Week 20 — paper 2 gate and halfway review

This week delivers the three concrete artifacts below and the supporting learning/branding/opportunity pack. The scientific or commercial outcome follows the preserved source brief, while the acceptance checks make its evidence testable. The career objective is to turn this work into something a scientist, hiring manager or buyer can inspect.

• Scientific/build priority: Prepare/submit the finalized Paper 2 package through the verified venue route and record endorsement, receipt and public ID independently.
• Public/profile priority: Prepare public halfway retro, refreshed recruiter introduction and two recorded 10-minute science/ML explanations.
• Career/relationship/commercial priority: Follow up on five applications, log stage and feedback, and set the next contact dates; prepare three partner conversations.

Read v6 · Week 20 · GATE 20: Paper 2 on arXiv, endorsed (L4-endorsed) before Monday. It carries this week's v5 brief unchanged and adds the Welcome analogy, Learn it (▶ core and ＋ deeper sources), Run it (repos with a 20-40 minute exercise), the NotebookLM kit and the mentor check below. Standing v6 rules: resource rules, NotebookLM protocol, chapter anatomy. v6 adds depth only; it does not change a goal, gate, output or the 600-minute cap, so this specification still governs execution.

Act IV (finale) · Threads: B, M, BL, R · GATE 20

Where this week sits. - ← From: all of Half 1. - → Feeds: all of Half 2: Paper 2 is your calling card for the partner (wk 21), the Loop Audit offer (wk 27), established companies (Part 9.4), and the journal submission (wk 36); the talk proposal becomes week 38. - ⟳ Returns in: week 40's final retro compares against this one.

Goals. - 🎯 This week: arXiv submission (endorsed) or bioRxiv with dated endorsement conversation; talk proposal sent; public retro; Half 2 lines in PROGRESS.md. - 🏁 This gate (20): L4 endorsed. - 🌟 Final: the second half starts with two preprints, three instruments in motion and a network.

Mentor check. "I am an author of two preprints, one endorsed. I can present both without notes to a biologist and to an ML scientist."

• Week 19: inspect its actual evidence and review; source/code artifacts must exist before the dependent task begins.
• Read commitment, evidence, review and the current root TODAY/PROGRESS/QUESTIONS files.
• Read this week's chapter, v6 · Week 20 · GATE 20: Paper 2 on arXiv, endorsed (L4-endorsed), then the standing sections: Part 0 · how to use the document, Part 3 · the scientific thesis, Part 4 · curriculum, Part 8 · the prompt pack and Part 9 · branding and endorsement. The same sections exist in the v5 master, which remains the governing sequence; v6 reproduces them and adds depth. Retained commercial/instrument details come from v4.
• Inspect the actual canonical repository state, available data, existing figures and required human/external inputs. Never assume a previous week succeeded from its folder name.
• Verify current resource links, versions, dataset rights and any live company/venue information before relying on them. Use source catalog; explicitly record inaccessible resources.

The model must turn these into exact physical actions using the observed files and available inputs. Each 90-minute block includes start/stop rituals. All calls, posts, debugging, reading and exercises consume this same capacity.

The source lists more material than necessarily fits. Select exact excerpts for the learning objective and park the remainder; no full-course completion requirement.

Biology/domain unit

Source unit: B20 · Review and mock lab meeting

Material: Re-read all notes; Prompt P3 with "lab meeting" persona

Produce: A 10-minute self-recorded explanation of Paper 1 for biologists

Understanding check: You can present without notes

During preparation, write one worked example connected to the week's actual task, one exercise with a separate answer key and five questions. Peter supplies answers; score explanation quality and flag misconceptions in QUESTIONS. Numeric/scientific conclusions require actual data or explicitly synthetic teaching values.

AI/scientific-method unit

Source unit: M20 · Review and mock interview

Material: Prompt P3, "staff ML scientist at a bioprocess company" persona

Produce: Recorded 10-minute explanation of Paper 2

Understanding check: You can present without notes

Use the prompt pack: P1 explanation ladder, P2 concept-to-project bridge and P3 quiz. Coding practice belongs within the allocated study/build block. Where the source asks for a favorable scientific result, substitute an honest measured comparison as explained below.

Founder/scientist paper

Select one verified founder/scientific-lead paper relevant to this week's domain. Use P11; save the question, method, numerical result with context, data workflow, three author questions and one connection sentence in founder-paper.md. Keep abstract-only access limitations explicit. On source weeks with no study, prioritize the commercial/submission task and log any skipped digest.

These filenames are outputs to prepare during this week's execution; this scaffold does not claim they already exist. Drafts and measured results have different states. Technical code/data stay in the canonical project repository and are referenced from these coordinating files.

During preparation, future measured tables get column definitions, input requirements and run instructions with PENDING status. During execution, replace pending values only with measured outputs. Do not create realistic-looking fake evidence.

Branding: Prepare public halfway retro, refreshed recruiter introduction and two recorded 10-minute science/ML explanations.

Opportunity action: Follow up on five applications, log stage and feedback, and set the next contact dates; prepare three partner conversations.

Use career asset contracts. Publish at most the agreed cadence; one figure and one supported number or admitted failure can support multiple drafts. In long-form weeks, prepare a 1,500–2,500-word article from existing evidence within the build/buffer allocation. In release/demo weeks, prepare a 60-second script: problem, input, command/action, result, limitation and proof link.

Verify individuals, jobs and affiliations at execution time. The GridX list and v4 company map are research seeds, not current facts. Do not reveal named company weaknesses or employer/client confidential information. Keep drafted/sent/replied/booked/held statuses separate. The planning request alone does not authorize external messages or publication; honor explicit authorization in the execution session.

A preprint, an endorsement and peer review are different states. One instrument plus FermLit is the actual Half 1 sequence; trialkit and labdocs remain scheduled for Half 2.

Apply the root scientific evidence contract: provenance; meaningful independent splits; no future-data leakage; baseline comparison; actual denominators/uncertainty; failed cases; human review where required. State whether data are simulated, public experimental, synthetic or partner-provided.

Keep source gates intact, and log scope/time conflicts in review. Missing people, money, access or results must not be replaced with invented evidence. Reduce optional polish first. A specific essential external dependency stays pending while independent preparation continues.

This is Gate 20: Paper 2.

Required proof: Public arXiv ID with endorsement, or scope-eligible bioRxiv public ID and a dated endorsement conversation per v5 fallback.

Reputation interpretation: L4-endorsed only if endorsement exists. Record target, forecast, actual date and evidence link. The original gate stays incomplete until the required external proof exists.

• Monday artifact satisfies: Public ID satisfies the public-preprint gate; endorsement level requires actual endorsement.
• Wednesday artifact satisfies: A specific venue/date or search criteria and a ready proposal exist.
• Friday artifact satisfies: Every gate has proof or an explicit shortfall; next actions and current roles are documented.
• Study pack is prepared; Peter's actual learning/quiz result is recorded separately.
• Branding and opportunity drafts use supported claims and the correct external-action state.
• Reproduction or document checks are recorded with file/version references.
• This week's special gate, if any, has real evidence or remains explicitly pending.
• Review, root progress/log and the next physical action are updated.

Source-preserving minimum: the submission.

Operational first step if stalled: open gate-20-publication.md, write the required inputs and produce the smallest checkable example in ten minutes. If a more urgent missing gate dependency controls the week, use the source minimum above.

If the full week does not fit, use P14: retain one gate-critical deliverable and one directly supporting study exercise; record what is skipped versus moved. Do not mark the original full gate passed merely because the minimum was completed. After a missed week, reforecast from actual evidence and avoid a second unexamined lost week.

In review, state exactly what exists, what was verified, what Peter can now explain, which external events remain pending, where the canonical code/data live, and the next file/function or draft paragraph to touch. Link each fact to evidence. Carry scientific assumptions, split definitions and rights constraints forward explicitly.

Prepare Week 20 of this LABLOOP execution plan.
Read execution-plan/specs.md, execution-plan/DECISIONS.md,
execution-plan/GATES.md and
execution-plan/weeks/week-20-paper-2-gate-and-halfway-review/specs.md, commitment.md, evidence.md and review.md.
Read prior prerequisite reviews and inspect actual repository/data state.
Use v5 as the governing sequence, the v6 Week 20 chapter
(LABLOOP-Master-Plan-v6.md) as the deeper walkthrough, and v4 only for
retained details.
Produce the full local preparation pack and the exact week-specific files named
in the artifact table. Give me a bounded lesson with exercises/answer key,
daily physical actions, technical runbook or draft, branding drafts and
career/commercial actions. Keep the total to 600 minutes.
Separate prepared artifacts from measured results and my learning completion.
Verify sources and do not invent metrics, citations, papers, people or outcomes.
Do not execute external communications, publication or spending unless the
current session already authorizes the specific action.
Finish by updating evidence/review and TODAY with the next physical action.

v6 reproduces this brief unchanged inside v6 · Week 20 · GATE 20: Paper 2 on arXiv, endorsed (L4-endorsed). The following is source planning text, not a claim of completion. Apply the explicit evidence corrections in this specification and DECISIONS.md.

Week 20 · GATE 20: Paper 2 on arXiv, endorsed (L4-endorsed)

• Goal: submitted, endorsed; talk proposed; Half 2 planned.
• Tue (B20): mock lab meeting (Prompt P3).
• Thu (M20): mock ML interview (Prompt P3).
• Build: [ ] Mon: arXiv submission (cs.LG, cross-list q-bio.QM) with endorsement; bioRxiv as well if the endorser is late. [ ] Wed: talk proposal to a biotech event in Buenos Aires or Rosario, or an online LATAM one: "Two thousand fermentation papers and a hundred open batches: what the data says". [ ] Fri: public retro (what the gauge says, what slipped); Half 2 PROGRESS.md lines written.
• Sun: L-Sun retro. X2. Gauge: L4 (endorsed).
• Gate 20 passes when: arXiv ID exists, or bioRxiv ID exists with an endorsement conversation dated.
• Only one thing: the submission.