A fish scientist in Iran has now lost 13 papers about the properties of Sturgeon sperm — try saying that five times fast — and other ichthyological topics over concerns about faked peer review.
The three most recent retractions come from the Journal of Animal Physiology and Animal Nutrition. According to the notice:
Continue reading Sturgeon researcher nets 13 retractions for fake peer review
In late December, Ana Khajehnezhad learned what no scientist wants to hear: One of her papers had been retracted. The reason: Her co-author had faked the reviews.
Khajehnezhad, who works at the Plasma Physics Research Center at Islamic Azad University in Tehran, Iran, told Retraction Watch she was “devastated” to hear the news:
I was so shocked. … I had absolutely no knowledge whatsoever on the actions taken by the corresponding author.
As we reported last month, Elsevier is retracting 26 papers affected by fake reviews; Ahmad Salar Elahi is corresponding author on 24 of them, including Khajehnezhad’s now-retracted paper published in International Journal of Hydrogen Energy. Many of Ehali’s co-authors are now facing the consequences of these retractions. Three of them shared their story. Continue reading “Devastated” researchers worry co-author’s use of fake reviews could hurt their careers
In March 2017, Christopher Blanford received an email from an editor at the Journal of Crystal Growth. Blanford had been named as a suggested reviewer for a manuscript, and the editor, Arnab Bhattacharya, wanted to verify that the Gmail account the authors provided was legitimate.
It was not.
Blanford—a senior lecturer in biomaterials at the University of Manchester, UK—thought it was an “amusing coincidence” that he was chosen as a fake reviewer, given that he has written about malpractice in academic publishing. He confirmed the Gmail account was not his, and the other two suggested reviewers told Bhattacharya, a professor at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai, India, the same thing.
Elsevier has retracted 13 papers—and says it will retract 13 more—after discovering they were accepted because of fake reviews.
A spokesperson for Elsevier told us that the journals are in the process of retracting all 26 papers affected by the “peer-review manipulation” and “unexplained authorship irregularities.” Most share one corresponding author, a physical science researcher based in Iran. Continue reading Elsevier retracting 26 papers accepted because of fake reviews
When Retraction Watch began in 2010, our co-founders Ivan Oransky and Adam Marcus quickly realized they couldn’t keep up with the hundreds of retractions that appeared each year. And the problem has only gotten worse — although we’ve added staff, the number of retractions issued each year has increased dramatically. According to our growing database, more than 1,300 retractions were issued last year (and that doesn’t include expressions of concern and errata). So to get new notices in front of readers more quickly, we’ve started a new feature called “Caught our Notice,” where we highlight a recent notice that stood out from the others. If you have any information about what happened, feel free to contact us at [email protected].
What caught our attention: Continue reading Caught Our Notice: Is “miscommunication of the rejection” the new euphemism for “paper accepted”?
A journal devoted to wrestling science — we’re not sure if it’s the only one — has given the old reverse frankensteiner to a 2016 article whose authors stole much of their text from a conference presentation one of them had reviewed for the meeting.
The article, “The Role of Goal Setting, Collectivism, and Task Orientation on Iranian Wrestling Teams Performance,” appeared in International Journal of Wrestling Science, a Taylor & Francis title. Its two authors were Hossein Abdolmaleki and Seyyed Bahador Zakizadeh, of the Islamic Azad University in Karaj, Iran.
Here’s the notice: Continue reading Rowdy Roddy Pilferer: Wrestling journal takes down plagiarized paper
Does failing to disclose that you were once a leader in the “Axis of Evil” deserve retraction?
An engineering journal has pulled a 2017 paper whose authors included Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, former president of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Ahmadinejad, the notorious anti-Semitic and anti-West president of Iran from 2005 to 2013, was a civil engineer before entering politics — and remained active in the field while serving in government. But his failure to note his old day job appears to have cost him a paper in the electronic edition of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Journal. Continue reading Engineering journal removes article co-authored by former president of Iran
A journal has retracted a 2012 paper after determining that the authors had already published it elsewhere.
According to the retraction notice, the editors-in-chief of the Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology concluded that the article had been published in another journal—In Vitro Cellular & Developmental Biology – Animal—the previous month. The authors, however, did not agree to the retraction.
The research, led by Ali Khavanin, who is based at Tarbiat Modares University in Tehran, Iran and is corresponding author on both papers, evaluated whether the vibrations from industrial machinery can harm hearing in rabbits (1, 2).
Here’s the retraction notice for “Assessment of the influence of whole body vibration on Cochlear function”: Continue reading Journal retracts paper it says authors published twice. Authors disagree.
A journal has retracted a paper after the university notified the editors that the authors presented the gruesome details of a patient who they didn’t directly treat.
But the paper’s corresponding author disputes that claim, arguing that the first author — a radiologist, who has since passed away, provided a crucial diagnosis in this case. We’ve tried to track down the doctors who lodged a complaint about the paper, alleging they were “actually involved in the original patient treatment,” but have so far been unsuccessful.
The paper describes an unfortunate accident during which a man fell from his tractor and stabbed himself in the eye on part of the machine. Initially, doctors could not locate the eye and “believed it to have been completely destroyed,” and discharged the patient after seven days. One week later he was back, complaining of headaches — and doctors found the eye embedded deep inside the skull, intact.
According to the retraction notice, issued by the Journal of Neuro-Ophthalmology, an investigation by a university in Iran determined the doctors who initially described the case didn’t have the right to do so: Continue reading When a tractor stabs a man in the eye, who gets to write up the case report?
A material science journal has retracted a paper after learning the authors took most of the content from a master’s thesis – and added the author as a co-author without his knowledge.
The authors must have really liked this thesis – they lost another paper in 2015 for copying from the same document.
Both retracted articles were co-authored by three researchers in the Department of Civil Engineering at Shahid Rajaee Teacher Training University in Tehran, Iran. The first author, Saeed Ghaffarpour Jahromi, serves as the University’s Dean of Faculty in the School of Civil Engineering.
Simon Hesp, a professor in the Department of Chemistry at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, told Retraction Watch that he had notified both journals about the plagiarism when he recognized the thesis of Benjamin James Smith, who was a master’s student in his lab from 1998 to 2000. Hesp told us: Continue reading Lesson not learned: Researchers copied a master’s thesis — twice