Search Results for: author ban

Fourth retraction for Italian scientist comes 11 years after sleuths flagged paper

PLOS One has retracted a 2011 paper first flagged for image issues 11 years ago. The retraction marks the fourth for the paper’s lead author, Gabriella Marfè of the University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli,” in Caserta, Italy.  “Involvement of FOXO Transcription Factors, TRAIL-FasL/Fas, and Sirtuin Proteins Family in Canine Coronavirus Type II-Induced Apoptosis,” has been cited … Continue reading Fourth retraction for Italian scientist comes 11 years after sleuths flagged paper

Guest post: NIH-funded replication studies are not the answer to the reproducibility crisis in pre-clinical research

President Trump recently issued an executive order calling for improvement in the reproducibility of scientific research and asking federal agencies to propose how they will make that happen. I imagine that the National Institutes of Health’s response will include replication studies, in which NIH would fund attempts to repeat published experiments from the ground up, … Continue reading Guest post: NIH-funded replication studies are not the answer to the reproducibility crisis in pre-clinical research

Clarivate to stop counting citations to retracted articles in journals’ impact factors

Clarivate will no longer include citations to and from retracted papers when calculating journal impact factors, the company announced today.  The change comes after some have wondered over the years whether citations to retracted papers should count toward a journal’s impact factor, a controversial yet closely watched metric that measures how often others cite papers … Continue reading Clarivate to stop counting citations to retracted articles in journals’ impact factors

A Ph.D. in paper mills? 

A university and a publisher are teaming up to combat paper mills in a unique way: By enlisting a Ph.D. candidate. In April, the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University in the Netherlands announced it would be collaborating with Wiley to establish a four-year research position focused on paper mills. “Of … Continue reading A Ph.D. in paper mills? 

AI-Reddit study leader gets warning as ethics committee moves to ‘stricter review process’

The university ethics committee that reviewed a controversial study that deployed AI-generated posts on a Reddit forum made recommendations the researchers did not heed, Retraction Watch has learned.  The principal investigator on the study has received a formal warning, and the university’s ethics committees will implement a more rigorous review process for future studies, a … Continue reading AI-Reddit study leader gets warning as ethics committee moves to ‘stricter review process’

‘Squared blunder’: Google engineer withdraws preprint after getting called out for using AI

An expert in AI at Google has admitted he used the technology to help write a preprint manuscript that commenters on PubPeer found to contain a slew of AI-generated phrases like “squared blunder” and “info picture.”  The paper, “Leveraging GANs For Active Appearance Models Optimized Model Fitting,” appeared on arXiv.org in January but was withdrawn … Continue reading ‘Squared blunder’: Google engineer withdraws preprint after getting called out for using AI

Weekend reads: Journals get letters from feds; invasion of the ‘journal snatchers’; should universities release misconduct reports?

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 500. There are more than 58,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains more than 300 titles. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately … Continue reading Weekend reads: Journals get letters from feds; invasion of the ‘journal snatchers’; should universities release misconduct reports?

A new journal record: Sage title retracts 678 more papers, tally over 1,500

The retraction of “a final batch” of 678 articles concludes Sage’s investigation into questionable peer review, citation manipulation, and other signs of paper mill activity at one of its journals, according to the publisher.  Sage has been investigating the Journal of Intelligent and Fuzzy Systems (JIFS) since early 2024 for “indicators that raised concerns about … Continue reading A new journal record: Sage title retracts 678 more papers, tally over 1,500

Chinese funding agency sanctions 26 researchers in latest misconduct report

The organization responsible for allocating basic research funding in China has issued misconduct findings against 26 researchers for violations ranging from breach of confidentiality to image manipulation, plagiarism, and buying and selling authorship.  The National Natural Science Foundation of China, or NSFC, released the results of 15 misconduct investigations on April 11. Several of the … Continue reading Chinese funding agency sanctions 26 researchers in latest misconduct report

Weekend reads: Scientists won’t submit paper for deportation fears; watchdog: oversight lacking at EPA research group; ‘life after paper mills’

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 500. There are more than 58,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains more than 300 titles. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately … Continue reading Weekend reads: Scientists won’t submit paper for deportation fears; watchdog: oversight lacking at EPA research group; ‘life after paper mills’