Category: duplication retractions

Paper cuts? Duplication, data manipulation force retraction of study of circumcision by ring device

A group of Chinese authors studying the Shang Ring, “a device that allows professionals to perform hundreds rather than tens of” circumcisions in a day, as had to retract the paper after editors apparently figured out they had changed some dates in the paper so it wouldn’t look as though they were trying to publish it twice. Or maybe they just changed the dates for some other reason, while publishing it twice anyway — it’s not clear.

Here’s the Journal of Urology notice for “A Randomized Clinical Study of Circumcision with a Ring Device Versus Conventional Circumcision,” by Cheng Yuea and colleagues from the Medical College of Ningbo University, the Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, and Taizhou First People’s Hospital: Continue reading Paper cuts? Duplication, data manipulation force retraction of study of circumcision by ring device

Group’s duplication retractions span the globe, from New Zealand to Romania to Croatia

The retraction count continues to grow for a group of Iranian scientists who appear to have published similar work four times.

The group was forced to retract a Journal of Gastrointestinal and Liver Diseases paper in March. That retraction came alongside one in the New Zealand Journal of Medical Laboratory Science, whose editor had tipped JGLD editor Monica Acalovschi — who has taken a tough stance on duplication in her own journal, published in Romania — off to the duplication. Acalovschi, in turn, tipped off Biochemia Medica, the journal of Croatian Society of Medical Biochemistry and Laboratory Medicine, which has now retracted a 2009 paper by the group.

The Biochemia Medica retraction, published in its June 2012 issue, says: Continue reading Group’s duplication retractions span the globe, from New Zealand to Romania to Croatia

Make it a double: Alcohol treatment study pulled for duplication

European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry has retracted a 2003 paper on the treatment of alcoholism for a vague “copyright violation.” But the reason appears to be that the article was largely identical to a 2002 report from one of the authors and other colleagues.

The offending paper, “Acamprosate and its efficacy in treating alcohol dependent adolescents,” appeared in June 2003 and has been cited 51 times, according to Google Scholar. The authors were Helmut Niederhofer and Wolfgang Staffen, of the Christian Doppler-Klinik, in Salzburg.

According to the rather uninformative notice: Continue reading Make it a double: Alcohol treatment study pulled for duplication

You’ve been dupe’d: Catching up on authors who liked their work enough to use it again

photo by Mark Turnauckas via Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/marktee/

As we’ve noted before, we generally let duplication retractions make their way to the bottom of our to-do pile, since there’s often less of an interesting story behind them, duplication is hardly the worst of publishing sins, and the notices usually tell the story. (These are often referred to — imprecisely — as “self-plagiarism.”)

But that skews what’s represented here — boy, are there a lot of duplication retractions we haven’t covered! — and we might as well be more comprehensive. Plus, our eagle-eyed readers may find issues that we won’t see on a quick scan.

So with this post, we’re inaugurating a new feature here at Retraction Watch, “You’ve been dupe’d.” Every now and then, we’ll gather five of these duplication retractions at a time, and post them so they get into the mix, and into our category listing (see drop-down menu in right-hand column if you haven’t already). Here are the first five: Continue reading You’ve been dupe’d: Catching up on authors who liked their work enough to use it again

Gastro journal continues tough stance on duplication, with two new retractions

Monica Acalovschi is serious about ridding the literature of duplicate publications.

That would seem to be the message of two new retraction notices in the Journal of Gastrointestinal and Liver Diseases, which Acalovschi edits — two retractions that join another for similar reasons, which we covered earlier this year.

Here are the notices, from the June issue of the journal (but which were just indexed by Medline):

For “Intestinal Pseudo-obstruction – a Rare Condition with Heterogeneous Etiology and Unpredictable Outcome. A Case Report:” Continue reading Gastro journal continues tough stance on duplication, with two new retractions

Authors dispute ethical lapse in case of double physics publication that wasn’t

Plasma Processes and Polymers has retracted a paper it published in March 2012 for what it describes as a “possible breach of ethics.”

That certainly sounds bad — if inconclusive — but the authors maintain the whole thing was a simple misunderstanding.

The article, “Plasma Acid: Water Treated by Dielectric Barrier Discharge,” came from the lab of Gary Friedman, a physicist at Drexel University in Philadelphia. The first, and corresponding, author was Natalie Shainsky, an award-winning graduate student at the school.

As the notice states: Continue reading Authors dispute ethical lapse in case of double physics publication that wasn’t

Duplication forces retraction of paper on effects of prenatal environment on behavior

A journal has retracted a 2005 paper by a group of physiologists at the University of Toronto after it became clear that the work duplicated five other articles by the same researchers.

Here’s the notice in Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews for “Maternal adversity, glucocorticoids and programming of neuroendocrine function and behaviour:” Continue reading Duplication forces retraction of paper on effects of prenatal environment on behavior

Pseudo amino acid paper pseudo new — and now retracted

The Journal of Computational Chemistry is retracting a 2011 paper by a group of Chinese researchers for duplication.

The article was titled “Predicting Protein Folding Rates Using the Concept of Chou’s Pseudo Amino Acid Composition.” According to the notice: Continue reading Pseudo amino acid paper pseudo new — and now retracted

Bad vibrations: Composites paper pulled after subsequent, duplicate article appears

Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering is retracting a 2011 paper by an Italian researcher who submitted a similar article to another journal. What makes this interesting is that the retracted article appears to be the one that was published first.

The article, “Free vibrations of laminated composite doubly-curved shells and panels of revolution via the GDQ method,” was written by Francesco Tornabene, an engineer at the University of Bologna and has been cited five times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. As the notice explains: Continue reading Bad vibrations: Composites paper pulled after subsequent, duplicate article appears

Three gynecologic cancer studies retracted for figure duplication, image manipulation

A gynecologic cancer researcher at Oita University in Japan has retracted three papers by his group after the discovery of duplicated figures and manipulated images.

The three papers by Noriyuki Takai and colleagues all appeared in Gynecologic Oncology: Continue reading Three gynecologic cancer studies retracted for figure duplication, image manipulation