The Journal of Chemical Sciences, the journal of the Indian Academy of Sciences, has retracted a 2012 paper by a group of researchers in India and South Korea who stole material (and a lot of it) from a 2009 article for their reactant.
The retraction notice (it’s a pdf) speaks quite well for itself:
Continue reading “Clear case of plagiarism” forces retraction of chemistry paper
A pair of chemists from China who published their colleagues’ data without knowledge or permission have lost the article to retraction. They also have another retraction on a similar topic, which we covered before.
The article, which appeared in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces in 2012, was titled “Nanoporous PtCo Surface Alloy Architecture with Enhanced Properties for Methanol Electrooxidation.” The authors, Huajun Qiu and Feixue Zou, are listed as being with the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Shandong University, in Jinan, China.
As the retraction notice states: Continue reading Our bad! Researchers take colleagues’ data, lose paper
We’ve often found that when some authors refuse to sign retraction notices, there’s a much bigger story than terse notices let on. And a retraction in this week’s Nature of a 19-year-old paper is a shining example of that.
Here’s the brief notice for “Oligosaccharide ligands for NKR-P1 protein activate NK cells and cytotoxicity,” a 1994 paper by researchers from the UK and the Czech Republic that had already been subject to a 1996 correction: Continue reading Retraction of 19-year-old Nature paper reveals hidden cameras, lab break-in, evidence tampering
The Journal of Theoretical and Applied Physics has retracted a 2012 paper by a pair of Iranian cosmologists who failed to adequately cite one of the critical references on which they based their work.
We think that falls under the broader category of plagiarism — after all, as Heisenberg famously postulated, the same text cannot simultaneously appear in two published articles under different authorship. Or something like that.
The paper in question, “Torsion of space-time in f (R) gravity,” deals with, as this Wikipedia entry states: Continue reading Gravity paper yanked for plagiarism by another name
Two studies by Adam Savine, the former Washington University neuroscience graduate student found by the Office of Research Integrity to have falsified data, have been retracted.
Here’s the notice for one: Continue reading Retractions arrive for former Wash U neuroscience grad student found to have committed misconduct
The Australian Journal of Forensic Sciences has retracted a paper it published earlier this year on the use of facial biometrics to identify humans.
The reason: Evidently, those biometrics had already largely been described by another group.
Here’s the notice: Continue reading “Soft biometrics” for human ID paper guilty of identity theft, retracted
Cancer 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
The Indian Journal of Surgery, a Springer-Verlag title, has retracted a 2011 paper with a title only the Marquis de Sade would love: “Penile Strangulation by Metallic Rings.”
We know what you’re saying: Who knew penises could be strangulated? Well, it’s true.
Continue reading Come again? “Penile Strangulation by Metallic Rings” retracted for duplication
A fraud investigation at a New York state research institution has led to two retractions of papers looking at genetic links to autism.
The 2011 papers, which appeared in Genes, Brain and Behavior, involve work conducted at the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities’ (OPWDD’s) Institute for Basic Research in Developmental Disabilities, on Staten Island. The last author on both articles is Xiaohong Li, head of the institute’s cellular neurobiology laboratory.
Here’s what the retraction notice has to say: Continue reading Autism genetics papers retracted after fraud inquiry at NY research agency
The journal Higher Education Policy has retracted an article it published last year by a scholar in Ethiopia whose grasp of publishing policy seems pretty shaky.
The article, “Financing Higher Education in Ethiopia: Analysis of Cost-Sharing Policy and its Implementation,” which appeared online in August 2012, was by Sewale Abate Ayalew, of Bahir Dar University College of Business and Economics.
According to the retraction notice:
Continue reading Cost-sharing paper that shared too much with other works earns retraction