{"abstention_reason":null,"arm":"SUBSTRATE_DIVERSE_P2","candidate_id":"continuity_rupture_regime_diagnosis_and_transition_design__sport_science__SUBSTRATE_DIVERSE_P2","cell_id":"continuity_rupture_regime_diagnosis_and_transition_design__sport_science","decision":"PROPOSAL","experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp13_second_slot_policy60_20260806","proposal":{"actors":["Endurance athlete preparing for altitude competition","Sports physician","Exercise physiologist","Strength-and-conditioning or endurance coach","Hypoxic-facility technician","Athlete representative or independent safety observer"],"affected_objective":"Establish a tolerable and performance-relevant transition from normoxia to competition-relevant hypoxia while preserving athlete stop rights, physiological safety, valid baseline measurements, recovery capacity, and a credible return to the last tolerated oxygen condition.","arm":"SUBSTRATE_DIVERSE_P2","authority_safety":{"authorized_first_step":"A qualified technician may bench-test the empty hypoxic enclosure, gas-mixing equipment, independent oxygen analyzer, alarms, ventilation, emergency normoxia restoration, and sensor time synchronization across the proposed oxygen plateaus; no athlete exposure is authorized by this first step.","decision_authority":"The sports physician determines eligibility, contraindications, exposure limits, and medical stopping criteria; the athlete may stop at any time; the exercise physiologist controls only physician-approved chamber settings; the coach cannot override medical or athlete stop decisions and cannot use the assay to determine selection.","excluded_actions":["Unsupervised hypoxic exposure","Disabling or relying on a single oxygen sensor or alarm","Using pulse oximetry alone to diagnose illness or declare altitude readiness","Progressing oxygen reduction after neurological, cardiopulmonary, or severe acute-mountain-sickness symptoms","Using team-selection pressure as consent","Treating normobaric chamber tolerance as proof of safe performance at terrestrial altitude","Continuing exposure to complete a protocol after a stopping criterion is met"],"halt_rollback":"Restore normoxia immediately and terminate the session for physician-defined oxygen-saturation limits, chest pain, syncope or presyncope, confusion, severe headache, ataxia, abnormal dyspnea, concerning cardiac signs, equipment disagreement, or athlete request. Maintain observation and invoke emergency care when indicated; no re-exposure occurs without medical reassessment. For non-emergency intolerance, return any later protocol to the last tolerated oxygen plateau or normoxia."},"baseline":"A fixed altitude-acclimatization schedule based mainly on simulated altitude, elapsed exposure days, and generic progression tables, assuming that physiological strain changes smoothly as inspired oxygen declines and reverses promptly when normoxia is restored.","candidate_id":"continuity_rupture_regime_diagnosis_and_transition_design__sport_science__SUBSTRATE_DIVERSE_P2","causal_chain":["Lowering inspired oxygen physically reduces alveolar and arterial oxygen availability, perturbing ventilation, circulation, cerebral oxygen delivery, sleep, recovery, and exercise capacity.","These responses may remain proportional over early plateaus but can reorganize abruptly when compensatory reserve is exceeded; entry and recovery thresholds may differ because ventilatory activation, fluid shifts, fatigue, and sleep disruption persist after the initiating exposure.","A fixed schedule can therefore mistake elapsed exposure for continuous adaptation, hide athlete-specific threshold behavior, or impose an abrupt competition-altitude cutover before recovery mechanisms stabilize.","The calibrated hypoxic step-ladder applies reversible oxygen plateaus while independent instruments compare respiratory, cardiovascular, perceptual, exercise, and recovery trajectories at breath, minute, session, and multi-day scales.","Paired normoxic returns test whether each response resolves along the entry path or exhibits persistence, delayed worsening, or incomplete recovery, distinguishing proportional strain from threshold crossing, accumulation, contextual shock, and measurement artifact.","The observed regime determines whether later acclimatization should use gradual oxygen steps, longer holds, alternating normoxic recovery, a bounded parallel low-intensity block, or abandonment of the planned altitude exposure.","Medical stop gates, rapid physical restoration of normoxia, and preservation of the last tolerated plateau keep early testing reversible while follow-up monitoring checks whether the selected transition remains appropriate outside the chamber."],"cell_id":"continuity_rupture_regime_diagnosis_and_transition_design__sport_science","consequence":"False continuity can send an athlete through a hypoxic threshold that produces unsafe desaturation, impaired coordination, sleep disruption, excessive recovery cost, or degraded competition performance. False rupture can cause unnecessary withdrawal, excessive normoxic recovery, loss of useful acclimatization, and an ill-timed arrival strategy.","diversity_from_prior_proposals":"This opportunity concerns oxygen-environment transitions in otherwise medically eligible athletes and acts through calibrated gas composition plus physiological instrumentation. It does not address injury reintegration, sport-movement modality boundaries, clinical clearance, or workload progression, and its causal path runs through hypoxic compensation, threshold failure, and asymmetric reoxygenation rather than tissue tolerance and movement-demand exposure.","experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp13_second_slot_policy60_20260806","intervention":"Build a physician-bounded Reversible Hypoxic Step-Ladder Assay using a normobaric enclosure or breathing circuit that can deliver independently verified, stable inspired-oxygen plateaus and restore normoxia rapidly. After a normoxic baseline, an eligible athlete completes short, submaximal plateaus separated by controlled normoxic returns; oxygen reduction, plateau duration, exercise task, and recovery interval are fixed before the session. Direct instruments record inspired oxygen, peripheral oxygen saturation, ventilation, heart rate and rhythm where indicated, blood pressure, standardized submaximal power or pace, symptoms, coordination checks, and delayed sleep and recovery responses. Breath-, minute-, session-, and multi-day trajectories are paired with calibration and missingness records. The team classifies responses as proportional drift, cumulative loading, threshold crossing, physiological reorganization, external perturbation, or instrument artifact; tests entry-versus-return asymmetry; and uses the result to choose gradual steps, longer holds, alternating normoxic recovery, bounded parallel training, or no hypoxic transition. Software may display or summarize signals, but calibrated gas delivery, physical reoxygenation, direct measurement, and clinician-observed stopping remain operative without it.","mechanism_mapping":[{"counterfactual_removal":"Without cross-resolution comparison, a stable session average could conceal a minute-scale desaturation cliff or a delayed multi-day recovery break.","mechanism_slug":"multi_resolution_change_point_and_trend_comparison","role":"Compare breath- or minute-level responses, plateau summaries, session recovery, sleep, and multi-day baselines around each oxygen transition."},{"counterfactual_removal":"Without tracing the physical exposure and physiological sequence, a response change could be misattributed to hypoxia when caused by sensor displacement, dehydration, anxiety, prior training, temperature, or task variation.","mechanism_slug":"process_tracing_and_mechanism_discrimination","role":"Link verified inspired oxygen to ventilation, saturation, cardiovascular strain, performance, symptoms, and delayed recovery while retaining rival explanations."},{"counterfactual_removal":"Without paired continuity and rupture claims, reviewers could selectively interpret either successful early plateaus or one adverse reading as the athlete's entire altitude regime.","mechanism_slug":"continuity_rupture_claim_matrix","role":"Place evidence of proportional compensation beside evidence of threshold behavior, delayed loss, subgroup difference, missingness, and measurement uncertainty."},{"counterfactual_removal":"Without stepped exposure followed by controlled normoxic return, threshold location and recovery asymmetry would remain unknown until a longer or less recoverable altitude exposure.","mechanism_slug":"threshold_hysteresis_and_reversibility_probe","role":"Use bounded oxygen plateaus and reoxygenation intervals to estimate a threshold range and determine whether recovery retraces the entry trajectory."},{"counterfactual_removal":"Without a bounded coexistence rehearsal, chamber tolerance and ordinary training could conflict in intensity, recovery demand, and operational rules only after a full acclimatization block begins.","mechanism_slug":"parallel_transition_and_cutover_rehearsal","role":"Rehearse a limited hypoxic training block while normoxic training and recovery capacity remain available, with one medical authority and a fixed sunset."},{"counterfactual_removal":"Without post-transition audit, apparently successful acclimatization could conceal persistent sleep loss, coordination impairment, degraded normoxic performance, or restrictions that no longer have evidentiary support.","mechanism_slug":"post_transition_legacy_loss_and_regime_audit","role":"Compare promised and realized safety, performance, recovery, measurement comparability, athlete experience, and return-to-normoxia behavior."}],"nearest_rivals":["Fixed simulated-altitude progression tables","Arrival schedules based only on days before competition","Continuous low-dose hypoxic sleeping protocols without reversible threshold probes","Single resting pulse-oximetry readiness cutoffs","One maximal hypoxic exercise test","Coach-led exposure adjustment based only on pace or subjective difficulty"],"negative_tests":{"intervention_falsifier":"The assay is undermined if independently replicated plateaus do not produce sufficiently stable oxygen conditions, reviewers cannot reproduce regime classifications, or classifications add no decision-relevant information beyond verified oxygen dose and elapsed exposure time.","problem_falsifier":"The proposed problem is falsified in the studied population if preregistered oxygen steps produce proportional, scale-stable responses, recovery consistently retraces entry, delayed outcomes agree with within-session measures, and the fixed schedule selects the same safe transition for every athlete studied.","risks":["Symptomatic hypoxemia, syncope, arrhythmia, impaired coordination, or acute mountain-sickness-like symptoms","Gas-mixing, enclosure, ventilation, analyzer, or alarm failure","Pulse-oximeter artifact from motion, perfusion, pigmentation-related bias, or sensor placement","A short normobaric exposure failing to represent terrestrial altitude, sleep, cold, dehydration, or competition stress","Repeated testing creating fatigue that resembles hypoxic accumulation","Threshold estimates encouraging unsafe precision or progression to the estimated boundary","False reassurance from submaximal testing when intolerance appears only during prolonged or maximal work","Coaches or selectors misusing physiological records beyond the consented safety and planning purpose"],"strongest_counterevidence":"A replicated series in which verified decrements in inspired oxygen yield proportional physiological and performance changes, no resolution-dependent break, no delayed deterioration, and symmetric recovery to normoxia—and in which generic schedules make the same exposure decisions—would argue that individualized regime diagnosis is unnecessary."},"next_evidence_step":"After successful equipment-only validation and ethics and medical approval, run a feasibility study with no more than eight medically screened adult endurance athletes. Pre-register three conservative oxygen plateaus, a standardized submaximal task, normoxic recovery intervals, independent analyzer tolerances, stopping rules, and classification criteria. Perform no maximal work and no overnight exposure. End after repeatability, reviewer agreement, adverse-event, scale-discordance, and entry-return asymmetry analyses; do not infer competition readiness or prescribe an unsupervised acclimatization program.","observable_state":"Verified inspired-oxygen fraction at the athlete interface and by an independent analyzer; chamber pressure, temperature, humidity, and carbon-dioxide concentration; exposure and normoxic-recovery durations; peripheral oxygen saturation and signal quality; ventilation and respiratory rate; heart rate and rhythm where medically indicated; blood pressure; standardized submaximal power, pace, and error rate; symptoms and perceived exertion; simple coordination status; pre-exposure training, hydration, sleep, and illness context; post-session symptom resolution; subsequent sleep and next-day recovery; calibration failures, missing observations, and athlete stop requests.","prior_art_status":"UNSEARCHED","problem":"Athletes preparing for altitude competition are often moved from normoxia toward a target simulated altitude according to fixed exposure schedules. The schedule may treat inspired-oxygen reduction as a continuous dose even though ventilatory, cardiovascular, neurological, sleep, and performance responses can remain compensated across early steps and then change sharply, accumulate across days, or recover along a different path. Without a controlled perturbation and return path, staff cannot reliably distinguish ordinary proportional strain from a threshold, persistent reorganization, contextual shock, or measurement artifact, so they may choose an unsafe abrupt exposure or an unnecessarily slow acclimatization regime.","proposal_index":2,"remaining_contrastive_claim":"Relative to fixed altitude schedules and single saturation cutoffs, this proposal makes acclimatization tempo conditional on directly observed oxygen-response dynamics and return-path asymmetry. Its distinctive empirical claim is that calibrated, reversible oxygen plateaus reveal decision-relevant regime differences not captured by elapsed exposure time alone.","revision_record":{"claim_changes":[],"conceptual_changes":[],"evidence_changes":[],"operational_changes":[],"parent_version":null,"progress_targets_addressed":["Generated one closed-book second opportunity materially independent of the sealed P1","Grounded the essential intervention in controlled gas composition and direct physiological measurement","Mapped the complete diagnosis-to-transition archetype into altitude preparation","Specified authority, physical rollback, counterevidence, falsifiers, risks, and a bounded first human-evidence step"]},"schema_version":1,"structural_mapping":[{"archetype_element":"Change Object, Property, and Invariant Frame","domain_realization":"The object is the athlete's physiological and performance state across inspired-oxygen environments; properties include oxygenation, ventilatory compensation, cardiovascular strain, coordination, sleep, recovery, and submaximal output; invariants include athlete stop rights, medical limits, calibrated exposure, comparable baselines, and recoverable normoxia."},{"archetype_element":"Multi-Scale Timeline and Boundary Set","domain_realization":"Align breath or minute responses, plateau transitions, session recovery, overnight effects, and multi-day adaptation around each verified oxygen step and normoxic return."},{"archetype_element":"Change-Mechanism and Regime Classifier","domain_realization":"Discriminate proportional hypoxic strain, cumulative exposure, compensatory threshold failure, physiological reorganization, external perturbation, and instrument artifact."},{"archetype_element":"Continuity–Rupture Evidence Ledger","domain_realization":"Pair preserved submaximal output and stable compensation with desaturation, symptom, coordination, sleep, recovery, and performance breaks, recording calibration, uncertainty, context, and athlete experience."},{"archetype_element":"Threshold, Path-Dependence, and Reversibility Profile","domain_realization":"Estimate oxygen-transition ranges, accumulation effects, entry-versus-return asymmetry, delayed response, and whether normoxic restoration actually re-establishes the prior state."},{"archetype_element":"Affected-Party, Legacy, and Loss Map","domain_realization":"Map athlete safety and agency, physician obligations, coach planning needs, technician responsibilities, retained normoxic training capacity, longitudinal physiological records, and possible misuse in selection."},{"archetype_element":"Transition-Regime, Safeguard, and Cutover Plan","domain_realization":"Choose gradual oxygen steps, longer holds, alternating normoxic recovery, a bounded parallel block, or abandonment; specify medical gates, independent analyzers, alarms, emergency normoxia, exposure ceilings, and sunset conditions."},{"archetype_element":"Regime Monitor, Recovery, and Revision Loop","domain_realization":"Track oxygen-condition stability, acute and delayed response, threshold proximity, recovery symmetry, adverse events, subgroup variation, residual normoxic impairment, and triggers to hold, regress, terminate, or redesign exposure."}],"substrate_contract":{"counterfactual_independence":"If all software, algorithms, databases, automated recommendations, and information-routing systems are removed, calibrated reduction of inspired oxygen still creates the physiological perturbation, independent instruments still expose its response pattern, and manual restoration of normoxia still supplies rollback. Those physical and measurement operations provide the essential effect.","forbidden_channel_audit":"Governance, consent, scheduling, coaching, recordkeeping, and optional displays support safety and interpretation only. No incentive, training message, workflow, model, readiness score, software controller, or data-routing rule substitutes for the controlled gas exposure and direct measurement. Oxygen settings must remain physically verifiable and manually recoverable rather than depending on opaque digital control.","primary_allowed_process":"HYBRID_OTHER_ALLOWED_PRIMARY"},"title":"Reversible Hypoxic Step-Ladder for Diagnosing Altitude-Adaptation Regimes","version":0},"schema_version":1}