Category: by subject

Bad Memory? Repressed sexual abuse memory paper retracted for data inconsistencies

memoryThe journal Memory has retracted a paper on repressed sexual abuse after a protracted dispute between the authors and an institutional investigation in The Netherlands that led to no findings of misconduct against the first author, Elke Geraerts  — a rising star in the field of social psychology. (The title of hers TEDx talk, by the way, is “Resilience as a key to success.”)

The article, titled “Linking thought suppression and recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse,” was published in 2008 and has been cited 10 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. Here’s the retraction notice: Continue reading Bad Memory? Repressed sexual abuse memory paper retracted for data inconsistencies

Paper by Canada Research Chair retracted from journal he edits for blots “from unrelated samples”

skeletal muscleA lab run by a Canada Research Chair at the Ottawa Research Institute has retracted a paper — in a journal the chair edits — for what sounds a lot like inappropriate image manipulation.

Here’s the notice from Skeletal Muscle: Continue reading Paper by Canada Research Chair retracted from journal he edits for blots “from unrelated samples”

Second retraction for Czech fraudster Bezouska, who broke into lab

bmc biotechEarlier this month we wrote about the retraction by Nature of a 19-year-old paper by Karel Bezouska, a former star researcher at Prague’s Charles University whose “dangerous and irresponsible deviations” from acceptable practice went as far as tampering with refrigerated samples to cover his tracks.

BMC Biotechnology has retracted another Bezouska paper, this one from 2011. He’s the second author on the article, titled “Heterologous expression, purification and characterization of nitrilase from Aspergillus niger K10.”

Continue reading Second retraction for Czech fraudster Bezouska, who broke into lab

Leading immunologist retracts paper that duplicated 2004 PNAS study

cellular immunologyUniversity of Glasgow professor Foo Yew “Eddy” Liew, a Fellow of the Royal Society, has retracted a paper in Cellular Immunology because it duplicated one of his earlier papers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Here’s the notice for “Expression and function of Toll-like receptor on T cells:”
Continue reading Leading immunologist retracts paper that duplicated 2004 PNAS study

JCI paper retracted for duplicated panels after authors can’t provide original data

jciSo how long do researchers have to keep records of experiments?

We had that question while reading the retraction notice for a 2007 paper in the Journal of Clinical Investigation: Continue reading JCI paper retracted for duplicated panels after authors can’t provide original data

“Administrative error on the part of the author” that led to duplicated text prompts retraction

techforcchangeWhen you think of an administrative error, what comes to mind? Failure to tell an employee that the reason he didn’t receive a paycheck in July was because he was fired in June? Putting the wrong address on your business cards?

You’d probably have to go pretty far down the list before you reached something like this: “I used text from one of my previously published articles in a second paper.” And yet … Continue reading “Administrative error on the part of the author” that led to duplicated text prompts retraction

Duplication earns engineering paper a corrigendum rather than a retraction

kybernetesTwo authors in Turkey have had their paper subjected to a correction after it became clear that material was lifted heavily from two previous papers by one of the researchers.

The corrigendum reads: Continue reading Duplication earns engineering paper a corrigendum rather than a retraction

Paper on rare pediatric lung cancer retracted for misstatements, unknowing authors

logo-journalecancermedicalscience (officially in the running for the most cumbersome journal title we’ve run across) has retracted a 2013 case report for a litany of sins.

The article, “Primary extraosseous Ewing sarcoma of the lung in children,” came from a group in France: Nidal Alsit, Clara Fernandez, Jean Luc Michel , Linda Sakhri, Audrey Derouet and Augustin Pirvu.

Or at least that’s what the author information suggested. Continue reading Paper on rare pediatric lung cancer retracted for misstatements, unknowing authors

University of Virginia business PhD student has second paper retracted

j enterprising cultureA PhD student at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business who had a paper retracted for plagiarism in March has had a second paper retracted.

Bloomberg BusinessWeek was first to report the new retraction by Eugene Z. Geh. The study, “Understanding the Antecedents to an Entrepreneurial Firm’s Intent to Engage in International Strategic Alliances,” originally published in the Journal of Enterprising Culture, now simply reads: Continue reading University of Virginia business PhD student has second paper retracted

Computer science paper retracted for plagiarism

jcsccoverNote to computer scientists: a publication is not a reconfigurable logic device.

The Journal of Circuits, Systems and Computers has retracted a 2010 article by a pair of Iranian researchers who put the paper together using previously published work that, simply put, they reconfigured for their own purposes.

The article, “Autonomous Group Testing Based Fault Tolerance in Reconfigurable Logic Devices,” was written (ostensibly, at least) by Javad Sababeh and Karim Mohammadi, of Iran University of Science and Technology, in Tehran.

But according to the retraction notice, much of the paper was taken from work by two computer scientists at the University of Central Florida: Continue reading Computer science paper retracted for plagiarism