Category: by reason for retraction

ORI rules in longstanding University of Washington misconduct case

andrew_aprikyan
Andrew Aprikyan

A case of alleged misconduct at the University of Washington in Seattle may finally be over. The Office of Research Integrity released its findings following an investigation into the work of Andrew Aprikyan, a former hematology researcher at the university.

The Aprikyan case has dragged on for a decade. In 2010, the university fired the scientist after a court denied his appeals based on allegations that they had denied him due process. As the Seattle Times reported at the time:  Continue reading ORI rules in longstanding University of Washington misconduct case

Editor on retraction details: “I do not think this is the business of anyone but our journal, please”

early education developmentWhose business are the reasons behind a retraction?

Our readers will no doubt know by now that we think they’re basically everyone’s — at least if journals want us to believe that they’re interested in maintaining the integrity of the scientific record. But not all editors seem to agree. Hank Edmunds, for example, didn’t in early 2011, telling us, “It’s none of your damn business.” A chemistry journal editor said, in a similar vein, “the purpose of keeping these retraction notices slim is not to produce too much detail.”

Now, a psychology journal editor joins those ranks. Here’s the notice in question: Continue reading Editor on retraction details: “I do not think this is the business of anyone but our journal, please”

Vacuum retracts paper on nanorods for plagiarism, image manipulation

vacuumWhat’s that sucking sound you hear from the journal Vacuum? Why, a retraction, of course.

The journal is pulling a 2012 paper by a group of researchers from India who stole images and used them in misleading ways — that’s data fabrication, kids.

Here’s the retraction notice for the article, titled “Microwave synthesis, characterization and humidity sensing properties of single crystalline Zn2SnO4 nanorods”:

Continue reading Vacuum retracts paper on nanorods for plagiarism, image manipulation

Arsenic-in-the-water paper with “interesting data” first corrected, now retracted

jchcoverNote (4/9/13): John McArthur contacted us with a few corrections, which we have made below.

The Journal of Contaminant Hydrology has retracted a 2008 paper by a group of Indian scientists for plagiarism and the failure to adequately reference their sources.

What makes this case somewhat unusual is that the journal allowed the authors to issue a correction (of the mega variety) attempting to acknowledge the problems, but then evidently decided that the patient was too sick to live — and that part of the disease was iatrogenic.

Here’s the retraction notice for the article, titled “Hydrogeochemical behavior of arsenic-enriched groundwater in the deltaic environment: Comparison between two study sites in West Bengal, India”:

Continue reading Arsenic-in-the-water paper with “interesting data” first corrected, now retracted

Second retraction appears for University of Wisconsin neuroscientist who faked images

brain researchA University of Wisconsin scientist who was found by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) to have faked data in two papers, has had a second study retracted.

Here’s the notice: for “Secretory phospholipase A2 IIA is up-regulated by TNF-α and IL-1α/β after transient focal cerebral ischemia in rat,” by Rao Adibhatla and colleagues and originally published in Brain Research in February 2007: Continue reading Second retraction appears for University of Wisconsin neuroscientist who faked images

Plagiarism spat over scientific poster prep advice escalates to legal threats

scientific-poster-300x224Colin Purrington has developed something of a niche in the research world. While teaching evolutionary biology at Swarthmore College, Purrington began developing a how-to manual for putting together poster presentations for meetings — a pursuit that has earned him a little money and some attention.

The result is a website, Designing conference posters, that, by his reckoning, has received some 2 million hits over the years (actually, there was a previous iteration of the site called “Advice on designing scientific posters”).

Not surprisingly, Purrington, who has copyrighted the material on his site, likes to protect his intellectual property. According to Purrington‘s site:

Continue reading Plagiarism spat over scientific poster prep advice escalates to legal threats

“Unsolved legal reasons” cause retraction of two biophysics papers

eur biophys jEvery now and then, we see retraction notices that refer vaguely to legal issues. Sometimes, we can dig up the actual reason. But the European Biophysics Journal has two retractions that leave us completely in the dark.

The two notices basically say the same thing. Here’s one: Continue reading “Unsolved legal reasons” cause retraction of two biophysics papers

Frequent Retraction Watch fliers rack them up: Stapel hits 51, Lichtenthaler scores number 9

freq flyer
Rewards may vary

Quick updates on work by two people whose names appear frequently on Retraction Watch: Diederik Stapel and Ulrich Lichtenthaler.

Last month, we reported on the 50th retraction for Stapel. Here’s number 51 in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, for “The flexible unconscious: Investigating the judgmental impact of varieties of unaware perception:” Continue reading Frequent Retraction Watch fliers rack them up: Stapel hits 51, Lichtenthaler scores number 9

Retraction for water researchers who ripped off dissertation

JCAMcoverA pair of engineers at Hohai University in Nanjing, China, has lost their 2012 paper in the Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics. The reason: The article, “Study of the New Leon model for concrete failure,” wasn’t theirs to publish.

According to the retraction notice (which is dated September 2013 but has already appeared in ScienceDirect): Continue reading Retraction for water researchers who ripped off dissertation

New Mexico obstetrics researcher violated research subject protocols: Retraction notice

gynoncLaurence Cole, an obstetrics researcher at the University of New Mexico, made an appearance on this blog in November 2011 after the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology published a remarkably heavy-handed retraction of one of his papers.

Shortly after, we learned that the retraction was preceded by a strongly-worded letter from an attorney representing a company that had been miffed by the content of Cole’s article (the issue involved the effectiveness of commercially-available pregnancy tests, and Cole’s failure to adequately disclose a past relationship with the aggrieved company’s competitor). That letter read, in part: Continue reading New Mexico obstetrics researcher violated research subject protocols: Retraction notice