Search the CONFOCAL archive at
http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=confocal
We realized it is a big concern these days when we took a course on
ethics in research (mandatory for anyone doing bioengineering or life
sciences here). We came across quite interesting cases of high profile
fraud.
We had to do a presentation and we presented something on image
manipulation. While thinking about it I stumbled upon an interesting
way of quickly checking fake data. It is to 'scan the histogram' with
'narrow look up table', i.e. set the contrast to maximum and view the
image as you change the brightness.
The idea being that when someone has merged different images to appear
one or copied e.g. bands - scanning the histogram will show clear
signs. In the case of merging,one can see an edge where merge has been
done and in the case of copy one can see that two regions of the image
change identically as we scan the histogram. With that, I found that I
could actually detect discrepancies in example fake data given in
Rossner's editorial (What is in a picture? by Rossner and Yamada).
I tend to think that these problems will subside as ideas like open
source, reproducible research
(http://sepwww.stanford.edu/research/redoc/), and giving credit based
on 'first appearance anywhere and not just journal' will permeate
gradually - they have already done so in computer science where it is
very easy to allow someone to reproduce your work simply by uploading
files.
cheers
shalin
On Sun, Jun 22, 2008 at 10:43 PM, Guy Cox <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Search the CONFOCAL archive at
> http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=confocal
>
> Interesting - especially the statement that images on film
> cannot be doctored. I guess it's irrelevant nowadays, but that
> is so far from the truth.
>
> One funny story - which I've told before but some time ago.
> Many years ago I (with colleagues) published a paper in a
> well-known journal which included a photo of some gels -
> taken by the departmental photographer. One of the gels had
> cracked when it was taken out of the tube, so there was a
> dark hairline across it in the photo. In the published paper
> that line had disappeared. You can hardly accuse me, or my
> two co-authors, of fraud since this was done by the journal's
> art department without any reference to us!
>
> Guy
>
>
> Optical Imaging Techniques in Cell Biology
> by Guy Cox CRC Press / Taylor & Francis
> http://www.guycox.com/optical.htm
> ______________________________________________
> Associate Professor Guy Cox, MA, DPhil(Oxon)
> Electron Microscope Unit, Madsen Building F09,
> University of Sydney, NSW 2006
> ______________________________________________
> Phone +61 2 9351 3176 Fax +61 2 9351 7682
> Mobile 0413 281 861
> ______________________________________________
> http://www.guycox.net
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Confocal Microscopy List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John Oreopoulos
> Sent: Sunday, 22 June 2008 10:57 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: An alarming amount of image manipulation
>
> Search the CONFOCAL archive at
> http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=confocal
>
> I was a bit surprised at the statistics cited in this article:
>
> http://chronicle.com/free/2008/05/3028n.htm
>
> Does this mean that all journals will start hiring image manipulation detectives someday? Could be an interesting career.
>
>
> John Oreopoulos, BSc,
> PhD Candidate
> University of Toronto
> Institute For Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering Centre For Studies in Molecular Imaging
>
> Tel: W:416-946-5022
>
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--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Shalin Mehta
mobile: +65-90694182
blog: shalin.wordpress.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bioimaging Lab, Block-E3A, #7-10
Div of Bioengineering, NUS Singapore 117574
website: http://www.bioeng.nus.edu.sg/optbioimaging/colin/index.html
Liver Cancer Functional Genomics Lab, #6-05
National Cancer Centre, Singapore 169610
http://www.nccs.com.sg/researcher/02_04d.htm
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