More data, more problems

Maybe the title should be no data, no cry. Anyway here we are another day and there’s a lot going on, but I finally did it! I got some results from my new dataset that I hadn’t had a chance to process yet. And would you believe (despite the title) that I found something!? Yep, which is great news… except there’s more I need to do! My Co-PI who likes to temper my excitement when I come to him with results has reminded me that I should wait to celebrate until the rest of the data are analyzed.

I would like to say that is going to be easy, but parts of it will not, which hopefully explains the title of today’s post. Thankfully I’m not worried that I won’t find anything, just the opposite in fact, I would be surprised if I didn’t find something. This will be the last big dataset I have to process before I do my PhD proposal defense so I want to do a good job, process the data in a way that makes it easy to understand what I have, and more importantly make it presentable for the committee members.

Okay, okay I’m being a bit dramatic. The bottom line is I found what I expected to see in the new dataset for the conditions I managed to process and now I need to look at the rest of the data to make sure that they still hold before my Co-PI is 100% on board with what I see. Which isn’t a bad problem to have, it’s all just work that needs to be done. Assuming everything goes smoothly I have the next few weeks to get it done and organized before sending it off to my committee and from there I will defend my proposal.

So what’s the hold up with the data I do have done? Well my Co-PI just wants to see more examples of what I’m showing him before he decides if what he sees is real or maybe some natural fluctuation, I mean when dealing with EEG data we’re looking at microvolts, which is tiny and when you’re talking a 1 microvolt change, well you have to be sure. Now I’m not working in the time-amplitude domain, I’m opting for the frequency domain, but my PI would prefer both, so I’m doing both. Double the work, but also double the impact… okay that’s not how it works, but we can visualize the data in more than one way, which will be beneficial for my proposal defense.

Today I’ll finish it up (hopefully) and with a little luck my Co-PI will be convinced that my technique is real, works, and will do something useful. That last part, well that is yet to be seen, it depends on the limits of my technique. There’s still a lot to be done, but having my Co-PI on board will be a huge step in the right direction and may finally, FINALLY!! lead me to publishing the results.

I also have that meeting with my main-PI today, which I’m extremely nervous about. I’m hoping it goes well, but you never know. We’ve been rocky for a bit now and there is tension between my two PI’s that my Co-PI has noticed as well. It’s hard for them to work together since they both want something different from me and I’m stuck in the middle. My meeting should be starting soon so expect to hear about that tomorrow and I’ll discuss more of the results from my super secret technique (super vaguely of course) when I get the rest of the data processed and my Co-PI signs off on everything.

Maybe having more data isn’t a bad thing if it means that I have enough evidence to show this works. We’ll have to wait and see what the data has for me though. Fingers crossed!!