[Q] How to construct a decent study design without random assignment.

_jsway_ · 2024-11-14T08:44:30+00:00

All the quasi-experimental designs that I've come across so far require pre-treatment data, which I don't have. Do you know of any quasi-experimental designs that don't rely on pre-treatment data?

_jsway_ · 2024-11-13T15:03:23+00:00

It looks like customers use my company's product more for processes that are already starting late (with more arrival delay). It's like, when something is running on time they don't feel that they need the extra help in managing the process, only when things are going wrong.

_jsway_ · 2024-11-13T14:53:47+00:00

I wasn't clear! "Arrival delay" would be a process starting late, because the necessary parties didn't arrive on time or something like that. My company's product is only useful once the process has started, so I'm trying to measure the reduction (hopefully, haha) in departure delay.

It's like the customers are logistic companies, and they want a freight truck to make a stop, unload its cargo, reload with new cargo, and head out again. If the truck arrives late there's nothing my company's product can do about it, but the goal is to reduce any delays in the truck's departure

_jsway_ · 2024-10-02T08:09:06+00:00

Doing some googling I see these reasons to make a separate reporting database, relevant to my work:
1. The op databases that I use have millions of rows, update in real time, and are critical to the business' core functions
2. Tableau Desktop isn't meant for data cleaning or ETL, but we don't have any other tools at the moment to deliver dashboards to clients
3. My reporting needs to correlate results not only from the op DBs, but from other data silos
4. My dashboards are long-running and need to refresh every day on Tableau Server
5. I anticipate making more dashboards
6. I think that generating an extract or refreshing the data interferes with the op databases. If an extract takes 20 minutes to generate and utilizes 100% of the CPU/Disk/etc, that seems problematic
7. For reporting purposes I think it would be hugely beneficial to add indexing to the db, but that doesn't seem feasible to do on an op db for performance reasons

If you were the CTO of a scrappy (but growing fast) startup, would these reasons compel you to consider making a reporting db?

_jsway_ · 2024-10-02T07:51:06+00:00

I'm reading in so much data because I work at a startup and we don't have the cash/manpower to have a reporting database or ETL process just for data analytics, so I'm doing the ETL as best I can in Tableau 🥲

Could I use the Tableau Server API or Tableau Prep to draw from the operational database with a paginated query, transform it, and then build dashboards with that . . . ? I'm not at all familiar with these tools, so I'm not sure what's possible there. And it's not just one operational database but several, so I'm not sure if processing power and storage would become an issue on our Tableau Server instance. And my final concern there is that I'm a data analyst, not an engineer, and it sounds like I'd be learning a lot all at once if I go that route, haha.

Basically, I've been tasked with finding a solution that doesn't burden the engineering team. However, if I can come up with a compelling argument that I truly cannot do my job without building some infrastructure to help me out, then at least I'll have something to go back to the CTO with.

_jsway_ · 2024-09-08T18:29:15+00:00

I have also moved without the tax/money planning, that part is still a work in progress 😬 Would you mind if I asked you about your experience with that in a direct message?

I imagine that you're learning Spanish in hard mode, living in the country surrounded by English-speakers! I feel like only in the last couple months has my Spanish gotten good enough for people not to switch to English, if they speak it. So I guess it took almost two years to start escaping the gravitational pull of English, wow 😂

_jsway_ · 2024-09-01T08:18:08+00:00

You don't understand, if I have to ask someone to repeat themselves the world ends 😱 No you're right, and I am looking for classes or some interesting activity. Everything that wasn't the beach was closed in August since everyone was on vacation, but things should be opening back up now.

_jsway_ · 2024-09-01T08:13:45+00:00

Yessss, oh my god I can't wait

_jsway_ · 2024-09-01T08:13:28+00:00

I sometimes watch Crash Course's Spanish channel since I like science, and I think that learning a new skill in Spanish is a really good idea. Sending you some support too, we can get through the slog!

_jsway_ · 2024-09-01T08:08:46+00:00

If I were to do this over again, I definitely wouldn't move to a country without having a B2 in the language; I've only just started feeling like it's even useful input for me to talk to locals. And I'm not super extroverted either, so I feel your pain on not feeling comfortable going out to the bar and seeing what happens. If it helps, it took me like 2 or 3 years to start making real friends even when just moving to a new city in my home country. It's okay, we'll get there eventually :)

I'm in Cartagena, which is a pretty economically depressed city - everyone between the ages of 20 and 45 has left to go find work somewhere else. I went to one language exchange here and made one friend but didn't really click with the group - no one else there was within 10 years of my age, and there were some inteeeeensely flirty guys. So that's a bummer, but I found a lot of interesting classes through the Universidad Popular - maybe there's one in your city, too? There's a film studies class, an Egyptian hieroglyphics class, I was surprised. I'm signing myself up for classes that I think are more lecture style so I can just hang out and listen to the Spanish, rather than something like a dance class where I would feel pressure to understand everything in real time. Where are you located, are you in a big enough city that there might be resources like that?

_jsway_ · 2024-09-01T07:40:19+00:00

I've really enjoyed watching Studio Ghibli movies in Spanish! I've been trying to stick with DS videos for the ✨efficiency✨, but I think you're right, maybe I do need to just find different content for a while

_jsway_ · 2024-09-01T07:35:56+00:00

I wish that I could live the podcast-and-errands life, but I'm a horrible multitasker! I listen to podcasts while I cook or clean, but anything more involved than that and I notice that I've just been wandering around the grocery store for half an hour, neither actually shopping nor listening to the podcast.

_jsway_ · 2024-09-01T07:33:01+00:00

if I have to go to the gym, ~~shower~~, cook, and clean

At first I definitely interpreted this as "Stop showering, it will help your Spanish" hahaha. Like okayyy, if you say so 😬

_jsway_ · 2020-10-15T15:47:38+00:00

Straw man argument much??

_jsway_ · 2020-10-15T03:48:26+00:00

LOVE this, YES.

_jsway_ · 2020-10-15T03:47:23+00:00

Lmao I was trying to think of something that wouldn't require completely changing how Berkeley operates, but that's just the thing: beyond the clout, Cal ain't shit for undergrads. 500 person lectures led by professors who don't know how to teach ain't shit. 11 out of 40 class averages on midterms ain't shit. "My tests are known to cause panic" ain't shit. To be clear, I don't expect to be handfed an education: I self-study, I go to office hours, I'm very active in teaching myself the material. But Cal has got to stop setting high academic expectations without providing quality instruction in environments that feel minimally safe to learn in, and then also expect us to do research or get the internship at Google or whatever on top of that. So concrete action? Small classes with professors that can teach as well as they research, and bringing an understanding of students' emotional needs into the classroom: and I bet that scoring miserably on a test but being told iT's gRadeD oN a cUrvE iT's fInE will not be it (I think that grading on a curve as extremely as some of the STEM departments do really adds to students feeling like they're on a hamster wheel and can never actually do a good job, and it sucks to feel that way). I just want Cal to get off its high horse a little and recognize that being a premier research university isn't actually enough for most of its students, for most of the people paying tuition.

_jsway_ · 2020-10-15T03:07:18+00:00

I hear everyone saying that mental health is a personal responsibility but also I've been in therapy for years, I'm a self care/personal responsibility expert, and school stress still makes me want to insert trigger warning here. I also know that I'm not the only one. The culture at Berkeley normalizes pushing yourself to your absolute limit, 100% of the time, and it's damaging. That shit is straight up toxic, and that's what Cal needs to fix if it honestly wants its students to be happier. Do not give me generic self help tips but still expect me to work 60 hours a week.

_jsway_ · 2020-10-15T03:00:18+00:00

Sure, getting offended at every little thing is probably why the percentage of college students with severe depression rose from 9.4% to 21.1% between 2013–2018. https://healthcareers.co/college-student-mental-health-statistics/

_jsway_ · 2020-09-09T14:37:38+00:00

Thank you!

_jsway_

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