Abstracts are due Sep 17.

Meeting Justification

We propose to highlight the growing use of ‘non-parametric’ techniques to distill meaningful science from today’s astronomical data. Challenges range from Kuiper objects to cosmology. We have chosen just a few ‘teaching’ examples from this lively interdisciplinary area.

Meeting Notes

This ‘Astro-Statistics’ special session is proposed in concert with an ‘Astro-Informatics’ Special Session, organized by Kirk Bourne. In this proposed ‘Non-Parametrics for the Non-Specialist’ session, we are highlighting just a few of the new, outstanding, applications. Many are coming to fruition just now, in this age of large data-sets, complex instruments, and subtleties of distilling accurate science from indirect measurements. We chose to highlight: complex models (cosmology, black hole mass distributions); and complex data, such as image (spatial); and timing analyses (e.g. transients such as the distribution of Kuiper objecs) from surveys. We invited a mixture of newer and seasoned speakers; and ones that will make good ‘teaching examples’. At the same time, we left out many new areas. Hence we are planning a lively, associated, poster session. The format will be: An Intro by one of the seasoned statisticians; followed by ‘examples’ talks by two astronomers and a physicist. Following, another of the senior statisticians will discuss the principles. Finally, a senior astrophysicist will summarize challenges for the future. We plan to leave time for one-minute poster advertisements highlighting other areas. Expected participants include: Eric Feigelson, Brandon Kelly, Meyer Pesenson, Stanislav (George) Djorgovski, Tom Loredo, Alanna Connors, Pavlos Protopapas, Katrin Heitmann, Chad Schaefer, Xiao Li Meng.

The meeting website is at: http://www.confcon.com/head2008/.The abstract submission deadline is January 25, 2008 (now past, but late abstracts are not unheard of among astronomers).

If you are attending the meeting, and plan to present posters or talks that deal with astrostatistical methods or techniques, we welcome you to participate in this session. When you submit an abstract, be sure to indicate a category of “Other” and in the comments field state that it belongs with the AstroStatistics special session.If you have questions, please contact Aneta or me. There is also a page for this session on the astrostat google groups site.

Update (1/22): The abstract submission page currently says that only one abstract is allowed per person. We have been informed that this is incorrect, and that people can submit two abstracts, one for the special session and one as a regular contribution. Note that posters will be up only one day, and those associated with a special session will be put up the day of the session.

Update (1/26): A detailed program is not yet available, but here is a description of the session:

Astrostatistics: Methods and Techniques

This session will provide a forum for the discussion and presentation of statistical challenges in high energy astrophysics, highlighting the great deal of progress that has been made in methods and techniques over the past decade. The one hour session will cover the current and future directions in Astrostatistics, and will include a discussion of MCMC methods in the context of specific applications (such as propagating calibration errors, defining the significance of image features, etc.); a discussion of standardized methods for computing detection limits, upper limits, and confidence intervals for weak sources; and hypothesis testing and its limitations (including the significance testing of emission lines).

Update (2/19): We have been allocated the mid-day slot of March 31. The session will run from 12:30pm till 1:30pm2pm. The tentative program is as follows:

• Remarks on current and future trends in AstroStatistics, by Eric Feigelson
• Poster haiku
• F-Test theory and usage, by David van Dyk
• Discussion on MCMC techniques, led by Andy Ptak

Update (2/26): The final program is out, and the AstroStat session is scheduled for 12:30pm-2pm at the Museum/Bunker Hill Room.

Update (4/1): The talks and posters associated with the AstroStat special session are now online at
http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/HEAD2008/. Additional comments and descriptions will be archived there.