South Korean plant compound researcher faked email addresses so he could review his own studies

Scientists frustrated by the so-called “third reviewer” — the one always asking for additional experiments before recommending acceptance — might be forgiven for having fantasies of being able to review their own papers. But one Korean scientist, Hyung-In Moon, managed to do just that, through what must have seemed like clever subterfuge at the time. … Continue reading South Korean plant compound researcher faked email addresses so he could review his own studies

Retraction number five for management professor Ulrich Lichtenthaler

The retraction count for management professor Ulrich Lichtenthaler, whose work has been subject to scrutiny for statistical irregularities, is up to five. Here’s the notice for “Product business, foreign direct investment, and licensing: Examining their relationships in international technology exploitation,” in the Journal of World Business:

Duplication earns highly cited prostate cancer researcher a correction in JCO

Laurence Klotz, a prominent urologist at the University of Toronto who studies the prostate specific antigen (PSA), has corrected a paper after reusing his own words from an earlier review. Here’s the correction, from the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO):

Cancer journal pulls deeply flawed meeting abstract on breast surgery

The European Journal of Surgical Oncology has retracted a meeting abstract that evidently was never meant to be. The study, by researchers at Queen Elizabeth Hospital and Good Hope Hospital, both in Birmingham, England, was to be presented at this year’s annual meeting of the Association of Breast Surgery and purported to compare rates of … Continue reading Cancer journal pulls deeply flawed meeting abstract on breast surgery

Chinese mathematician forced to retract paper after two co-authors say they had nothing to do with work

A mathematician will be performing subtraction on his CV now that he has had to retract a 2011 paper because his co-authors never agreed to submit it with him. Kewen Zhao, of Qiongzhou University, Sanya, China, has lost a paper in Discrete Applied Mathematics, a journal for which Zhao claims to review. (Given the circumstances, … Continue reading Chinese mathematician forced to retract paper after two co-authors say they had nothing to do with work

What happens when a correction is retracted?

Seyed Rasoul Mousavi, assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at the Isfahan University of Technology in Khomeynīshahr, Iran, has been working on a way to help biologists assemble genomes with as little information as possible. Last year, Mousavi submitted a manuscript to the Journal of Theoretical Biology, received acceptance after peer review, … Continue reading What happens when a correction is retracted?

Two retractions in biophysics journal, one because article is “too preliminary and potentially misleading”

We’ve seen vigorous debates here on Retraction Watch about when studies should be retracted. Does it require fraud? Just not being reproducible? Somewhere in between? Given the apparent divergence of opinions on the issue, we thought it would be worth highlighting a case that involves language we haven’t seen before. Here’s the notice for “Apoptosis … Continue reading Two retractions in biophysics journal, one because article is “too preliminary and potentially misleading”

Another retraction for grad student who specializes in plagiarism and forging co-authors’ names

We have an update on the case of Moêz Smiri, a graduate student working in a Tunisian-French laboratory, whose bold method of bulking up his CV  proved a bit trop ambitieux.  As we reported back in August 2011, Smiri had plagiarized repeatedly from previously-published work, and forged the names of co-authors, in a 2010 article in … Continue reading Another retraction for grad student who specializes in plagiarism and forging co-authors’ names

Three papers by German management prof retracted for duplication, statistical issues

Ulrich Lichtenthaler, a management professor in Germany, has had three papers retracted by two different journals, after readers noticed statistical irregularities. Lichtenthaler was at the WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management when he published the papers in 2009 and 2010. He is now at the University of Mannheim. The retraction in Strategic Organization was … Continue reading Three papers by German management prof retracted for duplication, statistical issues

Noteworthy: Journal posts all the corrections it wanted in a climate change paper after authors refuse most

In a case of refreshing transparency, a journal has published a detailed list of corrections it requested from authors of a paper on the costs of climate change, even though the authors declined to make most of them. Earlier this year, the journal Ecological Economics published a paper that cast some doubt on the FUND … Continue reading Noteworthy: Journal posts all the corrections it wanted in a climate change paper after authors refuse most