{"schema_version":1,"research_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp05_external_evaluation_20260803","source_assessment_id":"negative_space_design__marine_science:P5:v0","cell_id":"negative_space_design__marine_science","search_queries":["site:iodp3.org sample policy archive half working half core samples","marine environmental specimen bank archived samples retrospective analysis official","ocean sample repository aliquot reserve sample allocation policy official","GEOTRACES sample archive aliquot future analysis policy","IODP sample material curation policy archive half permanent archive official PDF","International Ocean Discovery Program sample allocation committee minimum permanent archive official","marine core repository sampling policy archive half repository official","ocean drilling sample request policy archive half working half","ISO 20387 biobanking traceability storage chain custody sample official standard","ISBER best practices aliquots avoid freeze thaw reserve samples biobank","NIST biorepository sample history downstream analysis access policy marine official","environmental specimen bank sample contamination preservation future analysis research","site:nsf.gov ocean sciences data sample policy physical samples repository sample allocation","NSF Division Ocean Sciences sample and data policy physical samples official","BLS biological technicians median annual wage 2025 laboratory manager","marine sample repository sample request policy cost fee","site:nsf.gov/policies/document \"NSF 24-124\" ocean sciences sample data policy","NSF 24-124 Division Ocean Sciences Sample Data Policy physical samples","site:nsf.gov \"working archive\" samples ocean sciences policy"],"sources":[{"source_id":"S1","title":"Division of Ocean Sciences (OCE) Sample and Data Policy (NSF 24-124)","publisher":"U.S. National Science Foundation","url":"https://www.nsf.gov/policies/document/division-ocean-sciences-oce-sample-data-policy","source_class":"GOVERNMENT_OR_REGULATOR","publication_date":"2024-09-04","accessed_at":"2026-08-03","claims_supported":["NSF-funded ocean-science proposals must plan for collected and archived samples.","Principal investigators must share samples and physical collections within a reasonable time.","Physical collections generally must become publicly accessible upon publication or within two years.","PIs and repositories are identifiable authorizers and adopters, subject to the approved data-management and sharing plan."]},{"source_id":"S2","title":"Scientific Ocean Drilling Programs Sample, Data, and Obligations Policy","publisher":"International Ocean Drilling Programme","url":"https://www.iodp.org/docs/iodp-future/1241-sample-data-and-obligations-policy/file","source_class":"OFFICIAL_GUIDANCE","publication_date":"2026-07","accessed_at":"2026-08-03","claims_supported":["Scientific ocean drilling already establishes permanent, initially protected core archives.","At least one replicate stratigraphic copy is designated permanent when multiple holes recover the same interval.","Permanent archive sampling requires Curatorial Advisory Board approval.","The Sample Allocation Committee, curators, and advisory board provide explicit allocation and release authority.","This board-approved document was still labeled as a draft, so its effective status is uncertain."]},{"source_id":"S3","title":"Sample Distribution Policy","publisher":"Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Seafloor Samples Laboratory","url":"https://www2.whoi.edu/site/seafloorsampleslab/sample-collection/sample-distribution-policy/","source_class":"OFFICIAL_ORGANIZATION_DATA","publication_date":"undated","accessed_at":"2026-08-03","claims_supported":["WHOI routinely divides sediment cores into a working half and a pristine, untouched archive half.","The archive half is protected as a permanent record while nondestructive measurements remain permitted.","Destructive access after working-half depletion requires curatorial review of scientific justification.","A marine repository is an identifiable adopter already exercising the proposed type of authority."]},{"source_id":"S4","title":"The NIST Biorepository","publisher":"National Institute of Standards and Technology","url":"https://www.nist.gov/programs-projects/nist-biorepository","source_class":"GOVERNMENT_OR_REGULATOR","publication_date":"undated","accessed_at":"2026-08-03","claims_supported":["NIST maintains more than 200,000 biospecimens, including marine and coastal material, under formal access policies.","Deferred preservation provides future verification of analytical results and enables later analyses.","NIST protocols seek sufficient material for multiple analyses, contamination control, stability, and complete sample-history tracking.","Implementation may require validated cold storage, monitoring, inventory management, metadata, and quality-control infrastructure."]},{"source_id":"S5","title":"ISO 20387:2018 Biotechnology — Biobanking — General requirements for biobanking","publisher":"International Organization for Standardization","url":"https://www.iso.org/standard/67888.html","source_class":"STANDARD","publication_date":"2018-08","accessed_at":"2026-08-03","claims_supported":["Biobanks require competent, impartial, consistent operation and quality controls for biological material and associated data.","The standard applies to research biobanking of animal and microorganism material.","Applicable regulations and material-specific requirements remain additional constraints."]},{"source_id":"S6","title":"International Environmental Specimen Bank Group: Protocols and data","publisher":"German Environment Agency (Umweltbundesamt)","url":"https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/en/topics/chemicals/iesb-specimen-banks/protocols-data","source_class":"GOVERNMENT_OR_REGULATOR","publication_date":"undated","accessed_at":"2026-08-03","claims_supported":["Standardized sampling, preparation, and archiving are necessary because handling differences can distort chemical analyses.","Specimen banks use unique identifiers and databases linking collection, storage, and analytical history.","Release commonly depends on scientific merit, tissue availability, and institutional policy.","Preservation and release procedures must be material- and repository-specific."]},{"source_id":"S7","title":"NOAA National Status and Trends Program Specimen Bank: Sampling Protocols, Analytical Methods, Results, and Archive Samples","publisher":"National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration","url":"https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/1407/noaa_1407_DS1.pdf","source_class":"GOVERNMENT_OR_REGULATOR","publication_date":"1996-08","accessed_at":"2026-08-03","claims_supported":["NOAA and NIST operated a marine tissue and sediment archive with controlled access for retrospective studies and overlooked contaminants.","Release required sufficient material beyond anticipated program needs, a justification that archived material was necessary, and NOAA/NIST approval.","The policy required detailed analytical methods, quality controls, quantities, and reporting commitments.","Requesters bore packaging, shipping, and any required cryogenic homogenization costs."]},{"source_id":"S8","title":"Biological Technicians","publisher":"U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics","url":"https://www.bls.gov/ooh/life-physical-and-social-science/biological-technicians.htm","source_class":"GOVERNMENT_OR_REGULATOR","publication_date":"2025-08-28","accessed_at":"2026-08-03","claims_supported":["The May 2024 median biological-technician wage was $52,000 annually or approximately $25 per hour.","Relevant technician duties include preparing samples, documenting procedures and observations, maintaining records, and monitoring contamination.","The wage provides a conservative labor basis for 2026 resource-equivalent estimates; loaded institutional costs will be higher."]}],"problem_evidence":{"support":"MODERATE","rationale":"The problem mechanism is visible and consequential: NIST explicitly preserves marine specimens for future analytical verification, while WHOI and ocean-drilling programs protect untouched archive material and control destructive access. Standardized handling is necessary because preparation differences can distort results. However, no located source quantified how often eligible ocean samples are completely consumed, how often discordant results then require untouched matched material, or the realized cost of that failure across seawater, porewater, biological, and sediment classes.","source_ids":["S2","S3","S4","S6","S7"]},"stakeholder_evidence":{"support":"STRONG","rationale":"Identifiable adopters and authorizers already express and exercise the need: NSF requires sample-management and access plans; IODP uses Sample Allocation Committees, repository curators, and an advisory board; WHOI curators protect archive halves; and NOAA/NIST condition access on scientific justification and remaining quantity. This is strong institutional pull for controlled preservation and release, though not specifically for the candidate's proposed label or workflow.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3","S4","S7"]},"prior_art":{"proximity":"ESTABLISHED_PRACTICE","closest_analogues":[{"name":"Scientific ocean-drilling permanent archive","similarity":"Directly preserves initially unsampled core material, treats it as a governed allocation category, and requires elevated authorization before destructive use.","remaining_difference":"The candidate generalizes the rule beyond drilling cores and proposes explicit uncertainty triggers, a retention deadline, and an 'intentionally unassigned verification reserve' state.","source_ids":["S2"]},{"name":"WHOI working-half/archive-half policy","similarity":"Directly separates consumable working material from a pristine untouched archive and permits later sampling only after curatorial scientific review.","remaining_difference":"The published policy is core-specific and does not describe simulated release drills, a LIMS state machine, or discordant-assay trigger taxonomy.","source_ids":["S3"]},{"name":"NIST marine environmental specimen banking","similarity":"Preserves marine specimens for deferred analysis and future verification, using controlled storage, formal access, contamination safeguards, metadata, and inventory systems.","remaining_difference":"It is a long-term biorepository model rather than a lightweight reserve carved from every eligible expedition sample before initial assays.","source_ids":["S4","S5","S6"]},{"name":"NOAA National Status and Trends specimen access policy","similarity":"Reserves marine tissue and sediment for later overlooked-contaminant or retrospective questions and releases it only when sufficient quantity, scientific necessity, and authorization are established.","remaining_difference":"It governs a program archive and does not expressly frame release around conflicts among the original sample's initial assays.","source_ids":["S7"]}],"distinctive_claim_remaining":"The only plausible residual claim is that, for small-volume non-core ocean samples not already covered by an archive policy, an explicit no-owner LIMS state plus predefined discordance/contamination triggers and joint release authorization improves retrieval and uncertainty-directed verification without reducing required initial assays. The searched evidence does not establish this as a distinct advantage over adapting existing specimen-bank, permanent-archive, or controlled-access practice.","confidence":"HIGH"},"implementation_evidence":{"support":"STRONG","rationale":"Technical and workflow feasibility are well demonstrated for eligible materials: repositories already use untouched archives, cryogenic or other controlled storage, unique identifiers, linked metadata, formal request review, and elevated release authority. ISO 20387 supplies a quality-system framework. Feasibility is conditional, not universal: preservation chemistry, minimum viable aliquot, contamination controls, permit or ownership terms, hazardous-material rules, storage monitoring, and access timelines must be validated for each sample class. A reserve cannot correct contamination introduced before partitioning and may harm science if it displaces a load-bearing assay.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3","S4","S5","S6","S7"]},"scores":{"meaningful_impact":{"score":4,"rationale":"Untouched matched material can enable verification that processed extracts or unrelated recollection cannot, but failure prevalence and realized outcome gains were not quantified.","source_ids":["S3","S4","S7"]},"stakeholder_pull":{"score":5,"rationale":"Multiple active marine repositories, a major funder, and formal allocation bodies already require preservation, access planning, and controlled release.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3","S4","S7"]},"incremental_advantage":{"score":1,"rationale":"The core intervention—protecting initially unsampled material for later governed use—is already established in ocean drilling and environmental specimen banking.","source_ids":["S2","S3","S4","S7"]},"distinctiveness_plausibility":{"score":1,"rationale":"The proposed label, trigger taxonomy, and rehearsal are workflow refinements; no source-supported contrast establishes a new functional capability.","source_ids":["S2","S3","S4","S6","S7"]},"technical_implementability":{"score":5,"rationale":"Physical segregation, preservation, inventory tracking, metadata linkage, and controlled release are routinely implemented by repositories, subject to matrix-specific validation.","source_ids":["S2","S3","S4","S5","S6"]},"adoption_authority_feasibility":{"score":4,"rationale":"PIs, allocation committees, curators, and repository boards have recognizable authority, although permits, ownership, funder sharing rules, and program-specific governance may override a local protocol.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3","S7"]},"evidence_readiness":{"score":3,"rationale":"Prior art and operational feasibility are well documented, but the candidate supplies no baseline prevalence, prospective comparison, viability results, or quantified primary-assay tradeoff.","source_ids":["S2","S3","S4","S6","S7"]},"safety_net_benefit":{"score":4,"rationale":"A governed untouched reserve can protect against analytical uncertainty and some handling contamination, but cannot diagnose shared collection-stage contamination and can create false reassurance.","source_ids":["S4","S6","S7"]},"scalability":{"score":3,"rationale":"Governance and LIMS elements scale, but preservation, minimum volume, permits, storage burden, and later analytical compatibility vary substantially across seawater, porewater, tissues, organisms, and sediments.","source_ids":["S1","S4","S5","S6"]}},"score_confidence":"MODERATE","costs":{"first_evidence":{"band_2026_usd":"UNDER_10K","scope":"One existing-laboratory pilot batch: eligibility review, allocation ledger, labels, simulated release of a separate training aliquot, traceability audit, and short report.","confidence":"MODERATE","assumptions":["Existing freezers, monitoring, LIMS or inventory tools, and approved containers are available.","Approximately 40-120 combined technician, curator, QA, and PI hours are required.","The $25/hour 2024 technician median is only a wage floor; the band allows loaded labor, senior review, labels, containers, and preservation checks.","No destructive testing of the protected research reserve is included."],"source_ids":["S4","S7","S8"]},"initial_deployment_startup":{"band_2026_usd":"10K_TO_50K","scope":"Adapt an existing repository or expedition laboratory: matrix-specific SOPs, authority rules, LIMS state and permissions, validation samples, staff training, and one preservation/retrieval qualification.","confidence":"MODERATE","assumptions":["The organization already has compliant cold or ambient storage and monitoring.","Roughly 0.15-0.5 staff-year across technical, curatorial, QA, data, and scientific roles is required.","Greenfield cryogenic facilities, major freezer purchases, and permit acquisition are excluded.","ISO-aligned quality documentation is adapted rather than a new accreditation program being purchased."],"source_ids":["S4","S5","S6","S8"]},"operational_launch":{"band_2026_usd":"10K_TO_50K","scope":"First bounded cruise, project, or collection season: allocation reviews, containers and barcodes, preservation checks, LIMS entry, custody audits, one release drill, and oversight.","confidence":"MODERATE","assumptions":["Tens to low hundreds of eligible samples, not a fleet-wide rollout.","Approximately 0.2-0.6 staff-year plus modest consumables and repository charges.","Primary sampling and assay costs are outside scope.","Exceptional shipping or cryogenic homogenization is requester-funded or separately budgeted."],"source_ids":["S4","S7","S8"]},"annual_recurring":{"band_2026_usd":"10K_TO_50K","scope":"Ongoing operation within an equipped repository: eligibility decisions, inventory and environmental monitoring, periodic audits, release reviews, consumables, and deadline dispositions.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["Approximately 0.1-0.4 staff-year plus incremental storage and consumables.","Existing monitored storage has spare capacity.","The band does not cover a dedicated new archive facility, long-term vessel operations, or high-hazard materials.","Actual cost is highly sensitive to preservation temperature, retention duration, number and volume of reserves, and release frequency."],"source_ids":["S4","S7","S8"]}},"verified_pipeline_gates":{"externally_supported_problem":{"status":"YES","reason":"Official marine repositories preserve untouched material specifically for later analysis or verification, and handling differences can distort analytical results; prevalence remains unmeasured.","source_ids":["S3","S4","S6","S7"]},"externally_credible_adopter_or_authorizer":{"status":"YES","reason":"NSF-funded PIs, IODP Sample Allocation Committees and curators, WHOI curatorial staff, and NOAA/NIST are identifiable adopters or authorizers with existing sample-control mandates.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3","S7"]},"distinct_testable_incremental_claim":{"status":"NO","reason":"Although a local comparison is testable, the causal intervention is not externally differentiated from established permanent archives, pristine archive halves, and marine specimen banks with controlled future release.","source_ids":["S2","S3","S4","S7"]},"bounded_next_evidence_step":{"status":"YES","reason":"A single-batch workflow qualification can compare the proposed state and release protocol with the repository's existing archive or allocation procedure using predefined traceability, viability, assay-coverage, and retrieval measures.","source_ids":["S3","S4","S5","S6"]},"no_unresolved_safety_or_authority_stop":{"status":"YES","reason":"For a noncritical eligible batch, existing PI, curator, QA, and repository authority can bound the test, provided required assays, permits, ownership, hazards, minimum volumes, and validated preservation take precedence.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S4","S5","S7"]},"credible_cost_scope_and_range":{"status":"YES","reason":"The ranges are credible for a protocol layered onto an equipped laboratory and are anchored to documented infrastructure and labor; greenfield facilities and matrix-specific long-term storage remain outside scope.","source_ids":["S4","S7","S8"]}},"next_evidence_step":"Treat this as a local practice-diffusion qualification, not a novelty pilot. On one noncritical batch with surplus above documented primary and legal-archive minimums, preregister eligibility, preservation, reserve volume, authorities, triggers, retention, and stop conditions. Comparator: the institution's current archive-half, named-archive, or ordinary allocation workflow applied to matched training material or a contemporaneous eligible batch. Perform only a simulated QA trigger and release using a designated training aliquot. Measure primary-assay completion, reserve traceability, metadata completeness, preservation acceptance, retrieval time, authorization errors, and staff time. Falsify local advantage if the new state performs no better than the existing archive workflow, the reserve cannot meet a plausible verification-method minimum, retrieval or custody fails, or primary analytical coverage is reduced. Do not infer scientific impact until a naturally arising discrepancy permits an ethically authorized comparison.","blocking_evidence":["No quantified prevalence of complete consumption followed by an unmet need for untouched matched material across the proposed ocean-sample classes.","No prospective comparison against existing archive-half, specimen-bank, named-archive, or controlled-access procedures.","No evidence that the proposed no-owner LIMS state and trigger taxonomy outperform ordinary archive designation.","No matrix-specific stability or minimum-volume validation for seawater, porewater, tissues, organisms, or sediments.","No quantified rate at which a released reserve resolves discordant assays or changes a scientific conclusion.","Long-term storage, permitting, ownership, culturally governed material, and greenfield infrastructure costs remain unestimated."],"research_disposition":"KNOWN_PRACTICE_DIFFUSION","world_novelty_boundary":"This evaluation establishes only that controlled preservation of initially unsampled marine material for future or verification analyses is an established practice and that the candidate's searched contrast was not demonstrated. World novelty, patentability, freedom to operate, market size, and realized impact were not measured. The search was bounded to eight direct sources and cannot exclude an unsearched implementation-specific distinction.","arm":"COMPLETE_PROPOSAL_PORTFOLIO","candidate_version":0,"controller_recommendation":{"action":"STOP_DIFFUSION","repairable":false,"material_progress_observed":true,"progress_targets":["Reclassify the proposal from innovation research to adoption or quality-improvement diffusion of established archive and biobanking practice.","Before local adoption, document which sample classes lack an existing archive rule and map the proposed workflow against the repository's current policy.","Run the bounded single-batch qualification with an existing archive workflow as the comparator and the stated viability, traceability, primary-assay, retrieval, and cost falsifiers.","Do not claim novelty or incremental scientific impact without a distinct comparator-backed result from a naturally arising verification need."],"reason":"Open-book research found direct, mature marine analogues: permanent ocean-drilling archives, WHOI pristine archive halves, and NOAA/NIST marine specimen banking already preserve initially unused material for future analysis or analytical verification under controlled access. The candidate is technically feasible and institutionally adoptable, but its central incremental claim collides with established practice; remaining differences are workflow refinements rather than a demonstrated new capability."},"proposal_index":5}