Category: computational & theoretical chemistry

Chemist: “corresponding author should answer” questions regarding retracted papers

We have an update to our coverage of the retractions involving papers from a group of researchers in Iran that were published in Computational and Theoretical Chemistry (formerly called the Journal of Molecular Structure: THEOCHEM)

Although we have not received a response from the first author of those studies, Siavash Riahi, one author, Mohammad Reza Ganjali, of the Center of Excellence in Electrochemistry at the University of Tehran, sent us a lengthy comment recently. We post his remarks in their entirety here, unedited: Continue reading Chemist: “corresponding author should answer” questions regarding retracted papers

Three more chemistry papers fall to “serious errors” of unknown nature

Back in March, we reported that the journal Computational and Theoretical Chemistry (CTC) had retracted a pair of 2006 papers by a group of Iranian researchers. As the notices stated, the scientists had recalled their articles after detecting “serious errors” with the work post-publication.

At the time, the authors still had three other articles in good standing with CTC. No longer.

CTC has retracted the remaining three papers by the group, for the same “serious errors.” The articles appeared between 2007 and 2009, and were titled: Continue reading Three more chemistry papers fall to “serious errors” of unknown nature

Sigh: “The purpose of keeping these retraction notices slim is not to produce too much detail”

Regular readers of this blog by now know that one of our goals is to make retractions as open and informative as possible. Which is why when they’re not, we get irritated that not everyone seems to agree.

Consider the editors of Computational and Theoretical Chemistry, which this month has retracted two papers from a group of researchers in Iran. The articles were titled “Determination of the electrode potentials for substituted 1,2-dihydroxybenzenes in aqueous solution: Theory and experiment” first published online in July 2006 and cited 25 times, according to the Thomson Scientific Web of Knowledge, and “Calculation of electrode potentials of 5-(1,3-dioxo-2-phenyl-indan-2-yl)-2,3-dihydroxy-benzoic acid, molecular structure and vibrational spectra: A combined experimental and computational study,” which appeared in December 2006. (Both articles were published in the journal’s previous incarnation as the Journal of  Molecular Structure: THEOCHEM.)

The reason given in each case  is the same — and tantalizingly cryptic: Continue reading Sigh: “The purpose of keeping these retraction notices slim is not to produce too much detail”