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[交流] 【其他】井冈山大学的70篇论文被一次性撤销(完全版)

Crystallographica Sections E or C撤销，同时井冈山大学被放入黑名单。

　　http://journals.iucr.org/e/issues/2010/01/00/me0406/

The correspondence authors are Dr H. Zhong and Professor T. Liu, both from J
inggangshan University, Jian, China. The co-authors on these papers included
other workers from Jinggangshan University together with authors from diffe
rent institutions in China. Both these correspondence authors and all co-aut
hors have signed forms agreeing to the retraction of 41 papers published by
Dr Zhong and 29 by Professor Liu. Details of these retractions appear elsewh
ere in this issue of the journal. Having found these problems with articles
from Jinggangshan University, all submissions from this University to Acta C
rystallographica Sections E or C have now been identified and are being chec
ked for authenticity. Preliminary results indicate that further retractions
will result from this exercise.
Editorial

William T. A. Harrison,a Jim Simpsonb and Matthias Weilc

aDepartment of Chemistry, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB24 3UE, Scotlan
d,bDepartment of Chemistry, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin, New Zea
land, and cInstitute of Chemical Technologies and Analytics, Division of Str
uctural Chemistry, Vienna University of Technology, Getreidemarkt 9/164-SC,
Austria

Regrettably, this editorial is to alert readers and authors of Acta Crystall
ographica Section E and the wider scientific community to the fact that we h
ave recently uncovered evidence for an extensive series of scientific frauds
involving papers published in the journal, principally during 2007. Althoug
h several thousands of structures published in Acta Crystallographica Sectio
n E every year will continue to reflect results of serious scientific work,
the extent of these problems is significant with at least 70 structures demo
nstrated to be falsified and meanwhile acknowledged by the authors as such.
Our work is ongoing and it is likely that this figure will rise further.
These problems were first discovered by Ton Spek during testing of the check
ing programs for the journal. Testing is routinely carried out using cifs an
d structure-factor files from back issues of Acta Crystallographica Sections
E or C. Initially, unexplained Hirshfeld rigid-bond alerts and unusual meta
l-ligand donor-atom distances led to the discovery that metal atoms had been
transposed and that more than one structure had been `determined' using ide
ntical sets of data. Investigation of these cases sparked a search of papers
written by the correspondence authors involved.

A program written by Toine Schreurs of Utrecht University that can examine a
nd compare two structure-factor files was then used to examine the data depo
sited for the structures under investigation. For all of the problem structu
res, the program revealed that the data sets used to refine two or more supp
osedly unique structures were in fact identical, but with the cell parameter
s apparently manually altered by the authors concerned.
The falsified structures have many features in common: in each case, a bona
fide set of intensity data, usually on a compound whose structure had been c
orrectly determined and reported in the literature, was used to produce a nu
mber of papers, with the authors changing one or more atoms in the structure
to produce what appeared to be a genuine structure determination of a new c
ompound. The worst example generated no fewer than 18 supposedly original st
ructures from a single common set of data. There is nothing to suggest that
the authors of the original papers describing the real structures are in any
way aware of, or complicit in, this fraud.

Bogus refinements were found for both metal-organic and organic structures.
The most common ploy was to acquire a data set for a coordination complex, s
ay of copper(II). Changing the metal from copper(II) to zinc(II), nickel(II)
, iron(II) or even cobalt(III) produced papers reporting seemingly novel com
pounds. In order to decrease the risk of detection, changes in the metal wer
e generally accompanied by small (< 4%) manual alterations to the unit-cell
parameters and also the culling of some reflections from the data sets. The
scale of the problems ruled out the possibility of mere incompetence.
Similar procedures with structures containing lanthanide elements offered ev
en greater scope for deception. In addition to changing the identity of the
metal, alterations to atoms in the organic ligands added further variation t
o the structures falsely reported.

Non-metal atom substitutions also generated numerous bogus organic structure
s. CH2 groups were replaced by NH or O and vice versa, nitro groups became c
arboxylic acids and amides, OH groups became fluorine atoms; the list is ext
ensive. The residuals on the resulting fraudulent refinements were generally
worse than those of the genuine material but not sufficiently so as to caus
e undue concern on their own. However, chemically implausible or impossible
structures arose from these manipulations, and it is a concern and disappoin
tment that these chemical features passed into the literature undetected.

The initial set of falsified structures arises from two groups. The correspo
ndence authors are Dr H. Zhong and Professor T. Liu, both from Jinggangshan
University, Jian, China. The co-authors on these papers included other worke
rs from Jinggangshan University together with authors from different institu
tions in China. Both these correspondence authors and all co-authors have si
gned forms agreeing to the retraction of 41 papers published by Dr Zhong and
29 by Professor Liu. Details of these retractions appear elsewhere in this
issue of the journal. Having found these problems with articles from Jinggan
gshan University, all submissions from this University to Acta Crystallograp
hica Sections E or C have now been identified and are being checked for auth
enticity. Preliminary results indicate that further retractions will result
from this exercise.

All Co-editors of Acta Crystallographica Sections E and C have been alerted
to these fraudulent practices and have been advised of the warning signs tha
t can be used in most instances to identify such attempts to deceive. It sho
uld be noted that many other possibly fraudulent submissions were rejected a
t the refereeing stage by alert and conscientious Co-editors, but until the
scope of the fraud became apparent, these were reasonably regarded as one-of
f examples of incompetence or honest mistakes.

When we discussed the events with the Editors of other journals in the Acta
family, they expressed amazement, because, like us, they assumed that it was
almost inconceivable that a fake crystal structure would be submitted for p
ublication. Sadly, that has proven not to be the case and we must now take s
tock and decide what steps are needed to prevent further scientific fraud. T
o that end, the checkCIF validation software is being improved continuously
and provides an exhaustive assessment of data and structural quality and con
sistency. It is also noteworthy to point out that the current problems could
not have been easily discovered without the availability of the structure-f
actor files; it will become increasingly important for all journals reportin
g crystal structures to make sure that they require authors to supply such d
ata in future.
Finally, nothing can replace the sceptical (but fair) assessment of an exper
ienced Co-editor. While it is impossible to give absolute guarantees that su
ch a situation will not happen again, we feel that the journal, its Editors,
Co-editors and the Chester staff are now far better prepared to identify an
d challenge any further attempts to publish anything other than articles rep
orting genuine structural investigations in our journal. It is a strength of
crystallography that fraudulent practices can be identified, even retrospec
tively, by diligent archiving of data and checking such as that carried out
for the Union's journals. We thank Ton Spek, George Ferguson and the IUCr Ed
itorial Staff for all their input and assistance.

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