{"schema_version":1,"assessment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp03_opportunity320_20260801","source_experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp03_full320_20260801","cell_id":"computability_boundary_mapping__statistics_experimental_design","archetype_slug":"computability_boundary_mapping","domain_slug":"statistics_experimental_design","title":"Enforceable Certification Boundary for Adaptive-Experiment Protocols","opportunity_summary":"Replace unsupported binary certification of arbitrary executable adaptive-experiment protocols with a mechanically enforceable protocol fragment whose verifier is proved total and correct, while routing out-of-fragment cases to explicitly labeled UNKNOWN or other bounded review modes. The opportunity is structurally coherent and safety-relevant, but the computability reduction, statistical representation contract, operational prevalence, and distinctiveness remain unverified hypotheses.","adopter_authorizer":"The statistical-methods governance body could adopt the protocol syntax, certification labels, and routing rules; ethics bodies and study sponsors retain authority over live-study decisions.","scores":{"meaningful_impact":{"score":4,"rationale":"If unrestricted binary certification is being relied upon, unsupported clearance, erroneous rejection, or concealed nontermination could affect participants, investigators, and downstream decisions. The consequence is material, although the packet provides no evidence about how often this problem occurs."},"stakeholder_pull":{"score":2,"rationale":"The candidate says governance teams may require such a certifier but supplies no demonstrated request, target organization, workflow evidence, or willingness to adopt a restricted language and UNKNOWN outcomes."},"incremental_advantage":{"score":4,"rationale":"Relative to simulation plus expert review, an enforced fragment with contract-bounded verdicts and a distinct UNKNOWN state would provide a materially stronger and more transparent guarantee. That advantage depends on completing the proposed proof and enforcement work."},"distinctiveness_plausibility":{"score":3,"rationale":"The combination of a boundary reduction, enforceable fragment, guarantee-aware routing, and versioned governance record is a coherent differentiator, but prior-art status is explicitly UNSEARCHED and historical distinctiveness cannot be established closed-book."},"technical_implementability":{"score":3,"rationale":"A synthetic offline prototype and mechanically checked fragment appear feasible in principle, but the protocol language, null-distribution encodings, rejection-event semantics, exact probability comparisons, reduction, and verifier proof are not yet supplied."},"adoption_authority_feasibility":{"score":4,"rationale":"The packet identifies a statistical-methods governance body able to define labels and accepted syntax while reserving live-study authority to ethics bodies and sponsors. Adoption may still be constrained if the fragment excludes needed designs or UNKNOWN functions as rejection."},"evidence_readiness":{"score":3,"rationale":"The candidate provides 24-case offline test scope, comparison classes, failure criteria, excluded actions, and rollback conditions. Readiness is limited by the absence of a completed formal reduction, positive-fragment semantics, independent review, and evidence that target organizations admit unrestricted protocols."},"safety_net_benefit":{"score":4,"rationale":"Explicit UNKNOWN routing, prohibition of out-of-contract verdicts, independent proof review, versioned guarantees, and rollback directly reduce false assurance. Benefit is moderated by the risk that UNKNOWN becomes a de facto rejection or that a proof certifies the wrong statistical model."},"scalability":{"score":3,"rationale":"A machine-enforced syntax and automated verifier could be reused across many protocols, but each supported statistical model, language extension, or assumption change may require new formalization, proof, validation, and governance review."}},"score_confidence":"MODERATE","costs":{"first_evidence":{"band_2026_usd":"50K_TO_250K","scope":"Specify the statistical and computational contract, construct and independently review the proposed reduction, build the 24-protocol synthetic corpus, and compare fragment-aware certification with the simulation-plus-expert-review baseline offline.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["Requires specialized statistical, computability, and formal-methods labor.","Uses synthetic protocols and no participant data.","Includes independent review but not production integration.","Exact effort depends on the complexity of the probability and distribution representations."]},"initial_deployment_startup":{"band_2026_usd":"250K_TO_1M","scope":"Build a production-oriented protocol parser, mechanically enforce fragment membership, implement the verified decision procedure and UNKNOWN routing, create audit records, and integrate with one governance workflow.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["Deployment is limited to one organization and one initially narrow protocol fragment.","Existing review and identity systems can be integrated rather than replaced.","Formal verification and security review are included.","No live-study decision is automated without separate authorization."]},"operational_launch":{"band_2026_usd":"250K_TO_1M","scope":"Validate the production system, train reviewers, establish escalation and rollback procedures, document guarantees, conduct acceptance testing, and launch within one governed experimental program.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["The formal claims survive independent review.","The target organization accepts restricted syntax and explicit UNKNOWN outcomes.","Launch includes compliance and partner coordination but no multi-institution rollout.","The admitted protocol class is sufficiently useful to justify launch."]},"annual_recurring":{"band_2026_usd":"250K_TO_1M","scope":"Maintain the verifier and protocol language, review extensions, monitor out-of-contract verdicts, audit routing behavior, support users, and revalidate guarantees when assumptions or software versions change.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["A small specialized maintenance and governance function is required.","Language and model changes occur periodically.","Independent review is repeated for material guarantee changes.","Scale, institutional requirements, and extension frequency are unknown."]}},"research_burden":"VERY_HIGH","earliest_credible_horizon":"12_TO_36_MONTHS","pipeline_gates":{"recognizable_externally_supportable_problem":{"status":"UNCERTAIN","reason":"The packet articulates a coherent false-assurance problem and affected parties, but it does not establish that target organizations actually admit arbitrary executable protocols or claim unrestricted total-exact certification."},"identifiable_adopter_or_authorizer":{"status":"YES","reason":"The statistical-methods governance body is identified as able to define certification labels and accepted syntax, with ethics bodies and sponsors retaining live-study authority."},"distinct_testable_incremental_claim":{"status":"YES","reason":"The proposal claims that an enforced decidable fragment can yield contract-bounded definitive verdicts while other protocols remain explicitly UNKNOWN, unlike the stated simulation-heavy validator and expert-review baseline."},"bounded_next_evidence_step":{"status":"YES","reason":"The authorized offline evaluation is limited to 24 synthetic valid, invalid, nonterminating, and reduction-generated protocols, with explicit rejection criteria and no participant or deployment decisions."},"no_unresolved_safety_or_authority_stop":{"status":"YES","reason":"Live-study decisions are excluded, UNKNOWN cannot be relabeled as definitive, authority remains with governance bodies, and rollback is triggered by proof, enforcement, or contract failures."},"implementation_cost_scope_and_range":{"status":"UNCERTAIN","reason":"The candidate identifies the main implementation components, but fragment complexity, formal-proof effort, integration environment, compliance requirements, organizational scale, and maintenance frequency are unspecified; only low-confidence broad bands are supportable."}},"blocking_evidence":["A reviewed, answer-preserving construction showing that the stated unrestricted statistical certification problem would decide halting under explicit computational and statistical assumptions.","A formal positive-fragment specification covering effective encodings of null distributions, rejection events, probability values, threshold comparisons, and termination semantics.","A totality-and-correctness proof for the fragment verifier, including mechanical decidability of fragment membership and strict preservation of UNKNOWN outside the contract.","Evidence that a target organization's admitted protocols or public guarantees actually include the alleged unrestricted class rather than an already enforceable finite or decidable class.","Prior-art evidence establishing whether the proposed combination is distinct from existing formal verification, sequential-testing, adaptive-design validation, and governance approaches.","Evidence that UNKNOWN routing can be governed without becoming an opaque de facto rejection or disproportionately burdening complex studies."],"next_evidence_step":"Conduct the authorized offline study on 24 synthetic protocols after fixing a written representation contract: compare the fragment-aware verifier and explicit UNKNOWN routing against the stated simulation-plus-expert-review baseline on bounded valid cases, explicit invalid cases, nonterminating cases, and reduction-generated pairs. Reject further development if independent review invalidates the reduction, fragment membership is not mechanically decidable, either system issues a definitive verdict outside the proved contract, or UNKNOWN cannot remain distinct from VALID and INVALID.","research_questions":["Can an answer-preserving program-to-protocol reduction be constructed for the exact certification property and computation model claimed?","Which protocol class is both mechanically recognizable and expressive enough for adaptive designs used by a target organization?","How will null distributions, estimands, rejection events, real-valued probabilities, and threshold comparisons be represented effectively and exactly?","Can the verifier's termination and contract-relative statistical correctness be independently proved for every admitted input?","Do target organizations currently admit arbitrary executable protocols or assert guarantees broad enough for the proposed impossibility boundary to matter?","How does the proposal differ from existing formal verification, sequential-testing, adaptive-design certification, and restricted-language approaches?","What proportion and types of relevant protocols would receive definitive verdicts rather than UNKNOWN?","What governance controls prevent UNKNOWN, timeouts, or conservative alarms from becoming unreviewable rejections?","How will guarantees be versioned and revalidated when the language, statistical model, or computational assumptions change?"],"recommendation":"PARTNERED_RESEARCH","uncertainty_constraints":["Closed-book assessment cannot establish prior art, field novelty, prevalence, stakeholder demand, market size, or realized impact.","The unrestricted-certification obstruction and decidable-fragment claims are hypotheses; no completed reduction or proof is included.","Technical feasibility depends on unspecified effective representations for distributions, events, probabilities, and exact comparisons.","Cost bands are resource-equivalent planning ranges, not quotes, and lack organizational, integration, compliance, and scale data.","Impact depends on whether real governance systems admit arbitrary computation and make the unrestricted binary claim described.","The operational usefulness of a narrow fragment and the behavioral effect of UNKNOWN routing are unmeasured."],"closed_book_prior_art_boundary":"Prior-art status is UNSEARCHED. This assessment finds the proposed structure plausible and testable but makes no claim that the boundary proof, restricted protocol language, verified certifier, explicit UNKNOWN routing, or their governance combination is historically novel or uncommon."}