Archive for December 2007

[Quote] Bootstrap and MCMC

The Bootstrap and Modern Statistics Brad Efron (2000), JASA Vol. 95 (452), p. 1293-1296.

If the bootstrap is an automatic processor for frequentist inference, then MCMC is its Bayesian counterpart.

Continue reading ‘[Quote] Bootstrap and MCMC’ »

The last [ArXiv] of 2007

This will be the last [ArXiv] of this year (for some of you, the previous year). Continue reading ‘The last [ArXiv] of 2007’ »

A bit of a mess

Due to a monumental cock-up, UK Astronomy is set to lose something like 25% of its budget. This will decimate astronomy in the UK twice over (including the VO implementation, AstroGrid), and will surely reverberate all across the world. Continue reading ‘A bit of a mess’ »

[ArXiv] 3rd week, Dec. 2007

The paper about the Banff challenge [0712.2708] and the statistics tutorial for cosmologists [0712.3028] are the personal recommendations from this week’s [arXiv] list. Especially, I’d like to quote from Licia Verde’s [astro-ph:0712.3028],

In general, Cosmologists are Bayesians and High Energy Physicists are Frequentists.

I thought it was opposite. By the way, if you crave for more papers, click Continue reading ‘[ArXiv] 3rd week, Dec. 2007’ »

[ArXiv] Astronomy Job Market in US

It’s a report about the job market in US.

[astro-ph:0712.2820] The Production Rate and Employment of Ph.D. Astronomers T.S. Metcalfe

Continue reading ‘[ArXiv] Astronomy Job Market in US’ »

ChandraBlog

Our colleagues at Chandra public outreach have started a new blog, ChandraBlog – http://chandra.harvard.edu/blog/ which appears to be dedicated to news about the latest discoveries from Chandra. Mosey over and take a look.

[ArXiv] 2nd week, Dec. 2007

[ArXiv] Spatial Correlation in the Scan Statistic

Accounting for Spatial Correlation in the Scan Statistic by Loh &Zhu [stat.AP:0712.1458] provides a picture that helps us to understand excessive false alarms in source detection when the image data set is based on the Poisson point process. Without any experience in source detection analysis, empirically I cannot state the detection statistics nor the p-values of detection methods. However, with acknowledging the over-dispersed Poisson count data and the unknown spatial correlation prior to detecting analysis, we could guess that the false discovery of sources occurs more often than what we expect.
Continue reading ‘[ArXiv] Spatial Correlation in the Scan Statistic’ »

[ArXiv] The Importance of Being First: Position Dependent Citation Rates on arXiv:astro-ph

The full article is found from [arXiv/astro-ph:0712.1037]. According to J. P. Dietrich, the positional citation effect (PCE) is significant so that preprints appeared at the top of daily lists tend to be more cited than other preprints. Although the study is not statistically rigorous to confirm that up to 6th article on the list is more likely cited, the number are drastically large enough to make people believe the author’s hypothesis.
Continue reading ‘[ArXiv] The Importance of Being First: Position Dependent Citation Rates on arXiv:astro-ph’ »

[ArXiv] 1st week, Dec. 2007

There’s only one day in the first week of December with no preprint appearance. Dubbing the week of Dec. 2nd as the first week is hoped to be accepted. Continue reading ‘[ArXiv] 1st week, Dec. 2007’ »

Too many syllables?

[ArXiv] 5th week, Nov. 2007

Astronomers are hard working people, day and night, weekend and weekdays, 24/7, etc. My vacation delayed this week’s posting, not astronomers nor statisticians. Continue reading ‘[ArXiv] 5th week, Nov. 2007’ »