Category: by publisher

Plagiarism leads to seven retractions (and counting) in the conservation literature

Serge Valentin Pangou

An ecology researcher in the Congo has found himself at the center of a plagiarism scandal that has felled seven of his papers.

As Science reports today, Serge Valentin Pangou’s work began unraveling in August 2011 after Wageningen University ecologist Patrick Jansen thought a paper he’d been asked to review for the International Journal of Biodiversity and Conservation seemed familiar — because he’d written many of the same words in a 2007 paper in Conservation Biology. He ran the manuscript through the plagiarism detection software Turnitin, and sure enough, it was about 90% identical.

Unfortunately for Pangou, Jansen’s co-author on the Conservation Biology paper was Pierre-Michel Forget, whose father, as Science notes, “was a well-known private detective in France.” Forget and Jansen took a careful look at a number of Pangou’s papers, Continue reading Plagiarism leads to seven retractions (and counting) in the conservation literature

Journal yanks anemia paper over duplicate data

Blood Cells, Molecules, and Diseases (that’s one title) has retracted a 2011 paper, “Comparative proteomics reveals deficiency of NHE-1 (Slc9a1) in RBCs from the beta-adducin knockout mouse model of hemolytic anemia,” after learning from a reader that the data it contained were previously published by a competing publication.

As the notice explains: Continue reading Journal yanks anemia paper over duplicate data

Neuro journal retracts case study with redundant data

If that headline has you scratching your, well, head, we don’t blame you. After all, case studies are, by definition, unique — but not this one.

Neurological Sciences, the official journal of the Italian Society of Neurology, has retracted a 2009 article by a Korean scientist after learning that the manuscript contained elements of a 2007 publication in a different publication.

According to the notice: Continue reading Neuro journal retracts case study with redundant data

Another withdrawal by MD Anderson’s Aggarwal, again for unclear reasons

Bharat B. Aggarwal, the MD Anderson researcher under investigation at his institution over concerns of image manipulation, has withdrawn a second paper, although you’d never know why from the statement.

The notice for the article, “Evidence for the critical roles of NF-κB p65 and specificity proteins in the apoptosis-inducing activity of proteasome inhibitors in leukemia cells,” is pretty minimal: Continue reading Another withdrawal by MD Anderson’s Aggarwal, again for unclear reasons

On second thought: Transplant paper retracted for researcher error

When a group from Saint Louis University published a case report in Pediatric Transplantation on a baby with an unusual infection after kidney transplant surgery, they thought they’d stumbled on a first. At the time they wrote:

[Acalculous candidal cholecystitis] caused by Candida is an uncommon entity usually seen in the critically ill. Here, we present the case of an 18-month-old renal transplant patient who developed candidal AAC during the post-operative period. Previous articles have addressed acalculous cholecystitis secondary to a variety of causes, or addressed a wide variety of Candida infections in the biliary tract, but this is the first discussion of cholecystitis caused by Candida without confounding factors such as biliary calculi or multiple pathogens. After the discussion of our patient’s case, we also reviewed the English-language literature regarding candidal AAC and discussed diagnosis, treatment, and mortality.

A year later, however, the group is walking back their article. A retraction notice in the journal states that: Continue reading On second thought: Transplant paper retracted for researcher error

Gastro journal retracts duplicate review, but what really happened?

Current Opinion in Gastroenterology is a bimonthly journal “offering a unique and wide ranging perspective on the key developments in the field” that “features hand-picked review articles from our team of expert editors.”

Apparently, those hands picked what amounted to the same “unique” article twice. The journal is retracting a 2004 paper, “Enteral feeding,” by Khursheed Jeejeebhoy, an expert in nutrition at the University of Toronto (he’s now emeritus), because it duplicates a 2003 paper with the same title.

Here’s what the notice, which, lamentably, sits behind a paywall, has to say: Continue reading Gastro journal retracts duplicate review, but what really happened?

Climate science critic Wegman reprimanded by one university committee while another finds no misconduct

The author of a controversial and now-retracted paper questioning the science of climate change has been reprimanded by his university for plagiarism. According to USA Today’s Dan Vergano, who broke the news:

[Edward] Wegman was the senior author of a 2006 report to Congress that criticized climate scientists as excessively collaborative, and found fault with a statistical technique used in two climate studies. Portions of the report analysis were published in the journal, Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, in a 2008 study.

University of Massachusetts professor Raymond Bradley filed a complaint against Wegman in 2010, noting that portions of the report and the CSDA study appeared lifted from one of his textbooks and from other sources, including Wikipedia. CSDA later retracted the study, noting the plagiarism, last year.

Here’s the explicit retraction notice: Continue reading Climate science critic Wegman reprimanded by one university committee while another finds no misconduct

Dental X-rays linked to Alzheimer’s disease? Abstract saying so temporarily withdrawn

Alzheimer’s & Dementia has “temporarily withdrawn” a 2012 abstract, slated for publication next month, linking Alzheimer’s disease with exposure to dental x-rays.

The author is Caroline Rodgers, a self-described “independent writer/researcher who investigates public health issues and advocates for change.” Although we can’t find the text, we’re guessing that its premise is similar to that of her 2011 paper in Medical Hypotheses, titled “Dental X-ray exposure and Alzheimer’s disease: a hypothetical etiological association.”

Here’s the abstract from that paper: Continue reading Dental X-rays linked to Alzheimer’s disease? Abstract saying so temporarily withdrawn

“Failure probability” turns out to be quite high as engineers double-submit paper, then see it retracted

A couple of engineers in Iran turn out to be better at predicting the “failure probability” of water pipes than of their chances of being published.

Consider this retraction notice for “Estimation of failure probability in water pipes network using statistical model,” originally published in February 2011 in Engineering Failure Analysis: Continue reading “Failure probability” turns out to be quite high as engineers double-submit paper, then see it retracted

Flawed model leads to retraction of polymer paper

The International Journal of Impact Engineering has a highly technical retraction of an article whose authors discovered that crucial findings relied on a model that was different from the one they reported using in a particular figure.

The article, “Dynamic behavior of polymers at high strain-rates based on split Hopkinson pressure bar tests,” was published online last November by a pair of researchers from the U.K. and China. As the notice states:

Continue reading Flawed model leads to retraction of polymer paper