Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Armin Shams


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   delete. \ Backslash Forwardslash / (talk) 19:34, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Armin Shams

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

Speedied once, prodded (and de-prodded) subsequently). A claim of notability is made with sources, but does not appear to meet WP:PROF. (Has published, but I see no evidence that subject is particularly notable in this field). OhNo itsJamie Talk 03:00, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  —David Eppstein (talk) 06:43, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. Most of the claims of notability in the article seems to be resting on theorem 1 of his paper in an obscure Ukrainian journal, which claims an upper bound of O(n/log n) for the prime gaps near a number n. The prime gap problem is an important one, but this is just a bad result: not only is it is far weaker than what is conjectured about how large those gaps can be (see Cramér's conjecture) but it is also far weaker than upper bounds of the form O(n^c) for 1/2 &lt; c &lt; 1 that have been known since the 1930s (see Prime gap). The other theorem in the paper does not seem to have a lot of importance. But since we're not really judging importance here, but notability, we should look at how many other people have taken note of it: no citations in Google scholar. There is really no way to judge his contributions to Knuth's AOCP, but Knuth is the only actual author of that work, and other minor contributions are not enough for notability here. As for WP:PROF: he's a Ph.D. student, and as with most Ph.D. students has not yet demonstrated any independent notability of a type that would pass WP:PROF. There are a reasonable number of citations in Google scholar for authors named "A. Shams" but they don't match the publications listed on his web page so I'm pretty sure they're not his. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:00, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. Google Scholar shows zero cites for this graduate student at University of Manchester. Are there any cites on WoS or Scopus? Appears to fail all categories of WP:Prof. Does not seem to have achieved notability yet on above basis. Xxanthippe (talk) 07:26, 19 October 2009 (UTC).
 * Delete. Not yet sufficiently notable. Kevin (talk) 10:25, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete per David Eppstein.-- JL 09  q? c|undefined 03:26, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * keep. The journal is a prestigous and credible one with citation in Thomson ISI, the most notable citation index for scientific journals with meticulous criteria. The conjecture is not compared to theorems in scientific circles. The upper bound is also not relevant to the specific and very important problem addressed by this work. Another weaker work had been published in Journal of Number Theory: http://math.univ-lille1.fr/~ramare/Maths/gap.pdf . If you read the article all doubts will be cleared. Why to insist on removing valuable information? Please let me add that if the 1930 work was relevant, two prestigous journals would not publish the work, including such high claims. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.69.93.206 (talk) 04:37, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep checked: http://science.thomsonreuters.com/cgi-bin/jrnlst/jlresults.cgi?PC=MASTER&Word=ukrainian -- BL999  05:38, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * keep The page has been extended and now mentions two notable awards. The reasons provided in reply to concerns seem logical and substantiated with sources. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.64.112.167 (talk) 06:51, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * — 84.64.112.167 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Note: two of the keep votes above are from the same brand new user whose first post is in this AfD. The third is from an IP with no other posts. And being listed in an index does not make a journal prestigious... by that reasoning all but a handful of academic journals are prestigious, which is nonsense. Hairhorn (talk) 11:36, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Note to refute note: Thomson ISI lists a limited number of journals and is the most notable listing. Articles in those journals are peer reviewed by scientists and are much more credible than notes by anonymous people here. It is not the number of posts that counts, it is the reasons, references and evidences. You cannot challenge results approved by scientists via anonymous voting. In my opinion it would be very unreasonable to do so. And by the way, same IP does not necessarily mean the same user. -- keep voter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.64.112.167 (talk • contribs)
 * Delete/Comment First is that Shams is a researcher. Per WP:PROF criterion 1, person's research must have extended something on their field, which passes when Shams extended that theorem using some constant r. Second, "The person has received a highly prestigious academic award or honor at a national or international level." I've researched the ACM/ICPC and found that in 2001, St. Petersburg State University but Shams is at University of Manchester. I verified it through Shams' university website, but it was said that he was only a finalist. (In contrast, WP:PROF says that he must win something, like a prestigious international award) Kwarizmi's site also has broken. Shams' site also tells us that he won the Khwarizmi. Other than that, there is no way to prove it. Next, this source which was supposed to cite something about Shams in the number theory so and so, has nothing to do with Shams in fact. It has no mentioning of Shams. Then, two sources this and this is in unsupported file name (i.e., in order to verify this, users may have to download software that can read them). Finally, Google hits does not have any to Shams except his publications, Facebook and other websites that can be edited by him and others (like directory) and blogs. And many academicians that have the ability to publish their works online can do that.-- JL 09  q? c|undefined 12:55, 22 October 2009 (UTC)


 * keep/Comment The gaps between primes webpage is not supposed to say more than as much as the owner updates it. The contributions are reported in peer reviewed world-class journals. Even the Journal of Number Theory has published inferior results in 2003 (as referenced to in the above notes), which is still better than the results in those prime gap pages. The acceptable evidence is research paper, which is present.  The other two files regarding extended Josephus problem are from Stanford site (Knuth's pages on TAOCP), which is easily read by postscript reader (many papers come in this format). ACM/ICPC, as ACM site says, is held among students from 1000 universities worldwide and only 195 advance to the world finals, which he was among them. ACM/ICPC is probably the most prestigous global student contest for computer students. I don't know why you insist despite all the evidences, although the page has been extended as a result and that's good for wikipedia (anyway, to extend one of the most famous theorems in prime number theory is enough alone).


 * keep/Comment This was their team according to the publication number [14] on his homepage: Ferdowsi University of Mashhad (his previous university)

See the world finals teams here: http://icpc.baylor.edu/past/icpc2001/Finals/Standings.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.64.112.167 (talk) 14:17, 22 October 2009 (UTC) Note to closer BL999 edited 84.69.93.206's keep, who removed SineBot's autosigning, they are likely the same. 84.64.112.167 contributed 2 keep/comments and one keep above, below JL09's delete/comment and delete. 84.64.112.167 similarly removed the autosigning and is likely the same as the other IP, so there may be only one "keep" so far.John Z (talk) 20:18, 22 October 2009 (UTC) Note to closer There are two or three keeps not one and the notes do not count towards voting. See the history please. There's no guaranty that the names or IPs are separate. All can be for less people than they seem to. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.69.201.213 (talk) 21:20, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete Per David Eppstein and others. Keep(s) do not seem to understand notability guidelines.John Z (talk) 20:18, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * — 84.69.201.213 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Note: WP:PROF says "If an academic/professor meets any one of the following conditions, as substantiated through reliable sources, they are notable.". Part 2 in its 'Notes and Examples' says: "Criterion 1 can also be satisfied if the person has ... solved a major problem ". This has happened once or twice in case of Armin Shams, substantiated by Thomson Reuters Web of Knowledge research journals (WP:PROF approves: "the only reasonably accurate way of finding citations to journal articles in most subjects is to use one of the two major citation indexes, Web of Knowledge and Scopus."). Part 3 magnifies the evidence: "There are other considerations that may be used as contributing factors (usually not sufficient individually) towards satisfying Criterion 1, e.g.: significant academic awards and honors". He has achieved honors of national and international</B> scale. The Khwarizmi International Award for example, is given by the president of the country and is apparently the most prestigous one they give. They say it is international but apparently it qualifies in national level with some international participation not comparable to Fields' medal or ACM's Turing Award. Olivemountain (talk) 03:05, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep The comments in answer to delete fans seem to be more than adequate and adress the concerns of the wiki regulations. There are more than one reason for notability, supported by links to famous sites such as Standord, Thomson Reuters, ACM and Springer. I remember the deletion of this page was discussed before and it was eventually kept because of the references and expansion of the page. It is not fair to disregard all the evidences and just say it does not meet the criteria. If contrubuting to one ofthe most notable theorems in number theory is not notable then what is notable? Can anybody, <B>given the answers and evidences</B>, put their finger on a specific part of the regulations which they think is not met? Olivemountain (talk) 03:05, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment – Excuse me? "… the deletion of this page was discussed before and it was eventually kept …"?? According to the logs, this aticle was deleted without discussion on 23 June 2009 as CSD-A7, so this is a new article, and there are no "evidences" to disregard. &mdash; 141.156.161.245 (talk) 04:41, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment I'd concur with John Z's interpretations. Despite the number of times "keep" appears here, it appears to be two (at most) unique !voters, none of whom have many edits outside of this topic. OhNo itsJamie  Talk 03:31, 23 October 2009 (UTC)


 * keep it. Olivemountain's notes are is convincing plus that 30s result involves an 'arbitrarily big' constant which makes it a different theorem. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Goldenart (talk • contribs) 09:25, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
 * — Goldenart (talk&#32;• contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.


 * Delete. Only a PhD student, clearly fails WP:PROF. Per WP:PROF, student-level awards do not qualify for establishing academic notability and having one paper published in an obscure journal does not make one notable either. 63.118.138.73 (talk) 13:56, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. A PhD student with no recognition in reliable sources. Without reliable sources, there is no notability or possibility to verify a biography. I would also suggest that sockpuppetry or meatpuppetry is occurring with the IP and Goldenart keeps. Fences  &amp;  Windows  15:35, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete David Eppstein sums it up, using the standards usually applied, fails WP:PROF by a very wide margin, no evidence of notable impact. Pete.Hurd (talk) 15:37, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. With all due respect, this is nothing more than a fan-page (Olivemountain appears to be its creator). David Eppstein's reasoning is sound with respect to the technical aspects, the fact that the subject is a PhD student, etc. But, let me add a few more points. It appears from the subject's web page that he claims 2 published (peer-reviewed) articles in what David called "obscure journals". The latter is perhaps an understatement, for example, neither journal is indexed by the standard WoS (very unusual for mainstream journals in mathematics and engineering), and it's not even clear that the "Iranian Journal of Engineering Education" has any sort of presence at all. But let us instead cast the net as wide as possible using GS: we find 1 hit having 0 citations: h-index = 0. In essence, this person's work has had no impact, as judged by citations (our typical metric for WP:PROF #1). Again, this is not surprising for someone who is still a student. I will also note that some of the above keep-related arguments are non-sense, as follows: (1) "There are more than one reason for notability, supported by links to famous sites such as Standord, Thomson Reuters, ACM and Springer" – of course links, by themselves, confer no notability whatsoever, (2) "solved a major problem. This has happened once or twice in case of Armin Shams" – again, this claim is not supported by the publication/citation evidence – the word "major" is subjective, suggesting the commenter may not understand what the mathematical community actually considers to be a significant problem, (3) "The Khwarizmi International Award ... is international but apparently it qualifies in national level with some international participation not comparable to Fields' medal or ACM's Turing Award" – this argument is difficult to follow, but it should certainly be clear that the Khwarizmi award does not carry the prestige of the others mentioned, and moreover, the subject's web page says he won the "student version" of this award in 1997. Oddly, WP's own page on the Khwarizmi International Award says the student version was instituted only in 1999. All the other possibilities under WP:PROF are clearly not met, either. This is a crystal-clear delete. Respectfully, Agricola44 (talk) 15:43, 23 October 2009 (UTC).
 * Delete. Clearly fails WP:PROF, as already explained. — Miym (talk) 17:40, 23 October 2009 (UTC)


 * <B>keep note</B> You are missing the point that it is not the citation count which is notable here, it is the major problem which has been solved (extending the theorem regarding the boundaries of existaence of primes) and David's notes on the problem are clearly wrong as the notes compare conjectures or irrelevant theorem to the work. It is clearly a <B>strong keep</B>. That somebody is a PhD student or even 16 years old is not relevant here as people cannot qualify according to WP:PROF for ordinary works which makes you a PhD, professor or etc. If sources like ACM or Springer or ISI Web of Knowledge are not reliable, then what is? In the paper's abstract it says: "In this paper, Chebyshev’s theorem (1850) about Bertrand’s conjecture is re-extended using a theorem about Sierpinski’s conjecture (1958). The theorem had been extended before several times, but this extension is a major extension far beyond the previous ones. ". Ref: https://doi.org/10.1007%2Fs11253-008-0034-7 — 84.69.201.213 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * What you're missing is that we don't create articles about academics on the basis of a single peer reviewed article. We aren't going to take Shams' word for it that he's made a major breakthrough - we need evidence of community recognition. His article has never been cited or even referred to on the web by another mathematician. Fences  &amp;  Windows  00:59, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
 * <B> Good point to clarify: </B> the basis of notability here is not citation count, but a 'major problem' solved (see the policy), and that claim is in the abstract of a peer reviewed paper in a major journal. That's an 'independent' and 'widely accepted' source. The solved problem is 'major' based on numerous sources (search keywords like 'prime gaps'). One of such sources has been provided above which appeared in the Journal of Number Theory. You may contact a number theorist and ask about the importance of the solved problem. I think Shams' mistake was the wording and venue of publication (under the influence of the famous 'Chebyshev' probably), which together with the recent publication of the paper can cause less citation than anticipated. The national/international awards and other information provided in the Armin Shams and his homepage can strengthen notability. Olivemountain (talk) 05:34, 24 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment. If the work of the subject is as important as is claimed by the one or two spas who are alone in urging keeps for this article then, in the course of time, the work will be recognised by enough citations, awards etc. to give it notability. However, this time does not appear to have yet arrived. In the meanwhile, the spas may wish to consider whether their importunate pleading, which is clearly doomed to failure, may be a cause of embarrassment to the subject of the article and to the institutions that he is associated with. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:29, 24 October 2009 (UTC).


 * Comment Side discussions, wiki-jargon and accusations will not benefit a just decision. There has been a number of scientific criticisms which have been addressed by references to refereed work and clarifications, which you can read carefully. There's no reason that the delete comments are not from one or two people either. And even comments from the same IP can be from different people (e.g. a university hall). What helps with satisfying the notability policy is discussing the policy. There are numerous sources which make it more than clear that the problem solved in the paper is a 'major' one which addresses the policy (the sources which say it is a major contribution is not by the author, but they substantiate the claim). Please read the provided reasons and see the references and the policy. Other info can help with satisfying the policy as well.
 * Stacking up accounts and IP comments isn't going to get you anywhere, except perhaps kicked off the project (and none of the IPs resolves to a university). Claims with no evidence aren't much good either, whether they're about the subject of your article or empty accusations about the delete voters.Hairhorn (talk) 15:32, 24 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete, rather definitively not notable, as is evident in lack of independent sources. Perhaps his "solution" will gain attention someday -- when it does, we can look forward to an article on him.  Nomoskedasticity (talk) 16:58, 24 October 2009 (UTC)


 * keep note lack of independent source? No way! Thomson reuters, ACM, Stanford University site, etc. back the claims. How can the facts be ignored here? Are you all the same people or are you not reading the notes? just don't keep it but with good reasons please. BL999 (talk) 23:31, 24 October 2009 (UTC) — BL999 (talk&#32;• contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. note BL999 has already !vote "keep" above. Pete.Hurd (talk) 04:23, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I suggest that you read WP:PROF again; not only WP:PROF but also all other sections. In particular, WP:PROF explicitly says that "Criterion 1 can also be satisfied if the person has — — made a significant discovery or solved a major problem in their academic discipline. In this case it is necessary to explicitly demonstrate, by a substantial number of references to academic publications of researchers other than the person in question, that this contribution is indeed widely considered to be significant and is widely attributed to the person in question." It also says that "Simply having authored a large number of published academic works is not considered sufficient to satisfy Criterion 1." In summary, just publishing something is not enough, no matter how many papers you publish and no matter how important the results look. You must show that other researchers have cited these publications frequently in their own peer-reviewed papers. — Miym (talk) 08:14, 25 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete per David Eppstein, Xxanthippe, etc. Ray  Talk 03:56, 25 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete There is a lot of text here by a small number of people who are insufficiently familiar with mathematical profession, WP:PROF and many prior discussions on notability of academic mathematicians. The standard for inclusion here is certainly higher than can be met by the average university professor.  The candidate needs to be distinguished in their field, i.e., clearly above average, which the guidelines seek to quantify in various ways.  The current candidate does not yet have a Ph.D., contrary to what the article seems to suggest.  Moreover, in the field of mathematics he has a single publication.  Here is the MathSciNet review:

MR2411598 (2009e:11180) Shams, Armin(4-MANC) Re-extending Chebyshev's theorem about Bertrand's conjecture. (English, Ukrainian summary) Ukraïn. Mat. Zh. 59 (2007), no. 12, 1701--1706; translation in Ukrainian Math. J. 59 (2007), no. 12, 1914--1921 11N05 (11A41) More links PDF Doc Del Clipboard Journal Article Make Link

The author proves that for each real $m\geq 2$, there exists a prime $p$ with $m<p<m+\frac{2m}{\log_{re} m}$, where $r=1.207$. The proof uses elementary estimates and some explicit computations.

{Reviewer's remarks: It is known that stronger results of Hoheisel type $m<p<m+ m^{\vartheta}$ hold for sufficiently large $m\geq m_{\vartheta}$, for each $\vartheta \geq 0.525$ [R. C. Baker, G. Harman and J. Pintz, Proc. London Math. Soc. (3) 83 (2001), no. 3, 532--562; MR1851081 (2002f:11125)]. Here $m_{\vartheta}$ is an effective (but unknown) constant.

{Using explicit estimates, Pierre Dusart proved in his doctoral thesis [``Autour de la fonction qui compte le nombre de nombres premiers'', thèse de doctorat, Univ. Limoges, Limoges, 1998, \url{www.unilim.fr/laco/theses/1998/T1998_01.pdf}] an effective result, also stronger than in the current paper: Theorem 1.9. For all $x > 3275$, there is a prime $p$ with $x < p <x(1+ \frac{1}{2\ln^2 x})$.}

Thus the review (a rather negative one by the standards of MathReviews) demonstrates the lack of novelty in the paper's results. Please take this into account in further discussion. Plclark (talk) 23:22, 25 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete. Does not appear to meet WP:Prof. Paul August &#9742; 03:34, 26 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep His work is found hosted at the sites for many different universities. The experts there seem to think it notable enough.   D r e a m Focus  06:19, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Could you please provide links to substantiate this? It will be important to see what "hosting" means.  thanks, Nomoskedasticity (talk) 13:07, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete - spurious claims of notability debunked by David Eppstein and others; fails WP:PROF. - Biruitorul Talk 18:29, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.