The physics journal Pramana — a publication of the Indian Academy of Sciences — has retracted two studies by a group of researchers in Malaysia who appear to have cobbled together their papers from other sources.
The 2007 articles came from A.R.M. Yusoff, M.N. Syahrul and K. Henkel, of the University Science Malaysia, in Penang. One was titled “High resolution transmission electron microscope studies of a-Si:H solar cells,” and the other, “Hydrogenated nanocrystalline silicon germanium thin films.” The retraction notices are identical, and read:
This paper has been withdrawn by Pramana as the editors have determined that the material presented in this paper is a complete copy of the material which has been published by other authors in other journals and reports.
Neither of the studies has been cited, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
And here we go with another one. These three authors published a paper in 2007 Bulletin of Material Sciences 30 (4): 329-331 entitled Film Adhesion in amorphous silicon solar cells. It is word for word and figure for figure identical to a 2005 paper by A. Vijh et al Film Adhesion in triple junction aSi solar cells on polyimide substrates, published in Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, 2005. Conference Record of the Thirty-first IEEE, pages 611-613. Well there are three words that differ. Whereas Vijh et al tell us they did their work “At the University of Toledo….” Yusoff and his cohorts claim to have done their work “At the Malaysia Energy Center…” All other words are spot-on identical. Even the graphs and the micrographs are spittin’ images of one another. I kid you not.
Apparently I am late to this particular game. Bull Mat Sci retracted it already for the same reasons that Pramana (another Springer journal) did; complete copy, indeed.
I have to wonder whether the author(s) behind the publication is fooling around with these journals. I am from the School of Physics, Universiti Sains Malaysia and we do not call ourselves as “Department of Physics, University Science Malaysia”. I do not know any of the names listed in the paper and with the Yahoo email address, I have to wonder if it is a prank. As what BellWiley mentioned, the other retracted paper had a different address.
Strangely enough, I can’t seem to find the authors listed in the otherwise easy to search School of Physics website. Might they not exist?
http://www.fizik.usm.my/