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Current research questions

My current work asks how agent-assisted development can produce results that remain inspectable after the agent session ends.

  • Authority: How should capabilities, permissions, execution context, approvals, and evidence be represented so an agent can act only within an explicit mandate?
  • Evaluation: What evidence is sufficient to compare model or harness changes, and when should an evaluation refuse to produce a decision?
  • Verification: How can a separate verifier recompute a result from durable artifacts instead of trusting the reporting path that produced it?
  • Development systems: Which specifications, environment controls, and automated checks make agent-assisted work reproducible across tools and repositories?

Public methods and implementations

  • Host Capability Substrate: typed capability, authority, execution-context, and evidence contracts with generated JSON Schemas and CI checks.
  • Agentic-Coding Evaluation Lab methodology: fail-closed evaluation contracts and a synthetic NOT_EVALUABLE result recomputed by a separate verifier in the same program.
  • Agentic Architecture Audit: a public specification and deterministic checks for testing whether agent-built systems conform to their declared architecture.

Applied statistics publication

Pediatric Walking Speed Normal Reference Values in a Local Population

Cadieux JM, Pyhala SL, Johnson JV

Pediatric Physical Therapy, 2023;35(3):314-320

doi:10.1097/PEP.0000000000001015

My role: Led the statistical analysis (third author)

Methods: R (version 4.1.3), IBM SPSS

Analysis: 13×2×2 factorial ANOVA with Type III sum of squares, 1,593 participants ages 5-17

Result: Normal reference values for children ages 5-17 in one rural Alaska school district

Interdisciplinary collaboration applying statistical methods to clinical physical therapy research. Large dataset management (1,593 children) and rigorous factorial analysis examining main effects and two-way interactions for age, sex, and footwear.

Pure mathematics

Spectral Conditions for Composition Operators on Algebras of Functions

Johnson J, Tonev T

Communications in Mathematics and Applications, 2012;3(1)

Research on spectral preserving maps between function algebras. Extends results on composition operators in commutative Banach algebras. Co-authored with dissertation advisor.

Ph.D. Dissertation (2013)

Peripherally-Multiplicative Spectral Preservers Between Function Algebras

University of Montana, Missoula, MT

Advisor: Dr. Thomas Tonev

Field: Commutative Banach Algebras, Functional Analysis

Established general sufficient conditions for maps between function algebras to be composition or weighted composition operators. Defined and characterized weakly peripherally-multiplicative and almost peripherally-multiplicative maps. Extended theory to function algebras without unit on locally compact Hausdorff spaces.

Related study and teaching

Since 2023, I have held recurring theoretical-computer-science study sessions with a student collaborator, covering lambda calculus, formal languages, abstract algebra, and applied cryptography. This is independent study and mentoring, not a publication claim. My degrees, teaching record, and continuing education are listed in the Resume and Experience pages.