A complicated case involving two microbiology researchers at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) appears to have come to some conclusion.
In November of last year, we reported that Continue reading “Not exoneration”: University reverses sanctions on husband-wife team found to have manipulated images
Here’s a retraction from Stem Cells and Development that we’re just now getting around to covering. The paper, “Non-viral reprogramming of skeletal myoblasts with valproic acid for pluripotency,” appeared in June 2012 in a preliminary online form and was written by a group at the University of Cincinnati. As the retraction notice states: Continue reading Retraction for stem cell scientist facing misconduct inquiry
A group of researchers in South Africa has lost their 2012 article in BMC Research Notes after one of the author’s institutions evidently pulled rank and sought to claim the data as its own.
The article, “Association of body weight and physical activity with blood pressure in a rural population in the Dikgale village of Limpopo Province in South Africa,” appeared last February. Its first author was Seth Mkhonto, who listed two affiliations, the Human Sciences Research Council, in Pretoria, and the University of the Limpopo.
But the latter institution seems not to have given Mkhonto approval to publish the data — a rather strange state of affairs given the whole “publish or perish” ethos of academia.
According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Dispute over data rights forces retraction of obesity paper
It really isn’t fair to pick on Pattern Recognition Letters, but, well, if the shoe fits…
We had fun at the expense of the journal the last time we found that a duplicate publication had escaped the editors. This time, plagiarism is to blame.
A group of authors from the Institute of Automation at the Chinese Academy of Sciences published, then promptly lost, their September 2013 article in PRL titled “Model-based 3D tracking of an articulated hand from single depth images.”
The abstract: Continue reading Sensing a pattern? Pattern Recognition Letters misses rampant plagiarism in modeling paper
Ariel Fernández, the protein researcher whose theories of drug design lately have come in for questioning, has lost a paper, at least for the moment.
The article, “Supramolecular Evolution of Protein Organization,” appeared online in Annual Reviews of Genetics prior to print. It lists Fernández’s affiliation as ProWD Sciences, in Madison, Wisc. Not much exists on the web about that company, however, except an under-construction site. (ProWD, by the way, is short for PROtein-Water-Dehydron, Fernández’s area of interest.)
Here’s the notice: Continue reading Fernández genetics paper in limbo over data concerns
Analytical Letters has retracted a 2011 article by a chemistry researcher at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, who seems to have avoided giving credit where credit was due.
The article, “Conducting Polymer Matrix Poly(2,2′-bithiophene) Mercury Metal Incorporation,” was written (so readers were told) by Suzanne Lunsford.
Here’s how the retraction notice explains it: Continue reading Analyze this! Analytical Letters retracts chemistry paper for authorship misdirection
Irony alert: If you’re going to publish in the Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, you’d better be able to play well with others.
Not so, it seems, with a certain Darrel Montero. Montero, an associate professor in the School of Social Work at Arizona State University, and his colleagues have lost their 2012 paper in the journal for what appears to be a case of data theft.
As the retraction notice explains:
Continue reading Social work researchers lose paper for misuse of data
The Journal of Pediatric Nursing has retracted a 2013 article (meeting abstract, really) on growth hormone after the drug company that employed the authors cried “take it back.”
The research appears to have been presented at a meeting of the Pediatric Endocrinology Nursing Society, and looked at inefficiency in the use of devices for administering growth hormone. All but one of the authors is listed as working for Novo Nordisk, an international pharmaceutical firm.
Here’s the notice: Continue reading Nursing journal pulls Novo Nordisk growth hormone paper over data provenance
Sometimes, authors and journals editors seem to think a bit of mystery is a good thing. Take a recent retraction in Brain.
Here’s the notice for “Selective impairment of hand mental rotation in patients with focal hand dystonia:” Continue reading “Ambiguities in the presentation of some of the data” lead to an ambiguous retraction notice
Physica B: Condensed Matter has retracted a 2013 paper by a group from Morocco and France for, well, inappropriate condensation of printed matter.
The article, “Granular and intergranular conduction in La1.32Sr1.68Mn2O7 layered manganite system,” came mostly from a team of physicists at University Ibn Zohr, and appeared in June.
According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Plagiarism leads to retraction of conduction paper