created 24 August 2026 · last modified 24 August 2026
the publication register
Papers.
The labels below describe where each paper sits relative to peer review, not how confident the program is in its own ideas. Preprint means a version of record exists in public with a DOI. Drafted means a complete manuscript exists. Scaffolded means structure and equations are in place but the writing is partial. Hypothesis means the prediction has not been tested. Conceptual means the argument has been mapped but not written.
Papers move forward in the order set by the critical path. The flagship is not first. The synthesis is last.
Ostrom's Design Principles as Percolation Maintenance Specifications for Trust Networks: A Ninth Principle Predicted by Network Dynamics
Asks
Can Ostrom's eight design principles be read as maintenance operations on a trust network whose connectivity follows a percolation threshold, and does the mathematics predict a ninth?
Form
Theory paper with formal model and agent-based simulation
Notes
Published as a Zenodo preprint (v1.0, July 5, 2026) with DOI — the program's first formal publication of record. Journal submission ahead: primary venue a commons-governance journal, fallback a complex-systems journal.
P2 · L1Scaffolded
Reconciliation Dynamics
Asks
What are the conditions under which a relationship recovers from betrayal, and where do the bifurcations sit?
Form
Mathematical and simulation paper
Notes
Held narrow on purpose. Defines the betrayal accumulator, recovery term, and effective repair coefficient; reports phase portraits. Does not attempt empirical validation.
P3 · L1Drafted · overbroad
The Trust Force Equation
Asks
Can a relational trust score built from operational variables outperform existing computational trust models on shared cases?
Form
Theory paper plus scoring protocol
Notes
Blocked on operational scoring. Does not move until a coding manual is complete, external coders are trained, and inter-rater reliability is reported. Comparisons against Marsh, Jøsang, and FIRE are part of the submission package.
P4 · L3Hypothesis
Temporal Edge Persistence
Asks
Does periodic renewal predict edge persistence above a measurable threshold in a single bounded institutional domain?
Form
Empirical study
Notes
Pre-registered. One domain only — acequia, open source, Wikipedia, small-scale fisheries, or mutual aid. The result is reported whether or not it supports the hypothesis.
P5 · L4Conceptual
AI Institutional Alignment
Asks
What does the design-principle frame add to current accounts of AI alignment that the technical literature does not already supply?
Form
Position paper
Notes
Sequenced after Paper 1 is in review. Reads as institutional theory applied to AI, not AI commentary in search of a theory.
preprint policy
Each paper is posted as a preprint on submission day, not before. The preprint and the journal submission share the same manuscript hash; the public timestamp matches the journal record. P1 set the program’s first public record ahead of that cycle: a Zenodo preprint with a DOI (v1.0, July 5, 2026), so the version of record exists before any journal decision.
How to cite
APA 7th ed.
Perkins, C. (2026, May 6). Papers. Kinetic Trust Protocol. https://kinetic-trust-protocol.net/research/papers
Plain text
Chris Perkins, "Papers," Kinetic Trust Protocol, https://kinetic-trust-protocol.net/research/papers (accessed May 6, 2026).