NRLgate -
Plagiarism by Peer Reviewers

Sections 3.1 thru 3.6

This page is part of the NRLgate Web site presenting evidence of plagiarism among scientific peer reviewers involving 9 different peer review documents of 4 different journal and conference papers in the fields of evolutionary computation and machine learning.

This page contains sections 3.1 through 3.6 of "Evidence of plagiarism in X and Y of a paper on optimal control strategies submitted to the Machine Learning Conference."

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3. Evidence of plagiarism in reviews X and Y of a paper on optimal control strategies submitted to the Machine Learning Conference

This section presents numerous pieces of evidence indicating the need for an impartial investigation and determination of whether there was plagiarism among the 2 scientific peer reviewers who reviewed the paper that I submitted to the Seventh Machine Learning Conference (MLC) on the subject of applying genetic programming to optimal control strategies (Paper No. 152).

The next 12 sections detail numerous similarities between the 501-word review X and the 540-word review Y that I received for my MLC paper on optimal control strategies.


3.1. Both reviews X and Y contained a 3-part explanatory sentence containing a trio of almost identical phrases

Both reviews X and Y of my MLC paper on optimal control strategies contains an almost identical, unsolicited 3-part explanatory sentence about the way the cart moves along its track in the broom balancing problem.

As will be discussed later, both of these explanatory sentences were gratuitous in the sense that the conference's paper review form did not request that the reviewer give any summary or explanation of the subject matter of the submitted paper.

Each of the 3 parts of this explanatory sentence conveys the same thought as the corresponding part of the other sentence.

Two of the 3 parts contain almost identical words as the corresponding part of the other sentence.

The 3 parts appear in the same order.

Reviewer X says,
It looks like the usual two-dimensional problem in which the cart is constrained to move along a one-dimensional track and the broom is constrained to move in a plane along the direction of the track.

(Emphasis added).
Reviewer Y says,
The broomstick balancing problem was the standard two-dimensional one in that the cart moved only along a one dimensional track and the pole could swing only forward and back, not right to left.

(Emphasis added).
Note that the third part of reviewer X's sentence
the broom is constrained to move in a plane along the direction of the track
conveys the same thought as the third part of reviewer Y's sentence,
the pole could swing only forward and back, not right to left.
Also, both of these explanatory sentences appear in the same spot within their respective reviews.

3.2. Both reviewers X and Y complained that the submitted paper does not properly identify the 3 dimensions of the problem

We now show the sentences adjacent to the unsolicited 3-part explanatory sentence discussed in the previous section. As we enlarge the cluster of sentences being quoted, notice that both reviewers make the identical complaint --- namely, that the submitted paper does not properly identify the 3 dimensions of the problem.

Reviewer X says,
This reader was confused by the mismatch between the phrase "Three dimensional broom balancing problem" in the title and the description of the problem in section 4.0. It looks like the usual two-dimensional problem in which the cart is constrained to move along a one-dimensional track and the broom is constrained to move in a plane along the direction of the track. I can't discern any three-dimensional aspects at all.

(Quotation marks in original).
(Emphasis added).
Reviewer Y says,
The broomstick balancing problem was the standard two-dimensional one in that the cart moved only along a one dimensional track and the pole could swing only forward and back, not right to left. It is not clear what the authors mean by calling their problem "the three dimensional broom balancing problem."

(Quotation marks in original).
(Emphasis added).
There are hundreds of different things that the writer of a brief review document can raise about a 12-page submitted paper and there are thousands of different words that can be used to express the same thought.

Isn't it improbable that two reviewers --- without one of them being influenced by the other's already written review in front of them --- would simultaneously and independently make this particular complaint and that they would simultaneously and independently choose to place this complaint in the same part of their review document?

3.3. Both reviewers X and Y put quotation marks around the same words when no apparent reason exists for quoting the words

Notice that both reviewers X and Y used quotation marks in making their complaint that the submitted paper does not properly identify the 3 dimensions of the problem.

Isn't it improbable that two reviewers would simultaneously and independently choose to use quotation marks around these particular words?

3.4. Both reviewers X and Y couched their joint complaint about the 3 dimensions in the same semantically unusual way

The straight-forward way to express the joint complaint of reviewer X and Y that the paper failed to properly identify the 3 dimensions of the problem is that there was an omission of pertinent information in the submitted paper.

However, notice that both reviewers X and Y couched their joint complaint in the same semantically unusual way --- namely, in terms of a mismatch between the title of the paper and its contents.

Reviewer X says,
... mismatch between the phrase "Three dimensional broom balancing problem" in the title and the description of the problem in section 4.0..."

(Emphasis added).
Reviewer Y says,
... calling their problem "the three dimensional broom balancing problem."

(Emphasis added).
Isn't it improbable that two reviewers --- without one of them being influenced by the other's already written review in front of them --- would converge on this semantically unusual way of expressing this thought?

3.5. The unlikely coincidence that reviewers X and Y would both make the same demonstrable error claiming the absence of a definition that is demonstrably in the submitted paper

In the previous sections, we saw that two parts of reviews X and Y were similar in that they both had a However, this joint complaint by reviewers X and Y is demonstrably wrong.

A glance at my submitted MLC paper shows that the 3 dimensions of the problem are clearly identified in the paper:
The set of atoms for this problem consisted of velocity v, angle q, and angular velocity w.

(Emphasis added).
Both reviewers X and Y asserted that my MLC paper lacked a certain clearly-identified item when the paper demonstrably contained that item.

How could 2 people make this same mistake?

If, hypothetically, a peer reviewer were prejudiced against a particular technology or author, one can appreciate that he might hastily read a submitted paper and then construct a deceptive paper trail of arguable flaws to conceal the obviously illegitimate basis for his preordained negative decision about the paper. If his review were cursory, one can also appreciate how such a reviewer might conceivably make the gaffe of asserting the absence of something that the paper actually contains. Indeed, the first reviewer committed just such a gaffe. If, hypothetically, a second peer reviewer were also similarly prejudiced, one can also appreciate how this second reviewer might construct his own hypocritical paper trail of negative-sounding verbiage to disguise his bias. However, two prejudiced reviewers would not make the same egregious gaffe if they were acting independently.

The only reasonable explanation for two reviewers making the same clearly erroneous assertion about a submitted paper is that one reviewer had the text of an already written review in front of him as he reworded and retyped it onto his own paper review form.

NOTE: We will discuss this again in section 3.12 because this error suggests the time sequence of the plagiarism of these 2 reviews.

3.6. The unlikely coincidence that reviewers X and Y would both make the same mistaken claim concerning the existence of a "standard" version of a particular problem

We now further expand the same cluster of sentences from which we have been quoting (i.e., the almost identical 3-part explanatory sentence and the erroneous complaint concerning the 3 dimensions).

Surrounding these 2 items, both reviews X and Y contain the assertion that the problem discussed in the submitted paper is not "standard" or "the usual formulation" of the broom balancing problem.

Reviewer X says,
This reader was confused by the mismatch between the phrase "Three dimensional broom balancing problem" in the title and the description of the problem in section 4.0. It looks like the usual two-dimensional problem in which the cart is constrained to move along a one-dimensional track and the broom is constrained to move in a plane along the direction of the track. I can't discern any three-dimensional aspects at all. In fact, the problem is a somewhat simplified version of the usual formulation of the cart-pole problem, since the track here has no limits and, as far as I can tell, the broom never falls. (Previous studies, ...

(Emphasis added).
Reviewer Y says,
The standard broomstick balancing physics was used, but with a new control objective not previously used in machine learning studies. The goal was to drive the system in minimum time to a near-zero value for the cart velocity, pole angle, and pole angular velocity. Cart position was apparently ignored. The broomstick balancing problem was the standard two-dimensional one in that the cart moved only along a one dimensional track and the pole could swing only forward and back, not right to left. It is not clear what the authors mean by calling their problem "the three dimensional broom balancing problem." The authors do not discuss why they use a broom balancing problem so different from that used by previous machine learning researchers.

(Emphasis added).
Given the brevity of both reviews X and Y and given the hundreds of different things that a reviewer might say about a 12-page paper, isn't it improbable that an assertion about standardness would independently occur to two reviews of the same paper?


More importantly, there are literally dozens of different versions of the broom-balancing problem in the literature. None even remotely qualifies as being "standard" or "the usual formulation."

The important point is not, of course, that both reviewers X and Y are factually wrong about standardness, but that they shared the same mistaken information (a characteristic common to people who work closely together over a prolonged period of time).


Author: John R. Koza
E-Mail: NRLgate@cris.com
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