Category: by journal

Retraction notice cites misconduct investigation into endowed chair’s work; he threatens to sue

Mark Jackson

A researcher has threatened to sue publisher Taylor & Francis for mentioning a misconduct investigation into his work in a retraction notice.

According to the notice, the publisher retracted a 2008 paper and a book chapter after learning about a misconduct investigation into the work of Mark Jackson, a department head and endowed chair, respectively, at universities in Kansas.

Unfortunately, we don’t know much about the nature of the misconduct investigation; Jackson told us he initiated the retractions after raising concerns his colleagues had violated intellectual property. He has since told the publisher he would take legal action if it didn’t remove the phrase noting that the retractions stem from a misconduct investigation into his work from the notice.

Here’s the notice, issued by Materials Science and Technology:

Continue reading Retraction notice cites misconduct investigation into endowed chair’s work; he threatens to sue

Fired Pfizer cancer researcher loses final two of five papers pegged for retraction

PLOS ONE has retracted the last of five papers by a former employee of Pfizer, who the company fired after determining she had duplicated data.

After its investigation, Pfizer asked journals to retract five papers co-authored by Min-Jean Yin. Last week, PLOS ONE retracted the final two remaining papers. Both notices cite image duplications; Yin contacted the journal about one paper, but did not comment on the other retraction.

Here’s the notice for “miR-221 Promotes Tumorigenesis in Human Triple Negative Breast Cancer Cells:”

Continue reading Fired Pfizer cancer researcher loses final two of five papers pegged for retraction

As third retraction for prominent physicist appears, university still won’t acknowledge investigation

Despite a university’s attempts to avoid discussing a misconduct investigation involving one of its former (and prominent) researchers, we keep reading more about it.

In the third retraction this year for physicist Dmitri Lapotko, the journal mentions a misconduct investigation at Rice University, which concluded the data had been falsified. Trouble is, whenever we’ve tried to talk to Rice about that investigation, they won’t even confirm it took place.

Here’s the retraction notice for “Transient Photothermal Spectra of Plasmonic Nanobubbles,” published by Langmuir:

Continue reading As third retraction for prominent physicist appears, university still won’t acknowledge investigation

Another retraction for student who confessed to cooking data

A journal has retracted another paper by a graduate student formerly based at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, after she spontaneously confessed to fabricating data.

As we reported in April 2016, principal investigator Florence Marlow alerted the institution’s Office of Research Integrity and two journals about Meredyth Forbes’s admission, prompting an investigation into the extent of the data manipulation.

Three papers were affected: In January 2016, Development flagged one paper with an expression of concern, alerting readers to the potential issues with the data while the authors and Research Integrity Office investigated the scope of the problem. In April 2016, another paper was retracted by Cell Reports; the third, also published in Development, received a correction.

Last month, the authors and Development decided to retract the paper that had been flagged with an EOC (which appears on page 2 here).  Continue reading Another retraction for student who confessed to cooking data

Three figures in blood pressure paper were manipulated, says journal

A pharmacology journal has retracted a 2011 paper after concluding images in three figures had been manipulated.

According to the British Journal of Pharmacology, four of the five authors claim they played no role in the manipulation. There is no comment from the remaining author, first author Ian Morecroft, a research associate at the University of Glasgow.

Here’s more from the notice, which says an investigation at the University of Glasgow is ongoing:

Continue reading Three figures in blood pressure paper were manipulated, says journal

Author surprised when publisher pulls three of her papers

A researcher is strongly objecting to a publisher’s decision to retract three of her papers from two computing journals without informing her first.

The reason: Self-plagiarism, which the author said stemmed from her PhD student using similar descriptions for the background sections of the papers. She argued that if the reviewers had flagged the duplication, she would have been happy to revise the papers before publication. A representative of the publisher, Springer, told us the overlap was extensive enough for the journal to determine the papers should be retracted.

We spoke with Sameem Abdul Kareem from the Department Of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Malaya in Malaysia, last author on all three papers, which she co-authored with her former PhD student Haitham Badi (also referred to as Haitham Hasan in several papers). She explained how the duplication occurred:

Continue reading Author surprised when publisher pulls three of her papers

A diabetes researcher sued his former employer for defamation. Here’s the story.

Franck Mauvais-Jarvis

The last decade hasn’t exactly been drama-free for Franck Mauvais-Jarvis, head of the Diabetes Research Program at Tulane University.

After being accused of falsifying three figures in a submitted manuscript, Mauvais-Jarvis sued his accusers and officials at his former employer — Northwestern University — for defamation and conspiracy in 2011.

In 2014, a judge dismissed the suit. We wish we could tell you more details about it—such as what the university’s misconduct investigation found, or how the lawsuit was concluded—but they remain shrouded in mystery. What we know is based on court records from the lawsuit, which we recently obtained through an unrelated public records request. Even without all the details, it’s a long, sordid tale, involving a lot of finger-pointing and allegations of misconduct.

In 2008, a former research technician in the lab of Mauvais-Jarvis, then an associate professor of medicine at Northwestern University, raised concerns of fabrication in two figures in a paper on the regulation of insulin synthesis that had been submitted the Journal of Biological Chemistry. An inquiry committee at the university unanimously concluded that research misconduct charges against Mauvais-Jarvis were not credible.

But then a third figure in the manuscript was found to be “inaccurate,” and the university initiated a second inquiry. That’s when Mauvais-Jarvis — whose papers have been cited more than 2,000 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science, formerly part of Thomson Reuters — initiated a lawsuit. Continue reading A diabetes researcher sued his former employer for defamation. Here’s the story.

Chemistry papers challenged a paradigm — until the authors spotted a pivotal error

Several years ago, a group of four chemists believed they had stumbled upon evidence that contradicted a fairly well-established model in fluid dynamics.

Between 2013 and 2015, the researchers published a series of four papers detailing their results — two in ACS Macro Letters and two in Macromolecules. Timothy P. Lodge, the journals’ editor and a distinguished professor at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, explained that the results were “somewhat controversial,” because they appeared to contradict the generally accepted model for how some polymer fluids move.

Indeed, the papers sparked debate between the authors and other experts who questioned the new data, arguing it didn’t upend the previous model.

Then, in 2015, the authors realized their critics might be correct.  Continue reading Chemistry papers challenged a paradigm — until the authors spotted a pivotal error

First retraction appears for embattled food researcher Brian Wansink

Brian Wansink

Earlier this month, a high-profile food researcher who’s recently come under fire announced a journal was retracting one of his papers for duplication. Today, a retraction appeared — for a 2002 study which contained “major overlap,” according to the journal.

The Journal of Sensory Studies has retracted a paper by Cornell’s Brian Wansink about how labeling of foods can affect how they taste, after determining it borrowed too heavily from a 2000 paper. Wansink is the first author on both studies.

Here’s more from the retraction notice:

Continue reading First retraction appears for embattled food researcher Brian Wansink

Busted: Researcher used fake contact info for co-authors

In February, Lusine Abrahamyan, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto, was contacted by ResearchGate. Her name was listed on a 2016 paper in a heart journal, the site told her — was Abrahamyan indeed a co-author?

Um, no, she was not. In fact, before that moment, she didn’t know such a paper existed.

It turns out, Abrahamyan had supervised the thesis of the first author — who, she soon learned, had also published an identical paper in another heart journal. Both have since been retracted.

How did this happen?

International Cardiovascular Forum Journal editor Andrew Coats told us more about the actions of first author Joshua Chadwick Jayaraj: Continue reading Busted: Researcher used fake contact info for co-authors