Author: Alla Katsnelson

Two more retractions make four for bone researcher

JAnatBone anatomists have retracted two papers on primate jawbone structure from the Journal of Anatomy due to “errors in the validation protocol and data,” marking the fourth retraction for one of the authors.

Olga Panagiotopoulou retracted two other papers over the past year, all of which were due to a common methodological problem. As Panagiotopoulou — who completed the work in the UK, before joining the University of Queensland in Australia in 2013 —  explained to us in April,

Continue reading Two more retractions make four for bone researcher

Duplication of “a major part of text and results” adds up to third retraction for mathematician

Source: www.ed.gov
Source: www.ed.gov

An article by Alexander Spivak, a mathematician based in Israel, is being retracted from the proceedings of a 2014 numerical analysis meeting because Spivak had already published “a major part of text and results” in a mathematics journal in 2010.

Spivak, a member of the faculty of sciences at Holon Institute of Technology, has a bit of a history with the journal that published his initial 201o paper, the International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics. That journal retracted two of his papers last year after learning from Zeev Schuss, Spivak’s post-doc supervisor at Tel Aviv University, that those papers contained plagiarized chunks from a paper by Schuss and two colleagues.

Here’s more from the retraction notice for “Successive approximations for optimal control in some nonlinear systems with small parameter”, published in the Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Numerical Analysis:

Continue reading Duplication of “a major part of text and results” adds up to third retraction for mathematician

Duplication, “manipulated” data send carpal tunnel paper down black hole

ArchOrpthoak20The Archives of Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgery has retracted a study about whether developing fistula puts hemodialysis patients at higher risk of carpal tunnel syndrome because it “duplicated substantial parts” and “manipulated some original data” from a study by other researchers.

The retraction notice says it all: Continue reading Duplication, “manipulated” data send carpal tunnel paper down black hole

“Copyright issues that cannot be resolved” and duplicate publication sink two groundwater papers

EnvEarthSci_ak18Springer has retracted two articles about groundwater in Algeria from its journal Environmental Earth Sciences – one was sent down the well by “copyright issues that cannot be resolved,” and the other by a duplicate publication two years prior.

The first article of the two, “Principal component, chemical, bacteriological, and isotopic analyses of Oued-Souf groundwaters,” was published in 2009 by researchers in Japan and Algeria. Its corresponding author, Hakim Saibi, is listed as an associate professor in the faculty of engineering at Kyushu University in Japan. We can’t say anything about the article’s content beyond what’s in the title, since its abstract is no longer available online. The retraction notice consists of a single, lonely sentence: Continue reading “Copyright issues that cannot be resolved” and duplicate publication sink two groundwater papers

“This article was published in error”: Economics paper defaults

EDQ_ak14An economist in Taiwan has retracted a paper about from Economic Development Quarterly because it was “published in error.”

The paper — first published online March 5, 2013 — addresses the influence of information and communication technology on economic growth.

According to the notice, the paper included “the original dataset and excerpts from an earlier draft of the paper co-written by the author and colleagues.” The only listed author, Yi-Chia Wang, asked that the article be retracted before making it into print, but it looks like it was included in the February, 2015 issue of the journal.

Here’s the notice for “How ICT Penetration Influences Productivity Growth: Evidence From 17 OECD Countries”: Continue reading “This article was published in error”: Economics paper defaults

Retraction after engineering journal presents new publishing guidelines — twice

JHydrolEngineerEditors of the Journal of Hydrologic Engineering are retracting an editorial that presents guidelines for publishing in the journal because they mistakenly published it twice – once in June and once in November of last year.

(Presumably, one of the guidelines is to not publish the same article twice.)

Although the duplication was accidental, the corresponding author told us he wasn’t disappointed to learn more eyes may have seen the article: “It would not bother me if it were published in every issue.”

Here’s the retraction notice:

Continue reading Retraction after engineering journal presents new publishing guidelines — twice

High-profile aging paper posts old erratum, requested by author more than one year prior

GenomeBioGenome Biology has partially retracted a high-profile paper about an epigenetic biomarker of aging – a year and a half after the author alerted the journal to a software coding error that invalidated one of its findings.

The paper, “DNA methylation age of human tissues and cell types,” garnered some media coverage and forms the basis of its author Steve Horvath‘s work on measuring human aging. It has been cited 73 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. The article is also recommended on the post-publication peer review site Faculty of 1000.

The lengthy, peer-reviewed erratum notice, written by Horvath, refers to several figures and files, as well as a conclusion:

Continue reading High-profile aging paper posts old erratum, requested by author more than one year prior

“Significant overlap” between figures spurs note of concern for 13-year-old retinoblastoma paper

AmJPatholThe American Journal of Pathology has posted a note of concern to a 2002 paper about retinoblastoma after discovering two sets of figures “share significant overlap… suggesting that they did not originate from different specimens.”

The overlap was “simultaneously brought to the attention of the Editors” by both the corresponding author and a “concerned reader.”

The paper examined the role of a transcription factor called NF-kappaB in driving retinoblastoma, and suggested that inhibiting the molecule’s activity could be a therapeutic strategy.

The authors attribute the overlap to “an inadvertent misidentification of the original files at the stage of image capture.” They add that they “sincerely regret this inadvertent error;” because other data in the paper show “concordant results,” they stand by the paper’s findings.

Here’s the note:

Continue reading “Significant overlap” between figures spurs note of concern for 13-year-old retinoblastoma paper

Cancer paper pulled due to “identical text” from one published 6 days prior; author objects

ClinCancRes_ak16Clinical Cancer Research is retracting a paper on the immunosuppressive effects of glioma due to “evidence of duplicate and/or redundant publication.”

According to the retraction notice, the 2010 paper bore exceeding similarities to another one published by the same group of researchers six days prior. That second paper appeared in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, which – like Clinical Cancer Research — is published by the American Association for Cancer Research. Apparently, a reader tipped off the AACR about the similarity.

The corresponding author on both papers, however, has objected to the decision: Continue reading Cancer paper pulled due to “identical text” from one published 6 days prior; author objects

Exosome pioneer’s paper retracted after investigation finds “multiple” faked figures

JImmunolThe Journal of Immunology is retracting a 2006 article about the role of exosomes in pregnancy at the behest of the University of Louisville in Kentucky, following a misconduct investigation that “determined multiple figures” in the paper were falsified.

First author Douglas Taylor is a pioneer in exosome biology, having discovered the release of exosomes from tumor cells in the 1970s.

The retracted paper identified “significant quantitative and qualitative differences in released exosomes” in the placentas of fetuses delivered prematurely compared to those delivered without complications at term, particularly relating to immune regulation.  It has been cited 150 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

Here’s the retraction note (which is paywalled – tsk, tsk): Continue reading Exosome pioneer’s paper retracted after investigation finds “multiple” faked figures