by reason for retraction – Page 36

Another setback for ‘Majorana’ particle as Science paper earns an expression of concern

Ettore Majorana, after whom the “Majorana” particle is named
By unknown author / Mondadori Collection, public domain

You might say that the third time is not the charm for a paper on some elusive fermions.

For the third time this year, a leading science journal has raised concerns about a paper on the “Majorana” particle, which, if it exists, would hold promise for building a quantum computer.

In March, Nature retracted a paper on the particle, and in July, Science placed an expression of concern on a different paper that purported to find “a relatively easy route to creating and controlling [Majorana zero modes] MZMs in hybrid materials.”

Today, Science is slapping an expression of concern on another Majorana paper:

Paper retracted because authors ‘misrepresented a published theoretical model as if they had found it’

A physics journal has retracted a 2017 paper after learning that the authors had tried to pass off the ideas of others as their own.

Normally, we’d just call that a case of plagiarism and move on. But in this case, the charge goes a bit deeper – less cribbing a few lines of the Principia and more claiming to have discovered gravity.

“Exploring multiband tunneling for uncoupled particles: A polynomial view,” was written by a group of a half-dozen researchers in Mexico City, Uruguay and Cuba, where senior author Leo Diago-Cisneros sits on the faculty of the University of Havana.

The paper, which appeared in the Journal of Applied Physics, purported to describe:

Paper claiming a lack of evidence COVID-19 lockdowns work is retracted

This is an evolving story, and we will update as we learn more.

A paper in Springer Nature’s Scientific Reports claiming there was essentially no evidence that lockdowns prevented COVID-19 deaths has been retracted.

As of late Monday US Eastern time, while the PDF of the paper was marked “RETRACTED ARTICLE,” a link to the retraction notice’s DOI that had appeared on the page — but did not resolve to anything — had disappeared. The notice appeared at approximately 7 a.m. US Eastern on Tuesday.

Here’s the retraction notice, provided to us by Springer Nature Tuesday morning before it went live:

Researcher uses fake email address to submit a paper mill manuscript without corresponding author’s knowledge

A Springer Nature journal has retracted a paper sourced from a paper mill – not an uncommon occurrence nowadays. What adds a bit of intrigue is that the manuscript was submitted with a fake email address to keep the alleged corresponding author from knowing about it.

The paper, “Electrophysiological Follow-Up of Patients with Chronic Peripheral Neuropathy Induced by Occupational Intoxication with n-Hexane,” was published in Cell Biochemistry and Biophysics on May 23, 2014 and has been cited 14 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science.

Here’s the notice:

Scholar with a history of making up author names has a 1985 paper corrected

A scholar who famously fabricated a meeting between Charles Dickens and Fyodor Dostoevsky used a bogus name to publish a 1985 paper in the journal History – and it was far from the first time.

Arnold Harvey, also known as AD Harvey, apparently created a small (precisely how small is unclear) community of scholars, including Stephanie Harvey, Graham Headley, Trevor McGovern, John Schellenberger, Leo Bellingham, Michael Lindsay and Ludovico Parra, as well as the Latvian poet Janis Blodnieks.

In a ruse outlined in this 2013 article for the Times Literary Supplement by Eric Naiman, of UC Berkeley, this fictitious klatch would critique each other’s papers. (Take note, peer review rings of the 2010s.)

As The Guardian wrote in a 2013 profile of Harvey that’s well worth a read:

Student of yoga tourism won’t get PhD as he earns five retractions

For Pramod Sharma, the study of yoga tourism has proven to be a downward-facing dog.

Last year, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Roorkee blocked Sharma – who posed as a legit yoga researcher but in reality stole other people’s work – from receiving his PhD after determining that his thesis was “plagiarized and lacks originality.” What’s more, according to the institution, a 2018 article by Sharma contained a “discrepancy in data…casting a doubt on the validity of the results.”

Journals have now retracted five papers by Sharma, although earlier concerns about the work didn’t reach his PhD committee in time to prevent him from defending his thesis in 2019.

We reviewed the IIT report on the Sharma case, and pulled out a couple of the choicest passages:

Researchers sound alarm on ‘predatory’ rankings

Hey, researchers and universities, want to be included in a new ranking scheme? No problem, just pony up some cash.

Tanvir Ahmed, a postdoc at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, says this year has seen a rise in news stories— for example from Bangladesh, Kashmir, and Nigeria — reporting so-called predatory rankings. These come to light due to the lack of knowledge about rankings at universities and the media in certain countries, he says.

Ahmed is referring to AD Scientific Index, which charges $30 USD for an individual researcher to be included in the ranking and an unspecified sum for institutions wishing to be ranked.

Paper on sexual orientation and neuropsychiatric disorders earns an expression of concern

Dick Swaab By Sxologist Wikipedia – , CC BY 2.0

An Elsevier journal has issued an expression of concern for a paper it published earlier this year by a Dutch researcher who studies the neurobiology of sexuality.

The article,“Sexual orientation, neuropsychiatric disorders and the neurotransmitters involved,” was written by a group led by Dick Swaab, of the Department of Neuropsychiatric Disorders at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience in Amsterdam.

The abstract of the latest study reads:

Engineering researcher who suddenly left postdoc has ninth paper retracted

An author with ties to researchers believed to have published hundreds of problematic papers has earned his ninth retraction, this time for forged authorship.

Mostafa Jalal, once a postdoc at Texas A&M University, is alleged to have “engaged in some manner of collaboration or communication” with three other researchers, including Ali Nazari, who has now had 85 papers retracted and lost his job at Swinburne University in 2019. Those retractions came after the whistleblower, the pseudonymous Artemisia Stricta, called attention to problems in Nazari’s work.

In a 42-page report we wrote about in August 2020, Artemisia drew attention to four main groups centered on Jalal, Nazari, Ehsan Mohseni of the University of Newcastle in Australia, and Alireza Najigivi of Sharif University of Technology in Tehran. The whistleblower lists a total of 287 potentially compromised papers.

Abstract linking COVID-19 vaccines to heart trouble risk earns expression of concern

A leading heart journal has issued an expression of concern for a meeting abstract it published earlier this year by a cardiac surgeon who sells dietary supplements of questionable utility.

The case is the second involving a recent meeting of the American Heart Association.

The abstract, titled “Mrna COVID Vaccines Dramatically Increase Endothelial Inflammatory Markers and ACS Risk as Measured by the PULS Cardiac Test: a Warning,” was presented at the AHA’s 2021 Scientific Sessions in mid-November and was published in Circulation.

The author was Steven Gundry, a cardiac surgeon by training who now sells dietary supplements on his website. Gundry also sees patients at the Center for Restorative Medicine and International Heart & Lung Institute in California and offers advice on YouTube.

But critics have accused Gundry of peddling worthless — if ultimately expensive — advice.

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