Search Results for: mathematics

Blatant plagiarism sinks paper (and earns a sabbatical!) for mathematician

You know it’s a good one when it makes it onto the Wikipedia page for “scientific misconduct.” On April 21, the International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics retracted two 2008 papers by scientist Alexander Spivak of Holon Institute of Technology in Israel. In September, the journal updated the notice to explain why: The papers both … Continue reading Blatant plagiarism sinks paper (and earns a sabbatical!) for mathematician

“Positivity ratio” research now subject to an expression of concern

An expression of concern has been issued for the second of three papers on the idea that, if you have three positive emotions for every negative one, you will be more successful in life. Psychologist Barbara Fredrickson, of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, has spent the last decade building a brand around this ratio, … Continue reading “Positivity ratio” research now subject to an expression of concern

Remedial math lesson: When does one reference equal an entire paper?

A higher-ed journal has retracted a recent paper by a New Jersey scholar who failed to adequately cite one of her sources. Trouble is, the researcher did reference the article more than once — raising the question of whether a retraction, rather than a correction, was the right move. The paper was written by Lynne … Continue reading Remedial math lesson: When does one reference equal an entire paper?

Science reporter spoofs hundreds of open access journals with fake papers

Alan Sokal’s influence has certainly been felt strongly recently. Last month, a critique by Sokal — who in 1996 got a fake paper published in Social Text — and two colleagues forced a correction of a much-ballyhooed psychology paper.  A few days after that, we reported on a Serbian Sokal hoax-like paper whose authors cited the scholarly … Continue reading Science reporter spoofs hundreds of open access journals with fake papers

Double submission leads to retraction of probability paper — and a publishing ban

What are the chances of successfully duplicating publication in the Journal of Theoretical Probability? Not too high, it seems. A pair of South Korean authors have gotten a five-year ban from the journal for double-publishing a paper in the math literature. The article, “Convergence of Weighted Sums for Arrays of Negatively Dependent Random Variables and … Continue reading Double submission leads to retraction of probability paper — and a publishing ban

Plagiarism leads to retraction of math paper

SpringerPlus has retracted a 2012 paper by a pair of Saudi mathematicians who lifted text and figures from previously published articles. The paper, “On soft expert topological spaces,” appeared in October 2012. According to the retraction notice:

Retraction for water researchers who ripped off dissertation

A pair of engineers at Hohai University in Nanjing, China, has lost their 2012 paper in the Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics. The reason: The article, “Study of the New Leon model for concrete failure,” wasn’t theirs to publish. According to the retraction notice (which is dated September 2013 but has already appeared in … Continue reading Retraction for water researchers who ripped off dissertation