The AstroStat Slog

People of experience would say very differently and wisely against what I’m going to discuss now. This post only combines two small cross sections of each branch of two trees, astronomy and statistics. Continue reading ‘survey and design of experiments’ »

One realization of mine during the meeting was related to a cultural difference; therefore, there is no relation to any presentations during the 212th AAS in this post. Please, correct me if you find wrong statements. I cannot cover all perspectives from both disciplines but I think there are two distinct fashions in practicing normalization. Continue reading ‘my first AAS. VI. Normalization’ »

Believe it or not, I saw ANOVA (ANalysis Of VAriance) from a poster at AAS. This acronym was considered as one of very statistical jargons that one would never see in an astronomical meeting. I think you like to know the story in detail. Continue reading ‘my first AAS. III. ANOVA’ »

What is the maximum likelihood test in astronomy? Continue reading ‘my first AAS. II. maximum likelihood test’ »

My first impression from the 212th AAS meeting is that it’s planned for preparing IYA 2009 and many talks are about current and future project reviews and strategies to reach public (People kept saying to me that winter meetings are more grand with expanded topics). I cannot say I understand everything (If someone says no astronomers understand everything, I’ll be relieved) but thanks to the theme of the meeting, I was intelligently entertained enough in many respects. The downside of this intellectual stimulus is growing doubts. One of those doubts was regression analysis in astronomy. Continue reading ‘my first AAS. I. Regression’ »

The High Energy Astrophysics Division of the American Astronomical Society will meet at Los Angeles on March 31 - April 3, and we have been allocated a slot for an AstroStatistics session. It will be a 60-minute lunch-time session, so we anticipate that the session will be dominated by poster haikus and panel discussions similar to the workshop we held during the New Orleans meeting in 2004.

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.