Category: by subject

Warning: plagiarism may be hazardous to your safety paper

12 Process Safety and Environmental Protection (once)A paper on making emergency evacuations more efficient at facilities that handle hazardous materials has been retracted for plagiarism.

According to the Process Safety and Environmental Protection retraction notice, the 2013 paper, by a group at Tsinghua University in Beijing, plagiarized part of a 2007 article by Greek researchers called “Modeling emergency evacuation for major hazard industrial sites.” (The 2007 article has been cited 46 times, according to Google Scholar.)

Here’s the notice for “Emergency Response Plans Optimization for Unexpected Environmental Pollution Incidents using an Open Space Emergency Evacuation Model” (paywalled): Continue reading Warning: plagiarism may be hazardous to your safety paper

Manufacturing paper assembled “almost entirely” from someone else’s 1999 thesis

saeijmmThe SAE International Journal of Materials and Manufacturing has retracted a paper after realizing the authors ripped off a 1999 PhD thesis.

According to the notice, the 2014 paper — about the best ways to set up manufacturing cells in the automobile industry — “is almost entirely taken” from a Durham University, UK student’s PhD thesis. The thesis, “Computer-aided design of cellular manufacturing layout,” was written by Yue Wu. We were unable to track him down after he left the University of Exeter‘s Manufacturing Enterprise Center.

Here’s the notice for “Reengineering the Layout: A CMS Methodological Approach”: Continue reading Manufacturing paper assembled “almost entirely” from someone else’s 1999 thesis

“Irreconcilable difference of opinion” divides math preprint

arxivA fight over a paper posted on preprint server arXiv.org has divided two mathematicians.

The authors initially posted the paper, which looks at the mathematical properties of spheres, in 2013. And that’s when the trouble started.

Apparently, after submitting the paper to a journal and receiving reviewer feedback, co-authors Fabio Tal at the University of São Paulo and Ferry Kwakkel, who got a PhD at the University of Warwick, began to fight over the content of the paper, causing Kwakkel to post his own version, and Tal to withdraw the previous one. “I believe we are severely at odds now,” Tal told Retraction Watch.

In February 2015, Kwakkel, posted a second paper on arXiv.org that he said is his “version” of the 2013 paper, with which it has “substantial text overlap.” Tal requested that the first paper be withdrawn; the note that now appears on “Homogeneous transformation groups of the sphere” cites an “irreconcilable difference of opinion”:

Continue reading “Irreconcilable difference of opinion” divides math preprint

Second cell bio retraction from UPitt investigation of tweaked images

Journal of Cellular Physiology: Volume 229, Number 10, October 2Two researchers, Tong Wu and Chang Han, have lost a second paper as the result of a University of Pittsburgh investigation into image manipulations.

The first retraction, in Journal of Cellular Biochemistry, went live in February. The researchers, currently based at Tulane University, were originally tapped by pseudonymous tipster Juuichi Jigen, who created a website in 2012 to chronicle the allegations.

The blog lists six papers by the pair with supposedly questionable figures. According to Jigen, this latest retraction, in the Journal of Cellular Physiology, contains a figure (2A) that appears to reuse data from another paper, and another figure (3) where the data appear to be manipulated.

Continue reading Second cell bio retraction from UPitt investigation of tweaked images

Bielawski and Wiggins up retraction count to five with three in JACS

Journal of the American Chemical SocietyThe Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS) has retracted three articles that had earned expressions of concern by chemistry researchers who were under investigation at the University of Texas, Austin.

Kelly Wiggins and Christopher Bielawski have already received two other retractions and several EoCs.

The newly retracted articles have each been cited more than 50 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

The three papers are: Continue reading Bielawski and Wiggins up retraction count to five with three in JACS

Biofuels paper burned by “improper citation methods” – ie, plagiarism

crestCritical Reviews in Environmental Science and Technology (CREST) has retracted a paper on biofuels for “improper citation methods.”

Given the journal’s track record, we’re guessing this is just another euphemism for plagiarism. (Also because the retraction notice flags a “breach of warranties made by the authors with respect to originality.”) In 2013, CREST retracted two papers for failing to use “proper citation,” which earned it top billing in our Lab Times column about publishers’ seemingly allergic reactions to the P-word.

Here’s some of the notice for “Promising Unconventional Pretreatments for Lignocellulosic Biomass”, which described new ways to process plant biomaterials into fuel: Continue reading Biofuels paper burned by “improper citation methods” – ie, plagiarism

Misconduct dissolves paper on possible clot-busters

amclct_v006i002.inddDrug researchers in India have lost their 2013 paper in ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters because the first author fabricated findings.

The article, by a group from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara, in Gujarat, was attempting to synthesize and screen novel clot-busting drugs; one compound exhibited the same activity as aspirin or warfarin, but without increasing bleeding time.

Sadly, it appears as if this potential medical advance was not to be. Here’s the retraction notice for “Novel 2-Aminobenzamides as Potential Orally Active Antithrombotic Agents”: Continue reading Misconduct dissolves paper on possible clot-busters

Chinese heavy metal contamination paper purged for data theft

Environmental_Monitoring_and_AssessmentAn environmental journal has retracted a paper about pollution in China after it discovered the authors lifted the dataset from another group.

The authors of the study — which chronicled the degree of heavy metal pollution on the banks of the Pearl River Delta — didn’t have permission to use the data. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment‘s notice doesn’t suggest the data are inaccurate.

The heavy metals in the soil come from the many manufacturing plants in the area, including those that provide the West with blue jeans, phones, and other electronics. The pollutants’ effects are wide-reaching: According to the South China Morning Post, industrial outfits discharge huge volumes of toxic chemicals into the Pearl River, including arsenic, copper, cadmium, and mercury.

Continue reading Chinese heavy metal contamination paper purged for data theft

Psychology retractions have quadrupled since 1989: study

stapel
Diederik Stapel

Marc Hauser. Dirk Smeesters. Diederik Stapel.

Psychology has been home to some of the most infamous cases of fraud in recent years, and while it’s just a few bad apples who are spoiling the bunch, the field itself has seen an overall increase in retractions, according to a new paper by Jürgen Margraf appearing in Psychologische Rundschau and titled “Zur Lage der Psychologie.”

That increase, Margraf found, is not entirely due to its most well-known fraudsters. Here’s the relevant figure:

Continue reading Psychology retractions have quadrupled since 1989: study

Diabetes researcher won’t give up court fight to quash expressions of concern

Mario Saad, via unicamp.br
Mario Saad, via unicamp.br

Apparently, you can’t keep Mario Saad down.

The researcher, who had 12 figures in a paper corrected this week, was dealt a setback last week when a judge denied his motion to remove expressions of concern on four of his papers in the journal Diabetes, saying that would have amounted to prior restraint — essentially, censorship (a no-no, thanks to the First Amendment).

Saad and his attorneys, however, were undeterred. They filed a motion for reconsideration just four days later, along with a brief, arguing: Continue reading Diabetes researcher won’t give up court fight to quash expressions of concern