A paper on partially entangled states seems to have fallen victim to a confusing entanglement of authors and studies.
Here’s the notice for the paper, “Optimal quantum communication using multiparticle partially entangled states,” by Atul Kumar, Satyabrata Adhikari, Subhashish Banerjee, and Sovik Roy: Continue reading Paper on partially entangled states retracted for partially entangling authors
Chinese researchers have had a 2012 paper in Plant Molecular Biology Reporter on genetically modified wheat retracted, in a notice that cites fraud.
The article, “Isolation and Functional Characterization of an Antifreeze Protein Gene, TaAFPIII, from Wheat (Triticum aestivum),” came from the same group we wrote about in April 2012 when they retracted a paper from Acta Biochimica et Biophysica Sinica, also about genetically altered wheat.
At the time, the authors said they were pulling the other paper because they were having trouble replicating their findings. That now seems accurate, but not entirely complete.
As the new retraction notice states: Continue reading A retraction with “serious consequences to wheat production”
We’re all for research on improving communication and collaboration among colleagues. But we trust that the experts know what they’re doing. You can see where this is going.
The journal Nurse Education Today has retracted a 2012 article, “Interprofessional learning in acute care: Developing a theoretical framework,” by a UK scholar because, how shall we put it, he might need a few lessons in interprofessionalism.
The retraction notice explains it neatly: Continue reading Not your data: Nursing paper retracted for misuse of findings
The journal Neuro-Oncology has retracted a 2011 paper by a group of researchers in Japan who had purported to find a genetic mechanism for how fluorescence can be used to diagnose certain brain tumors.
The paper, “Enhanced expression of coproporphyrinogen oxidase in malignant brain tumors: CPOX expression and 5-ALA–induced fluorescence,” reported measurements using quantitative real-time (qRT)-PCR.
As the retraction notice explains: Continue reading “Technical but fundamental errors” lead to retraction of brain tumor paper
The Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering ran a retraction yesterday that’s left us scratching our heads.
The paper, “Wettability-gradient-driven micropump for transporting discrete liquid drops,” was published on February 8 of this year. For a paper published in a journal run by the Institute of Physics, the retraction notice reads like a mix of Hindenburg (read: disaster) and Heisenberg (read: uncertainty): Continue reading How does a paper get published without the alleged corresponding author knowing?
We have an update on a case we reported last week involving four papers in two different journals. The Journal of Bacteriology retracted two papers by Carlos Barreiro and colleagues, in notices that referred to the fact that
…identical bands for the 16S rRNA probe controls in the Northern blots were reported to correspond to experiments using different strains and experimental conditions in articles published in this journal and in Microbiology over a period of 5 years…
We checked with the editor of Microbiology, Agnes Fouet, who tells us: Continue reading Update: Microbiologists face two more retractions for Northern blot problems
The liver is the only internal organ that can regenerate. So perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that Egyptian researchers tried to publish the same paper about liver ischemia twice in different journals. They succeeded — for a little while, at least.
The Journal of Molecular Histology is retracting the second of the articles to appear. Titled “Effect of preischemic treatment with fenofibrate, a peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-α ligand, on hepatic ischemia–reperfusion injury in rats,” (which is still available online) it was published in 2011 by Vivian Boshra and Amal M. Moustafa of Mansoura University.
Trouble was, in 2011 Moustafa and Boshra, in that order, had also published “Effect of fenofibrate on the experimentally induced hepatic ischemia/reperfusion injury in rats: biochemical, light, and electron microscopic studies” in the Egyptian Journal of Histology (link to pdf).
That, as we know, is not done.
As the retraction notice states: Continue reading Liver study a twin, gets retracted
Yesterday, we wrote about the retraction of a paper that ended up published despite the fact that peer reviewers had recommended rejecting it. Today, we have the (short) tale of a paper retracted because the publisher posted it a second time while they were buying acquiring the journal where it appeared.
Here’s the notice for “The association between depression, socio-economic factors and dietary intake in mothers having primary school children living in Rey, South of Tehran, Iran,” published in the Journal of Diabetes & Metabolic Diseases: Continue reading BioMed Central retracts study it published twice while acquiring journal
The journal Scoliosis has retracted a 2012 paper by a pair of German spine doctors over what the editors have called a less-than-fully declared conflict of interest involving one of the authors.
That should be relatively straigtforward – but it’s not quite. Turns out the article does include a disclosure, although perhaps the information it contains was incomplete.
The article, “Soft braces in the treatment of Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis (AIS) – Review of the literature and description of a new approach,” was written by Hans-Rudolf Weiss and Mario Werkmenn. Weiss, it seems, has something of a pedigree in the field. According to this website, he practices the “Schroth method” of recurvature, a technique pioneered by his grandmother, Katharina Schroth. From the site: Continue reading Lack of conflict of interest disclosure undoes scoliosis study
The Journal of Multivariate Analysis has retracted a paper it was never meant to publish — a problem, it seems, of multivariate analyses.
The article, titled “Regression estimation with locally stationary long-memory errors,” came from a pair of statisticians in Chile, Wildredo Palma and Guillermo Ferreira.
It appears that the article did not pass muster with the reviewers, but that the editor somehow missed the message. As the retraction notice explains: Continue reading Editor inadvertently spurns reviewers; retraction ensues