Category: by country

Stapel retraction count rises to 38

stapel_npcDiederik Stapel’s 35th through 38th retractions have appeared, all in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Two of the notices — for “The self salience model of other-to-self effects: Integrating principles of self-enhancement, complementarity, and imitation” (cited 31 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge) and “Distinguishing stereotype threat from priming effects: On the role of the social self and threat-based concerns” (cited 20 times) — read as follows: Continue reading Stapel retraction count rises to 38

Retraction six appears for Jesús Angel Lemus

royal lettersJesús A. Lemus, he of the likely ghost author and questionable data, has earned his sixth retraction, this one in Biology Letters.

Here’s the notice for “Stress associated with group living in a long-lived bird:” Continue reading Retraction six appears for Jesús Angel Lemus

Lance Armstrong in the scientific literature: Questions abound

lanceinlab
Lance Armstrong in a UT lab

We’ve had plenty of big stories here at Retraction Watch this week, but even we must admit that the world’s biggest retractions — by press attention, anyway — have been in sports: Lance Armstrong (thanks, Oprah!) and Manti Te’o (thanks, Deadspin!).

We don’t have anything to add to the Te’o story, but a reader reminded us that there was a 2005 paper about Armstrong in the Journal of Applied Physiology that was vigorously questioned in the years following. Here’s the abstract of “Improved muscular efficiency displayed as Tour de France champion matures:” Continue reading Lance Armstrong in the scientific literature: Questions abound

Look ma, no guidelines! Paper on unpublished fetal surgery recommendations retracted

clinperinatcoverClinics in Perinatology has a rather intriguing retraction.

The paper in question was a June 2012 review by a group of researchers at the University of California, San Francisco’s division of pediatric surgery, titled “Maternal-Fetal Surgery:  History and General Considerations.”

According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Look ma, no guidelines! Paper on unpublished fetal surgery recommendations retracted

Duplication leads to retraction of 1997 paper on heart disease genes

crit rev clin lab sciA top cardiology researcher, Robert Hegele, of the Robarts Research Institute at the University of Western Ontario, has retracted a 15-year-old review after editors were made aware that it was “very similar” to another of his reviews.

Here’s the December 2012 notice for the paper, which has been cited 23 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge: Continue reading Duplication leads to retraction of 1997 paper on heart disease genes

Neuroscientists retract Cell autism model paper for “improperly assembled” figures

cell 1-17-13A group of authors have retracted a Cell paper describing a mouse model of autism because of image problems.

The senior author on the paper — there were 22 altogether — is Paul Worley of Johns Hopkins. Here’s the notice for “Enhanced Polyubiquitination of Shank3 and NMDA Receptor in a Mouse Model of Autism:” Continue reading Neuroscientists retract Cell autism model paper for “improperly assembled” figures

University of Lisbon investigation that spawned neuroscience retractions found no evidence of misconduct

j neuroscienceYesterday, we reported on two retractions in the Journal of Neuroscience whose notices referred to a University of Lisbon report that had determined there was  “substantial data misrepresentation” in the original articles.  The notice didn’t say anything about misconduct, but when we see “misrepresentation,” we tend to think — as do many others — that there had been funny business.

But we heard back this morning from the senior author of the study, Ana M. Sebastião, and there’s a lot more to this story. It turns out that the University of Lisbon committee that wrote the report concluded, unanimously, that Continue reading University of Lisbon investigation that spawned neuroscience retractions found no evidence of misconduct

Note to authors: Please don’t use the word “novel” when you plagiarize

compbiomedcoverRetraction Watch Rule 5.1, which governs ironic article titles (and does not actually exist), clearly states that researchers who plagiarize should avoid the use of words like “new” or “novel” when describing their research (or lack thereof). Failure to adhere to Rule 5.1 can lead to embarrassment — as in the case below.

A pair of electrical engineers from Islamic Azad University, in Isfahan, Iran, has lost their 2012 article in Computers in Biology and Medicine, titled “A novel real-time patient-specific seizure diagnosis algorithm based on analysis of EEG and ECG signals using spectral and spatial features and improved particle swarm optimization classifier,” because, well, it wasn’t. Turns out, the researchers lifted data from an Irish group who, several years earlier, had proposed their own “novel algorithm for neonatal seizure detection.”

As the admirably detailed retraction notice explains: Continue reading Note to authors: Please don’t use the word “novel” when you plagiarize

Chemical engineer apologizes for “deliberate lapse,” retracts two papers from Croatian journal

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering QuarterlyA professor of chemical engineering in India has retracted two papers after what he called a “deliberate lapse” of submitting the work without the knowledge of his co-author.

The two papers by Kailas L. Wasewar, then an associate professor in the Chemical Engineering department of Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology in Nagpur, India — he appears to be at the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee now — appeared in 2006 in consecutive issues of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Quarterly, the official journal of the Croatian Society of Chemical Engineers, Slovenian Chemical Society and Austrian Association of Bioprocess Technology.

The retraction notice appeared in the December issue, following a 27 November letter to the editor: Continue reading Chemical engineer apologizes for “deliberate lapse,” retracts two papers from Croatian journal

University of Lisbon finds “substantial data misrepresentation;” two Journal of Neuroscience papers retracted

j neuroscienceA University of Lisbon investigation has prompted two retractions in the Journal of Neuroscience.

The papers share a few authors, including senior author Ana M. Sebastião. Here’s the notice for the first paper: Continue reading University of Lisbon finds “substantial data misrepresentation;” two Journal of Neuroscience papers retracted