Category: by country

A retraction involving Sarah Palin

prqFormer U.S. vice presidential candidate and Alaska governor Sarah Palin is no stranger to retractions, or perhaps “walk backs,” as politicians usually call them. There was her apology for comments about Pope Francis, a clarification about comments thought to be directed at Rush Limbaugh, and a walk back on her behalf from her running mate, Sen. John McCain.

Now, a paper in the academic literature that refers to her has been retracted. Here’s the notice from Political Research Quarterly: Continue reading A retraction involving Sarah Palin

Data “irregularities” prompt retraction of palliative care papers

bmjspcA group of researchers in Singapore has lost two 2013 articles in BMJ Supportive & Palliative Care for problems with their data.

One of the articles was titled “Patients with Dysphagia: Encounters in Taking Medication;” the other, “Issues Associated with Delirium Severity Among Older Patients.” In both cases, the first and second authors were Rajaram S and Chua HC, of Khoo Teck Puat Hospital.

According to the retraction notices:

Continue reading Data “irregularities” prompt retraction of palliative care papers

The “sins and virtues of authors span a rather colorful palette”: New editor yanks plagiarized paper

scientometricsWhat a difference a new editor can make.

Consider the case of a paper in Scientometrics that came to the attention earlier this year of Jeffrey Beall.

Beall, a research librarian and scourge of the predatory publishing world, had previously posted on his blog about his frustrations with the journal’s seeming indifference to the word theft. (He also helped bring about another plagiarism retraction we covered earlier this year.)

The article was titled “Educational reforms and internationalization of universities: evidence from major regions of the world,” and was written by a group from China and Pakistan.It has been cited just once, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge, by another paper in Scientometrics.

Continue reading The “sins and virtues of authors span a rather colorful palette”: New editor yanks plagiarized paper

Unusual: Journal withdraws Expression of Concern about child development paper

child devIn December, the journal Child Development posted an Expression of Concern about a study because of “possible inaccuracies in its data.” A few months later, however, that changed. Here’s what now appears where the Expression of Concern did: Continue reading Unusual: Journal withdraws Expression of Concern about child development paper

“I never manipulated data”: Förster defends actions in open letter

forster-j-a
Jens Förster

Jens Förster, the Dutch social psychologist accused of misconduct, has posted an open letter on his lab’s website in which he denies wrongdoing.

The letter, in English and dated May 11, offers a detailed rebuttal to the investigation’s conclusions. It also offers a rationale for Förster’s decision not to post his data on the Internet. And it’s followed by a briefer letter from Nira Liberman, who identifies herself as a collaborator of Förster’s.

We present the letter in full below:

Continue reading “I never manipulated data”: Förster defends actions in open letter

Shigeaki Kato up to 25 retractions

Shigeaki Kato
Shigeaki Kato

Shigeaki Kato, who resigned from the University of Tokyo in 2012 after being found to have inappropriately manipulated dozens of images, has two more retractions, both in Molecular Cell.

Here’s the notice for 2002’s “Nuclear Receptor Function Requires a TFTC-Type Histone Acetyl Transferase Complex:” Continue reading Shigeaki Kato up to 25 retractions

More retractions for researcher who says he will no longer publish

diabetescoverWe’ve been alerted to two more retractions of articles by University of Calgary researcher Cory Toth, both in the journal Diabetes, for image doctoring.

One paper, from 2008, was titled “Receptor for Advanced Glycation End Products (RAGEs) and Experimental Diabetic Neuropathy.” It has been cited 93 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. The notice states: Continue reading More retractions for researcher who says he will no longer publish

Retraction appears for former federal contractor who faked data

cebpIn December, we reported on the case of Timothy Sheehy, a former government contractor who was found to have faked results. ORI found that Sheehy

fabricated the quantitative and qualitative data for RNA and DNA purportedly extracted from 900 formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded (FFPE) colorectal tissue samples presented in Table 1 of the CEBP paper and falsely reported successful methodology to simultaneously recover nucleic acids from FFPE tissue specimens, when neither the extractions nor analyses of the FFPE samples were done. Thus, the main conclusions of the CEBP paper are based on fabricated data and are false.

Sheehy agreed to ask that one of his papers be retracted. The retraction notice has appeared: Continue reading Retraction appears for former federal contractor who faked data

Förster report cites “unavoidable” conclusion of data manipulation

forster-j-a
Jens Förster

Last week we wrote about the 2012 complaint that triggered the investigation into Jens Förster, the social psychologist at the University of Amsterdam whose work has come under scrutiny for possible fraud.

Now we have the findings of the official investigation by Landelijk Orgaan Wetenschappelijke Integriteit (the Dutch National Board for Scientific Integrity, often referred to as LOWI) — which clearly indicates that the institution believes Förster made up results.

Here are some of the highlights from the document, which we’ve had translated by a Dutch speaker:

Continue reading Förster report cites “unavoidable” conclusion of data manipulation

Near “word-to-word” similarities topple microflora paper

matfetneonatThe Journal of Maternal-Fetal & Neonatal Medicine has retracted a 2012 paper by a group of pediatric gut researchers in Naples, Italy, who seemed to have had a visceral reaction to using their own words.

The paper, “Composition and roles of intestinal microbiota in children,” sought to

provide an update of the advantages of new-generation molecular diagnostics to study the diversity of intestinal microflora and to evaluate its alteration in human diseases.

The paper has been cited five times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. Here’s the retraction notice: Continue reading Near “word-to-word” similarities topple microflora paper