This white paper introduces the Forensic A-Index, a novel bibliometric framework designed to address the global crisis of metric inflation, citation cartels, and industrialized paper mills. Modern science is drowning in its own metrics. Traditional indicators like the h-index systematically reward output volume and superficial visibility, creating a structural vulnerability that adversarial actors exploit to artificially inflate their perceived scholarly impact. To address this crisis, the A-Index transitions academic evaluation from raw, vulnerable accumulation to verified, topology-aware impact. Grounded in three foundational pillars - Integrity over Infinity, Fractional Justice, and Verified Expertise - the framework evaluates a researcher's portfolio through an active verification engine. It applies an L1-normalized fractional authorship attribution (the 10:1 Symmetry Protocol) to strictly conserve academic credit, integrates semantic citation weighting to penalize incidental padding, and enforces a dynamic network density penalty (Ktopo) to neutralize hyper-collaboration. By algorithmically deflating manufactured noise and artificial academic capital, the A-Index fundamentally defends scientific meritocracy, ensuring that academic credit flows exclusively to authentic innovators who possess verifiable conceptual understanding. Note: This document represents Part 1 of the foundational ASAI architecture, focusing on the core algorithmic philosophy and practical application. For the rigorous game-theoretic proofs and stochastic diffusion models, please refer to Part 2: "The Science of Truth: A Rigorous Mathematical Framework for Integrity-Aware Scientific Metrics via the Forensic A-Index." *** To test the live algorithmic verification engine, visit appliedsciai.com.
E. Shalaan (Sun,) studied this question.