Amend:An integrated platform of retracted papers and concerned papers

Purpose:The notable increase in retraction papers has attracted considerable attention from diverse stakeholders.Various sources are now offering information related to research integrity,including concerns voiced on social media,disclosed lists of paper mills,and retraction notices accessible through journal websites.However,despite the availability of such resources,there remains a lack of a unified platform to consolidate this information,thereby hindering efficient searching and cross-referencing.Thus,it is imperative to develop a comprehensive platform for retracted papers and related concerns.This article aims to introduce“Amend,”a platform designed to integrate information on research integrity from diverse sources.Design/methodology/approach:The Amend platform consolidates concerns and lists of problematic articles sourced from social media platforms(e.g.,PubPeer,For Better Science),retraction notices from journal websites,and citation databases(e.g.,Web of Science,CrossRef).Moreover,Amend includes investigation and punishment announcements released by administrative agencies(e.g.,NSFC,MOE,MOST,CAS).Each related paper is marked and can be traced back to its information source via a provided link.Furthermore,the Amend database incorporates various attributes of retracted articles,including citation topics,funding details,open access status,and more.The reasons for retraction are identified and classified as either academic misconduct or honest errors,with detailed subcategories provided for further clarity.Findings:Within the Amend platform,a total of 32,515 retracted papers indexed in SCI,SSCI,and ESCI between 1980 and 2023 were identified.Of these,26,620(81.87%)were associated with academic misconduct.The retraction rate stands at 6.64 per 10,000 articles.Notably,the retraction rate for non-gold open access articles significantly differs from that for gold open access articles,with this disparity progressively widening over the years.Furthermore,the reasons for retractions have shifted from traditional individual behaviors like falsification,fabrication,plagiarism,and duplication to more organized large-scale fraudulent practices,including Paper Mills,Fake Peer-review,and Artificial Intelligence Generated Content(AIGC).Research limitations:The Amend platform may not fully capture all retracted and concerning papers,thereby impacting its comprehensiveness.Additionally,inaccuracies in retraction notices may lead to errors in tagged reasons.Practical implications:Amend provides an integrated platform for stakeholders to enhance monitoring,analysis,and research on academic misconduct issues.Ultimately,the Amend database can contribute to upholding scientific integrity.Originality/value:This study introduces a globally integrated platform for retracted and concerning papers,along with a preliminary analysis of the evolutionary trends in retracted papers.

An explorative study on document type assignment of review articles in Web of Science,Scopus and journals’websites

Purpose:Accurately assigning the document type of review articles in citation index databases like Web of Science(WoS)and Scopus is important.This study aims to investigate the document type assignation of review articles in Web of Science,Scopus and Publisher’s websites on a large scale.Design/methodology/approach:27,616 papers from 160 journals from 10 review journal series indexed in SCI are analyzed.The document types of these papers labeled on journals’websites,and assigned by WoS and Scopus are retrieved and compared to determine the assigning accuracy and identify the possible reasons for wrongly assigning.For the document type labeled on the website,we further differentiate them into explicit review and implicit review based on whether the website directly indicates it is a review or not.Findings:Overall,WoS and Scopus performed similarly,with an average precision of about 99% and recall of about 80%.However,there were some differences between WoS and Scopus across different journal series and within the same journal series.The assigning accuracy of WoS and Scopus for implicit reviews dropped significantly,especially for Scopus.Research limitations:The document types we used as the gold standard were based on the journal websites’labeling which were not manually validated one by one.We only studied the labeling performance for review articles published during 2017-2018 in review journals.Whether this conclusion can be extended to review articles published in non-review journals and most current situation is not very clear.Practical implications:This study provides a reference for the accuracy of document type assigning of review articles in WoS and Scopus,and the identified pattern for assigning implicit reviews may be helpful to better labeling on websites,WoS and Scopus.Originality/value:This study investigated the assigning accuracy of document type of reviews and identified the some patterns of wrong assignments.

Node2vec Representation for Clustering Journals and as A Possible Measure of Diversity

Purpose: To investigate the effectiveness of using node2 vec on journal citation networks to represent journals as vectors for tasks such as clustering, science mapping, and journal diversity measure.Design/methodology/approach: Node2 vec is used in a journal citation network to generate journal vector representations. Findings: 1. Journals are clustered based on the node2 vec trained vectors to form a science map. 2. The norm of the vector can be seen as an indicator of the diversity of journals. 3. Using node2 vec trained journal vectors to determine the Rao-Stirling diversity measure leads to a better measure of diversity than that of direct citation vectors.Research limitations: All analyses use citation data and only focus on the journal level.Practical implications: Node2 vec trained journal vectors embed rich information about journals, can be used to form a science map and may generate better values of journal diversity measures.Originality/value: The effectiveness of node2 vec in scientometric analysis is tested. Possible indicators for journal diversity measure are presented.

Climate background of the evolution from Paleolithic to Neolithic cultural transition during the last deglaciation in the middle reaches of the Yellow River

Shizitan in Jixian County, Shanxi Province, is a site of transitional period from Paleolithic to Neolithic. The dating and the sporopollen analysis show that the middle reaches of the Yellow River where the site is located had been maintaining a steppe environment during 35.1-9.4 kaBP, in which, 35.1-17 kaBP belonged to the last glacial. With cold and dry climate, this period featured a desert steppe environment. In the late of this period, the area had a cold and half-humid steppe environment. The 17.0-11.9 kaBP belonged to the early- and mid-period of the last deglaciation. Mild and half-arid steppe alternates with mild and half-arid steppe, with a small amount of deciduous broadleaf species. During the period of 11.9-10.5 kaBP, cold and dry glacial climate appeared once more, featuring a desert steppe environment. During 10.5-9.4 kaBP, it is mild and half-arid, and later transited toward warm and half-humid. The early phase of this period featured a steppe environment and the later transited into a

On the possible use of fire by Homo erectus at Zhoukoudian,China

For decades,the so-called Peking Man(Homo erectus pekinensis)at Zhoukoudian has been considered to be a hominin that engaged in the controlled production and management of fire.However,relatively recent analyses have cast doubt on this assertion.The most compelling reason for this doubt was the absence of siliceous aggregates in the Zhoukoudian deposits.This study presents evidence establishing the controlled use of fire by Homo erectus pekinensis through analyses of four soil samples sourced from Layers 4 and 6 at Zhoukoudian Locality 1.These results demonstrate that all four specimens contain siliceous aggregates as well as elemental carbon,and the potassium content of the insoluble residues of these specimens ranges between 1.21%and 2.94%.The analyses provide strong evidence of the in situ use of fire by Homo erectus pekinensis.