I37b. CANDIDATE VALIDATION PROTOCOL FOR THE UNIT OF ABSOLUTE VIABILITY: VIABILITY INVARIANT TEST v1.0

Abstract

This protocol paper develops the Viability Invariant Test v1.0 (VIT-1.0) as a prospective framework for candidate validation of the Unit of Absolute Viability (U_AV) proposed within the Vitology research program. The study distinguishes Inter-Cycle Viability (V_IC) as a candidate measurand, RRS-V as a candidate operationalization, and U_AV as a candidate measurement unit, maintaining the relation V_IC ≠ RRS-V ≠ U_AV. The protocol tests whether a candidate measure of inter-cycle viability provides added information about a subsequent functional cycle after accounting for known predictors, remains distinguishable from a prespecified negative control, reproduces across independent experimental units, and preserves a definable structure under admissible changes in system boundary and time. At a higher evidential stage, the framework introduces cross-domain transformability and the Candidate Viability Invariant (CVI) as a possible basis for further metrological development. VIT-1.0 requires prospective protocol locking, next-cycle assessment, surrogate auditing, negative-control discrimination, unit-level separation, uncertainty estimation, independent replication, boundary and time perturbation tests, and explicit classification of outcomes as PASS, NO-PASS, INCONCLUSIVE, or NOT-APPLICABLE. Battery systems are proposed as the first candidate test domain, while explicitly distinguishing battery recovery from biological regeneration and external recharge from viability. The protocol does not claim that U_AV has been validated. Rather, it establishes falsifiable conditions under which a specific operationalization may receive candidate empirical support. Even a full PASS of VIT-1.0 is interpreted as support for further investigation within the tested operationalization, domain, experimental conditions, and uncertainty, rather than as proof of a universal unit of viability. Keywords Vitology; viability; Inter-Cycle Viability; V_IC; Unit of Absolute Viability; U_AV; Candidate Viability Invariant; CVI; Viability Invariant Test; VIT-1.0; RRS-V; metrology; measurement invariance; negative control; added information; non-reducibility; reproducibility; cross-domain transformability; protocol locking.