On November 25, 2014, a journal published an article on mass spectrometry. Then on December 18th they published it again — twice.
Yes: “Mass analysis by Ar-GCIB-dynamic SIMS for organic materials” was mistakenly published a total of three times.
Over a year later, the journal pulled the two redundant publications. Here’s the retraction notice for one of them:
Continue reading Oops — journal published same paper three times
A journal has added expressions of concern (EOCs) to four papers about diabetes, including one co-authored by an author who previously sued a different journal when it took a similar action on his papers.
The Journal of Physiology flagged the papers after an investigation “could not rule out the possibility” that they contained duplicated Western blots. Though the three other papers do not include Mario Saad on their author list, he plays a role: The papers include blots duplicated from other papers of Saad’s. And they reveal that Saad may have published those blots multiple times in his own work.
The EOCs all start out with the same statement: Continue reading Researcher who unsuccessfully sued journal to stop retractions earns another expression of concern
A journal is pulling additional papers authored by twin brothers for peer review issues.
After retracting three papers by Cheng-Wu Chen earlier this year for “compromised” peer review, Human Factors and Ergonomics in Manufacturing & Service Industries is now pulling four more by Chen for the same reason — and four others by his twin brother, Chen-Yuan Chen, who was a the center of a peer review ring that SAGE busted in 2014.
Cheng-Wu Chen lost 21 papers during that episode. He’s now up to 28; Chen-Yuan Chen, who also goes by Peter Chen, is now up to 43. Both are present on our leaderboard.
The notes, which appear in the March/April issue of the journal, are all identical, and also cite issues with citations:
Continue reading Authors in 2014 peer review ring lose 4 more papers each for “compromised” review
Here’s something we don’t get to write about often: A journal has retracted an expression of concern (EOC) more than 15 years after issuing it.
What took so long? Apparently, the European Journal of Neuroscience (EJN) just recently learned about a review carried out by the author’s previous institution, which concluded that she had not committed misconduct.
Let’s take a look at the retraction note of the expression of concern, which was published last month: Continue reading Neuroscience journal retracts expression of concern 15 years after investigation
A research assistant at King Saud University (KSU) has lost his job after he used material from a student’s thesis without permission or attribution in a paper.
Lakshmana Krishnappa was terminated after a disciplinary committee considered his case last November, the vice dean for postgraduate training and research at KSU told Retraction Watch. In April of last year, Krishnappa retracted a paper published in January 2015 — we think that’s the date; the journal doesn’t make it all that clear — that included plagiarized material, published in Reviews in Medical Microbiology. He recently lost a second unrelated paper for duplication.
Here’s the retraction notice for the Reviews in Medical Microbiology paper, “Acinetobacter baumannii: pathogenecity, virulence factors and their correlation with adherence and invasion:”
Continue reading Research assistant fired for using student’s thesis in a paper
The journal Evolution has retracted a 2007 paper about the roles of the different sexes in searching for mates, after the same author critiqued the work in a later paper.
The case raises important questions about when retractions are appropriate, and whether they can have a chilling effect on scientific discourse. Although Hanna Kokko of the University of Zurich, Switzerland — who co-authored both papers — agreed that the academic literature needed to be corrected, she didn’t want to retract the earlier paper; the journal imposed that course of action, said Kokko.
Let’s take a look at the retraction note: Continue reading Biologist critiques own paper, journal retracts it — against her wishes
A series of mistakes have caused a pair of cancer researchers based in China to retract one paper and correct another.
The retraction stems from a duplication of figures in a paper about the molecular underpinnings of colorectal cancer, which the editor of the journal told us he believed was caused by honest error. The other paper was corrected after the authors realized they had published the wrong versions of multiple figures, an error which the authors say does not affect the paper’s conclusions.
This isn’t the first time the pair has had to correct the record — these changes follow a mega-correction for Jie Hong, and Jing-Yuan Fang, both of the Shanghai Jiao-Tong University, where Fang is the director of the Shanghai Institute of Digestive Disease.
Here’s the retraction note for “Role of STAT3 and vitamin D receptor in EZH2-mediated invasion of human colorectal cancer,” published in the Journal of Pathology:
Continue reading Mistakes lead to retraction, correction of cancer papers by pair
The British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology (BJCP) has retracted a 2015 paper about treating heart failure after deciding its peer review process had been compromised.
This paper is one of the many we’ve noticed lately that have been felled by the actions of a “third party” — in this case, a manuscript editing company called EditPub.
The newly retracted paper, “rhBNP therapy can improve clinical outcomes and reduce in-hospital mortality compared with dobutamine in heart failure patients: a meta-analysis,” has not yet been cited, according to Thomson Reuters Web of Science.
Here’s the retraction note, which tells us a bit more: Continue reading Pharmacology journal pulls paper because third party “compromised” peer review
Amidst an ongoing investigation by the University of Belgrade in Serbia into allegations of duplication by neurobiologist Lidija Radenović, a journal is planning to retract another one of her papers.
Radenović has already racked up six retractions; Elinor Ben-Menachem, the chief editor of the journal, Acta Neurologica Scandinavica, confirmed her journal is planning to retract one paper co-authored by Radenović, but did not specify which one. After digging around on the journal’s website, we found only one paper co-authored by Radenović, which was a 2005 study about the molecular changes that follow stroke.
Ben-Menachem, who is based the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, said the retraction note for the paper is “not ready” yet, and declined to comment on the case in more detail, including the reason for retraction. Continue reading Neuroscientist in Serbia set to notch 7th retraction amid investigation
There’s something strange about a 2008 paper on the role of nicotine receptors in promoting lung cancer: One of the western blot analyses looks like a version of an image from a commercial catalog.
A commenter on PubPeer pointed out the similarities between an image in “Role of α7-nicotinic acetylcholine receptor in human non-small cell lung cancer proliferation,” which was published in Cell Proliferation, and one used to promote an enzyme sold by Cell Signaling Technology.
Unfortunately, if the images are indeed the same, we can’t tell for certain who copied from whom. But a representative of the company told us it generates its own images, and this one was likely created before the paper was published. The last author — for whom we’ve found three other retractions — denied that the paper copied the image.
Here’s the panel from the paper, which was published in 2008: Continue reading Does this scientific image look familiar? It’s from a catalog