{"id":672944,"date":"2026-11-02T19:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T19:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/672944\/"},"modified":"2026-11-02T19:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T19:30:11","slug":"computing-journal-retracts-13-papers-including-four-from-past-eic-retraction-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/672944\/","title":{"rendered":"Computing journal retracts 13 papers, including four from past EIC \u2013 Retraction Watch"},"content":{"rendered":"

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An Elsevier journal on computer applications in biomedicine has retracted 13 papers \u2014\u00a0 including four by a former editor-in-chief \u2014 for suspicious authorship changes and erroneous citations.<\/p>\n

The articles<\/a> were published in Computers in Biology and Medicine from 2019 to 2023. The October 15 retraction notices list suspicious changes in authorship, irrelevant citations to the work of authors and peer reviewers and self-plagiarism as reasons for retraction.<\/p>\n

In 10 cases, the notice states, an \u201cimpartial field expert acting in the role of an independent Publishing Ethics advisor\u201d requested the retraction.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Huiling Chen<\/a>, a computer science researcher with Wenzhou University in China, who served as coeditor-in-chief of Computers in Biology and Medicine from 2021 to 2024, was an author on four of the now-retracted papers. One, on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease imaging<\/a> published in the journal in 2021, has been cited 107 times, according to Clarivate\u2019s Web of Science. A PubPeer commenter called the citations<\/a> in the paper \u201cpuzzling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne need not go all the way to the end of the paper to find vapid sentences providing an excuse for a string of unrelated, transactional citations,\u201d frequent PubPeer commenter Hoya camphorifolia wrote in October 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not dispute that citation and authorship concerns can be serious and require an appropriate response,\u201d Chen told Retraction Watch. But Chen said he took issue with \u201cthe basis and proportionality of retraction in these cases.\u201d<\/p>\n

He told us the citations were added during manuscript revision \u201cwhen we expanded the introduction, related-work discussion, methodological background, and possible research direction,\u201d and said peer reviewers had asked for more context in the papers. The request \u201cdoes not relieve the authors of responsibility for deciding which references were necessary and accurately placed,\u201d he said. \u201cIn retrospect, the reference lists became overexpanded, and some citations were weakly relevant, redundant, or unnecessary.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the editorial process, five authors were added to, and one removed from, an August 2021 article<\/a> about lupus on which Chen was a coauthor. He said the changes were explained in revision cover letters, but the authors never sought explicit approval from the journal. \u201cProviding an explanation is not the same as obtaining approval, and I recognize that distinction,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ali Asghar Heidari<\/a> and Hamza Turabieh<\/a> were coauthors on all four of Chen\u2019s retracted papers, tying for the most retractions from the batch. Majdi Mafarja<\/a> of Birzeit University in Palestine was author on three of the papers. Emails to Heidari\u2019s email addresses affiliated with the University of Tehran and the National University of Singapore bounced back, and he did not respond to an email sent to another email address associated with him. Neither Mafarja nor Turabieh, a data science researcher at the University of Missouri-Columbia, responded to our requests for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Turabieh has lost six other papers, according to the Retraction Watch Database.<\/p>\n

Chen was named in the notice<\/a> of a fifth article, in which he handled the review of the manuscript \u201cdespite an extensive record of collaboration, including co-publication, with one of the paper authors,\u201d the notice states.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In September<\/a>, Science of the Total Environment, another Elsevier title, retracted over 100 papers, many for editorial conflicts of interest.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Elsevier\u2019s guidance on duties for editors<\/a> states editors \u201cmust not be involved in decisions about papers which they have written themselves or have been written by family members or colleagues.\u201d The page doesn\u2019t define \u201ccolleague,\u201d but its guidance for reviewers<\/a> gives an example of a conflict of interest as \u201ccollaborations between the reviewer and author(s) in the previous three years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three of the retraction notices in Computers in Biology and Medicine state the investigation found \u201cthe authors were requested by two of the reviewers to insert irrelevant references during the peer-review process.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

A representative from Elsevier declined to comment on the matter, including whether the journal banned peer reviewers or made any changes to the editorial process.<\/p>\n

Like Retraction Watch? You can make a\u00a0tax-deductible contribution to support our work<\/a>, follow us\u00a0on X<\/a> or Bluesky<\/a>, like us\u00a0on Facebook<\/a>, follow us on LinkedIn<\/a>, add us to your\u00a0RSS reader<\/a>, or subscribe to our\u00a0daily digest<\/a>. If you find a retraction that\u2019s\u00a0not in our database<\/a>, you can\u00a0let us know here<\/a>. For comments or feedback, email us at\u00a0[email\u00a0protected]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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