A journal apparently changed its mind about the uniqueness of a math paper, published last year.
We’ll get right to the brief retraction notice: Continue reading “Lack of scientific contributions and novelty” fells math paper
Category: saudi arabia
Research assistant fired for using student’s thesis in a paper
A research assistant at King Saud University (KSU) has lost his job after he used material from a student’s thesis without permission or attribution in a paper.
Lakshmana Krishnappa was terminated after a disciplinary committee considered his case last November, the vice dean for postgraduate training and research at KSU told Retraction Watch. In April of last year, Krishnappa retracted a paper published in January 2015 — we think that’s the date; the journal doesn’t make it all that clear — that included plagiarized material, published in Reviews in Medical Microbiology. He recently lost a second unrelated paper for duplication.
Here’s the retraction notice for the Reviews in Medical Microbiology paper, “Acinetobacter baumannii: pathogenecity, virulence factors and their correlation with adherence and invasion:”
Continue reading Research assistant fired for using student’s thesis in a paper
Paper calls water “a gift from God”
A paper about using solar energy to make water potable has been flagged for citing God.
The shout-out isn’t subtle; in fact, it’s the first sentence of the Introduction in “Solar still with condenser – A detailed review:”
Water is a gift from God and it plays a key role in the development of an economy and in turn for the welfare of a nation.
The paper itself contains a few similarities to a 2010 paper on the same topic, “Active solar distillation—A detailed review,” which also appeared in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. But that paper phrases the first sentence of the introduction slightly differently: Continue reading Paper calls water “a gift from God”
Environmental journal pulls two papers for “compromised” peer review
Environmental Geochemistry and Health has retracted two papers after an investigation suggested that the peer-review process had been compromised.
In case you’re counting, we’ve now logged approximately 300 retractions stemming from likely faked or rigged peer review.
The retraction note — which is the same for both papers — explains a bit more about the situation: Continue reading Environmental journal pulls two papers for “compromised” peer review
Data irregularities force author to retract three solar cell papers
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
Wiley published a biology paper in the wrong journal
Wiley Periodicals is withdrawing a biochemistry paper after mistakenly publishing it in the wrong journal.
The mistake took a few months to sort out. Wiley initially published “Protein Kinase C Is Involved in the Induction of ATP-Binding Cassette Transporter A1 Expression by Liver X Receptor/Retinoid X Receptor Agonist in Human Macrophages” online in Journal of Cellular Physiology in May of last year. The article was posted in the correct journal — Journal of Cellular Biochemistry — in July.
At the very end of 2015, the publisher officially withdrew the version it posted in the Journal of Cellular Physiology.
Here’s the withdrawal note (which is paywalled — tsk, tsk):
Continue reading Wiley published a biology paper in the wrong journal
Mol bio paper pulled by PLOS following investigation into figures
PLOS Biology has retracted a paper about the molecular details of β-catenin expression following an investigation by the first author’s institution in Italy.
The investigation, by the Istituto Nazionale per la Ricerca sul Cancro, found that there were multiple “figure anomalies.” According to the note:
An explanation of inadvertent error was given for some of the issues identified, while for two issues, a satisfactory explanation could not be provided.
First author Roberto Gherzi says none of his co-authors helped prepare the figures. The authors maintain that the conclusions are unaffected, but that assurance wasn’t enough for the journal. Here’s more from the lengthy retraction note, which provides some backstory on the “serious concerns” regarding the data:
Continue reading Mol bio paper pulled by PLOS following investigation into figures
Skin study retracted twice in triple publication rub
The Indian Journal of Dermatology has retracted a paper on the potential genetic markers of psoriasis that had already been retracted once for redundant publication.
The journal is chalking it up to an “administrative error” that caused it to publish a paper that had already appeared in two other outlets.
According to one of the authors, the “most junior” author published the paper in 2008 in the The Egyptian Journal of Hospital Medicine “without informing other authors.”
When first author Ahmad Settin and the other authors sent it to the IJD in 2009, they were told its small sample size made it a letter to the editor; they decided to “decline submission” and send it to to Acta Dermatovenerologica Alpina, Pannonica et Adriatica, where it was published later that year. When Acta discovered the first version, it retracted the paper in 2013.
Meanwhile, editors at the IJD ended up posting the article, “Association of cytokine gene polymorphisms with psoriasis in cases from the Nile Delta of Egypt,” in 2011 without telling the authors. So they, too, now have to retract it:
Continue reading Skin study retracted twice in triple publication rub
“The first author assumes all responsibility:” Malaria vaccine article retracted for image manipulation
Authors of a 2012 article in Infection and Immunity investigating a malaria vaccine strategy are retracting it because it “contains several images that do not accurately reflect the experimental data.”
The paper, “Fine Specificity of Plasmodium vivax Duffy Binding Protein Binding Engagement of the Duffy Antigen on Human Erythrocytes,” has been cited 9 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
The retraction notice places the blame for the image shenanigans squarely on the first author, Asim Siddiqui, who is currently listed on LinkedIn as a faculty member at the College of Applied Medicine at King Saud University in Saudi Arabia.
Here’s the notice: Continue reading “The first author assumes all responsibility:” Malaria vaccine article retracted for image manipulation
Asking for a retraction was “an overbearing response, though I agree that the student screwed up big time”
Just two months after a PhD student at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Saudi Arabia published a paper in August without the knowledge of his co-author, a professor at the university, the paper was retracted by Cellulose.
Here’s the notice for “Corrosion protection of steel sheets by chitosan from shrimp shells at acid pH,” by graduate student Ubong M. Eduok and professor Mazen M. Khaled (well, not really by Khaled): Continue reading Asking for a retraction was “an overbearing response, though I agree that the student screwed up big time”