Retraction Watch

Author of ‘gibberish’ paper admits to extensive plagiarism

A paper that claimed to have developed a new method to predict acid drainage from mines was not so novel after all, according to one of its authors.

In a series of emails to Retraction Watch, Dulian Zeqiraj of the Polytechnic University of Tirana, Albania, admitted to lifting figures and tables from other articles and said he might also have left some “text as it is in original.”

His paper, “A Novel Stochastic Approach for Modeling Acid Mine Drainage in Three Dimensions,” was published November 17 in Process Safety and Environmental Protection, an Elsevier title.

That the article managed to clear peer review is astonishing, said Muhammad Muniruzzaman, a senior scientist at the Geological Survey of Finland in Espoo, who discovered last week that Zeqiraj’s team had plagiarized his work.

Professor in Jordan sues sleuth who exposed citation anomalies

A PhD student in Switzerland who blogged about a series of dubious conferences linked to potential citation fraud is being sued by one of the conference chairs, a professor of computer science, Retraction Watch has learned.

The professor, Shadi Aljawarneh of the Jordan University of Science and Technology, reaped a prodigious number of citations from the conference proceedings, often in highly questionable ways.

“Fraud can pay off,” Solal Pirelli, a doctoral student at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, wrote on his blog in January. “Shadi Aljawarneh has 6082 citations and an h-index of 38 per Google Scholar, above many well-regarded researchers. This probably helped him sit on the editorial board of PeerJ Computer Science, alongside well-regarded researchers.”

Purdue agrees to pay feds back $737,000 for grant submissions with fake data

Purdue University has reached a settlement with the federal government to pay back grant money the institution received through applications submitted with falsified data, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Indiana.

The settlement resolves allegations under the False Claims Act related to the case of Alice C. Chang (who also uses the name Chun-Ju Chang), a former associate professor of basic medical sciences at Purdue’s College of Veterinary Medicine in West Lafayette, In. Inside Higher Ed reported first on the settlement.

Last December, the U.S. Office of Research Integrity found Chang had faked data in two published papers and nearly 400 images across 16 grant applications. As we reported then:

A new way to support Retraction Watch this Giving Tuesday

Dear Retraction Watch reader:

Earlier this week, The Retraction Watch Database surpassed 45,000 retractions.

45,000.

That’s three times as many as you’ll find in other data sources. And in a recognition of the value of the Database, earlier this year Crossref acquired it – and made its contents freely available. The fact that the acquisition included five years of funding to cover the continued operation of the Database was critical to our sustainability. We were, in a word, overjoyed by the deal.

But the journalism side of Retraction Watch – the part that digs deep into stories about retraction and related issues, files public records requests, and occasionally faces legal threats – still needs regular sources of funding. At the moment, the salaries of our two reporter-editors – Ellie Kincaid and Fred Joelving – are funded by a combination of a generous two-year grant from the WoodNext Foundation, partnership with news outlets, and individual donations from readers like you.

In nonprofit parlance, we’ve diversified, but we always face the risk that one or more of those streams may dry up. We have a few ways you can help.

Weekend reads: ‘A scientific fraud epidemic’; censorship by retraction; buying and selling articles

It’s almost Giving Tuesday. Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work?

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to over 375. There are more than 44,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains well over 200 titles. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately — or our list of top 10 most highly cited retracted papers? Or The Retraction Watch Mass Resignations List?

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

Did a prof in India steal his student’s work – or is he being framed?

On Feb. 10, 2022, Avinash Kumar, a PhD student at one of India’s top technical schools, sent a trove of research data to his adviser. But when the same data appeared in a paper in a scientific journal earlier this year, Kumar’s name wasn’t on it.

“I have done the experimental and analysis part of this work,” Kumar, who has since graduated, wrote in an email to Retraction Watch. “I am in deep shock after seeing this article online.”

It seemed like a solid case of plagiarism.

Professor who sued employer for discrimination refiles after judge dismissed his suit

A professor at the University of Pittsburgh who sued the institution for racial discrimination and retaliation has refiled his suit after a federal judge dismissed his claims.

As we’ve previously reported, Moses Bility, an assistant professor of infectious diseases and microbiology in the university’s School of Public Health, sued the school earlier this year.

Among many claims of racial discrimination, Bility alleged the school’s response to a 2020 paper he published and later withdrew that proposed jade amulets may prevent COVID-19 was discriminatory. (In the process of our previous reporting on the article, Bility accused Retraction Watch of racism.)

According to Bility’s complaint, Pitt officials demanded an investigation of his research, which found he “did not violate any academic integrity standard.” However, at a departmental town hall meeting over Zoom, presenting the investigation’s findings, “students in Defendant Pitt’s School of Public Health called Dr. Bility derogatory names, such as stupid, retarded, unintelligent, etc.” Bility later received two emails “from anonymous individuals who Dr. Bility assumes came from the Defendant Pitt community” that included racial slurs.

Weekend reads: More Alzheimer’s misconduct?; AI bullshit; manipulating rankings

Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work?

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

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

What’s in a name? Made-up authors are penning dozens of papers

Photo by Bilal Kamoon via flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/bilal-kamoon/

Researchers apparently don’t need to be real to publish in scientific journals.

Take Nicholas Zafetti of Clemson University, in South Carolina, who has at least nine publications to his name. Or Giorgos Jimenez of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with 12 papers under his belt.

Both identities seem to be bogus, according to Alexander Magazinov, a scientific sleuth and software engineer based in Kazakhstan. They add to a short but growing list of ostensibly fictitious researchers who appear as coauthors on real papers.

Auburn PhD student faked data in grant application and published paper, feds say

A former PhD student at Auburn University in Alabama relabeled and reused images inappropriately in a grant application, published paper, and several presentations, a U.S. government watchdog has found.

The Office of Research Integrity says Sarah Elizabeth Martin “engaged in research misconduct by intentionally or knowingly falsifying and/or fabricating experimental data and results obtained under different experimental conditions,” according to a case summary posted online.

The published paper, “The m6A landscape of polyadenylated nuclear (PAN) RNA and its related methylome in the context of KSHV replication,” appeared online in advance of publication in RNA in June 2021. The journal retracted the article last year, with the following notice:

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