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Alexander Magazinov

Publications and source records attributed to Alexander Magazinov.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2025

Detection of metadata manipulations: Finding sneaked references in the scholarly literature

We report evidence of a new set of sneaked references discovered in the scientific literature. Sneaked references are references registered in the metadata of publications without being listed in reference section or in the full text of the actual publications where they ought to be found. We document here 80,205 references sneaked in metadata of the International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology (IJISRT). These sneaked references are registered with Crossref and all cite -- thus benefit -- this same journal. Using this dataset, we evaluate three different methods to automatically identify sneaked references. These methods compare reference lists registered with Crossref against the full text or the reference lists extracted from PDF files. In addition, we report attempts to scale the search for sneaked references to the scholarly literature.

cs.DL↗
arXiv2023

Sneaked references: Cooked reference metadata inflate citation counts

We report evidence of an undocumented method to manipulate citation counts involving 'sneaked' references. Sneaked references are registered as metadata for scientific articles in which they do not appear. This manipulation exploits trusted relationships between various actors: publishers, the Crossref metadata registration agency, digital libraries, and bibliometric platforms. By collecting metadata from various sources, we show that extra undue references are actually sneaked in at Digital Object Identifier (DOI) registration time, resulting in artificially inflated citation counts. As a case study, focusing on three journals from a given publisher, we identified at least 9% sneaked references (5,978/65,836) mainly benefiting two authors. Despite not existing in the articles, these sneaked references exist in metadata registries and inappropriately propagate to bibliometric dashboards. Furthermore, we discovered 'lost' references: the studied bibliometric platform failed to index at least 56% (36,939/65,836) of the references listed in the HTML version of the publications. The extent of the sneaked and lost references in the global literature remains unknown and requires further investigations. Bibliometric platforms producing citation counts should identify, quantify, and correct these flaws to provide accurate data to their patrons and prevent further citation gaming.

cs.DL↗
arXiv2022

The 'Problematic Paper Screener' automatically selects suspect publications for post-publication (re)assessment

Post publication assessment remains necessary to check erroneous or fraudulent scientific publications. We present an online platform, the 'Problematic Paper Screener' (https://www.irit.fr/~Guillaume.Cabanac/problematic-paper-screener) that leverages both automatic machine detection and human assessment to identify and flag already published problematic articles. We provide a new effective tool to curate the scientific literature.

cs.DL↗
arXiv2022

Improper legitimization of hijacked journals through citations

The goal is to study the prevalence of citajacked papers: papers in authentic scientific journals citing hijacked journals, in academic literature. A Citejacked detector was designed as a part of the Problematic Paper Screener (https://www.irit.fr/~Guillaume.Cabanac/problematic-paper-screener/citejacked) to trace if the references to articles originating from hijacked journals infiltrate scientific communication. A full-text search was performed between November 2021 and January 2022 in the Dimensions database using the name of 1 of the 12 hijacked journals. The analysis of the bibliography in these articles revealed that 828 of them cite unreliable articles from hijacked journals. During 01.Jan.2021-31.Jan.2022, an average of 2 citejacked articles has been published daily in established journals. Given the limited number of titles included in this study, the phenomenon might be wider and is not yet systematically studied.

cs.DL↗
arXiv2021

Concentration inequalities for log-concave distributions with applications to random surface fluctuations

We derive two concentration inequalities for linear functions of log-concave distributions: an enhanced version of the classical Brascamp--Lieb concentration inequality, and an inequality quantifying log-concavity of marginals in a manner suitable for obtaining variance and tail probability bounds. These inequalities are applied to the statistical mechanics problem of estimating the fluctuations of random surfaces of the $\nablaφ$ type. The classical Brascamp--Lieb inequality bounds the fluctuations whenever the interaction potential is uniformly convex. We extend these bounds to the case of convex potentials whose second derivative vanishes only on a zero measure set, when the underlying graph is a $d$-dimensional discrete torus. The result applies, in particular, to potentials of the form $U(x)=|x|^p$ with $p>1$ and answers a question discussed by Brascamp--Lieb--Lebowitz (1975). Additionally, new tail probability bounds are obtained for the family of potentials $U(x) = |x|^p+x^2$, $p>2$. This result answers a question mentioned by Deuschel and Giacomin (2000).

math-ph↗
arXiv2021

Tortured phrases: A dubious writing style emerging in science. Evidence of critical issues affecting established journals

Probabilistic text generators have been used to produce fake scientific papers for more than a decade. Such nonsensical papers are easily detected by both human and machine. Now more complex AI-powered generation techniques produce texts indistinguishable from that of humans and the generation of scientific texts from a few keywords has been documented. Our study introduces the concept of tortured phrases: unexpected weird phrases in lieu of established ones, such as 'counterfeit consciousness' instead of 'artificial intelligence.' We combed the literature for tortured phrases and study one reputable journal where these concentrated en masse. Hypothesising the use of advanced language models we ran a detector on the abstracts of recent articles of this journal and on several control sets. The pairwise comparisons reveal a concentration of abstracts flagged as 'synthetic' in the journal. We also highlight irregularities in its operation, such as abrupt changes in editorial timelines. We substantiate our call for investigation by analysing several individual dubious articles, stressing questionable features: tortured writing style, citation of non-existent literature, and unacknowledged image reuse. Surprisingly, some websites offer to rewrite texts for free, generating gobbledegook full of tortured phrases. We believe some authors used rewritten texts to pad their manuscripts. We wish to raise the awareness on publications containing such questionable AI-generated or rewritten texts that passed (poor) peer review. Deception with synthetic texts threatens the integrity of the scientific literature.

cs.DL↗
arXiv2019

Mixing properties of colorings of the $\mathbb{Z}^d$ lattice

We study and classify proper $q$-colorings of the $\mathbb Z^d$ lattice, identifying three regimes where different combinatorial behavior holds: (1) When $q\le d+1$, there exist frozen colorings, that is, proper $q$-colorings of $\mathbb Z^d$ which cannot be modified on any finite subset. (2) We prove a strong list-coloring property which implies that, when $q\ge d+2$, any proper $q$-coloring of the boundary of a box of side length $n \ge d+2$ can be extended to a proper $q$-coloring of the entire box. (3) When $q\geq 2d+1$, the latter holds for any $n \ge 1$. Consequently, we classify the space of proper $q$-colorings of the $\mathbb Z^d$ lattice by their mixing properties.

math.CO↗
arXiv2018

On the Voronoi Conjecture for combinatorially Voronoi parallelohedra in dimension five

In a recent paper Garber, Gavrilyuk and Magazinov proposed a sufficient combinatorial condition for a parallelohedron to be affinely Voronoi. We show that this condition holds for all five-dimensional Voronoi parallelohedra. Consequently, the Voronoi conjecture in $\mathbb R^5$ holds if and only if every five-dimensional parallelohedron is combinatorially Voronoi. Here, by saying that a parallelohedron $P$ is combinatorially Voronoi, we mean that the tiling $\mathcal T(P)$ by translates of $P$ is combinatorially isomorphic to some tiling $\mathcal T(P')$, where $P'$ is a Voronoi parallelohedron, and that the isomorphism naturally induces a linear isomorphism of lattices $Λ(P)$ and $Λ(P')$. We also propose a new sufficient condition implying that a parallelohedron is affinely Voronoi. The condition is based on the new notion of the Venkov complex associated with a parallelohedron.

math.MG↗
arXiv2018

A center transversal theorem for an improved Rado depth

A celebrated result of Dol'nikov, and of Živaljević and Vrećica, asserts that for every collection of $m$ measures $μ_1,\dots,μ_m$ on the Euclidean space $\mathbb R^{n + m - 1}$ there exists a projection onto an $n$-dimensional vector subspace $Γ$ with a point in it at depth at least $\tfrac{1}{n + 1}$ with respect to each associated $n$-dimensional marginal measure $Γ_*μ_1,\dots,Γ_*μ_m$. In this paper we consider a natural extension of this result and ask for a minimal dimension of a Euclidean space in which one can require that for any collection of $m$ measures there exists a vector subspace $Γ$ with a point in it at depth slightly greater than $\tfrac{1}{n + 1}$ with respect to each $n$-dimensional marginal measure. In particular, we prove that if the required depth is $\tfrac{1}{n + 1} + \tfrac{1}{3(n + 1)^3}$ then the increase in the dimension of the ambient space is a linear function in both $m$ and $n$.

math.MG↗
arXiv2017

On a conjecture by Eckhoff and Dolnikov concerning line transversals to Euclidean disks

Let $K$ be a convex body in the Euclidean plane $\mathbb R^2$. We say that a point set $X \subseteq \mathbb R^2$ satsfies the property $T(K)$ if the family of translates $\{ K + x : x \in X \}$ has a line transversal. A weaker property, $T(K, s)$, of the set $X$ is that every subset $Y \subseteq X$ consisting of at most $s$ elements satisfies the property $T(K)$. The following question goes back to Grünbaum: given $K$ and $s$, what is the minimal positive number $λ= λ(K, s)$ such that every finite point set in $\mathbb R^2$ with the property $T(K, s)$ also satisfies the property $T(λK)$? The constant $λ_{disj}(K, s)$ is defined similarly, with the only additional assumption that the translates $x + K$ and $y + K$ are disjoint for every $x, y \in X$, $x \neq y$. One case of particular interest is $s = 3$ and $K = B$, where $B$ is a unit Euclidean ball. Namely, it was conjectured by Eckhoff and, independently, Dolnikov that $λ(B, 3) = \frac{1 + \sqrt{5}}{2}$. In this paper we propose a stronger conjecture, which, on the other hand, admits an algebraic formulation in a finite alphabet. We verify our conjecture numerically on a sufficiently dense grid in the space of parameters and thereby obtain an estimate $λ_{disj}(B, 3) \leq λ(B, 3) \leq 1.645$. This is an improvement on the previously known upper bounds $λ(B, 3) \leq \frac{1 + \sqrt{1 + 4\sqrt{2}}}{2} \approx 1.79$ (Jerónimo Castro and Roldán-Pensado, 2011) and $λ_{disj}(B, 3) \leq 1.65$ (Heppes, 2005).

math.MG↗
arXiv2017

An improvement on the Rado bound for the centerline depth

Let $μ$ be a Borel probability measure in $\mathbb R^d$. For a $k$-flat $α$ consider the value $\inf μ(H)$, where $H$ runs through all half-spaces containing $α$. This infimum is called the half-space depth of $α$. Bukh, Matoušek and Nivasch conjectured that for every $μ$ and every $0 \leq k < d$ there exists a $k$-flat with the depth at least $\tfrac{k + 1}{k + d + 1}$. The Rado Centerpoint Theorem implies a lower bound of $\tfrac{1}{d + 1 - k}$ (the Rado bound), which is, in general, much weaker. Whenever the Rado bound coincides with the bound conjectured by Bukh, Matoušek and Nivasch, i.e., for $k = 0$ and $k = d - 1$, it is known to be optimal. In this paper we show that for all other pairs $(d, k)$ one can improve on the Rado bound. If $k = 1$ and $d \geq 3$ we show that there is a 1-dimensional line with the depth at least $\tfrac{1}{d} + \tfrac{1}{3d^3}$. As a corollary, for all $(d, k)$ satisfying $0 < k < d - 1$ there exists a $k$-flat with depth at least $\tfrac{1}{d + 1 - k} + \tfrac{1}{3(d + 1 - k)^3}$.

math.MG↗
arXiv2017

On percolation of two-dimensional hard disks

We consider the hard-core model in $\mathbb{R}^2$, in which a random set of non-intersecting unit disks is sampled with an intensity parameter $λ$. Given $\varepsilon>0$ we consider the graph in which two disks are adjacent if they are at distance $\leq \varepsilon$ from each other. We prove that this graph, $G$, is highly connected when $λ$ is greater than a certain threshold depending on $\varepsilon$. Namely, given a square annulus with inner radius $L_1$ and outer radius $L_2$, the probability that the annulus is crossed by $G$ is at least $1 - C \exp(-cL_1)$. As a corollary we prove that a Gibbs state admits an infinite component of $G$ if the intensity $λ$ is large enough, depending on $\varepsilon$.

math-ph↗
arXiv2016

The sign-sequence constant of the plane

Let $L$ be a finite-dimensional real normed space, and let $B$ be the unit ball in $L$. The sign sequence constant of $L$ is the least $t>0$ such that, for each sequence $v_1, \ldots, v_n \in B$, there are signs $\varepsilon_1, \ldots, \varepsilon_n \in \{-1, +1\}$ such that $\varepsilon_1 v_1 + \ldots + \varepsilon_k v_k \in t B$, for each $1 \leq k \leq n$. We show that the sign sequence constant of a plane is at most $2$, and the sign sequence constant of the plane with the Euclidean norm is equal to $\sqrt{3}$.

math.MG↗
arXiv2016

Positive-fraction intersection results and variations of weak epsilon-nets

Given a finite set $X$ of points in $R^n$ and a family $F$ of sets generated by the pairs of points of $X$, we determine volumetric and structural conditions for the sets that allow us to guarantee the existence of a positive-fraction subfamily $F'$ of $F$ for which the sets have non-empty intersection. This allows us to show the existence of weak epsilon-nets for these families. We also prove a topological variation of the existence of weak epsilon-nets for convex sets.

math.MG↗
arXiv2015

On Delaunay's classification theorem on faces of parallelohedra of codimension three

In 1929 B.~N.~Delaunay proved that there are exactly 5 types of coincidence of parallelohedra at faces of codimension 3. We give a combinatorial proof of this theorem and prove several additional statements on three-codimensional faces of parallelohedral tiling. -- The original paper appeared in 2013 in MAIS (see the bibref) and was in Russian. This is the English version.

math.MG↗
arXiv2015

Fair partitioning by straight lines

A pizza is a pair of planar convex bodies $A\subseteq B$,where $B$ represents the dough and $A$ the topping of the pizza. A partition of a pizza by straight lines is a succession of double operations:a cut by a full straight line, followed by a Euclidean move of one of theresulting pieces; then the procedure is repeated.The final partition is said to be fair if each resulting slice has the same amount of $A$ and the same amount of $B$.This note proves that, given an integer $n\geq2$, there exists a fair partition by straight lines of any pizza $(A,B)$ into $n$ parts if and onlyif $n$ is even.The proof uses the following result:For any planar convex bodies $A, B$ with $A\subseteq B$, and any$α\in\,]0,\frac12[\,$, there exists an $α$-section of $A$ which is a$β$-section of $B$ for some $β\geqα$. (An $α$-section of $A$ is a straight line cutting $A$ into two parts, one of which has area $α|A|$.)The question remains open if the word "planar" is dropped.

math.MG↗
arXiv2015

On a problem by Dol'nikov

In 2011 at an Oberwolfach workshop in Discrete Geometry, V. Dol'nikov posed the following problem. Consider three non-empty families of translates of a convex compact set $K$ in the plane. Suppose that every two translates from different families have a point of intersection. Is it always true that one of the families can be pierced by a set of three points? A result by R. N. Karasev from 2000 gives, in fact, an affirmative answer to the "monochromatic" version of the problem above. That is, if all the three families in the problem coincide. In the present paper we solve Dol'nikov's problem positively if $K$ is either centrally symmetric or a triangle, and show that the conclusion can be strengthened if $K$ is an euclidean disk. We also confirm the conjecture if we are given four families satisfying the conditions above.

math.MG↗