|
As an
investigator, you are responsible to your supervisors, clients, or peers
to make accurate decisions, organize and document your information,
and justify your conclusions. FactLogic allows you to do this.
You can
use FactLogic to evaluate and compare assertions from forensic science
(i.e., for law and law enforcement), security, geology, astronomy,
archeology, paleontology, evolutionary biology, etc.
For the purpose of investigation, a case
consists of one or more independent facts and one or more assertions.
(Two facts are independent if knowing that one fact exists does not change
your judgment of the other fact.) An
assertion is a statement to be proved - such as an allegation, charge, cause
of action, hypothesis, etc. Independent facts are judged to evaluate
assertions.
Assertions
are evaluated as the probability it is true. FactLogic provides the logical
evaluation of an assertion. If there are multiple assertions, compare
them by comparing the probability that each is true.
You can easily create your
case and evaluate it.
-
Create
Your Case. Enter some case information, one or more
assertions, and the independent facts.
-
Evaluate
Your Case. You can immediately evaluate your case and/or you can
randomly assign evaluators to independently evaluate it. Investigators
can be collocated or dispersed. Factlogic combines multiple
evaluations and provides the statistical conclusions.
1.
Evaluation
1.1 Single
Investigator
The most
common application of FactLogic is for a single investigator to determine the probability
an assertion is true. A single evaluation is always helpful and
expedient, but precision is not available from a single evaluation.
1.2 Multiple Investigators
You can assign
multiple investigators to evaluate facts and reach conclusions that
are especially trustworthy and accurate. Investigators can be collocated
or dispersed. FactLogic sends an e-mail message to each invited investigator
that contains a link to the evaluation page for your case. Each investigator
knows only the probabilities he/she enters (unless you chose to share the
results from all investigators).
-
Select
Investigators. Select investigators randomly from a population of
investigators that are wise and relatively knowledgeable about the facts
and assertions. The more investigators the more precise will be
the evaluation.
-
Obtain Independent
Evaluations. Investigators should evaluate the facts independently (i.e., without communication).
2. Analysis
Statistical
analysis is appropriate for investigations because investigators need to
know how accurately they have estimated the probability an assertion is
true, and they sometimes need to compare the probabilities that multiple
assertions are true.
-
Estimate
An Assertion and Its Precision. FactLogc computes the
average probability the assertion is true (from the participating
investigators), and it computes an interval, that is centered on the
average, that you can be 95% confident contains the average probability
the assertion is true (from the population).
-
Compare Two
Assertions. Additionally, you can use a statistical test of
significance to determine if the probabilities that two assertions are
true are significantly different. (This test is currently not part of
FactLogic, but it can be requested from Convex Corporation.)
|
