Category: elsevier

And the award for the most self-referential abstract ever goes to…

dev cogn neuroscienceHere at Retraction Watch, we like to dig for what lies behind sometimes opaque retraction notices. But today, thanks to Neil Martin, we have a glimpse into something a bit different: The back-and-forth between an author and his editor.

In Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, Peter Reiner, of the University of British Columbia, wrote a comment on “Can transcranial electrical stimulation improve learning difficulties in atypical brain development? A future possibility for cognitive training,” by Beatrix Krause and Roi Cohen Kadosh.(Recent related work by Cohen Kadosh’s group has earned some media attention.

The comment is pretty straightforward, except for what’s listed as the abstract: Continue reading And the award for the most self-referential abstract ever goes to…

Duplicate submission costs authors two papers on Parkinson’s disease

neuropeptidecoverA group of pharmacology researchers in the UK has lost two papers after submitting effectively identical versions to different journals — and getting them accepted, of course — just a day apart.

The first article appeared on the British Journal of Pharmacology‘s website on July 10, 2012. It was titled “Exendin-4 reverts behavioural and neurochemicaldysfunction in a pre-motor rodent model of Parkinson’s disease with noradrenergic deficit.”

Paper 2 appeared in the journal Neuropeptides in October, although it has an online pub date of August 24, and was titled “Exendin-4 reverses biochemical and behavioral deficits in a pre-motor rodent model of Parkinson’s disease with combined noradrenergic and serotonergic lesions.”

Continue reading Duplicate submission costs authors two papers on Parkinson’s disease

Author break prompts retraction of bone protein paper

ejpcoverThe European Journal of Pharmacology has — against its will, it would seem — retracted a 2012 paper by a group of Chinese heart researchers embroiled in a what appears to be a rather messy authorship dispute.

The article, “The effect of alendronate on the expression of osteopontin and osteoprotegerin in calcified aortic tissue of the rat,”  came from the Institute of Cardiovascular Disease at Tongji Hospital, part of of Huazhong University of Science and Technology.

As the retraction notice states:

Continue reading Author break prompts retraction of bone protein paper

Cell reviewing allegations of image reuse in human embryonic stem cell cloning paper

cell cloningCell is looking into whether the authors of a widely hailed study published last week claiming to have turned human skin cells into embryonic stem cells manipulated images inappropriately, Retraction Watch has learned.

The potential image problems came to light on PubPeer, a site designed to allow for post-publication peer review. A commenter, identified as Peer1, identified “several examples of image reuse which might be of interest to PubPeer members and readers:” Continue reading Cell reviewing allegations of image reuse in human embryonic stem cell cloning paper

Not your data: Nursing paper retracted for misuse of findings

nurse education todayWe’re all for research on improving communication and collaboration among colleagues. But we trust that the experts know what they’re doing. You can see where this is going.

The journal Nurse Education Today has retracted a 2012 article, “Interprofessional learning in acute care: Developing a theoretical framework,” by a UK scholar because, how shall we put it, he might need a few lessons in interprofessionalism.

The retraction notice explains it neatly: Continue reading Not your data: Nursing paper retracted for misuse of findings

Nanotech researcher SK Sahoo notches fifth retraction

acta biomaterialiaNanotech researcher SK Sahoo, whom as we reported in February lost four papers from Acta Biomaterialia for what the journal called “highly unethical practices,” has actually retracted five papers from that journal.

According to a notice for “Enhanced cellular uptake and in vivo pharmacokinetics of rapamycin loaded cubic phase nanoparticles for cancer therapy” that appears in the June issue along with the other four: Continue reading Nanotech researcher SK Sahoo notches fifth retraction

Editor inadvertently spurns reviewers; retraction ensues

jvmacoverThe Journal of Multivariate Analysis has retracted a paper it was never meant to publish — a problem, it seems, of multivariate analyses.

The article, titled “Regression estimation with locally stationary long-memory errors,” came from a pair of statisticians in Chile, Wildredo Palma and Guillermo Ferreira.

It appears that the article did not pass muster with the reviewers, but that the editor somehow missed the message. As the retraction notice explains: Continue reading Editor inadvertently spurns reviewers; retraction ensues

Double-dipping leads to removal of petroleum research paper

pst journalcoverIranian scientists have lost one of two articles they submitted — and published — simultaneously to different journals. Watch as confusion ensues.

The retracted paper, “Permeability Estimation of a Reservoir Based on Neural Networks Coupled with Genetic Algorithms,” appeared online in August 2011  in Petroleum Science and Technology, a Taylor & Francis journal. According to the liner notes, the paper had been received on January 15, 2010 and accepted a few weeks later. It has been cited once since, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge, by its authors, in a paper published in the same journal.

Meanwhile, in August 2011 the authors (minus one name) also published “Evolving neural network using real coded genetic algorithm for permeability estimation of the reservoir,”  in Expert Systems With Applications, an Elsevier title.

The standing paper — which has been cited seven times — now carries the following erratum notice (dated far into the future, September 2013): Continue reading Double-dipping leads to removal of petroleum research paper

One-too-many authors scuttles paper on mouse metabolism

reg pepcoverRegulatory Peptides is retracting a 2010 paper by a group of five authors in China and one in Texas — and the presence of that last one was the problem.

The article, “Erythropoietin as a possible mechanism for the effects of intermittent hypoxia on bodyweight, serum glucose and leptin in mice,” had as its last (dare we say, senior) author Susan T. Howard, a mycobacterium expert at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Tyler. Trouble was, Howard disavowed any role in the paper.

According to the retraction notice: Continue reading One-too-many authors scuttles paper on mouse metabolism

“Unfinished business”: Diederik Stapel retraction count rises to 53

stapel_npcTwo more papers by Diederik Stapel — who was profiled by The New York Times Magazine this weekend — have been retracted, both in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

The notice for “Hardly thinking about close and distant others: On cognitive business and target closeness in social comparison effects,” by Stapel and David Marx, and cited six times: Continue reading “Unfinished business”: Diederik Stapel retraction count rises to 53