Category: korea retractions

What do retractions look like in Korean journals?

plos-one-better-sizeA new analysis of retractions from Korean journals reveals some interesting trends.

For one, the authors found most papers in Korean journals are retracted for duplication (57%), a higher rate than what’s been reported in other studies. The authors also deemed some retractions were “inappropriate” according to guidelines established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) — for instance, retracting the article another paper duplicated from, or pulling a paper when an erratum would have sufficed.

One sentence from “Characteristics of Retractions from Korean Medical Journals in the KoreaMed Database: A Bibliometric Analysis,” however, particularly struck us:  Continue reading What do retractions look like in Korean journals?

Criticism swirls around high-profile history book about North Korea

80140100484410mAn award-winning account of North Korea during the Cold War has fallen under criticism, claiming the author included material not supported by the list of references.

One historian has uploaded a series of what he calls “noteworthy problems” with Tyranny of the Weak, winner of the John K. Fairbank Prize in East Asian History in 2014. Balazs Szalontai of Korea University primarily accuses author Charles Armstrong of citing either irrelevant or non-existent sources to support his claims.

Armstrong, a professor at Columbia University, told us: Continue reading Criticism swirls around high-profile history book about North Korea

Korean journal bans author for three years for plagiarism

journal-of-the-korean-data-and-information-science-societyA  journal in Korea has banned a researcher from submitting papers for three years after an investigation found evidence of plagiarism.

The retraction notice for “Goodness-of-fit tests for a proportional odds model,” which appears in the Journal of the Korean Data and Information Science Society, cites an investigation by an academic ethics committee, but it’s unclear where this review panel was based. 

Since the original retraction notice is in Korean, we’ve got it translated by One Hour Translation. It reads: Continue reading Korean journal bans author for three years for plagiarism

You’ve been dupe’d: Results so nice, journals published them twice

With so many retraction notices pouring in, from time to time we compile a handful of straight-forward retractions.

Once again, this list focuses on duplications — but unlike other duplications, these authors were not at fault. Rather, these retractions occurred because the publishers mistakenly published the same paper twice — the result of a transfer between publishers, for instance, or accidentally publishing the unedited version of the paper. We’re forced to wonder, as we have before, whether saddling researchers’ CVs with a retraction is really the most fair way to handle these cases.

So without further ado, here’s five cases where the journal mistakenly duplicated a paper, and had to retract one version: Continue reading You’ve been dupe’d: Results so nice, journals published them twice

Crow’s feet filler study omitted pharma funding, gets retracted

JKMSA paper on a filler for eye wrinkles did not disclose that it was funded by a pharmaceutical company that produces the cosmetic.

The paper explicitly noted that the authors do not have any financial conflicts of interest, and that a government program supported the study. According to the journal, a reader alerted them to the conflict of interest.

The cooperate tie wasn’t a secret, though — one of the authors was listed as affiliated with the  company, Pharma Research Products, based in Korea.

Here’s the retraction notice for “A Phase III, Randomized, Double-Blind, Matched-Pairs, Active-Controlled Clinical Trial and Preclinical Animal Study to Compare the Durability, Efficacy and Safety between Polynucleotide Filler and Hyaluronic Acid Filler in the Correction of Crow’s Feet: A New Concept of Regenerative Filler:”

Continue reading Crow’s feet filler study omitted pharma funding, gets retracted

In Korean textbook scheme, some plagiarists found not guilty

court caseSEOUL — When does plagiarizing an entire textbook not violate copyright law?

In a South Korean court, apparently.

On Wednesday, a district judge found ten professors who plagiarized textbooks guilty of copyright infringement—but ruled that four professors who added their names to subsequent printings were not guilty.

This case, which began as an alleged plagiarism ring of obscure science and engineering textbooks, could now rewrite the nation’s existing copyright law and spark debate on the high social standing enjoyed by professors. Continue reading In Korean textbook scheme, some plagiarists found not guilty

Paper reports data from PET/CT scan, years before it arrived

MedicineAuthors have retracted a study just three months after publishing it, upon realizing they made “several critical errors.”

For one, the authors didn’t actually collect the data they claim to in the title of the paper, which reported on methods to screen patients for recurrence of lung cancer. The authors included data from positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT), collected from 2003 to 2007 — but their institution didn’t have a PET/CT scanner until 2009. Instead, the authors had mistakenly reported the results of PET scans alone, which may not find tumors as effectively as PET/CT.

Here’s the retraction notice in Medicine, which explains the nature of the error in more detail. (Note: One of the authors supplied some missing text, in brackets.)

Continue reading Paper reports data from PET/CT scan, years before it arrived

Author dispute retracts paper suggesting NSAIDs curb growth in rats

jpedorthoThe corresponding author asked the Journal of Pediatric Orthopaedics to retract an article that found popular pain medicines can curb growth in rats, in light of an unresolved authorship dispute.

The article, “Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs Cause Inhibition of the Growth Plate in Cultured Rat Metatarsal Bones,” details preliminary results that indicate nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) may reduce growth in rat bones in a dose-dependent manner, suggesting caution in treating chronic inflammatory diseases in children. The editor told us the paper was “highly rated” by reviewers and the results were “never in question,” but the senior author asked to pull the paper after failing to resolve a dispute with a researcher who asked to be added as an author.

According to the notice:  Continue reading Author dispute retracts paper suggesting NSAIDs curb growth in rats

Data irregularities force author to retract three solar cell papers

no spine minimum. full size. Editor: Jon JEM: Esther RTP: Bryan Nolte TOC image

An engineer has retracted three papers on a method for making nanoscale materials that are useful in solar cells.

The papers, all published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, contain irregularities in data, and one includes images “which have been published elsewhere and identified with different samples,” according to the note.

The first author on all three papers is Khalid Mahmood, who — according to the bio from a talk he gave last year on efficient solar cells — is currently a postdoc at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia. He did the work in the retracted papers while a student at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, where, according to the bio, he completed his PhD in two years.

Here’s the retraction note for the first paper (which also contains a typo in the title — “electrospay”)

Continue reading Data irregularities force author to retract three solar cell papers

Retractions follow misconduct by biologist, one more on the way

Screen Shot 2016-01-06 at 11.11.12 AM

Two journals have retracted papers by a biologist at the University of Tokyo who admitted to scientific misconduct, including data duplication and misrepresentation. Another journal is planning to retract one of the researcher’s papers later this month.

Hyun Kim studies a protein known as the “ski protein.” However, one analysis of the role of ski protein in development was retracted late last month by the Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences. The journal decided to investigate after Kim admitted to misconduct in two other papers published in a different journal.

Here’s the note for the paper:

Continue reading Retractions follow misconduct by biologist, one more on the way