Plagiarism, plagiarism, plagiarism: Five recent cases

RW logoThere’s so much publishing news to report, we don’t always get to cover every retraction when it appears. To get the word out more quickly, sometimes we publish a group of papers pulled for similar reasons, such as duplications. Below, we present five recent cases of plagiarism, such as using text or figures that the authors didn’t originally write.

We’ve added the date of retraction where we could find it:
1. “An unusual case of refractory metabolic acidosis after homeopathic medicinal treatment.” Annals of Tropical Medicine and Public Health. 2014. 7:185-8. Kumar Sawlani K, Chand Chaudhary S, Rajagouda Patil M, Errapa Yathish B, and Chandra A Sameer Saraf, Mohit Mohan Singh. Cited once, according to Thomson Reuters Web of Science. Retracted January 2016:

The article titled, “An unusual case of refractory metabolic acidosis after homeopathic medicinal treatment”, published in pages 185-188, issue 3, vol. 7 of Annals of Tropical Medicine and Public Health is being retracted. It has been found that the article contains overlapping text-sections with another article titled, “An Unusual Case of Refractory Metabolic Acidosis”, published in, pages 186-188, issue 2, vol. 20 of Toxicology International. The authors of the concerned article have been reported to be residents of the same hospital as of the author of the reference article. The author of the reference article claimed that the two concerned authors published the article without his knowledge or permission.

Therefore, on the grounds of duplicity of the content, the concerned article is being retracted.

2. Stem cell mediated tooth regeneration: New vistas in dentistry. Journal of Indian Prosthodontic Society. 2012. 12(1):1-7. Sujesh M, Rangarajan V, Ravi Kumar C, Sunil Kumar G. Cited once. Retracted December 2014:

This article has been retracted by the Editor-in-Chief as it was a duplication of the article “STEM CELLS FOR TOOTH ENGINEERING” by G. Bluteau et al. which has been published in the journal “European Cells and Materials” (2008) volume 16 pages 1–9.

3. “Psychiatric Disorders,” a chapter in Sleepiness and Human Impact Assessment. December 2013. Ferini Strambi L, Marella S. Here’s the retraction notice:

The publisher regrets to announce that the following chapter entitled “Psychiatric Disorders” by L. Ferini Strambi and S. Marella, pp. 259-278, published Sleepiness and Human Impact Assessment has been retracted. This chapter contains reused and uncited material that was inadvertently not published within quotation marks. The most used sources are:

Kalucy MJ, Grunstein R, Lambert T, Glozier N (2013) Obstructive sleep apnoea and schizophrenia—A research agenda. Sleep Med Rev 17(5): 357-365. doi: 10.1016/j.smrv.2012.10.003

Dauvilliers et al (2013) Hypersomnia and depressive symptoms: methodological and clinical aspects. BMC Medicine 11:78. doi: 10.1186/1741-7015-11-78

Kluge M (2012) Sleep propensity at daytime as assessed by Multiple Sleep Latency Tests (MSLT) in patients with schizophrenia increases with clozapine and olanzapine. Schizophr Res 135(1-3): 123-127. doi: 10.1016/j.schres.2011.12.017

Hayley AC, Williams LJ, Berk M, Kennedy GA, Jacka FN, Pasco JA (2013) The relationship between excessive daytime sleepiness and depressive and anxiety disorders in women. Aust N Z J Psychiatry 47(8):772-778. doi: 10.1177/0004867413490036

The Authors deeply apologize to the authors of those original articles and reviews cited in this chapter. They also deeply apologize to the volume editors, to the other authors and the readers of the book for any inconvenience caused by this retraction.

4. “Sealing ability of lateral condensation, thermoplasticized gutta-percha and flowable gutta-percha obturation techniques: A comparative in vitro study.” Journal of Pharmacy and Bioallied Sciences. 2012. 4:S131-5. Kumar NS, Prabu PS, Prabu N, Rathinasamy S. Cited zero times. Retracted September 2015:

The article entitield, “Sealing ability of lateral condensation, thermoplasticized gutta-percha and flowable gutta-percha obturation techniques: A comparative in vitro study” published in pages S131-132, Supplement 2-Part I, Vol. 4 of Journal of Pharmacy and Bioallied Sciences, is being retracted on the charges of Plagiarism.

It has been found that there are several sections in the article that have been copied from an article published in the year 2011 entitled, “Evaluation and comparison of sealing ability of three different obturation techniques – Lateral condensation, Obtura II, and GuttaFlow: An in vitro study” in Journal of Conservation Dentistry. Sections starting from Abstract till the References have been found to be an exact copy of the previous article.

Finally, we have a case of plagiarism where the author also copied his own work, as well — known as duplication:

5. Modeling and numerical simulation of baffles height effect on a Von Karman turbulent flow. Journal of Turbulence. 2014. Volume 15, Issue 12, pp. 807-832. Raddaoui M. Cited zero times. Retracted September 2015:

The following article is being retracted from publication in the Journal of Turbulence: “Modelling and numerical simulation of baffles height effect on a Von Karman turbulent flow” by Maher Raddaoui, Volume 15, Issue 12, 2014, pp. 807-832, DOI: 10.1080/14685248.2014.935856

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14685248.2014.935856

We were made aware that sections of this article are substantially similar to sections of an article published previously published by the same author: “Influence of inter-disc space on the turbulent flow between two rotating discs” by Maher Raddaoui, International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, Volume 23, Issue 4, pp. 662-691, DOI: 10.1108/09615531311323809

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/09615531311323809?journalCode=hff

The uppermost graph of Figure 4 was also found to have been reproduced without reference to the following thesis, in which it also appears:

Sebastien Poncet, 2005, ´ Ecoulements de type rotor-stator soumis ´ a un flux axial: de ` Batchelor a Stewartson. ` https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-00010993/

This action constitutes a breach of warranties made by the author with respect to originality and of our policy on publishing ethics and integrity. We note we received, peer-reviewed, accepted, and published the article in good faith based on these warranties.

We have therefore taken the decision to retract the paper.

The retracted article will remain online to maintain the scholarly record, but it will be digitally watermarked on each page as ‘retracted’.

When asked for further comment, a representative of the journal stated:

We have no further comment beyond the retraction already published.

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