Author: Ellie Kincaid

How a tweet sparked an investigation that led to a PhD student leaving his program

Leslie McIntosh

Leslie McIntosh, like many other denizens of Science Twitter, saw a tweet from a pseudonymous account in mid-March that bemoaned a journal’s lack of action after the owner of the account reported “an obvious case of plagiarism.”

The owner of the account had found a paper that ripped off one by his or her own research group while browsing the literature. “It isnt just sentence copying, the whole structure and concept of the paper is THE SAME,” the account tweeted later in the thread. 

McIntosh, CEO and cofounder of Ripeta, a tech company that offers automated tools to assess scientific papers, began looking into the paper and its corresponding author, Mohammed Sahab Uddin. 

Continue reading How a tweet sparked an investigation that led to a PhD student leaving his program

On second thought: journal reverses course on paper it agreed to retract last year

A Springer Nature journal has decided not to retract a paper it had been investigating for plagiarism since receiving allegations in January 2021. The decision came 1.5 years since the editor-in-chief apparently agreed the paper should be retracted, and just a few days after we reported on the case. 

Systems engineer Paola Di Maio notified Springer Nature in January 2021 that the article, “Robotic Standard Development Life Cycle in Action,” published in the Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems, described a methodology she had developed without crediting her work. As we wrote in our post on Friday, Aug. 5th: 

Continue reading On second thought: journal reverses course on paper it agreed to retract last year

Imagine learning you’re an author on a paper after it’s retracted for plagiarism

Dragan Lambić

An education researcher whose colleague added his name without his knowledge to a paper he didn’t contribute to is now dealing with another problem: The paper has been retracted for plagiarism. 

And now he’s suing the publisher – not over the retraction, but for allowing the authorship forgery.

Dragan Lambić, of the University of Novi Sad in Serbia, only learned his name was on the article in question, published in a Serbian education journal in 2020, when he received an email this January informing him that the paper would be retracted. 

Continue reading Imagine learning you’re an author on a paper after it’s retracted for plagiarism

More than a year ago, an editor agreed a paper should be retracted. It hasn’t been.

Eighteen months after the editor in chief of a Springer Nature journal received allegations of plagiarism – and more than a year after the editor apparently decided to retract it – the article remains intact and the journal’s investigation has not yet concluded. 

The paper, “Robotic Standard Development Life Cycle in Action,” was published in the Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems in November 2019. It has been cited 13 times, according to Clarivate Analytics, five of those since the journal received the allegations. 

Its abstract states: 

Continue reading More than a year ago, an editor agreed a paper should be retracted. It hasn’t been.

Doctor faces apparent retaliation after alleging data manipulation in published trial

Fouad Fayad

A rheumatologist was suspended from a professional society and his license to practice medicine was threatened after he raised concerns about data manipulation in a published study for which he recruited patients, according to documents seen by Retraction Watch. 

The study, “Added Value of Anti-CD74 Autoantibodies in Axial SpondyloArthritis in a Population With Low HLA-B27 Prevalence,” was published in Frontiers in Immunology in 2019 and has been cited 13 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science. In its acknowledgements, it listed Fouad Fayad, a rheumatologist at the University of Saint Joseph and Hotel-Dieu de France University Medical Center in Beirut, as one of the researchers who recruited patients for the trial. 

Fayad alleged that the researchers tested patient samples multiple times and used a mix of old and new values in their analysis. After he reported his concerns to the journal and then the university, which both concluded that they could not confirm or refute his allegations, he has faced apparent retaliation, including the suspension of his membership in the Lebanese Society of Rheumatology. 

In comments to Retraction Watch, the corresponding author for the study noted that the two investigations did not find data manipulation, and said the issue was “based on a background of personal and professional conflicts.” 

Continue reading Doctor faces apparent retaliation after alleging data manipulation in published trial

Exclusive: PLOS ONE to retract more than 100 papers for manipulated peer review

In March, an editor at PLOS ONE noticed something odd among a stack of agriculture manuscripts he was handling. One author had submitted at least 40 manuscripts over a 10-month period, much more than expected from any one person. 

The editor told the ethics team at the journal about the anomaly, and they started an investigation. Looking at the author lists and academic editors who managed peer review for the papers, the team found that some names kept popping up repeatedly. 

Within a month, the initial list of 50 papers under investigation expanded to more than 300 submissions received since 2020 – about 100 of them already published – with concerns about improper authorship and conflicts of interest that compromised peer review. 

Continue reading Exclusive: PLOS ONE to retract more than 100 papers for manipulated peer review

Crystallography database flags nearly 1000 structures linked to a paper mill

A chemistry database of crystal structures has marked nearly 1000 entries with expressions of concern after finding they were linked to articles identified as products of a paper mill. 

The Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC) added notes to 992 structures in its database, according to a notice posted to its website in May. And a crystallography researcher tells us the impact on the field could be significant.

The notes state: 

Continue reading Crystallography database flags nearly 1000 structures linked to a paper mill

Papers in Croce case with “blatantly obvious” problems still aren’t retracted after misconduct investigation: sleuth

Carlo Croce

This week, Nature reported on two institutional reports that found scientists in Carlo Croce’s cancer research lab at The Ohio State University had committed research misconduct including plagiarism and data falsification. 

Another institutional investigation directed at Croce did not find he committed research misconduct but did identify problems with how he managed his lab, according to Nature. 

It’s the latest chapter in a years-long saga of mounting numbers of corrections and retractions for Croce, a 2017 article in the New York Times that brought him to widespread attention, a scientist sleuth trying to clean up the literature, and lots and lots of lawyers, some of whom may have a claim  on Croce’s house after he didn’t pay his legal bills.

Continue reading Papers in Croce case with “blatantly obvious” problems still aren’t retracted after misconduct investigation: sleuth

Engineering researcher who cast blame on co-author will soon have 12 retractions

Jorge de Brito

A civil engineering researcher will soon have 12 retractions to his name after a data sleuth notified journals of issues with image reuse in the papers. 

Jorge de Brito, a professor at the University of Lisbon, has lost four papers in Construction and Building Materials, two in the Journal of Building Engineering, of which he had been editor-in-chief, and another in Engineering Structures since we reported in March on retractions for a pair of researchers in Iran with whom de Brito had coauthored papers. 

Editors of the Magazine of Concrete Research have decided to retract another paper, “Improved bending behaviour of steel-fibre-reinforced recycled aggregate concrete beams with a concrete jacket,” we learned from a staffer who copied Retraction Watch on an email to the data sleuth who raised concerns. The paper has been cited eight times, and this retraction would bring de Brito’s total to 12. 

Continue reading Engineering researcher who cast blame on co-author will soon have 12 retractions

Japanese university recommends five retractions after investigating botany researcher

Kyoto University is recommending retraction for five papers by a former botany researcher there after an institutional inquiry turned up evidence of fraud. 

The investigation of Lianwei Peng, who left the school in May 2011, found 11 images had been manipulated in the papers, according to a press release. The corresponding author on all five papers, Toshiharu Shikanai, may face disciplinary action, the university’s statement said. 

Shikanai’s faculty page at Kyoto University, shown here in an archived snapshot from November 2020, now bears a message that “the requested page cannot be found.”

Continue reading Japanese university recommends five retractions after investigating botany researcher