Springer Nature journal pulls nearly three dozen papers from special issues

A Springer Nature journal retracted 34 papers earlier this month, including, ironically enough, one on how to detect fake news, which appeared in special guest-edited issues hacked by publication cheats.

Special issues have emerged over the past few years as particularly vulnerable to paper mills. Last March, we reported that Wiley was taking a $9 million write-down after its Hindawi subsidiary paused publication of such issues because they were badly hacked by paper mills.

“Hybrid deep learning model for automatic fake news detection,” from a group in Turkey led by Othman A. Hanshal, was published last February in Applied Nanoscience. The retraction notice reads

The Publisher has retracted this article in agreement with the Editor-in-Chief. The article was submitted to be part of a guest-edited issue. An investigation by the publisher found a number of articles, including this one, with a number of concerns, including but not limited to compromised editorial handling and peer review process, inappropriate or irrelevant references or not being in scope of the journal or guest-edited issue. Based on the investigation’s findings the publisher, in consultation with the Editor-in-Chief therefore no longer has confidence in the results and conclusions of this article.

The authors have not responded to correspondence regarding this retraction.

A second paper in the journal, “Enhancement of voltage profile and generation of cost function by hybrid power flow controller using genetic algorithm,” also appeared last February from a group of researchers in Chennai, India. 

According to the retraction notice

The Publisher has retracted this article in agreement with the Editor-in-Chief. The article was submitted to be part of a guest-edited issue. An investigation by the publisher found a number of articles, including this one, with a number of concerns, including but not limited to compromised editorial handling and peer review process, inappropriate or irrelevant references or not being in scope of the journal or guest-edited issue. Based on the investigation’s findings the publisher, in consultation with the Editor-in-Chief therefore no longer has confidence in the results and conclusions of this article.

Author A. Murugan has not stated whether they agree or disagree with this retraction. Author V. Ramakrishnan has not responded to correspondence regarding this retraction.

A spokesperson for Springer Nature told us: 

These papers were identified as part of our ongoing commitment to identifying and acting on papers of concern. When we become aware of such concerns, we investigate them carefully following an established process and in line with best-practice COPE guidelines. We are currently in the process of retracting 34 papers as a result of this investigation, which should be completed imminently.

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