# STATE — Current snapshot

**Date**: 2026-05-14
**Active milestone**: Paper A v4.0 — Big-4 reframe
**Active branch**: `paper-a-v4-big4` (41 commits ahead of `master`; fully pushed to `origin/paper-a-v4-big4` at `128a914`)
**Active phase**: **Phase 5 — AI peer review COMPLETE; Phase 6 ready to begin**

## Phase 5 closure summary (2026-05-14)

**Convergence achieved**: 3/3 reviewers in Accept/Minor band across the round-2 cross-check.

| Reviewer | Final round | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Gemini 3.1 Pro | round 2 | **Accept** (Phase 5 splice-ready as-is) |
| Opus 4.7 | round 2 | Minor Revision (4 substantive findings → closed in round-4) |
| codex GPT-5.5 | round 9 | Minor Revision (2 provenance findings → closed in round-5) |

**Original Phase 5 gate met**: Accept/Minor consensus from ≥2 of 3 reviewers. No empirical reruns required.

**Phase 5 fix rounds applied** (commits on this branch):
1. `9604b27` — codex round-7 closeout copy-edit (candidate classifiers → candidate checks; refs [42]-[44] added; §II placeholder caveat removed; STATE.md refresh)
2. `b884d39` — round-2 fixes (Opus M1: §IV K=3 mechanism-label reversion; M2: Table XV-B → XIX + cascade XIX → XX … XXV → XXVI; M3: "98-100%" within-firm semantic conflation; M4: duplicate §V-G heading; Gemini Table XV sample-size footnote)
3. `4a6f9c5` — round-3 fixes (codex round-8 splice blockers: abstract trim 261 → 247 words; §IV-J Table XV footnote §IV-M.5 reclassification; §IV-I "§IV-M Table XVI" → "§IV-M Tables XXI-XXVI"; binary-collapse terminology cleanup)
4. `d3ddf74` — round-4 fixes (Opus round-2 N1: Firm C 19,501 vs 19,122 denominator footnote; N2: composition-decomposition added as Table XXVII row 1; N3: Table XXVII numbered; N4: cross-firm hit matrix assumption disclosure)
5. `128a914` — round-5 provenance patches (codex round-9 factual corrections: N1 "majority firm" → "1:1 tie-break to first-sorted firm" via Script 45 `np.argmax`; N2 row narrowed to Big-4-only evidence; non-Big-4 jittered-dHash range $[0.71, 1.00]$ → codex-verified $[0.38, 1.00]$ with read-only-spike provenance)

**Reviewer artifacts archived** (paper/):
- `codex_review_gpt55_v4_round{7,8,9}.md`
- `gemini_review_v4_round{1,2}.md`
- `opus_review_v4_round{1,2}.md`

## Phase 5 substantive findings catalogue

**v4 methodological pivot** (unchanged through all reviewer rounds):
- Distributional path to thresholds (K=3 / dip / antimode) abandoned; anchor-based ICCR calibration at 3 units adopted
- "FAR" → "ICCR" throughout; inter-CPA-as-negative assumption disclosed as partially violated by within-firm template sharing
- K=3 demoted to descriptive firm-compositional partition (§III-J line 90 retires "hand-leaning / mixed / replicated" mechanism labels)
- Positioning: anchor-calibrated specificity-only screening framework with human-in-the-loop review; NOT a validated forensic detector

**Empirical anchors** (all provenance-verified across reviewer panel):
- Three feature-derived scores converge Spearman $\rho \geq 0.879$ (internal consistency; not external validation)
- Anchor-based ICCRs: per-comparison $0.0006/0.0013/0.00014$; per-signature $0.11$; per-document $0.34$
- Firm heterogeneity decisive: Firm A per-doc HC+MC alarm $0.62$ vs Firms B/C/D $0.09$–$0.16$; logistic OR $0.05/0.01/0.03$ relative to Firm A reference
- Within-firm collision concentration under deployed any-pair rule: Firm A $98.8\%$ vs Firms B/C/D $76.7$–$83.7\%$; same-pair joint event saturates at $97.0$–$99.96\%$ within-firm at all four firms

## Phase 6 — Partner Jimmy v4.0 review (READY TO BEGIN)

**Pre-Phase-6 partner alignment** (2026-05-13 still open): partner asked whether firm heterogeneity could be framed as "statistically insignificant." **Decision: no** — heterogeneity is highly significant (40–62σ in logistic regression; all three AI reviewers independently confirmed the decisive framing). Confirm framing with partner before exporting DOCX.

**Phase 6 tasks**:
1. Confirm "statistically insignificant" framing rejection with partner
2. Manuscript-splice assembly:
   - Splice §III-G–§III-M (paper_a_methodology_v4_section_iii.md) onto v3.20.0 §III-A–§III-F into master `paper/paper_a_methodology_v3.md` body
   - Splice §IV v3.3 (paper_a_results_v4_section_iv.md) into master `paper/paper_a_results_v3.md`
   - Splice Phase 4 prose (Abstract / §I / §II / §V / §VI) into the master manuscript file
   - **Strip internal-only blocks** during splice: Phase 4 line 3 draft note + lines 153-162 close-out checklist; §III line 3 + lines 434-447 cross-reference checklist + open-questions block; §IV line 3 + close-out checklist at line 365+
   - Re-verify table numbering after splice (Table XXVII currently lives in §III between §IV-M.6's Table XXVI; confirm order in final master file)
3. Export v4.0 DOCX via `paper/export_v3.py` (with author block fill)
4. Ship to ~/Downloads
5. Iterate on Jimmy's review comments
6. Capture review artifact in `paper/partner_jimmy_v4_review.md`

## Phase 7 — IEEE Access submission (pending Phase 6)

1. iThenticate similarity check (target < 20%)
2. IEEE eCF form
3. Upload manuscript + cover letter via IEEE Access submission portal
4. Capture confirmation number

## Blockers

None. Phase 5 closed; Phase 6 ready to begin pending partner-framing confirmation.

## Things to remember (per memory)

- Inter-CPA "FAR" is NOT true FAR; it's a coincidence rate (ICCR) under an assumption violated by within-firm template sharing — never write "FAR" or "specificity" without the disclaimer ([[feedback-inter-cpa-negative-anchor-assumption]])
- Dip test on Big-4 dh is composition + integer artefact, not mechanism — §III-I.1 "dip justifies finite mixture" framing must NOT be used; K=3 is descriptive of firm composition ([[feedback-dip-test-composition-artifact]])
- Provenance-verify all empirical claims against fresh sqlite/grep ([[feedback-provenance-fabrication]]) — codex round-9's DB-verification caught a "majority firm" inference in round-4 that turned out to be 1:1 ties resolved by `np.argmax` tie-break; round-5 corrected it
- AI peer reviewers have accepted fabricated claims in the past; verify numbers against scripts, not against reviewer agreement ([[feedback-ai-review-provenance]]) — codex round-9's read-only rerun of the non-Big-4 jittered procedure exposed an unreproducible $[0.71, 1.00]$ range that round-5 corrected to $[0.38, 1.00]$
- Paper C standalone is shelved — folded into v4.0 §IV-K (Light full-dataset robustness)
