Geng Fraud Review Report: Multi-Interaction Trajectory Prediction Method With Serial Attention Patterns for Intelligent Vehicles

Academic fraud report · Geng Detector

Summary

Verdict: Questionable. This IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology 2024 paper by Shoutao Li, Jialin Li, Qingyu Meng, Hongyan Guo, and Dongpu Cao (DOI: 10.1109/TVT.2024.3349601) was flagged for an internal inconsistency in the author affiliation and biographical statement of co-author Dongpu Cao. On the title page he is listed under Tsinghua University's School of Vehicle and Mobility, while his author biography states he is an Associate Professor and Director of the Waterloo Cognitive Autonomous Driving (CogDrive) Lab at the University of Waterloo. No evidence of data fabrication, image manipulation, or statistical misconduct was reported. The issue is purely one of editorial inconsistency, which may indicate dual appointments, an outdated biography template, or incomplete author-information updates. Confidence is moderate; the discrepancy is documented but its cause (template reuse vs. missing dual-affiliation note) cannot be resolved from the manuscript alone.

Verdict

Questionable (🟡). The single flagged issue concerns an affiliation inconsistency in the author biography, not substantive research misconduct.

Key findings

Affiliation vs. biography mismatch for Dongpu Cao: The title-page author block lists Dongpu Cao with the School of Vehicle and Mobility, Tsinghua University. The closing author biography, however, identifies him as "currently an Associate Professor and Director of Waterloo Cognitive Autonomous Driving (CogDrive) Lab, University of Waterloo."
Possible explanations noted: dual appointment between Tsinghua University and University of Waterloo with incomplete disclosure on the title page; or reuse of a prior paper's biography template without verification.
No substantive misconduct detected: No image manipulation, data fabrication, statistical anomalies, or plagiarism of results are alleged in this report.

Evidence highlights

DOI: 10.1109/TVT.2024.3349601
Journal: IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, Vol. 73, No. 6, June 2024
Authors: Shoutao Li, Jialin Li, Qingyu Meng, Hongyan Guo, Dongpu Cao
Documented location of issue: title-page affiliation block vs. closing author biography of Dongpu Cao
Severity rating in source report: 🟡 (medium / questionable)
Re-verification status: ✅ confirmed as documented

Notes

The flagged discrepancy is editorial/procedural rather than scientific. It does not, on its own, constitute evidence of research fraud.
Recommended follow-up actions in the source report: raise the question on PubPeer regarding the affiliation–biography contradiction; recommend that the corresponding author verify and issue an erratum if needed. Reporting to the journal editorial office was not recommended at this stage due to the absence of substantive fabrication evidence.
A definitive conclusion would require confirmation from the authors or the editorial office regarding whether a dual affiliation exists and whether the Tsinghua affiliation should also appear in the biography (or vice versa).