Thirteen papers in Mathematics and Mechanics of Solids now have an expression of concern, after it came to light that an author on most of the papers coordinated the peer-review process. David Y. Gao, a well-known and prolific mathematician at the Federation University Australia, is the author of 11 of the papers, and also the guest editor of … Continue reading Author’s coordination of peer review flags 13 math papers
Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents has retracted a 2015 review article about natural fighters of cancer stem cells for reproducing “content to a high degree of similarity without appropriate attribution or acknowledgement” from a handful of papers. Although the editor and publisher pulled the paper, they did so with the cooperation of the authors, according to … Continue reading Paper on natural ways to fight cancer stem cells nixed for plagiarism
An economist in Taiwan has retracted a paper about from Economic Development Quarterly because it was “published in error.” The paper — first published online March 5, 2013 — addresses the influence of information and communication technology on economic growth. According to the notice, the paper included “the original dataset and excerpts from an earlier draft of the … Continue reading “This article was published in error”: Economics paper defaults
Following “significant concerns” raised by outside researchers and a formal university investigation, a group of authors in Taiwan has retracted a Nature Nanotechnology paper on DNA sequencing after they “could not reproduce the results of the work,” or even provide “a complete set of raw data for the original experiments.” The paper, “DNA sequencing using electrical conductance measurements … Continue reading “Significant concerns” and formal investigation unwind Nature Nanotech sequencing paper
This week at Retraction Watch witnessed the fall of a “golden boy” and a “NASA Patriot Boy.” Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
An economist at Takming University of Science and Technology in Taiwan recently posted a preprint attempting to refute anonymous accusations that he repeated himself in critical reviews of textbooks. From what we understand running the paper (originally in Chinese) through Google Translate, the reviews were published in Takming University’s in-house journal, Deming Journal. The editorial board received an anonymous … Continue reading “[A]nonymous accusation…is procedurally immoral and irresponsible,” says researcher fighting allegations
Thomson Reuters’ online peer review system ScholarOne is having quite a year. This summer, a scientist exploited basic security flaws in how the system accepts author suggestions for peer reviewers to review a whole pile of his own manuscripts, ultimately resulting in the retraction of 60 papers and the resignation of the Taiwan minister of … Continue reading It’s happened again: Journal “cannot rule out” possibility author did his own peer review
This one deserves a “wow.” SAGE Publishers is retracting 60 articles from the Journal of Vibration and Control after an investigation revealed a “peer review and citation ring” involving a professor in Taiwan. [Please see an update on this post.] Here’s the beginning of a statement from SAGE:
The British Journal of Nutrition has retracted a 2013 paper by a group of researchers from Taiwan after learning that the authors had studied the wrong strain of microbe. The article was titled “Oral Lactobacillus reuteri GMN-32 treatment reduces blood glucose concentrations and promotes cardiac function in rats with streptozotocin-induced diabetes mellitus.” According to the abstract:
We have some updates on the case of more than 120 fake SCIgen conference proceedings papers that slipped into IEEE and Springer journals.