Category: freely available

Should this engineering paper have been retracted?

safetyscienceThe journal Safety Science has retracted a 2013 paper by a group of engineers from Brazil who had published the article previously, albeit in a much abbreviated form, a year earlier.

What makes this case more than a straightforward matter of duplication/self-plagiarism is that the authors greatly expanded upon the earlier article. The initial paper also appeared in a conference proceedings — the  18th World Congress on Ergonomics – Designing a Sustainable Future — priority that, at least in the minds of some, doesn’t really constitute a true publication. Continue reading Should this engineering paper have been retracted?

Fourth retraction for chemists in Iran

commnonlinsciWe’ve found a fourth retraction for a group of chemists in Iran who plagiarized.

As before, the offending article had appeared in Communications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulation. This time, however, it did not include a co-author from Ball State University in Indiana, Robert Sammelson, whose name had appeared on three of the earlier papers. Continue reading Fourth retraction for chemists in Iran

Emory cardiology researcher up to six retractions

R. Wayne Alexander, via Emory
R. Wayne Alexander, via Emory

R. Wayne Alexander, a cardiology researcher at Emory whose lab has retracted four papers following university investigations, has notched retractions five and six.

Here’s the notice from Circulation Research: Continue reading Emory cardiology researcher up to six retractions

Doing the right thing: Yale psychology lab retracts monkey papers for inaccurate coding

developmental scienceIn the midst of the holiday season, it’s a pleasure to be able to share the story of a scientist doing the right thing at significant professional cost — especially a researcher in psychology, a field that has been battered lately by scandal.

Sometime after publishing two papers — one in Developmental Science and another in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology — Yale’s Laurie Santos and her students realized there were problems with their data. We’ll let Santos — who made sure to respond to our request for comment immediately, in the midst of holiday travel, so that we had all the details and could help get the word out — tell the story: Continue reading Doing the right thing: Yale psychology lab retracts monkey papers for inaccurate coding

“Not suitable in this context” means retraction in pharmacology journal

pbbPharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior had a curious retraction notice in September that we’re just now getting around to, but we think you’ll find it to have been worth the wait.

The article, “Interaction of Somatostatin Receptor-2 and Neuropeptide Y Receptor-1 in mice dorsal root ganglion neurons on the Pinch-Nerve injury model,” came from a group in Harbin, China, and Frieburg, Germany, and was published in April 2013.

According to the notice: Continue reading “Not suitable in this context” means retraction in pharmacology journal

Authorship dispute topples anesthesia paper

anesthessayresearchAn authorship dispute between a pair of Egyptian physicians has led to the retraction of their 2012 article on anesthetic technique for laparoscopic colon surgery.

The article, “General anesthesia versus segmental thoracic or conventional lumbar spinal anesthesia for patients undergoing laparoscopic cholecystectomy,” appeared in Anesthesia Essays and Researches — a publication of the Pan Arab Federation of Societies of Anesthesiologists. It written by Gamal Yousef and Ahmed E. Lasheen, both of Zagazig University (which, we’re guessing, would hold the record for institution of higher learning with the most possible points in Scrabble — with a triple word tile that’s at least 131 points, including the seven-letter bonus!).

According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Authorship dispute topples anesthesia paper

None for all, as selfish co-author loses adhesion paper by cutting out colleagues

TASTcover 1..2Authors should stick together, right?

A materials scientist in France has learned that lesson the hard way, having been forced to retract his 2012 paper in the Journal of Adhesion Science and Technology because he neglected to list any of his co-authors.

The paper, “A generalized cure model for one-part room temperature vulcanizing sealants and adhesives,” was written — ostensibly, at least — by François de Buyl, whose LinkedIn page says is a lighting engineer at Dow Corning Europe. (He worked as a materials scientist at Dow prior to that.) de Buyl is the sole author on the paper, which is why we’re reading the following notice from the journal: Continue reading None for all, as selfish co-author loses adhesion paper by cutting out colleagues

Chip off the old block: Pregnancy paper yanked for plagiarism

journal of pregnancyThe Journal of Pregnancy has retracted a 2012 article by a pair of researchers in Iran who lifted the contents from an article published 10 years previous.

The paper, “The Effects of Fetal Gender on Serum Human Chorionic Gonadotropin and Testosterone in Normotensive and Preeclamptic Pregnancies,” was written by Nahid Lorzadeh and Sirous Kazemirad, OBs at Lorestan University of Medical Sciences. It has yet to be cited, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

Here’s the notice: Continue reading Chip off the old block: Pregnancy paper yanked for plagiarism

Failure to reproduce result leads to disputed retraction

BJ_logoA research group in Scotland has retracted a paper in the Biochemical Journal after failed attempts to reproduce a key finding of the study.

Here’s the notice: Continue reading Failure to reproduce result leads to disputed retraction

“He certainly has some chutzpah!” More plagiarism retractions for sex researcher Ramello

jagingstudWe’ve been alerted to a third retracted paper, and a retracted book chapter, for Stefano Ramello, a self-styled “independent researcher” into sexual identity.

Turns out there wasn’t so much independence after all.

The article, “Same sex acts involving older men. An ethnographic study,” had appeared in the  April 2013 issue of the Journal of Aging Studies. According to the retraction notice: Continue reading “He certainly has some chutzpah!” More plagiarism retractions for sex researcher Ramello