We have been unable to find any “John Brown” associated with Worldcomp. Worldcomp seems to consist of some 22 separate sessions (or conferences) with around 100 – 150 papers per conference. This would suggest some $1 to 1.5 million being collected each year by the organisers from the authors. Actual costs are probably minimal.
6th March: It would seem that the University of Georgia is not amused. The Worldcomp 2012 website now carries a specific disclaimer (8th March The position of the disclaimer has been shifted down to become much less prominent – it is only visible when scrolling down) on Professor Hamid Arabnia’s contact page stating that
“the congress is neither sponsored by nor affiliated with University of Georgia”
But of course Worldcomp remains – perhaps unwittingly – partly legitimised by virtue of Arabnia’s employment as “Professor” at the University of Georgia.
We received a long protesting email today from a certain Dr. John Brown (sent twice) which is posted in full in the comments. He claims “copyright” on his email which itself is a little odd — ktwop
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Worldcomp seems to be a “fake” conference which makes a lot of money for its organisers by preying on students and researchers (and unscrupulous supervisors of research) who are desperate to get published – even if only in the Proceedings of this fake conference. It seems that no review – apart from copy-editing – is done. Payment of registration fees is sufficient for publication. While a venue (Las Vegas) exists and the minimum necessary is done to show that the conference was held, there seem to be few sessions and even fewer presentations. All the participants get a conference dinner but are generally left to find their own amusement (which is not difficult to do in Las Vegas)!!
Professor Hamid Arabnia must hold some kind of record in the number of fake(?) conferences he organises (always in Las Vegas it seems).
Another email reported these:
I was a Ph.D. student in Asia few years back. My university requirement was that I (the student) should publish two papers in order to submit the synopsis and thesis (dissertation). One of my friends informed me that WORLDCOMP gives guaranteed acceptance and he also recently got his Ph.D. by publishing in WORLDCOMP. ….
I enjoyed the casinos in Las Vegas. I liked the conference banquet (dinner). Although I was at the venue, I didn’t present my paper in WORLDCOMP because there was no one to invite me in my session and there was no one to listen to my speech also. I noticed that few other sessions were barely running with few attendees. It looks many attendees came there just to see Las Vegas. However, I received a presentation certificate from Professor Hamid Arabnia ……
I met more than ten people from my country and nearby countries and we instantly became friends and we really enjoyed watching Las Vegas. When I enquired individually, all these friends informed me that their papers were also accepted without modifications in WORLDCOMP. They were feeling proud because they were thinking that their research was great (and that’s why the papers were accepted without modifications). But now I understand the bitter truth behind this: there was no review in WORLDCOMP.
Hamid Arabnia image from http://www.cs.uga.edu/~hra/
Resorting to intimidation is proof positive for me that WORLDCOMP is nothing more than a fake conference. Hamid Arabnia seems to be anexpert at using fake conferences (about 28 of them) to generate his income. He is a Professor at the Universty of Georgia.His CV is quite amazing and he does seem to have spent a lot of time in Las Vegas.
But squeezing registration fees out of Asian students is probably a much more lucrative and less risky pastime than other activities in Las Vegas.