Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents has retracted a 2015 review article about natural fighters of cancer stem cells for reproducing “content to a high degree of similarity without appropriate attribution or acknowledgement” from a handful of papers.
Although the editor and publisher pulled the paper, they did so with the cooperation of the authors, according to the retraction note: Continue reading Paper on natural ways to fight cancer stem cells nixed for plagiarism
The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition is retracting a paper that showed genetically engineered rice serves as an effective vitamin A supplement after a Massachusetts judge denied the first author’s motion for an injunction against the publisher.
The journal announced plans to retract the paper last year following allegations that the paper contained ethical mis-steps, such as not getting informed consent from the parents of children eating the rice, and faking ethics approval documents.
Last July, first author Guangwen Tang at Tufts University filed a complaint and motion for preliminary injunction against the journal’s publisher, the American Society for Nutrition, to stop the retraction.
According to the ASN, on July 17, a Massachusetts Superior Court “cleared the way” for the publisher to retract the paper. So they have, as of July 29. Here’s more from the retraction notice:
Continue reading Golden rice paper pulled after judge rules for journal
The properties of pine needles in northwestern China differ — both inside and out — depending on where on the slope of a mountain they are situated. The properties of a recent paper on this phenomenon have recently changed from “published” to “retracted.”
It appears that some of the authors didn’t realize it had been submitted to The Scientific World Journal. The paper has not been cited, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
Here’s the notice:
Continue reading Author disputes retraction of pine needle paper published “without the knowledge” of all authors
Microporous and Mesoporous Materials has retracted a 2015 paper after it was discovered the authors “have plagiarized part of a paper that had already appeared.”
The paper, “Ionic liquid assisted synthesis of flexible and super-hydrophobic porous gels,” described the synthesis of a form of flexible aerogels “through a facile one-pot preparation,” according to the abstract. According to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge it has been cited zero times.
Here is the retraction note, in full:
Continue reading “Part of a paper that had already appeared”: Materials paper pulled for plagiarism
An economist in Taiwan has retracted a paper about from Economic Development Quarterly because it was “published in error.”
The paper — first published online March 5, 2013 — addresses the influence of information and communication technology on economic growth.
According to the notice, the paper included “the original dataset and excerpts from an earlier draft of the paper co-written by the author and colleagues.” The only listed author, Yi-Chia Wang, asked that the article be retracted before making it into print, but it looks like it was included in the February, 2015 issue of the journal.
Here’s the notice for “How ICT Penetration Influences Productivity Growth: Evidence From 17 OECD Countries”: Continue reading “This article was published in error”: Economics paper defaults
Following “significant concerns” raised by outside researchers and a formal university investigation, a group of authors in Taiwan has retracted a Nature Nanotechnology paper on DNA sequencing after they “could not reproduce the results of the work,” or even provide “a complete set of raw data for the original experiments.”
The paper, “DNA sequencing using electrical conductance measurements of a DNA polymerase,” describes a technology to sequence single DNA molecules — a technique that the authors, all based at National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan, suggest could be used to “cheaply and quickly” sequence DNA.
Concerns about the paper’s data were first raised in May 2013 by the community, according to an editorial from the journal. Then, the journal asked the university to investigate, says “Notes on a retraction”: Continue reading “Significant concerns” and formal investigation unwind Nature Nanotech sequencing paper
Scientists have pulled their 2013 Infection and Immunity paper after a reader noticed duplicated data in three figures, and the first author was “unable to provide the original data used to construct the figures,” according to the journal’s editor-in-chief.
According to the retraction note, “the first author has accepted responsibility for these anomalies” — similar to another recent retraction from the same journal, also due to image duplication reported by a reader (apparently the journal has one or more careful readers).
The paper, “Pseudomonas aeruginosa Outer Membrane Vesicles Modulate Host Immune Responses by Targeting the Toll-Like Receptor 4 Signaling Pathway,” concerns the role of outer membrane vesicles excreted by the bacteria to incite an inflammatory response in mice. It was written by authors at the University of North Dakota, Sichuan University in China, and the University of Chicago, and has been cited six times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
Here’s the complete retraction note:
Continue reading Another “first author has accepted responsibility” retraction from immunity journal
Chemometrics and Intelligent Laboratory Systems, an Elsevier publication, has retracted a 2014 paper by researchers in China and the United Kingdom for data misuse and authorship issues.
The article, “Optimization of fluidized bed spray granulation process based on a multiphase hybrid model,” was purportedly written by Dapeng Niu, of the College of Information Science and Engineering at Northeastern University, in Shenyang, China, Ming Li, of De Montfort University, in Leicester, England, and Fuli Wang, a vice-president at Northeastern.
But Niu apparently didn’t perform any experiments, lifted the data from other sources, and published the paper without his co-authors’ okay.
Here’s more from the retraction notice: Continue reading Sub-optimal: Industrial optimization paper crushed by author’s “serious error of judgment”
Chemical Communications has retracted a 2015 article by a group of researchers in China over concerns about fabricated data and an incredible shrinking list of authors.
The paper, “N, S co-doped graphene quantum dots from a single source precursor used for photodynamic cancer therapy under two-photon excitation,” was ostensibly written by nine researchers at the Collaborative Innovation Center for Marine Biomass Fiber, Materials and Textiles of Shandong Province, the Shandong Sino-Japanese Center for Collaborative Research of Carbon Nanomaterials, Laboratory of Fiber Materials and Modern Textiles, the Growing Base for State Key Laboratory at the College of Chemical Science and Engineering at Qingdao University, and Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minn.
According to the abstract: Continue reading Scientists “wish to resign as co-authors:” Quantum dot paper retracted
Citing an “abuse of the scientific publishing system,” the editors of Geomorphology have retracted a paper from a quartet of geologists in China for containing “significant similarity” to four other papers.
It is the second recent retraction for the group: In a loop of self-plagiarism, the Geomorphology paper was cited as a source of copied material in a retraction last month from Sedimentary Geology.
This most recent retraction is of a January 2014 paper, “The influence of sand bed temperature on lift-off and falling parameters in windblown sand flux,” analyzing the rise and fall of windblown sand based on the temperature of the sand bed.
Here is the full text of the notice:
Continue reading Geology dust-up: Second sand paper swept away for duplication