A fight over who owns tuberculosis study data has led the Journal of Clinical Microbiology to publish an Expression of Concern.
Here’s the notice: Continue reading Spat over tuberculosis study data leads to Expression of Concern
Dental journal pulls paper for duplicate publication
Contemporary Clinical Dentistry has yanked a 2012 article on “full-mouth rehabilitation” after learning that the article had already appeared in two other publications — making the journal, in effect, Contemporaneous Clinical Dentistry.
The article, “Full-mouth rehabilitation of a patient with severe attrition using the Hobo Twin-Stage Procedure,” came from a group at the Dr. R. Ahmed Dental College, in Kolkata, India. It described the following case: Continue reading Dental journal pulls paper for duplicate publication
Chutzpah: Authors blame PLOS ONE for failing to find plagiarism in paper on Botulinum toxin
Holy Chutzpah, Batman! A team of researchers in India has retracted their 2012 paper in PLoS One on botulinum toxin for plagiarism — while blaming the journal for failing to use its “soft wares” to catch the plagiarism.
The article, “Small-Molecule Quinolinol Inhibitor Identified Provides Protection against BoNT/A in Mice,” was written by a group from the Defence Research and Development Establishment, in Madhya Pradesh.
According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Chutzpah: Authors blame PLOS ONE for failing to find plagiarism in paper on Botulinum toxin
Journal retracts two chemistry papers for plagiarism
Communications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulation has retracted a pair of articles by a group of chemists from Iran and the United States after finding evidence of plagiarism in the papers.
The researcher team included authors from Islamic Azad University, Ferdowski University of Mashhad and, perhaps somewhat incongruously, Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana.
The first paper, “An analytical approach to the stability of solitary solutions of cubic–quintic coupled non-linear Schrödinger equations,” appeared in 2009 and has been cited twice, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. (Question: is an article that will ultimately be retracted for plagiarism considered to exist in a state of un-retracted retractionness, such that by detecting the plagiarized text the article immediately ceases to be?):
Continue reading Journal retracts two chemistry papers for plagiarism
Ask Retraction Watch: How should deceased colleagues be credited in papers?
Another installment of Ask Retraction Watch:
As experts in authorship matters, I was wondering if you could offer some guidance. I read that all authors have to approve submission of a paper. Unfortunately, a colleague of mine recently passed away. The manuscripts which he helped draft are being submitted with our colleague as author with a note of explanation to the editor and a footnote in the paper. These seem fairly simple. However, what about projects in which they were very much involved but where the manuscript drafting is done entirely after the time of death? Should their contribution be recognized in the acknowledgements rather than “author”? Many thanks.
Vote in our poll, and comment below: Continue reading Ask Retraction Watch: How should deceased colleagues be credited in papers?
A Serbian Sokal? Authors spoof pub with Ron Jeremy and Michael Jackson references
What do porn star Ron Jeremy, Max Weber and Michael Jackson have in common? Very little — except the three names appear in the list of references for a recent hoax paper by a group of Serbian academics who, fed up with the poor state of their country’s research output, scammed a Romanian magazine by publishing a completely fabricated article.
The paper is replete with transparent gimmicks — obvious, that is, had anyone at the publication been paying attention — including a reference to the scholarship of Jackson, Weber, Jeremy and citations to new studies by Bernoulli and Laplace, both dead more than 180 years (Weber died in 1920). They also throw in references to the “Journal of Modern Illogical Studies,” which to the best of our knowledge does not and never has existed (although perhaps it should), and to a researcher named, dubiously, “A.S. Hole.” And, we hasten to add, the noted Kazakh polymath B. Sagdiyev, otherwise known as Borat. Continue reading A Serbian Sokal? Authors spoof pub with Ron Jeremy and Michael Jackson references
Should science put up with sloppiness?
That’s the question we pose in our newest column in LabTimes, based on some recent cases we’ve covered:
The implication seems to be that as long as researchers can pass off their mistakes as sloppiness, rather than intentional misconduct, they should be forgiven and carry on their work. We’re with that logic, to a point; after all, we’ve argued before that due process is much too important, no matter how apparently damning the evidence is. And as long as corrections and retraction notices are detailed, telling the whole story, science and the public are served. Continue reading Should science put up with sloppiness?
Dutch anthropologist Mart Bax faked 61 papers, says university
A former anthropologist at the Free University in Amsterdam appears to have made up data for at least 61 papers, and invented awards and other parts of his CV, according to a university investigation.
The news was first reported by NRC Handelsblad and the Volkskrant newspaper.
Bax, who studied an Irish town he called Patricksville, a Dutch pilgrimage site he called Neerdonk, and Medjugorje, a Bosnian pilgrimage site, retired from the Free University in 2002. The university began investigating Bax’s work last year Continue reading Dutch anthropologist Mart Bax faked 61 papers, says university
Sixth retraction appears for virtual reality researcher
Dong Hee Shin, who studies virtual reality and other technology and who has already retracted five papers, has had another retracted.
Here’s the notice in the Journal of Media Economics: Continue reading Sixth retraction appears for virtual reality researcher
Study on douches and delivery retracted for authorship issue
The Journal of Lower Genital Tract Disease is retracting a paper it published online in April by a group of Egyptian researchers in the wake of a dispute they couldn’t resolve.
The article, “The Patterns and Criteria of Vaginal Douching and the Risk of Preterm Labor Among Upper Egypt Women,” came from a team at Assiut University. According to the abstract: Continue reading Study on douches and delivery retracted for authorship issue