A paper on a hybrid algorithm turned out to be a hybrid itself — some original data, plus some from a paper that the authors had published earlier.
According to the retraction note, the overlap was significant enough to pull it from the scientific record.
The retracted paper describes an algorithm that is the combination of a “genetic algorithm” and a “cultural algorithm”– which, as their names sort of suggest, focus on looking at a population of solutions, and the history of which kinds of solutions work, respectively. According to the abstract, results to optimization problems found with a hybrid algorithm are “more accurate and the fast convergence is obvious.”
The retraction note provides a few details about the nature of the duplication:
This article has been retracted at the request of the Editor-in-Chief. The Editor-in-Chief of Applied Mathematics and Computation has found that the scientific content of “Modified Hybrid Algorithm for Process Optimization” by Mostafa El-Hosseini and Amira Haikal, Applied Mathematics and Computation, Volume 232, pages 1209–1224, was previously published in the Ain Shams Engineering Journal, with knowledge and consent of the authors. Despite the inclusion of interesting original data in this article, significant overlap was found between this article and “Modified cultural-based genetic algorithm for process optimization” by Mostafa El-Hosseini and Amira Haikal, Ain Shams Engineering Journal, Volume 2, Issues 3–4, pages 173–182 (doi:10.1016/j.asej.2011.09.002).
Submission of an article to an Elsevier journal requires authors to declare that their work is original and has not appeared in a publication elsewhere. Re-use of any data should be appropriately cited. Due to the overlap in scientific content and the fact that the authors did not include a reference to the article previously published in the Ain Shams Engineering Journal the Editor-in-Chief of Applied Mathematics and Computation, in agreement with the publisher, hereby retracts this article.
We contacted the authors Mostafa A. Elhosseini and Amira Y. Haikal — whose affiliation on the paper is listed as Mansoura University in Egypt — and the editor of the journal, and will update this post if we hear back.
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