Category: society journal retractions

Cell Press investigating possible image manipulation in influential yeast genetics paper

cellCell Press is looking into anonymous allegations that a pair of influential papers on gene activation in yeast may contain more than two dozen instances of image manipulation, according to a spokesperson for the journal.

The accusations first appeared in March on PubPeer, where they triggered a small avalanche of comments, including one asserting “unambiguous and repeated examples of data re-use.”

The concerns raised on PubPeer have even sparked an investigation by an institution in Spain, which found no evidence to support the allegations. But not everyone agrees with that verdict.

Continue reading Cell Press investigating possible image manipulation in influential yeast genetics paper

The “results should not be published:” Company confidentiality agreement squashes two insecticide papers

AMTWest Virginia University biologists have retracted two papers on insecticides for fruit pests due to a confidentiality agreement with a chemical manufacturer stating that the “results should not be published.”

The retracted 2014 articles in Arthropod Management Tests, “Control of Internal Lepidoptera and other insect pests in apple, 2013” and “Control of Oriental Fruit Moth and other insect pests in peach, 2013,” were written by WVU entomologist Daniel Frank and plant pathologist Alan Biggs.

We’ve been unable to find abstracts for the papers, but here is a sister paper Frank and Biggs published in 2012,“Control of Internal Lepidoptera and other insect pests in apple, 2012,” evaluating various insecticides for the control of internal lepidoptera on an experimental plot of Red Delicious apple trees in West Virginia.

Here’s the to-the-point retraction note, which is identical for each paper: Continue reading The “results should not be published:” Company confidentiality agreement squashes two insecticide papers

Fluid mechanics article retracted with no explanation

JHeatTransf_ak7An article published earlier this year has been retracted from the  Journal of Heat Transfer. But the retraction notice gives no information about what was amiss.

The article is entitled “Neural Network Methodology for Modeling Heat Transfer in Wake Flow,” and the retraction notice, in full, reads: Continue reading Fluid mechanics article retracted with no explanation

Bully for you! Duplication earns demerit for school cruelty paper

Trauma-kashan3Archives of Trauma Research has retracted a 2014 paper on bullying by a group in Iran who appear to have been double-fisted in their approach to publishing.

The article, “Epidemiological Pattern of Bullying Among School Children in Mazandaran Province, Iran,” was written by researchers from Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, in Tehran. Its conclusions:

Different forms of bullying have a distinct nature and the epidemiological pattern indicates that bullying exists in the Iranian schools. Thus, the effective bullying prevention and appropriate intervention programs are recommended.

Here’s the notice:

Continue reading Bully for you! Duplication earns demerit for school cruelty paper

Chip slip: Irreproducibility erases computer memory paper

nanoscaleResearchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences have retracted a paper in Nanoscale about an experimental computer chip after they were unable to recreate their published results.

“We retract this article to avoid misleading readers and intend to undertake further tests to confirm our previous results,” they write in the notice.

The scientists are working on developing a chip that uses resistive random-access memory, which allows a huge amount of information to be stored in a tiny package and accessed quickly while using very little power. A number of companies are working on the technology, but none have successfully commercialized it.

Here’s the notice for “High uniformity and improved nonlinearity by embedding nanocrystals in selector-less resistive random access memory” (free, but requires login): Continue reading Chip slip: Irreproducibility erases computer memory paper

Duplication snuffs out pollen abstract

AACIA Canadian research team has retracted a meeting abstract “published in error” from a supplement by Allergy, Asthma & Clinical Immunology, as it had previously been published in another journal.

The December 2014 abstract, “A post-hoc qualitative analysis of real time heads-up pollen counting versus traditional microscopy counting in the environmental exposure unit (EEU),” describes a custom digital imaging method for counting pollen in real-time. The abstract was published ten months earlier, in February 2014, under the same title in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

Here is the full retraction note:

Continue reading Duplication snuffs out pollen abstract

Déjà vu: JBC epigenetics paper is retracted, then largely re-published with fewer authors

JBCA group of authors have withdrawn a 2011 Journal of Biological Chemistry paper, but then appear to have re-published almost the same paper a month later, only this time with just five of the original nine authors.

The paper, “HDAC3-dependent reversible lysine acetylation of cardiac myosin heavy chain isoforms modulates their enzymatic and motor activity,” concerns a type of protein regulation important to cardiac stress. Written by researchers at the University of Chicago and the University of Pittsburgh, it has been cited 16 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. It was rated “Exceptional” by a reviewer on the Faculty of 1000 website.

As we’ve come to expect from the JBC, here’s the full retraction notice, in all its inexplicit glory: Continue reading Déjà vu: JBC epigenetics paper is retracted, then largely re-published with fewer authors

“Unreliable” data suffocates third paper for Duke pulmonary team

ajrcmbOnce again, a team of Duke University scientists has retracted a paper, this time due to “unreliable” figure data.

With co-authors at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Duke team has withdrawn a paper from the American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology after concern about data in three figures led them to repeat one of their main experiments. They subsequently found “no evidence” supporting their previous conclusion.

By our count, it is the third retraction from a team that includes William Foster, a pulmonary researcher at the Duke Medical Center. The Duke team retracted a paper in 2013 on a related topic—the effect of early life ozone exposure on airways—from the Journal of Applied Physiology when it was discovered that, familiarly, data in a figure were “unreliable”. Recently, they also retracted a PNAS paper on asthma treatment earlier this month, due to missing primary data and mismatched data from two sources.

Continue reading “Unreliable” data suffocates third paper for Duke pulmonary team

Editor of Medical Journal of Australia fired after criticizing decision to outsource to Elsevier

Stephen Leeder
Stephen Leeder

Public health expert Stephen Leeder has been ousted as editor of Australia’s top medical journal after he questioned the decision to outsource the journal’s production and other tasks to publishing giant Elsevier.

Leeder, emeritus professor at the University of Sydney, told the Medical Observer he was asked to leave when he and the journal’s publisher, AMPCo, couldn’t see eye to eye on the decision:

Continue reading Editor of Medical Journal of Australia fired after criticizing decision to outsource to Elsevier

Author from China blames translation company for plagiarism in retracted vascular paper

apjcpDo we need a “throwing vendors under the bus” category here at Retraction Watch?

Earlier this year, we reported on the retraction of a paper because of sloppy work by an outside lab. Now, we have the story of a retraction for “negligence” by a translator. Specifically, the author says the passages shared between the retracted 2015 vascular paper and another paper in EMBO Journal are a result of “negligence on the part of the translation company that I trusted to make my manuscript ready for submission.”

Here’s more from the notice in the Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention, written by Yong Jiang, of Laboratory Medical College, Jilin Medical College, China: Continue reading Author from China blames translation company for plagiarism in retracted vascular paper