Category: by country

Duplicate analysis of Eastern Europe’s GDP retracted from two journals, one in US, one in Croatia

Proceedings of Rijeka Faculty of Economics: Journal of Economics and BusinessTwo papers by researchers from China and Taiwan have been retracted from two journals, one based in the US, one in Croatia, after identical studies appeared in the June 2011 issues of both publications.

Eastern European Economics retracted their version first, and that journal’s editor discussed the case with the editors of Proceedings of Rijeka Faculty of Economics: Journal of Economics and Business, where the same paper was also published.

Eastern European Economics‘ retraction reads: Continue reading Duplicate analysis of Eastern Europe’s GDP retracted from two journals, one in US, one in Croatia

First retraction for Eric Smart, who faked dozens of images, appears in PNAS

Eric J. Smart, via U Kentucky
Eric J. Smart, via U Kentucky

Eric Smart, who as we reported in November was sanctioned by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) for faking dozens of images in ten papers and seven grants over the past decade, has had his first retraction.

Here’s the December 24 notice, from PNAS: Continue reading First retraction for Eric Smart, who faked dozens of images, appears in PNAS

Authors retract Diabetes paper after submitting it “without knowledge of inherent errors”

diabetesA group of neuroscientists has retracted a paper published earlier this last year in Diabetes after realizing that a figure that took up a whole page of the paper may not have been quite right.

Here’s the notice for “Blockade of receptor for advanced glycation end products in a model of type 1 diabetic leukoencephalopathy”: Continue reading Authors retract Diabetes paper after submitting it “without knowledge of inherent errors”

Catching up: OSU “missed fraud,” Dipak Das lost tenured professorship, Ivan on NPR’s Science Friday

Terry Elton, via OSU
Terry Elton, via OSU

We have a few follow-ups from stories we’ve recently covered:

Terry Elton case initially chalked up to “disorganization,” not misconduct

Ohio State University (OSU), which along with the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) recently sanctioned a pharmacy professor for image manipulation, “failed at first to recognize his deception,” according to an investigation by The Columbus Dispatch based on university documents.

The piece, which quotes Ivan, reveals that OSU needed some prompting from the ORI before it concluded that Terry Elton was guilty of misconduct, and not just unintentional errors that he at one point blamed on a research technician who lost her job in October 2011: Continue reading Catching up: OSU “missed fraud,” Dipak Das lost tenured professorship, Ivan on NPR’s Science Friday

Irony? Paper by author whose attorneys sent cease-and-desist letter to Science Fraud retracted

j lipid researchA Brazilian author whose attorneys were the first to send the now-shuttered Science Fraud site a cease-and-desist letter has now had a paper retracted.

As Retraction Watch readers may know, Science Fraud shut down earlier this week in response to legal threats. Those threats were preceded by a cease-and-desist letter last month from attorneys for Rui Curi, of the University of Sao Paulo.

Curi’s work had been scrutinized by Science Fraud in a number of posts, with allegations of duplicated bands and re-used Western blots. With a gnawing suspicion that some of our more erudite readers will take issue with our use of “irony” here, Continue reading Irony? Paper by author whose attorneys sent cease-and-desist letter to Science Fraud retracted

Paper on “evidence for environmental racism” in EPA polluter fines retracted for coding error

nat resources coverA coding switcharoo caused a paper Society & Natural Resources to be retracted. But the authors say that not all is lost, since correcting the data gave them a better understanding of how the the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency fines companies that pollute in poor and minority neighborhoods.

The retraction notice reads: Continue reading Paper on “evidence for environmental racism” in EPA polluter fines retracted for coding error

Publisher error leads to retraction, then reinstatement, in agriculture journal

icpcoverHere’s an odd good news/bad news tale from the pages of Industrial Crops and Products. The journal is reinstating a 2011 paper it mistakenly retracted. But, it’s retracting another article from the same author, who tried to grow two peas in the same pod (or something like that).

According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Publisher error leads to retraction, then reinstatement, in agriculture journal

Seeing double in Pattern Recognition Letters leads to retraction

patterrecletcoverYou’d think this sort of thing would be, well, obvious to the editors of a journal called Pattern Recognition Letters — could a fox get away with publishing in Henhouse News? — but a group of Lithuanian researchers managed to get a duplicate article into the pages of PRL.

The paper, titled “Application of Bayes linear discriminant functions in image classification,” appeared in the February 2011 issue of PRL. But a very similar version already had been published in a special meeting issue of another journal, Procedia Environmental Sciences. Both are Elsevier titles.

According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Seeing double in Pattern Recognition Letters leads to retraction

Former Harvard dental school researcher committed misconduct: ORI

Martin Biosse-Duplan
Martin Biosse-Duplan

Last week was a busy one at the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI), at least judging by how many cases they posted. There were sanctions against researchers at Ohio State, Texas Tech, and the Gladstone Institutes, as we reported. And it turns out there was another case closed, of a former Harvard dental school research fellow, The Scientist reports.

According to the ORI, Martin Biosse-Duplan “engaged in research misconduct in research supported by National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), National Institutes of Health (NIH), grant R01 AR054450.”

The misconduct involved a lab presentation and two published abstracts: Continue reading Former Harvard dental school researcher committed misconduct: ORI

Retraction three for Milena Penkowa, for diabetes-exercise study

diabetesMilena Penkowa, the former University of Copenhagen scientist found by her university to have embezzled grant funds and to have possibly committed misconduct in 15 papers, has another retraction.

An international panel released its findings in July, as Nature reported then: Continue reading Retraction three for Milena Penkowa, for diabetes-exercise study