Glossary

Definitions of terms used across the Institute's curation system, the journal Persistence, and the research frameworks that originated at ICSAC. Alphabetical.

Citation Verification

Pre-panel step that independently resolves every citation in a submission against scholarly databases (arXiv, Crossref, Semantic Scholar). References that cannot be located are flagged as potentially fabricated. References that resolve are checked for misattribution against the claim they are attached to. Citation verification runs before the AI panel evaluates the manuscript.

Curator

The human-in-loop role in ICSAC's curation system. The curator reads the full panel record alongside every submitted manuscript and either confirms or overrides the panel's recommendation. The curator's call is the verdict — nothing publishes until it lands.

Curator-mediated dispatch

The contract that every AI panel recommendation — clean, borderline, or against acceptance — is routed to the curator for review. There is no auto-publish path. The curator is the human-in-loop gate between the AI panel and any downstream action (author email, publication record, deposit).

Curator Verdict

The curation decision produced by the curator after reviewing the AI panel's recommendation alongside the manuscript. The verdict is what triggers downstream actions — author notification, publication of the curation record, and any deposit step. Distinct from the panel recommendation, which is advisory only.

DET — Dynamic Existence Threshold

Originating research framework from Thornhill (2026). Measures coordinated multi-channel state across substrates via three components: R (recursive information processing), S (system integration), and D (dissipation). DET is a coherence detector — it wins on state classification (EEG sleep state AUC ≥ 0.91) and loses on operational forecasting against specialist incumbents. The Institute's annual journal Persistence is named for the same underlying concept of pattern persistence under perturbation.

DOI route

Submission method for work already deposited on a preprint server (Zenodo, arXiv, OSF, SSRN, etc.) with a resolvable DOI. The author pastes the DOI; the curation system fetches the deposited version directly. The deposited version is what the panel reviews. No re-formatting, no re-export.

Curation record

The per-paper public artifact published at icsacinstitute.org/publications/<slug>. Contains the full panel reviews, the Review Quality Control audit, and the curator's reasoning for the verdict. The curation record is permanent and free to read, independent of any paywall.

Curation system

ICSAC's open-source review apparatus. AI panel, RQC audit, citation verification, and curator-mediated dispatch. The complete codebase — including the prompts, scoring code, and curation decision logic — is published openly at github.com/ICSAC/editorial-system (mirrored at huggingface.co/spaces/ICSAC-Institute/editorial-system) under an open license. Auditable, forkable, runnable on any corpus.

Five-reviewer panel

Five independent AI reviewer slots evaluate each submission against the published six-dimension rubric. The panel runs twice (two independent passes). Reviewers do not share scores during evaluation. The aggregate across passes produces the panel recommendation.

ICSAC

Institute for Complexity Science and Advanced Computing. Independent research institute, Indiana LLC, founded 2026. Operates a free, fully-public peer-review curation system across the material sciences (natural, formal, computational, quantitative) and publishes the annual journal Persistence. Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Mode-collapse detector

Operational framing for the D (dissipation) component of DET. D is computed as the Jensen-Shannon divergence in bits between a system's channel-power distribution and a uniform reference. A rising D quantifies departure from maximum entropy — the signal of a system's organizational structure beginning to collapse to fewer effective modes. On EEG, D rise tracks the aperiodic 1/f slope steepening that distinguishes sleep states.

Open record

ICSAC's per-paper public curation record stream — distinct from the annual print compilation Persistence. Every accepted paper has an open record published at a permanent URL on icsacinstitute.org/publications/<slug>; the curated annual is the printed product. The open record is free; the print volume is the paid artifact.

ORCID-gated submission

Every submission requires the submitting author to authenticate via ORCID OAuth at intake. Identity is verified at the moment of submission and stamped into the submission record. Mandatory; no exceptions. Prevents ghost authorship and fabricated author identities.

Panel Recommendation

The AI panel's score-driven output: recommend, revise and resubmit, or decline. The panel advises; it does not decide. Every recommendation, regardless of confidence, is routed to the curator for review.

Persistence (the journal)

ICSAC's annual peer-reviewed transdisciplinary journal — a trade paperback and ebook compiling the year's accepted papers. Vol 1, No 1 ships May 2027. Scope: material sciences. Authors retain copyright; the print/ebook is the journal's product; the curation record stays free online.

Persistence (the concept)

A system's capacity to maintain organizational coherence under perturbation. Originates in Thornhill's DET research; the Institute's journal Persistence is named for this underlying concept. The persistence floor is the threshold below which a system loses its coordinated structure — its dissolution, in DET terms.

Review Quality Control (RQC)

A second-pass audit of the AI panel's own review against ICSAC's published rubric. Checks the panel for rubric adherence, internal consistency, specificity, and tone before the recommendation is finalized. RQC findings are part of the public curation record published with every accepted paper.

Six-dimension rubric

The public, fixed scoring rubric every submission is evaluated against: Domain Fit, Methodological Transparency, Internal Consistency, Citation Integrity, Novelty Signal, and Generative-Artifact Assessment. Each dimension is scored independently on a 1–5 scale by each reviewer in the panel.

Scope (material sciences)

ICSAC accepts submissions across the natural, formal, computational, and quantitative-social sciences. Methodology-first work in any rigorous discipline within that scope is eligible. Humanities and qualitative-only submissions fall outside scope and are out of scope for Persistence.

Upload route

Submission method for unpublished work without a prior deposit. The author uploads a PDF with extractable text (≥ 2,000 characters via pdftotext, ≤ 50 MB). On accept and with the author's deposit consent, ICSAC mints a Zenodo DOI on the author's behalf and deposits to the ICSAC Zenodo community.