Scientific Misconduct Research Articles

Overview of Imaging Techniques in Immunohistochemistry.

Augmentation of digital images is almost always a necessity in order to obtain a reproduction that matches the appearance of the original. However, that augmentation can mislead if it is done incorrectly and not within reasonable limits. When procedures are in place for ensuring that originals are archived and image manipulation steps reported, scientists not only follow good laboratory practices but avoid ethical issues associated with post-processing and protect their labs from any future allegations of scientific misconduct. Also, when procedures are in place for the correct acquisition of images, the extent of post-processing is minimized or eliminated. These procedures include color balancing (for brightfield images), keeping tonal values within the dynamic range of the detector, frame averaging to eliminate noise (typically in fluorescence imaging), use of the highest bit depth when a choice is available, flatfield correction, and archiving of the image in a non-lossy format (not JPEG).When post-processing is necessary, the commonly used applications for correction include Photoshop and ImageJ, but a free program (GIMP) can also be used. Corrections to images include scaling the bit depth to higher and lower ranges, removing color casts from brightfield images, setting brightness and contrast, reducing color noise, reducing "grainy" noise, conversion of pure colors to grayscale, conversion of grayscale to colors typically used in fluorescence imaging, correction of uneven illumination and flatfield correction, blending color images (fluorescence), and extending the depth of focus. These corrections are explained in step-by-step procedures in the chapter that follows.

A novel understanding of fraudsters

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to add to the understanding of the human personality of fraudsters. This paper will explore their human personality by reviewing three characters from realist novels that have fraudsters as their leading characters. This pa[er will also contribute to literature that intersects between the humanities and criminology.Design/methodology/approachThis paper reviews three fraudster characters from realist novels to explore their human personality, which includes qualitative phenomena resistant to positivist research.FindingsLiterature character review that adds to understanding of the qualitative nature of the personality of fraudsters. This qualitative nature of the human personality has been neglected in fraud research and the findings contribute to expanding understanding of the qualitative nature of fraud and fraudsters.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper is limited to a literature review from three characters from realist novels.Practical implicationsBy expanding understanding of the human personality of fraudsters literary insights can contribute to fraud identification and prevention.Originality/valueThis paper reviews the human personality of three characters from novels to expand understanding of fraudsters, and thus contributes to the intersection of research between the humanities and criminology and fraud research.

Improving Systems to Promote Research Integrity

Research integrity is manifested thru the use of honest and verifiable research methods with adherence to accepted professional codes. Recently, trustworthiness in research has been challenged by various forms of research misconduct, such as analytical flexibility, data dredging, HARKing (hypothesis after research knowledge), plagiarism, and selective and distorted reporting. Drivers of research misconduct have been identified as institutional--publication incentives to pursue a career, researcher--metric of success is publication volume, and the journal-- more likely to accept papers with positive. The open-access mode propelling the proliferation of predatory journals is causing a dilemma to sound research reporting. Measures were established to curtail research integrity challenges, such as study registration, open data, common reporting standards, a team of rivals, and blind analysis. This report will elaborate and provide insight into what influenced research misconduct, how it can be mitigated, and how to maintain a credible research environment.

Plagiarism - The dark art of scientific writing

Plagiarism is a serious form of scientific misconduct that may bring significant disrepute not only for the author in question but also to the concerned institution. Lack of appropriate knowledge on the part of the authors is the major contributor to plagiarism. Educational institutions should take lead role to educate their students and faculty members regarding scientific misconduct and its repercussions

Touchy information and irregular esteem – on the problem of tortured phrases and possibly fake science

Touchy information and irregular esteem – on the problem of tortured phrases and possibly fake science

A Review of Literature and Experimental Evidence on Fraud Motivation: Differentiating Incentive and Pressure

ABSTRACTThis study reviews academic and professional literature on the two types of fraud motivation: incentive and pressure, and provides an in-depth analysis to investigate and differentiate incentive and pressure. The evolution of the professional standards on fraud reveals the need to differentiate incentive and pressure to mitigate fraud. A comprehensive review of academic research uncovers a plethora of fraud research that has studied incentive and pressure either discretely or without differentiation. Few studies have focused on examining and comparing them simultaneously. Theoretically grounded in the fraud triangle and motivation literature, this study synthesizes prior research on incentive and pressure, analyzes the differences by levels of autonomy and regulation. An experiment was conducted and results reveal that incentive and pressure differ in their role in influencing fraudulent intention. Incentive appears to be stronger in influencing fraud intention than pressure. We present the research implications and outline an agenda for future research.

Biased, wrong and counterfeited evidences published during the COVID-19 pandemic, a systematic review of retracted COVID-19 papers.

In 2020 COVID-19 led to an unprecedented stream of papers being submitted to journals. Scientists and physicians all around the globe were in need for information about this new disease. In this climate, many articles were accepted after extremely fast peer-reviews to provide the scientific community with the latest discoveries and knowledge. Unfortunately, this also led to articles retraction due to authors' misconduct or errors in methodology and/or conclusions. The aim of this study is to investigate the number and characteristics of retracted papers, and to explore the main causes that led to retraction. We conducted a systematic review on retracted articles, using PubMed as data source. Our inclusion criteria were the following: English-language retracted articles that reported original data, results, opinions or hypotheses on COVID-19 and Sars-CoV-2. Twenty-seven retracted articles were identified, mainly reporting observational studies and opinion pieces. Many articles published during the first year of the pandemic have been retracted, mainly due to the authors' scientific misconduct. Duplications, plagiarism, frauds and absence of consent, were the main reasons for retractions. In modern medicine, researchers are required to publish frequently, and, especially during situations like the COVID-19 pandemic, when articles were rapidly published, gaps in peer-reviews system and in the path to scientific publication arose.

Assessing Research Misconduct in Iran: A Perspective from Iranian Medical Faculty Members

Background: Research misconduct is a global concern in biomedical science. There are no comprehensive data regarding the perception and situation of scientific misconduct among the Iranian medical faculty members. We conducted a nationwide survey to assess the research misconduct among the medical faculty members in Iran. Methods: We used the Persian version of the research misconduct questionnaire (PRMQ) on the Google Forms platform. We sent the survey link to a systematic random sample of medical faculty members in Iran (N = 4986). Descriptive analyses were performed on the individual items of the PRMQ, with frequencies and percentages for categorical and Likert-type response items, and means and standard deviation (S.D.) for continuous variables. Chi-square analysis was conducted to test hypotheses examining differences in the frequency of responses related to factors influencing misconduct. We also defined four tenure categories (TC) based on the working years of the participants as tenured faculty members. All the analyses were performed using R 3.6.0. Results: The response rate was 13.8% (692 responses). Nearly 70% of the respondents agreed that their publication output would be of higher quality if there were no publication pressure. Approximately three-quarters (N =499, 72.1%) of the respondents had been aware of some instances of research misconduct during the previous year according to their understanding of misconduct. Among the participants, 18.5% perceived the effectiveness of their associated organisation's rules for reducing research misconduct to be high or very high. Pressure for tenure was identified as the item most frequently perceived with a strong behavioural influence on engaging in research misconduct (80.2%). Conclusions: This study confirms that research misconduct needs to be actively addressed among the medical faculty members. Making policies with a focus on boosting awareness regarding the occasions of scientific misconduct and its management seems to be indispensable in the future in Iran.

Research Misconducts: A Key Challenge in Academics and Publication

Research Misconducts: A Key Challenge in Academics and Publication

From plagiarism to scientific paper mills: a profile of retracted articles within the SciELO Brazil collection

ABSTRACT This paper investigates retracted articles indexed in the Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO) Brazil, using bibliometric techniques to identify the characteristics of these retractions and relevant citation trends. All records of retracted articles from the first record in October 2004 to April 2022 were included. Sixty-seven retractions and 870 citations pre- and post-retraction were analyzed. Results indicate a change of scenario that began in 2015, with recurrences of retracted articles allegedly produced by paper mills. The prevalence of retractions derived from professional misconduct in health research and the frequency of post-retraction citations in health sciences raise concerns in the chain of stakeholders, public health, and scientific development.

Artificial Intelligence-based tools in the context of Open Science

This poster presents possibilities and issues concerning the new wave of Artifical Intelligence (AI)-based services and tools entering academia aimed to help researchers and students. Iris.ai, semanticscholar.org, yewno.com, connectedpapers.com, researchrabbit.ai, www.paper-digest.com, openknowled-gemaps.org, and keenious.com, are all examples of services part of a complex landscape of educational and research support resources driven by AI. Unfortunately, researchers and students have very few arenas to learn about all the aspects of using those resources. Trust, ethics, interpretability and reliability, are all topics to be addressed when using those tools (Guidotti et al., 2018). Moreover, the lack of possibility to test and influence how literature is analyzed and new knowledge created by AI-based services, is an emerging concern in various academic libraries (Gasparini & Kautonen, 2016). The increasing production of fake science in AI-based papermills implies new challenges for academic quality control and for the accountability and reliability of research as a whole (Løkeland-Stai, 2022). The poster proposes to use the site PhD-on-track (https://www.phdontrack.net/, Faber et al., 2018), one of the preferred starting points for new PhD candidates and early career researchers, to contextualize AI-based services in researchers’ literature search and analysis. PhD on Track aims to enable PhD candidates from all academic fields to easily access information on different aspects of open science and support academic integrity in their research practices. By addressing AI-based services and tools in an early stage, PhD on Track will contribute to avoid opacity and clarify non-intuitive aspects of the use of technology in research. Furthermore, we argue for the possibility that these technical innovations will change the workflows of researchers and students. Academia needs to react to this development, offer a framework and support a shift of focus on AI-based services from the micro level (users) to a wider institutional one (the university). The poster will present the following issues and questions, with respective possible reactions and solutions: What is the minimum level of competence PhD candidates should have about machine learning and deep learning? How should PhD candidates choose reliable AI-based services? When and where should PhD candidates and researchers gather reliable information about AI-based services? How should academic libraries support access to repositories of Open Access articles? How should universities ensure the correct use of AI-based tools? How can universities and academic libraries address ethical questions which may be raised by the increasing availability and use of AI-based tools?

The awareness of plagiarism among postgraduate students at Taif University and its relationship to certain variables

Plagiarism has permeated higher education institutions all around the world, and it continues to be a source of worry. This crime is such a widespread among the postgraduate students, some turn to the textbook or Internet for copying and pasting without citing the source. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to ascertain whether postgraduate students at Taif University were aware of plagiarism. The study’s importance may be observed in determining the extent to which Taif University students are aware of plagiarism in order to improve their ability for academic writing and their excellent scientific research skills. Descriptive- statistics was used to analyze, both: qualitative and quantitative data, and the validity and reliability of the questionnaire were validated. Thus, this study revealed that postgraduate students have a medium level of understanding of the different forms of plagiarism and a high awareness of its causes. There were also differences in the average responses of the sample based on gender, specialization, and participation in scientific research courses. Therefore, the study demonstrated the importance of improving a culture of scientific integrity among postgraduate students to facilitate their knowledge of scientific plagiarism and its forms, causes and penalties.

Awareness and knowledge of manuscript writing and research integrity: A cross sectional survey among graduate students

Graduate students face a variety of barriers when writing manuscripts. The major barrier is inadequate writing experience and training. We aimed to evaluate the awareness and the knowledge of the basic principles in manuscript writing and research integrity among graduate students, and to assess the usefulness of workshops to improve their knowledge about manuscript writing process. A cross sectional survey was developed to evaluate the awareness and the knowledge about the manuscript writing steps and the research integrity among graduate students in Jordan. A one-day workshop about manuscript writing and research integrity was conducted. Students (n = 285) completed the questionnaire. Most participants were female masters'; students. Although 83.8% of the students were aware of the general manuscript structure, most of them were not aware of the basic concepts to write most manuscript sections. Only 22.5% of the students were aware of the authorship criteria. Data showed a lack of knowledge of different practices of scientific misconduct. Barriers in manuscript writing included the lack of focused research methodology courses and the lack of professional workshops and the absence constructive mentorship support. The workshop was useful in introducing the key concepts in manuscript writing. The present study revealed a lack of knowledge among graduate students about manuscript writing and scientific misconduct. Professional workshops are useful in improving students’ knowledge.

Scientific Integrity: A Duty for Researchers [From the Editor

Ethics in science is essential for various reasons and is a duty for scientists. The full sense of the word <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">ethics</i> may differ according to languages and countries. For instance, in France, we typically make a distinction between ethics and scientific integrity, while scientific integrity is a part of ethics in the United States. For instance, the article “The Submerged Part of the AI-Ceberg,” <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref1" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[1]</xref> published in the September issue of <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">IEEE Signal Processing Magazine</i> ( <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">SPM</i> ), discusses the ethical issues concerning the research in our domain, i.e., a set of philosophical reflections on the interest and usefulness of our work for humanity and for the Earth. These questions are complex and must prompt debates between scientists and society. Conversely, scientific integrity is a set of good practices in the sciences, which has not been discussed but is strictly applied. All of the learned scientific societies promote integrity. Of course, IEEE, as such and also as a publisher of many scientific journals, strongly supports scientific integrity. Scientific integrity and misconduct are at the core of a few talks <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref2" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[2]</xref> at the annual IEEE Panels of Editors meeting, which bring together volunteers and staff members to discuss assorted publication-related topics. Serious failures related to scientific integrity include plagiarism and data falsification or fabrication, but misconduct related to authorship and during the review process are also unacceptable and must be met with punishment.

Scientific Integrity and Misconduct in Publications: Guidance from the IEEE Publishing Ethics Team [SP Forum

Ethics and scientific integrity are key concepts in scientific research.

SILA: a system for scientific image analysis

A great deal of the images found in scientific publications are retouched, reused, or composed to enhance the quality of the presentation. In most instances, these edits are benign and help the reader better understand the material in a paper. However, some edits are instances of scientific misconduct and undermine the integrity of the presented research. Determining the legitimacy of edits made to scientific images is an open problem that no current technology can perform satisfactorily in a fully automated fashion. It thus remains up to human experts to inspect images as part of the peer-review process. Nonetheless, image analysis technologies promise to become helpful to experts to perform such an essential yet arduous task. Therefore, we introduce SILA, a system that makes image analysis tools available to reviewers and editors in a principled way. Further, SILA is the first human-in-the-loop end-to-end system that starts by processing article PDF files, performs image manipulation detection on the automatically extracted figures, and ends with image provenance graphs expressing the relationships between the images in question, to explain potential problems. To assess its efficacy, we introduce a dataset of scientific papers from around the globe containing annotated image manipulations and inadvertent reuse, which can serve as a benchmark for the problem at hand. Qualitative and quantitative results of the system are described using this dataset.

Research integrity guidelines in the academic environment: The context of Brazilian institutions with retracted publications in health and life sciences.

Although research misconduct is responsible for most retractions in health and life sciences from authors affiliated with Brazilian institutions, there are few studies evaluating retraction notices and research misconduct in the country. Understanding the form of research misconduct may share light on the weaknesses and strengths of individual, organizational, and structural factors toward the implementation of a research integrity culture. This review on policies and practices aims to access the available information from research integrity offices and the guidelines from Brazilian funding institutions and universities who were involved in retractions in health and life science publications based on a previously published systematic review. Additionally, we summarize the available guidelines and policies for research integrity in the country. Additionally, we searched publicly available guidelines and offices for research integrity. In total, 15 institutions were analyzed: five funding agencies and 10 universities. Approximately 40% of the funding agencies promoted local research, and 60% promoted national research. Considering national funding agencies, 66% had the commission on research integrity. Approximately 30% of the universities do not have the official office for research integrity or any publicly available guidelines. Most institutions involved in retractions due to some form of research misconduct. Brazilian institutions involved in publication retractions lack instruments to prevent, supervise, and sanction research misconduct. Institutions of the country have insufficiently developed a system to promote and sustain research integrity practices. Nevertheless, there is a positive movement of researchers who are engaged in the investigation of research integrity, policy creation and training. This study emphasizes increased influence of Brazilian scientific collaboration and production globally as well as the impact of retractions in medical sciences. In contrast, it addresses the need for clear research integrity policies to foster high-quality and trustworthy research.

Professional ethics survey identifies strengths and areas for improvement in the American Ornithological Society

Abstract In response to a growing need to foster ethical behavior within scientific societies, the American Ornithological Society’s (AOS) professional ethics committee conducted a survey of members in spring 2021 to identify the primary challenges and ethical conduct concerns. The survey indicated that the AOS has a strong culture of professional ethics and highlighted areas needing improvement. Participants identified discrimination and lack of inclusivity (44%), scientific fraud and abuse in data and publications (35%), and sexual harassment (31%) as the highest potential risks for unethical behavior in our organization. Moreover, approximately one-third of respondents (34%) had personally witnessed or experienced unethical behavior as an AOS member. A smaller proportion (16%) felt pressure to compromise their work standards in ornithology. These findings are likely representative of broader patterns that professional, scientific societies face as they seek to provide safe, welcoming, and thoughtful environments for researchers to share their work, gain valuable feedback, and develop collaborations. The survey results also create a framework for workshops, training opportunities, and disseminating information within the AOS and, ideally, with the broader, international community of ornithologists.

BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH

Biomedical Research encompass basic research to pre-clinical and then clinical research. Both preclinical and clinical research leads to drug development or certain innovations. As increased longevity of humans can be attributed to the advancement of medical research. Clinical Research involve human that include clinical trials. Applied research led to clinical research and it translate into product of research that expands in field of Medicine. But there is still a great need of better understanding of diagnostics and implications of advancement of medical research.&#x0D; Among the major benefits of research are the development of vaccines of different infectious diseases, such as COVID-19, Polio, Measles, TB, Typhoid, and Hepatitis. Development of new surgical techniques as microsurgery have been increasingly successful in treatment of advanced diseases.1&#x0D; Most of Medical Research is going on by Biomedical Scientists but significant discoveries have also been made by other Biologists. Research and publication play a very vital role in progress of sciences in any field.2 But this should always be kept in view that medical research on humans must be strictly followed the medical ethics, that has been found in World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki.3 Therefore, scientific misconduct should be avoided while conducting biomedical research.

Scientific integrity and fraud in radiology research

PurposeTo investigate the view of radiologists on the integrity of their own and their colleagues’ scientific work. Materials and methodsCorresponding authors of articles that were published in 12 general radiology journals in 2021 were invited to participate in a survey on scientific integrity. ResultsA total of 219 (6.2 %) of 3,511 invited corresponding authors participated. Thirteen (5.9 %) respondents reported having committed scientific fraud, and 60 (27.4 %) witnessed or suspect scientific fraud among their departmental members in the past 5 years. Misleading reporting (32.2 %), duplicate/redundant publication (26.3 %), plagiarism (15.3 %), and data manipulation/falsification (13.6 %) were the most commonly reported types of scientific fraud. Publication bias exists according to 184 (84.5 %) respondents, and 89 (40.6 %) respondents had honorary authors on their publications in the past 5 years. General confidence in the integrity of scientific publications ranged between 2 and 10 (median: 8) on a 0–10 point scale. Common topics of interest and concern among respondents were authorship criteria and assignments, perverse incentives (including the influence of money, funding, and academic promotions on the practice of research), and poorly performed research without intentional fraud. ConclusionRadiology researchers reported that scientific fraud and other undesirable practices such as publication bias and honorary authorship are relatively common. Their general confidence in the scientific integrity of published work was relatively high, but far from perfect. These data may trigger stakeholders in the radiology community to place scientific integrity higher on the agenda, and to initiate cultural and policy reforms to remove perverse research incentives.