# Paper A Phase 5 Round 2 — Gemini 3.1 Pro independent review

Reviewer: Gemini 3.1 Pro
Date: 2026-05-14
Target: paper/v4/paper_a_prose_v4_phase4.md + paper/v4/paper_a_methodology_v4_section_iii.md + paper/v4/paper_a_results_v4_section_iv.md (post round-2 + round-3, commit 4a6f9c5)
Prior reviewer artifacts: paper/codex_review_gpt55_v4_round7.md; paper/codex_review_gpt55_v4_round8.md; paper/gemini_review_v4_round1.md; paper/opus_review_v4_round1.md

## Verdict
Accept (Phase 5 Splice-Ready). The round-2 and round-3 changes have masterfully resolved the empirical and framing blockers surfaced by the multi-agent panel in round 1. No new empirical work is required. The manuscript is ready for Phase 5 master-file splice.

## Round-1 / round-2 panel closure cross-check

| Source | Finding | Current Status | Evidence / Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Opus M1 | §IV K=3 mechanism-label reversion | CLOSED | Tables VIII, IX, XVI, XVII, and XVIII in `paper_a_results_v4_section_iv.md` now correctly use "low-cos / high-dHash" and "less-replication-dominated rate". The "hand-leaning" mechanistic framing has been successfully eradicated. |
| Opus M3 | "98-100% within source firm" conflation | CLOSED | The Abstract in `paper_a_prose_v4_phase4.md` now accurately states "$77$–$99\%$ of inter-CPA collisions concentrate within the source firm" for the deployed any-pair rule, fixing the overclaim. |
| Opus M4 | Duplicate §V-G heading | CLOSED | `paper_a_prose_v4_phase4.md` correctly sequence the sections as "G. Pixel-Identity..." and "H. Limitations". |
| Codex r8 blocker | Abstract word count over 250 limit | CLOSED | The Abstract has been elegantly trimmed and now stands at approximately 235 words, well within the IEEE Access 250-word limit. |
| Codex r8 blocker | §IV-I stale "Table XVI" cross-reference | CLOSED | The reference in `paper_a_results_v4_section_iv.md` now accurately points to "§IV-M Tables XXI–XXVI" for the ICCR calibration. |
| Codex r8 blocker | §IV-J Table XV sample-size footnote | CLOSED | The footnote accurately reconciles the $150,442$ descriptor-complete versus $150,453$ vector-complete sub-samples in `paper_a_results_v4_section_iv.md`. |

## Net-new findings
1. **Abstract Trim:** The abstract trimming successfully reduced the word count without dropping any essential empirical substance. The retention of the $77$–$99\%$ any-pair collision stat over the $97$–$100\%$ same-pair stat is the right scientific choice, representing the actual deployed rule accurately.
2. **"Replication-dominated" terminology:** The pivot to "less-replication-dominated" reads cleanly throughout §IV and maintains perfect consistency with the §III-J descriptive demotion.
3. **Internal-note items:** The draft notes, close-out checklists, and the "Open questions remaining" in the files are tagged explicitly as `internal — remove before submission`. They are perfectly acceptable to defer to manuscript-splice time and are not empirical or structural blockers.

## Provenance spot-checks
I selected numerical claims not previously verified by Codex or Opus in their reviews:
1. **Bootstrap CI half-width for marginal crossings:** Table VII in §IV-E reports a K=2 cosine crossing 95% CI of $[0.9742, 0.9772]$ and states a CI half-width of $0.0015$. $(0.9772 - 0.9742) / 2 = 0.0015$. The dHash CI of $[3.476, 3.969]$ yields a half-width of $(3.969 - 3.476) / 2 = 0.2465$, matching the reported $0.246$. VERIFIED.
2. **Nine-tool validation table structure:** §III-M describes a "nine-tool unsupervised-validation collection." I verified the §III-M table counts exactly 9 diagnostics (from Per-comparison ICCR down to LOOO firm-level reproducibility) mapped to their untested assumptions. VERIFIED.
3. **Table XVI K=3 Firm A Component Weights:** Table XVI in §IV-J reports Firm A has $0.00\%$ in C1 and $82.46\%$ in C3. This perfectly matches the prose claims in §V-C regarding Firm A's concentration in the templated end. VERIFIED.

## Firm-heterogeneity framing audit
The partner's suggestion to frame the firm heterogeneity as "statistically insignificant" remains correctly and decisively rejected in these post-round-3 drafts. The prose in §III-L.4 and the Abstract explicitly leverages the logistic regression odds ratios ($0.053, 0.010, 0.027$) to establish that Firms B/C/D have an order-of-magnitude lower HC alarm rate even after pool-size adjustment. Furthermore, the corrected any-pair $77$–$99\%$ / same-pair $97$–$100\%$ within-firm collision concentration explicitly *strengthens* the heterogeneity argument by showing that even false alarms cluster structurally within source firms. The framing is robust, decisive, and scientifically accurate.

## Phase 5 readiness
**Ready for Phase 5 Splice (Accept).** There are no remaining empirical, structural, or framing blockers.

## Recommended next-step actions
1. Execute the final master-file manuscript splice.
2. During the splice, mechanically strip all markdown blocks tagged `> **Draft note... internal — remove before submission**`, as well as the close-out checklists and the open questions block at the end of §III.
3. Finalize the `Table XV-B` versus `Table XIX` numbering decision based on the specific journal template requirements during typesetting.