Category: erroneous data

Hydrogen study has “merit” — just not enough to avoid retraction

The International Journal of Hydrogen Energy has retracted a paper by a group from Malaysia and India who, reading between the lines, couldn’t quite get the low notes to overcome what the high notes lacked. Or something like that.

The paper, “Hydrogen production from sea water using waste aluminium and calcium oxide,” appears to have come out of the quaintly named 7th Petite Workshop on the Defect Chemical Nature of Energy Materials, held in March 2011 in Norway.

According to the notice: Continue reading Hydrogen study has “merit” — just not enough to avoid retraction

Updates: Journal of Climate adds info about withdrawn hot temps paper, chemistry journal corrects retraction notice

We have a few updates on stories we’ve covered.

In June, we wrote about the withdrawal of a paper claiming that temperatures in the last 60 years were warmest in the last 1,000 years. At the time, we reported, following posts by others, that the authors had been made aware of errors in their work and were withdrawing it to correct their calculations.

For several months, the page housing the Journal of Climate study read:

The requested article is not currently available on this site.

It still does. But another page that should house the paper now reads, as commenter Skiphil notes: Continue reading Updates: Journal of Climate adds info about withdrawn hot temps paper, chemistry journal corrects retraction notice

Allergy researchers lose second paper over “severe problems” with data

Last spring, we reported on the retraction in Clinical and Translational Allergy of a 2011 paper by researchers in Egypt and Finland after “severe problems in the data set” were uncovered. The notice cited an earlier study, from 2009, in Acta Paediatrica, that formed the basis for the subsequent trial.

At the time, the Acta Paediatrica paper still stood. No longer: Continue reading Allergy researchers lose second paper over “severe problems” with data

Hip, hip, hooray! Hip journal retracts paper that had, well, everything wrong with it

Sometimes, you just gotta retract.

Here’s the retraction notice for “Outcome of short proximal femoral nail antirotation and dynamic hip screw for fixation of unstable trochanteric fractures. A randomised prospective comparative trial,” originally published in Hip International in 2011 by a group of researchers at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi: Continue reading Hip, hip, hooray! Hip journal retracts paper that had, well, everything wrong with it

Hypertension retracts paper over data glitch

The anticipation of having one’s blood pressure measured can cause it to spike.

So, evidently, can errors in data processing — on a national scale.

Hypertension, a journal published by the American Heart Association, has retracted a 2011 paper looking at the implications of blood pressure management guidelines after the authors discovered they had bungled the merging of their data files.

As the notice explains: Continue reading Hypertension retracts paper over data glitch

TKO for knee replacement paper, but notice raises more questions than it answers

The journal Orthopedics is retracting a paper by Chinese researchers who appear to have been a little to hasty to submit their manuscript.

Titled “Comparison of the mini-midvastus with the mini-medial parapatellar approach in primary TKA,” the October 2010 paper purported to describe a prospective, randomized study comparing two approaches to total knee arthroplasty, or knee replacement surgery. The authors, from First Affiliated Hospital of Suzhou University, stated that “all knees were implanted with the same posterior-stabilized prosthesis by the same surgeon,” a Dr. Tang.

Having claimed to have separated the effects of the surgery from those of the prosthetic — in this case, the Genesis II device from Smith & Nephew — the authors said that the study was able to demonstrate that “the early clinical results are similar between the mini-midvastus and mini-medial parapatellar approach. The mini-medial parapatellar approach is easier to initially apply and provides better visualization for TKA.”

Except that it didn’t.  Continue reading TKO for knee replacement paper, but notice raises more questions than it answers

Monkey business? 2002 Cognition paper retracted as prominent psychologist Marc Hauser takes leave from Harvard

Marc Hauser, a prominent Harvard psychology researcher and author, will be taking a leave of absence from the university following “a lengthy internal investigation found evidence of scientific misconduct in his laboratory” that has led to the retraction of one of his papers, according to The Boston Globe.

The retraction, of a 2002 paper in Cognition, reads, in part: “An internal examination at Harvard University . . . found that the data do not support the reported findings. We therefore are retracting this article,” the Globe reports.  It also includes the sentence “MH accepts responsibility for the error.”

The retraction notice does not yet appear anywhere on the journal’s site, where the PDF version of the study is still available, nor on the Medline abstract. Its circumstances appear to be atypical, according to the Globe: Continue reading Monkey business? 2002 Cognition paper retracted as prominent psychologist Marc Hauser takes leave from Harvard