Category: by journal

Physics journal retracts paper without alerting author

annals-of-physics

An Elsevier journal has angered an author by removing his study without telling him.

After spending months asking the journal why it removed the paper — about a heavily debated theorem in physics — and getting no response, the author threatened to seek damages from the journal and publisher for “permanently stigmatizing” his work. Yesterday, an Elsevier representative told the author what happened: Experts told the journal the paper had a major mistake, so the journal decided to withdraw the study, but failed to tell the author due to an “internal error.”

That explanation didn’t satisfy study author Joy Christian, scientific director of the Einstein Centre for Local-Realistic Physics in Oxford, UK, who has demanded the journal either republish the article or remove it and return the copyright to him, or he will pursue legal action.

Here’s the cryptic publisher’s note for “Local causality in a Friedmann–Robertson–Walker spacetime:” Continue reading Physics journal retracts paper without alerting author

Does your work need IRB approval? Better check, says author of retracted paper

screen-shot-2016-09-25-at-9-51-48-pm

Does an article that discusses anonymized student projects about how to catalog data count as research on human subjects?

One of the students included in the paper thought so, and complained to the journal after learning that it had published the case study of the program without the approval required for studying people. The authors admitted they didn’t get consent from participants, because they didn’t realize the work required it. The mix-up has prompted both them and the journal to reconsider their policies regarding ethics approval of studies.

In the meantime, “A Project-Based Case Study of Data Science Education” has been retracted, with this notice:

Continue reading Does your work need IRB approval? Better check, says author of retracted paper

Ecology journal flags carnivore paper under investigation

journal-of-applied-ecologyAn ecology journal has issued an expression of concern (EOC) for a recently published study, citing an institutional investigation about the data and conclusions.

According to the notice — issued by the Journal of Applied Ecology — the author’s institution in South Africa has received a report from an independent examiner. The editors are reviewing the paper — about reducing the impact of lethal carnivores such as black-backed jackals — “in light of this information.”

An official from the journal told us the investigation has to do with “relevant background information” that was not included in the study, published online in December.

Here’s the EOC, published earlier this month: Continue reading Ecology journal flags carnivore paper under investigation

1st retraction for researcher who lost whistleblower lawsuit

microvascular-research

A researcher who was dismissed from Wayne State University — then lost a whistleblower lawsuit against it — has logged his first retraction.

In 2012, after Christian Kreipke was dismissed from Wayne State, he filed a lawsuit, alleging that the institution had defrauded the U.S. government of $169 million in research funding. A judge dismissed the case in 2014, noting Kreipke cited “no specific facts,” and as a public university, Wayne State had immunity as an “arm of the state.”

The university’s president has said Kreipke was fired due to misconduct — not his whistleblowing, according to Courthouse News Service. 

Now, a retraction has appeared for Kreipke in Microvascular Research, citing discrepancies between the original data and what was reported in the paper. 

Here’s the retraction notice: Continue reading 1st retraction for researcher who lost whistleblower lawsuit

Cell Press won’t retract papers despite one author confessing to fraud

Screen Shot 2016-08-03 at 18.54.35Cell Press journals will not be retracting two papers that were flagged with expressions of concern (EOCs) in April after one author claimed to have manipulated some experiments.

In a strange turn of events, as we previously reported, the study’s corresponding author refuted the claims of the author who confessed to fraud, citing concerns about his “motives and credibility.” Since then, two independent labs repeated the authors’ experiments, and “largely confirm” the central conclusions of a Cell paper, but were inconclusive regarding a paper in Molecular Cell. Regardless, in both cases, the journals have decided to take no further action. 

Both expressions of concern (and their associated editorial notes) will remain online, as part of the “permanent record,” a Cell Press spokesperson told us.

The spokesperson added more about the investigation process: Continue reading Cell Press won’t retract papers despite one author confessing to fraud

Say what? Journal charges fee to lodge allegations against papers

erintHere’s something we haven’t seen before: A journal is asking tipsters to pay a fee to investigate a paper.

After receiving a tip of our own about this new requirement, we reached out to Educational Research International, and received this response: Continue reading Say what? Journal charges fee to lodge allegations against papers

Reviewers may rate papers differently when blinded to authors’ identities, new study says

Kanu Okike
Kanu Okike

Although previous research has suggested peer reviewers are not influenced by knowing the authors’ identity and affiliation, a new Research Letter published today in JAMA suggests otherwise. In “Single-blind vs Double-blind Peer Review in the Setting of Author Prestige,” Kanu Okike at Kaiser Moanalua Medical Center in Hawaii and his colleagues created a fake manuscript submitted to Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research (CORR), which described a prospective study about communication and safety during surgery, and included five “subtle errors.” Sixty-two experts reviewed the paper under the typical “single-blind” system, where they are told the authors’ identities and affiliations, but remain anonymous to the authors. Fifty-seven reviewers vetted the same paper under the “double-blind” system, in which they did not know who co-authored the research. We spoke with Okike about some of his unexpected results.

Retraction Watch: You found that reviewers were more likely to accept papers when they could see they were written by well-known scientists at prestigious institutions. But the difference was relatively small. Did anything about this surprise you? Continue reading Reviewers may rate papers differently when blinded to authors’ identities, new study says

What publishers and countries do most retractions for fake peer review come from?

1092-coverA new analysis — which included scanning Retraction Watch posts — has identified some trends in papers pulled for fake peer review, a subject we’ve covered at length.

For those who aren’t familiar, fake reviews arise when researchers associated with the paper in question (most often authors) create email addresses for reviewers, enabling them to write their own positive reviews.

The article — released September 23 by the Postgraduate Medical Journal — found the vast majority of papers were retracted from journals with impact factors below 5, and most included co-authors based in China.

As described in the paper, “Characteristics of retractions related to faked peer reviews: an overview,” the authors searched Retraction Watch as well as various databases such as PubMed and Google Scholar, along with other media reports, and found 250 retractions for fake peer review.  (Since the authors concluded their analysis, the number of retractions due to faked reviews has continued to pile up; our latest tally is now 324.)

Here are the authors’ main findings: Continue reading What publishers and countries do most retractions for fake peer review come from?

Yes, “power pose” study is flawed, but shouldn’t be retracted, says one author

psychological-scienceAfter the first author of a debated study about the benefits of positioning your body in an assertive ways — the so-called “power pose” — posted her concerns about the research, she has told us she does not believe the paper should be retracted.

As reported by New York magazine, late last night, the first author of a 2010 paper in Psychological Science posted a statement saying she no longer believes the effects of the “power pose” are real.

We contacted Dana Carney, now based at the University of California, Berkeley, to ask if she thought the next step would be to retract the paper. She told us: Continue reading Yes, “power pose” study is flawed, but shouldn’t be retracted, says one author

Data were “fraudulently obtained” in epilepsy paper, probe finds

brain-research-bulletinA brain research journal has retracted a 2016 study about epilepsy after an institutional investigation determined that some of the data were taken from another published paper.

The retraction notice for the study — which appeared in Brain Research Bulletin — cites an investigation by the scientific integrity committee at Tongji University in Shanghai, China, which concluded the authors had engaged in “unethical publishing behavior.”

Here’s the retraction notice for “Clc-2 knockout attenuated experimental temporal lobe epilepsy in mice by tonic inhibition mediated by GABAA receptors:” Continue reading Data were “fraudulently obtained” in epilepsy paper, probe finds