of China" is not widely used to refer to Taiwan in academic articles, except for the those by Taiwan authors. However, the name was found 4 times on an article with no Taiwan authors were listed.


Charts Reused on a Scientometrics Article

Through an investigation, the 5GH team found 5 charts on the Scientometrics article, including Table 2, Figure 2, Figure 3, Table 3, and Figure 6 overlapped with tables and figures on other articles


Abnormal Data on 10.1515/chem-2024-0084

Abnormal data was published on the article, with title "Fabrication of β-cyclodextrin-based microgels for enhancing solubility of Terbinafine: An in-vitro and in-vivo toxicological evaluation", authored by Saira Akhtar, Kashif Barkat EMAIL, Nariman Shahid, Irfan Anjum, Syed Faisal Badshah, Maryam Shabbir, Samir Ibenmoussa, Yousef A. Bin Jardan, Mohammed Bourhia, Ahmad Mohammad Salamatullah and Musaab Dauelbait.


Sampling Bias in Some BYHEALTH (汤臣倍健) Funded Studies

Concerns are raised regarding to sampling bias in some BYHEALTH-funded studies and other studies BYHEALTH took part in. The 5GH team, who investigated this matter, warns the scientific community and the public to pay more cautions in interpreting the outcomes of those studies.