Category: duplication retractions

Jonah Lehrer’s German publisher will release adjusted version of Imagine sans fabricated quotes

imagineAn edited version of Jonah Lehrer’s Imagine, the book withdrawn from shelves in 2012 by his publisher Houghton Mifflin because he had fabricated quotes by Bob Dylan, will be released in Germany next month, according to a report in the German media.

In a story titled “Free ride for the falsifier” (“Freie Fahrt für den Fälscher”), Buchreport.de reports (via Google Translate) that despite the known fabrications, “the publisher wants to keep the book on creativity:” Continue reading Jonah Lehrer’s German publisher will release adjusted version of Imagine sans fabricated quotes

Zero dark thirty for Al-Qaeda article

ftpv20.v026.i01.coverAn Israeli terrorism scholar has lost a review of a 2011 book on Al-Qaeda because he published it twice in different outlets.

The researcher, Isaac Kfir, is with the International Institute for Counter- Terrorism, where he studies

issues relating to post-conflict reconstruction (security issues) and transitional justice (restorative and retributive justice). His other research looks at the effect of Islamic radicalism within the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The book in question is Al-Qaeda: From Global Network to Local Franchise, by Christina Hellmich of the University of Reading in the UK. The offending article appeared in Terrorism and Political Violence, a Taylor & Francis title. According to the notice: Continue reading Zero dark thirty for Al-Qaeda article

Should this engineering paper have been retracted?

safetyscienceThe journal Safety Science has retracted a 2013 paper by a group of engineers from Brazil who had published the article previously, albeit in a much abbreviated form, a year earlier.

What makes this case more than a straightforward matter of duplication/self-plagiarism is that the authors greatly expanded upon the earlier article. The initial paper also appeared in a conference proceedings — the  18th World Congress on Ergonomics – Designing a Sustainable Future — priority that, at least in the minds of some, doesn’t really constitute a true publication. Continue reading Should this engineering paper have been retracted?

“This unfortunate incident”: Resubmission leads to retraction of readmission paper

j surg oncThe Journal of Surgical Oncology has retracted a 2007 paper on hospitalizations of breast cancer patients for being a duplicate of another, presumably earlier, article. Although the usable information in the retraction notice ends just about there.

The article, “Factors Affecting Hospital Readmission Rates for Breast Cancer Patients in Western Australia,” appeared online in January 2007 in the journal and came from a group at the School of Finance and Applied Statistics at Australian National University in Canberra.

According to the notice: Continue reading “This unfortunate incident”: Resubmission leads to retraction of readmission paper

A retracted retraction? Authors salvage entomology paper with image issues

jtbThe paper is dead. Long live the paper!

Earlier this year, we brought you the case of a group of Brazilian insect researchers who lost two 15-year-old papers in different journals for duplication. One of those papers has been resurrected, albeit in a rather puzzling way.

The article, “Non-local interactions and the dynamics of dispersal in immature insects,” had appeared in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, which had issued the following retraction notice:
Continue reading A retracted retraction? Authors salvage entomology paper with image issues

Cancer-anorexia paper retracted for “unacceptable” duplication

doveDrug Design, Development and Therapy has retracted a 2013 paper by a group from Italy for duplication.

The retraction notice for the paper, “Drugs in development for treatment of patients with cancer-related anorexia and cachexia syndrome,” fairly bristles with indignation: Continue reading Cancer-anorexia paper retracted for “unacceptable” duplication

Melendez notches retraction 14, Lemus now stands at 12

int j biochem mol bioTwo researchers who have appeared frequently on Retraction Watch have racked up another retraction each.

This is the fourteenth retraction for Alirio Melendez, who was found guilty of misconduct by the National University of Singapore but denies the allegations. Here’s the notice in The International Journal of Biochemistry & Cell Biology for “Environmental toxicogenomics: A post-genomic approach to analysing biological responses to environmental toxins,” a paper published in Environmental Research and cited nine times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge: Continue reading Melendez notches retraction 14, Lemus now stands at 12

Duplication leads to recall of toxicology paper

toxinvitroA group of researchers from Egypt and the United States has lost their 2010 paper in the journal Toxicology in Vitro for recycling many of their own words from a previously published manuscript.

The article, “Bacterial lipopolysaccharide-induced oxidative stress in adult rat Sertoli cells in vitro,” was written by Hamdy A.A. Aly, Hany A. El-Shemy and David A. Lightfoot,  a professor of biotechnology and genomics at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. El-Shemy, now of Cairo University, was a visiting scholar at SICU a few years ago, and he and Lightfoot have published together several times. Continue reading Duplication leads to recall of toxicology paper

Who’s on first? Paper on “the ethics of being first” retracted because it was…second

value inquiryHas anyone seen our irony meter?

The author of a 2003 study on “the ethics of being first” is retracting it because it turns out he had already published it elsewhere — making it, well, not first.

Here’s the retraction notice for “Surgical Research and the Ethics of Being First,” the Journal of Value Inquiry paper: Continue reading Who’s on first? Paper on “the ethics of being first” retracted because it was…second

Spying on The Onion: Journal retracts drone paper for duplication

euro j agronomyWhen you think of drones, you probably think of deadly strikes in faraway lands. But what about studying crops?

Take “Use of digital photography from unmanned aerial vehicles for estimation of leaf area index in onion (Allium cepa L.),” a study published earlier this year in the European Journal of Agronomy by researchers from Spain: Continue reading Spying on The Onion: Journal retracts drone paper for duplication