Category: by publisher

“Fraud committed by any social psychologist diminishes all social psychologists”: New Sanna, Smeesters retractions

jespThree new retractions — two of papers by Lawrence Sanna and one of work by Dirk Smeesters —  have appeared in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. The retractions come along with a hard-hitting piece by the journal’s editor.

In a tough soul-searching editorial called “On Fraud, Deceit, and Ethics” (unfortunately only available behind a paywall), journal editor in chief Joel Cooper writes that “Fraud committed by any social psychologist diminishes all social psychologists.” He continues: Continue reading “Fraud committed by any social psychologist diminishes all social psychologists”: New Sanna, Smeesters retractions

Duplicate analysis of Eastern Europe’s GDP retracted from two journals, one in US, one in Croatia

Proceedings of Rijeka Faculty of Economics: Journal of Economics and BusinessTwo papers by researchers from China and Taiwan have been retracted from two journals, one based in the US, one in Croatia, after identical studies appeared in the June 2011 issues of both publications.

Eastern European Economics retracted their version first, and that journal’s editor discussed the case with the editors of Proceedings of Rijeka Faculty of Economics: Journal of Economics and Business, where the same paper was also published.

Eastern European Economics‘ retraction reads: Continue reading Duplicate analysis of Eastern Europe’s GDP retracted from two journals, one in US, one in Croatia

Paper on “evidence for environmental racism” in EPA polluter fines retracted for coding error

nat resources coverA coding switcharoo caused a paper Society & Natural Resources to be retracted. But the authors say that not all is lost, since correcting the data gave them a better understanding of how the the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency fines companies that pollute in poor and minority neighborhoods.

The retraction notice reads: Continue reading Paper on “evidence for environmental racism” in EPA polluter fines retracted for coding error

Publisher error leads to retraction, then reinstatement, in agriculture journal

icpcoverHere’s an odd good news/bad news tale from the pages of Industrial Crops and Products. The journal is reinstating a 2011 paper it mistakenly retracted. But, it’s retracting another article from the same author, who tried to grow two peas in the same pod (or something like that).

According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Publisher error leads to retraction, then reinstatement, in agriculture journal

Seeing double in Pattern Recognition Letters leads to retraction

patterrecletcoverYou’d think this sort of thing would be, well, obvious to the editors of a journal called Pattern Recognition Letters — could a fox get away with publishing in Henhouse News? — but a group of Lithuanian researchers managed to get a duplicate article into the pages of PRL.

The paper, titled “Application of Bayes linear discriminant functions in image classification,” appeared in the February 2011 issue of PRL. But a very similar version already had been published in a special meeting issue of another journal, Procedia Environmental Sciences. Both are Elsevier titles.

According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Seeing double in Pattern Recognition Letters leads to retraction

Former Harvard dental school researcher committed misconduct: ORI

Martin Biosse-Duplan
Martin Biosse-Duplan

Last week was a busy one at the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI), at least judging by how many cases they posted. There were sanctions against researchers at Ohio State, Texas Tech, and the Gladstone Institutes, as we reported. And it turns out there was another case closed, of a former Harvard dental school research fellow, The Scientist reports.

According to the ORI, Martin Biosse-Duplan “engaged in research misconduct in research supported by National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), National Institutes of Health (NIH), grant R01 AR054450.”

The misconduct involved a lab presentation and two published abstracts: Continue reading Former Harvard dental school researcher committed misconduct: ORI

ORI sanctions former Texas Tech postdoc for falsification, fabrication, plagiarism

biomed chromatographyThe Office of Research Integrity (ORI) has sanctioned a former Texas Tech postdoc for using data that had actually been generated before he joined the lab in a paper as if it were new.

Shuang-Qing Zhang, according to today’s announcement by the ORI, “engaged in research misconduct by the falsification and fabrication of plagiarized data” in a paper he claimed to have written with his supervisor, Reza Mehvar, “Determination of dextra-methylprednisolone conjugate with glycine linker in rat plasma and liver by high-performance liquid chromatography and its application in pharmacokinetics,” first published online in Biomedical Chromatography in 2009. [see update at end of post]

The work was supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), National Institutes of Health (NIH), grant R01 GM069869. The ORI found that Zhang had: Continue reading ORI sanctions former Texas Tech postdoc for falsification, fabrication, plagiarism

Scientists retract paper because they’re “not satisfied with the quality of some of the data”

antiox and redoxA group of smoking researchers — no, not scientists who are on fire; scientists who study the effects of tobacco smoke — has retracted a 2009 article after deciding that they were no longer “satisfied with the quality of the data.”

The paper, “Cigarette Smoke–induced Oxidative/Nitrosative Stress Impairs VEGF- and Fluid Shear Stress–Mediated Signaling in Endothelial Cells,” came from the lab of Irfan Rahman, a lung disease expert at the University of Rochester. It appeared online in 2009 in Antioxidants & Redox Signaling, which will be familiar to readers watching the case of Dipak Das. 

As the notice explains: Continue reading Scientists retract paper because they’re “not satisfied with the quality of some of the data”

Stem cell retraction leaves grad student in limbo, reveals tangled web of industry-academic ties

stem cells developmentA contested retraction in Stem Cells and Development has left the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) graduate student who fought for it in limbo, uncertain if he will earn his PhD. And many of those who didn’t want the paper retracted have a significant financial interest in a company whose work was promoted by the research — despite any lack of disclosure in the now-retracted paper.

Here’s the notice: Continue reading Stem cell retraction leaves grad student in limbo, reveals tangled web of industry-academic ties

Publisher wants $650 to retract duplicated study

am j eng app sciWe’ve heard about a lot of barriers to retraction — author and editor stubbornness being the most frequent. But now there’s a new one: A publisher that wants to charge authors $650 to retract.

University of Colorado librarian Jeffrey Beall — who produces a frequently updated list of predatory publishers — first wrote about the case on his blog last week. Beall alerted a journal about a duplication more than two years ago, and who re-reported it earlier this month when he failed to see a retraction.

What seems to have happened, according to an email exchange between the editor of one of the journals and the two authors of the two papers, is that Pit Pruksathorn, then a PhD student at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, submitted a paper to the Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering, a Springer title, without letting his advisor know. Prukshathorn wrote that Continue reading Publisher wants $650 to retract duplicated study