Category: physical sciences retractions

Sensing a pattern? Pattern Recognition Letters misses rampant plagiarism in modeling paper

prlcoverIt really isn’t fair to pick on Pattern Recognition Letters, but, well, if the shoe fits…

We had fun at the expense of the journal the last time we found that a duplicate publication had escaped the editors. This time, plagiarism is to blame.

A group of authors from the Institute of Automation at the Chinese Academy of Sciences published, then promptly lost, their September 2013 article in PRL titled “Model-based 3D tracking of an articulated hand from single depth images.”

The abstract: Continue reading Sensing a pattern? Pattern Recognition Letters misses rampant plagiarism in modeling paper

Analyze this! Analytical Letters retracts chemistry paper for authorship misdirection

anal lettersAnalytical Letters has retracted a 2011 article by a chemistry researcher at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, who seems to have avoided giving credit where credit was due.

The article, “Conducting Polymer Matrix Poly(2,2′-bithiophene) Mercury Metal Incorporation,” was written (so readers were told) by Suzanne Lunsford.

Here’s how the retraction notice explains it: Continue reading Analyze this! Analytical Letters retracts chemistry paper for authorship misdirection

Plagiarism leads to retraction of conduction paper

physica bPhysica B: Condensed Matter has retracted a 2013 paper by a group from Morocco and France for, well, inappropriate condensation of printed matter.

The article, “Granular and intergranular conduction in La1.32Sr1.68Mn2O7 layered manganite system,” came mostly from a team of physicists at  University Ibn Zohr, and appeared in June.

According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Plagiarism leads to retraction of conduction paper

Second retraction for chemist from Portugal who forged names, data

chemengjrnChemical Engineering Journal has retracted a 2011 article from a group of researchers in Portugal after determining that the scientists made up their data.

The clincher: According to the journal, the researchers did not possess the proper lab equipment to perform the study as reported.

The article, “Detoxification of high-strength liquid pollutants in an ozone bubble column reactor: Gas–liquid flow patterns, interphase mass transfer and chemical depuration,” appeared in August 2011 and was written by Rodrigo J. G. Lopes and Rosa M. Quinta-Ferreira, from the Group on Environmental, Reaction and Separation Engineering in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Coimbra. The paper has been cited twice, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge, both times by the original authors.

Here’s what the abstract has to say about the work: Continue reading Second retraction for chemist from Portugal who forged names, data

Chemist loses two papers, one each for plagiarism and duplication

chem phys lettersA researcher at Shanxi Normal University in China has notched two retractions, once for plagiarism and one for duplication.

Here’s the most recent notice, which appeared in Chemical Physics Letters on September 25: Continue reading Chemist loses two papers, one each for plagiarism and duplication

Saudi journal retracts paper on new chemicals for being, well, not new

JSaudChemIrony alert: If you’re going to publish a paper on purportedly new molecules, please try to make sure those substances are indeed novel. Here’s case were that wasn’t quite so.

The Journal of Saudi Chemical Society has retracted a 2011 paper by a researcher who lifted the entire article from a previously published paper by someone else.

The paper in question, “Synthesis and antimicrobial activity of some new quinazolin-4(3H)-one derivatives,” came from Adnan Kadi at Kind Saud University in Riyadh. But according to the retraction notice, only a few words in that title — “some” and “quinazolin” were accurate. “New,” certainly not. (We suppose “derivatives” hits the mark, but for the wrong reason.) Continue reading Saudi journal retracts paper on new chemicals for being, well, not new

Publishing in triplicate leads to polymer paper retraction

j app polymerA chemist at King Saud University in Saudi Arabia has lost a paper because it was the third time he had published some of it.

Here’s the notice: Continue reading Publishing in triplicate leads to polymer paper retraction

Journal retracts two chemistry papers for plagiarism

commnonlinscinumsimCommunications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulation has retracted a pair of articles by a group of chemists from Iran and the United States after finding evidence of plagiarism in the papers.

The researcher team included authors from Islamic Azad University, Ferdowski University of Mashhad and, perhaps somewhat incongruously, Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana.

The first paper, “An analytical approach to the stability of solitary solutions of cubic–quintic coupled non-linear Schrödinger equations,” appeared in 2009 and has been cited twice, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. (Question: is an article that will ultimately be retracted for plagiarism considered to exist in a state of un-retracted retractionness, such that by detecting the plagiarized text the article immediately ceases to be?):

Continue reading Journal retracts two chemistry papers for plagiarism

Author retracts materials paper for irreproducibility

tetrahedronA materials scientist in Turkey has retracted a paper in the journal Tetrahedron after realizing that there was more to the compounds he was studying than he thought.

The article, “Novel donor–acceptor type thiophene pyridine conjugates: synthesis and ion recognition features,” appeared in April and was written by Fatih Algi, of the Laboratory of Organic Materials at Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University.

Here’s the notice: Continue reading Author retracts materials paper for irreproducibility

That’ll do it: Physics paper retracted for a “pattern that is unphysical”

j phys dLast December, we brought you the story of a math paper that was retracted because it made “no sense mathematically.” Today, we have that retraction’s cousin: A physics paper retracted because some of the data are “unphysical.”

Here’s the notice for “Room temperature ferromagnetism in pure and Co- and Fe-doped CeO2 dilute magnetic oxide: effect of oxygen vacancies and cation valence,” which was published in April 2011 in the Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics: Continue reading That’ll do it: Physics paper retracted for a “pattern that is unphysical”