Category: by paywall status

Saudi journal retracts paper on new chemicals for being, well, not new

JSaudChemIrony alert: If you’re going to publish a paper on purportedly new molecules, please try to make sure those substances are indeed novel. Here’s case were that wasn’t quite so.

The Journal of Saudi Chemical Society has retracted a 2011 paper by a researcher who lifted the entire article from a previously published paper by someone else.

The paper in question, “Synthesis and antimicrobial activity of some new quinazolin-4(3H)-one derivatives,” came from Adnan Kadi at Kind Saud University in Riyadh. But according to the retraction notice, only a few words in that title — “some” and “quinazolin” were accurate. “New,” certainly not. (We suppose “derivatives” hits the mark, but for the wrong reason.) Continue reading Saudi journal retracts paper on new chemicals for being, well, not new

Virtually verbatim text earns retraction of neonate paper, gives authors a pass

jmfnmA pair of authors from Italy has retracted their 2012 article in the Journal of Maternal-Fetal and Neonatal Medicine for including chunks of text with a “high degree of similarity” from other published sources. But rest assured: the authors, we’re told, didn’t intend to do so.

The article, “Central venous catheterization and thrombosis in newborns: update on diagnosis and management,” appeared in a supplemental issue of the journal covering the proceedings of the XVIII Congress of the Italian Society of Neonatology.

According to the retraction notice (which, we’re told, was inadvertently behind a pay wall until we asked for it): Continue reading Virtually verbatim text earns retraction of neonate paper, gives authors a pass

Publishing in triplicate leads to polymer paper retraction

j app polymerA chemist at King Saud University in Saudi Arabia has lost a paper because it was the third time he had published some of it.

Here’s the notice: Continue reading Publishing in triplicate leads to polymer paper retraction

Cancer cell line mixup leads to retraction

ccr 9-15At team of researchers at MD Anderson Cancer Center has retracted a paper after realizing that the cell lines they were using weren’t what they thought they were.

Here’s the detailed notice: Continue reading Cancer cell line mixup leads to retraction

Dental journal pulls paper for duplicate publication

ccdContemporary Clinical Dentistry has yanked a 2012 article on “full-mouth rehabilitation” after learning that the article had already appeared in two other publications — making the journal, in effect, Contemporaneous Clinical Dentistry.

The article, “Full-mouth rehabilitation of a patient with severe attrition using the Hobo Twin-Stage Procedure,” came from a group at the Dr. R. Ahmed Dental College, in Kolkata, India. It described the following case: Continue reading Dental journal pulls paper for duplicate publication

Chutzpah: Authors blame PLOS ONE for failing to find plagiarism in paper on Botulinum toxin

plosonelogoHoly Chutzpah, Batman! A team of researchers in India has retracted their 2012 paper in PLoS One on botulinum toxin for plagiarism — while blaming the journal for failing to use its “soft wares” to catch the plagiarism.

The article, “Small-Molecule Quinolinol Inhibitor Identified Provides Protection against BoNT/A in Mice,” was written by a group from the Defence Research and Development Establishment, in Madhya Pradesh.

According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Chutzpah: Authors blame PLOS ONE for failing to find plagiarism in paper on Botulinum toxin

Journal retracts two chemistry papers for plagiarism

commnonlinscinumsimCommunications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulation has retracted a pair of articles by a group of chemists from Iran and the United States after finding evidence of plagiarism in the papers.

The researcher team included authors from Islamic Azad University, Ferdowski University of Mashhad and, perhaps somewhat incongruously, Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana.

The first paper, “An analytical approach to the stability of solitary solutions of cubic–quintic coupled non-linear Schrödinger equations,” appeared in 2009 and has been cited twice, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. (Question: is an article that will ultimately be retracted for plagiarism considered to exist in a state of un-retracted retractionness, such that by detecting the plagiarized text the article immediately ceases to be?):

Continue reading Journal retracts two chemistry papers for plagiarism

Sixth retraction appears for virtual reality researcher

media economicsDong Hee Shin, who studies virtual reality and other technology and who has already retracted five papers, has had another retracted.

Here’s the notice in the Journal of Media Economics: Continue reading Sixth retraction appears for virtual reality researcher

Study on douches and delivery retracted for authorship issue

jlgtdThe Journal of Lower Genital Tract Disease is retracting a paper it published online in April by a group of Egyptian researchers in the wake of a dispute they couldn’t resolve.

The article, “The Patterns and Criteria of Vaginal Douching and the Risk of Preterm Labor Among Upper Egypt Women,” came from a team at Assiut University. According to the abstract: Continue reading Study on douches and delivery retracted for authorship issue

Author retracts materials paper for irreproducibility

tetrahedronA materials scientist in Turkey has retracted a paper in the journal Tetrahedron after realizing that there was more to the compounds he was studying than he thought.

The article, “Novel donor–acceptor type thiophene pyridine conjugates: synthesis and ion recognition features,” appeared in April and was written by Fatih Algi, of the Laboratory of Organic Materials at Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University.

Here’s the notice: Continue reading Author retracts materials paper for irreproducibility