{"schema_version":1,"research_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp04_external_evaluation_20260802","source_assessment_id":"deadweight_loss_reduction__astronomy_astrophysics:RETRIEVAL_FIRST:v0","cell_id":"deadweight_loss_reduction__astronomy_astrophysics","search_queries":["site:science.nrao.edu VLA pressure histogram observing dynamic queue scheduling pressure LST","site:eso.org observing proposals oversubscription telescope time annual report service mode queue conditions","site:gemini.edu queue observing oversubscription completion rates time allocation official","telescope time allocation auction credits scarcity pricing astronomy","observatory telescope time allocation credits account delivered time credits official","site:gemini.edu queue scheduling completion rate observing conditions priority official","site:tmt.org observing modes time allocation partner share queue priority official","Caltech design mechanisms allocate Space Station resources auction priority contracts PDF","Alnitak Research Telescope Access Program credits delivered imaging time","Telescope Live advanced requests credit refund failed observation weather credits utilization moon phase","astronomy observatory protected access early career telescope time allocation official early career","observatory scheduling shadow mode replay telescope allocation scheduler research"],"sources":[{"source_id":"S1","title":"Guide to Observing with the VLA Complete Manual","publisher":"National Radio Astronomy Observatory","url":"https://science.nrao.edu/facilities/vla/docs/manuals/obsguide/referencemanual-all-pages","source_class":"OFFICIAL_GUIDANCE","publication_date":"undated; current manual accessed 2026-08-02","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["VLA publishes observing-pressure plots by local sidereal time and frequency/weather category.","Accepted projects compete in a dynamic queue and more time must be approved than is available.","Observers can improve schedulability by changing scheduling-block duration and flexibility, while excessive flexibility can compromise the science goal."]},{"source_id":"S2","title":"26A TAC Report","publisher":"National Radio Astronomy Observatory","url":"https://science.nrao.edu/observing/proposal-types/tac-reports/26a-tac-report","source_class":"OFFICIAL_ORGANIZATION_DATA","publication_date":"undated; Semester 2026A report","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["NRAO explicitly measures allocated hours against available hours by observing window and weather category.","The VLA Prioritizer already turns scientific rank and forecast pressure into scheduling priorities.","The 2026A rules cap higher-priority allocations relative to available capacity and intentionally assign filler time above nominal capacity."]},{"source_id":"S3","title":"Scheduling Service Mode Programmes","publisher":"European Southern Observatory","url":"https://www.eso.org/sci/observing/phase2/SMPhilosophy/SMScheduling.html","source_class":"OFFICIAL_GUIDANCE","publication_date":"2026-04-17","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["ESO schedules service-mode observations using programme priority, PI-imposed constraints, and actual observing conditions.","ESO's scheduler filters for feasibility and ranks executable observations using constraint difficulty, programme priority, user priority, and group scores.","Condition-aware, priority-aware scheduling is established operational practice."]},{"source_id":"S4","title":"Adaptive Scheduler","publisher":"Observatory Control System","url":"https://observatorycontrolsystem.github.io/components/adaptive_scheduler/","source_class":"OFFICIAL_PRODUCT_DOCUMENTATION","publication_date":"undated","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["An available telescope scheduler continuously optimizes effective priority with mixed-integer programming.","It consumes telescope availability, weather telemetry, request windows, proposal priority, investigator-provided priority, and request duration.","The documented architecture supports replay or shadow scheduling without inventing a new optimization stack."]},{"source_id":"S5","title":"Observing Modes and Time Allocation","publisher":"TMT International Observatory","url":"https://www.tmt.org/page/observing-modes","source_class":"OFFICIAL_GUIDANCE","publication_date":"undated","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["TMT states a goal of maximizing observing time and science-program outcomes.","Its planned service mode prioritizes in real time using meteorology, scientific priority, time criticality, partner share, and programme completeness.","TMT Members control their time-allocation processes, while observatory operations staff retain sole operational control.","Partner time is distributed across lunar phases and night lengths, providing an access-share safeguard analogue."]},{"source_id":"S6","title":"Alnitak Research Telescope Access Program","publisher":"Alnitak Remote Observatories","url":"https://www.alnitakobs.com/arta/","source_class":"COMMERCIAL_FIRST_PARTY","publication_date":"undated","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["Accepted educational or scientific proposals receive telescope credits in an account.","Teams choose a telescope and reservation through a portal.","Credits are debited only for actual imaging time delivered, closely anticipating the proposed delivery-rebate element."]},{"source_id":"S7","title":"How do credits work?","publisher":"Telescope Live","url":"https://help.telescope.live/hc/en-us/articles/360002575557-How-do-credits-work","source_class":"COMMERCIAL_FIRST_PARTY","publication_date":"undated; documentation of the Advanced Requests system","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["Telescope Live documents a virtual-credit budget for telescope use.","Advanced Request credit charges depended on telescope utilization and moon phase, directly anticipating resource- and condition-sensitive credit pricing.","Credits could also be purchased for cash and were generally nonrefundable, unlike the proposed noncash protected-access mechanism."]},{"source_id":"S8","title":"The Design of Mechanisms to Allocate Space Station Resources","publisher":"California Institute of Technology","url":"https://authors.library.caltech.edu/records/68k2y-nze20","source_class":"PRIMARY_RESEARCH","publication_date":"1987-06","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["Researchers designed priority contracts and auction mechanisms for uncertain scientific-platform resources.","Laboratory tests found significantly higher expected efficiency than first-come-first-served allocation, although efficiency remained well below 100%.","Token, bidding, rescheduling, and scarcity-allocation concepts substantially predate this telescope proposal."]},{"source_id":"S9","title":"The Time Allocation Working Group Report","publisher":"European Southern Observatory","url":"https://doi.eso.org/10.18727/0722-6691/5091","source_class":"PRIMARY_RESEARCH","publication_date":"2018-09","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["ESO convened a working group specifically to review telescope-time allocation.","The group delivered recommendations and an implementation plan to ESO's Director for Science, demonstrating institutional willingness to revise allocation workflows."]},{"source_id":"S10","title":"SKAO Access Policy","publisher":"SKA Observatory","url":"https://www.skao.int/sites/default/files/documents/SKAO-GOV-0000088-01_SKAO_AccessPolicySigned.pdf","source_class":"OFFICIAL_GUIDANCE","publication_date":"2023-08-25","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["SKAO time allocation must be based on scientific merit and technical feasibility, with additional criteria requiring Council approval.","The Director-General is responsible for time allocation and is advised by a Time Allocation Committee.","The Council controls observing strategy and access categories, and member access must be monitored against project shares.","A research team could not independently alter live allocation policy; Council and Director-General authority would be required."]},{"source_id":"S11","title":"Time Allocation and Long-Term Scheduling of ESO Telescopes at La Silla Paranal Observatory","publisher":"SPIE proceedings via arXiv","url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.15470","source_class":"PRIMARY_RESEARCH","publication_date":"2024-07-22","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["ESO scheduling already jointly considers scientific merit, available resources, operations, maintenance, and programmatic needs.","ESO developed a new allocation and scheduling tool to improve efficiency and facility utilization.","Dynamic rescheduling and multi-telescope optimization are active development directions."]},{"source_id":"S12","title":"2026B NASA-Keck Call for Proposals","publisher":"NASA Exoplanet Science Institute, California Institute of Technology","url":"https://nexsci.caltech.edu/missions/KeckSolicitation/","source_class":"OFFICIAL_GUIDANCE","publication_date":"2026-02-12","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["NASA-Keck time is typically oversubscribed by about five to one.","Allocation considers scientific merit, strategic importance, resource availability, and the uniqueness of Keck's capabilities.","The NASA-Keck TAC recommends allocations, the NExScI Executive Director makes final selections, and NExScI coordinates scheduling with Keck.","The call expressly encourages efficient use of valuable telescope time."]}],"problem_evidence":{"support":"MODERATE","rationale":"Telescope-time scarcity and heterogeneous pressure visibly matter: NASA-Keck reports typical 5:1 oversubscription, NRAO publishes pressure by observing window and weather category, and multiple facilities operate condition-aware queues. However, the candidate's narrower problem is not established externally: none of the opened sources shows that, after existing pressure-aware scheduling and observer flexibility, flat credits cause simultaneous uncompleted high-priority requests and unused scientifically acceptable alternatives. The evidence strongly supports scarcity but only weakly supports the claimed residual deadweight-loss mechanism.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3","S12"]},"stakeholder_evidence":{"support":"WEAK","rationale":"Credible authorizers are identifiable. SKAO assigns allocation authority to its Director-General and Council; TMT Members control allocation while operations retains execution authority; NASA-Keck identifies its TAC, selecting official, and Keck coordination path. TMT and ESO explicitly seek scheduling efficiency. No source expresses demand for scarcity-weighted noncash credits, protected early-career endowments, or an observatory pilot of this mechanism, so adopter pull is inferred from general efficiency goals rather than demonstrated.","source_ids":["S5","S9","S10","S11","S12"]},"prior_art":{"proximity":"SUBSTANTIAL_COLLISION","closest_analogues":[{"name":"NRAO VLA pressure-aware prioritizer and dynamic queue","similarity":"It measures demand against capacity by observing window and weather category, converts pressure and scientific rank into scheduling priority, publishes pressure information, and lets observers alter schedulability.","remaining_difference":"Pressure changes an operator-assigned priority rather than an ex ante per-hour credit charge paid from each accepted team's fixed budget.","source_ids":["S1","S2"]},{"name":"ESO, OCS, and TMT condition-aware priority scheduling","similarity":"These systems filter feasible observations and optimize execution using weather, request constraints, scientific or investigator priority, time criticality, programme completion, and protected partner shares.","remaining_difference":"They centrally optimize accepted requests without requiring teams to spend scarcity-priced credits to reveal willingness to substitute.","source_ids":["S3","S4","S5","S11"]},{"name":"Telescope Live utilization- and moon-sensitive credits plus Alnitak delivered-time debit","similarity":"Telescope Live documented credit prices varying by telescope utilization and moon phase; Alnitak awards proposal-based credits and debits only actual delivered imaging time.","remaining_difference":"The opened commercial systems do not combine noncash scientific-merit allocation, protected early-career endowments, contention pricing across research-grade condition bands, and automatic restoration within a public observatory's accepted-proposal workflow.","source_ids":["S6","S7"]},{"name":"Space Station auction and priority-contract mechanisms","similarity":"The research allocates uncertain scientific-platform capacity and priority through market mechanisms and tests efficiency against a baseline.","remaining_difference":"It concerns Space Station resources, not telescope-condition choices, and does not document protected early-career access or delivered-observation rebates.","source_ids":["S8"]}],"distinctive_claim_remaining":"At a noncommercial scientific observatory, adding user-spent noncash budgets whose per-hour charge varies ex ante with forecast telescope, instrument, and condition-band contention, together with protected-access endowments and automatic restoration for undelivered observations, will increase completed priority-weighted observations per available hour by at least 10% relative to the facility's active pressure-aware, condition-aware scheduler without reducing early-career access by more than 2 percentage points.","confidence":"HIGH"},"implementation_evidence":{"support":"MODERATE","rationale":"The scheduling and data-processing components are technically credible: facilities already record request constraints, priority, capacity, weather, and execution state, and mixed-integer adaptive schedulers are documented. A read-only replay is operationally low risk. Feasibility remains facility-dependent because no source confirms that archived data contain point-in-time contention forecasts, explicit scientifically acceptable alternatives, team-level credit endowments, or reliable early-career classifications. Historical logs also cannot reveal how teams would change requests in response to prices. Live deployment requires allocation-policy approval, privacy review, integration testing, community consultation, and strict separation from safety and execution authority.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3","S4","S5","S10","S11"]},"scores":{"meaningful_impact":{"score":3,"rationale":"Major telescope time is scarce and scientifically valuable, so better allocation could matter, but the recoverable residual beyond active schedulers is unmeasured.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S12"]},"stakeholder_pull":{"score":2,"rationale":"Authorizers and general efficiency objectives are visible, but no observatory requests this credit mechanism or offers a pilot partnership.","source_ids":["S5","S9","S10","S12"]},"incremental_advantage":{"score":2,"rationale":"Existing systems already use pressure, conditions, scientific priority, user priority, and protected shares; no evidence shows that exposing a credit price improves their outcomes.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3","S4","S5"]},"distinctiveness_plausibility":{"score":2,"rationale":"The exact safeguard integration was not found, but utilization-sensitive telescope credits, delivered-time debit, protected shares, and scientific-resource auctions all exist separately.","source_ids":["S5","S6","S7","S8"]},"technical_implementability":{"score":4,"rationale":"The necessary scheduling, optimization, telemetry, and account concepts are demonstrated, making shadow implementation credible if suitable facility data are available.","source_ids":["S2","S4","S6","S11"]},"adoption_authority_feasibility":{"score":3,"rationale":"Observatory governance bodies clearly possess relevant authority, but approval would cross scientific-allocation, access, data, and operations functions and no sponsor has volunteered.","source_ids":["S5","S10","S12"]},"evidence_readiness":{"score":2,"rationale":"A bounded replay is well specified, but decisive evidence depends on proprietary logs and counterfactual team behavior that ordinary web research cannot supply.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S4"]},"safety_net_benefit":{"score":4,"rationale":"Protected endowments, delivery rebates, shadow-first evaluation, expiry, and rollback directly address exclusion and operational risk, although their adequacy is untested.","source_ids":["S5","S6","S10"]},"scalability":{"score":2,"rationale":"The software idea is portable, but scientific value metrics, partner shares, weather regimes, instruments, and allocation authority differ materially across facilities.","source_ids":["S3","S5","S10","S11"]}},"score_confidence":"MODERATE","costs":{"first_evidence":{"band_2026_usd":"50K_TO_250K","scope":"An 8- to 12-week partnered data audit and preregistered shadow replay for one completed scheduling period at one facility, including a scheduling scientist, data engineer, analyst, and limited governance review.","confidence":"MODERATE","assumptions":["The facility supplies deidentified accepted-request, capacity, forecast-proxy, execution, and access-category data without a new production integration.","Existing scheduler code or replay outputs can be reused.","The estimate is a resource-equivalent planning band, not a vendor quote and excludes telescope operating cost because no live time is changed."],"source_ids":["S2","S4","S11"]},"initial_deployment_startup":{"band_2026_usd":"250K_TO_1M","scope":"Design and build a one-facility shadow system: contention forecasting, credit ledger, protected-endowment rules, delivery rebates, dashboards, audit logging, security review, and scheduler adapters.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["Approximately two to five technical and scientific staff for six to twelve months.","The current scheduling platform exposes stable interfaces and historical replay capability.","Community consultation and legal/privacy review are limited to one institution."],"source_ids":["S4","S10","S11"]},"operational_launch":{"band_2026_usd":"250K_TO_1M","scope":"Prepare and run one expiring live pilot for a bounded proposal class and scheduling period, including production hardening, parallel operations, observer support, incident response, independent evaluation, and rollback readiness.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["Facility governance authorizes a small pilot after shadow evidence.","No telescope hardware changes are required.","The baseline scheduler remains available for immediate reversion.","The band excludes the value of telescope time displaced by a failed pilot."],"source_ids":["S1","S5","S10"]},"annual_recurring":{"band_2026_usd":"50K_TO_250K","scope":"One-facility maintenance after launch: forecast calibration, credit accounting, monitoring, audit reports, user support, equity review, and periodic parameter adjustment.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["Roughly 0.5 to 1.5 combined full-time-equivalent staff plus modest compute and software support.","No major annual redesign of instruments, partner-share rules, or the underlying scheduler.","External audit or extensive user-compensation costs are excluded."],"source_ids":["S2","S4","S10"]}},"verified_pipeline_gates":{"externally_supported_problem":{"status":"UNCERTAIN","reason":"External evidence establishes severe scarcity and heterogeneous pressure, but not the candidate's residual causal claim that flat credits leave scientifically acceptable capacity unused after active scheduling.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3","S12"]},"externally_credible_adopter_or_authorizer":{"status":"YES","reason":"SKAO, TMT, and NASA-Keck documents identify bodies with allocation authority and state efficiency or strategic-use objectives, although none has requested this mechanism.","source_ids":["S5","S10","S12"]},"distinct_testable_incremental_claim":{"status":"YES","reason":"The remaining claim compares the integrated credit mechanism against an active pressure-aware scheduler and specifies a 10% completion-gain threshold and a 2-percentage-point access-loss limit.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3","S6","S7"]},"bounded_next_evidence_step":{"status":"YES","reason":"One completed scheduling period at one partner facility can be evaluated in a time-bounded, read-only replay with frozen scientific ranks, capacity, safety rules, and access shares.","source_ids":["S2","S4","S10","S11"]},"no_unresolved_safety_or_authority_stop":{"status":"YES","reason":"The proposed first step changes no live allocation or telescope operation. Any later pilot remains blocked pending explicit facility approval, privacy review, protected-access rules, and tested rollback.","source_ids":["S5","S10","S12"]},"credible_cost_scope_and_range":{"status":"YES","reason":"All four ranges are scoped as one-facility 2026 resource-equivalent bands with staffing, integration, and exclusion assumptions, though startup and recurring estimates remain low-confidence without a selected facility.","source_ids":["S4","S10","S11"]}},"next_evidence_step":"Secure one observatory partner and preregister an 8- to 12-week, read-only evaluation of one completed scheduling period. Reconstruct only information available before assignment; freeze accepted proposals, scientific ranks, capacity, safety limits, time-critical flags, and protected shares. First audit whether high-contention instrument/condition bands coexisted with idle capacity that was explicitly scientifically acceptable to accepted teams. Then compare (A) the recorded active pressure-aware scheduler, (B) a faithful baseline replay, (C) the same scheduler plus scarcity-weighted credits using only already-declared acceptable alternatives, and ablations removing protected endowments or delivery rebates. Report utilization, completed priority-weighted observations per available hour, execution delay, forecast calibration, access by team category, and sensitivity to value weights. Falsify the problem if recoverable capacity is negligible or existing scheduling exhausts declared substitution; falsify the intervention for advancement if estimated gain is below 10%, early-career access falls by more than 2 percentage points, gains disappear under plausible forecast error, or gains require changed scientific ranks, relaxed safety constraints, or additional capacity. Treat the replay as an upper-bound test because it cannot establish how teams would actually respond to prices; positive results would justify a separately authorized, incentivized choice experiment before any live scheduling pilot.","blocking_evidence":["No target facility has been identified as willing to supply data or sponsor the evaluation.","No opened source demonstrates the residual coexistence of oversubscribed requested bands and idle scientifically acceptable alternatives after active scheduling.","Historical records may not preserve point-in-time contention forecasts or explicit acceptable alternatives.","Counterfactual team responses to scarcity prices cannot be inferred reliably from ordinary scheduling logs.","The proposed early-career classification, protected-credit entitlement, and 2-percentage-point threshold lack facility-specific governance approval.","No evidence establishes a valid common scale for priority-weighted scientific value across programmes.","Potential gaming through request splitting, constraint relabeling, or strategic flexibility remains unmeasured.","The Telescope Live documentation creates a close commercial collision, and the operational history and retirement status of its relevant request system need clarification for a fuller differentiation study.","Patentability, freedom to operate, world novelty, market size, and realized scientific impact were not evaluated."],"research_disposition":"PARTNERED_RESEARCH_PROGRAM","world_novelty_boundary":"Bounded web research found no documented noncommercial observatory deployment combining all four elements: user-spent noncash observing credits, ex ante charges varying by forecast telescope/instrument/condition contention, protected-access endowments, and automatic restoration for undelivered observations. That absence is not proof of world novelty. The individual elements and most pairwise combinations are anticipated by NRAO and ESO pressure-aware queues, OCS and TMT adaptive scheduling, Telescope Live's utilization- and moon-sensitive credit charges, Alnitak's proposal credits and delivered-time debit, protected institutional shares, and Space Station auction research. Patents, non-indexed literature, historical manuals, internal observatory systems, and freedom to operate remain unsearched or unmeasured.","arm":"RETRIEVAL_FIRST","candidate_version":0,"controller_recommendation":{"action":"STOP_EMPIRICAL_RESEARCH_NEEDED","repairable":true,"material_progress_observed":true,"progress_targets":["Obtain written interest and a data-access decision from one observatory allocation authority and operations team.","Demonstrate from one completed period that residual high-pressure demand coexists with unused explicitly acceptable capacity after the active scheduler operates.","Verify that archived data support reproducible, pre-assignment contention forecasts and protected-group incidence measurement.","Run the preregistered active-baseline replay and required ablations without changing scientific rank, safety constraints, or capacity.","Elicit or experimentally measure team substitution responses before treating shadow-schedule gains as causal evidence for user-facing credits.","Show at least a 10% gain in completed priority-weighted observations per available hour with no more than a 2-percentage-point early-career access loss across plausible forecast and value-weight sensitivities.","Clarify the scope and operational history of Telescope Live's utilization-sensitive credit system and search non-indexed observatory policies before making any novelty claim."],"reason":"Web evidence establishes scarce, pressure-sensitive telescope capacity and shows that implementation components are feasible, but it also reveals substantial prior-art collision. The decisive questions—whether a residual flat-credit wedge exists at a specific facility, how teams respond to prices, and whether the mechanism beats an active scheduler without access harm—require proprietary scheduling data, partner authorization, and behavioral or live testing. They cannot be resolved by further bounded public-web research alone."}}