The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) asked a journal to retract a paper once it became clear that some of the images in it were actually from a different HHMI lab.
Here’s the notice, from the Journal of Comparative Neurology: Continue reading Neuroscience paper retracted after HHMI investigation finds scientist copied images without permission
This one is an oldie but a goodie.
We’ve published a few accounts of what it feels like to have your work plagiarized. But often absent from accounts like that are the views of the plagiarists. So here’s one.
In 2009, the Cuban Journal of Endocrinology retracted a 2000 paper by a researcher who acknowledged plagiarizing the work from a previously-published book chapter by other authors. And how.
As a letter from the editors explains (with the help of Google Translate): Continue reading I will not plagiarize, I will not plagiarize, No plagiaré…: When a journal requires a public apology
Has the Annals of Thoracic Surgery had a change of heart? Evidently the publication that told us nearly two years ago, in effect, that the reasons for retractions in its pages were “none of [our] damn business” has decided that information is worth sharing after all.
The ATS has retracted a paper it published in October. The article, titled “Development and Validation of a New Outcome Score in Subglottic Stenosis,” came from a group of researchers in Florence, Italy.
As the notice explains: Continue reading “Misconduct” leads to retraction from Italian “super surgeon” under house arrest
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
On May 11 of this year, Juan Antonio Baeza, an environmental engineering researcher at Universitat Autonoma Barcelona was looking for papers in Water Research about knowledge-based systems, the subject of his 1999 PhD thesis. As he tells Retraction Watch, when he came across “Improving the efficiencies of simultaneous organic substance and nitrogen removal in a multi-stage loop membrane bioreactor-based PWWTP using an on-line Knowledge-Based Expert System”:
I started to read this paper and some sentences of the abstract were interesting, well, really I thought that I would have written that with the same words! But after reading some parts of the paper I realized that those were really my words of a previous paper published in the same journal in 2002.
I started to compare it and around 40-50% of the paper was a direct copy of my paper without changing even a comma.
So he wrote to the journal on May 14: Continue reading How does it feel to have your scientific paper plagiarized? Part 2
Nothing like a little home cooking.
Genetic Vaccines and Therapy (GVT) has retracted a paper by a group of Pakistani authors who recommended one of their colleagues as a reviewer for their manuscript.
That’s not all: According to the journal, the researchers apparently also misappropriated data from a previous study.
The article in question, “Structure based sequence analysis & epitope prediction of gp41 HIV1 envelope glycoprotein isolated in Pakistan,” was published in June 2012. The first author is Syyada Samra Jafri, who we see as being at the University of the Punjab in Lahore. According to the retraction notice: Continue reading HIV paper retracted after authors recommend a colleague as a reviewer
The journal Gerodontology has retracted a paper for overbite, er overlap.
The article, “Translation and validation of the Hindi version of the Geriatric Oral Health Assessment Index,” was first published in January of this year by Saee P. Deshmukh and Usha M. Radke, of the department of prosthodontics at VSPM’s Dental College and Hospital, in Nagpur, India.
According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Tomato, tomahto—let’s call the oral health thing off
The editors of Acta Radiologica have retracted a study of patients with lung cancer, with a notice that tells the whole story:
The manuscript “Measurement of tumor volume by PET to evaluate prognosis in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer treated by non-surgical therapy” was submitted to Acta Radiologica on November 3, 2010 and, after a review, accepted for publication on February 26, 2011 (1). The article was published in Acta Radiol 2011;52:646–50. Authors were: Honjiang Yan, Renben Wang (corresponding author), Fen Zhao, Kubli Zhu, Shumei Jiang, Wei Zhao, and Rui Feng, from the Department of Radiation Oncology and Department of Nuclear Medicine, Shandong Tumor Hospital, Jinan, China. Continue reading In detailed notice, radiology journal retracts lung cancer paper for likely plagiarism
A group of researchers in China have retracted a 2011 article in Acta Pharmacologica Sinica, the official journal of the Chinese Pharmacological Society, acknowledging that they lifted text and results from a previously published paper from other researchers.
The paper was titled “Lipid metabolism disturbances and AMPK activation in prolonged propofol-sedated rabbits under mechanical ventilation.”
According to the notice: Continue reading Expressions of regret: group retracts sedation paper for stolen words, data
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews has retracted a 2008 paper by a group from the United States and Botswana, citing plagiarism and unauthorized use of data.
The article, “Solar chimney power generation project—The case for Botswana,” discussed a project by the Botswanan military to develop a power plant based on the chimney design. The paper is no longer available online, but we found this Wikipedia entry that mentions it: Continue reading Solar energy paper retracted for text, data misuse