Nerita Vitiensis
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nvitiensis.bsky.social
Nerita Vitiensis
@nvitiensis.bsky.social
340 followers 29 following 49 posts
Signal processing researcher and research integrity sleuth.

Commenting on PubPeer as "Nerita Vitiensis".
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Reposted by Nerita Vitiensis
sholtodavid.bsky.social
Reverse Image Forensics Challenge: Try to find a unique area in Figure 9 of this recent Scientific Reports paper: 10.1038/s41598-025-17456-6 [Aug 2025] - Annotated by ImageTwin.ai
November 11, 2025 at 1:49 AM
Reposted by Nerita Vitiensis
gcabanac.cpesr.fr
I invite @acm.org to review their articles with Tortured Phrases dbrech.irit.fr/pls/apex/f?p... (not the first time I'm doing so, here and on LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/posts/guilla...)
Articles with tortured phrases
October 2, 2025 at 9:33 AM
Reposted by Nerita Vitiensis
reeserichardson.bsky.social
Today, our article "The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient, and growing rapidly" is finally published in PNAS. I hope that it proves to be a wake-up-call for the whole scientific community.

reeserichardson.blog/2025/08/04/a...
A do-or-die moment for the scientific enterprise
Reflecting on our paper “The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient, and growing rapidly”
reeserichardson.blog
August 4, 2025 at 8:47 PM
Reposted by Nerita Vitiensis
forbetterscience.bsky.social
Pest Management
forbetterscience.com/2025/07/22/p...
Pest Management
” I have been receiving too much of these types of papers lately and I think we all are wasting our time with made up science” = Orthopyxis integra
forbetterscience.com
July 22, 2025 at 5:09 AM
Reposted by Nerita Vitiensis
cosig.net
Anyone can do post-publication peer review.
Anyone can be a steward of the scientific literature.
Anyone can do forensic metascience.
Anyone can sleuth.

That's why we are launching COSIG: the Collection of Open Science Integrity Guides, an open source resource for all of the above.

cosig.net
COSIG logo: COSIG (Collection of Open Science Integrity Guides) Now available at cosig.net!
June 4, 2025 at 1:32 PM
nvitiensis.bsky.social
This was a tricky one. Not surprised the reviewers hadn't noticed. #ImageForensics
Six images of cell cultures, with colored rectangles marking where different pairs of images overlap with each other. Some of the overlaps are just narrow strips at the edge of an image.
May 7, 2025 at 1:57 PM
nvitiensis.bsky.social
It's actually kinda creative, in a terrible, fraud kind of way...
April 28, 2025 at 7:15 AM
nvitiensis.bsky.social
Honestly, I've been worried about this for a while. There's so much pollution in the literature, it's only a matter of time before people start picking up nonsense like "profound learning" and "irregular woodland" because they *think* it's an accepted term. It's probably happening already...
jfdesvignes.bsky.social JF Desvignes @jfdesvignes.bsky.social · Apr 23
Thanks for clarifying. So these authors could be the first and unscrupulous users of the software or the PhD students who read an article with these tortured phrases and decided to use the same terms, because 'published authors know best" ...
April 23, 2025 at 8:02 AM
nvitiensis.bsky.social
Tortured phrase of the day:

"221B Pastry specialist Road in London"
screenshot of an article, featuring the sentence "The uncommon ubiquity of Sherlock Holmes and his loyal companion and biographer, Dr. Watson (Watson), slowly got to be portion of a modern mythology, the center of which is still found at 221B Pastry specialist Road in London."
April 1, 2025 at 11:12 AM
nvitiensis.bsky.social
I knew the ICCCNT 2024 conference proceedings were full of papermill nonsense, but seeing the actual number in the PPS still shocked me.

346 (!!) papers with tortured phrases!

Does #IEEE really have zero quality checks?

Brief proceedings-level report here: pubpeer.com/publications...
March 11, 2025 at 2:53 PM
nvitiensis.bsky.social
An edit of the "two astronauts" meme. The Earth has been replaced by a screenshot of what used to be the IEEE's "Diversity, Equity & Inclusion" page, now DEI-free. The two astronauts are saying: "Wait, it was all a sham?" "Always has been."
February 24, 2025 at 2:09 PM
nvitiensis.bsky.social
Hey #IEEE, can you explain where your "Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at IEEE" page went?!

Last week, it was still linked on the front page.

Now: It's gone, and the old link goes to "We are sorry, the page you are looking for has been moved or removed."

www.ieee.org/about/divers...
Screenshot from the IEEE front page, from Feb 16, 2025, showing images and links to eight different pages. The third spot is titled "Diversity, equity, and inclusion", with the text "Learn how IEEE and its members are working to grow diversity, equity, and inclusion in IEEE activities and in the technical profession". Screenshot of the same IEEE page from Feb 24, 2025. 7 of the 8 links are identical, but "Diversity, equity, and inclusion" has been replaced with "Member discounts". "We are sorry, the page you are looking for has been moved or removed."
February 24, 2025 at 11:27 AM
nvitiensis.bsky.social
I think this is one of the worst cases of machine-"paraphrased" nonsense I've seen yet. This goes beyond #TorturedPhrases and straight into incomprehensible gibberish.
(Springer conference paper; not posted to PubPeer yet since the site's having some issues)
A passage from the article, with many nonsensical phrases and sentences highlighted. Transcript: J.A. Domínguez-Jiménez et al. [2], fascinated the physiological indicators to strainer the reactions of hominoid feedbacks and behaviours intermittently. Wearable device announcement for witnessing the atypical bustle and it is castoff to diagnose the behaviour of a specific in all context. Photoplethymography is espoused for relentless distinctions in responsive happenings. Moreover, a accidental plantation recursive algorithm is charity for unremitting checking and a piece variety backing trajectory contraption to catalogue and analysing the happenings. The galvanic coating rejoinder appearances suitable comeback with beset passionate accomplishments. Humberto Perez-Espinosa et al. [3], to ascertain the children’s sensitive communication by relating with two changed machines using Wizard of Oz (WoZ). The verified voice is segmented physically grounded on excitement and assertiveness for a recovering child mainframe interface. Paralinguistic evidence is presented to the study communal for numerous tongue shakeup study activities. The current rejoinder to a families’ excitement might be apprehended established on their ordinary terminologies seasoned in cooperating passionate children’s communication quantity. Bikmukhametov. T et al. [4], the heaviness and malaise assessment of multiphase stream tariffs in construction have a near drift metering structure to diminish the affluent policies to the trade. Ground amounts of burden and illness which is voluntarily offered would be functional in algebraic mock-ups are charity to envisage the course frequency. Machine learning systems theoretically functional to recognize the insecurity and combine the hearty Virtual Flow Meter system.
February 21, 2025 at 9:11 AM
nvitiensis.bsky.social
Sadly, this one doesn't even stand out from the rest. IEEE publishes some of the top conferences of several fields (CVPR, anyone?), but they are drowned out by a sea of papermill nonsense. Infuriating.

In related news, IEEE still hasn't done anything about this:
pubpeer.com/publications...
February 13, 2025 at 8:47 AM
nvitiensis.bsky.social
I see the reviewers have been reading this article very carefully...
pubpeer.com/publications...
a paragraph of an article, with 4 highlighted sentences, all saying "The user's text does not contain any information to rewrite in an academic manner." screenshot of a paragraph with the following sentences highlighted: "Sorry, but in order to provide an academic rewrite, I need more details or context." and "There was no text provided by the user to alter." a paragraph of text, with the following sentences highlighted: "The user's text does not contain any information or context to be rewritten in an academic manner" and "The user's text is too short to be rewritten academically."
November 25, 2024 at 2:38 PM
nvitiensis.bsky.social
For now, let's start with some of my favorite tortured phrases. These were found in "scientific" articles on machine learning, signal processing, and medicine. Can anyone decipher them without context?
A list of 14 strange phrases: 1. uncooked information 2. misfortune of dream 3. concealed Markov model (Gee) 4. hankies of the breast 5. pill PC 6. otherworldly pinnacles 7. Walk 11, 2020 8. Divider Road Diary 9. boa constrictor pilot 10. fowl-and-egg disadvantage 11. crimson, inexperienced and blue 12. You Look Once (Consequences be damned) 13. to satisfactory-song 14. maori hen package program
November 18, 2024 at 2:38 PM
nvitiensis.bsky.social
Oh! Hi everyone! 😲
I guess I should start actually posting here, huh?😊
November 18, 2024 at 2:36 PM