Category: japan retractions

Two professors and two former graduate students are banned from funding by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) following findings by Nagoya University of misconduct and lack of supervision.

As we reported last month, Nagoya found that Yuuta Yano, a graduate student in Kenichiro Itami’s lab, had forged large swaths of data and had thrown away lab notebooks to escape detection. Itami, along with Hideto Ito, had asked for an investigation into the team’s work after retracting papers in Nature and ACS Applied Nano Materials on which Yano was an author.

Continue reading Misconduct, failure to supervise earn researchers years-long funding bans

An institutional investigation of a group of nanotechnology researchers in Japan has concluded that a former graduate student in the lab began his cheating ways “on a daily basis from a very early stage” after joining the team in 2015.

According to a Google translation of the report, Yuuta Yano – whom the document identifies as “former graduate student A” and with other oblique references, committed sweeping fabrication of data and other misdeeds: 

over a period of four years or more, the number of forged data is extremely large, and even concealment work is performed, so it is evaluated that the maliciousness of the act is high. … The impact is great. In addition, it was published in a wide range of academic journals and has a large social impact. 

Yano also was found to have thrown away lab notebooks in order to hide his culpability. 

Continue reading Nanotech researchers cleared of fraud but failed to supervise cheating grad student: University

A tourism researcher in Japan has been suspended and demoted after university officials found that they had committed plagiarism in at least three papers in school publications. 

In an August 4 statement, Atomi Gakuen Women’s University said Masami Murakami, formerly an associate professor, had been suspended from July 15 to September 14, and would now hold the rank of “full-time lecturer” at the school. 

According to the statement, signed by university president Kiyoshi Kasahara, the punishment was “Based on the recognition of specific fraudulent activity (plagiarism) in the written paper.”

Continue reading Researcher in Japan suspended, demoted for plagiarism

Ten months after a misconduct investigation into the work of a researcher in Japan four of his papers found to have serious issues have yet to be retracted.

According to an August 2020 report from National University Corporation Osaka University and National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center Hospital about its investigation of  Takashi Nojiri:

Continue reading Most of problematic articles flagged in Japanese university’s investigation remain unflagged nearly a year later

The misconduct case of an endodontics researcher in Japan who already has lost at least 24 papers for data problems has claimed two more casualties: the PhD theses of a pair of scientists he once helped train.

As we reported last year,  Nobuaki Ozeki, who retired from Aichi Gakuin University in 2018, was found to have misused images, fabricated data and recycled text in 22 papers, 21 of which by our count have now been retracted. Ozeki’s total retraction count is 24, as three papers not identified in the investigation have also been retracted.

Now, we’ve learned that the university has revoked the doctoral degrees of two of Ozeki’s co-authors, Hideyuki Yamaguchi and Rie (Satoe) Kawai. Both researchers received their degrees in March 2016. 

Continue reading Pulp fiction: Japanese university revokes two dentistry PhDs in case involving two dozen retractions

A scientist in Japan has lost her doctoral degree from Kyoto University after an investigation determined that she had plagiarized in her thesis. 

According to the university, Jin Jing, who received her degree in September 2012 in human and environmental studies, has become the first person at the institution to have a doctorate revoked. In a statement about the move, Kyoto University president Nagahiro Minato said: 

Continue reading Two Japanese universities revoke PhDs, one for plagiarism and one because of cell line contamination

Nanotechnology researchers in Japan, who in November retracted a paper in Nature for lack of reproducibility, have retracted two more articles after what they said was a failure to replicate their findings.

As we reported previously, the authors, led by Kenichiro Itami of Nagoya University, called for an investigation into the problems with their work, the conclusions of which have yet to be made public. 

The new retractions involve articles published in ACS Applied Nano Materials.   

Here’s the notice for “Graphene Nanoribbon Dielectric Passivation Layers for Graphene Electronics,” a paper which appeared in July 2019 and has been cited 11 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science: 

Continue reading Nanotech group that retracted Nature study pulls two more papers

A materials scientist in Japan was found guilty of plagiarism and fabrication of data in a May 2019 paper, resulting in a six-month suspension, according to her institution. 

Ye Zhang, of the Bioinspired Soft Matter Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST), was the senior author of “Enzyme-mediated dual-targeted-assembly realizes a synergistic anticancer effect,” which appeared in Chemical Communications on May 9, 2019. The paper has been cited seven times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science. 

According to OIST’s report on the case, five days after publication of the paper, a post-doc at the university filed a complaint with the school’s hotline, alleging that the article contained fabrication and plagiarism.  

A month later, Zhang submitted a revised version of the paper to the journal, which issued the following correction: 

Continue reading Okinawa university suspends researcher for six months following findings of plagiarism and faked data

A group of authors at Nagoya University and Kyoto University have retracted a 2019 Nature paper because of errors.

Here’s the retraction notice:

Continue reading Authors retract Nature paper after realizing some data were “calculated wrongly”