Researcher who faked co-authors earns two more retractions, publication ban following Retraction Watch coverage

Nine months after Retraction Watch notified a pair of journals about fraudulent letters they’d published by a researcher in Singapore, the publications are now being retracted. 

As we reported last October following earlier news reports, Shunjie Chua, fabricated the names and affiliations of co-authors in at least four articles, two of which were being retracted. At the time, we found two letters to the editor by Chua and his “colleagues” and brought them to the attention of the journals in which those articles had appeared. Editors told us they had been unaware of the fabrications.

Late last month, one of the journals, Obstetrics & Gynecology, issued the following retraction notice:

Continue reading Researcher who faked co-authors earns two more retractions, publication ban following Retraction Watch coverage

Should journals retract when an author is sent to prison for a crime unrelated to their work?

Should a journal retract a paper when they learn that one of its authors has earned a year-long prison sentence for downloading child pornography?

For Brill’s Journal of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics the answer was no. And experts in publication ethics say that was the right call.

The researcher in question is Jan Joosten, who held the prestigious Regius professorship of Hebrew at the University of Oxford, was convicted of downloading 28,000 child abuse images and videos and  placed on the register for sex offenders in France, according to the Guardian.

Continue reading Should journals retract when an author is sent to prison for a crime unrelated to their work?

Weekend reads: The unintended consequences of “trust in science”; Biogen, Aduhelm, and JAMA; how to determine author order, part 592

Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 147.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Continue reading Weekend reads: The unintended consequences of “trust in science”; Biogen, Aduhelm, and JAMA; how to determine author order, part 592

‘A very unfortunate event’: Paper on COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy retracted

A group of researchers in Canada and India have lost a paper on vaccine hesitancy and Covid-19 because they didn’t have the proper license to mine a database of news articles used in the study. 

The paper, “Tracking COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and logistical challenges: A machine learning approach,” was published in PLOS ONE on June 2. Led by Shantanu Dutta, of the Telfer School of Management at the University of Ottawa, the researchers set out to:

Continue reading ‘A very unfortunate event’: Paper on COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy retracted

Science Majorana paper earns an expression of concern

Charlie Marcus

Just months after Nature retracted a paper on the “Majorana” particle because other researchers found issues in the work, Science has placed an expression of concern on a different paper that suggested “a relatively easy route to creating and controlling [Majorana zero modes] MZMs in hybrid materials.”

If such particles exist, they could allow Microsoft — which employs some of the researchers involved in the work — to build a quantum computer. But scientists have suggested that the findings of various studies do not suggest the presence of Majorana particles.

The Science paper has been cited 29 times since it was published in 2020, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science. The EoC reads:

Continue reading Science Majorana paper earns an expression of concern

Prominent behavioral scientist’s paper earns an expression of concern

Dan Ariely

A journal has issued an expression of concern for a 17-year-old paper by one of the world’s most prominent behavioral psychologists after it partly failed a statistical stress test conducted by a group that has been trying to reproduce findings in the field. 

The 2004 article, by Dan Ariely, of Duke University but then at MIT, and James Heyman, then a PhD student at the University of California, Berkeley, was published in Psychological Science. Titled “Effort for Payment: A Tale of Two Markets,” the article looked the relationship between labor and payment for that work:

Continue reading Prominent behavioral scientist’s paper earns an expression of concern

Should a researcher who was no longer at an institution when a study began be a co-author?

A group of surgeons in Germany have retracted a 2020 paper for several errors and because a senior researcher says he should have been included as a co-author.

The article, “Assessment of Intraoperative Flow Measurement as a Quality Control During Carotid Endarterectomy: A Single-Center Analysis,” appeared on the website of the Scandanavian Journal of Surgery in early November. The authors, led by Anna Cyrek, were affiliated with the Division of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery at University Hospital Essen. 

According to the retraction notice: 

Continue reading Should a researcher who was no longer at an institution when a study began be a co-author?

Vice-chancellor of university in Pakistan loses paper for plagiarizing from a thesis

Muhammad Suleman Tahir

Sometimes, imitation is not the sincerest form of flattery.

Ask Farukh Iqbal. Earlier this year, Iqbal, of the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at RMIT University, in Melbourne, Australia, was alerted to a recent paper in the journal Fuel that cited a 2020 article he’d written with some colleagues. 

Iqbal read the paper and realized with dismay that not only was his work — which included parts of his thesis — cited, it was plagiarized:

Continue reading Vice-chancellor of university in Pakistan loses paper for plagiarizing from a thesis

Pro-tip: When claiming to use a dataset, make sure it collects what you say it does

Tilda Swinton has no more to do with TILDA than the data these authors used (credit: Manfred Werner (Tsui)

Irish eyes most definitely were not smiling on three papers that purported to contain data from a national repository from the Emerald Isle. 

The articles, which appeared in a trio of journals from Dove Medical Press — part of Taylor & Francis — were written by various researchers at Nanchang University, in China. 

Two of the articles have been retracted. “Serum Human Epididymal Protein 4 is Associated with Depressive Symptoms in Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease,” from 2020, was published in the International Journal of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. Per the abstract: 

Continue reading Pro-tip: When claiming to use a dataset, make sure it collects what you say it does

Weekend reads: Former dean sent herself threatening letters; what it costs to sue for defamation; what a highly cited paper is worth

Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 147.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Continue reading Weekend reads: Former dean sent herself threatening letters; what it costs to sue for defamation; what a highly cited paper is worth