Category: by subject

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

Second exercise study retracted in four-paper pileup

nursing and health scienceWe recently wrote about three papers on heart health and exercise that came under fire for reporting the same trial in three different ways. Actually, make that four ways (so far).

The Wiley journal Nursing and Health Sciences has retracted a fourth paper from the group, saying the “main study” was “previously published.” The notice mentions all three previous papers, one of which has already been retracted and another withdrawn from publication.

Here’s the notice for “Can the transtheoretical model motivate patients with coronary heart disease to exercise?”: Continue reading Second exercise study retracted in four-paper pileup

Catalyst for change: grad student catches error in chem experiments, prompts retraction

acscatalysisACS Catalysis has retracted a 2012 research letter from a chemistry lab that discovered an error in their experiments.

According to last author Rory Waterman at the University of Vermont, an undetected reaction caused his lab to mistakenly mischaracterize the products of an iridium catalyst. The diligence of a graduate student brought it all to light, he noted: “In short, it was the ability of one of my group members to be a very good scientist.”

The letter, titled “High Activity and Selectivity for Silane Dehydrocoupling by an Iridium Catalyst,” was published in February. It has only accumulated 5 citations, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Catalyst for change: grad student catches error in chem experiments, prompts retraction

Heart journal issues expression of concern after fraud report

circulationThe American Heart Association’s journal Circulation has issued an expression of concern for a paper about the molecular underpinnings of arrhythmias that was co-authored by a biomedical engineer who committed fraud on a massive scale.

According to an investigation by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI), former Vanderbilt engineer Igor Dzhura faked nearly 70 images and drastically over-estimated the number of experiments he conducted. He was banned from receiving federal funding for three years.

The fraud has resulted in six retracted papers, Dzhura has agreed to retract six papers, which have been cited more than 500 times. [Ed. note: at this time, only one paper has actually been retracted]

Continue reading Heart journal issues expression of concern after fraud report

SfN journal retracts paper, bans UPenn researchers over “data misrepresentation”

journal of neuroscienceThe Journal of Neuroscience has yanked an Alzheimer’s paper and banned three University of Pennsylvania authors from publishing there temporarily, following conflicting investigations by the university and the publisher, the Society for Neuroscience, into the data.

The 2011 paper looked into the cellular makeup of the characteristic plaques that develop in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease. It’s been cited 64 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

While the notice states that Penn’s investigation “supports the journal’s findings of data misrepresentation,” last author Virginia Lee said she asked the journal to simply issue a correction of the faulty data, since the findings are “extremely important” for the field and have been affirmed by a later paper. According to author John Trojanowski (who is married to and publishes regularly with Lee), he and Lee have been barred from publishing in Journal for Neuroscience for several years. Senior Co-author Edward Lee is out for a year [see update at the bottom of this post].

Lee provided us with a letter Vice Dean of Research Glen Gaulton sent to the journal (click here to read), in which he says an investigation found “no evidence of research misconduct” and the “errors…do not detract from or otherwise alter the conclusions of the manuscript.”

Continue reading SfN journal retracts paper, bans UPenn researchers over “data misrepresentation”

Neuro journal pulls comatose brain abstract due to “several mistakes”

clinical neurophysiologySwiss researchers have retracted an abstract in Clinical Neurophysiology because only one of them actually knew about the paper — and what he submitted had “several mistakes.”

The abstract, about electric impulses in the brain of comatose patients, originally appeared as a poster at the June 2014 joint meeting of multiple Swiss neuroscience societies. It was submitted by first author Alexandre Simonin, who lists his affiliation as the University Hospital of Lausanne, a Swiss hospital.

The meeting proceedings ran in the October issue of Clinical Neurophysiology. Besides the issues of authorship and errors, the notice also says the abstract “potentially conflicts with another publication,” suggesting the data might have already appeared in a paper.

Here’s the notice for “P02. Predicting the outcome of post-anoxic comatose patients based on single-trial EEG analysis”: Continue reading Neuro journal pulls comatose brain abstract due to “several mistakes”