Category: taiwan

Paper on plant immunity can’t fight off manipulation

10.cover

A paper on how plants respond to bacteria has an invader of its own — data manipulation.

The “irregularities and inappropriate data manipulation” were found in a figure produced by the first author, Ching-Wei Chen, whose LinkedIn page lists him as a student at the National Taiwan University. The authors were unable to replicate the results in the figure, according to the note.

The authors are doing more experiments to verify the main conclusion of the 2014 paper, “The Arabidopsis Malectin-Like Leucine-Rich Repeat Receptor-Like Kinase IOS1 Associates with the Pattern Recognition Receptors FLS2 and EFR and Is Critical for Priming of Pattern-Triggered Immunity,” published in The Plant Cell.

The retraction note explains the what happened in more detail:

Continue reading Paper on plant immunity can’t fight off manipulation

Renewable energy researcher recycled material, agrees to withdraw 10 papers

S13640321Investigations at two institutions at Taiwan determined in 2013 that a renewable energy researcher duplicated his own work; the researcher agreed to pull 10 papers. A total of six have been withdrawn or retracted, two in November, 2015.

Shyi-Min Lu is the corresponding author on the two newly retracted papers, from Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. The retractions follow investigations at the Industrial Technology Research Institute, where Lu used to work, and National Taiwan University, his former employer. Lu admitted to committing offenses in 10 papers. He was fired from NTU, where he was a research assistant at the university’s Energy Research Center.

First author Falin Chen — also a co-author on the paper duplicated by the retractions — was not aware that the papers bearing his name had been submitted. He told us how he found out:  Continue reading Renewable energy researcher recycled material, agrees to withdraw 10 papers

Paper on natural ways to fight cancer stem cells nixed for plagiarism

cover (1)Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents has retracted a 2015 review article about natural fighters of cancer stem cells for reproducing “content to a high degree of similarity without appropriate attribution or acknowledgement” from a handful of papers.

Although the editor and publisher pulled the paper, they did so with the cooperation of the authors, according to the retraction note: Continue reading Paper on natural ways to fight cancer stem cells nixed for plagiarism

“[A]nonymous accusation…is procedurally immoral and irresponsible,” says researcher fighting allegations

ssrnAn economist at Takming University of Science and Technology in Taiwan recently posted a preprint attempting to refute anonymous accusations that he repeated himself in critical reviews of textbooks.

From what we understand running the paper (originally in Chinese) through Google Translate, the reviews were published in Takming University’s in-house journal, Deming Journal. The editorial board received an anonymous letter on November 3 accusing Jen-Chang Liu of duplicating — aka self-plagiarizing — three of the reviews.

The editorial board provided Liu with the documents, and together with another Takming professor, Mark Yeats, he wrote a refutation of each of the accusations. It was published on December 20 on Social Science Research Network, a preprint repository for academic works.

Here’s the English abstract for “Academic Ethics: Plagiarism, Anonymous Accusation, and Self-Plagiarism”: Continue reading “[A]nonymous accusation…is procedurally immoral and irresponsible,” says researcher fighting allegations

Duplication earns retraction for nanomaterials paper that had already been corrected

Applied_Physics_Letters_cover_imageAfter earning an erratum shortly after publication in 2009, a paper in Applied Physics Letters has now been retracted for the “regrettable mistake” of duplicating an earlier paper by the researchers.

Here’s the notice for “Broadband and omnidirectional antireflection from conductive indium-tin-oxide nanocolumns prepared by glancing-angle deposition with nitrogen:” Continue reading Duplication earns retraction for nanomaterials paper that had already been corrected

Taiwan’s education minister resigns in wake of SAGE peer review scandal

jvcTaiwan’s education minister, Chiang Wei-ling, whose name appeared on several of 60 retracted articles by Peter Chen — apparently the architect of a peer review and citation syndicate we were first to report on last week — has resigned over the publishing scandal.

According to the University World News: Continue reading Taiwan’s education minister resigns in wake of SAGE peer review scandal

SAGE Publications busts “peer review and citation ring,” 60 papers retracted

This one deserves a “wjvcow.”

SAGE Publishers is retracting 60 articles from the Journal of Vibration and Control after an investigation revealed a “peer review and citation ring” involving a professor in Taiwan.

[Please see an update on this post.]

Here’s the beginning of a statement from SAGE: Continue reading SAGE Publications busts “peer review and citation ring,” 60 papers retracted

Lactobacillus intolerance: Bacterium mixup forces retraction

bjncoverThe British Journal of Nutrition has retracted a 2013 paper by a group of researchers from Taiwan after learning that the authors had studied the wrong strain of microbe.

The article was titled “Oral Lactobacillus reuteri GMN-32 treatment reduces blood glucose concentrations and promotes cardiac function in rats with streptozotocin-induced diabetes mellitus.”

According to the abstract: Continue reading Lactobacillus intolerance: Bacterium mixup forces retraction

Paper claiming a way to “print any drug instantly” gets unprinted

ddtA recent paper proposing a way to “print any drug instantly” has been withdrawn by the author, following bewildered reactions from the blogosphere.

The paper made the rounds at various chemistry-focused blogs last month. Derek Lowe of In The Pipeline picked up on it too, calling the article

one of the oddest papers to appear in Drug Discovery Today, which is saying something.

Apparently, the author — or someone claiming to be the author, using the initials YC — wasn’t crazy about the criticism. He left this comment on In The Pipeline and elsewhere: Continue reading Paper claiming a way to “print any drug instantly” gets unprinted

Heads up: “Borrowing” your student’s work will earn you a partial retraction — and a five-year publishing ban

jeailWe have a curious case for the “avoiding the p word” files from the Journal of East Asia & International Law.

The paper in question, “Border Enforcement of Plant Variety Rights: A Comparison between Japan and Taiwan,” was written by Shun-liang Hsu and appeared in the Spring 2012 issue of the journal. Here are the first two pages.

The notice is quite detailed. It begins with the allegations against Hsu: Continue reading Heads up: “Borrowing” your student’s work will earn you a partial retraction — and a five-year publishing ban