Category: behind a paywall

One more paper down for sex researcher Weijmar Schultz

Weijmar Schultz
Weijmar Schultz

The fifth of six expected retractions for copyright infringement has arrived for a group of sex researchers led by Willibrord Weijmar Schultz, this one in the International Journal of Gynecological Cancer of a 1992 article.

As we reported earlier this year, Schultz (whose 1999 paper on sex in an MRI won an Ig Nobel prize) and his colleague,  Mels F. Van Driel, were found not to have committed plagiarism by investigators at the University of Groningen. Instead, they were found guilty of “unintended and unknowing breach of copyright.”

But they were asked to apologize formally to a litany of people — from the editors involved to the sponsors of the research — for what the institution described as “unintended and unknowing breach of copyright” of the work of one Diana Jeffrey, whose 1985 dissertation evidently was very much worth reading.

Here’s the latest retraction notice: Continue reading One more paper down for sex researcher Weijmar Schultz

Melendez Science paper retracted, making 13

alirio_melendezAlirio Melendez, who has already had 12 papers retracted from various journals and been found guilty of scientific misconduct by a former employer, has had a Science paper retracted.

Here’s the notice (which is behind a paywall): Continue reading Melendez Science paper retracted, making 13

Paper on vulvar tumor retracted. Why? Journal won’t say

JLGTCancer of the vulva may well be a topic most people do not want to discuss. But we wish the Journal of Lower Genital Tract Disease (the official journal of several societies, including the American Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology, the Australian Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology and the Society of Canadian Colposcopists) had been a bit more forthcoming about its retraction of a 2013 paper on the subject.

The article, “Granular Cell Tumor of the Vulva,” appeared in the January issue of the journal from a group whose last last author was Sofia Vázquez Navarrete, a pathologist at La Línea de la Concepción, in Cádiz, Spain.

Its abstract stated: Continue reading Paper on vulvar tumor retracted. Why? Journal won’t say

Duplication forces retraction of genomics paper

biosA group of biologists has lost a paper about a genomics tool after they published the findings twice.

Here’s the notice for the now-retracted paper in BIOS: Continue reading Duplication forces retraction of genomics paper

A masterbatch: More polymer retractions, gerontology journal lifts paywall, Microbiology notices appear

masterbatch
Germans and Italians are big masterbatchers. Click to enlarge. via http://bit.ly/100YBKB

Our mothers told us that if we used the masterbatch process, we’d go blind. And what better way to gather some updates to recent posts than to include one that involves said masterbatch process?

First, a retraction John Spevacek noticed when he tried clicking on the link in a Journal of Applied Polymer Science retraction we’d covered: Continue reading A masterbatch: More polymer retractions, gerontology journal lifts paywall, Microbiology notices appear

Would you pay $37 to find out that a publisher had mistakenly printed an article twice?

clinicalgerontologistDo you have a spare $37 that’s just burning a hole in your pocket?

If so, today is your lucky day. You can plunk down your hard-earned cash for a chance to read a retraction notice in Clinical Gerontologist that resulted from a goof by its publisher, Taylor & Francis.

Here’s the notice for “Does Social Desirability Confound the Assessment of Self-Reported Measures of Well-Being and Metacognitive Efficiency in Young and Older Adults?” Continue reading Would you pay $37 to find out that a publisher had mistakenly printed an article twice?

French journal retracts nanomedicine paper for ethics violations, more

bioladjcoverThe French journal Biologie Aujourd’hui — Biology Today — has retracted an article it published earlier this year after learning of ethics violations,  authorship issues with the paper and a problematic image.

The article, titled “Utilisation de dendrimères pour une nanomédecine innovatrice,” or “Using dendrimers for an innovative nanomedicine,” was written by Jean Pierre Majoral of the Laboratoire de Chimie de Coordination in Toulouse. (We haven’t been able to get our virtual hands on the paper yet.)

According to the retraction notice, which in fact says “withdrawal notice“:  Continue reading French journal retracts nanomedicine paper for ethics violations, more

Like pulling teeth? Dental implant papers retracted for duplication

jomscoverA group of Brazilian dental researchers has lost two 2012 papers for duplication — twice the typical body count for such situations.

The two articles appeared in the Journal of Orthodontics and the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery about four months apart.

The first, from the JOMS, “Selective Use of Hand and Forearm Muscles During Bone Screw Insertion: A Natural Torque Meter,” was published online Aug. 30 — just about the time the Journal of Orthodontics was accepting the duplicate submission.

As the JOMS retraction notice states: Continue reading Like pulling teeth? Dental implant papers retracted for duplication

Retraction cites “unintended excessive reuse” in commentary — of paper it was praising

rejuvreschcoverWe here at Retraction Watch HQ are always on the lookout for euphemisms for plagiarism (and other misconduct, of course). Among our favorites are “referencing failure” and the journal that allowed researchers to call plagiarism an “approach” to writing.

Here’s a new one that’s sure to do well with voters.

The journal Rejuvenation Research has retracted a commentary for, well, containing too much of the very text it was supposed to be commenting on.

The editorial was by Giorgio Aicardi, of the University of Bologna, in Italy, and the article Aicardi was writing about was titled “Synaptic distributions of GluA2 and PKMζ in the monkey dentate gyrus and their relationships with aging and memory.” That article had been published in the Journal of Neuroscience last year by a group from Mount Sinai in New York.

We’ll let the notice do the explaining: Continue reading Retraction cites “unintended excessive reuse” in commentary — of paper it was praising

A partial retraction appears for former Salzburg crystallographer who admitted misconduct

j imm april 2013A paper by a crystallographer fired from his university for misconduct has been partially retracted.

Last year, we covered the case of Robert Schwarzenbacher, formerly of Salzburg University. Schwarzenbacher had provided the crystallographic data for a paper in the Journal of Immunology, but those results raised questions with another crystallographer and prompted an investigation by the university.  Schwarzenbacher admitted he’d committed misconduct, although he recanted at one point, and was eventually fired.

Now, the authors have retracted the crystallographic data from the Journal of Immunology paper. Here’s the partial retraction, which is listed as a correction:
Continue reading A partial retraction appears for former Salzburg crystallographer who admitted misconduct