Number Of Retractions Research Articles

Review of retracted papers in the field of neurology.

Despite the growing awareness of academic fraud, its prevalence in the field of neurology has not been fully assessed. This review aims to analyze the characteristics of the retracted papers in the field of neurology and the reasons for the retraction to better understand the trends in this area and to assist to avoid retraction incidents. A total of 79 papers were included, which pertained to 22 countries and 64 journals. The marking methods for retracting original papers included watermarks (89.04%), retracted signs in the text (5.48%) and no prompt (5.48%). The median M (interquartile range [IQR]) of citations in retractions in neurology was 7 (41). Studies continued to be cited after retraction with an M (IQR) of 3 (16). The journal impact factor was between 0 and 157.335, with an M (IQR) of 5.127 (3.668). 45.21% and 31.51% papers were mainly published in the first and second quartile journals, respectively. The M (IQR) time elapsed between publication and retraction was 32 (44) months. The reasons for retraction included two major categories, academic misconduct (79.75%) and academic unintentional mistakes (20.25%). The number of retractions in neurology has been on the rise over the past decade, with fabricated academic misconduct being the main cause of the retractions. Due to the long time lag between publication and retraction, a number of unreliable findings continue to be cited following retraction. In addition to the requisite standards of academic ethics, augmenting research training and fostering interdisciplinary collaboration are crucial in enhancing research integrity.

Integrity of randomized clinical trials: Performance of integrity tests and checklists requires assessment.

The integrity of randomized clinical trials (RCT) has become a concern owing to a recent rise in the number of retractions and the repercussions this has for evidence-based patient care. However, there is little research on the subject of RCT integrity assessment. Recent literature reviews have revealed that journals' authors' instructions concerning integrity and their investigation policies concerning allegations of misconduct are heterogeneous. The judicious use of integrity tests applied to RCT manuscripts is hampered by an absence of data concerning misconduct prevalence (pre-test probability), a failure to evaluate test performance (validity) and a lack of consensus over a gold standard (against which test accuracy can be evaluated). These deficiencies hinder the post-publication correction of RCT records, the integrity evaluations in systematic reviews of RCTs and the prospective application of preventive solutions in RCT peer-review and preprint assessment. Dealing with the current controversy about trustworthiness of RCT evidence requires a strong investment in research, reform and education concerning research integrity. The purpose of this review article is to highlight the current limitations in dealing with trial integrity-related concerns and to propose solutions to some of these issues.

Secretary's Report, 2022 : American Society of Naturalists.

Secretary's Report, 2022 : American Society of Naturalists.

Motivating and Maintaining Ethics, Equity, Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Expertise in Peer Review

Scientists who engage in science and the scientific endeavor should seek truth with conviction of morals and commitment to ethics. While the number of publications continues to increase, the number of retractions has increased at a faster rate. Journals publish fraudulent research papers despite claims of peer review and adherence to publishing ethics. Nevertheless, appropriate ethical peer review will remain a gatekeeper when selecting research manuscripts in scholarly publishing and approving research applications for grant funding. However, this peer review must become more open, fair, transparent, equitable, and just with new recommendations and guidelines for reproducible and accountable reviews that support and promote fair citation and citational justice. We should engineer this new peer-review process with modern informatics technology and information science to provide and defend better safeguards for truth and integrity, to clarify and maintain the provenance of information and ideas, and to rebuild and restore trust in scholarly research institutions. Indeed, this new approach will be necessary in the current post-truth era to counter the ease and speed with which mis-information, dis-information, anti-information, caco-information, and mal-information spread through the internet, web, news, and social media. The most important question for application of new peer-review methods to these information wars should be ‘Who does what when?’ in support of reproducible and accountable reviews. Who refers to the authors, reviewers, editors, and publishers as participants in the review process. What refers to disclosure of the participants' identities, the material content of author manuscripts and reviewer commentaries, and other communications between authors and reviewers. When refers to tracking the sequential points in time for which disclosure of whose identity, which content, and which communication at which step of the peer-review process for which audience of readers and reviewers. We believe that quality peer review, and peer review of peer review, must be motivated and maintained by elevating their status and prestige to an art and a science. Both peer review itself and peer review analyses of peer reviews should be incentivised by publishing peer reviews as citable references separately from the research report reviewed while crossreferenced and crosslinked to the report reviewed.

Scientific publication speed and retractions of COVID-19 pandemic original articles

ABSTRACTObjective.To describe the editorial processing time of published COVID-19 research articles and compare this with a similar topic, human influenza, and analyze the number of publications, withdrawals, and retractions.Methods.A descriptive-analytical study using PubMed on research articles with the MeSH terms human influenza and COVID-19. Time to acceptance (from submission to acceptance) and time to publication (from acceptance to publication) were compared. Retractions and withdrawals were reviewed both qualitatively and quantitatively.Results.There were 31 319 research articles on COVID-19 and 4 287 on human influenza published during 2020. The median time to acceptance for COVID-19 was lower than that for human influenza (8 vs. 92 days). The median time to publication for COVID-19 articles was shorter than those on human influenza (12 vs. 16 days); 47.0% of COVID-19 research articles were accepted within the first week of submission, and 19.5% within one day. There were 82 retractions and withdrawals for COVID-19 articles, 1 for human influenza, and 5 for articles that contain both terms; these were mainly related to ethical misconduct, and 27 (31.0%) were published by the same group of authors in one highest-quartile journal.Conclusions.The conundrum between fast publishing and adequate standards is shown in this analysis of COVID-19 research articles. The speed of acceptance for COVID-19 manuscripts was 11.5 times faster than for human influenza. The high number of acceptances within a day or week of submission and the number of retractions and withdrawals of COVID-19 papers might be a warning sign about the possible lack of a quality control process in scientific publishing and the peer review process.

Retracted papers by Iranian authors: causes, journals, time lags, affiliations, collaborations

This study aims to analyze 343 retraction notices indexed in the Scopus database, published in 2001-2019, related to scientific articles (co-)written by at least one author affiliated with an Iranian institution. In order to determine reasons for retractions, we merged this database with the database from Retraction Watch. The data were analyzed using Excel 2016 and IBM-SPSS version 24.0, and visualized using VOSviewer software. Most of the retractions were due to fake peer review (95 retractions) and plagiarism (90). The average time between a publication and its retraction was 591 days. The maximum time-lag (about 3,000 days) occurred for papers retracted due to duplicate publications; the minimum time-lag (fewer than 100 days) was for papers retracted due to ''unspecified cause'' (most of these were conference papers). As many as 48 (14%) of the retracted papers were published in two medical journals: Tumor Biology (25 papers) and Diagnostic Pathology (23 papers). From the institutional point of view, Islamic Azad University was the inglorious leader, contributing to over one-half (53.1%) of retracted papers. Among the 343 retraction notices, 64 papers pertained to international collaborations with researchers from mainly Asian and European countries; Malaysia having the most retractions (22 papers). Since most retractions were due to fake peer review and plagiarism, the peer review system appears to be a weak point of the submission/publication process; if improved, the number of retractions would likely drop because of increased editorial control.

Retractions in the Middle East from 1999 to 2018: a bibliometric analysis

This study investigated the retractions of academic research in the Middle East in the past two decades from a bibliometric perspective. A total of 563 retractions in the Middle East were identified in the examined span of time. Results showed that both the numbers of publications and retractions in the Middle East increased significantly in the past two decades. It was also found that 79.21% of the retractions were due to misconducts, of which plagiarism accounted for the largest proportion. In addition, the number of retractions by authors from a certain country accounted for almost half of all retractions. Last, most retractions were in medicine-related disciplines. Based on the results, we proposed suggestions to address the issue. Particularly, we suggest the use of technology in article submission systems as well as enhanced education on academic integrity to help address the issue of academic misconduct.

Errata and retractions associated with research papers published by authors with Hungarian affiliations

Background: To examine the errata and retractions in total published output of Hungarian research and academia relative to that in 34 other European countries. Objective: To analyse the number of errata and retractions related to papers published by authors with Hungarian affiliations compared to those by authors with affiliations in the 34 other countries. Methods: Errata and retractions retrieved from three databases, namely Retraction Watch, Web of Science (WoS), and Scopus, were counted and sorted by country. Results: Scopus featured 7 retractions linked to Hungarian affiliations and WoS featured 10. Retraction Watch featured 26 such retractions, placing Hungary in 23rd position among the 35 countries arranged in descending order of the number of retractions. Of the 26 retractions from Hungary, 5 were in Elsevier journals and another 5 in Springer Nature; also, 8 of the 26 were associated with the University of Debrecen. When ranked for the number of errata notices for every 1000 published papers, Hungary was ranked 29th in WoS (2.54 notices per 1000 papers) and 26th in Scopus (2.3 notices per 1000 papers). Conclusions: The low numbers of Hungarian affiliations suggest that either research ethics are more stringently observed in Hungary or that publications from Hungarian research institutes, including papers in Hungarian – many Hungarian journals are indexed neither in WoS nor in Scopus – have not been scrutinized adequately through post-publication peer review.

A multi-perspective analysis of retractions in life sciences

The aim of this study is to explore trends in retracted publications in life sciences and biomedical sciences over axes like time, countries, journals and impact factors, and topics. Nearly seven thousand publications, which comprise the entirety of retractions visible through PubMed as of August 2019, were used. This work involved sophisticated data collection and analysis techniques to use data from PubMed, Wikipedia, and WikiData, and study it with respect to the above mentioned axes. Importantly, I employ state-of-the-art analysis and visualization techniques from natural language processing (NLP) to understand the topics in retracted literature. To highlight a few results, the analyses demonstrate an increasing rate of retraction over time and noticeable differences in the publication quality (as measured by journal impact factor) among top countries. Moreover, while molecular biology and cancer dominate retractions, we also see a number of retractions not related to biology. The methods and results of this study can be applied to continuously understand the nature and evolution of retractions in life sciences, thus contributing to the health of this research ecosystem.

Analysis of retracted articles in the ophthalmic literature

To evaluate the frequency and reason for retraction of ophthalmology publications. Two independent reviewers retrieved data from PubMed and Medline using appropriate keywords. Statistical analysis was carried out using Mann-Whitney U test. A total of 83 articles were selected for the analysis between 1994 and 2019. Articles were retracted after a median of 1 year (IQR 4.0), and 55 (66.3%) articles were published in the year 2010 or after. Forty-eight (57.8%) articles were original articles. The most common subspecialties involved were basic science (51.8%), followed by vitreoretinal diseases (13.3%) and cornea and external diseases (7.1%). Fraudulent data were the cause of retraction in 22 (26.5%) articles, and 14 articles (16.87%) were retracted because of plagiarism. Thirteen articles (15.7%) were retracted due to errors in the data calculations, and ten (12.04%) were found to be duplicate submissions of previously published articles by the same author, while five articles (6.02%) had authorship disputes. Thirty-nine (46.9%) retracted articles were published in a journal with an impact factor greater than 2. The median number of citations received by the retracted articles was 2.0 (IQR 9.0). We conclude that the number of retractions in the ophthalmic literature have increased since 2010, though relatively limited information is available on the retracted articles. There is a need to strictly follow the current guidelines for providing the reasons for retraction and displaying retraction notices both in PubMed and on the journal websites.

The Complexity of Approximately Counting Retractions

Let G be a graph that contains an induced subgraph H . A retraction from G to H is a homomorphism from G to H that is the identity function on H . Retractions are very well studied: Given H , the complexity of deciding whether there is a retraction from an input graph G to H is completely classified, in the sense that it is known for which H this problem is tractable (assuming P ≠ NP). Similarly, the complexity of (exactly) counting retractions from G to H is classified (assuming FP ≠ #P). However, almost nothing is known about approximately counting retractions. Our first contribution is to give a complete trichotomy for approximately counting retractions to graphs without short cycles. The result is as follows: (1) Approximately counting retractions to a graph H of girth at least 5 is in FP if every connected component of H is a star, a single looped vertex, or an edge with two loops. (2) Otherwise, if every component is an irreflexive caterpillar or a partially bristled reflexive path, then approximately counting retractions to H is equivalent to approximately counting the independent sets of a bipartite graph—a problem that is complete in the approximate counting complexity class RH Π 1 . (3) Finally, if none of these hold, then approximately counting retractions to H is equivalent to approximately counting the satisfying assignments of a Boolean formula. Our second contribution is to locate the retraction counting problem for each H in the complexity landscape of related approximate counting problems. Interestingly, our results are in contrast to the situation in the exact counting context. We show that the problem of approximately counting retractions is separated both from the problem of approximately counting homomorphisms and from the problem of approximately counting list homomorphisms—whereas for exact counting all three of these problems are interreducible. We also show that the number of retractions is at least as hard to approximate as both the number of surjective homomorphisms and the number of compactions. In contrast, exactly counting compactions is the hardest of all of these exact counting problems.

Retractions of research papers by authors from the Arab region (1998-2018)

Objective: To provide an overview of retractions of research papers contributed by authors from the Arab region. Method: Papers in which the first author was affiliated to an Arabian country were selected from the Retraction Watch database covering the period 1 January 1998 to 31 December 2018. The retrieved records were divided into nine categories based on the reasons for retraction. Results: The search yielded 322 retractions, and the most frequent reason for retraction was plagiarism (34.5%). The median time from publication to retraction was 14 (25%-75% percentile 5-30) months. The number of papers retracted each year as well as the number of papers published in a given year but subsequently retracted increased steadily over the 21 years. The proportion of retracted papers to the total number of published papers (0.17%) was higher than the global proportion and was the highest for Algeria (1%) and the lowest for Lebanon (0.03%). Of the countries within the Arab region, 12 out of 14 countries showed either plagiarism or duplication as the most common reason for retraction; however, the countries differed in terms of the number of retractions and the time from publishing to retraction. Conclusion: Plagiarism was the most common cause of retraction in the Arab countries. The increase in the number of papers retracted each year was probably because searches now extend farther in the past, whereas the increase in the number of papers published in a given year but subsequently retracted can be attributed to the overall increase in the number of papers published.

Ethics-related guidelines for authors and article retractions: How do Indian biomedical journals measure up?

There has been an increase in research output from India, which in turn has led to an increase in the number of Indian journals facilitating biomedical research. The instructions to authors in the websites of these journals should clearly display ethics-related guidelines for the ethical publication process. The present study did an objective assessment of instructions to authors on the websites of Indian biomedical journals in PubMed and IndMED and retractions in these journals from January 2012 to October 2017. A 14-point checklist based on previous studies and review of literature was used. A total of 110 journals were included in the study and their websites assessed. A dedicated section on ethics was found in 56 (50.9%) journal websites, 42 (38.2%) did not mention any specific bioethics guidelines, animal ethics was mentioned in 65 (59%) of the journals, and an ethics committee approval was required by 65 (59%) of the journals. Sixty-four (58.2%) journals mentioned mandatory informed consent and 19 (17.3%) required assent. There were 22 (20%) journals that required neither Clinical Trial Registry of India (CTRI) registration nor Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) guidelines for reporting of clinical trials. There were 38 (34.5%) journals that actively looked for plagiarism. Most common reason for retraction was duplicate publication (23, 38.4%) followed by plagiarism (17,28.3%). The lacunae found in this survey indicate a need for strengthening of author instructions. The number of retractions in the last five years suggests that there are valid reasons to strengthen ethics in the publication process in India.

A cross sectional study of retraction notices of scholarly journals of science


 
 
 Retraction is the withdrawal of published article after it is found that the authors did not ensure integrity in conducting and reporting their research activities. The bibliometric information of 4716 document categorised as retractions in Science Citation Index, Web of Science was downloaded and analysed to understand trend, pattern and reasons of retraction. The results showed that retractions had increased during the ten-year period, 2008-2017. The main reasons for retractions were plagiarism, falsified data, manipulation of images and figures. It was also found that just 40 out of 4716 retraction notices had explicitly stated reasons for retracting the published articles. The open access journals had more number of retractions as compared to subscription based journals. The study will guide library professionals and research scholars towards a better comprehension of the reasons behind retractions in science discipline in the ten-year period. They would be better equipped to steer clear of inauthentic publications in their citations and references.
 
 

Why Are So Few Nursing Science Papers Retracted?

Why Are So Few Nursing Science Papers Retracted?

Retractions covered by Retraction Watch in the 2013–2015 period: prevalence for the most productive countries

The research output of countries is among the indicators that help us understand the dynamics of science. Increasingly, these dynamics have been marked by changes in scientific communication. Researchers’ attitudes toward open science, alternative models of publication and toward originality are among the elements shaping the current scientific landscape. This changing panorama reflects on the attitude of authors, editors and publishers toward the correction of the literature, a practice that is encountered to different extents in different fields. This practice may suggest, among several issues, commitment of the scientific community to boosting the reliability of the research record. Would the research output of countries have any association with this panorama? We analyzed 1623 retractions issued in 2013–2015 and discussed in Retraction Watch (RW), www.retractionwatch.com . These retractions account for a considerable fraction of the total of retraction notices in PubMed in the same period. They were categorized by reason, field and country (that of the corresponding author). These retractions were distributed among 71 countries, with 15 countries accounting for a major share (85%)—most of those with the largest number of publications in the Scimago Journal & Country Rank (SJR). However, there is no consistent pattern for the relationship between ranking in SJR and ranking in number of retractions across countries in our RW dataset, which is skewed mostly by the fact that the RW website tends to post newsworthy retractions, with a bias toward biomedical and clinical sciences. This caveat notwithstanding, the prevalence of the most productive countries in our dataset of retractions is worth noting. Gradually, retractions have been permeating the dynamics of research productivity in many countries but, so far, there is limited knowledge of this interaction. We believe it should be further explored.

Retractions Represent Failure

A retraction in science is the removal of a scientific paper from the literature’s records. Formerly and still on occasion today, retractions would involve the complete removal of all traces of the paper, including authors’ names, abstract and manuscript, what is now commonly termed a stealth or silent retraction. Despite what appears to be an increase in the number of retractions, retraction notices remain fairly opaque, most likely to limit litigation, but thus not serving a useful purpose for science. This letter shows how retractions represent different levels of failure. DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2016.v6n3p11

Stings, Hoaxes and Irony Breach the Trust Inherent in Scientific Publishing

Trust has traditionally been a cornerstone of traditional science publishing. However, events over the past few years, an increase in the number of retractions and the fortification of the vigilant science movement, coupled with better tools to detect and report or publicize misconduct and/or errors in the literature, has revealed that this pillar of trust has in fact not always been present, or has been severely abused or compromised. Further disintegration in the integrity of academic publishing by no or almost non-existent peer review in so-called “predatory” open access publishers has given reason to increasingly distrust the accuracy of the published academic record. Finally, a topic that tends to invoke mixed reactions, but which we feel adds to the overall level of mistrust and erosion of ethical values in science publishing, is the use of stings, hoaxes and irony academic journals. We focus on six such cases, providing a rationale why such studies undermine trust and integrity and why such bogus publications are best left to blogs or non-academic forms of publishing science-related topics.

Ethical Issues in Oral Sciences

The pressure for scientific production, the allowances of the modern cybernetic world, and insufficient ethical research training of researchers have led to an increasing number of retractions, including in the area of oral sciences. In 2006, a famous oncologist admitted that he had falsified data in three published papers; consequently, he was investigated for other misconduct in science. Scientific journal editors have a great responsibility in the process of preventing dishonesty in research, because they can retract an article whenever they have clear evidence of misconduct. The journal reviewers also must take co-responsibility about scientific integrity in the publication process. However, it is difficult for editors to find uncompromised reviewers as there are increasing demands for publication, requiring a faster review response. Although the editorial system can help in preventing dishonesty in science, this effort can only reach the tip of the iceberg. Editors and reviewers have unique responsibilities in the process of identifying methodological problems and inconsistency of the research. However, social control for good science must be a duty of the whole scientific community, as research fraud has serious consequences for society, exposing participants to risks and making inappropriate use of human and financial resources. The process of training in research ethics should start at the undergraduate level, and surveillance by reviewers, editors, researchers, institutions, and government agencies is mandatory to ensure good practice in science.

Costly collaborations: The impact of scientific fraud on co‐authors' careers

Over the past few years, several major scientific fraud cases have shocked the scientific community. The number of retractions each year has also increased tremendously, especially in the biomedical field, and scientific misconduct accounts for more than half of those retractions. It is assumed that co‐authors of retracted papers are affected by their colleagues' misconduct, and the aim of this study is to provide empirical evidence of the effect of retractions in biomedical research on co‐authors' research careers. Using data from the Web of Science, we measured the productivity, impact, and collaboration of 1,123 co‐authors of 293 retracted articles for a period of 5 years before and after the retraction. We found clear evidence that collaborators do suffer consequences of their colleagues' misconduct and that a retraction for fraud has higher consequences than a retraction for error. Our results also suggest that the extent of these consequences is closely linked with the ranking of co‐authors on the retracted paper, being felt most strongly by first authors, followed by the last authors, with the impact is less important for middle authors.