{"schema_version":1,"experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp12_substrate_denial72_20260805","cell_id":"incentive_compatible_rule_design__accounting_auditing","arm":"CONSTRAINED_MAX","candidate_id":"incentive_compatible_rule_design__accounting_auditing__CONSTRAINED_MAX","decision":"PROPOSAL","abstention_reason":null,"proposal":{"schema_version":1,"experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp12_substrate_denial72_20260805","cell_id":"incentive_compatible_rule_design__accounting_auditing","arm":"CONSTRAINED_MAX","candidate_id":"incentive_compatible_rule_design__accounting_auditing__CONSTRAINED_MAX","proposal_index":1,"version":0,"title":"Displacement-Summed Rack for One-Count Inventory Audits","problem":"During a period-end count of standardized, unserialized, high-value spare-part packages, a warehouse custodian controls how visually identical units are presented to an auditor and may privately know of shortages. A sequential tally records presentation events rather than simultaneous unique objects. The same package can therefore be returned to the uncounted side and presented again, deliberately or accidentally, allowing repeated presentation to conceal a shortage without falsifying any individual tick mark.","actors":["Warehouse custodian controlling the presentation and movement of packages","Independent inventory-count observer or auditor","Controller or financial-statement preparer using the downstream count","Rigid, standardized spare-part packages being counted","Passive displacement-summing occupancy rack"],"observable_state":"A cumulative sequential tally T can exceed the number U of distinct packages simultaneously present in the counted zone. The condition is observable if one package crosses the count boundary more than once while prior tally marks remain, or if a controlled replay produces a nonzero T-minus-U gap.","consequence":"The presentation tally can overstate on-hand quantity, conceal shrinkage, distort the inventory carrying amount and related expense, and weaken evidence for the existence-and-quantity assertion.","affected_objective":"Obtain a period-end physical quantity observation in which each standardized package can contribute at most one unit to the audit snapshot, regardless of presentation order or repeated movement.","intervention":"For one standardized SKU, place presented packages into a modular transparent rack of size-keyed, partitioned cells. Each cell accepts at most one package. Full occupancy drives a binary positive-stop piston through a fixed stroke, displacing a fixed volume of colored, non-toxic incompressible fluid into a shared graduated sight tube. A return spring withdraws that volume when the package leaves the cell. The settled fluid level therefore represents current simultaneous occupancy rather than accumulated presentation events. Moving one package between cells releases one piston as another is depressed, producing no net increase. Partitions prevent one package from bridging two cells. The device contains no electronics, software, identity database, inference, or cumulative event counter.","structural_mapping":[{"archetype_element":"Participant Role Map","domain_realization":"The custodian chooses which packages to present and how to move them; the auditor observes the physical output; the controller may use the result downstream. Only the custodian initially knows whether packages are being recycled or a shortage exists."},{"archetype_element":"Desired Outcome Specification","domain_realization":"The real target is the number of distinct standardized packages simultaneously available at the audit boundary, not the number of presentation gestures, ticks, or crossings."},{"archetype_element":"Action and Choice Set","domain_realization":"The custodian can load a distinct package, relocate a previously loaded package, remove one, partially insert one, omit one, bridge cells, or introduce a surrogate. The intervention specifically neutralizes relocation and repeated-presentation strategies; the other strategies remain explicit tests or limitations."},{"archetype_element":"Incentive Payoff Map","domain_realization":"Under sequential tallying, recycling a package can yield an additional credited unit at low physical cost. Under concurrent displacement summation, relocation yields zero marginal quantity because the original piston returns. Presenting another distinct package is the only in-scope, non-destructive action that raises the settled output."},{"archetype_element":"Information Structure Map","domain_realization":"The instrument does not need package identities or knowledge of presentation history. It replaces hidden identity history with a directly observable conserved state: how many mutually exclusive cells are physically occupied now."},{"archetype_element":"Truthfulness Condition","domain_realization":"For a fixed set of genuine packages and correctly fitted cells, every sequence of insertions, removals, and relocations settles to the same output for the same final occupancy. Re-presenting one package cannot improve the measured result, making the quantity strategy-invariant with respect to that gaming path."},{"archetype_element":"Verification Rule","domain_realization":"One fully occupied cell produces one fixed fluid displacement; an empty cell produces none. Transparent cell walls, binary piston endpoints, and the shared sight tube allow direct physical comparison between occupancy and indicated quantity."},{"archetype_element":"Penalty or Reward Rule","domain_realization":"No external reward, sanction, employment consequence, or audit penalty is operative. The immediate return from repeated presentation is changed physically from an extra tally mark to zero additional displacement."},{"archetype_element":"Strategic Response Test","domain_realization":"Bench challenges include empty actuation, repeated relocation of one package, partial insertion, bridging, simultaneous removal and insertion, jamming, tilting, surrogate blocks, and attempts to leave a piston stuck after removal."},{"archetype_element":"Failure and Gaming Monitor","domain_realization":"Any mismatch among visible occupied cells, piston endpoint states, and the sight-tube level is a direct failure signal. Surrogate packages, mixed SKUs, and omitted units are tracked as separate unmitigated gaming paths."},{"archetype_element":"Participation and Fairness Constraints","domain_realization":"Use is bounded to rigid, non-fragile packages that fit without force. Oversized, damaged, sterile, hazardous, or accessibility-sensitive cases require another count method and cannot be treated as noncompliance."}],"mechanism_mapping":[{"mechanism_slug":"anti_gaming_scoring_rule","role":"Operative physical realization: the quantity output is based on reversible concurrent occupancy rather than an accumulated presentation-event score, so cycling the same unit has zero net effect.","counterfactual_removal":"If the returning displacement sum is removed and presentation events are tallied cumulatively, repeated movement can again generate additional credited units; the claimed anti-recycling effect disappears."},{"mechanism_slug":"audit_and_penalty_system","role":"Only the audit-verification portion is instantiated through direct physical displacement. No penalty component is required or proposed.","counterfactual_removal":"Removing sanctions or follow-up leaves the one-object-at-most-one-displacement property intact. Removing the physical verification coupling reduces the intervention to an ordinary tally and destroys the essential effect."},{"mechanism_slug":"mechanism_design_protocol","role":"A non-operative design-stage wrapper specifies actors, feasible moves, hidden information, and adversarial trials before fabrication.","counterfactual_removal":"After fabrication, removing protocol documents, reviews, or governance does not change the fluid mechanics, confirming that the protocol is not the operative substrate."}],"causal_chain":["A sequential tally accumulates presentation events and does not conserve physical object identity.","A custodian who can move indistinguishable packages can cause one package to generate multiple events.","The rack changes the measured state from event history to simultaneous, mutually exclusive cell occupancy.","Each occupied cell displaces one fixed fluid volume, while removal returns exactly that volume.","Because one properly fitted package can occupy only one partitioned cell at a time, relocation cannot increase the settled fluid level.","Repeated presentation therefore loses its measurement payoff; for the targeted strategy, honest one-time loading and any recycling sequence produce the same final quantity for the same real packages.","The sight-tube level supplies a physical audit observation without software, participant reporting, sanctions, or procedural enforcement."],"baseline":"The testing baseline is a sequential manual tick sheet or handheld tally in which an observer increments the total whenever a package is presented. Paint marks or spatial conventions may be added, but the recorded total remains an accumulation of events unless counted objects remain physically segregated and the tally is reconciled to that state.","nearest_rivals":["Conceptual comparator: physically segregating counted and uncounted packages in separate cages. This may be simpler and can block recirculation if the barrier is maintained, but the numerical count can still be a sequential tally rather than a returning measure of current occupancy.","Conceptual comparator: calibrated gross weighing divided by known unit mass. It may dominate for truly uniform packages, but variable packaging, missing contents, foreign mass, and tare uncertainty challenge the unit conversion.","Conceptual comparator: applying paint, chalk, or removable count tags to each presented package. It creates a physical history marker but can be transferred, obscured, removed, or interpreted inconsistently.","Conceptual comparator: serialized barcode or RFID capture. It can distinguish identities but relies on readers, software, and a database and is outside the proposed causal substrate.","Conceptual comparator: an independent recount or floor-to-sheet reconciliation. It can reveal discrepancies but is procedural and does not itself make repeated presentation measurement-invariant."],"remaining_contrastive_claim":"Conditional and non-novelty-bearing: for rigid standardized packages where repeated presentation is the focal manipulation, a returning displacement sum should be invariant to reorderings and recirculation of the same physical set, whereas a cumulative event tally is not. The proposal makes no advantage claim over calibrated weighing when unit masses are stable and does not address counterfeit, empty, mixed-SKU, omitted, ownership, cutoff, or valuation problems.","authority_safety":{"decision_authority":"Any prototype or deployment requires joint authorization from the audited entity's inventory owner, the audit engagement lead, and the facility safety authority. The device operator has no authority to change books or determine an audit conclusion.","authorized_first_step":"Conduct only a bench trial using inert mock packages and a non-toxic fluid prototype, with no connection to live inventory, accounting records, personnel evaluation, or financial reporting.","excluded_actions":["Using the prototype to support a journal entry, audit opinion, control certification, or allegation of misconduct","Deploying it on live, hazardous, sterile, fragile, temperature-sensitive, or customer-owned inventory","Restricting a person's movement or access to create the count boundary","Applying disciplinary, contractual, or financial consequences from prototype results","Treating the device as evidence of package authenticity, contents, ownership, condition, valuation, or completeness","Operating with exposed pinch points, leaking fluid, forced package insertion, or an unavailable safe release"],"halt_rollback":"Stop immediately upon leakage, a pinch hazard, package damage, a stuck piston, hysteresis, an occupancy-to-display mismatch, or attempted forced access. Release only the mock objects using the safe mechanical override, contain the fluid, label the output invalid, quarantine the prototype, and revert without record changes to the preexisting count method."},"negative_tests":{"strongest_counterevidence":"The strongest counterevidence would be that material count discrepancies arise from omitted or empty packages, SKU substitution, ownership and cutoff errors, or valuation choices rather than repeated presentation, combined with a finding that simple weighing or physical segregation supplies the same relevant evidence with less handling risk.","problem_falsifier":"The proposed problem is falsified for the target setting if a representative shadow count shows a one-to-one relationship between presentation events and distinct packages even when the custodian controls movement, and all observed discrepancies trace to mechanisms other than duplicate presentation.","intervention_falsifier":"The intervention is falsified if any tested sequence lets one genuine package produce a settled indication above one, an empty cell contribute a unit, removal fail to subtract exactly one, identical final occupancy produce history-dependent readings, or ordinary orientation and temperature variation move the reading across an integer boundary.","risks":["Fluid leaks could contaminate packages or create a slip hazard.","Cell walls, springs, or pistons could pinch hands or damage packaging.","Bubbles, thermal expansion, tilt, leakage, friction, or piston hysteresis could create false readings.","Flexible or poorly fitted packages could partially actuate a cell or bridge adjacent cells.","Foreign blocks, empty packages, or counterfeit packages could mimic valid occupancy.","Mixed SKUs or omitted units could produce a precise but irrelevant count.","Loading the rack could disrupt custody, operations, or the audit snapshot.","The visible mechanical output could create false confidence about authenticity, completeness, ownership, cutoff, or valuation.","A determined actor could damage or alter the instrument; resistance to duplicate presentation is not general tamper proofing."]},"next_evidence_step":"Fabricate one ten-cell non-accounting mock-up with clear partitioned cells, binary positive-stop pistons, non-toxic colored fluid, and a graduated sight tube. Using ten rigid inert blocks, preregister 100 insert, remove, and relocate transitions plus partial-insertion, bridging, empty-actuation, jam, tilt, and repeat-state challenges. Two observers independently record actual simultaneous occupancy. Continue only if the settled indication equals occupancy after every transition, identical states give identical readings regardless of history, one block never contributes more than one, and every removal subtracts one; stop at the first safety or measurement failure. This tests only the physical mechanism, not demand, novelty, financial impact, or operational suitability.","prior_art_status":"UNSEARCHED","diversity_from_prior_proposals":"Not assessed because runtime isolation forbids inspection of other proposals, cells, or experiments; no diversity claim is made.","revision_record":{"parent_version":null,"progress_targets_addressed":["Initial candidate creation","Physical-substrate counterfactual independence","Preservation of the archetype's strategic action-and-payoff structure","Explicit limitations and bounded falsification"],"conceptual_changes":["Initial formulation converts a gameable cumulative presentation tally into a strategy-invariant concurrent physical state.","The claim is bounded to duplicate presentation of standardized physical units rather than general audit truthfulness."],"operational_changes":["Initial version specifies size-keyed cells, fixed-stroke pistons, a returning fluid sum, a mock-only first trial, and immediate safety stops."],"evidence_changes":["No external evidence or prior-art evidence was used.","Only a prospective bench test and explicit falsifiers are specified."],"claim_changes":["No novelty, prevalence, demand, or effect-size claim is made.","Authenticity, contents, completeness, ownership, cutoff, condition, and valuation are expressly excluded from the causal claim."]},"substrate_contract":{"primary_allowed_process":"MEASUREMENT_INSTRUMENTATION","counterfactual_independence":"Remove all software, algorithms, databases, dashboards, participant reports, rewards, sanctions, permissions, audit follow-up, and procedural enforcement. A rigid package occupying one cell still drives exactly one fixed-stroke piston; the shared fluid level still represents simultaneous occupancy; and relocating that package cannot increase the settled level. That one-object-at-most-one-measurement effect is the essential causal effect. Decisions about loading scope and use of the reading affect completeness or downstream accounting but do not create the local uniqueness property.","forbidden_channel_audit":"The proposal contains no electronics, computational inference, identity registry, information-routing system, software control loop, incentive payment, penalty, authorization gate, or compliance workflow as an operative element. The sight tube is a direct passive physical output, not a sensor feeding analytics. Handling instructions, authority limits, and safe-stop rules are support wrappers. If effectiveness were redefined as inducing behavior through punishment, requiring acceptance of a report, or relying on a person to preserve a tally convention, the proposal would fail this contract; those effects are not claimed."}}}