{"schema_version":1,"experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp04_retrieval_first_paired20_20260802","cell_id":"deadweight_loss_reduction__systems_cybernetics","arm":"PROPOSAL_FIRST","candidate_id":"pf0_viability_constrained_testbed_reallocation","hypothesis_id":null,"version":0,"title":"Viability-Constrained Reallocation of Hardware-in-the-Loop Test Windows","problem":"A cybernetics laboratory assigns safety-certified hardware-in-the-loop testbed time through equal, nontransferable weekly quotas. The total operating cap protects thermal limits, reset requirements, operator coverage, and fair access, but the assignment rule can leave reserved windows unused when a team is not ready while other teams with ready, safety-cleared controller experiments wait. The resulting wedge is the inability to reallocate an already-safe test window, not the protected capacity limit itself.","actors":["Research teams holding recurring reservations","Research teams with ready but unscheduled controller experiments","Testbed operators","Laboratory safety officer","Laboratory allocation committee","Downstream system owners awaiting validation evidence"],"observable_state":"Reservation, readiness, and execution logs show whether safety-eligible windows expire unused while safety-cleared experiments remain queued. Additional state variables include release notice, test duration, reset and thermal requirements, operator availability, team-level access shares, preemptions, aborted runs, interlock events, and use of lower-fidelity substitutes.","consequence":"When an otherwise usable reservation cannot move to a ready experiment, certified capacity expires, queued validation is delayed, and teams may substitute lower-fidelity simulations or postpone controller changes. Conversely, unconstrained reallocation could concentrate access, encourage strategic urgency claims, or compress safety-critical resets.","affected_objective":"Increase completed safety-valid controller experiments per available testbed-hour without relaxing the operating envelope, required resets, operator coverage, or an explicit minimum-access protection for each eligible team.","intervention":"Keep the laboratory's safety-derived operating cap, but pilot a feedback-controlled allocation layer for one testbed: reservation holders confirm readiness by a predeclared checkpoint; an unconfirmed window enters a common pool; only experiments already cleared for that testbed may claim it; selection uses transparent readiness, compatibility, and access-floor rules; and telemetry feeds weekly adjustments to release timing and priority parameters. The pilot expires automatically and does not alter safety certification, reset rules, or total authorized operating time.","structural_mapping":[{"archetype_element":"Value-blocking wedge","domain_realization":"Nontransferable recurring reservations prevent a safety-eligible test window from moving from an unready holder to a ready, cleared experiment."},{"archetype_element":"Blocked mutually beneficial activity","domain_realization":"A ready research team can run its controller test, the laboratory can use otherwise expiring capacity, and a downstream system owner can receive validation evidence sooner."},{"archetype_element":"Protected constraint","domain_realization":"Thermal and equipment limits, reset intervals, operator coverage, experiment clearance, and equitable access remain binding."},{"archetype_element":"Distortion rather than raw scarcity","domain_realization":"The candidate applies only when idle eligible windows and ready eligible experiments coexist; it does not claim that reallocation creates additional testbed capacity."},{"archetype_element":"Redesign lever","domain_realization":"Replace fixed nontransferability with readiness checkpoints, automatic release, a bounded common pool, and access-floor-aware reassignment."},{"archetype_element":"Affected-party incidence","domain_realization":"Ready teams may gain earlier access; habitual reservation holders may lose control over unconfirmed windows; operators may face more variable scheduling; teams with fewer resources may be disadvantaged unless access floors and readiness support are preserved."},{"archetype_element":"Behavioral response and rebound","domain_realization":"Teams may overstate readiness, hoard compatible experiments, delay releases, or shift congestion to operator-intensive periods."},{"archetype_element":"Reversible implementation boundary","domain_realization":"One testbed, pre-cleared experiments only, fixed duration, automatic expiry, monitored safeguards, and restoration of the prior allocation rule on halt."}],"mechanism_mapping":[{"mechanism_slug":"distortion_reduction_review","role":"Separates unused time caused by the nontransferable assignment rule from unusable time caused by legitimate safety, reset, staffing, or compatibility constraints, and records whose blocked value is being counted.","counterfactual_removal":"Without this review, apparent idle capacity could be misclassified as recoverable even when no safe experiment could use it."},{"mechanism_slug":"quota_or_allocation_rule_review","role":"Keeps the justified capacity cap intact while testing whether the rule dividing authorized time can be made transferable and responsive to readiness.","counterfactual_removal":"Without this mechanism, the proposal would risk attacking the capacity limit itself or changing assignments without checking mandate and access rights."},{"mechanism_slug":"impact_assessment_table","role":"Tracks each team's access, released and acquired windows, waits, preemptions, operator burden, safety signals, and protected access floor before and during the pilot.","counterfactual_removal":"Without the table, aggregate utilization could conceal concentrated loss of access or new operating burdens."},{"mechanism_slug":"cost_benefit_assessment_protocol","role":"Compares recovered usable testbed time and avoided delay with transition work, operator burden, displaced access, quality changes, and safety exposure under explicit assumptions.","counterfactual_removal":"Without the protocol, a higher utilization reading could be treated as sufficient even if value was merely transferred or protections degraded."},{"mechanism_slug":"regulatory_simplification_pilot","role":"Walls off the altered allocation rule, instruments protected outcomes, and forces expiry unless the laboratory's authorized reviewers affirm continuation.","counterfactual_removal":"Without the bounded pilot, an uncertain scheduling redesign could become a system-wide or persistent change before its behavioral and safety consequences were observed."}],"causal_chain":["Equal nontransferable quotas assign future windows independently of later experiment readiness.","A holder that is not ready cannot return or transfer the window through a dependable rule.","A ready, safety-cleared experiment remains queued even when it is compatible with that window.","The window expires unused or the ready team adopts a delayed or lower-fidelity substitute.","A readiness checkpoint and common pool make the expiring window conditionally reallocable without changing the safe operating cap.","Compatibility, operator, reset, access-floor, and clearance gates exclude reallocations that would spend the protected purpose.","Observed releases, claims, access incidence, congestion, and safety signals update pilot parameters within preauthorized bounds.","If usable idle time and blocked ready work decline without safeguard breaches, the allocation wedge remains a plausible cause; otherwise the prior rule is restored and the diagnosis is rejected or revised."],"baseline":"The ordinary baseline is an equal recurring quota with nontransferable reservations, manual exception requests, and forfeiture of unused windows. Safety and fairness are protected coarsely by fixing each team's share rather than by separately enforcing operating constraints and access floors.","nearest_rivals":["Raw capacity shortage or insufficient operator coverage: if every compatible, staffed, safety-eligible window is used whenever a ready queue exists, additional capacity or staffing—not allocation repair—is the relevant response.","Calendar and notification improvement: if teams fail only because they cannot see vacancies or complete handoffs, transaction-cost reduction is sufficient and the allocation rule need not change.","Congestion or capacity pricing adjustment: a scarcity-linked internal price could induce self-sorting, but it risks converting unequal budgets into unequal scientific access; this candidate instead tests transferability under protected access floors.","Matching improvement program: compatibility matching is a supporting function, but supply and demand are already institutionally visible; the claimed wedge is the prohibition on reallocating a known eligible window."],"remaining_contrastive_claim":"After subtracting windows unusable because of safety, reset, staffing, duration, or experiment-compatibility constraints, coexistence of expiring reservations and queued ready experiments would identify a stale allocation wedge that a bounded transfer rule can address without raising the operating cap.","authority_safety":{"decision_authority":"The laboratory allocation committee may authorize a scheduling pilot within its existing mandate; the safety officer retains independent authority over experiment eligibility and operating limits, and testbed operators retain stop-work authority.","authorized_first_step":"Conduct a read-only retrospective distortion review and shadow allocation replay using existing reservation, readiness, execution, access, and safety records for one testbed; proposed reassignments are recorded but not executed.","excluded_actions":["Changing safety certification or experiment-clearance criteria","Increasing total authorized operating time","Shortening required resets or exceeding thermal limits","Live reassignment during the first evidence step","Introducing monetary charges or budget-based priority","Removing protected minimum access","Expanding beyond the selected testbed without a separate authorization"],"halt_rollback":"Any later live pilot must halt on a plausibly intervention-linked safety event, repeated infeasible handoffs, breach of a protected access floor, or a predeclared adverse operator-burden or queue trigger. Halt restores the previous reservation rule, preserves all safety logs, and sends unresolved windows back to the prior manual process."},"negative_tests":{"strongest_counterevidence":"After applying safety, reset, staffing, duration, and compatibility filters, no recoverable windows coexist with ready queued experiments; observed idle time is therefore genuine unusability or demand/readiness shortage rather than allocation distortion.","problem_falsifier":"The problem claim is falsified for the scoped testbed if a blinded retrospective review finds that every apparently stranded window lacked an eligible ready claimant or that the waiting queue occurred only when all eligible capacity was already occupied.","intervention_falsifier":"The intervention is falsified if shadow replay or a separately authorized live pilot fails to produce feasible additional assignments, merely shifts waiting to another period, worsens protected access, increases unsafe or aborted handoffs, or requires relaxation of the operating envelope to appear beneficial.","risks":["Teams may strategically certify readiness or withhold early releases.","Well-resourced teams may maintain more claim-ready experiments and capture pooled windows.","Short-notice reassignment may increase operator workload or setup errors.","Congestion may move to popular durations, configurations, or staffed periods.","Utilization may rise while experiment quality or reproducibility falls.","Detailed readiness telemetry may expose sensitive research plans.","A temporary pilot may persist through administrative inertia."]},"next_evidence_step":"For one testbed, examine a fixed eight-week historical window and replay each reservation using only information available at the readiness checkpoint. Classify unused time by safety, reset, staffing, compatibility, holder readiness, and nontransferability; enumerate feasible shadow reassignments; build a team-level incidence table; and stop without a live change. Advance only if an independent safety reviewer confirms that some shadow assignments preserve every operating constraint and the allocation committee approves predeclared access and halt rules.","prior_art_status":"UNSEARCHED","revision_record":{"parent_version":null,"progress_targets_addressed":[],"conceptual_changes":[],"operational_changes":[],"evidence_changes":[],"claim_changes":[]}}