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The article discusses concerns about scientific misconduct in publishing research and the role of individuals and communities in fostering scientific integrity in scholarly publications. Topics include the ethical implications of scientific misconduct, the elaboration of guidelines establishing norms in data collection, and how falsified information intentionally misleads organizations and consumers. Additional information is presented on the responsibility of editors in creating a fair review process, the use of plagiarism software, and the ethical duties of scholars.

Retractions of journal articles exclude fraudulent or erroneous research from legitimate science and perform boundary work. Analyzing retractions from different disciplines and focusing on their apologetic aspects, we find that these apologies shift between openly addressing emotional, normative, and social themes and concealing them in a more scientific style of communication. Their boundary work remains highly ambivalent: They alternate between scientific and nonscientific forms of speaking, portray unstable patterns of control and coercion, and avoid drawing a boundary between legitimate and nonlegitimate science. In line with the hypothetical nature of scientific knowledge, retractions thus leave boundary making to the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Article impact statement: Machine learning can be used to automatically monitor and assess illegal wildlife trade on social media platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes and discusses the views of researchers on the significance of raising concerns about scientific misconduct in their work environment and the reasons or circumstances that might deter them from doing so. In this exploratory qualitative research study, we conducted in-depth interviews with 33 researchers working in life sciences and medicine. They represent three seniority levels and five universities across Switzerland. A large majority of respondents in this research study argued that failure to raise concerns about scientific misconduct compromises research integrity. This is an encouraging result demonstrating that researchers try to adhere to high ethical standards. However, further interaction with respondents highlighted that this correct ethical assessment does not lead researchers to take the consequent action of raising concerns. The factors that discourage researchers from raising concerns need to be addressed at the level of research groups, institutions, and by setting a positive precedent which helps them to believe in the system’s ability to investigate concerns raised in a timely and professional manner. Training of researchers in research integrity related issues will have limited utility unless it is coupled with the creation of research culture where raising concerns is a standard practice of scientific and research activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the social responsibilities of scientists and the ways in which such responsibilities developed in parallel with the development of the periodical. Topics discussed include the history of the periodical, the significant scientific events since the 1950s that the magazine has covered, which include the atomic bombing of Japan and the public health effects of above-ground nuclear testing, and the ways in which these events led to increased responsibilities for scientists.

Expertise in searching and evaluating scientific literature is a requisite skill of trained scientists and science students, yet information literacy instruction varies greatly among institutions and programs. To ensure that science students acquire information literacy skills, robust methods of assessment are needed. Here, we describe a novel tool for longitudinal, crossover assessment of literature-searching skills in science students and apply it to a cross-sectional assessment of literature-searching performance in 145 first-year and 43 senior biology majors. Subjects were given an open-ended prompt requiring them to find multiple sources of information addressing a particular scientific topic. A blinded scorer used a rubric to score the resources identified by the subjects and generate numerical scores for source quality, source relevance, and citation quality. Two versions of the assessment prompt were given to facilitate eventual longitudinal study of individual students in a crossover design. Seniors were significantly more likely to find relevant, peer-reviewed journal articles, provide appropriate citations, and provide correct answers to other questions about scientific literature. This assessment tool accommodates large numbers of students and can be modified easily for use in other disciplines or at other levels of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Scientists conducting research into household air or dust pollution must decide whether, when, and how to disclose to study participants their individual results. A variety of considerations factor into this decision, but one factor that has not received attention until now is the possibility that study participants' receipt of their results might create legal duties under environmental, property, landlord -- tenant, or other laws. Objectives: This article examines relevant laws and regulations and explores the scope of participants' legal duties and the resulting legal and ethical consequences for researchers. Participants could be required in some situations to disclose the presence of certain chemicals when selling or renting their homes or to frequent visitors. The article discusses hypothetical case studies involving the reporting back of results regarding lead, polychlorinated biphenyls, and phthalates. Discussion: The potential legal duties of study participants have both ethical and legal implications for researchers. Issues include whether the legal consequences for participants should affect the decision whether to report back individual results, how researchers should disclose the legal risks to participants during the informed consent process, and whether researchers would be liable to study participants for legal or economic harm arising from reporting study results to them. The review provides recommendations for language that researchers could use in the informed consent process to disclose the legal risks. Conclusions: Researchers should still report back to participants who want to see their results, but they should disclose the risks of obtaining the information as part of the informed consent process. Citation: Goho SA. 2016. The legal implications of report back in household exposure studies. Environ Health Perspect 124:1662-1670; http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/EHP187 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fraud in scientific publishing is a drag on the release of research papers, the causes of which should be analyzed. To the reprehensible conduct of researchers who commit fraud one can add the bias the scientific publications and the Internet search engines can introduce to the processes of selection, validation, and calculation of the impact factors of papers already submitted and published. This article offers a reflection on the issue, as a result of related new data having recently been published. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author comments on research misconduct and fraud. Topics discussed include the definition of research misconduct, good scientific practice, and the self-control of scientists within their community. Also mentioned are the possible consequences of research misconduct and fraud, the reasons for violating good scientific practices, and effective prevention and constructive processes to prevent misconduct in research.

The present paper describes a clinical experience at a hospital for custody and psychiatric treatment. After the suicide of one of his patients, the author faces the question about the supposed neutrality of the analyst in order to understand that he himself is in a process of mourning. The clinical question to be raised refers to the therapist s posture as being "affectable, " in opposition to some neutral and emotionally unmovable scientist. This aspect will be analyzed from Hans-Georg Gadamer's position of hermeneutics (1900-2002). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The governance of nanotechnology seeks to limit its risks, without constraining opportunities. The literature on the effectiveness of approaches to governance has neglected approaches that impact directly on the behavior of a researcher. We analyze the effectiveness of legal regulations versus regulation via self-commitment. Then, we refine this model by analyzing competition and autonomy as key contingency factors. In the first step, qualitative interviews with nanotechnology researchers are conducted to reflect this model. In the second step, its empirical relevance is tested using a survey of 90 nanotech researchers. The results indicate that legal regulations, as well as self-commitment to an informal CoC reduce the scope of behavior. Finally, that competition and autonomy affect the relative strength of these governance factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a scandal in 1917 at the Geological Survey of Indochina in Hanoi in which the geologist Jacques Deprat, head of the Survey, was accused of scientific fraud, with a focus on the role of Madeleine Colani, an assistant to the self-taught paleontologist Henri Mansuy at the Survey from 1914 to 1928. Topics include Deprat's repatriation to France after the accusation by Mansuy, investigations of Colani's involvement in the scandal, and Colani's publication of a critique in 1924 in which she revised Deprat's work on fusulinids.

A substantial body of literature purports to document the growth of scientific misconduct in Northeast Asia. This article traces the apparent growth of research fraud and falsification to two distinct features of the national innovation systems common to the region: liberal research regimes adopted by developmental states and marked by freedom from government oversight, and illiberal laboratory cultures imported from Germany and marked by all-powerful lab directors and their vulnerable underlings. Based on comparative, qualitative case studies of pioneering countries in bio-medical research, as well as cross-national quantitative analyses of the permissiveness of national stem-cell research policies, we argue that Asia's scientific pathologies are the products of two institutional factors: funding and freedom offered to scientists by developmental states, and the lack of informal control prevalent in the German model of higher education. We conclude that, while Northeast Asian officials offer their biomedical researchers funding and freedom to take advantage of opportunities that rarely exist in the West, their scientists stifle open debate and criticism, and thereby hinder the growth of informal as well as formal control mechanisms that are critical for deterring and detecting scientific fraud. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses how ethical and political issues affect contemporary research relationships. It focuses on the responsibilities of researchers studying organizations and elites, and the discussion draws upon the author's experience of researching NHS primary health care services.The article reviews the spread of 'ethical guidelines' from medical to social research. Such guidelines primarily address ethical problems relating to individual researcher--researched relationships. Sociologists have criticized the application of medically based guidelines to social research, while often accepting an ethical framework based on the researcher--researched dyad. But this limited conception of ethical responsibilities leaves complex organizational power hierarchies and their effects undertheorized. Researchers may then be vulnerable and lack guidance where organizational loyalties and market mechanisms have undermined the traditional supports of academic independence and professionalism. Sociologists could learn from critical medical scientists' responses to some related ethical dilemmas, as some medical researchers have experienced these issues more acutely and for longer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article criticizes the fabricated findings of Chernobyl Forum of the United Nations, to suit the needs of the authorities concerned, regarding the disastrous effects of Chernobyl nuclear accident. The findings were made public at a conference conducted by International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.

Fraud and misconduct in scientific research appears to be increasing since 1980 when several cases were disclosed. Earlier instances were handled awkwardly, but the scientific community has since mobilized and issued guidelines about responding to allegations of misconduct and about the responsible conduct of research. Scientists, editors and the institutions of science are slowly learning how to cope with this problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article summarizes a study in the journal "PLOS ONE" which found after Italy mandated that academic hiring and promotion use citation-based metrics, Italian scientists collaborated to provide citations to papers authored within Italy to boost each other's metrics.

The article mentions the launch of the Societies Consortium on Sexual Harassment in STEMM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine). It states the nonprofit American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) joined 77 academic and professional societies in the new consortium which will provide guidance, research, and resources to address sexual harassment. It reports the AAAS Council established sexual harassment as a professional ethics breach in September of 2018.

The author refutes the practice of ignoring scientific misconduct in universities and in the health care community in the U.S. He asserts that the case of alleged scientific misconduct committed by Robert Gallo at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France, came to an unsatisfactory close. He believes that the honor code system will never work if students are not willing to report a case of misconduct.

The article discusses the debate on whether researchers who committed fraud in the laboratory should be subjected to criminal charges in court. Topics discussed include Doctor Richard Smith's blog post arguing that scientists should be made liable for fraud and the effects of treating research misconduct as a crime on science.

The author reflects on research integrity as a significant issue for scientific development and as a basic moral attitude in science. He discusses topics including research misconduct and its impact to the researchers and science in general, the need for highest professional standards through fairness, critical, and open-minded approach, and authorship dispute.

The author suggests creating an integrated science policy to uphold integrity across all educational and research institutions. Topics discussed include the commitments and responsibilities of scientists, the importance of maintaining intellectual honesty to uphold ethics and the author's suggestion for India to appoint a scientific taskforce to draft a science policy to foster fair growth with integrity.

The article presents the author's perspectives on how the post-truth era has played a corrosive and dishonest role in the turbulence which has come close to putting the survival of universities in South Africa and their international recognition of higher education at risk. The author mentions that some students have just denied the economic fallacies entailed in fee-free higher education without trivialising the demonstrations' complexity.

In this article, the author offers information on scientific and research publication. Topics discussed include use of illustrations, graphs, micrographs and other types of figures in papers, falsification or fabrication in research papers by scientists, and honest error and scientific disagreements among scientists.

The article discusses a lawsuit filed by former Yale University postdoctoral researcher Magdalena Koziol with New Haven Superior Court in Connecticut on February 7, 2014 against Yale University and laboratory director Antonio Giraldez. Sabotage of Koziol's research in 2011 by fellow postdoc student, Polloneal Jymmiel Ocbina, Giraldez's alleged retaliation against her, and Yale University's failure to report the case to the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI) are discussed.

The article discusses commercial bribery conspiracy charges brought against three Chinese researchers at New York University (NYU), Yudong Zhu, Xing Yang, and Ye Li, on May 20, 2013 by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan. Reportedly, the three accepted bribes from the company United Imaging Healthcare in Shanghai and the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, both in China, in exchange for information about their MRI technology research.

In this article the author explores how globalizing responsible conduct of research (RCR) training can contribute to resolving worldwide efforts to reduce or eliminate misconduct in research. He argues that misconduct and misbehavior in research are caused by the decisions individual researchers make, adding that legislators assumed the problem could be reduce by training researchers. He cites early efforts in RCR training by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the U.S. Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration and discusses the role of common standards, common content, and collaborative training in the successful globalization of RCR training.

The article offers information on economic espionage in the U.S. Scientist Ke-xue Huang was arrested on July 13, 2010 on the charges that he provided secrets of Dow AgroSciences LLC to China. In 2009, a scientist at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville was sentenced four years of imprisonment for providing technical data to China. In 2006 the U.S. government passed the Economic Espionage Act to counter rise in foreign spies.

In this article, the authors discuss the research misconduct and research integrity. According to the authors, the efforts to promote responsible research behaviour remain ineffective and misconduct still continues due to funds competition in the U.S. The authors also cite six pooled studies in which 34% of scientists admitted inappropriate analysis, over interpretation of findings, and changing study designs. They also discuss the responsible conduct of research (RCR) for research funding.

The article reports on the possible revision of laws regarding the handling of non-human fossils excavated on native American lands. It relates that the effort for law revision is focused on creating a law similar to that of the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act that regulates that handling of human fossils. Moreover, Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs Executive Director Judi Gaiashkibos relates that the effort to revise the law is anchored on the desire of Native American political leaders to stop scientists from exploiting the fossils. Furthermore, it cites the lobbying effort of Lawrence Bradley of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln that aims to establish more consultation effort with tribal leaders before fossils are excavated.

This editorial looks at the first world conference on medical research integrity set for mid-September 2007 in Lisbon, Portugal. The event will focus on discussing the coordination of policies on scientific misconduct at the European and International level. While the U.S. has an oversight board, no such central body exists to check on medical research in Europe and what laws there are, vary from country to country. The author offers suggestions for actions to rectify the situation.

Focuses on alleged misconduct by researchers at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). Report that hundred of scientists at the government agency are accused of maintaining financial ties to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies; Debate over the potential for conflict of interest in scientific research; Reaction to rules instituted by NIH director Elias Zerhouni, which forbid NIH scientists from paid or unpaid employment; View of NIH scientists that Zerhouni's rule is too strict; Potential for scientists to leave the NIH due to Zerhouni's policies; Political significance of the revelation of ethics violations at the NIH.