Zhihan Lv is not just some Chinese papermiller. This simulation researcher peddling simulated research is a Swedish professor at the Uppsala University! Well, not for long, because he was now slapped with preliminary misconduct findings, with much more to come. Lv is currently on a 6 months “leave of absence” till end of July 2024, but he already announced to resign and return to China.
Lv (who often transliterates his name as Lyu) has been employed by Uppsala University since 1 December 2021. His institutional profile lists his achievements:
As it happens, Smut Clyde just mentioned Lv in his very recent article, quote:
Research on Intelligent Trash Can Garbage Classification Scheme
“It’s not as if the Special-Issue Guest Editors or the imaginary ‘Peer Reviewers’ pay attention to the provenance of the images that fill the Figure-shaped gaps, or care whether the supposed alternatives in these horse-races are even algorithms at all.” – Smut Clyde
Papermiller corri-gendered
Alexander Magazinov notified the University of Uppsala about Lv/Lyu’s PubPeer record in October 2023. The accusations are:
- “nonsense references” and “plots are rather made-up than generated from any actual data.“
- “an instance of possible citation farming (Journal of Cleaner Production, Elsevier)”
- Papermilling for Hindawi: “Lyu is listed as academic editor on 261 papers in Complexity, 82 papers in Journal of Healthcare Engineering, 62 papers in Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing, and 16 papers in Mathematical Problems in Engineering, to a total of 421 items. Some are already retracted, for example, this, this and this.“
Cyclotron Branch, Before the Fall
“sadly, no-one could find any other evidence of existence for these festively-named individuals, who may well be Knock-Knock jokes that somehow gained sentience.” – Smut Clyde
Here is one of Lv’s papers Magazinov reported:
Yangda Gong, Min Zhao , Qin Wang , Zhihan Lv Design and interactive performance of human resource management system based on artificial intelligence PLoS ONE (2022) doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0262398
Here is the official English version of the investigation report by Uppsala University Board for Investigation of Deviations from Good Research Practice:
Two of Lv’s papers were investigated. His coauthor on both, Haibin Lv, affiliated at Qingdao University in China, is very likely a relative of Zhihan Lv, presumably a brother. The former is born in 1979 (source), the latter in 1984. Before coming to Sweden, Zhihan Lv was affiliated with the Qingdao University.
- Zhihan Lv, Yuxi Li, Hailin Feng , Haibin Lv Deep Learning for Security in Digital Twins of Cooperative Intelligent Transportation Systems IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems (2022) doi: 10.1109/tits.2021.3113779
- Zhibo Wan , Youqiang Dong , Zengchen Yu , Haibin Lv , Zhihan Lv Semi-Supervised Support Vector Machine for Digital Twins Based Brain Image Fusion Frontiers in Neuroscience (2021) doi: 10.3389/fnins.2021.705323
The expert invited by Uppsala to analyse Lv’s papers was the Lund University professor of communications engineering Fredrik Tufvesson. He issued this verdict on these two publications, as referenced by the report:
“Article [1] contains inconsistent results that cannot occur naturally. Article [1] and article [2] show result figures that are exactly the same, even though they should show different things and come from completely different data sets.
Such a similarity between the curves cannot be explained as natural, instead suggesting that [1], [2] or both articles contain falsified or fabricated data. Given the inconsistencies in Figure 6 of [1] and the lack of simulation parameters, simulation scenario and simulation results, it is likely that [1] is based on falsified or fabricated data. This could therefore clearly constitute a case of research misconduct.
Furthermore, [1] contains many strange references and claims that are not supported by the references cited and lacks a reference to a key tool for the study. This is a deviation from good research practice and, due to its systematic misuse of references, it can possibly be seen as a serious deviation from good research practice.”
Here is Tufvesson’s investigative report (his assessment is in English):
The Board shared the expert’s conclusion on finding evidence for research misconduct:
Lv announced to resign voluntarily:
Here are some other clever explanations by Lv:
- “Pubpeer is sometimes considered as extortion site. On some social media, it was revealed that pubpeer had teamed up with Biotech to blackmail the victim. Pubpeer is not always right. They may blackmail me in the later stage.”
- “I don’t know these authors who have added me as co-authors.“
Otherwise, Lv offers to have his papers “corrigendered” (I love this word!) and insists that the fraud was committed before he came to Sweden or carries his Chinese affiliation only. He even angry writes: “Please check paper publish time instead of retraction publish time to compare to my employment time.” As if Lv didn’t use all these, in his own words, “achievements” to successfully apply for a professorship at Uppsala. Lv also asked the university to verify the identity of Alexander Magazinov, one wonders for which purpose.
Oh what Botangled web we weave
“Would it be irresponsible to speculate that all these multiple sets of images being handed around from paper to paper all belong to a papermill? An artisanal, bespoke fabrication studio, catering to a select group of clients? It would be irresponsible not to speculate!” – Smut Clyde
Handed over to the police
This from the report is just priceless:
“On 6 March 2024, Uppsala University was contacted by an American conference organiser (see Appendix 3) with a request to verify an ethics review permit (see Appendix 4) submitted as part of preparatory work on the review process for the 2024 conference. The guidelines state that contributions submitted to the conference describing research involving human subjects must be supported by a permit from the corresponding ethics committee. During the review process, questions were raised about the validity of the ethical approval. The permit was granted to Lyu.”
The US meeting was the 2024 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interface. Stefan Eriksson, Adviser to the Vice Chancellor on good research practice, informed the conference organisers:
Below is Lv’s ethics approval which he personally forged, even inventing a fictional “Ethics Coordinator” named “Anne-Marie Jackson”. Your amateur psychology guess is a good as mine on why he picked this name and why the letter has Lv’s birthday on it.
Uppsala University’s decision was (highlight mine):
“As regards the letter from the conference organisers, the document claimed to be an ethics review permit may constitute a deviation from good research practice, and may also be suspected of constituting some form of criminal conduct. The written communication has consequently been handed over to the police as part of a police report into suspected fraud.
[…] as there are reasons to suspect that the behaviour may constitute research misconduct, this written communication should also be forwarded to the National Board for
Assessment of Research Misconduct.”
Even more reason to leave Sweden. Fast.
By the way, at the same University of Uppsala:
In bed with Hari and Aruna
Hari Shanker & Aruna, a YouTube influencer couple in Sweden. With or without Rudolph the Red-Faced Liar. And with Anca and Dafin, two totally innocent and upright Romanians. Pushing pig brain juice an SS Nazi invented. You won’t find a better story for Christmas!
Retractions raining
Retractions started to rain for Lv already during the investigation. Including for his own paper, in PLOS One:
Xuecong Zhang , Haolang Shen , Zhihan Lv Deployment optimization of multi-stage investment portfolio service and hybrid intelligent algorithm under edge computing PLoS ONE (2021) doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0252244
“The PLOS ONE Editors retract this article [1] because it was identified as one of a series of submissions for which we have concerns about peer review integrity and similarities across articles. These concerns call into question the validity and provenance of the reported results. We regret that the issues were not identified prior to the article’s publication.”
Retraction 21 November 2023
These two papers were edited by Lv for PLOS One and were retracted in September 2023:
- ErLe Du , Meng Ji Analyzing the regional economic changes in a high-tech industrial development zone using machine learning algorithms PLoS ONE (2021) doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0250802
- Fufeng Qiao Application of deep learning in automatic detection of technical and tactical indicators of table tennis PLoS ONE (2021) doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0245259
These two PLOS One papers were retracted with the same retraction notice on 6 June 2024, Zhihan Lv was editor of the first paper, his brother Haibin Lv edited the second:
- Yilin Deng , Sang-Yun Han , Jianyi Li , Jinjin Rong , Wenyu Fan , Tiancong Sun The design of tourism product CAD three-dimensional modeling system using VR technology PLoS ONE (2020) doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0244205
- Yang Li, Jiancang Xie , Rengui Jiang , Dongfei Yan Application of edge computing and GIS in ecological water requirement prediction and optimal allocation of water resources in irrigation area PLoS ONE (2021) doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0254547
In Sweden, everything is publicly available, so here is the quoted communication between University of Uppsala and PLOS Senior Editor for Publication Ethics, Clare McFadden.
McFadden wrote to Uppsala announcing an ongoing investigation and further retractions for papers associated with Lv. She also mentioned:
And not just PLOS One divests of Lv’s papermilling. This paper was published in an Elsevier journal in a Special Issue “Internet-of-Things and Cyber-Physical System in Smart City“, edited by Lv himself, and the retracted:
Zhihan Lv , Dongliang Chen , Ranran Lou , Qingjun Wang Intelligent edge computing based on machine learning for smart city Future Generation Computer Systems (2021) doi: 10.1016/j.future.2020.08.037
“Concern has been raised about authorship irregularities in this paper (removal and addition of authors at different stages of the publication process after submission). Changing authors after submission without permission from the editor is against the journal policy […]
In addition to authorship changes, a further issue relates to a Conflict of Interest, as the Corresponding and First Author acted as a Managing Guest Editor for this paper as part of a Special Issue.
The Corresponding Author disagrees with the retraction of the paper and provided some clarification on the authorship points, however, those explanations did not satisfactorily address all the concerns.”
Retraction 15 May 2024
The adventures of Gui and Hui in Nano-land
The hero of this new nano-malfeasance story by Smut Clyde is another Chinese Photoshop-enthusiast, Rijun Gui, a “specially recruited professor” at Qingdao University in China. There is also a female lead, Gui’s wife and colleague Hui Jin. Almost 30 of their papers, mostly published in Elsevier journals, are being discussed on and by PubPeer, one…
As reminder, the corresponding and first author is Lv, his stated affiliation was School of Data Science and Software Engineering, Qingdao University in China. He was caught selling authorships. Next retraction achievement, in Springer:
Bin Jiang , Jiachen Yang , Na Jiang , Zhihan Lv, Qinggang Meng Quality assessment for virtual reality technology based on real scene Neural Computing and Applications (2018) doi: 10.1007/s00521-016-2828-0
“The Editor-in-Chief and the publisher have retracted this article. The article was submitted to be part of a guest-edited issue. An investigation by the publisher found a number of articles, including this one, with a number of concerns, including but not limited to compromised editorial handling and peer review process, inappropriate or irrelevant references or not being in scope of the journal or guest-edited issue. Based on the investigation’s findings the Editor-in-Chief therefore no longer has confidence in the results and conclusions of this article.”
Retraction 14 May 2024
Here, Lv’s stated affiliation was this time Department of Computer Science, University College London, UK. Indeed, he used to be a postdoc there.
They happened before I joined Uppsala University
Now, it is good to know that the Uppsala University understands that papermilling is WRONG.
Maybe they should also tell this to their own Rector Magnificus Anders Hagfeldt, who was caught coauthoring fudged papers by known papermillers. Aside of a mild criticism from the Swedish national authority NPOF, there were exactly zero consequences. Read here:
Swedish rector Anders Hagfeldt pronounced innocent of papermilling
“The board’s conclusion is therefore that the deviations regarding figure 2b and 2c in article 1 constitute serious deviations from good research practice”
Thing is, the worst papermilled trash was authored by Hagfeldt before he came to Uppsala, under his former affiliation of EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland. Now observe, two papers from 2017 when Hagfeldt was active professor at EPFL:
Hadi M. Marwani , Muhammad Tariq Saeed Chani , Ekram Y. Danish , Kh.S. Karimov , Anders Hagfeldt , Abdullah M. Asiri Tandem Heterojunction Photoelectric Cell Based on Organic-Inorganic Hybrid of AlPc-H2Pc and n-Si International Journal of Electrochemical Science (2017) doi: 10.20964/2017.05.20
Muhammad Tariq Saeed Chani , Kh.S. Karimov , Hadi M. Marwani , Ekram Y. Danish , Waleed Ahmad , Jamil-un Nabi , M. Hilal , Anders Hagfeldt , Abdullah M. Asiri Bulk Heterojunction Tandem Photoelectric Cell Based on p-Si and Phthalocyanine International Journal of Electrochemical Science (2017) doi: 10.20964/2017.10.55
How on Earth did a Swedish professor in Switzerland get to collaborate with fellow scholars in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and… Tajikistan? A clue: the last author, the towel-headed Saudi Abdullah M. Asiri, who is a chemistry professor at the King Abdulaziz University and a papermiller who publishes fraudulent spectra all the time. Just one example, in an Elsevier journal completely overtaken by papermills:
Saima Gul , Zulfiqar Ahmad Rehan , Shahid Ali Khan , Kalsoom Akhtar , Murad Ali Khan , M I Khan , Muhammad Imtiaz Rashid , Abdullah M. Asiri , Sher Bahadar Khan Antibacterial PES-CA-Ag2O nanocomposite supported Cu nanoparticles membrane toward ultrafiltration, BSA rejection and reduction of nitrophenol Journal of Molecular Liquids (2017) doi: 10.1016/j.molliq.2016.12.093
Asiri was even seen publishing papermilled fakes with the fraudsters Rafael Luque, Fatih Sen and Yubing Sun. Asiri is an authority on any topic a papermill has on sale, which allowed him to put his name on over 2000 papers and buy 100k citations, making him a “Highly Cited Researcher” with h-index of 139 (Hagfeldt’s is 170).
NPOF can only investigate papers where at least one author has a Swedish affiliation, while both Hagfeldt’s current employer and his former university EPFL categorically refuse to even look at the evidence. As they both told me, the responsibility to investigate lies with the other side.
That was actually Lv’s repeated defence, and it wasn’t accepted. It only works for Hagfeldt.
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just wanted to say thanks for the great work.
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Could you please share a link to Zhihan Lv’s research works collection, e.g., an archived googlescholar, RG, Scopus, or anywhere that we can observe his research activity? and other questions; is he, leaving the University connected with the investigation, has he already left Sweden? was he also a WOS highly cited? from which country and with which affiliation? I cannot find it on WOS, can you please share a link?
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Very simple. Google “Zhihan Lv”, second hit.
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=A2xgAJcAAAAJ&hl=zh-CN
Also:
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2525-3074
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It is challenging dealing with Chinese names, take this publication for instance: “Next-generation big data analytics: State of the art, challenges, and future research topics” which belongs to Zhihan Lv but not included in the scholar profile and ORCID that you posted. In this particular publication he uses his UK affiliation. It needs further investigations to distinguish and classify all articles he had participated. I believe the issue is more than what discussed in your article. But at least your post is an initiation to a big issue in the Chinese fake research.
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I am sorry my ZH Lv article is not as exhaustive as other sources. Apologies.
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And who is this guy? Zhihan Lu? http://www0.cs.ucl.ac.uk/people/Zhihan.Lu.html
It seams he changes his Chinese name anytime he uses a new affiliation. No one out there question his names? is it Lu, Lv, or Lyu? and maybe more?
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Hi, Zhihan Lu, Zhihan Lv, and Zhihan Lyu are not same in all the cases. In some articles they are actually different persons. I realised in some articles they are different and some articles they are same with different names. The fact that their profiles are merged in Scopus and OECID wont mean they are same person.
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For this ORCID 0000-0003-2525-3074 Here are all his names: Lv, Zhihan • LV, Zhihan • Lv, Zhi han • Lu, Zhihan • Zhihan, Lv • Lv, Zhi Han • Lv, Z. • Lu, Zhi han
and here all his affiliations: 2016 – 2024University College LondonThe institution will open in a new tab 2016 – 2024Qingdao UniversityThe institution will open in a new tab 2018 – 2024UCL EngineeringThe institution will open in a new tab 2021 – 2024Uppsala UniversitetThe institution will open in a new tab 2012 – 2023Chinese Academy of SciencesThe institution will open in a new tab 2022 – 2023State Key Laboratory of Media Convergence Production Technology and Systems 2022 – 2023Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess TechnologyThe institution will open in a new tab 2021 – 2022School of Data Science and Software Engineering 2021 – 2022Politechnika WarszawskaThe institution will open in a new tab 2022University of Uppsa 2022Universitat Politècnica de ValènciaThe institution will open in a new tab 2022Instituto de TelecomunicaçõesThe institution will open in a new tab 2022British Computer Society Fellow 2021University of Electronic Science and Technology of ChinaThe institution will open in a new tab 2020Universitat de BarcelonaThe institution will open in a new tab 2012 – 2018Shenzhen Institute of Advanced TechnologyThe institution will open in a new tab 2018Fukuoka UniversityThe institution will open in a new tab 2018Wuhan UniversityThe institution will open in a new tab 2015 – 2017FIVAN 2017Shenzhen UniversityThe institution will open in a new tab 2015 – 2016University Town of ShenzhenThe institution will open in a new tab 2016Sun Yat-Sen UniversityThe institution will open in a new tab 2015Fundación Instituto Valenciano de Neurorrehabilitación FIVAN 2013 – 2014Norges Teknisk-Naturvitenskapelige UniversitetThe institution will open in a new tab 2011 – 2013CNRS Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueThe institution will open in a new tab 2011 – 2013Ocean University of ChinaThe institution will open in a new tab 2011 – 2013Laboratoire de Biochimie ThéoriqueThe institution will open in a new tab 2013Umeå UniversitetThe institution will open in a new tab 2013Université Paris CitéThe institution will open in a new tab 2011 – 2012Institut de Biologie Physico-ChimiqueThe institution will open in a new tab 2012 Zhengzhou University
It is extremely shocking the extent of publishing in IEEE Transactions which is very challenging to publish. This shows the importance of his mafia connection.
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Publishing in Transactions requires extensive lab works, 111 Transactions published in following journals is impressive:
“IEEE Transactions On Intelligent Transportation Systems”
“IEEE Transactions On Industrial Informatics”
“ACM Transactions On Internet Technology”
“IEEE Journal Of Biomedical And Health Informatics”
“ACM Transactions On Multimedia Computing Communications And Applications”
“IEEE Transactions On Computational Social Systems”
“IEEE Transactions On Fuzzy Systems”
“IEEE Transactions On Network Science And Engineering”
“IEEE Transactions On Vehicular Technology”
“IEEE ACM Transactions On Computational Biology And Bioinformatics”
“IEEE Transactions On Big Data”
“ACM Transactions On Asian And Low Resource Language Information Processing”
“ACM Transactions On Management Information Systems”
I myself, can only publish once a year.
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This is an awesome piece of work. You followed it very well. And this time I saw a positive report. I wish other universities could report so clearly.
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True IEEE Transactions mafia
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It is generally too difficult to publish in IEEE Transactions, in the case of above, the editors of these journals must be questioned and investigated.
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Was Zhihan Lv highly cited? in which year?
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Publishing so many IEEE Transactions…. just wow
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Would be great if an interview with this author included in this article. Please ask him how he could publish in Transactions. Publishing 100 MDPI or other open access journals is not that complicated but 100 transactions leave questions.
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a quick look at the transaction articles published by Zhihan shows low quality of these articles. I informed IEEE ethics to check these articles for the possible manipulation of peer-review.
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I wonder how he managed publishing such low quality papers in Transactions. It is worth an investigation into handling editors of these IEEE journals. Also I wonder if there is any regulation on the Chinese using western or English names. It seams they can adapt any names they want and change it anytime they want.
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Since ZH Lv is senior member at IEEE, he may have been the editor of his own papers,. because look, names are different!.Lv / Lyu
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Thanks for information and tips. I am looking forward into a follow up on this article. So exciting how it may progress to expose the major players.
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As soon as you caught Zhihan red-handed he want to flee to China. He well knows that he made wrong and he has no choice but to run-away. We should not let him get away.
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