{"schema_version":1,"assessment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp03_opportunity320_20260801","source_experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp03_full320_20260801","cell_id":"invariant_mode_decomposition_design__religious_studies_theology","archetype_slug":"invariant_mode_decomposition_design","domain_slug":"religious_studies_theology","title":"Longitudinal modal reconstruction of coupled religious change","opportunity_summary":"Apply a transformation-based modal workflow to already-authorized longitudinal religious-studies data to test whether coupled configurations of doctrine, ritual, identity, authority, and institutions explain held-out change better than separate-variable models or variance-only PCA. Empirical usefulness, demand, prevalence, and distinctiveness from the broader literature remain unverified.","adopter_authorizer":"A religious-studies principal investigator or research team would adopt the method; institutional ethics bodies, data stewards, data-use agreement holders, and any applicable community-governance body must authorize the analysis and reporting.","scores":{"meaningful_impact":{"score":3,"rationale":"If separate-variable analysis is leaving structured temporal residuals, the workflow could materially improve bounded explanations of persistence, reversal, and instability. The sealed candidate supplies no evidence about how often this problem occurs or whether improved reconstructions change consequential research outcomes."},"stakeholder_pull":{"score":2,"rationale":"Researchers, represented communities, and data stewards are identifiable stakeholders, but the packet contains no demand interviews, adoption requests, funding commitment, or demonstrated dissatisfaction with existing longitudinal methods."},"incremental_advantage":{"score":3,"rationale":"The proposal makes a clear potential advance over its stated separate-variable baseline and PCA rival by modeling temporal transformations, modal gains, stability, drift, and residuals. No pilot result establishes better held-out performance or interpretive value."},"distinctiveness_plausibility":{"score":2,"rationale":"The transformation-and-stability framing is structurally distinguishable from the two stated comparators, but prior art in longitudinal latent-state, dynamic-factor, and computational religious-change research is explicitly unsearched, so broader distinctiveness is weakly supported."},"technical_implementability":{"score":4,"rationale":"A retrospective train-and-held-out-wave analysis with decomposition, bootstrap stability, gap checks, and subgroup residual comparisons uses bounded computational procedures and does not require manipulating participants. Feasibility still depends on adequate repeated observations, consistent coding, missingness control, and identifiable temporal structure."},"adoption_authority_feasibility":{"score":3,"rationale":"The research team has legitimate authority over model selection within an approved study, and the proposal explicitly identifies ethics, data-use, steward, and community-governance constraints. Actual permissions and agreement among multiple authorizers are not demonstrated."},"evidence_readiness":{"score":4,"rationale":"The candidate specifies an already-authorized deidentified dataset, earlier-wave training, one held-out wave, bootstrap tests, subgroup residuals, two comparators, and explicit falsifiers. Registered thresholds for fidelity, modal gaps, instability, and subgroup harm remain undefined."},"safety_net_benefit":{"score":4,"rationale":"Deidentification, suppression of substantive labels, subgroup checks, restricted authority, prohibited uses, withdrawal rights, and rollback to aggregate reporting directly address reidentification and essentialization risks. These controls cannot eliminate interpretive misuse or harms from researcher-imposed categories."},"scalability":{"score":2,"rationale":"The computation may be reusable, but religious meanings, coding systems, survey designs, historical shocks, governance requirements, and acceptable interpretations vary across periods and communities. Each extension would require renewed validation and authorization rather than automatic transfer."}},"score_confidence":"MODERATE","costs":{"first_evidence":{"band_2026_usd":"10K_TO_50K","scope":"A bounded prior-art review comparing the proposed temporal modal workflow with longitudinal latent-state, dynamic-factor, and computational religious-change methods, including a claim matrix and a proceed-or-reframe decision.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["Access to scholarly databases is already available.","The review is performed by one domain researcher with limited quantitative-methods support.","No original data collection or paid evidence synthesis is required.","The exact literature volume and access burden are unknown."]},"initial_deployment_startup":{"band_2026_usd":"50K_TO_250K","scope":"Prepare and preregister the retrospective pilot on one deidentified, already-authorized longitudinal dataset, including harmonized coding, missingness assessment, comparator implementation, thresholds, ethics review, and community or steward coordination.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["A suitable dataset and its documentation already exist.","No new participant recruitment occurs.","The project requires interdisciplinary research, statistical, data-engineering, ethics, and governance labor.","Substantial recoding or amendment of data-use permissions could move costs upward."]},"operational_launch":{"band_2026_usd":"250K_TO_1M","scope":"Establish a repeatable institutional research workflow across several authorized datasets or periods, including secure analysis, validation, interpretive review, subgroup protection, reporting, and staff training.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["Launch means an ongoing research capability, not intervention in religious communities.","Several datasets require separate harmonization and governance review.","Existing institutional secure-computing and compliance infrastructure can be reused.","No specialized physical equipment is required."]},"annual_recurring":{"band_2026_usd":"250K_TO_1M","scope":"Maintain a small interdisciplinary program conducting dataset-specific analyses, robustness checks, governance renewals, secure data management, community consultation, and controlled publication.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["Multiple studies or updates are evaluated each year.","Human review remains necessary because modal meanings cannot be interpreted safely through automation alone.","Data licensing and consultation needs remain moderate.","Costs exclude large new longitudinal data-collection programs."]}},"research_burden":"HIGH","earliest_credible_horizon":"0_TO_3_MONTHS","pipeline_gates":{"recognizable_externally_supportable_problem":{"status":"UNCERTAIN","reason":"The candidate gives a recognizable problem, observable signature, and problem falsifier, but supplies no external evidence that structured residuals or consequential coupled change occur with meaningful frequency."},"identifiable_adopter_or_authorizer":{"status":"YES","reason":"Religious-studies research teams are identifiable adopters, while institutional ethics bodies, data stewards, agreement holders, and applicable community-governance bodies are explicitly identified authorizers."},"distinct_testable_incremental_claim":{"status":"YES","reason":"The proposal can be tested for more stable and accurate held-out reconstruction than separate-variable models and PCA while retaining traceability and acceptable subgroup residuals."},"bounded_next_evidence_step":{"status":"YES","reason":"A scoped prior-art comparison can be completed without deployment and can falsify claimed differentiation if materially equivalent workflows already address the same temporal, robustness, and interpretive requirements."},"no_unresolved_safety_or_authority_stop":{"status":"UNCERTAIN","reason":"The packet provides strong exclusions, halt conditions, and rollback, but actual ethics, steward, and community permissions are not evidenced, and harm, fidelity, and suppression thresholds still require operationalization."},"implementation_cost_scope_and_range":{"status":"YES","reason":"The opportunity can be scoped into prior-art review, one-dataset pilot preparation, multi-dataset research launch, and recurring program operation, with broad resource-equivalent ranges and explicit assumptions."}},"blocking_evidence":["Prior art is unsearched, leaving distinctiveness from longitudinal latent-state, dynamic-factor, and computational religious-change methods unverified.","No external evidence establishes the prevalence or consequence of structured temporal residuals under separate-variable analysis.","No held-out result shows improvement over both the separate-variable baseline and PCA rival.","Modal stability, gap, fidelity, subgroup-harm, and suppression thresholds are not yet operationalized.","Actual ethics, data-steward, data-use, and applicable community-governance permissions are not demonstrated.","Dataset adequacy under coding changes, demographic turnover, missingness, and singular historical shocks is unknown."],"next_evidence_step":"Conduct a four-to-eight-week scoped prior-art review comparing the proposed workflow claim-by-claim with longitudinal latent-state, dynamic-factor, and computational religious-change methods. Proceed to pilot planning only if the review finds a testable incremental claim involving temporal gains, stability, held-out reconstruction, traceability, and subgroup safeguards; treat materially equivalent established workflows as the falsifier of claimed distinctiveness.","research_questions":["Do separate-variable models leave repeatable structured temporal residuals across credible codings and longitudinal strata?","Does the proposed workflow improve held-out reconstruction over both separate-variable models and PCA by a preregistered meaningful margin?","Are estimated modes, gains, and selected sets stable under bootstrap resampling, missingness treatments, coding alternatives, and survey redesign boundaries?","Can modes remain traceable to original variables without being interpreted as theological essences, causal proof, pathology, or normative classifications?","Do subgroup residuals remain within a preregistered fidelity and harm budget, especially for small or stigmatized communities?","What prior methods already combine longitudinal latent structure, transformation dynamics, stability tests, drift checks, and protected interpretation in this domain?","Which ethics, data-use, steward, and community-governance bodies must approve the pilot, and what withdrawal or suppression rules do they require?","Does any bounded interval satisfy the stationarity and linearity assumptions well enough for interpretable modal analysis?"] ,"recommendation":"PRIOR_ART_RESEARCH","uncertainty_constraints":["Closed-book assessment: no external prevalence, demand, prior-art, impact, market, or cost evidence was consulted.","The candidate is a hypothesis and reports no empirical modal reconstruction results.","Religious meanings are reflexive, contested, and historically situated, limiting transfer of stationary linear assumptions.","Cost bands are resource-equivalent planning ranges rather than quotations or point estimates.","Scalability depends on dataset-specific coding, governance, historical context, and interpretive review.","The earliest horizon applies only to a bounded prior-art review, not validated deployment or demonstrated impact."],"closed_book_prior_art_boundary":"Prior art is unsearched and unverified. This closed-book assessment supports differentiation only from the candidate's stated separate-variable baseline and PCA rival; it makes no claim of novelty or distinctiveness relative to the broader literature."}