by reason for retraction – Page 29

Scientist blames grad student for gibberish book chapter — a charge she calls ‘crazy’

Guillaume Cabanac

The senior author of a book chapter in the 2020 volume that Springer Nature has retracted for plagiarism has blamed a former grad student from Cuba in the affair — a charge she dismisses as “crazy.”

The chapter was retracted nearly 10 months after readers pointed out passages that had appeared to have been churned out by the fake paper generator Mathgen.

Titled “Ethnic Characterization in Amalgamated People for Airport Security Using a Repository of Images and Pigeon-Inspired Optimization (PIO) Algorithm for the Improvement of Their Results,” the material was ostensibly written by a group at Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez led by Alberto Ochoa-Zezzatti. It appeared in “Applications of Hybrid Metaheuristic Algorithms for Image Processing,” which belongs to the 982-volume (and counting) Studies in Computational Intelligence series.

Last December, commenters on PubPeer including Guillaume Cabanac and Cyril Labbé — who will be familiar to readers of this blog for their exposure of nonsensical papers with “tortured” language showing signs of plagiarism — pointed out at least one problematic passage in the chapter:

When ‘out of print’ really means ‘retracted’

Image by eberhard grossgasteiger from Pixabay

We’ve taken publishers to task for disappearing articles without providing readers an explanation for the move. Turns out, they do the same with books, too.

In September 2014, Springer Nature published “Beekeeping for Poverty Alleviation and Livelihood Security Vol 1: Technological Aspects of Beekeeping,” described as:

Company fires employee, ends cash for citation scheme following Retraction Watch post

A company that had offered payment for citations of articles in various journals has ended the practice, and fired the staffer it said was responsible, following reporting by Retraction Watch.

On August 31, we reported that Innoscience Innoscience Research, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, was offering $6 per citation of papers in five different journals, and up to five cites, or $30, per paper, or $150 in total across all five journals. Since then, two journals have distanced themselves from the scheme.

Yesterday, Innoscience told us by email:

Another journal distances itself from cash for citations after Retraction Watch report

A second journal has said it was unaware of a cash for citations scheme that named it as a participant, following our reporting in August.

The Journal of Clinical and Translational Research (JCTR) was one of five journals listed by Innoscience Research that Innoscience would pay $6 per citation to its work, as we reported on August 31. On October 9, another of those journals said it “will not entertain cash requests from the individuals who claim to have cited our articles, nor shall we pay up.”

In “JCTR’s statement on ‘paid citations’ reported by Retraction Watch,” dated October 10, editor in chief Michal Heger writes:

A correction is retracted (sort of)

Thanks to a publisher’s error, a group of infectious disease researchers has experienced a double negative for their 2020 article on tick-borne illness in South Africa.

The paper, “Serum-free in vitro cultivation of Theileria annulata and Theileria parva schizont-infected lymphocytes,” appeared in Transboundary and Emerging Diseases, a Wiley title. The authors were affiliated with institutions in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and the United States.

Earlier this year, the authors corrected their article. The notice, dated May 26, reads:

Journal distances itself from cash for citations scheme after Retraction Watch report

A journal that appeared to be involved in a scheme in which authors were paid bonuses to cite its papers has said it “will not entertain cash requests from the individuals who claim to have cited our articles, nor shall we pay up.”

The comments come about a month after a Retraction Watch post detailing the scheme by Innoscience Research listing five journals, one of which was the International Journal of Bioprinting. Innoscience, who has not responded to requests for comment, does not publish the IJB; Whoice does. It’s unclear whether there is a relationship between the two companies.

In a statement dated October 9, the IJB wrote:

Elsevier corrects a retraction notice following questions from Retraction Watch

An Elsevier journal has corrected a retraction notice after we asked questions about what exactly it was saying — but not before the journal’s editor tried to defend what turned out to be a mistaken passage.

The article, “Measurement of performance parameters and improvement in optimized solution of WEDM on a novel titanium hybrid composite,” was published online in Measurement in December 2020. The retraction notice, which appeared online on September 17 of this year, read:

Kyoto University fires researcher for fraud in Kumamoto earthquake studies

Damage from the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake

Kyoto University has fired a researcher after determining that he committed fraud in at least five papers about the deadly Kumamoto earthquake of 2006.

In a report released earlier this week (Sept 28), the institution said it found Aiming Lin guilty of 37 counts of “fraudulent activity” in four of the articles, not including a 2017 paper Lin published in Science which the journal retracted in 2019. The university suspended Lin for a year at the time.

Kyoto University said (courtesy of Google translate) earlier this month Lin was subject to “disciplinary dismissal” in the case:

Paper that ripped off a PhD thesis is retracted

The authors of a 2021 article on “cognitive radio” have lost the paper after the journal learned that they’d pilfered the work from a doctoral dissertation.

“A Cluster-Based Distributed Cooperative Spectrum Sensing Techniques in Cognitive Radio” was published in the proceedings of the 2020 International Conference on Innovative Data Communication Technologies and Application, which was held in Coimbatore, India. The proceedings was a supplement to Innovative Data Communication Technologies and Application, a Springer Nature title.

Cognitive radio, according to Wikipedia, “can intelligently detect whether any portion of the spectrum is in use, and can temporarily use it without interfering with the transmissions of other users.”

Springer Nature slaps more than 400 papers with expressions of concern all at once

A total of 436 papers in two Springer Nature journals are being subjected to expressions of concern, in the latest case of special issues — in this case, “topical collections” — likely being exploited by rogue editors or impersonators.

The move follows the discovery, as we reported in August, of more than 70 papers in a collection in one of the journals, the Arabian Journal of Geosciences, that referred to subjects — aerobics and running wear, for example — seemingly unrelated to geology. That sleuthing began on PubPeer and was broadened by Alexander Magazinov and Guillaume Cabanac. We have now learned that Springer Nature had already been looking into the issues.

Here’s the notice that appears with a list of more than 400 articles from three different topical collections for the Arabian Journal of Geosciences:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: