by publisher – Retraction Watch

Web of Science delists bioengineering journal in wake of paper mill cleanup

Bioengineered has lost its spot in Clarivate’s Web of Science index, as of its April update. The journal has been working to overcome a flood of paper mill activity, but sleuths have questioned why hundreds of papers with potentially manipulated images have still not been retracted.

A spokesperson for Taylor & Francis, which publishes the journal, said it has taken action against the paper mill; the journal has retracted 86 papers since January 2022. They are “disappointed” at the delisting decision, the spokesperson said. The journal now faces up to a two-year embargo before it can rejoin the citation index.

Bioengineered publishes bioengineering and biotechnology research. In 2021, journal editors launched an investigation when submissions spiked and several authors of submitted and accepted articles asked for authorship changes – both hallmarks of paper mill activity.

Journal collected $400,000 from papers it later retracted

A Sage journal that holds the distinction of highest number of retracted articles in the Retraction Watch Database likely made in excess of $400,000 in revenue from those papers, by our calculations.

We reported in April that the Journal of Intelligent and Fuzzy Systems (JIFS) had retracted 1,561 articles as part of a cleanup operation on likely paper mill activity. The journal, which Sage acquired in November 2023 when it bought IOS Press, had previously retracted a batch of 49 articles in October 2021. That brings its retraction total up to 1,610.

Commenters on the April article pointed out the journal charges a fee for all accepted papers; separate fees apply for open access. We followed up on that with a few questions for Sage.

Former cancer researcher who sued university for discrimination hits 35 retractions

A cancer researcher who was once the subject of a misconduct investigation at an Illinois university more than 10 years ago has made his debut on the Retraction Watch Leaderboard with 35 retractions.

Last month Oncogene, a Springer Nature title, retracted 15 articles by Jasti Rao, formerly of the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria. A 2014 university investigation into his lab’s publications found manipulation and rotation of images that “‘show a disturbing pattern’ indicative that Rao acted intentionally or recklessly,” we previously reported. Rao sued the university for wrongful termination but lost.

More than 100 of Rao’s papers have comments on PubPeer, most originating from a user called Lotus azoricus. We now know that pseudonym belongs to sleuth Elisabeth Bik.

A Ph.D. in paper mills?

A university and a publisher are teaming up to combat paper mills in a unique way: By enlisting a Ph.D. candidate.

In April, the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University in the Netherlands announced it would be collaborating with Wiley to establish a four-year research position focused on paper mills.

“Of course one Ph.D. will not fix the problem,” said Cyril Labbé of Grenoble Alpes University in France, whose lab hosted a Ph.D. student in 2014 to detect computer-generated manuscripts. “But going this way is far more constructive than resorting to empty rhetoric and wooden language, as some publishers tend to do.”

Sodom comet paper to be retracted two years after editor’s note acknowledging concerns

The authors’ reconstruction of what the blast’s impact area may have been. *Source*

Scientific Reports has retracted a controversial paper claiming to present evidence an ancient city in the Middle East was destroyed by an exploding celestial body – an event the authors suggested could have inspired the Biblical account of Sodom and Gomorrah.

The decision comes two years after Scientific Reports, a Springer Nature title, published an editor’s note informing readers the journal was looking into concerns about the data and conclusions in the work.

The then-pending retraction was the subject of an April 10 blog post by one of the paper’s authors, George Howard, who called the journal’s decision to remove the article “a profoundly disappointing and frankly disgusting turn of events.”

UC Davis research director loses three papers for image manipulation

A lead researcher at UC Davis has lost three decades-old papers from the same journal for image duplication, and the journal says it is investigating more.

Allen Gao, director of research for the Department of Urologic Surgery at the institution is ~~first~~ last and corresponding author on the papers, published in The Prostate.

The journal retracted the articles – published in 2002, 2004 and 2009 – in February. The papers have been cited 42, 71, and 27 times respectively, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.

Suspended UK surgeon earns nine expressions of concern, one withdrawal

A U.K.-based surgeon who was suspended last year for conducting colorectal surgeries that caused harm to hundreds of women has had nine of his research papers flagged and one withdrawn.

In July 2024, Tony Dixon, formerly of Southmead Hospital and Spire Hospital in Bristol, England, was suspended for six months by a tribunal at the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) after an investigation found the surgeries caused harm in 259 of his patients who underwent a procedure to treat rectal prolapse.

The MPTS panel extended the suspension in January for another six months, during which time Dixon is unable to operate on patients, a spokesperson for the U.K.’s General Medical Council (GMC) told Retraction Watch.

A new journal record: Sage title retracts 678 more papers, tally over 1,500

The retraction of “a final batch” of 678 articles concludes Sage’s investigation into questionable peer review, citation manipulation, and other signs of paper mill activity at one of its journals, according to the publisher.

Sage has been investigating the Journal of Intelligent and Fuzzy Systems (JIFS) since early 2024 for “indicators that raised concerns about the authenticity of the research and the peer review process underlying these articles,” a Sage spokesperson told us. We reported in August on Sage’s retraction of 467 articles from the journal. The publisher retracted another 416 papers in January. With this latest batch, “our investigation into JIFS is now concluded,” the spokesperson said.

Sage acquired JIFS in November 2023 when it bought IOS Press. The indexing company Clarivate raised concerns about the quality of the articles in the journal shortly after and put the journal’s indexing on hold. Its entry on the Clarivate website still shows the “on hold” flag.

Replication probe finds ‘statistically improbable data’ tied to institute in Bangladesh

A Bangladesh-based organization focused on development economics and its founder have been churning out papers filled with misstatements, inconsistencies, ethical lapses and “statistically improbable data,” according to researchers involved in an ongoing effort to replicate the work.

One journal has already retracted a paper for falsely claiming to describe a randomized, controlled trial and data collection that failed to adhere to the journal’s ethical guidelines. The study, published in the European Economic Review, was retracted following a March 11 report from the Institute for Replication, or I4R. The group is conducting a broader probe into the Global Development & Research Initiative (GDRI), the organization that implemented the intervention described in the paper.

GDRI’s founder and the study’s sole author is Asad Islam, a developmental economist at Monash University in Australia. Since 2022, Islam has received over $2 million in funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and other organizations, according to a copy of his resume. Islam did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the retraction or the broader concerns about the work. But in a statement posted to his now-deleted account on X, he wrote:

A ‘joke’: Paper with ‘completely irrelevant’ citations retracted

A paper that made the rounds last year for its blatantly “irrelevant” citations has now been retracted.

Elsevier’s International Journal of Hydrogen Energy published “Origin of the distinct site occupations of H atom in hcp Ti and Zr/Hf” in November 2024.

Paragraph seven of the introduction consists of a single sentence: “As strongly requested by the reviewers, here we cite some references [35-47] although they are completely irrelevant to the present work.” One of the authors told us they included the references as a “joke” after reviewers pressured them.

All 13 of the references include Sergei Trukhanov as an author, and all but one also includes Alex Trukhanov.

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