Examining Retractions in the Life Sciences from Various Angles

• Bhumika Bharathi

  English

  Author

In the field of life and biomedical sciences, I investigate patterns in retractions. I run a number of analyses on a
dataset consisting of around 7,000 publications—all retractions viewable via PubMed as of August 2019—to
identify patterns along multiple dimensions, such as time, nations, journals and impact factors, and subjects.
Utilizing data from PubMed, Wikipedia, and WikiData, this work used advanced data gathering and analytic
tools to examine the articles in relation to these dimensions. To better comprehend the themes presented in
retracted articles, I make use of cutting-edge visualization and analytic tools from the field of natural language
processing (NLP). The findings show that the number of retractions is rising and that there are clear disparities
in the quality of publications (as evaluated by journal impact factors) across the leading publishing nations. In
addition, while retractions pertaining to molecular biology predominate, there are also few retractions that are
unrelated to biology. Research in the biological sciences may benefit from this study's methodology and
findings by better comprehending the origins and development of retractions across time.

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