BioMed Central retracts study it published twice while acquiring journal

Yesterday, we wrote about the retraction of a paper that ended up published despite the fact that peer reviewers had recommended rejecting it. Today, we have the (short) tale of a paper retracted because the publisher posted it a second time while they were buying acquiring the journal where it appeared.

Here’s the notice for “The association between depression, socio-economic factors and dietary intake in mothers having primary school children living in Rey, South of Tehran, Iran,” published in the Journal of Diabetes & Metabolic Diseases:

Double-dipping leads to removal of petroleum research paper

Iranian scientists have lost one of two articles they submitted — and published — simultaneously to different journals. Watch as confusion ensues.

The retracted paper, “Permeability Estimation of a Reservoir Based on Neural Networks Coupled with Genetic Algorithms,” appeared online in August 2011  in Petroleum Science and Technology, a Taylor & Francis journal. According to the liner notes, the paper had been received on January 15, 2010 and accepted a few weeks later. It has been cited once since, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge, by its authors, in a paper published in the same journal.

Meanwhile, in August 2011 the authors (minus one name) also published “Evolving neural network using real coded genetic algorithm for permeability estimation of the reservoir,”  in Expert Systems With Applications, an Elsevier title.

The standing paper — which has been cited seven times — now carries the following erratum notice (dated far into the future, September 2013):

Purloined dissertation on stroke ends in retraction for Iranian group

The International Journal of Neuroscience, an Informa Healthcare journal, has retracted a paper it published earlier this year after learning that the article was the doctoral work of another scientist — not listed among the authors — that had appeared previously in a Persian-language journal.

The retraction notice, admirably thorough, explains what happened with the paper:

Oops: Math journal retracts paper accepted by “accidental administrative error”

Math journal editors can add — but they can also subtract.

That’s what happened to a 2012 paper in the Journal of Mathematical Analysis and Applications (JMAA), “On the fractional Ostrowski inequality with uncertainty.”

Here’s the notice:

Plagiarism of textbooks, encyclopedia leads to physics retraction

A pair of Iranian physicists is facing the retraction of one of their papers after editors found out some of the work was plagiarized from two textbooks and an encyclopedia.

Here’s the notice:

Mobile phone-diabetes study rings twice, earns retraction

The Journal of Diabetes and Metabolic Disorders has retracted a 2012 study by a group of Iranian researchers. The reason: the authors had published the paper three years earlier, in a different journal.

Here’s the notice for the article, titled “Mobile phone text messaging and Telephone follow-up in type 2 diabetic patients for 3 months: a comparative study”:

Note to authors: Please don’t use the word “novel” when you plagiarize

Retraction Watch Rule 5.1, which governs ironic article titles (and does not actually exist), clearly states that researchers who plagiarize should avoid the use of words like “new” or “novel” when describing their research (or lack thereof). Failure to adhere to Rule 5.1 can lead to embarrassment — as in the case below.

A pair of electrical engineers from Islamic Azad University, in Isfahan, Iran, has lost their 2012 article in Computers in Biology and Medicine, titled “A novel real-time patient-specific seizure diagnosis algorithm based on analysis of EEG and ECG signals using spectral and spatial features and improved particle swarm optimization classifier,” because, well, it wasn’t. Turns out, the researchers lifted data from an Irish group who, several years earlier, had proposed their own “novel algorithm for neonatal seizure detection.”

As the admirably detailed retraction notice explains:

Magnets paper fails to stick as plagiarism leads to retraction

A group engineers from Iran and Singapore have been forced to retract a paper in the Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials after the article was found to contain incidents of plagiarism.

The article, “Magnetic properties of iron-based soft magnetic composites with MgO coating obtained by sol–gel method,” appeared in April 2010. Sometime later (we’re getting near the three-year mark from the date of publication) it seems, the journal learned that something was amiss with the paper.

As the notice explains:

Elsevier editorial system hacked, reviews faked, 11 retractions follow

For several months now, we’ve been reporting on variations on a theme: Authors submitting fake email addresses for potential peer reviewers, to ensure positive reviews. In August, for example, we broke the story of a Hyung-In Moon, who has now retracted 24 papers published by Informa because he managed to do his own peer review.

Now, Retraction Watch has learned that the Elsevier Editorial System (EES) was hacked sometime last month, leading to faked peer reviews and retractions — although the submitting authors don’t seem to have been at fault. As of now, eleven papers by authors in China, India, Iran, and Turkey have been retracted from three journals.

Here’s one of two identical notices that have just run in Optics & Laser Technology, for two unconnected papers:

Which came first? Plagiarism flap forces retraction of chicken nugget paper

It never pays to take a closer look at the inside of a chicken nugget.

The journal Food Chemistry has retracted a 2010 article by Iranian researchers who claimed to have used spectroscopy to examine the inner workings of breaded-fried chicken nuggets. Trouble was, someone else had already done the work.

Issues with the paper first surfaced in March, in the form of a correction that should have given the editors serious indigestion: