Category: materials science

Phantom authorship forces retraction of electron paper

ULTRAMICUltramicroscopy has retracted a paper it published earlier this year after the corresponding author admitted to submitting the paper without the consent of his colleagues.

The article, “The post-peak spectra in electron energy loss near edge structure,” came from a group led by one Feng Tian, a materials scientist at Shanghai University for Science and Technology. The other authors were Peter Shattschneider and Micheal Stoger-Pollach, of the Vienna University of Technology. Except that they weren’t.

According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Phantom authorship forces retraction of electron paper

Asking for a retraction was “an overbearing response, though I agree that the student screwed up big time”

celluloseJust two months after a PhD student at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Saudi Arabia published a paper in August without the knowledge of his co-author, a professor at the university, the paper was retracted by Cellulose.

Here’s the notice for “Corrosion protection of steel sheets by chitosan from shrimp shells at acid pH,” by graduate student Ubong M. Eduok and professor Mazen M. Khaled (well, not really by Khaled): Continue reading Asking for a retraction was “an overbearing response, though I agree that the student screwed up big time”

Oops: Elsevier journal publishes paper citing paper it promised to retract two months ago

elsevierJournal publishers can be agonizingly slow when it comes to officially retracting a paper.

Here’s a prime example of the consequences of that bureaucratic foot-dragging: Ten months after being told that Fazlurrahman Khan had fabricated his data, and two months after announcing two of Khan’s papers would be retracted from two of its journals, Elsevier still has not retracted either paper.

Worse, at least one of the papers, “Degradation of 2,4-dinitroanisole (DNAN) by metabolic cooperative activity of Pseudomonas sp. strain FK357 and Rhodococcus imtechensis strain RKJ300,” in the journal Chemosphere, has been cited since the announcement was made. In fact, the paper was published in Journal of Hazardous Materials, the Elsevier journal that is dragging its feet retracting another of Khan’s papers, “Aerobic degradation of 4-nitroaniline (4-NA) via novel degradation intermediates by Rhodococcus sp. strain FK48.”

Jim Spain, in whose lab Khan worked at Georgia Tech, reached out to us to express his concerns with this timeline: Continue reading Oops: Elsevier journal publishes paper citing paper it promised to retract two months ago

Solvent paper dissolves under heat of institutional investigation

Jced_coverA chemical engineering paper published in February has been retracted for data and authorship problems.

According to the retraction notice, the authors’ institutions investigated and found that not only was the data not reproducible, but “not all co-authors on the manuscript were aware of or agreed to the content and scientific conclusions in the article.”

Here’s the notice in the Journal of Chemical & Engineering Data for “Ionic Liquids as Promising Solvents for Biomass Derived Mannitol and Xylitol”: Continue reading Solvent paper dissolves under heat of institutional investigation

Duplication earns retraction for nanomaterials paper that had already been corrected

Applied_Physics_Letters_cover_imageAfter earning an erratum shortly after publication in 2009, a paper in Applied Physics Letters has now been retracted for the “regrettable mistake” of duplicating an earlier paper by the researchers.

Here’s the notice for “Broadband and omnidirectional antireflection from conductive indium-tin-oxide nanocolumns prepared by glancing-angle deposition with nitrogen:” Continue reading Duplication earns retraction for nanomaterials paper that had already been corrected

Faked figure sinks paper on potential new MRI contrast agent

langd5_v030i025.inddSurface chemistry journal Langmuir has retracted an article on a new MRI contrast agent — but only one of the authors agreed.

According to the notice:

Continue reading Faked figure sinks paper on potential new MRI contrast agent

Crystal unclear? “Business decision” forces retraction of silicon paper

jcgrowthA group of researchers in Tokyo has lost their 2013 article in the Journal of Crystal Growth over commercial interests — which don’t appear to be their own.

We’ll explain.

The article, “Interactions between planar defects in bulk 3C-SiC,” came from a team consisting of a researcher at Keio University and scientists at two companies, HOYA Corporation, an optics firm, and SICOXS Corporation, which makes semiconductor wafers.

According to the abstract: Continue reading Crystal unclear? “Business decision” forces retraction of silicon paper

Holes in ASS as journal pulls two papers

asscoverThe journal Applied Surface Science (okay, so maybe it’s not called ASS at the home office) is retracting a pair of articles in its December issue.

The first, “Structure and mechanical properties of Ni–P electrodeposited coatings,” appeared in 2009 and was written by a group of researchers in Beijing. It has been cited nine times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. Its problem: Plagiarism. According to the retraction notice:  Continue reading Holes in ASS as journal pulls two papers

Duplication leads to collapse in Nondestructive Testing

Call it uncreative non-destruction. ntecover

A team from China and, it appears, Mississippi, has lost a paper in Nondestructive Testing and Evaluation for duplicate publication.

Here’s the notice (a PDF): Continue reading Duplication leads to collapse in Nondestructive Testing

“False data” forces retraction of Carbon paper co-authored by postdoc who led to PI’s suspension

carboncoverThere’s a new retraction in the journal Carbon.

The case didn’t involve a Carbon copy — say, plagiarism or duplication — but rather an instance of fraud in a Japanese university, part of a larger case we covered last August.

Here’s the retraction notice for the paper, “The role of Fe species in the pyrolysis of Fe phthalocyanine and phenolic resin for preparation of carbon-based cathode catalysts,” which appeared in August 2010: Continue reading “False data” forces retraction of Carbon paper co-authored by postdoc who led to PI’s suspension