Archive for the ‘High-Energy’ Category.

[Book] The Elements of Statistical Learning, 2nd Ed.

This was written more than a year ago, and I forgot to post it.
Continue reading ‘[Book] The Elements of Statistical Learning, 2nd Ed.’ »

mini-Workshop on Computational AstroStatistics [announcement]

mini-Workshop on Computational Astro-statistics: Challenges and Methods for Massive Astronomical Data
Aug 24-25, 2010
Phillips Auditorium, CfA,
60 Garden St., Cambridge, MA 02138

URL: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/CAS2010
Continue reading ‘mini-Workshop on Computational AstroStatistics [announcement]’ »

SDO launched

The Solar Dynamics Observatory, which promises a flood of data on the Sun, was launched today from Cape Kennedy.

data analysis system and its documentation

So far, I didn’t complain much related to my “statistician learning astronomy” experience. Instead, I’ve been trying to emphasize how fascinating it is. I hope that more statisticians can join this adventure when statisticians’ insights are on demand more than ever. However, this positivity seems not working so far. In two years of this slog’s life, there’s no posting by a statistician, except one about BEHR. Statisticians are busy and well distracted by other fields with more tangible data sets. Or compared to other fields, too many obstacles and too high barriers exist in astronomy for statisticians to participate. I’d like to talk about these challenges from my ends.[1] Continue reading ‘data analysis system and its documentation’ »

  1. This is quite an overdue posting. Links and associated content can be outdated.[]

[MADS] Parallel Coordinates

Speaking of XAtlas from my previous post I tried another visualization tool called Parallel Coordinates on these Capella observations and two stars with multiple observations (AL Lac and IM Peg). As discussed in [MADS] Chernoff face, full description of the catalog is found from XAtlas website. The reason for choosing these stars is that among low mass stars, next to Capella (I showed 16), IM PEG (HD 21648, 8 times), and AR Lac (although different phases, 6 times) are most frequently observed. I was curious about which variation, within (statistical variation) and between (Capella, IM Peg, AL Lac), is dominant. How would they look like from the parametric space of High Resolution Grating Spectroscopy from Chandra? Continue reading ‘[MADS] Parallel Coordinates’ »

different views

An email was forwarded with questions related to the data sets found in “Be an INTEGRAL astronomer”. Among the sets, the following scatter plot is based on the Crab data.

crab

Continue reading ‘different views’ »

how to trace?

I was at the SUSY 09 public lecture given by a Nobel laureate, Frank Wilczek of QCD (quantum chromodynamics). As far as I know SUSY is the abbreviation of SUperSYmetricity in particle physics. Finding such antimatter(? I’m afraid I read “Angels and Demons” too quickly) will explain the unification theory among electromagnetic, weak, and strong forces and even the gravitation according to the speaker’s graph. I’ll not go into the details of particle physics and the standard model. The reason is too obvious. :) Instead, I’d like to show this image from wikipedia and to discuss my related questions.
particle_trace Continue reading ‘how to trace?’ »

[ArXiv] Sparse Poisson Intensity Reconstruction Algorithms

One of [ArXiv] papers from yesterday whose title might drag lots of attentions from astronomers. Furthermore, it’s a short paper.
[arxiv:math.CO:0905.0483] by Harmany, Marcia, and Willet.
Continue reading ‘[ArXiv] Sparse Poisson Intensity Reconstruction Algorithms’ »

[MADS] Chernoff face

I cannot remember when I first met Chernoff face but it hooked me up instantly. I always hoped for confronting multivariate data from astronomy applicable to this charming EDA method. Then, somewhat such eager faded, without realizing what’s happening. Tragically, this was mainly due to my absent mind. Continue reading ‘[MADS] Chernoff face’ »

4754 d.f.

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw 4754 degrees of freedom (d.f.) and chi-square test statistic 4859. I’ve often enough seen large degrees of freedom from journals in astronomy, several hundreds to a few thousands, but I never felt comfortable at these big numbers. Then with a great shock 4754 d.f. appeared. I must find out why I feel so bothered at these huge degrees of freedom. Continue reading ‘4754 d.f.’ »

[ArXiv] Particle Physics

[stat.AP:0811.1663]
Open Statistical Issues in Particle Physics by Louis Lyons

My recollection of meeting Prof. L. Lyons was that he is very kind and listening. I was delighted to see his introductory article about particle physics and its statistical challenges from an [arxiv:stat] email subscription. Continue reading ‘[ArXiv] Particle Physics’ »

It bothers me.

The full description is given http://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao3.4/ahelp/bayes.html about “bayes” under sherpa/ciao[1]. Some sentences kept bothering me and here’s my account for the reason given outside of quotes. Continue reading ‘It bothers me.’ »

  1. Note that the current sherpa is beta under ciao 4.0 not under ciao 3.4 and a description about “bayes” from the most recent sherpa is not available yet, which means this post needs updates one new release is available[]

Redistribution

RMF. It is a wørd to strike terror even into the hearts of the intrepid. It refers to the spread in the measured energy of an incoming photon, and even astronomers often stumble over what it is and what it contains. It essentially sets down the measurement error for registering the energy of a photon in the given instrument.

Thankfully, its usage is robustly built into analysis software such as Sherpa or XSPEC and most people don’t have to deal with the nitty gritty on a daily basis. But given the profusion of statistical software being written for astronomers, it is perhaps useful to go over what it means. Continue reading ‘Redistribution’ »

Whew

Contact has been re-established with XMM-Newton. Continue reading ‘Whew’ »

A Confession from a former “keV” Junkie: 1. It’s a Plague.

(Inspired by vlk’s “keV vs keV”)

Beside the obvious benefit of confusing the public and colleagues in other fields, the apparent chaotic use of physical units like keV and Kevin has an addictive convenience beyond a simple matter of convention. Yes, I said “convenience”. Continue reading ‘A Confession from a former “keV” Junkie: 1. It’s a Plague.’ »