University of Tsukuba Professor Dr. Cho Teruji did not falsify Gamma 10 test data

Physicists from all over the world protest Dr. Cho's Dismissal

The followings are English translation of the documentary "TBS NEXT" aired by one of the major Japanese TV station.

Somebody uploaded English translation of this TV broadcast on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqUmzfFUVHc (Part I)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLnXJUdjWL0 (Part II)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ex1uvNyV-M (Part III)

Original Japanese video clip of the broadcast can be seen on "VEOH".

http://www.veoh.com/browse/videos/category/activism_non_profit/watch/v193181455GW86dGh

These days science and research work in Japan are receiving high esteem from around the world, thanks, in part, to a number of Japanese scientists being awarded the Nobel Prize. Meanwhile, scientists throughout the world are paying a different kind of attention to a case of disciplinary action taken by the University of Tsukuba last year. It is the punitive dismissal of a professor. What were the issues behind that disciplinary measure?

At the Royal Garden Party held this spring, two figures caught the most attention. These were Dr. Masukawa and Dr. Kobayashi, the two Nobel Laureates in Physics last year. These physicists’ brilliant achievement has drawn so much attention that a scientific journal in the U.S. even published a feature article, entitled “Assembling International Science in Japan.” It was little known, on the other hand, that a protest letter to the University of Tsukuba from scientists in the world was carried in the very same issue of the journal; as titled “Scientists Protest Professor’s Dismissal”.

The origin of this affair was Professor Teruji Cho’s punitive dismissal from his position as Head of the Plasma Research Center of the University of Tsukuba in March last year. The University claimed that they found data falsification in the scientific paper published by Prof. Cho.

This is the home of Dr. Cho, who lost the professorship. Since then, for the past one and half years, his wife has been supporting the family by earning some money through a part-time job. There was no severance allowance paid, though he had worked for the University for 25 years.

(Dr. Cho)“I really don’t understand what’s wrong and what on earth has caused all this. So mysterious. I am completely puzzled.”

Dr. Cho consistently insisted that there had been no misconduct whatsoever. In March last year, however, the University of Tsukuba announced that it had punitively dismissed Prof. Cho due to the falsification of data in a paper, which was found during the scrutiny that the University had conducted in response to a student’s whistle-blowing. This announcement was widely reported throughout Japan.

(Dr. Cho’s wife) "How could it happen? My husband has been treated as if he were a criminal. I thought people would feel like ‘there must have been something wrong with him’ based on the news report. That’s extremely vexing. .”

What did the University of Tsukuba really view as a problem with Prof. Cho’s paper? We came to New Jersey in the U.S., where Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory is located. It was jointly established by U.S. Federal Government and Princeton University. As we proceeded to the basement, a huge apparatus, about the same size as Tsukuba’s, appeared in our sight.

“It’s normally off-limits to visitors. We are lucky to be able to get inside today because the facility is not operating right now due to maintenance works.” “Here it is; one of the largest plasma facilities in the world.”

The Inside of this gigantic chamber is shaped like a donut. There it generates plasma, in which the temperature reaches more than 100 million degrees. Plasma consists of charged particles. Aurora and lightning are good examples. It is also utilized for plasma displays and the like. As a matter of fact, the sun, unlike the earth, is not solid, but gaseous plasma consisting of charged particles. Research projects with huge budgets have been carried out in various countries in the world to generate massive energy equivalent to create a “ mini-sun”. The ultimate goal is to develop novel energy sources for the future to replace soon-to-be-depleted fossil fuels, such as oil and coal.

There has been a key technical challenge for this plasma research. That is to suppress anomalous plasma flow, namely turbulence, induced by the extraordinary temperature difference between inside and outside the chamber.

(Prof. Nathaniel Fisch, Princeton Univ.) “The University of Tsukuba has no understanding of the historical context and the scientific significance of the finding in Prof. Cho’s paper. It would have led to a great progress in this field.”

This is the experimental apparatus at Plasma Research Center of the University of Tsukuba.

Prof. Cho’s paper was epoch-making in that it showed this turbulence can be suppressed by heating specific positions with microwaves. These images clearly illustrate turbulence reduction by comparing it before and after the heating .

Dr. Cho’s paper was published in the journal “ Physical Review Letters（PRL）”, one of the most authoritative scientific journals in the field of physics.

(Dr. Daniel Kulp, Editorial Director of American Physical Society, publishing PRL)

“We only publish papers which passed strict screening in terms of importance of the research and merits for publication. It is a great honor for a scientist to have his or her paper published in this journal once in a lifetime *.”

l Note: Scientific journals in physics have all potential articles reviewed by physicists on the editorial board or peers in independent laboratories that have specialized knowledge of this type of research before the paper is rejected or accepted for publication.

Prof. Cho et al.’s papers were published in PRL in 2005, and again in 2006. If it had not been for this incident, he intended to make a try for the third-consecutive-year appearance, which would be a phenomenal achievement. However, the research was forced to be suspended.

(Dr. Daniel Kulp, Editorial Director of American Physical Society, publishing PRL)

“We still believe that his paper is physically correct, and merits publication.”

The University of Tsukuba argued that there was a problem in this highly evaluated paper. The problem did not lie in the content of the paper, but two figures used in the paper were based on the falsified data, they said.

The University invited outside experts to form an investigation team. And they asked Dr. Cho’s team to reproduce 100% identical figures used in creating the PRL figures.

“They asked me to respond in about two weeks. I looked into various related records and found, to my surprise, that the results of the data analysis I had conducted by that time were nowhere to be seen in the computer storing the analyzed data.”

Strangely enough, the analyzed data along with information on the analysis time for the data had vanished away

Prof. Teruji Cho was dismissed by the University of Tsukuba, which said he falsified the data to write a paper . It was a “punitive dismissal”.

In the process of the investigation, the University asked Dr. Cho to reproduce the same figures from the original raw data. But parts of the analysis data necessary for the 100% reproduction could not be found. At Plasma Research Center, data are stored in the shared computer. It was a rule that the person in charge of an analysis should have backup discs.

These two sets of data, which were supposed to have been carefully managed, had both disappeared. What a mystery!! Therefore, Dr. Cho took pains to re-create the figures by starting the analysis from scratch, but the figures thus reproduced were very slightly different from the original (because of quite many possibilities for re-analyzing the raw data).

“If one looks very closely, there is merely a slight difference around here, like 0.4% , but it is definitely a meaningless variance, and virtually the same.’’

He also submitted a very detailed explanation in writing to the University about the analysis method used for the other figure, but the University didn’t change its position.

“In the end, we couldn’t tell where and how they think we were not right. They only said the response could not be acknowledged. And I seriously started to feel danger, and thought I had to ask researchers around the world about this.”

Dr. Cho submitted a new paper to another scientific journal (Physics of Plasma; POP). This paper included the same content as the document he had submitted to the University,

which explained in detail the analysis methods for the two figures in question. He intended to invite judgment from world researching experts.

As the POP editors knew the controversy around this, they assigned more than twice as many expert judges as usual.. As a result,

(Ronald Davidson, Editor-in-chief, POP [The former Director of the MIT Plasma Fusion Center, and the former Director in General of Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory])

“We see many papers with some arguable factors about the data, but Prof. Cho’s team has done a marvelous job. It was of high quality and we were proud to have published it.”

However, the University of Tsukuba still did not change its position about the alleged falsification. Rather, they demanded Dr. Cho and 26 co-authors to retract the paper. Several of the co-authors who agreed to withdraw said that they didn't think there was anything wrong in the paper, but they couldn’t help, since the University threatened to take disciplinary actions if they didn’t withdraw.

Hearing this, many scientists of the world strongly objected; 3 from the U.S., 6 from Russia, and from Sweden, Ukraine, Germany, and Japan. These researchers, who really are the world authorities in this field, sent a protest letter to the President of the University, completely denying the University’s accusation against Prof. Cho.

One of these scientists who stood up was Prof. Nathaniel Fisch at Princeton University, a winner of the Maxwell Prize, which is regarded as the highest honor in the field of Plasma Physics

“Nobody here at Princeton believes in Tsukuba’s accusation against Dr. Cho. The analysis method they insisted to be used is not matched to the problem. We have examined every detail in the submitted paper, and we really did not find any trace of falsification.”

Furthermore, what disturbed him most was the indifferent attitude of the Japanese scientists about this issue, although one scientist’s professional life was about to be destroyed.

“To my great surprise, the majority of the Japanese scientists seemed to have no concerns, and even advised us to stay away from the problem. It's something of a tragedy not just to Dr Cho, but to the research community as a whole. That’s why I could not remain silent. Absolutely I could not.”

Another scientist who took part in the protest letter was Dr. Pastukhov, who is considered to be one of the most prominent physicists in Russia. He is also one of the co-authors of Dr. Cho’s paper.

“Dr. Cho succeeded in reproducing the figure with only 0.4% deviation. Plasma scientists all consider this as a wonderful achievement. What’s wrong with it?” Regarding the investigation result reported by the University, he says he could not help feeling that it lacks professional knowledge.

“The paper submitted this time used the analysis method which had already been closely examined and debated in detail at the international conference (3 years ago). Why does the University continue to ignore the opinions of world’s prominent scientists?”

The University of Tsukuba responded that they had brought 3 outside plasma scientists to the team to have full investigation, going through fair procedures. In March last year, the University announced the punitive dismissal of Prof. Cho, and the suspension from work for 3 lecturers who refused to withdraw the paper.

In August, 2008, Dr. Cho filed a lawsuit against the University of Tsukuba and then President of the University, in order to restore his position as professor there, denying any misconduct.

(Teruji Cho) “Research papers are the soul of researchers. What is important for scholars is not money, but their research and papers themselves. To tell a researcher to withdraw his paper means to tell him to die.”

At first, Cho’s wife was reluctant about the lawsuit, because of their two children who were still university students.

“Why do you stick to your principle like this? Are you stupid? Think more about your own family. I did want to say this to him. But I thought that I would have to support him since he has worked as a scientist all his life, and he really wanted to persist in his belief.”

And in the course of the lawsuit, Dr. Cho found out how the data he was looking for had disappeared.

He found it in the evidence submitted by the University prior to the first trial at bar.

“The analyzed data was erased by student A when he retired (before finishing two-year course).”

(University [Prof. Yabana]) “The raw data seems to be extremely important. Do you mean that it was erased?”

“I don’t think it possible to restore all the data points of the figures. Student B’s hard disk crashed, so it will be difficult to restore the data.”

More than one student had reported to the University in advance that it would be difficult to reproduce the figures perfectly, as the analysis data had disappeared.

“Knowing that both data sets were erased, the University investigation committee still demanded us to reproduce the figures 100%, and insisted that there was falsification. It sounds strange to me.”

Student A, who had allegedly erased the data, is the student who lodged a complaint with the University about Dr. Cho’s team’s suspected falsification in the paper. Is it true that the student erased the analyzed data necessary for the 100% reproduction? If so, was anything going on behind it? We visited the former student A, who had already quit the University.

“I didn't erase the data. The process of the data analysis was stored only in Student B's computer, and its hard disk crashed"

Student B answered on the phone, on the condition that his voice would not be aired.

Student B: "I didn't erase the data, at least by myself. I didn’t break it, but I don’t have my memory about that."

Student A, who had allegedly erased the data from the shared computer at Plasma Research Center, and Student B, who is said to have had backup analyzed data, both denied that they had erased the data.

TBS staff: “Don’t you have your memory? But it seems you have been requested to send back the analyzed data repeatedly. Don’t you remember at all?”

Student B answered the TBS staff that he had no memory at all about the things in those days.

If their comments are correct, who erased the data? Did the University demand Dr. Cho to turn in the perfectly reproduced figures even though they knew that it was impossible to do?

The University [Prof. Yabana contradictorily] argued in the court that they didn't know that the analysis results had been missing, and that the dismissal was appropriate."

"It seems to me that the things are going on in a different area, not related to science. It is weird. It’s another story, totally apart from falsification. In addition, it is outrageous to unfairly exploit students in this case."

A person who is related to the University commented, “It costs a lot of money to run the Plasma Research Center, and some people might have felt envious of Dr. Cho’s achievement. Some persons willfully set a rumor afloat that there was something wrong with the data, so some students might have believed it and started to voice complaints. "

The University replied to TBS that they wanted to reveal the truth through the court proceedings.

Professor Akira Hasegawa is the only person in Japan who received the Maxwell Prize and a former chair of Plasma Physics Section of the American Physics Society. He insists that the paper should be evaluated by autonomous discussions in academic societies.

(Prof. Akira Hasegawa [Osaka University, (Bell Laboratory, Columbia University etc.)] )

“The important thing is whether the gist of the research is correct or not. The gist of Dr. Cho’s paper is a qualitative one, and I think it is correct.

TBS staff: " The University punitively dismissed him on the grounds that he harmed the University's reputation, didn’t it?”

“ On the contrary, I think it is the University that ultimately harmed its own reputation. In the end, most of the researchers would draw a conclusion that the University’s action turned out to be disgraceful.”

Last month, a group of Dr. Cho’s supporters submitted 5000 signatures to the University, demanding retraction of his dismissal. On Nov. 2, Dr. Cho is scheduled to appear in court in person to assert his innocence.

Plasma research is very important, because it would lead to the development of a clean energy source for the future. It is a pity that the study be stopped due to this kind of circumstance.

As you have seen in the program, a court battle is now going on for this case. The scientists protesting about this argue that an independent international scientific committee should be established in order to investigate into this case.

Meanwhile, MEXT (the Ministry of Education and Science etc.) says that they can't intervene in universities’ personnel matters, now that national universities are independent administrative bodies, and that they will keep an eye on the result of the trial and the public opinion.

Although this is basically a case in the world of science, there is so much mystery involved, and it seems to me that something is going on in a different area irrelevant to science, as Dr. Cho mentioned. I really hope everything gets settled quickly so that researchers can avoid spending more of their precious time in being involved in the court battle.