{"schema_version":1,"experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp03_full320_20260801","cell_id":"layer_decay_and_expiration_management__criminology_forensic","trajectory_id":"R","attempt_index":0,"archetype_slug":"layer_decay_and_expiration_management","domain_slug":"criminology_forensic","decision":"CANDIDATE","problem_id":"stale_forensic_case_artifact_accumulation","causal_lever_id":"governed_forensic_artifact_lifecycle","proposal":{"problem":"Forensic case repositories can accumulate original evidence images, working copies, extraction outputs, examiner notes, preliminary interpretations, and superseded reports after their active usefulness changes. Without explicit lifecycle states, obsolete derivatives may remain discoverable as if authoritative, while indiscriminate cleanup can destroy material needed for disclosure, appeal, reanalysis, or chain-of-custody reconstruction.","actors_substrate":["forensic laboratory managers and examiners","evidence custodians and repository administrators","prosecutors, defense representatives, courts, and oversight bodies","people whose evidence or personal data is retained","case repositories containing originals, derivatives, notes, reports, and audit records"],"observable_state":"HYPOTHESIS: closed and long-running cases contain identity-resolved artifacts whose age, authority, supersession, access, dependencies, retention basis, and recoverability are inconsistently visible; stale derivatives consequently remain active or cleanup is deferred.","consequence":"Examiners may retrieve obsolete interpretations, repositories become harder and costlier to search, sensitive data remains exposed longer than necessary, and poorly governed deletion may impair review or reconstruction.","affected_objective":"Keep forensic case records bounded and interpretable without compromising evidentiary integrity, disclosure, legal holds, appeals, auditability, or reproducibility.","structural_mapping":[{"archetype_element":"sequential deposits","domain_realization":"Successive evidence acquisitions, forensic images, tool outputs, notes, amended interpretations, and reports deposited during casework.","claim_kind":"INFERENCE"},{"archetype_element":"stale layers remain active","domain_realization":"Preliminary or superseded derivatives remain searchable without a reliable current/superseded distinction.","claim_kind":"HYPOTHESIS"},{"archetype_element":"retention exceptions and dependencies","domain_realization":"Legal holds, disclosure duties, appeals, accreditation requirements, and reconstruction links can require preservation beyond ordinary case closure.","claim_kind":"INFERENCE"},{"archetype_element":"managed lifecycle governance","domain_realization":"Artifact-class rules govern active status, demotion, archive, reversible deletion, restoration testing, and documented destruction.","claim_kind":"HYPOTHESIS"}],"component_map":[{"component":"layer_inventory_and_identity_map","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Case-artifact register linking each original, derivative, note, and report to a stable identifier."},{"component":"deposition_order_and_age_index","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Creation, acquisition, amendment, and case-closure timestamps."},{"component":"retention_policy_matrix","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Artifact class and case status mapped to governing retention and disposition."},{"component":"decay_function_or_aging_rule","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Age reduces presumed operational value of derivatives but never overrides preservation gates."},{"component":"expiration_trigger_definition","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Case closure plus elapsed class-specific period triggers review, not automatic destruction."},{"component":"layer_value_and_risk_score","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Review priority based on authority, reuse, sensitivity, recreation cost, and age."},{"component":"dependency_and_reconstruction_check","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Pre-disposition check for citations, reports, workflows, disclosure sets, and reconstruction paths."},{"component":"pruning_or_archival_pathway","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Refresh, supersede, archive, compact, quarantine, or approved destruction."},{"component":"preservation_exception_register","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Named evidentiary, historical, research, appeal, and safety exceptions with owners."},{"component":"deletion_audit_and_rollback_window","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Recorded soft deletion and time-bounded restoration before destruction."},{"component":"resource_budget_and_storage_tier","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Capacity and retrieval targets for active, nearline, and archival repositories."},{"component":"review_cadence_and_revalidation_loop","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Periodic revalidation of holds, exceptions, stale flags, and restoration capability."},{"component":"legal_hold_or_compliance_override","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Court, disclosure, investigation, appeal, and accredited-policy holds block disposition."},{"component":"hot_warm_cold_access_state","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Active-case, closed-case nearline, and controlled archive access states."},{"component":"orphan_layer_detection","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Identify derivatives with no live citation, dependent report, workflow, or reconstruction role."},{"component":"supersession_marker","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Visible marker naming the authoritative successor while retaining lineage."},{"component":"layer_compaction_candidate_flag","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Flag redundant, reproducible derivatives for packaged archival or deduplication."},{"component":"rehydration_or_restore_procedure","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Controlled restoration preserving identity, integrity checks, permissions, and lineage."},{"component":"deletion_impact_estimate","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Estimate effects on case review, disclosure, reconstruction, privacy, and affected parties."},{"component":"stale_context_detector","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Flag artifacts contradicted or superseded by later validated reports, methods, or case status."}],"mechanism_dispositions":[{"slug":"age_weighted_value_score","disposition":"selected_supporting","contribution_type":"OPERATIONAL","adaptation_or_rejection":"Ranks review candidates; legal status, authority, and reconstruction value are vetoes, and the score cannot authorize deletion.","counterfactual_removal":"Review becomes less scalable but the gated lifecycle still functions."},{"slug":"archive_restore_test","disposition":"selected_load_bearing","contribution_type":"SAFETY_GUARDRAIL","adaptation_or_rejection":"Periodically restores sampled archived artifacts and verifies integrity, readability, permissions, and lineage.","counterfactual_removal":"Archival could silently become irreversible loss, hard-gating safe demotion."},{"slug":"cache_eviction_rule","disposition":"considered_rejected","contribution_type":"NONE","adaptation_or_rejection":"Access recency is an unsafe proxy for evidentiary or legal value; capacity pressure cannot select destruction victims.","counterfactual_removal":"No material change; storage tiering remains policy-gated."},{"slug":"dependency_safe_delete_check","disposition":"selected_load_bearing","contribution_type":"SAFETY_GUARDRAIL","adaptation_or_rejection":"Blocks disposition when any report, disclosure set, workflow, or reconstruction path depends on the artifact.","counterfactual_removal":"Deletion could break case reconstruction, making the intervention nonviable."},{"slug":"lifecycle_storage_tiering_policy","disposition":"selected_load_bearing","contribution_type":"CORE_CAUSAL","adaptation_or_rejection":"Moves eligible closed-case artifacts from active to controlled archival tiers while preserving identity and integrity.","counterfactual_removal":"The design loses its principal way to reduce active clutter without destroying retained evidence."},{"slug":"log_rotation_and_cleanup_job","disposition":"considered_rejected","contribution_type":"NONE","adaptation_or_rejection":"Generational position and fixed-depth purging ignore evidentiary content, holds, and case dependencies.","counterfactual_removal":"No material change."},{"slug":"retention_schedule","disposition":"selected_load_bearing","contribution_type":"CORE_CAUSAL","adaptation_or_rejection":"Defines artifact-class retention, review triggers, preservation exceptions, and controlling legal overrides.","counterfactual_removal":"Disposition lacks legitimate, repeatable authority."},{"slug":"soft_delete_quarantine_window","disposition":"selected_load_bearing","contribution_type":"SAFETY_GUARDRAIL","adaptation_or_rejection":"Uses an impact-sized reversible quarantine after authorization and before destruction, except where continued retention itself is prohibited.","counterfactual_removal":"Pilot cleanup mistakes become immediately irreversible."},{"slug":"stale_layer_detection_dashboard","disposition":"selected_load_bearing","contribution_type":"OPERATIONAL","adaptation_or_rejection":"Surfaces identity-resolved artifacts likely superseded or contextually stale for examiner review.","counterfactual_removal":"Stale artifacts remain difficult to find, weakening the proposed causal lever."},{"slug":"time_to_live_ttl_policy","disposition":"considered_rejected","contribution_type":"NONE","adaptation_or_rejection":"A self-executing fixed clock is too blind for case-specific holds and dependencies; elapsed time may only trigger review.","counterfactual_removal":"No loss because the retention schedule supplies gated review triggers."},{"slug":"tombstone_or_deletion_marker","disposition":"selected_supporting","contribution_type":"SAFETY_GUARDRAIL","adaptation_or_rejection":"Leaves a minimal lineage marker stating disposition, authority, date, and successor without retaining deleted substantive content.","counterfactual_removal":"Deletion becomes more ambiguous and stale indexes may misrepresent absence, though core governance remains."}],"causal_chain":["Inventory artifacts and expose age, authority, supersession, access, retention basis, and staleness.","Apply class-based policy and holds to generate review-eligible candidates.","Gate every candidate on dependency, reconstruction, legal authority, and impact.","Demote retained artifacts to tested archival tiers; quarantine only authorized deletion candidates.","Record supersession or deletion and periodically revalidate holds, exceptions, and restorability.","Active search contains fewer misleading derivatives while required evidence remains reconstructable."],"baseline":"Repositories retain most case artifacts in their existing searchable state until manual, case-by-case cleanup or storage pressure prompts action.","nearest_rival":"A closed-case archival policy that moves entire case folders by age without artifact-level staleness, dependency, supersession, or restoration checks.","authority_safety":{"affected_parties":["defendants and convicted persons","victims, witnesses, and other data subjects","prosecution and defense teams","courts and forensic personnel"],"decision_authority":"The laboratory evidence custodian and records authority may approve lifecycle changes only under applicable court orders, disclosure obligations, accredited policy, and legal counsel; examiners may flag but not unilaterally destroy.","authorized_first_step":"Run a read-only pilot on a stratified sample of closed cases: inventory artifacts, label apparent supersession, simulate retention and dependency gates, and conduct restore tests on copied archive samples; perform no production deletion or access restriction.","excluded_actions":["altering or deleting original evidence","automatic expiry based solely on age or access","overriding a legal hold, disclosure duty, appeal, or court order","using staleness scores as scientific-validity judgments","changing production access before affected case authorities review results"],"halt_rollback":"Halt if any hold is missed, identity or lineage cannot be reconciled, a sampled archive fails integrity restoration, or a proposed disposition would impair disclosure or reconstruction. Discard pilot labels, retain the source state unchanged, and require independent review before resumption."}},"negative_tests":{"strongest_counterevidence":"A representative audit could show that repositories already distinguish authoritative from superseded artifacts, enforce complete retention and hold rules, restore archives reliably, and experience negligible search errors, exposure, or avoidable active-storage burden.","analogy_break":"Forensic artifacts are not fungible storage layers: even old or rarely accessed material can remain uniquely probative, exculpatory, or legally required, and scientific reinterpretation may increase rather than decay its value.","failure_condition":"The approach fails if artifact identities and dependencies cannot be resolved sufficiently to prevent originals or relied-upon derivatives from entering disposition pathways.","problem_falsifier":"In a stratified closed-case sample, lifecycle metadata are complete, superseded artifacts are not presented as current, holds and dependencies are consistently enforced, and no material search, exposure, maintenance, or capacity consequence is attributable to accumulated artifacts.","intervention_falsifier":"Compared with the ordinary baseline in a bounded shadow-mode pilot, the lifecycle rules do not reduce stale items in active search or review effort, or they produce missed holds, broken dependencies, incorrect authority labels, or failed restorations beyond a predeclared zero-tolerance safety threshold.","risks":["Loss or delayed access to exculpatory or probative material","False precision in age-weighted ranking","Privacy harm from extending retention through quarantine or archive","Biased staleness labels that privilege later interpretations","Archive corruption, format obsolescence, or credential failure","Tombstones exposing sensitive case metadata","Policy divergence across jurisdictions and case types"]},"null_rationale":null,"classification":{"candidate_kind":"MECHANISM_ADAPTATION","prior_art_status":"UNSEARCHED","evidence_maturity":"HYPOTHESIS"},"revision_change_log":{"revision_kind":"ORIGINAL","prior_problem_id":null,"prior_causal_lever_id":null,"problem_changed":false,"causal_lever_changed":false,"conceptual_changes":[],"operational_changes":[],"repairs_addressed":[]},"confidence":0.82,"generator_notes":"Closed-book structural inference. Empirical prevalence and benefit claims are hypotheses; legal requirements vary and must be supplied by authorized local policy rather than inferred by the system."}