What do you do when a math paper that contains some “constructions and arguments [that] make no sense mathematically” gets published?
If you’re Applied Mathematics Letters, you retract the paper, “For the origin of new geometry.” Here’s the notice: Continue reading Math paper retracted because some of it makes “no sense mathematically”
In August of last year, Mladen Pavičić, chair of physics at the University of Zagreb’s Faculty of Civil Engineering, published a paper in Physical Review Letters on quantum teleportation, “Near-Deterministic Discrimination of All Bell States with Linear Optics.”
Just six days later, after hearing from a physicist in China, Pavičić — who is also affiliated with Harvard’s physics department — submitted a correction, which ran on the journal’s site in November. The correction begins: Continue reading Poignancy in physics: Retraction for “fatal error” that couldn’t be patched
Today, on Thanksgiving in the U.S., Retraction Watch is taking a bit of a holiday as we dig into some turkey — not to be confused with retractions from Turkey. We’d like to give thanks for the thousands of Retraction Watch readers all over the world who’ve helped us shine a spotlight on the scientific process, warts and all.
And we imagine that journal editors around the globe are giving thanks to plagiarism detection software such as iThenticate, so today’s post is a roundup of some recent retractions for plagiarism: Continue reading Giving thanks for plagiarism detection software: Catching up on retractions for the sincerest form of flattery
Forgive us if we’re a tad skeptical here, but we’re not convinced about the, um, sincerity of the following retraction notice.
The International Journal of Biological Macromolecules has retracted a paper it published earlier this year by a group of Canadian researchers who had already published the same paper in a different journal.
The article, “Spectroscopic investigation of collagen scaffolds impregnated with AgNPs coated by PEG/TX-100 mixed systems,” came from researchers at the University of Saskatchewan and appeared in the April issue of the IJBM.
But according to the notice: Continue reading “Administrative error” leads to duplication retraction
The Journal of Vinyl and Additive Technology (JVAT) — the official journal of the Society of Plastics Engineers — is retracting a 2012 paper from a group of Chinese researchers who evidently realized at some point that they didn’t know quite what they were doing.
As the notice explains: Continue reading Retraction is final destination for epoxy paper marred by “pervasive misattribution of data”
A chemistry journal has retracted a 2006 paper that had knowledgeable researchers scratching their heads from the minute it was published.
Here’s the notice: Continue reading Chemistry journal and author retract paper dogged by questions since its publication in 2006
As we’ve noted before, we generally let duplication retractions make their way to the bottom of our to-do pile, since there’s often less of an interesting story behind them, duplication is hardly the worst of publishing sins, and the notices usually tell the story. (These are often referred to — imprecisely — as “self-plagiarism.”)
But that skews what’s represented here — boy, are there a lot of duplication retractions we haven’t covered! — and we might as well be more comprehensive. Plus, our eagle-eyed readers may find issues that we won’t see on a quick scan.
So with this post, we’re inaugurating a new feature here at Retraction Watch, “You’ve been dupe’d.” Every now and then, we’ll gather five of these duplication retractions at a time, and post them so they get into the mix, and into our category listing (see drop-down menu in right-hand column if you haven’t already). Here are the first five: Continue reading You’ve been dupe’d: Catching up on authors who liked their work enough to use it again
The International Journal of Hydrogen Energy has retracted a paper by a group from Malaysia and India who, reading between the lines, couldn’t quite get the low notes to overcome what the high notes lacked. Or something like that.
The paper, “Hydrogen production from sea water using waste aluminium and calcium oxide,” appears to have come out of the quaintly named 7th Petite Workshop on the Defect Chemical Nature of Energy Materials, held in March 2011 in Norway.
According to the notice: Continue reading Hydrogen study has “merit” — just not enough to avoid retraction
Plasma Processes and Polymers has retracted a paper it published in March 2012 for what it describes as a “possible breach of ethics.”
That certainly sounds bad — if inconclusive — but the authors maintain the whole thing was a simple misunderstanding.
The article, “Plasma Acid: Water Treated by Dielectric Barrier Discharge,” came from the lab of Gary Friedman, a physicist at Drexel University in Philadelphia. The first, and corresponding, author was Natalie Shainsky, an award-winning graduate student at the school.
As the notice states: Continue reading Authors dispute ethical lapse in case of double physics publication that wasn’t
Maybe it’s an occupational hazard of dealing with quantum physics — uncertainty and all that — but a group of Swiss researchers has retracted their paper on quantum dots after discovering “major errors” that undermined their conclusions.
The article, published in 2010 as a research letter in Nature Photonics, was titled “Polarization-entangled photons produced with high-symmetry site-controlled quantum dots,” by Eli Kapon and colleagues.
According to the retraction notice: Continue reading “Major errors” lead to retraction of Nature Photonics paper on quantum dots