RMP.4:5 - Archetypal Grounding
These constructed cases illustrate trace content and receiving limits. They report no actual environmental, laboratory, historical or computational result.
RMP.4:5.1 - ResidentStream-S17: preserve a useful trace after losing the comparison
The selected design would compare salinity-related observations at a downstream reach and a reference reach during an informative thaw event. Assume the measurement method, calibration basis, safe access and intended site-period relation were qualified when the design was chosen.
During the event, downstream observations are made, but the reference reach becomes inaccessible. The team retains the following linked account:
| Retained material | What the account says and permits |
|---|---|
| The selected design and the plan that existed before the event | The intended examination was a paired site-period comparison, not downstream trend description alone. |
| Downstream sample and measurement records | Sample IDs connect time, reach, hydrological context, instrument indications and the qualified measurement results, including the relevant uncertainty. |
| The reference-visit record | The visit was not performed for the named period because access failed. The account identifies the source supporting that reason; it contains no invented reference value. |
| Preparation of a later chart | The transformation connects each displayed downstream value to its measurement record and marks the absent comparison. A chart containing only downstream values cannot silently retain the paired-comparison claim. |
| The changed research-use account | RMP.2 receives the lost comparison premise. The retained observations remain available for a separately justified narrower use. |
Two examinations now differ. A reader can inspect the downstream measurement and handling history. The same reader cannot perform the original paired thaw-event comparison because the reference observation does not exist. Keeping all the surviving files does not remove that difference.
A reference sample taken later in dry weather is new material under different hydrological conditions. Its use requires a justified comparability premise, not a change of file name or a routine replacement of the blank cell.
Suppose volunteers began sampling before any protocol was recorded. The team can reconstruct part of their procedure from contemporaneous sample labels, instrument logs and later reports. The reconstruction names those bases and their uncertainty. It is dated when reconstructed and does not claim that all choices were prospectively fixed.
Private land-access details can remain controlled under the actual permissions. The public account identifies the omitted material’s research role and the examinations possible without it. It promises neither the lost event nor unrestricted independent inspection.
RMP.4:5.2 - Pump-P4: distinguish absence, exclusion and interpretation
On the valid-marker branch of the seal study, specimen P4-07 is damaged during handling before one planned observation. The trace retains its allocation and material identity, the handling record, the time and basis of the reported damage, the absent observation, the applicable prior exclusion intention and the decision actually taken.
The comparison dataset links the remaining observations to their specimen records and preserves why P4-07 contributes no value at that point. Three readings from another seal remain three readings of that seal; trace organization cannot create independent specimens.
A critic can now examine whether the missingness or exclusion threatens the comparison. That judgement belongs to the applicable analytical or criticism Method. The trace neither repairs the lost observation nor grants authority to change the pump’s maintenance interval.
RMP.4:5.3 - A computation with a research-shaping AI suggestion
A researcher uses an AI service to suggest a preprocessing change for a model comparison. In this constructed case, the retained account identifies the supplied design, original data and code version, the relevant proposal and input context, and the researcher’s decision to revise and use the change. The actual run connects the changed code, environment and parameters to its output.
The service also suggests a nonexistent supporting article. The researcher rejects it after source checking and retains the actual source used. The false citation remains a rejected suggestion; it does not become evidence merely because it is preserved in the trace.
Later, the original service version is unavailable. A reader can inspect the retained suggestion, the human decision and the implemented change. They cannot infer that the same service response can be regenerated. A new computational run may test the retained implementation, but it is new work and does not establish replay of the original AI interaction.
RMP.4:5.4 - Historical and interpretive records support different criticisms
For an inquiry into whether a directive preceded a factory’s practice change, the historian retains inspected document identifiers and editions, dates and provenance, the distinction between catalogue entries and inspected contents, contrary evidence and transcription decisions. An unavailable earlier archive series leaves the rival earlier chronology unresolved; its absence is not evidence that the earlier decision never occurred.
An inquiry into how former workers understood the closure uses a different relation. The trace can preserve situated encounters, permitted excerpts, the researcher’s position and reasons for changing prompts or interpretation. A new prompt can be consistent with that inquiry while a move to a population-wide prevalence claim changes its question/design. Criticism follows the declared approach and grounding; the trace does not impose coder agreement as the universal test of interpretation.