Category: duplication retractions

“Considerable overlap” leads to retraction of medical imaging paper

PRL cover313

We have poked fun at Pattern Recognition Letters before for failing to catch blatant plagiarism. We probably should have held off on those jokes for this post.

A group of IT researchers from India has suffered the retraction of a paper in PRL for heavily basing the piece on at least four previous papers written by one of the co-authors without proper attribution (not that such attribution likely would have absolved the sin).

The paper, titled “A robust kernelized intuitionistic fuzzy c-means clustering algorithm in segmentation of noisy medical images,” was published in January of this year by Prabhjot Kaur and colleagues.

Here’s the retraction notice:

Continue reading “Considerable overlap” leads to retraction of medical imaging paper

Duplication, aka self-plagiarism, meets management-speak

management learningWhat happens when people who study management have to write a retraction notice? This, from Management Learning, regarding a paper by Gordon Müller-Seitz of the Free University of Berlin, suggests one possibility: Continue reading Duplication, aka self-plagiarism, meets management-speak

Mobile phone-diabetes study rings twice, earns retraction

emriThe Journal of Diabetes and Metabolic Disorders has retracted a 2012 study by a group of Iranian researchers. The reason: the authors had published the paper three years earlier, in a different journal.

Here’s the notice for the article, titled “Mobile phone text messaging and Telephone follow-up in type 2 diabetic patients for 3 months: a comparative study”: Continue reading Mobile phone-diabetes study rings twice, earns retraction

How much self-plagiarism, aka duplication, is too much?

copeDuplication is a frequent reason for the retractions we cover. Such duplication retractions are so common that we don’t get to most of them. While many have argued that duplication pollutes the literature, and can bias meta-analyses when the same study ends up being counted more than once, others say the need to come up with new ways to say the same thing is a waste of time. (That doesn’t explain why some scientists don’t just put their old words in quotes and cite them, but we digress.)

Appropriately, the Committee on Publication Ethics is taking up the issue at their regular forum tomorrow, using new guidelines produced by BioMedCentral as a starting point. Here’s an excerpt: Continue reading How much self-plagiarism, aka duplication, is too much?

Double dipping on exercise/cardiac risk paper leads to retraction

intjneurosciThe International Journal of Neuroscience has retracted a September 2005 paper by a group from Turkey who published the same article in the same month in a different journal.

The research involved looking at concentrations of blood fats in athletes and less vigorous folk, “and to examine the risks of cardiovascular diseases.”It found that:

… medium and high level of exercises did not cause significant differences in lipid and lipoprotein levels, but the sex differences were very pronounced” with “lipid and lipoprotein profile of female subjects was found to be better than that of males”.

Here’s the notice: Continue reading Double dipping on exercise/cardiac risk paper leads to retraction

Smoking cessation paper pulled for “almost word-for-word” similarity to authors’ previous work

jmfnmThe Journal of Maternal-Fetal & Neonatal Medicine has retracted a 2008 article on smoking cessation by a group from Sweden which they had published not many months before in a different journal.

The retracted paper was titled “Quitting smoking is perceived to have an effect on somatic health among pregnant and non-pregnant women.” The authors, from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, had published a similar paper — “Perception of Smoking-Related Health Consequences among Pregnant and Non-Pregnant Women” — in the American Journal of Addictions in 2007.

How similar?

Continue reading Smoking cessation paper pulled for “almost word-for-word” similarity to authors’ previous work

“Highly unethical practices” force four retractions for nanotech researcher

acta biomaterialiaSanjeeb K. Sahoo, of the Institute of Life Sciences in Bhubaneswar, India, has had four papers retracted from Acta Biomaterialia for what the journal is calling “highly unethical practices.”

All four notices say the same thing: Continue reading “Highly unethical practices” force four retractions for nanotech researcher

Hip, hip, retract! Cobalt poisoning case study pulled as duplicate

hipinternationalHip International has retracted a case study for duplication. (We apologize for the partial duplication of a headline for an earlier post about this journal, which told readers that “Similar cases will be referred to retractionwatch.”)

The article was titled “Chronic intoxication with cobalt following revision total hip arthroplasty,” and it appeared online ahead of print. Cobalt toxicity associated with metal-on-metal replacement hips has been raised as a potential adverse effect from the devices.

As the notice explains:

“Way out there” paper claiming to merge physics and biology retracted

dna cell biologyA German professor who claims to have developed “a self-consistent field theory which is used to derive at all known interactions of the potential vortex” will have at least two papers retracted, thanks to the scrutiny of a concerned economist.

The first retraction has already appeared, in DNA and Cell Biology, for a paper by Konstantin Meyl called “DNA and Cell Resonance: Magnetic Waves Enable Cell Communication.” The notice says nothing: Continue reading “Way out there” paper claiming to merge physics and biology retracted

Retraction Watch, Noah Webster style, cardiology edition

intjcardiolPlagiarism and duplication might involve the same act — the misuse of text and/or data — but they are different species. Take it from Eldon Smith, who as editor of the Canadian Journal of Cardiology defined the two acts of misconduct for his readers:

Plagiarism is the appropriation of another person’s ideas, processes, results or words without giving appropriate credit (1). One usually thinks of plagiarism in science as publishing phrases, sentences or passages (without attribution) that were previously published by someone else. …

If an author publishes the same article twice, he or she is guilty not only of the misconduct of duplicate publication, but also of plagiarism; this time, the author has plagiarized himself or herself. Unfortunately, such blatant misconduct is not rare. … It is difficult to understand how this can be interpreted as an honest error.

Perhaps the editors of the International Journal of Cardiology might want to take a look at Smith’s editorial. Continue reading Retraction Watch, Noah Webster style, cardiology edition