Category: elsevier

Geothermal paper undermined by borrowing data without citing

rsesAn international group of engineers lost a paper in November after the journal realized the majority of the data came from a government assessment of Australia’s energy resources without a citation.

The paper, published in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, focused on geothermal energy, while the government report was far broader in scope. However, the lack of independent research was enough to sink the review. We covered another Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews retraction recently, making us wonder if this is part of a crack-down for the journal.

Here’s the notice for “A review of geothermal energy resources in Australia: Current status and prospects”: Continue reading Geothermal paper undermined by borrowing data without citing

Solar paper retracted after plagiarism and duplication come to light

rsesTwo solar cell researchers at the University of New South Wales have lost a paper in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews after the discovery of “substantial overlap” with work by a UNSW graduate student.

The notice cites three sources for the plagiarism. One is an unpublished manuscript by UNSW student Matthew Wright, which he shared with the authors of the retracted paper for “research collaboration only.”

The other two are papers that Wright wrote with UNSW professor Ashraf Uddin, who co-authored the retracted paper with UNSW researcher Xiaohan Yang. Yang’s name also appears on one of the plagiarized papers. All of that suggests that the “substantial overlap” includes duplication as well as plagiarism.

According to Wright’s Google Scholar profile, Uddin has been a co-author on every one of his papers, suggesting that Uddin is Wright’s thesis advisor or P.I., though neither Wright nor Uddin responded to our emailed questions.

Here’s the notice for “Effect of thermal annealing on P3HT:PCBM bulk-heterojunction organic solar cells: A critical review”: Continue reading Solar paper retracted after plagiarism and duplication come to light

Takeda group retracts paper after realizing “novel” compound had already been synthesized…by a colleague

BMC_CoverA group of scientists at Takeda Pharmaceutical, including vice president Yoshinori Ikeura, has lost a paper after realizing that their “novel” compound had been previously synthesized by another Takeda researcher.

The 2011 paper, published in Elsevier journal Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry, was the subject of a 2012 corrigendum adding two authors to the paper. The retraction appeared online in December of this year.

Seems like they didn’t add enough authors, though. Continue reading Takeda group retracts paper after realizing “novel” compound had already been synthesized…by a colleague

Water under the bridge? Hydrology journals won’t retract plagiarized papers despite university request

hydrogeology journalIn April 2014, we wrote about the case of a former hydrologist at the University of Kansas (KU), Marios Sophocleous, who had plagiarized in at least seven studies, two of which were retracted by the journal Ground Water.

At the time, we mentioned two other articles, in the Hydrogeology Journal, that appeared destined for retraction — not least because KU requested that the journal yank them. But in a rather surprising move, the journal is declining to do so, and another publication, the Journal of Hydrology, is taking the same approach.

Here’s the notice from Hydrogeology Journal editor Clifford Voss: Continue reading Water under the bridge? Hydrology journals won’t retract plagiarized papers despite university request

Paper on cranberries’ health benefits retracted after researcher forges authors’ names

Image via Bruce Foster.
Image via Bruce Foster.

A paper in Food Chemistry suggesting cranberry extract has healing properties was retracted after some of the authors complained they had no idea the paper was being published.

Here’s the notice for “Phenolic composition, antioxidant properties, and endothelial cell function of red and white cranberry fruits:” Continue reading Paper on cranberries’ health benefits retracted after researcher forges authors’ names

Thalidomide paper retracted for lab error

fertstertResearchers at the University of Pittsburgh have retracted a paper on using thalidomide, which led to an estimated 10,000 birth defects by the time the drug was pulled from the market in 1961, to prevent chemo-induced sterility.

Alkylating agents, which prevent DNA replication in cells, are a commonly-used cancer treatment. Unfortunately they also damage the ovaries and testes, sometimes causing infertility. The University of Pittsburgh scientists published a paper in Elsevier journal Fertility and Sterility in 2011 that suggested thalidomide, which causes severe birth defects when used during pregnancy, might help protect ovaries during chemo.

However, according to the notice, the authors tried and failed to replicate their results. They had two separate scientists who were not authors take a look at the results; everyone agreed that the original study incorrectly reported the number of primordial follicles, the precursor to mature eggs.

Here’s the notice for “Thalidomide treatment attenuates chemotherapy-induced gonadal toxicity”: Continue reading Thalidomide paper retracted for lab error

Researchers retract paper for which first author won an award — but won’t sign notice

Bernasconi_Premio_Roche2012_small
Riccardo Bernasconi

Most of the authors of two Molecular Cell papers have retracted them after becoming aware of inappropriate image manipulation by the first author of both — who refused to sign the notices.

One of the papers, “Role of the SEL1L:LC3-I Complex as an ERAD Tuning Receptor in the Mammalian ER,” earned first author Riccardo Bernasconi, who successfully defended his PhD in 2010, the STSBC-Roche Diagnostics award in 2012. Here’s the notice for that paper: Continue reading Researchers retract paper for which first author won an award — but won’t sign notice

Elsevier retracting 16 papers for faked peer review

zaman
Khalid Zaman

Fake peer reviews: They’re all the rage.

Sixteen papers are being retracted across three Elsevier journals after the publisher discovered that one of the authors, Khalid Zaman, orchestrated fake peer reviews by submitting false contact information for his suggested reviewers.

This particular kind of scam has been haunting online peer review for a few years now, as loyal Retraction Watch readers know. This one is a classic of the genre: According to Elsevier’s director of publishing services, Catriona Fennell, an editor first became suspicious after noticing that Zaman’s suggested reviewers, all with non-institutional addresses, were unusually kind to the economist’s work.

Elsevier has actually hired a full-time staff member with a PhD in physics and history as a managing editor to do the grunt work on cases like this. Flags were first raised in August, at which point the ethics watchdog went to town digging through all of Zaman’s other publications looking for suspicious reviews coming from non-institutional addresses provided by the scientist, an economist at COMSATS Information Technology Center in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Here’s the main notice: Continue reading Elsevier retracting 16 papers for faked peer review

Non-renewable resource: Fuel yanks paper for duplication

fuel30420Fuel, an Elsevier title, has pulled an article on coal pollution because the authors took much of the work from an earlier paper of theirs in another journal.

The article, “Co-firing of coal and biomass: Development of a conceptual model for ash formation prediction,” was published in September by a group from Australia and The Netherlands.

According to the notice: Continue reading Non-renewable resource: Fuel yanks paper for duplication

Phantom authorship forces retraction of electron paper

ULTRAMICUltramicroscopy has retracted a paper it published earlier this year after the corresponding author admitted to submitting the paper without the consent of his colleagues.

The article, “The post-peak spectra in electron energy loss near edge structure,” came from a group led by one Feng Tian, a materials scientist at Shanghai University for Science and Technology. The other authors were Peter Shattschneider and Micheal Stoger-Pollach, of the Vienna University of Technology. Except that they weren’t.

According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Phantom authorship forces retraction of electron paper