What happens when people who study management have to write a retraction notice? This, from Management Learning, regarding a paper by Gordon Müller-Seitz of the Free University of Berlin, suggests one possibility: Continue reading Duplication, aka self-plagiarism, meets management-speak
Category: by publisher
Findings of “greatly enhanced” optics turn out to be, well, greatly enhanced
The authors of a paper in Nature Photonics have been forced to walk back their article after learning from another group of researchers that their conclusions likely were an, ahem, optical illusion.
The paper, “Greatly enhanced continuous-wave terahertz emission by nano-electrodes in a photoconductive photomixer,” appeared in January 2012 and came from a team led by that included Aaron Danner, an optics expert at the National University of Singapore. As the abstract of the paper explains (to physicists, anyway):
Continue reading Findings of “greatly enhanced” optics turn out to be, well, greatly enhanced
Jesús Lemus notches his eighth retraction
The carcasses are piling up.
Jesús A. Lemus now has eight retractions. Here’s the notice for the most recent: Continue reading Jesús Lemus notches his eighth retraction
Study plagiarizes so many other papers, retraction notice can’t list them all
In a new retraction notice, the Journal of Controlled Release is living up to its name.
The editor-in-chief has retracted a study that plagiarized “a large number” of papers, but only three are listed in the notice. Here’s the notice for “In situ-forming hydrogels for sustained ophthalmic drug delivery,” by Basavaraj K. Nanjawade, F.V. Manvi, and A.S. Manjappa, three researchers at India’s KLES’s College of Pharmacy, JN Medical College Campus, Karnataka: Continue reading Study plagiarizes so many other papers, retraction notice can’t list them all
Double dipping on exercise/cardiac risk paper leads to retraction
The International Journal of Neuroscience has retracted a September 2005 paper by a group from Turkey who published the same article in the same month in a different journal.
The research involved looking at concentrations of blood fats in athletes and less vigorous folk, “and to examine the risks of cardiovascular diseases.”It found that:
… medium and high level of exercises did not cause significant differences in lipid and lipoprotein levels, but the sex differences were very pronounced” with “lipid and lipoprotein profile of female subjects was found to be better than that of males”.
Here’s the notice: Continue reading Double dipping on exercise/cardiac risk paper leads to retraction
Oh, the irony: Business ethics journal paper retracted for plagiarism
Is this the new business ethics?
In January, we reported on a paper retracted from the Journal of Business Ethics for duplication. That earned the author a five-year publishing ban. This week, we learned of a case of plagiarism in another journal in the field, the Journal of Academic and Business Ethics. Here’s an email editor Russell Baker — no, not that Russell Baker — sent to his contact list on Wednesday: Continue reading Oh, the irony: Business ethics journal paper retracted for plagiarism
Smoking cessation paper pulled for “almost word-for-word” similarity to authors’ previous work
The Journal of Maternal-Fetal & Neonatal Medicine has retracted a 2008 article on smoking cessation by a group from Sweden which they had published not many months before in a different journal.
The retracted paper was titled “Quitting smoking is perceived to have an effect on somatic health among pregnant and non-pregnant women.” The authors, from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, had published a similar paper — “Perception of Smoking-Related Health Consequences among Pregnant and Non-Pregnant Women” — in the American Journal of Addictions in 2007.
How similar?
IRB issues force retraction of ulcer bug bacteria paper
A group of Turkish researchers has had a paper retracted on how to treat the bacterium that cause ulcers after the journal’s editors found “issues related to the institutional review board approval” of the project.
Here’s the retraction notice from the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition: Continue reading IRB issues force retraction of ulcer bug bacteria paper
You plagiarized? No problem, says journal, we’ll retract so you can rewrite, and we’ll republish
Here’s something we haven’t seen before: A group of researchers plagiarize, are called on it, and are then allowed to resubmit a new version that’s published, while their offending paper is retracted.
A reader flagged the plagiarism in the original paper, “Protein domains, catalytic activity, and subcellular distribution of mouse NTE-related esterase,” by Ping’an Chang and colleagues, which led the research team to revise and resubmit the manuscript. After the journal Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry — a Springer title — published the plagiarism-scrubbed paper, the original paper required retraction.
The retraction refers to a dispute between labs, but not plagiarism: Continue reading You plagiarized? No problem, says journal, we’ll retract so you can rewrite, and we’ll republish
Wash U psych researcher cited in ORI probe, faces multiple retractions
The Office of Research Integrity says Adam Savine, a former post-doc graduate student in psychology at Washington University in St. Louis, committed misconduct in work that tainted three papers and six abstracts he submitted to conferences.
One of Savine’s studies that drew some media attention involved Diederik Stapel-esque research showing which brain region lights up when people see money. He was quoted in this 2010 article on Medical News Today saying:
“We wanted to see what motivates us to pursue one goal in the world above all others,” Savine says. “You might think that these mechanisms would have been addressed a long time ago in psychology and neuroscience, but it’s not been until the advent of fMRI about 15-20 years ago that we’ve had the tools to address this question in humans, and any progress in this area has been very, very recent.”
Apparently, now we know. According to the notice, Savine engaged in misconduct in research funded by four grants: Continue reading Wash U psych researcher cited in ORI probe, faces multiple retractions