Repost of links and update on the case of plagiarism and fraudulent claims of academic titles by a former PhD student in Civil Engineering

[Ramanashree Krishnan]

Dear Civil Engineers and Scientists,

An earlier version of my present post appeared last year at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa-jisc.exe?A2=UNSATURATED-SOIL;fe76fe27.2104

The purpose of this present post is to repost the entire content of my earlier post, along with any updated public-domain links proving the idea-plagiarism, sentence-plagiarism and fraudulent claims of academic titles done by "Poornima C.A" (also called CA Poornima), having full name POORNIMA CHINTHAGAMPALLI ANANDAN.

I understand that Poornima CA is no longer a PhD student at Anna University (at Guindy at Chennai in Tamil Nadu in India), and is also no longer teaching at St. Peters College (at Avadi at Chennai in Tamil Nadu in India). I thank all the staff at both these organization's and at other organizations around the world for any action taken within their powers.

The SIX POINTS are pasted below, one after the other, and the evidence of the URL HTTP links to the existing and prior publications are also mentioned. Researchers are requested not to reference any of the plagiarized publications of CA Poornima, and instead reference the prior publications that first reported the results:

 

POINT 1

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This point is regarding plagiarism of ideas in a 2015 journal paper where "Poornima C.A" is the first author. Please refer to the 2015 IJSER journal paper titled "Studies on the Enhancement of Soil Stabilization Using Electro-Kinetic Process", published in International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research (https://www.ijser.org/researchpaper/Studies-on-the-Enhancement-of-Soil-Stabilization-Using-Electro-Kinetic-Process.pdf). The first suspicious thing about this 2015 paper is that there is a sudden break in continuity of content, because Sections 1 & 2 are totally unrelated to Sections 3 & 4. Section 1 (Introduction) and Section 2 (Experimental Setup) are talking about the effect of varying voltage and spacing between the horizontal/vertical electrodes on the dewatering process, and this is summarized in the abstract. But then Section 3 (Experimental Results) and Section 4 (Conclusion) are talking about the effect of varying percentages of Class C flyash and Class F flyash in a mixture of both flyashes on different properties (such as density, strength, moisture content, elasticity) of soil-flyash mixture. So clearly, these are two totally different topics, and hence deserve to be in separate papers (not in the same paper). The second suspicious thing is that the core idea of Sections 1 & 2 is not new, and the core idea of Sections 3 & 4 is not new. 

First, let us consider Sections 1 & 2 of this 2015 journal paper of "Poornima C.A". Note that the idea of studying how horizontally & vertically oriented electrodes with varying spacing and varying voltage between the electrodes, can affect dewatering, has already been studied in earlier research. For example, please refer to the 2010 PhD thesis of James Patrick McKinney titled "Design of electrolytic dewatering systems for phosphatic clay suspensions" (https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/DESIGN-OF-ELECTROLYTIC-DEWATERING-SYSTEMS-FOR-CLAY-McKinney/fbca5389767de26568cc882d912ed3e76ed2cc75 or http://ufdcimages.uflib.ufl.edu/UF/E0/04/15/69/00001/mckinney_j.pdf or http://ww2.che.ufl.edu/orazem//pdf-files/McKinney-PhD-2010.pdf), and the 2005 ELSEVIER journal paper titled "Electro-kinetic dewatering of oily sludges" (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304389405002621). The 2010 thesis uses geosynthetic/geotextile covering on the electrodes (EKG electrodes or geoelectrodes), while the 2005 ELSEVIER paper uses normal electrodes. However, none of these earlier papers have been mentioned in the references section of the 2015 journal paper of "CA Poornima", which proves that "idea plagiarism" (copying of ideas from others without acknowledgment or referencing) has occurred.

Second, let us consider the Sections 3 & 4 of this 2015 paper of "Poornima C.A". Note that several earlier journals have already documented experiments on the properties (density, strength, moisture content, elasticity) of varying percentages of Class C flyash and Class F flyash in a soil-flyash mixture. For example, please refer to the two ELSEVIER journal papers titled "Liners for waste containment constructed with class F and C fly ashes" (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304389400001990) and "Enhancement in mechanical properties of concrete due to blended ash" (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0008884695001816) published in the years 2000 and 1996 respectively. However, these earlier works have not been mentioned in the references section of the 2015 paper of "CA Poornima", which again proves that "idea plagiarism" has occurred.

There is also sentence-plagiarism done by CA Poornima in the 2015 IJSER paper, since the first half of this 2015 IJSER paper is entirely copied from a couple of 2015 IGC conference papers authored by VK Stalin and P Anuradha (https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/STUDIES-ON-ENHANCED-DEWATERING-AND-SOIL-LIME-USING-Stalin-Anuradha/e77d845faaadd1a032f6594a02db829babfd14b0). It is clear that the 2015 IJSER paper has copied from the 2015 IGC paper since the IGC paper is well written with continuous flow, while the IJSER paper is highly discontinuous and refer to missing figures and tables (example: the IJSER paper mentions "the hydraulic properties of geotextile are shown in table 2.1" that is missing in the IJSER paper but correctly present as Table 2 in the IGC paper). This shows that the IGC paper was developed earlier than the IJSER paper, and also shows that CA Poornima has probably mentioned the name of the respected professor Dr. VK Stalin as second author in the IJSER paper without his permission. The exclusion of the IGC paper from the references or acknowledgment in the IJSER paper, is an unethical action by CA Poornima. 

 

POINT 2

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This point is regarding plagiarism of direct sentences in a 2019 conference paper where "Poornima C.A" is the second author. Please refer to the 2019 conference paper titled "Performance of high strength concrete shear wall under lateral cyclic loading" published in pages 225-230 of the ICIEMT 2019 Conference (full conference report downloadable from link: https://www.jnn.edu.in/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Jnn-conf-file.pdf). Note that there is more than 70% match of sentences of core-content of this 2019 paper, with the 2018 paper published by other researchers Ilayaraja and Greeshma of Anna University (Guindy) that is downloadable from http://www.j-asc.com/gallery/92-december-1481.pdf. The 2018 paper of Ilayaraja and Greeshma has not been mentioned in the references section of the 2019 paper of CA Poornima, which shows that "sentence plagiarism" (copying of direct sentences from others without acknowledgement or referencing) has occurred.

POINT 3

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This point is regarding plagiarism of direct sentences in a 2018 journal paper where "Poornima C.A" is second author: Please refer to the June 2018 journal paper "Soil Stabilization Using Fibre Waste and Plastic Waste" (https://ijetae.com/files/Volume8Issue6/IJETAE_0618_10.pdf). The ABSTRACT and INTRODUCTION 1st para of this 2018 paper has been completely copied from the Sep 2016 journal paper (http://www.ijirset.com/upload/2016/september/55_14_SOIL.pdf). The only difference is that the words "polypropylene fibers" have been replaced with the words "polypropylene fibers and plastics". The 2016 paper has neither been acknowledged nor referenced by the 2018 paper, showing that sentence-plagiarism has occurred. Also, the remaining part of the 2018 paper uses exactly the same set of percentages of fiber (0%, 0.05%, 0.15% and 0.25%) for the study, as the set of percentages used in the 2016 paper. Also, a major theoretical flaw I see in the 2018 paper is that it treats "polypropylene fibers" and "plastics" as two different things, though "polypropylene" is actually a type of plastic (see https://www.britannica.com/science/plastic). So it is technically wrong to say "plastic" without specifying what type of plastic or what proportion of the different types of plastics are used in the mixture. Also, the ideas of studying the properties of soil (compressive strength, tensile strength, thermal conductivity, optimal moisture content, etc) with varying percentages of the different types of plastic have already been done before 2016 itself. For example, the 2016 journal paper published in the reputed ELSEVIER gives a very detailed literature review of these studies done with different types of plastics like polypropylene, polythene, PET, etc (see https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652615011324).

POINT 4

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This point is regarding the non-uniqueness of the core idea of the 2017 patent application, where CA Poornima is the fifth author. Please refer to the 2017 patent application number "201741025968 A" published at the Indian Patent Office Journal (http://www.ipindia.nic.in/writereaddata/Portal/IPOJournal/1_1521_1/Part-1.pdf). Full details of this patent are also available at this link (https://www.quickcompany.in/patents/advanced-vehicle-control-and-safety-systems).

The core idea of the claimed 2017 invention is to do a comparison of the vehicle's real-time latitude & longitude coordinates given by GPS, with the coordinates of the preloaded accident zones, and when a match occurs, then one or more actions can be triggered (speed control, audio/visual alerts, etc).

However, this core idea is not new (with only the implementation being different), and has already been done before in patents of 2012 & 2016. 

Please refer to the 2012 published European patent (https://patents.google.com/patent/EP2450219A1/en). One difference between the 2012 and 2017 patents, is that while the 2017 approach uses "accident zonal maps" built by ArcGIS, the 2012 approach uses "speed limitation maps". In fact, the 2017 approach mentions the sentence "Based on the more number of accident occurred at a specific location is called as accident prone area", which is incorrect. Note that a safe road with higher frequency of vehicles can have a higher number of accidents than a hilly dirt road with very few travellers. So it does not mean that roads with fewer accidents are less dangerous. Example: there may be a hilly dirt road (or a road with many potholes) with only 2 accidents in last 20 yrs, because fewer people want to travel there. In such situations, "speed limit maps" (based on physical road conditions, geographical elevation, weather, etc) serve a better purpose to reduce speed on dangerous roads where the first accident has not even occurred. 

Also, note that the dynamic creation & updation of "accident zone maps" by GIS software (using real-time and historical accident data) has already been done earlier in a 2016 US patent (https://patents.google.com/patent/US20160061625A1). The 2016 patent is also more realistic since it additionally considers weather conditions and many other factors (in addition to accident data) to update the "accident zone maps". and triggers alerts when there is a match between the latitude and longitude coordinates of the real-time GPS position and the GIS "accident zones". 

 

POINT 5

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This point is about a false Claim by "Poornima C.A"  to have attained the qualification of "PhD": In page 225 of this 2019 conference paper earlier mentioned in POINT 2 (https://www.jnn.edu.in/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Jnn-conf-file.pdf), Poornima C.A falsely claims to have attained the qualification of "PhD", though the truth is that Poornima C.A has never been awarded the PhD degree by Anna University. The below two links will confirm this (these two links are also navigable from the root site  http://cfr.annauniv.edu and clicking on "Announcements"), showing the actual list of students that have graduated from Anna University to date:

1. (https://cfr.annauniv.edu/research/announcements/36degr.pdf)

2. (https://cfr.annauniv.edu/research/announcements/phddegreeawarded-5.pdf)

In addition to falsely self-claiming to have the PhD in the 2019 conference paper, there is verified evidence that "Poornima C.A" has falsely self-claimed to have the PhD (via email signatures) in many outgoing emails originating from capoornima AT yahoo DOT co DOT in, sent to students and colleagues, between 2012 and 2020.

 

POINT 6

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This point is regarding the false claim by "Poornima C.A" to have attained the status of "Professor". In page 225 and 230 of this 2019 conference paper mentioned in POINT 2 (https://www.jnn.edu.in/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Jnn-conf-file.pdf), Poornima C.A falsely claims to have attained the Title of "Professor".

Please let me know if there is any technical point in my email, which needs clarification.

Best Regards,

Thank you,

Mrs. Ramanashree Krishnan