{"schema_version":1,"experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp03_full320_20260801","cell_id":"deadweight_loss_reduction__neuroscience","trajectory_id":"R","attempt_index":0,"archetype_slug":"deadweight_loss_reduction","domain_slug":"neuroscience","decision":"CANDIDATE","problem_id":"rigid_neuroimaging_core_slot_allocation","causal_lever_id":"transferable_priority_slots_with_rapid_rematching","proposal":{"problem":"Neuroscience imaging cores may simultaneously exhibit long peak-time queues, late cancellations or no-shows, off-peak idle scanner time, and blocked ready-to-run studies because fixed lab quotas, nontransferable reservations, and coarse first-come allocation fail to reconnect released or low-priority slots with eligible demand. The problem exists only where audit data confirm this pattern; total scanner undersupply or safety-required setup time would be different problems.","actors_substrate":["neuroscience investigators and participants","imaging-core schedulers and technologists","laboratories holding or seeking scanner slots","institutional safety, ethics, and access-governance bodies"],"observable_state":"HYPOTHESIS: booking records show persistent peak queues alongside unused off-peak capacity, late-unfilled cancellations, or reserved blocks used for lower-priority work while ready eligible studies remain delayed.","consequence":"Potentially valuable experiments are delayed or abandoned, paid capacity is idle, and access may depend on historical allocation rather than current scientific readiness or protected equity priorities.","affected_objective":"Increase safe, scientifically useful, and equitably distributed scanner utilization while reducing avoidable waiting and stranded capacity.","structural_mapping":[{"archetype_element":"Value-blocking wedge","domain_realization":"Fixed laboratory blocks, nontransferability, coarse queue priority, and slow cancellation release separate eligible demand from available scanner time.","claim_kind":"HYPOTHESIS"},{"archetype_element":"Foregone mutually beneficial activity","domain_realization":"A ready study could use a released or slack slot while the core gains utilization and another lab relinquishes time it cannot use.","claim_kind":"INFERENCE"},{"archetype_element":"Protected purpose","domain_realization":"Participant safety, protocol eligibility, trained staffing, equipment constraints, scientific quality, and equitable access remain hard gates.","claim_kind":"INFERENCE"},{"archetype_element":"Specific redesign lever","domain_realization":"Make eligible slots transferable through a rapid waitlist, use readiness- and protection-aware priority credits, and automatically release approaching unused reservations.","claim_kind":"HYPOTHESIS"},{"archetype_element":"Bounded recovery test","domain_realization":"Compare a reversible pilot with ordinary scheduling on utilization, queue time, completed sessions, safety deviations, and access incidence.","claim_kind":"HYPOTHESIS"}],"component_map":[{"component":"Distortion Map","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Trace each unused or delayed slot to quota, reservation, cancellation, matching, staffing, setup, or genuine capacity causes."},{"component":"Protected Constraint Safeguard","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Keep protocol approval, participant eligibility, technologist coverage, equipment compatibility, and safety checks unchanged."},{"component":"Surplus Estimate","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Estimate recoverable scan-hours, completed sessions, avoided delay, and core cost; do not equate all scans with equal scientific value."},{"component":"Affected-Party Incidence Map","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Record effects on incumbent and entrant labs, participants, staff, funders, and protected-access groups."},{"component":"Redesign Lever","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Transferable slots, automatic release, readiness-aware priority, and rapid eligible-demand rematching."},{"component":"Distributional Review","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Check whether small, new, underfunded, disability-serving, or time-sensitive studies lose access."},{"component":"Behavioral Response Model","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Model speculative booking, strategic cancellation, queue gaming, demand migration, and rebound congestion."},{"component":"Implementation Boundary","status":"direct","domain_realization":"One core, selected scan types, preapproved studies, fixed hours, and no change to clinical or emergency access."},{"component":"Monitoring and Rebound Check","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Track utilization, releases, fill time, delays, repeat booking, staff overtime, safety events, and group-level access."},{"component":"Rollback or Adjustment Rule","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Revert affected slots to ordinary scheduling if a safety threshold, access floor, or operational burden limit is crossed."},{"component":"Cost–Benefit Assessment Frame","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Compare recovered capacity and reduced delay with administration, transition, staffing, quality, and distributional costs."},{"component":"Price-Wedge Diagnostic","status":"incompatible","domain_realization":"No monetary willingness-to-pay allocation is assumed; separately test whether existing internal charges influence timing."},{"component":"Friction Source Breakdown","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Separate genuine scarcity and required setup from avoidable reservation, release, information, and matching failures."},{"component":"Compensating Adjustment Plan","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Reserve priority credits or access floors for groups harmed by the new ordering; add fee waivers if any deposit is later tested."},{"component":"Legitimacy and Authority Review","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Confirm the core's mandate to reassign reservations and the governance basis for priority criteria."},{"component":"Sensitivity Analysis","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Vary the assumed value of scan-hours, study readiness, cancellation recoverability, staffing costs, and equity weights."},{"component":"Pilot or Sunset Path","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Run an eight-week pilot that automatically expires unless predefined safety, access, and utilization criteria are met."}],"mechanism_dispositions":[{"slug":"congestion_or_capacity_pricing_adjustment","disposition":"considered_rejected","contribution_type":"NONE","adaptation_or_rejection":"Monetary peak pricing could allocate by laboratory wealth rather than scientific or protected priority; diagnose timing first without it.","counterfactual_removal":"No change to the proposed causal chain."},{"slug":"cost_benefit_assessment_protocol","disposition":"selected_supporting","contribution_type":"TEST_DESIGN","adaptation_or_rejection":"Use scan-hours, delay, cost, safety, quality, and distribution rather than monetized scientific claims alone.","counterfactual_removal":"The pilot could show utilization gains without establishing whether burdens or access losses outweigh them."},{"slug":"distortion_reduction_review","disposition":"selected_load_bearing","contribution_type":"CORE_CAUSAL","adaptation_or_rejection":"Audit whether the binding loss is avoidable allocation friction rather than total shortage or protected setup.","counterfactual_removal":"The intervention could target the wrong cause and relabel necessary constraints as waste."},{"slug":"impact_assessment_table","disposition":"selected_supporting","contribution_type":"SAFETY_GUARDRAIL","adaptation_or_rejection":"Pre-register party-level access, burden, safety, and rollback signals.","counterfactual_removal":"Concentrated access losses could be hidden by aggregate utilization."},{"slug":"matching_improvement_program","disposition":"selected_load_bearing","contribution_type":"CORE_CAUSAL","adaptation_or_rejection":"Use an eligibility-filtered rapid waitlist to pair released slots with ready studies.","counterfactual_removal":"Released capacity would remain stranded even after allocation rules changed."},{"slug":"permit_or_approval_streamlining","disposition":"considered_rejected","contribution_type":"NONE","adaptation_or_rejection":"Ethics and safety approval delay is not the hypothesized wedge, and substantive reviews remain outside scope.","counterfactual_removal":"No change to the proposed causal chain."},{"slug":"price_control_redesign","disposition":"incompatible","contribution_type":"NONE","adaptation_or_rejection":"The candidate does not posit an administered price causing shortage or surplus.","counterfactual_removal":"No change to the proposed causal chain."},{"slug":"quota_or_allocation_rule_review","disposition":"selected_load_bearing","contribution_type":"CORE_CAUSAL","adaptation_or_rejection":"Preserve legitimate capacity limits while replacing stale lab blocks and nontransferable queue positions.","counterfactual_removal":"Historical allocations would continue blocking reassignment, so matching alone would have little eligible supply."},{"slug":"regulatory_simplification_pilot","disposition":"selected_load_bearing","contribution_type":"TEST_DESIGN","adaptation_or_rejection":"Adapt from regulation to a walled-off scheduling-rule pilot with expiry and protected-outcome monitoring.","counterfactual_removal":"The redesign would lack a bounded, reversible evidence path and would not be viable under uncertainty."},{"slug":"sunset_clause_review","disposition":"selected_supporting","contribution_type":"OPERATIONAL","adaptation_or_rejection":"Require pilot expiry and periodic re-justification of revised allocation rules.","counterfactual_removal":"A locally harmful rule could persist by inertia after the initial test."},{"slug":"tariff_fee_or_toll_redesign","disposition":"considered_rejected","contribution_type":"NONE","adaptation_or_rejection":"No authority-imposed charge is identified as the primary wedge.","counterfactual_removal":"No change to the proposed causal chain."}],"causal_chain":["Audit distinguishes genuine scanner scarcity and protected setup from avoidable reservation and rematching failures.","The core makes eligible reservations transferable, releases unused slots earlier, and ranks demand using readiness plus explicit protected priorities.","A rapid waitlist reconnects released and off-peak capacity to compatible studies.","Recovered capacity and shorter waits increase completed eligible sessions without relaxing safety or protocol requirements.","Test this in one core for eight weeks against matched ordinary-scheduling periods; halt for any attributable serious safety deviation, breach of a protected access floor, or sustained staff burden above the predeclared limit."],"baseline":"Fixed laboratory blocks or first-come booking, manual cancellation handling, and an informal waitlist, with safety and protocol checks applied case by case.","nearest_rival":"Add scanner hours or purchase another scanner. That addresses true aggregate undersupply but not unused, late-released, or poorly matched existing capacity.","authority_safety":{"affected_parties":["research participants","incumbent and waiting laboratories","core technologists and schedulers","protected-access research groups","institutional funders and oversight bodies"],"decision_authority":"The imaging-core director may alter research-slot scheduling only with the institution's designated access-governance and safety oversight; investigators cannot waive participant or protocol protections.","authorized_first_step":"Authorize an eight-week, one-core pilot limited to already approved, scanner-compatible studies, with preregistered metrics and unchanged safety review.","excluded_actions":["relaxing ethics, consent, participant-screening, or scanner-safety requirements","reallocating clinical or emergency capacity","allocating solely by ability to pay","using unreviewed scientific-value scores to exclude protected groups","permanent rollout before pilot review"],"halt_rollback":"Immediately suspend rematching after an attributable serious safety event; pause and review if protected-group access or staff burden crosses its threshold; automatically restore ordinary scheduling when the pilot expires unless renewal criteria are affirmatively met."}},"negative_tests":{"strongest_counterevidence":"A utilization audit could show that compatible scanner time is saturated across hours, apparent idle periods are required maintenance or setup, cancellations are already rapidly filled, or delayed studies are not protocol-ready. Then the loss is genuine capacity scarcity or study-readiness failure, not an avoidable allocation wedge.","analogy_break":"Scanner sessions are heterogeneous and safety-constrained, and scientific value cannot be reliably inferred from willingness to pay or queue urgency. Unlike fungible market capacity, many slots and studies cannot be mutually substituted.","failure_condition":"The redesign fails if eligibility filters leave too little compatible demand, priority rules induce speculative booking or gaming, rapid turnover raises setup errors, or recovered hours come chiefly from shifting burdens to staff or disadvantaged laboratories.","problem_falsifier":"Reject the problem diagnosis if preregistered records show no material coexistence of compatible unmet demand with avoidably idle, late-released, or low-priority reserved capacity after maintenance, staffing, setup, approval, and readiness are accounted for.","intervention_falsifier":"Reject the intervention if the bounded pilot does not improve compatible utilization, fill time, completed sessions, or waiting time relative to baseline, or if it worsens safety, data quality, staff burden, or protected-group access beyond preset limits.","risks":["priority scoring may encode prestige or funding bias","automatic release may penalize participant-driven cancellations","faster turnover may increase staff burden or setup error","laboratories may overbook or strategically misstate readiness","aggregate utilization gains may conceal unequal access","measured scan-hours may overstate scientific value"]},"null_rationale":null,"classification":{"candidate_kind":"MECHANISM_COMPOSITION","prior_art_status":"UNSEARCHED","evidence_maturity":"HYPOTHESIS"},"revision_change_log":{"revision_kind":"ORIGINAL","prior_problem_id":null,"prior_causal_lever_id":null,"problem_changed":false,"causal_lever_changed":false,"conceptual_changes":[],"operational_changes":[],"repairs_addressed":[]},"confidence":0.84,"generator_notes":"Closed-book structural inference. Domain-specific prevalence, effect sizes, thresholds, and pilot outcomes are unverified hypotheses; no novelty claim is made."}