Category: reference problems

Law review paper yanked for lack of attribution despite offer of co-authorship

Gentian Zyberi, via UiO
Gentian Zyberi, via UiO

Sometimes, retractions seem to have a juicy back story, but the explanation proves tantalizingly out of reach.

Such is the case for a law review retraction on a paper about reparations for human rights violations. After someone complained that author Gentian Zyberi “had not done sufficient justice to the substantial contribution” they made, the complainant refused both a co-author credit and a rewrite of the passages in question, insisting instead on a full retraction.

Here’s the notice for “The International Court of Justice and applied forms of reparation for international human rights and humanitarian law violations”: Continue reading Law review paper yanked for lack of attribution despite offer of co-authorship

PLOS ONE retracts breast cancer genetics paper after claim of misappropriated data

plosonePLOS ONE has retracted a 2012 article by a group of breast cancer researchers after another scientist — a leading U.S. oncologist — objected that the data came from his lab.

The paper, “GREB1 Functions as a Growth Promoter and Is Modulated by IL6/STAT3 in Breast Cancer,” came from a team composed of researchers at the Morehouse School of Medicine, Xavier University of Louisiana and the University of Miami School of Medicine. It purported to find that: Continue reading PLOS ONE retracts breast cancer genetics paper after claim of misappropriated data

Failure to cite leads to ignoble end for xenon paper, and a correction

anaesthesiaXenon may be an inert gas, but that doesn’t mean papers about the molecule aren’t subject to change.

Indeed, the journal Anaesthesia has retracted a 2010 article about xenon-based anesthesia, and corrected a 2005 article by some of the same researchers, for what appears to be a case of wurst slicing.

The 2005 paper, “Comparison of xenon-based anaesthesia compared with total intravenous anaesthesia in high risk surgical patients,” came from a group at the Department of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine at University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein, in Kiel, Germany. It has been cited 10 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

According to the abstract: Continue reading Failure to cite leads to ignoble end for xenon paper, and a correction

Lack of citation prompts correction in Nature journal

nature communicationsIt’s not unusual to hear authors bemoan the fact that a new paper doesn’t cite their work that set the stage for a scientific advance. “The journal limited me to [a seemingly abitrary number of] references,” authors sometimes shrug, with or without apology. This week, however, we found a case of that which seems to have been resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.

The authors of a September 2013 article in Nature Communications have issued a correction for the piece, which failed to cite the source of a key step in their experiment.

The article, “Val66Met polymorphism of BDNF alters prodomain structure to induce neuronal growth cone retraction,” came from the lab of William “Clay” Bracken, a biochemist at Weill Cornell Medical College. According to the abstract: Continue reading Lack of citation prompts correction in Nature journal

Failure to launch: “Inaccuracies,” “incomplete and incorrect references” ground space tourist paper

new spaceAn article in New Space, a journal about space travel, has been retracted because the results it presented weren’t ready for liftoff.

The retraction notice appears as a letter from editor G. Scott Hubbard: Continue reading Failure to launch: “Inaccuracies,” “incomplete and incorrect references” ground space tourist paper

Gravity paper yanked for plagiarism by another name

jtapcoverThe Journal of Theoretical and Applied Physics has retracted a 2012 paper by a pair of Iranian cosmologists who failed to adequately cite one of the critical references on which they based their work.

We think that falls under the broader category of plagiarism — after all, as Heisenberg famously postulated, the same text cannot simultaneously appear in two published articles under different authorship. Or something like that.

The paper in question, “Torsion of space-time in f (R) gravity,” deals with, as this Wikipedia entry states: Continue reading Gravity paper yanked for plagiarism by another name

Cost-sharing paper that shared too much with other works earns retraction

hepThe journal Higher Education Policy has retracted an article it published last year by a scholar in Ethiopia whose grasp of publishing policy seems pretty shaky.

The article, “Financing Higher Education in Ethiopia: Analysis of Cost-Sharing Policy and its Implementation,” which appeared online in August 2012, was by Sewale Abate Ayalew, of Bahir Dar University College of Business and Economics.

According to the retraction notice:
Continue reading Cost-sharing paper that shared too much with other works earns retraction

Ulrich Lichtenthaler now up to 12 retractions

industrial corp changeIndustrial and Corporate Change is the site of management professor Ulrich Lichtenthaler’s 12th retraction.

Here’s the notice for “Outward knowledge transfer: the impact of project-based organization on performance,” originally published in 2010: Continue reading Ulrich Lichtenthaler now up to 12 retractions

How does a paper get published without the alleged corresponding author knowing?

jmm iopThe 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?

Mislabeled chemical bottle leads to retraction of liver protection paper

molecules-logoA labeled chemical bottle may contain a genie and not the expected reagent, according to a cautionary retraction that could be a warning for all bench researchers.

Sreenivasan Sasidharan, a researcher at the Institute for Research in Molecular Medicine (INFORMM), part of the Universiti Sains Malaysia, used a bottle labeled lantadene A, a liver-destroying chemical from the leaves of the Lantana camara plant that some livestock eat.

Sasidharan found that contrary to expectations, “lantadene A” protected livers against damage from acetaminophen — aka Tylenol.

But Manu Sharma, assistant pharmacy professor at Jaypee University of Information Technology in India, suspected something was technically amiss: Continue reading Mislabeled chemical bottle leads to retraction of liver protection paper