# Reference Verification — Paper A v3 (41 refs)

Date: 2026-04-27 (initial audit); v3.18 reference list updated to incorporate every fix recorded below.

Method: WebSearch + WebFetch verification of each citation against authoritative sources (publisher pages, DOIs, arXiv, IEEE Xplore, Project Euclid, etc.).

## Summary (audit history)
- Verified correct on first audit: 35/41
- Minor discrepancies (typos, page numbers, year on early-access vs. issue): 5/41 — all fixed in v3.18
- MAJOR PROBLEMS (wrong author): 1/41 — `[5]` Hadjadj et al. → Kao and Wen, fixed in v3.18

The current `paper_a_references_v3.md` reflects every correction listed below. The detailed findings are retained as an audit trail; the live reference list no longer carries any of the recorded errors.

The single major problem at the time of the audit was **[5]**, where the paper at the cited venue/article number is real, but the cited authors ("Hadjadj et al.") were wrong — the actual authors are Kao and Wen. None of the statistical-method refs [37]–[41] flagged by the partner are fabricated; all five are bibliographically correct.

## Detailed findings

### [1] Taiwan CPA Act + FSC Attestation Regulations
**Status:** ✅ VERIFIED
**Notes:** The URL https://law.moj.gov.tw/ENG/LawClass/LawAll.aspx?pcode=G0400067 resolves to the official Republic of China (Taiwan) "Certified Public Accountant Act" page (Laws & Regulations Database, Financial Supervisory Commission).
**Evidence:** WebFetch returned the CPA Act page with 8 chapters; latest amendment 2018-01-31. Article 4 and the FSC Attestation Regulations (查核簽證核准準則) are part of the official regulatory framework.

### [2] S.-H. Yen, Y.-S. Chang, H.-L. Chen, "Does the signature of a CPA matter? Evidence from Taiwan," Res. Account. Regul., 25(2), 230–235, 2013.
**Status:** ✅ VERIFIED
**Evidence:** ScienceDirect listing (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1052045713000234) confirms authors Sin-Hui Yen, Yu-Shan Chang, Hui-Ling Chen; Research in Accounting Regulation 25(2):230–235, 2013.

### [3] J. Bromley et al., "Signature verification using a Siamese time delay neural network," Proc. NeurIPS, 1993.
**Status:** ✅ VERIFIED
**Notes:** Authors are Bromley, Bentz, Bottou, Guyon, LeCun, Moore, Säckinger, Shah; pages 737–744 of NIPS 6 (1993). Citation as "Bromley et al." in NeurIPS 1993 is correct.
**Evidence:** https://proceedings.neurips.cc/paper/1993/hash/288cc0ff022877bd3df94bc9360b9c5d-Abstract.html

### [4] S. Dey et al., "SigNet: Convolutional Siamese network for writer independent offline signature verification," arXiv:1707.02131, 2017.
**Status:** ✅ VERIFIED
**Evidence:** arXiv 1707.02131 resolves to exactly this title; authors Sounak Dey, Anjan Dutta, J.I. Toledo, Suman K. Ghosh, Josep Llados, Umapada Pal; submitted July 2017.

### [5] I. Hadjadj et al., "An offline signature verification method based on a single known sample and an explainable deep learning approach," Appl. Sci., 10(11), 3716, 2020.
**Status:** ❌ MAJOR PROBLEM (wrong authors)
**Notes:** The paper at Applied Sciences vol. 10, issue 11, article 3716 (DOI 10.3390/app10113716) is real, but the actual authors are **Hsin-Hsiung Kao and Che-Yen Wen**, NOT "Hadjadj et al." The full title in the journal is also "An Offline Signature Verification **and Forgery Detection** Method Based on a Single Known Sample and an Explainable Deep Learning Approach" — the v3 reference omits "and Forgery Detection."
**Evidence:** MDPI listing (https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/10/11/3716) and Semantic Scholar both list authors as Kao and Wen, published 27 May 2020. There is a separate researcher I. Hadjadj who works on signature verification with co-authors Gattal/Djeddi/Ayad/Siddiqi/Abass on textural-descriptor methods, but that work is published elsewhere — not in Appl. Sci. 10(11):3716.
**Recommendation:** Replace authors with "H.-H. Kao and C.-Y. Wen" and use correct title.

### [6] H. Li et al., "TransOSV: Offline signature verification with transformers," Pattern Recognit., 145, 109882, 2024.
**Status:** ✅ VERIFIED
**Notes:** Authors Huan Li, Ping Wei, Zeyu Ma, Changkai Li, Nanning Zheng. PR vol. 145, art. 109882, January 2024.
**Evidence:** ScienceDirect S0031320323005800.

### [7] S. Tehsin et al., "Enhancing signature verification using triplet Siamese similarity networks in digital documents," Mathematics, 12(17), 2757, 2024.
**Status:** ✅ VERIFIED
**Notes:** Authors Sara Tehsin, Ali Hassan, Farhan Riaz, Inzamam Mashood Nasir, Norma Latif Fitriyani, Muhammad Syafrudin. DOI 10.3390/math12172757.
**Evidence:** https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/12/17/2757

### [8] P. Brimoh and C. C. Olisah, "Consensus-threshold criterion for offline signature verification using CNN learned representations," arXiv:2401.03085, 2024.
**Status:** ✅ VERIFIED
**Notes:** Full title is "...using **Convolutional Neural Network** Learned Representations" (the v3 ref says "CNN" — acceptable abbreviation).
**Evidence:** https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.03085 — authors Paul Brimoh and Chollette C. Olisah.

### [9] N. Woodruff et al., "Fully-automatic pipeline for document signature analysis to detect money laundering activities," arXiv:2107.14091, 2021.
**Status:** ✅ VERIFIED
**Evidence:** arXiv 2107.14091 — authors Nikhil Woodruff, Amir Enshaei, Bashar Awwad Shiekh Hasan; submitted 29 July 2021.

### [10] S. Abramova and R. Böhme, "Detecting copy-move forgeries in scanned text documents," Proc. Electronic Imaging, 2016.
**Status:** ✅ VERIFIED
**Notes:** Published in IS&T Electronic Imaging: Media Watermarking, Security, and Forensics 2016, pp. 1–10 (article 4 in session 8). Authors Svetlana Abramova and Rainer Böhme.
**Evidence:** https://library.imaging.org/ei/articles/28/8/art00004 ; Semantic Scholar entry confirms title and authors.

### [11] Y. Li et al., "Copy-move forgery detection in digital image forensics: A survey," Multimedia Tools Appl., 2024.
**Status:** ✅ VERIFIED
**Notes:** Published in Multimedia Tools and Applications, 2024, DOI 10.1007/s11042-024-18399-2.
**Evidence:** https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11042-024-18399-2

### [12] Y. Jakhar and M. D. Borah, "Effective near-duplicate image detection using perceptual hashing and deep learning," Inf. Process. Manage., 104086, 2025.
**Status:** ✅ VERIFIED
**Notes:** Authors Yash Jakhar and Malaya Dutta Borah; Information Processing & Management 62(4):104086, July 2025; DOI 10.1016/j.ipm.2025.104086.
**Evidence:** https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306457325000287

### [13] E. Pizzi et al., "A self-supervised descriptor for image copy detection," Proc. CVPR, 2022.
**Status:** ✅ VERIFIED
**Notes:** Authors Ed Pizzi, Sreya Dutta Roy, Sugosh Nagavara Ravindra, Priya Goyal, Matthijs Douze; CVPR 2022.
**Evidence:** https://openaccess.thecvf.com/content/CVPR2022/html/Pizzi_A_Self-Supervised_Descriptor_for_Image_Copy_Detection_CVPR_2022_paper.html ; arXiv 2202.10261.

### [14] L. G. Hafemann, R. Sabourin, L. S. Oliveira, "Learning features for offline handwritten signature verification using deep convolutional neural networks," Pattern Recognit., 70, 163–176, 2017.
**Status:** ✅ VERIFIED
**Evidence:** ScienceDirect S0031320317302017; PR 70:163–176, 2017; arXiv 1705.05787.

### [15] E. N. Zois, D. Tsourounis, D. Kalivas, "Similarity distance learning on SPD manifold for writer independent offline signature verification," IEEE Trans. Inf. Forensics Security, 19, 1342–1356, 2024.
**Status:** ✅ VERIFIED
**Evidence:** IEEE Xplore document 10319735; TIFS vol. 19, pp. 1342–1356, 2024.

### [16] L. G. Hafemann, R. Sabourin, L. S. Oliveira, "Meta-learning for fast classifier adaptation to new users of signature verification systems," IEEE Trans. Inf. Forensics Security, 15, 1735–1745, 2019.
**Status:** ⚠️ MINOR
**Notes:** Volume and pages (15, 1735–1745) are correct. Year is technically 2020 for the journal issue (DOI 10.1109/TIFS.2019.2949425; early-access October 2019, issue volume 15 published 2020). The "2019" in the v3 reference reflects the online/early-access date but is inconsistent with TIFS's volume-15 2020 issue convention.
**Evidence:** arXiv 1910.08060; ÉTS espace listing confirms TIFS 15:1735–1745, 2020.
**Recommendation:** Change year to 2020 for IEEE Access editorial consistency, or accept as-is (both forms appear in the literature).

### [17] H. Farid, "Image forgery detection," IEEE Signal Process. Mag., 26(2), 16–25, 2009.
**Status:** ✅ VERIFIED
**Notes:** The paper's actual title (in some indexes) is given as "A Survey of Image Forgery Detection," but the IEEE Xplore canonical title is "Image Forgery Detection." Vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 16–25, March 2009.
**Evidence:** https://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~dyer/cs534/papers/farid-sigproc09.pdf (PDF header confirms IEEE SPM, March 2009, p. 16).

### [18] F. Z. Mehrjardi, A. M. Latif, M. S. Zarchi, R. Sheikhpour, "A survey on deep learning-based image forgery detection," Pattern Recognit., 144, 109778, 2023.
**Status:** ✅ VERIFIED
**Evidence:** ScienceDirect S0031320323004764; PR vol. 144 art. 109778, December 2023.

### [19] J. Luo et al., "A survey of perceptual hashing for multimedia," ACM Trans. Multimedia Comput. Commun. Appl., 21(7), 2025.
**Status:** ✅ VERIFIED
**Notes:** Published April 2025, DOI 10.1145/3727880.
**Evidence:** https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3727880

### [20] D. Engin et al., "Offline signature verification on real-world documents," Proc. CVPRW, 2020.
**Status:** ✅ VERIFIED
**Notes:** Authors Deniz Engin, Alperen Kantarci, Secil Arslan, Hazim Kemel Ekenel; CVPR 2020 Biometrics Workshop.
**Evidence:** https://openaccess.thecvf.com/content_CVPRW_2020/html/w48/Engin_Offline_Signature_Verification_on_Real-World_Documents_CVPRW_2020_paper.html

### [21] D. Tsourounis et al., "From text to signatures: Knowledge transfer for efficient deep feature learning in offline signature verification," Expert Syst. Appl., 2022.
**Status:** ⚠️ MINOR
**Notes:** Citation lacks volume/article number. Full record: Expert Systems with Applications, vol. 189, art. 116136, 2022. Authors Tsourounis, Theodorakopoulos, Zois, Economou.
**Evidence:** ScienceDirect S0957417421014652.
**Recommendation:** Add ", vol. 189, art. 116136" for IEEE-style completeness.

### [22] B. Chamakh and O. Bounouh, "A unified ResNet18-based approach for offline signature classification and verification," Procedia Comput. Sci., 270, 2025.
**Status:** ⚠️ MINOR
**Notes:** Full title in publisher record is "A Unified ResNet18-Based Approach for Offline Signature Classification and Verification **Across Multilingual Datasets**." Procedia CS vol. 270, pp. 4024–4033, 2025 (KES 2025).
**Evidence:** ScienceDirect S1877050925032004.
**Recommendation:** Either keep short title or add "Across Multilingual Datasets" for accuracy; add page range.

### [23] A. Babenko, A. Slesarev, A. Chigorin, V. Lempitsky, "Neural codes for image retrieval," Proc. ECCV, 2014, pp. 584–599.
**Status:** ✅ VERIFIED
**Evidence:** Springer LNCS 8689, ECCV 2014 Part I, pp. 584–599; arXiv 1404.1777.

### [24] S. Bai et al., "Qwen2.5-VL technical report," arXiv:2502.13923, 2025.
**Status:** ✅ VERIFIED
**Evidence:** arXiv 2502.13923; lead author Shuai Bai, Qwen Team Alibaba; submitted 19 Feb 2025. URL https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.13923 resolves correctly.

### [25] Ultralytics, "YOLOv11 documentation," 2024.
**Status:** ⚠️ MINOR
**Notes:** Ultralytics names the model **"YOLO11"** (no "v"), released 10 Sept 2024. The cited URL https://docs.ultralytics.com/ is the docs root and resolves; the model-specific page is https://docs.ultralytics.com/models/yolo11/.
**Recommendation:** Rename to "YOLO11" to match official Ultralytics terminology, or note that "YOLOv11" is informal.

### [26] K. He, X. Zhang, S. Ren, J. Sun, "Deep residual learning for image recognition," Proc. CVPR, 2016.
**Status:** ✅ VERIFIED
**Evidence:** CVF Open Access; CVPR 2016 pp. 770–778.

### [27] N. Krawetz, "Kind of like that," The Hacker Factor Blog, 2013.
**Status:** ⚠️ MINOR
**Notes:** Blog post is real (the canonical dHash explanation). The cited URL https://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/529-Kind-of-Like-That.html is the historical permalink; the active URL form returned by Google is https://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/?/archives/529-Kind-of-Like-That.html. Both 403'd in our WebFetch test (likely User-Agent block on the blog), but the post is widely cited and references confirm it exists. Year is 2013 per blog archive.
**Recommendation:** Verify the URL still resolves in a browser; both index.php and bare forms are accepted by the blog historically.

### [28] B. W. Silverman, Density Estimation for Statistics and Data Analysis. London: Chapman & Hall, 1986.
**Status:** ✅ VERIFIED
**Evidence:** Routledge/Taylor&Francis catalog; ISBN 0412246201; Chapman & Hall, London, 1986.

### [29] J. Cohen, Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences, 2nd ed. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1988.
**Status:** ✅ VERIFIED
**Evidence:** Routledge listing ISBN 9780805802832; Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2nd ed., 1988.

### [30] Z. Wang, A. C. Bovik, H. R. Sheikh, E. P. Simoncelli, "Image quality assessment: From error visibility to structural similarity," IEEE Trans. Image Process., 13(4), 600–612, 2004.
**Status:** ✅ VERIFIED
**Evidence:** IEEE Xplore document 1284395; vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 600–612, April 2004.

### [31] J. V. Carcello and C. Li, "Costs and benefits of requiring an engagement partner signature: Recent experience in the United Kingdom," The Accounting Review, 88(5), 1511–1546, 2013.
**Status:** ✅ VERIFIED
**Evidence:** SSRN abstract 2225427; The Accounting Review 88(5):1511–1546, September 2013.

### [32] A. D. Blay, M. Notbohm, C. Schelleman, A. Valencia, "Audit quality effects of an individual audit engagement partner signature mandate," Int. J. Auditing, 18(3), 172–192, 2014.
**Status:** ✅ VERIFIED
**Evidence:** Wiley DOI 10.1111/ijau.12022; IJA 18(3):172–192, 2014.

### [33] W. Chi, H. Huang, Y. Liao, H. Xie, "Mandatory audit partner rotation, audit quality, and market perception: Evidence from Taiwan," Contemp. Account. Res., 26(2), 359–391, 2009.
**Status:** ✅ VERIFIED
**Evidence:** Wiley DOI 10.1506/car.26.2.2; CAR 26(2):359–391, 2009.

### [34] J. Redmon, S. Divvala, R. Girshick, A. Farhadi, "You only look once: Unified, real-time object detection," Proc. CVPR, 2016, pp. 779–788.
**Status:** ✅ VERIFIED
**Evidence:** CVF Open Access; CVPR 2016 pp. 779–788.

### [35] J. Zhang, J. Huang, S. Jin, S. Lu, "Vision-language models for vision tasks: A survey," IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell., 46(8), 5625–5644, 2024.
**Status:** ✅ VERIFIED
**Evidence:** IEEE Xplore document 10445007; DOI 10.1109/TPAMI.2024.3369699; TPAMI 46(8):5625–5644, August 2024.

### [36] H. B. Mann and D. R. Whitney, "On a test of whether one of two random variables is stochastically larger than the other," Ann. Math. Statist., 18(1), 50–60, 1947.
**Status:** ✅ VERIFIED
**Evidence:** Project Euclid DOI 10.1214/aoms/1177730491; AMS 18(1):50–60, March 1947.

### [37] J. A. Hartigan and P. M. Hartigan, "The dip test of unimodality," Ann. Statist., 13(1), 70–84, 1985.
**Status:** ✅ VERIFIED
**Notes:** **Partner-flagged ref — confirmed real and bibliographically correct.** Annals of Statistics 13(1):70–84, March 1985.
**Evidence:** Project Euclid https://projecteuclid.org/journals/annals-of-statistics/volume-13/issue-1/The-Dip-Test-of-Unimodality/10.1214/aos/1176346577.full

### [38] D. Burgstahler and I. Dichev, "Earnings management to avoid earnings decreases and losses," J. Account. Econ., 24(1), 99–126, 1997.
**Status:** ✅ VERIFIED
**Notes:** **Partner-flagged ref — confirmed real and bibliographically correct.** Seminal earnings-management paper.
**Evidence:** ScienceDirect S0165410197000177; JAE 24(1):99–126, December 1997.

### [39] J. McCrary, "Manipulation of the running variable in the regression discontinuity design: A density test," J. Econometrics, 142(2), 698–714, 2008.
**Status:** ✅ VERIFIED
**Notes:** **Partner-flagged ref — confirmed real and bibliographically correct.** Foundational RDD density-manipulation test (>1750 citations).
**Evidence:** ScienceDirect S0304407607001133; JoE 142(2):698–714, February 2008.

### [40] A. P. Dempster, N. M. Laird, D. B. Rubin, "Maximum likelihood from incomplete data via the EM algorithm," J. R. Statist. Soc. B, 39(1), 1–38, 1977.
**Status:** ✅ VERIFIED
**Notes:** **Partner-flagged ref — confirmed real and bibliographically correct.** Canonical EM algorithm paper, presented to RSS Research Section 8 Dec 1976.
**Evidence:** Wiley DOI 10.1111/j.2517-6161.1977.tb01600.x; JRSS B 39(1):1–38, 1977.

### [41] H. White, "Maximum likelihood estimation of misspecified models," Econometrica, 50(1), 1–25, 1982.
**Status:** ⚠️ MINOR
**Notes:** **Partner-flagged ref — confirmed real, but page numbers slightly off.** Some sources list pp. 1–25, others pp. 1–26. The Econometric Society's official record (and JSTOR 1912526) lists pages 1–25; Emerald and a few other indices list 1–26 (likely including a typo-correction footnote). The v3 reference's "1–25" matches the Econometric Society canonical listing.
**Evidence:** https://www.econometricsociety.org/publications/econometrica/1982/01/01/maximum-likelihood-estimation-misspecified-models ; JSTOR 1912526. Authors and venue exact.
**Recommendation:** No fix needed; "1–25" is the canonical page range.

## Recommendations

**Critical fixes (must fix before submission):**

1. **[5]** Replace authors and title:
   - Current: `I. Hadjadj et al., "An offline signature verification method based on a single known sample and an explainable deep learning approach," Appl. Sci., vol. 10, no. 11, p. 3716, 2020.`
   - Corrected: `H.-H. Kao and C.-Y. Wen, "An offline signature verification and forgery detection method based on a single known sample and an explainable deep learning approach," Appl. Sci., vol. 10, no. 11, p. 3716, 2020.`

**Recommended polish (style/completeness):**

2. **[16]** Year is 2020 in TIFS volume 15; consider changing 2019 → 2020 (or leave as 2019 if matching the early-access date is preferred — both are defensible).
3. **[21]** Add volume and article number: `Expert Syst. Appl., vol. 189, art. 116136, 2022.`
4. **[22]** Add page range: `Procedia Comput. Sci., vol. 270, pp. 4024–4033, 2025.` Optionally restore full subtitle "Across Multilingual Datasets."
5. **[25]** Use Ultralytics' official name "YOLO11" (no "v") if matching their branding; current "YOLOv11" is widely used colloquially but not the canonical name.
6. **[27]** Verify URL renders in a browser; both `blog/index.php?/archives/...` and `blog/?/archives/...` forms have historically resolved on hackerfactor.com.

**No fix needed:** All five partner-flagged statistical-method references [37]–[41] are real, correctly attributed, and bibliographically accurate. The partner's suspicion that they might be AI hallucinations is unfounded — Hartigan & Hartigan (1985), Burgstahler & Dichev (1997), McCrary (2008), Dempster-Laird-Rubin (1977), and White (1982) are all foundational, heavily-cited works in their respective fields.
