Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[LondonJohn]

What reference do you want?

By the way, I've been doing some Google Scholaring...

based on this:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1420248/pdf/gut00409-0025.pdf
Her friends did it.

It's the first paper I found, and is a small study. There's not enough in it to show how how rare 2 hours is, but the longest here was 45 minutes if I'm reading it right. This was after a sugary drink which I understand slows things down.

I read this paper some time ago. It's discussing a very basic technique of measuring gastric emptying using a single-camera measurement system in real-time. And it seems chiefly concerned with measuring the amount of arbitrary "correction" one should apply to the results, if one is using this method. Additionally, as you point out, there were only 24 subjects, which were split into three groups of 11, 7 and 6 (each with different dextrose concentrations). The statistical significance of this study is thus rather suspect. Additionally, the size of the meal was actually somewhat small and protein-rich (100g minced beef and chicken liver) - which would lead to a time-shortening of the stomach transit compared with a larger meal containing carbohydrates and higher fat content.

However, its results do bear some analysis. For those subjects who took a 25% dextrose solution after the solid meal, the lag period (T(lag)) was 60 minutes (Table 2). But the very large spread in T(lag) times between the groups tends to suggest that the study was not statistically significant.

Nonetheless, it still serves to illustrate that solid meals typically start to transit from the stomach through to the duodenum within an hour or so of the start of the meal. This would loosely correlate with the larger studies which have the median T(lag) at around 80 minutes, with 15 minutes being a practical lower limit and 180 minutes being a practical upper limit.

 

[shuttlt]

See, that's what I mean by special pleading. You're trying to claim Meredith had some sort of abnormality of intestinal transit, so that you can go on believing that Amanda might have killed her.

I don't "believe" she is the killer. I don't particularly care whether she is a killer of not. I thought you wanted somebody to argue the stomach contents don't mean they're innocent?

If you had overwhelming proof that Meredith was still alive at ten o'clock, you'd have to start figuring out what-the-hell on the state of the duodenum. But that's not where we are as far as I can see. You're just trying to bend over backwards to have it your way.

You have me confused with someone else.

 

[shuttlt]

...180 minutes being a practical upper limit.

What's the longest lag in the trial? Am I reading this right from the abstract? The study has 80 people? Is it able to actually say what the odds are of somebody still in lag after 2 and a half hours, as I think she would have to be, by 9pm. You can assume it's normally distributed, sure... but you surely underestimate the odds of unusual cases. I accept the odds are still low, but you can't say 1/20,000 for 10:30pm, surely without introducing a bunch of simplifying assumption.

 

[Kaosium]

I wonder where Mrs McCann would be now if she had a false memory episode or if the McCann’s didn’t have witnesses corroborating their movements on the evening that Madelaine was taken.

Quite possibly in jail.

In Perugia they'd have interrogated the witnesses too, refused them lawyers, and then prosecuted them along with McCann.

 

[LondonJohn]

What's the longest lag in the trial?

Not sure what you mean. If you mean the longest lag estimated by any of the expert witnesses, it's 240 minutes (but, as I said before, my view is that this is an estimate borne of an element of guesswork).

But the ToD promoted by the prosecution - and accepted by the court - in the first trial implies a lag of.............. 310 minutes.

 

[Kaosium]

What's the longest lag in the trial?

Perhaps I misunderstand the reason for the question, but it occurs to me to ask when does a reasonable person begin to have doubt? Relying on outliers to suggest it was even possible for them to be there might be a place to start.

 

[shuttlt]

Not sure what you mean. If you mean the longest lag estimated by any of the expert witnesses, it's 240 minutes (but, as I said before, my view is that this is an estimate borne of an element of guesswork).

But the ToD promoted by the prosecution - and accepted by the court - in the first trial implies a lag of.............. 310 minutes.

What's the longest lag in the trial study? Am I reading this right from the abstract? The study has 80 people? Is it able to actually say what the odds are of somebody still in lag after 2 and a half hours, as I think she would have to be, by 9pm. You can assume it's normally distributed, sure... but you surely underestimate the odds of unusual cases. I accept the odds are still low, but you can't say 1/20,000 for 10:30pm, surely without introducing a bunch of simplifying assumption.

 

[shuttlt]

Perhaps I misunderstand the reason for the question, but it occurs to me to ask when does a reasonable person begin to have doubt? Relying on outliers to suggest it was even possible for them to be there might be a place to start.

We're already relying on outliers to try and avoid casting blame on Merredith's friends. Anyway, there are outliers and there are outliers.

 

[sln708]

I'm not sure which is more fascinating...the murder case or this endless, seemingly pointless debate. Obviously there are two distinct camps here, each with polar opinions of what happened that fateful evening. Each with valid reasons for, and a strong,un-impenetrable commitment to those opinions. The facts of the case, the evidence, both physical and circumstantial, have been discussed, reviewed and debated a countless number of times, yet after all this time, all of the thousands of posts, all of the recent developments, no one has changed their view.

There's nothing wrong with a healthy debate but this has deteriorated to nothing more than a slap fight. Nothing either side says is going to change anyone's mind at this point so I ask...why bother? Why devote so much time and energy on a pointless endeavor?

There appears to be a good number of highly intelligent people here, certainly more intelligent than myself, But even I know enough not to waste my time arguing a point with someone that is clearly here for the sole purpose of goading the people that have a different opinion than their own.

I mean really....what is the point of wasting even one more word on someone who would make a comment such as "I don't think she lied when she fingered Patrick. I think she was so high that night she only remembered a black man, when the police suggested Patrick it made just as much sense to her as if they suggested Rudy.. "

 

[shuttlt]

I mean really....what is the point of wasting even one more word on someone who would make a comment such as "I don't think she lied when she fingered Patrick. I think she was so high that night she only remembered a black man, when the police suggested Patrick it made just as much sense to her as if they suggested Rudy.. "

It's no less pointless than discussing Israel as some of the posters on this forum do endlessly without end, or homeopathy, or end of the world predictions. Nothing ever gets resolved there either. My first thousand posts were mainly with Mohammad Nur Syamsu/Nando Ronteltap. Look him up on Google if you want to see pointless. I've seen pointless go nowhere threads and this really isn't too bad. Most posters aren't only allowed to use plastic cutlery by the nurses as poor Nando is.

 

[Katody Matrass]

We're already relying on outliers to try and avoid casting blame on Merredith's friends. Anyway, there are outliers and there are outliers.

Autopsy result is just one of the ToD indicators in this case.

From the abstract provided by LondonJohn:

the T1/2 and Tlag of solid meals did not fit to normal distribution and thus median and percentiles were determined. The median time of T1/2 for solids was 127 min (25–75% percentiles: 112.0–168.3 min) and 81.5 min for Tlag (25–75% percentiles: 65.5–102.0 min).

So I get that 75% percent of subjects had Tlag below 102 min, 25% above.
What was the maximal result? We'd need full text for this, I guess.

 

[shuttlt]

Autopsy result is just one of the ToD indicators in this case.

From the abstract provided by LondonJohn:

the T1/2 and Tlag of solid meals did not fit to normal distribution and thus median and percentiles were determined. The median time of T1/2 for solids was 127 min (25–75% percentiles: 112.0–168.3 min) and 81.5 min for Tlag (25–75% percentiles: 65.5–102.0 min).

So I get that 75% percent of subjects had Tlag below 102 min, 25% above.
What was the maximal result? We'd need full text for this, I guess.

Seems unlikely that the 20 remaining points give reliable coverage up to 2 and a half hours, or give any indication about what the graph looks like beyond that.

 

[Katody Matrass]

Seems unlikely that the 20 remaining points give reliable coverage up to 2 and a half hours, or give any indication about what the graph looks like beyond that.

Can't say without full text. Fortunately we have experts' unisono that rules out 23:30 or later ToD. Or even anything beyond 22:00.

 

[Kaosium]

We're already relying on outliers to try and avoid casting blame on Merredith's friends. Anyway, there are outliers and there are outliers.

I disagree, I've seen the curve for t(lag) compared to that of the height of human males. Off the top of my head the probability that Meredith survived until 9PM is about 3%, roughly the chance a human male is taller than 6'2". That's not an outlier, it's just unlikely. The outliers would be the ones over 8', which it appeared you were asking for. I think there's a world of difference.

 

[Katody Matrass]

And we of course have the rest of the evidence that allows us to pinpoint ToD more precisely.

 

[platonov]

Special pleading, internet diagnosis and other issues.

I think it's extremely unlikely that Amanda's Meredith's stomach would not have started to pass food along to her duodenum by 10pm, never mind later. You have to remember the specific circumstances. Amanda Meredith was a healthy young woman with no reason to suspect delayed intestinal transit. Immediately after her meal she sat down to watch a film, which is very conducive to uninterrupted digestion. If she'd gone out jogging it might have been a different matter.

Nine o'clock is perfectly reasonable, but much more than that and it starts to become special pleading.
Rolfe.

What meal start time is this based on ?

5.30, 6.00 6.30 or 7.00. or any other time of your choosing ?

If this is science as opposed to 'sciency' or 'special pleading' the highlighted statement is surely based on a particular meal start time.
[I wont bother linking to earlier posts of yours that that seem to contradict this 'certainty' but can do so if required]

It's not like you picked a time and worked backwards I hope.

Contra you earlier response to jhunter* their (the 2 white suspects whose participation in this crime would be an extraordinary event apparently ) only established alibi ends at 9.10.

Just so you don't think I am trying to trick you - I'll point this out up front.

* I was only joking about this posters dog earlier - I have no strong feelings either way .
I'm sure to know her ? is to love her but with pets never mind convicted murderers (or even suspects) I am loathe to make (extraordinary) judgments over the internet based on appearances.
I prefer to go with the evidence as opposed to these kind of people don't commit crimes- 'those' do. I had hoped we had left that behind us.

 

[spartacus]

That's a good summary of the way I see the affair. The basic premise is an extraordinary event. I keep waiting for the "gotcha" moment where the extraordinary (or at least compelling) evidence shows up to explain why anyone even began to suspect such a thing had happened.

It doesn't happen, and it goes right on not happening.

Amanda Knox seems to be a fruitloop of the first water, and in many ways he own worst enemy. And a good reason to think twice before smoking pot, I suspect. But Amanda being weird, and maybe not entirely mentally/emotionally stable, isn't any sort of evidence she murdered Meredith.

Rolfe.

For Seattle she is normal. Doesn't flush the toilet with pee (mellow yellow, shows environmental consciousness and saves water, pisses off English people), smokes pot provided by boyfriends, doesn't actually drink too much, has a "unique" personality (required), follows her own drummer (required), lives life for the moment, engages in yoga moves spontaneously. Thinks the cops are good guys and you should try to help them out. There is really nothing about this girl that looks strange from the Seattle perspective. People are not the same around the world. She is now a hardened Italian who would RUN from the cops just like any Italian would.

 

[RoseMontague]

It's not like you picked a time and worked backwards I hope.

Contra you earlier response to jhunter* their (the 2 white suspects whose participation in this crime would be an extraordinary event apparently ) only established alibi ends at 9.10.

platonov,
Even in the original appeal of Raffaele's, and well before the additional information on the screensaver activity was filed, the appeal points out that a simple search with the program Spotlight shows a file being opened at
9:26PM.

Like to point out, in fact, that the judgment placed at 21:10:32
the last operation performed by Raffaele Sollecito in the day of 1
November 2007.
Indeed, searching with Spotlight in version 10.4.10 was
detected at least one file "Naruto ep 101.avi" which is not present in
advice of the police post, but whose date of last opening is Thursday
1 November 2007 at 21:26

 

[spartacus]

It's not just the inward-opening windows, that was just what caused me to have difficulty comprehending what on earth he was getting at. Incidentally do you actually believe it happened this way? That these two college kids, supposedly stoned out of their minds, really decided to close the outer shutters, open the window inward, angle the inner shutters just so, and that the glass that didn't end up dumped in front of the window as per their 'cunning plan' somehow flew at almost a 90 degree angle all the way out to the rug and the bed?

It's not only impossible but it's utterly bizarre to believe that these kids would think of or do such a thing, when all they had to do was throw the rock through the window from the outside as they left and make sure the window opened! Do you actually believe even Massei thinks it happened that way? I don't, he's just 'hypothesizing' a scenario that suggests guilt trying to account for all the 'evidence' of a 'staged' break-in. Anyone whose actually tried to piece together a scenario for guilt may on some level have sympathy for him as every piece of 'evidence' has to be twisted idiotically like this to support a theory of guilt.



I believe the point is the defense can show their reconstruction is possible in the real world, the prosecution can't because it's just a silly theory constructed to imply guilt that could only be possible in the 'logic' of the Italian Courts. You just don't get that, do you?

Let me put it this way: entertain for simply a moment the possibility that the theories and 'science' in the Massei Report are so absurd that numerous people with rational minds and/or knowledge and expertise in certain areas can just read it and realize it's not possible, or at least so improbable that reasonable doubt is obtained. Kinda like Judge Hellmann implied at the outset of the appeal...

Platonov, the only thing Massei is really useful for is the accumulation of the data, the theories are for entertainment purposes only. Unfortunately for guilt, no one has been able to come up with anything since that actually employs evidence in the endeavor and is better. Incidentally, did you see that CNN interview? Did you realize you probably know the case better than Mignini does? Is that even possible in your mental universe?

I just watched the Paul Ciolino video of Nara where they tried to reconstruct her hearing the people running away and realized the cops never interviewed her, they just watched her on the local news.

 

[RoseMontague]

For Seattle she is normal. Doesn't flush the toilet with pee (mellow yellow, shows environmental consciousness and saves water, pisses off English people), smokes pot provided by boyfriends, doesn't actually drink too much, has a "unique" personality (required), follows her own drummer (required), lives life for the moment, engages in yoga moves spontaneously. Thinks the cops are good guys and you should try to help them out. There is really nothing about this girl that looks strange from the Seattle perspective. People are not the same around the world. She is now a hardened Italian who would RUN from the cops just like any Italian would.

Well said.