Refactored OLS thesis experiments and Makefile orchestration

• Day: 2026-06-11
• Time: 11:45 to 12:35
• Project: Dev
• Workspace: WP 2: Operational
• Status: Completed
• Priority: MEDIUM
• Assignee: Matías Nehuen Iglesias
• Tags: Ols, Yaml, Makefile, Benchmarking, Fixed-Effects, Thesis

Description

Session Goal

Reframe the OLS modeling workflow into a clean, thesis-friendly experiment structure and align the automation layer around that structure.

Key Activities

• Reorganized the OLS family around four diagnostic questions: feature accumulation, temporal heterogeneity, geographic heterogeneity, and placebo/sensitivity checks.
• Defined ols_core as the main benchmark and favored additive fixed effects over interaction-heavy specifications to preserve interpretability.
• Designed a 13-experiment OLS matrix split into four blocks:
  • Block A: feature accumulation
  • Block B: additive time fixed effects
  • Block C: additive geographic fixed effects
  • Block D: sensitivity and placebo checks
• Generated or regenerated multiple YAML experiment configs for the OLS blocks, keeping runtime settings consistent (sample_n: 20000, OLS-only / LinearRegression, minimal config changes).
• Recovered missing YAMLs by proposing template-based reconstruction from a known-good file to preserve backend compatibility and structural consistency.
• Analyzed the Makefile as an orchestration layer, classifying targets into atomic, grouped scientific, and legacy categories.
• Proposed a Makefile refactor into run-ols-* atomic targets and thesis-ols-* grouped targets, with a safe migration path from legacy linear_* targets.

Achievements

• Established a coherent scientific framing for the OLS thesis workflow.
• Produced a clear benchmark hierarchy centered on ols_core.
• Completed several YAML configuration files for Blocks A, B, C, and D, enabling reproducible experiment runs.
• Clarified how to reconstruct missing YAMLs without breaking the existing configuration schema.
• Outlined a cleaner Makefile taxonomy for experiment automation and thesis execution.

Pending Tasks

• Validate the generated YAML files against the actual runner/backend.
• Finish migrating legacy Makefile targets to the new OLS taxonomy.
• Confirm whether any additional placebo or sensitivity variants are needed for the thesis narrative.
• Run the configured experiments and compare results across the four diagnostic blocks.

Evidence

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• event_ids: []