by reason for retraction – Page 19

“Flagrant and frankly, inexcusable” data duplication leads to retraction

Bardia Askari, who flagged the duplication

A biochemistry study has been retracted nearly a year after a whistleblower found significant overlap between the article and one published in a different journal by the same research group.

The study, “Berberine ameliorates renal injury in diabetic C57BL/6 mice: Involvement of suppression of SphK–S1P signaling pathway,” appeared in the journal Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics in July 2010. It has been cited 76 times.

The study examines how berberine, a compound found in plants such as tree turmeric, might improve kidney injury in diabetic mice. People sometimes take berberine supplements to help treat diabetes, but the evidence for its effectiveness is mixed. The authors of the paper are researchers at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China.

The study was retracted on May 23 at the request of the journal’s editor-in-chief, according to the retraction notice. It states, in part:

Exclusive: Alleged research misconduct cost Turkish surgeons tenure

Two orthopedic surgeons in Turkey will not attain tenured professorships following alleged research misconduct that, so far, has also cost them a pair of publications, Retraction Watch has learned.

Mehmet Faruk Çatma and Serhan Ünlü are among the authors of a paper about hip-replacement surgery that was published in 2016 in International Orthopedics and retracted earlier this year.

The February 16 retraction notice reads:

Three journals’ web domains expired. Then major indexes pointed to hijacked versions

Have you heard about hijacked journals, which take over legitimate publications’ titles, ISSNs, and other metadata without their permission? We recently launched the Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker, and will be publishing regular posts like this one to tell the stories of some of those cases.

When web domains of legitimate journals expire, fraudulent publishers have an opening to hijack them by registering the expired domains and creating clone websites that mimic the genuine journal.

In 2015, John Bohannon found fraudulent publishers had hijacked the websites of several legitimate journals indexed in Web of Science. The expired domains of GMP Review and Ludus Vitalis, which Web of Science listed as their official homepages, were registered by the fraudulent publishers, who created clone journals offering to publish papers for a fee.

Taking over expired domains remains a successful strategy for fraudulent publishers, because potential authors may use the websites listed in scientometric databases to verify the authenticity of a journal. Recently, three examples have come to light of journals with domains that expired and were hijacked by fake journals.

After backlash, publisher to retract article that surveyed parents of children with gender dysphoria, says co-author

Springer Nature will retract an article that reported results of a survey of parents who thought their children’s gender dysphoria resulted from social contagion. The move is “due to concerns about lack of informed consent,” according to tweets by one of the paper’s authors.

The article, “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria: Parent Reports on 1655 Possible Cases,” was published in March in the Archives of Sexual Behavior. It has not been cited in the scientific literature, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science, but Altmetric, which tracks the online attention papers receive, ranks the article in the top 1% of all articles of a similar age.

Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD) is, the article stated, a “controversial theory” that “common cultural beliefs, values, and preoccupations cause some adolescents (especially female adolescents) to attribute their social problems, feelings, and mental health issues to gender dysphoria,” and that “youth with ROGD falsely believe that they are transgender,” in part due to social influences.

Michael Bailey, a psychology professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., and the paper’s corresponding author, tweeted:

Texas dept. chair no longer in position amid university investigation and retraction

The chair of the Department of Pulmonary Immunology at the University of Texas at Tyler Health Science Center lost a paper last year after an institutional investigation found several issues with the data in the article.

Although the researcher, Ramakrishna Vankayalapati, is still identified as the chair on his online profile and the department’s website, he no longer holds that position, Retraction Watch has learned.

The paper, “Ornithine-A urea cycle metabolite enhances autophagy and controls Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection,” was published in Nature Communications in July 2020. It has been cited 21 times, according to the journal’s statistics.

Paper with authorship posted for sale retracted nearly two years after Retraction Watch report

An engineering journal has retracted an article that was posted on a website claiming to sell author positions. The retraction comes nearly two years after we reported on the website and a whistleblower informed the journal.

The study, “On the dynamics of an ultra-fast-rotating-induced piezoelectric cantilevered nanodisk surrounded by viscoelastic foundation,” appeared in Mechanics Based Design of Structures and Machines in December 2020. It listed researchers at Sichuan University of Science and Engineering in China as authors. The article has been cited five times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.

The study was retracted on March 16, 2023. The retraction notice stated:

Article that assessed MDPI journals as “predatory” retracted and replaced

A 2021 article that found journals from the open-access publisher MDPI had characteristics of predatory journals has been retracted and replaced with a version that softens its conclusions about the company. MDPI is still not satisfied, however.

The article, “Journal citation reports and the definition of a predatory journal: The case of the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI),” was published in Research Evaluation. It has been cited 20 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.

María de los Ángeles Oviedo García, a professor of business administration and marketing at the University of Seville in Spain, and the paper’s sole author, analyzed 53 MDPI journals that were included in Clarivate’s 2018 Journal Citation Reports.

Leading primate researcher demoted after admitting he faked data

The former director of the Southwest National Primate Research Center at Texas Biomedical Research Institute in San Antonio has been removed from the post after the U.S. Office of Research Integrity found he had faked data.

Last August, ORI found that Deepak Kaushal, who remains a professor at Texas Biomed, “engaged in research misconduct by intentionally, knowingly, and/or recklessly falsifying and fabricating the experimental methodology to demonstrate results obtained under different experimental conditions.”

Citing Kaushal’s admission, ORI said that he had engaged in research misconduct in work supported by 8 grants from the National Institutes of Health, and faked data in two grant applications and one published paper that has since been retracted.

Former cancer research center director plagiarized and faked data, feds say

The former director of a cancer research center faked data and presented others’ published data and text as his own in four grant applications to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and one research record, according to a U.S. government watchdog.

Johnny J. He, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science (RFUMS) in Chicago, Ill., “engaged in research misconduct by intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly falsifying, fabricating, and plagiarizing experimental data and text” published by other scientists, the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) said today.

He did not immediately respond to an email or phone call seeking comment.

‘Frankly abusive’: More questions about the journal that stole an author’s identity

Last week, we brought you the story of a professor who found her name on an article she didn’t write, which also seemed to have been plagiarized.

Since our story was published, we’ve learned a little more about the journal that published the article, the African Journal of Political Science.

Jephias Mapuva, a professor at the Bindura University of Science Education in Zimbabwe, who is listed as the editor in chief of the journal, told us in an email that he is “not associated with the journal in any way.”

“It came to me as a surprise that I am listed as an Editor-In-Chief,” he wrote. He also copied an email address for the journal publisher, International Scholars Journal, and asked for his name to be removed from the website:

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