Data-Analysis

TL;DR Why this paper matters: It shows that how you search matters more than how big your model is for multi‑step, tool‑using analytics. With a notebook‑grounded dataset (NbQA) and value‑guided search, mid‑size open models rival GPT‑4o–based agents on a leading data‑analysis benchmark. What’s new: (1) NbQA, a large corpus of real Jupyter tasks with executable multi‑step solutions; (2) JUPITER, a planner that treats analysis as a tree search over “thought → code → output” steps, guided by a learned value model. Why you should care (operator’s view): This blueprint turns flaky “Code Interpreter”-style sessions into repeatable playbooks—fewer dead ends, more auditable steps, and better generalization without paying for the biggest model. The core idea: analytics as a search tree Most LLM data‑analysis failures come from branching mistakes: choosing the wrong intermediate step, compounding errors, and wasting tool calls. JUPITER reframes the whole exercise as search over notebook states. Each node is a concrete state—accumulated thoughts, code, and execution outputs. The system expands only a few promising branches and prunes the rest using a value model trained on successful and failed trajectories. ...

In the age of natural language interfaces to databases (NLIDBs), asking the right question has never been easier—or more perilous. While systems like ChatGPT or SQL-Palm can convert everyday English into valid SQL, they often do so without interrogating the quality of the question itself. And as Peter Drucker warned, “The most dangerous thing is asking the wrong question.” Enter VeriMinder, a system built not to improve SQL syntax or execution accuracy—but to diagnose and refine the analytical intent behind the user’s query. It tackles a deceptively simple yet far-reaching problem: a well-formed SQL query that answers a poorly formed question can yield confident but misleading insights. This is particularly problematic in enterprise settings where non-technical users rely on LLM-based BI assistants. ...