Evidence Quality and Uncertainty Standard
The minimum disclosure required for a public Upgraded Intelligence figure, from source and time to sample and limitation.
mandatory disclosure fields
Source, time, geography, unit, sample and limitation
evidence classes
Administrative, observed and derived
version per material method
Changes are explicit, not silently rewritten
imputed values presented as observed
Estimates must be labelled as estimates
Principal findings
What the evidence shows
Evidence classes must stay distinct.
An administrative transaction, an observed advertised state and a model-derived estimate carry different error structures. Combining them does not erase those differences.
Precision follows the weakest disclosed element.
A national source does not make a local sample representative, and a large sample does not repair an ambiguous definition.
Correction is part of publication.
Material source or method changes require a new version, date and explanation. Historical releases are not silently recast to fit a later narrative.
Figure 1
Minimum publication record
Every material result must carry all six fields at the point where a reader encounters it.
Reading note. Equal bars indicate equal requirement, not equal analytical weight.
Method
How this output was produced
- Classify every input as administrative, observed or derived before analysis.
- Attach provenance, observation time, geography and analytical unit to intermediate aggregates.
- Apply declared sample thresholds and keep exclusions measurable.
- Publish the result with sample, limitation, version and a stable publication code.
- Issue a dated correction when a material error changes interpretation.
Interpretation boundary
What this release cannot prove
- Disclosure does not remove bias; it makes the bias inspectable.
- Different research questions require different thresholds and validation tests.
- Commercial decisions still require property-specific context beyond a market aggregate.
Source register
Evidence and citation
Upgraded Intelligence (2026), Evidence Quality and Uncertainty Standard, version 1.0, UI-STD-QA-2026-01.
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