Students from Hubei University Founded and Operated the Hudiandian Paper Mill
Recently, the 5GH team found 3 academic papers [1-3] with manipulated figure(s). All these papers were co-authored by the founder(s) of the Wuhan Hudiandian Technology Co., Ltd. (武汉胡电电科技有限公司), HU Shengnan (胡圣男), and/or LI Mengying (李梦颖). Further investigation suggests the Hudiandian company or its founder(s) sold the data, which was part of HU’s and LI’s researches at Hubei University when they were postgraduate students under the supervision of Dr. WU Huimin (吴慧敏). The 5GH team would like to name this paper mill as “Hudiandian Paper Mill” (“胡电电论文工厂”).
The 5GH team has no evidence whether the Hudiandian Paper Mill is still under operation nowadays. All papers related to this paper mill and identified by the 5GH team were published during a short period from 2019 to 2020, and no further papers were found. However, the 5GH team would like to make cautions to the publishers, editors and reviewers in the scientific community about the papers co-authored by this paper mill in the future.
The 5GH team also has no evidence whether Dr. WU Huimin got involved in the Hudiandian Paper Mill, however, the papers [4-5] co-authored by WU were affected. Therefore, the 5GH team urges Dr. Wu, the authority of Hubei University, the funding agencies, and the ministries in China to open a further investigation.
The 5GH team welcome any further input about the Hudiandian Paper Mill and the others.
Paper [1]: 10.1149/1945-7111/ab6cf3
This paper contains several markers suggesting manipulation to the figures: (1) in Figure 1E, parts (in blue and green rectangles) but not the whole of the XPS spectra overlapped with each other; (2) in Figure 1D, part (in yellow rectangle) but not the whole of the XPS spectra overlapped with each other; (3) in Figure 1D and Figure S6C, parts (in grey and red rectangles) but not the whole of the XPS spectra overlapped with each other; and (4) in Figure 1A, parts but the whole of the XRD overlapped with each other.
Paper [2]: 10.1002/elan.201900638
This paper contains a marker suggesting manipulation to the figure: in Figure 1A, parts but the whole of the XRD overlapped between the green one and the red one.
Paper [3]: 10.3390/nano9111583
This paper contains several markers suggesting manipulation to the figure: (1) in Figure 1A, parts but the whole of the XRD overlapped between the black one and the red one; (2) abnormal parts (in blue rectangles) in the XRD of red and yellows ones.
Paper [4]: 10.1016/j.jpowsour.2020.227872
This paper was co-authored by Dr. WU Huimin, and has several figures overlapped with paper [3]: (1) Figure 3E in paper [4] overlapped with Figure 1D in paper [3] (red rectangles), and were descripted to different experiments; (2) Figure 3F in paper [4] overlapped with Figure 1C in paper [3] (blue rectangles), and were descripted to different experiments; and (3) black line in Figure 4A of paper [4] overlapped with black line in Figure 2 of paper [3].
Paper [5]: 10.1021/acssuschemeng.0c01450
This paper was co-authored by Dr. WU Huimin, and has several figures overlapped with paper [3]: (1) the figure inserted in Figure 5E of paper [5] overlapped with the figure inserted in Figure 5E of paper [3]; (2) Figure 5F in paper [5] overlapped with Figure 5F in paper [3]; (3) Figure 5A in paper [5] overlapped with Figure 5A in paper [3]; (4) Figure 5D in paper [5] overlapped with Figure 5D in paper [3]; (5) Figure 5B in paper [5] overlapped with Figure 5B in paper [3]; (6) lines in Figure 5C of paper [5] overlapped with lines in Figure 5C of paper [3], the lines with same colour in these two figures had same shape, but different values.
The 5GH team noticed that paper [4] and paper [5] were published latter than paper [3], and our team is not sure whether Dr. WU Huimin was aware of the publication of paper [3] when her team submitted paper [4] and paper [5].
At this moment, the investigation on Hudiandian Paper Mill is not close. The 5GH team ask for any further input and cooperation in this investigation.
[Updated 2024.04.01] When replied to our request, Dr. WU Huimin claimed that she was not aware about the paper [1-3], and did not authorised the publications of paper [1-3]. Dr. WU promised to the 5GH team that she would fully cooperate with the publishers and the authority of the Hubei University during the further investigation.
[Updated 2024.04.02 (1)] The affiliation for HU Shengnan, LI Mengying, and WU Huimin is Hubei University, instead of Wuhan University. The 5GH team apologizes for this mistake in the previous version of this report.
[Updated 2024.04.02 (2)] WU Huimin's another paper [6] contains figure (Figure 3A) overlapped with the figure of paper [1] (Figure 2A).
Reference
[4] 10.1016/j.jpowsour.2020.227872
