Category: plagiarism

Journal flags paper over allegations it used competitors’ text, plasmids

MGGA journal has issued an expression of concern (EOC) for a paper on a common crop virus after the authors were accused of using competitors’ unpublished text and plasmids.

Investigations by the journal and the involved institutions — the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, where the paper’s authors are based, and North Carolina State University (presumably, where the accusing group is from) — were inconclusive, the notice states.

So the editor flagged “Sequences enhancing cassava mosaic disease symptoms occur in the cassava genome and are associated with South African cassava mosaic virus infection” with an EOC:

Continue reading Journal flags paper over allegations it used competitors’ text, plasmids

In Korean textbook scheme, some plagiarists found not guilty

court caseSEOUL — When does plagiarizing an entire textbook not violate copyright law?

In a South Korean court, apparently.

On Wednesday, a district judge found ten professors who plagiarized textbooks guilty of copyright infringement—but ruled that four professors who added their names to subsequent printings were not guilty.

This case, which began as an alleged plagiarism ring of obscure science and engineering textbooks, could now rewrite the nation’s existing copyright law and spark debate on the high social standing enjoyed by professors. Continue reading In Korean textbook scheme, some plagiarists found not guilty

Third party company botched student’s doctoral work, says biologist

Cellular Physiology and BiochemistryA PhD student who was supposed to complete part of an experiment passed the job on to a third party company, which in turn provided figures that were plagiarized and fabricated. That’s according to the corresponding author of the paper, which has now been retracted.

Hong Ren, affiliated with Xi’an Jiao Tong University in China, told us that he decided to delay the student’s graduation after he discovered that the student had passed off the work.

It’s not at all obvious that a third party was involved from the brief retraction notice for “EMT phenotype is induced by increased Src kinase activity via Src-mediated caspase-8 phosphorylation:”

Continue reading Third party company botched student’s doctoral work, says biologist

Should researchers guilty of misconduct go to “rehab”?

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A report on the first few years of “researcher rehab” suggests that three days of intensive training have a lasting impact on participants.

Specifically, among participants — all of whom had been found guilty of at least one type of misconduct — the authors report that:

A year later, follow-up surveys indicate that the vast majority have changed how they work.

The authors claim this shows the program is worth the time and investment — a $500,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health, and a cost of $3,000 per participant for the three-day course. Do you agree? Tell us what you think in our poll at the end of the story.

Infractions ranged from consent issues for human subjects, plagiarism, and outright fraud. Still, researchers who need this training aren’t much different from everyone else, the authors note in “Lessons of researcher rehab,” published today by Nature: Continue reading Should researchers guilty of misconduct go to “rehab”?

Philosopher earns 14th retraction for plagiarism

978-1-4020-3001-7Today, we bring you a case of a serial plagiarizer.

Martin W. F. Stone was a philosophy professor at the University of Leuven — by one account “widely admired and highly respected” — until 2010, when an investigation at the school concluded that his work is “highly questionable in terms of scientific integrity.” Over the past several years, he has racked up retractions, earning his 14th this spring, and spot #30 on our leaderboard.

Stone’s retractions were brought to our attention by philosopher Michael Dougherty, who found a notice for “Michael Baius (1513–89) and the Debate on ‘Pure Nature’: Grace and Moral Agency in Sixteenth-Century Scholasticism,” a chapter in Springer’s Moral Philosophy on the Threshold of Modernity.

The retraction notice says that the chapter Continue reading Philosopher earns 14th retraction for plagiarism

Authors pull 4 papers from surgery journal for plagiarism

BMC SurgeryThe authors of four papers have pulled them for “significant overlap” with other publications, as well as borrowing “large portions of text” — in other words, plagiarism.

Two of the newly retracted papers published in BMC Surgery also listed co-authors who were “not involved in the study;” a similar note appears for an additional 2015 retraction that we’ve found for one of the authors.

That one author is listed on all of the newly retracted papers: Bruno Amato of the University Federico II of Naples, Italy.

Here’s the retraction notice for “Peripheral blood mono-nuclear cells implantation in patients with peripheral arterial disease: a pilot study for clinical and biochemical outcome of neoangiogenesis,” which has been cited five times since it was published in November, 2012, according to Thomson Reuters Web of Science: Continue reading Authors pull 4 papers from surgery journal for plagiarism

Neuro journal pulls article for data theft, prompts misconduct probe

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Neuroscientists have retracted a research letter less than two months after it appeared, admitting they appeared to pass off others’ data as their own.

Two of the researchers are listed as affiliated with the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and the incident has led to a misconduct investigation at the institution, a UCSF spokesperson told us.

The article, “DNAJC6 variants in Parkinson’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis,” appeared in April. It was quickly followed by this notice, dated in May: Continue reading Neuro journal pulls article for data theft, prompts misconduct probe

PLOS ONE paper plagiarized from 17 articles — yes, 17

PLOSOneA PLOS ONE paper about chronic pain plagiarized from multiple sources — 17, in fact.

According to the retraction notice released by the journal last week, the paper contains “extensive verbatim use of text from other sources.”

How did this make it past the editors? The journal published the paper in 2012 — before it began screening papers for plagiarism, according to a spokesperson.

Here’s the retraction notice for “The Effect of Social Stress on Chronic Pain Perception in Female and Male Mice:”

Continue reading PLOS ONE paper plagiarized from 17 articles — yes, 17

Finnish universities must now use courts to revoke degrees

layout_set_logoA court in Finland has ruled that universities must go through the court system if they want to revoke a degree.

In a precedent-setting decision, a body dubbed “the court of last resort in administrative cases” in Finland ruled that universities must apply to them to revoke someone’s degree. The ruling, which occurred this month, took place after a former student filed an appeal after the University of Eastern Finland (UEF) cancelled his degree over charges of plagiarism and fraud.

Here is more from the publication Helsingin Sanomat (which we translated using One Hour Translation):  Continue reading Finnish universities must now use courts to revoke degrees

Economists go wild over overlooked citations in preprint on prenatal stress

The_American_Economic_Review_(cover)Citation omissions in an economics preprint have set off a wave of recrimination and speculation on a widely read economics discussion board.

Commenters accuse the authors of purposely omitting citations that would have undermined the paper’s claims to novelty and contributions to the field, leveling acrimony and personal attacks. Economists Petra Persson at Stanford and Maya Rossin-Slater at the University of California, Santa Barbara told us they hadn’t been familiar with the omitted papers at the time they first posted their preprint, but their work remains distinct from these previous studies. Nevertheless, the two quickly updated the preprint of their paper – accepted by the top-tier economics journal American Economic Review – to include additional citations. An editor at the journal said it’s not unusual for authors to request such changes before publication, and dismissed the accusations made on the discussion board, calling the site “not a legitimate source of information.”

The study, “Family Ruptures, Stress, and the Mental Health of the Next Generation,” used data from Swedish national databases to compare mental health outcomes of people born to women who lost a relative while pregnant and women who lost a relative in the first year after giving birth. Continue reading Economists go wild over overlooked citations in preprint on prenatal stress