As we’ve pointed out before, economics and business journals have few retractions compared with the other academic literature. Opinions vary on why this is, but the fact that only a few journals have plagiarism policies can’t help.
Research Papers in Economics, or RePEc, an organization that maintains a database of economics papers, however, thoroughly investigates accusations of misconduct. A RePEc report, which indicated that the plagiarists were polite enough to cite the original paper, was used in the notice as evidence for a retraction in Economic Modelling.
The University of Calgary researcher who told us earlier this year that he “will not be publishing in the world of science in the future” has retracted two papers from Neuroscience.
Try to follow along on this one. We think it’s worth it.
The authors of a letter replying to a comment in a urology journal have retracted their response because it contained inappropriate figures. At least, that’s the official story.
A researcher at Tufts University has retracted a paper in Cell, a year after retracting a study on a similar subject from the Journal of Biological Chemistry.
Although most of what Alanis Morissette sang about in her hit song “Ironic” wasn’t irony at all, had she included a line or two about Angela Adrian she would have nailed it.
Adrian is an expert in intellectual property law, a former editor of the International Journal of Intellectual Property Management, a legal scholar whose resume boasts more degrees than a protractor. According to this bio:
Dr Angela Adrian is a dual qualified lawyer in Louisiana and the UK. Her specialisms include Intellectual Property, Information Technology, International Trade, and Criminal Law. She has two Masters degrees with distinction in Business & Management (Schiller International University) as well as in Commercial Law (University of Aberdeen). She obtained her Juris Doctorate at Loyola University, New Orleans. Dr Adrian published her PhD from Queen Mary, University of London as a monograph entitled “Law and Order in Virtual Worlds: Exploring Avatars, their Ownership and Rights”. Currently, she is Chief Knowledge Officer of Icondia Ltd, an images rights company, co-author of the 4th edition of “Intellectual Property: Text and Essential Cases” (Australia), and Editor of the International Journal of Intellectual Property Management.
The paper, titled “Hydrogen production by an anaerobic photocatalytic reforming using palladium nanoparticle on boron and nitrogen doped TiO2 catalysts,” was written by researchers from the Veltech Dr RR & Dr SR Technical University, in Chennai, India, and Arizona State University.
A paper in Immnunity has been retracted after two separate panels determined some of the figures “inappropriately presented” the data but cleared the team of wrongdoing.
However, the original data are now unavailable, according to the notice, so there’s no way to know if the paper’s conclusions are sound.