Scientific Governance · Research Protocol

Evidence Architecture & Methodology

SYNQ separates commercial hypothesis from empirical reality. Every public metric, statistical association, and routing decision sits inside a strictly defined evidence hierarchy—from raw historical observation to prospective controlled validation.

Taxonomy · Standards of Evidence

The Four Evidence Classes

All quantitative claims published by SYNQ are assigned to one of four explicitly demarcated evidence tiers to prevent confusing observational correlation with proven intervention impact.

1. Observed

Directly measured historical behaviour recorded in booking and check-in ledgers. Zero econometric modelling or causal inference applied.

2. Adjusted

Survives exact matching, baseline attendance controls, and temporal holdouts, but remains strictly observational in nature.

3. Modelled

Commercial scenario simulations, capacity optimisations, and routing probabilities based on parameterized behavioral inputs.

4. Prospective

Controlled field trials currently being tested; empirical causal effect size not yet established until trial completion.

Validation Pipeline · End-to-End Ladder

The 7-Step Evidence Ladder

SYNQ advances analytical hypotheses through a progressive seven-stage verification ladder before any operational policy is deployed live.

Step 01 · Hist. Obs

Historical Observational Analysis

Ingestion of multi-year booking ledgers across two distinct tiers: (a) Phase 0 single-venue baseline audits (22,047 bookings, 2,822 members) for initial operational unit economics; and (b) the multi-site longitudinal benchmark (611,903 bookings, 24,909 members, 51,957 sessions) for 52-week co-attendance matrices and bipartite graph topology.

Step 02 · Adjusted

Matched & Adjusted Cohort Analysis

Controlling for baseline visit frequency, tenure, time-of-day preference, and modality to test whether social network structure conveys distinct explanatory power beyond raw attendance counts alone.

Step 03 · Zero Leakage

Temporal Holdout & Zero-Lookahead Validation

Chronological evaluation strictly enforcing historical information boundaries ($t < T$). Prevents future attendance leakage from contaminating diagnostic classifications and state transitions.

Step 04 · Replication

Out-of-Sample Replication

Replicating behavioral algorithms across structurally divergent environments (e.g. comparing large multi-studio fitness facilities with intimate 8-bed Reformer Pilates environments) to test algorithmic transferability and domain boundary conditions.

Step 05 · Simulation

Offline Routing Simulation

Counterfactual policy simulation (Test 11) evaluating 10 empirical behavioural routing mechanisms under 2 strict governance controls: the Behavioural Envelope (preserving existing schedule, modality habits, and capacity boundaries) and the Do-Nothing Policy (safety containment when expected lift does not exceed uncertainty bounds).

Step 06 · Shadow Mode

Shadow-Mode Operational Validation

Production pipeline runs concurrently with live venue operations in silent shadow mode. Evaluates real-time candidate sessions, verifies policy concordance, and enforces zero-exposure safeguards without dispatching interventions to members or staff.

Step 07 · Prospective

Prospective Controlled Trial (Test 12)

Formal prospective field trial evaluating whether systematically introducing members into compatible recurring social environments causes a statistically significant, incremental change in retention and commercial lifetime value.

Measurement Standards · Ledger States

Disengagement & Inactivity Definitions

Conventional SaaS platforms conflate administrative churn with behavioral abandonment. SYNQ evaluates disengagement across four distinct, rigorously defined criteria:

Metric Classification	Formal Operational Definition	Analytical Utility & Limitations
Contractual Cancellation	Formal administrative termination of a direct debit, membership contract, or subscription in the core booking ledger.	Clean commercial ground truth, but severely lagging: members typically cease physical attendance 4 to 10 weeks before formal contract termination.
30 / 60 / 90-Day Sustained Inactivity	Zero recorded physical check-ins across consecutive rolling calendar windows (e.g. exactly 90 days of complete silence).	Primary behavioral milestone. Highly correlated with financial lapse while eliminating transient week-to-week attendance volatility (illness, holiday).
Terminal Lapse	Irreversible departure state wherein a member never records another physical check-in within the remaining multi-year observation horizon.	Ultimate attrition endpoint used in longitudinal lifetime value survival models. Requires sufficient historical follow-up to establish.
12-Month Active Landmark	Landmark survival metric evaluating whether a member records verified attendance during the 12th calendar month following their initial 30-day baseline window.	Standardized benchmark metric that eliminates survivor bias when evaluating early social tie formation and onboarding trajectories.

Data Governance · Cryptographic Architecture

Privacy Architecture & Regulatory Compliance

SYNQ is engineered specifically for privacy-sensitive enterprise environments. Our pipeline is designed to support UK GDPR and EU GDPR compliance, subject to venue Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIA) and operator legal review.

Architecture Layer	Technical Specification	Operational Privacy Guarantee
Member Pseudonymisation	Keyed HMAC-SHA256 hashing with venue-isolated cryptographic salts prior to relational compute.	Raw member identifiers (names, emails, phone numbers) never enter graph compute pipelines. Salts prevent dictionary and rainbow table inversion.
Ledger & Audit Integrity	SHA-256 cryptographic content digests for pre-registration locks and frozen ledgers.	Guarantees tamper-evident reproducibility of audit protocols, analysis scripts, and historical ledger checkpoints.
Role-Based Presentation	Multi-tenant authorization gating with segmented FOH access controls.	Front-of-house staff see only high-level operational context required for service delivery. Raw network topology graphs are never exposed at the desk.
Ephemeral FOH Context	Volatile memory caching with automated session-scoped invalidation.	Front-desk context expires automatically after class check-in completion. No persistent relational dossier is stored on edge devices.
Zero-Knowledge Member Messaging	Outbound routing suggestions reference timetable rhythm and room atmosphere.	Communications strictly preserve peer anonymity. Messages never disclose other members' identities, booking records, or attendance patterns.
Compliance Framework	Article 6(1)(f) Legitimate Interest documentation & DPIA readiness.	Designed to support UK GDPR adherence, subject to customer-specific DPIA sign-off and enterprise data processing agreements (DPA).

Evidence-Based Infrastructure

Inspect the Reconciled Evidence Base

Review our controlled findings on recurring familiarity, visit frequency balancing, and landmark survival trajectories.

View Social Density Benchmark →