“[T]hese shit comments”: Author of a nonsense paper responds on PubPeer

A conference proceedings for the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) has retracted a 2021 paper which appears to have been produced in part by the fake article generator SCIGen — an allegation the corresponding author denies.

“Estimate The Efficiency Of Multiprocessor’s Cash Memory Work Algorithms” appeared earlier this year in the 2021 IEEE International Conference on Smart Information Systems and Technologies, where it came to the attention of Guillaume Cabanac and Cyril Labbé. 

As readers of this blog might recall, Cabanac, Labbé and their colleague Alexander Magazinov recently wrote a preprint about how mangled translations into English — “tortured phrases,” in their words — can indicate that an article has been churned out by a paper mill.    

Continue reading “[T]hese shit comments”: Author of a nonsense paper responds on PubPeer

“Fabulous document”, “very helpful guidance”: Sleuths react to recommendations for handling image integrity issues

Retraction Watch readers are likely familiar with the varied — and often unsatisfying — responses of journals to scientific sleuthing that uncovers potential problems with published images. Some editors take the issues seriously, even hiring staff to respond to allegations and vet manuscripts before publication. Some, however, take years to handle the allegations, or ignore them altogether.

Recently, STM’s Standards and Technology Committee (STEC) appointed a working group to look at these issues At  a webinar last week, the group — including members from the American Chemical Society, Elsevier, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis, Wiley, and other publishers — released a draft of their recommendations, which:

Continue reading “Fabulous document”, “very helpful guidance”: Sleuths react to recommendations for handling image integrity issues

Authors of a case report on COVID-19 in a prisoner say they ‘are unsatisfied with the quality of [their] work’

The authors of a 2020 case study of COVID-19 have retracted the work because they were “unsatisfied with the quality” of the work. Nor, judging from the retraction notice, should they — or the journal that published the report — be. 

The article was titled “Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Infection Mimicking as Pulmonary Tuberculosis in an Inmate” and was written by a group led by Hina Akbar, of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, in Memphis. According to the abstract:

Here, we describe a case of SARS-CoV-2 infection in a low prevalence area which was initially diagnosed and managed as pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) in a high-risk inmate population. These ambiguous presentations can lead to mismanagement of such patients resulting in potentially fatal outcomes and public health crises in confined facilities. This also highlights the significance of a high index of clinical suspicion for SARS-CoV-2 especially in high risk and vulnerable populations.

That might be true, but evidently the article did a poor job of making the argument. The nostra culpa retraction notice states: 

Continue reading Authors of a case report on COVID-19 in a prisoner say they ‘are unsatisfied with the quality of [their] work’

Weekend reads: The ‘plagiarism hunter’; targeting academics over grant fraud; data manipulation at the World Bank

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 155. And there are now 30,000 retractions in our database.

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 ‘plagiarism hunter’; targeting academics over grant fraud; data manipulation at the World Bank

Highly cited paper marks 14th retraction for Chinese Academy of Sciences researcher

A chemistry journal has retracted a 2014 paper by a group from China after the first author on the article copped to having Photoshopped a figure — marking the second retraction for members of the group in less than a week and the 14th for one of the authors. 

The paper, “Polymer nanodots of graphitic carbon nitride as effective fluorescent probes for the detection of Fe3+ and Cu2+ ions,” appeared in Nanoscale and was written by a group with ties to Soochow University,  Hefei University of Technology and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in Beijing, and Yale University. The first author was Shouwei Zhang, whose name appears on at least seven papers flagged on PubPeer for problematic images. 

The senior author was  Xiangke Wang, whose tally of PubPeer entries is now at 76 and who now has 14 retractions. One of those, the 2013 article “Superior adsorption capacity of hierarchical iron oxide@magnesium silicate magnetic nanorods for fast removal of organic pollutants from aqueous solution,” was retracted from the Journal of Materials Chemistry A on September 13, with the following notice: 

Continue reading Highly cited paper marks 14th retraction for Chinese Academy of Sciences researcher

Former Emory division director committed misconduct, says federal watchdog

Ya Wang

A cancer researcher who was a former division director at Emory University in Atlanta “engaged in research misconduct by knowingly, intentionally, and/or recklessly falsifying data” in a federal grant application and six published papers, according to new findings from the U.S. Office of Research Integrity.

Ya Wang, who retired from Emory a year ago, “falsified protein immunoblot data by reusing and relabeling the same images to represent different experimental conditions in mammalian tissue culture models of DNA damage and repair in eighteen (18) figure panels in eleven (11) figures in one (1) grant application and six (6) published papers,” the ORI said.

Wang “neither admits nor denies” ORI’s findings of misconduct, according to the agency’s report on the case. She agreed to a four-year ban on any federal funding, and to correct or retract four papers:

Continue reading Former Emory division director committed misconduct, says federal watchdog

Authors who don’t disclose conflicts of interest? “[W]e cannot force them to do so,” says editor

Nanshan Zhong, by 东方(美國之音記者) via Wikimedia

Do journal editors have the responsibility to ensure authors are disclosing relevant conflicts of interest?

According to the editor of  one Elsevier journal, the answer is “no.”

The case marks the second time this year that the editor of an Elsevier journal has been less than dogged about enforcing the company’s clearly stated policies about undisclosed conflicts. 

Continue reading Authors who don’t disclose conflicts of interest? “[W]e cannot force them to do so,” says editor

Highly criticized paper on dishonesty retracted

Dan Ariely

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) has retracted a highly influential 2012 paper by Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist at Duke University whose work has been called into question over concerns about the data in some of his publications.

The retraction wasn’t unexpected. Ariely and his colleagues said last month that they would be pulling the article, “Signing at the beginning makes ethics salient and decreases dishonest self-reports in comparison to signing at the end,” in the wake of revelations that some of the data in the study appear to have been fabricated. 

As Stephanie Lee of BuzzFeed reported in August:

Continue reading Highly criticized paper on dishonesty retracted

Publisher investigating all of an author’s papers following reporting by Retraction Watch

Less than two weeks after Retraction Watch reported that an abstract from 2019 included what appeared to be text from plagiarism detection software, the publisher has subjected the paper to an expression of concern and is investigating all of the lead author’s papers.

The paper,”Identification of Selective Forwarding Attacks in Remote locator Network utilizing Adaptive Trust Framework,” appeared as part of an IOP Conference Series. Nick Wise, an engineering graduate student at Cambridge, flagged the incident on Twitter, which IOP Publishing told us they had not yet heard about.

Today, IOP Publishing spokesperson Rachael Harper told Retraction Watch:

Continue reading Publisher investigating all of an author’s papers following reporting by Retraction Watch

Weekend reads: A ‘hoax paper’ author resigns; Uyghur DNA papers retracted; a year without p values

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 154. And there are now 30,000 retractions in our database.

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: A ‘hoax paper’ author resigns; Uyghur DNA papers retracted; a year without p values