wordpress 4.5 incompatible

This sounds like the styles not taking effect. Have you tried going to the reference style control panel, changing, and clicking save changes?

oh yes. I forgot that trick. Thanks.

here are a few pages I am using your nice tool:

https://olimpiameuccilab.org/publications-dev/
https://musclestudygroup.org/publications/
https://kdw-lab.mit.edu/publication-list/
https://redentilab.org/publications/