Contains papers from the third Statistical Challenges in Modern Astronomy (SCMA III) conference held at Penn State University, July 18-21 2001.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Statistical Challenge in Medieval (and Later) Astronomy / Virginia Trimble -- 2. Power from Understanding the Shape of Measurement : Progress in Bayesian Inference for Astrophysics / Alanna Connors -- Commentary by Eric D. Kolaczyk -- 3. Hierarchical Models, Data Augmentation, and Markov Chain Monte Carlo / David A. van Dyk -- Commentary by Michael A. Strauss -- 4. Bayesian Adaptive Exploration / Thomas J. Loredo and David F. Chernoff -- Commentary by David A. van Dyk -- 5. Bayesian Model Selection and Analysis for Cepheid Star Oscillations / James O. Berger et al. -- Commentary by Thomas J. Loredo -- 6. Bayesian Multiscale Methods for Poisson Count Data / Eric D. Kolaczyk -- 7. NASA's Astrophysics Data Environment / Joseph H. Bredekamp and Daniel A. Golombek -- 8. Statistical and Astronomical Challenges in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey / Michael A. Strauss -- Commentary by David A. van Dyk -- 9. Challenges for Cluster Analysis in a Virtual Observatory / S.G. Djorgovski et al. -- Commentary by Dianne Cook -- 10. Statistics of Galaxy Clustering / Vicent J. Martinez and Enn Saar -- Commentary by Rien van de Weygaert -- 11. Analyzing Large Data Sets in Cosmology / Alexander S. Szalay and Takahiko Matsubara -- 12. The Cosmic Foam : Stochastic Geometry and Spatial Clustering across the Universe / Rien ven de Weygaert -- 13. Statistics and the Cosmic Microwave Background / Andrew H. Jaffe -- Commentary by PICA -- 14. Inference in Microwave Cosmology : A Frequentist Perspective / Chad M. Schafer and Philip B. Stark -- Commentary by Andrew H. Jaffe -- 15. Nonparametric Inference in Astrophysics / Pittsburgh Institute for Computational Astrostatistics (PICA) -- Commentary by Michael A. Strauss -- Commentary by Jeffrey D. Scargle -- Rejoinder by PICA -- 16. Random Forests : Finding Quasars / Leo Breiman et al. -- Commentary by Eric D. Feigelson -- 17. Interactive and Dynamic Graphics for Data Analysis : A Case Study On Quasar Data / Dianne Cook -- Commentary by Fionn D. Murtagh -- 18. Computational AstroStatistics : Fast and Efficient Tools for Analysing Huge Astronomical Data Sources / Robert C. Nichol et al. -- Commentary by Fionn D. Murtagh -- Commentary by Dianne Cook -- 19. Clustering in High-Dimensional Data Spaces / Fionn D. Murtagh -- 20. Advanced Tools for Astronomical Time Series and Image Analysis / Jeffrey D. Scargle -- Commentary by Thomas J. Loredo -- Commentary by Peter E. Freeman -- 21. Frequency Estimation and Generalized Lomb-Scargle Periodograms / G. Larry Bretthorst -- Commentary by Thomas J. Loredo -- 22. Multiscale Methods in Astronomy / Jean-Luc Starck -- 23. Threshold Selection in Transform Shrinkage / Iain Johnstone -- Commentary by Jean-Luc Starck -- 24. The Statistical Challenges of Wavelet-Based Source Detection / Peter E. Freeman et al. -- 25 Reflections on SCMA III / John Rice -- 26. An Astronomer's Perspective on SCMA III / Joseph Silk -- 27 Ensembles of Classifiers / D. Bazell -- 28. A Model for Brightest Galaxies Using Extreme Value Statistics / S.P. Bhavsar and J.P. Bernstein -- 29. New Statistical Goodness of Fit Techniques in Noisy Inhomogeneous Regression Problems with an Application to the Problem of Recovering of the Luminosity Density of the Milky Way from Surface Brightness Data / Nicolai B. Bissantz and Axel Munk -- 30. Measuring the Galaxy Power Spectrum with Multiresolution Decomposition / Yaoquan Chu et al. -- 31. Finding Gamma-Ray Pulsars with Sparse Bayes Blocks / A. Connors and A. Carraminana -- 32. Analysis of the Fractal Structure of the Horsehead Nebula / Srabani Datta -- 33. On the Statistics of the Gravitational Field / A. Del Popolo -- 34. Cross-identification of Very Large Catalogues / S. Derriere et al. -- 35. Minimal Spanning Tree Technique / A. Doroshkevich -- 36. A Statistical Chromatic Study of Nearby Galaxies / Michel Fioc -- 37. Detection of Non-Gaussianity on the Sphere Using Spherical Wavelets / J. Gallegos et al. -- 38. Characterising Anomalous Transport in Accretion Disks from X-ray Observations / J. Greenhough et al. -- 39. A Bayesian Analysis of the Radio Binary LS I+61303 / P.C. Gregory -- 40. Accounting for Absorption Lines in High Energy Spectra / Chistopher Hans and David A. van Dyk -- 41. x2-method : An Automatic Classification Technique / Evanthia Hatziminaoglou et al. -- 42. Wavelet Analysis of a Large Period Change in the Mira Variable R Cen / G. Hawkins et al. -- 43. Nonparametric Statistical Models of Astronomical Systems / William D. Heacox -- 44. Likelihood Estimation of Gamma Ray Bursts Duration Distribution / Istvan Horvath -- 45. Nonparametric Density Estimation and Galaxy Clustering / Woncheol Jang -- 46. Teaching Bayesian Statistics Through Simulation / William H. Jefferys -- 47. New MCMC Methods to Address Pile-up in the Chandra X-ray Observatory / Hosung Kang et al. -- 48. Modeling Stellar Microflares / Vinay Kashyap et al. -- 49. Canaries in the Data Mine : Improving Trained Classifiers / V.G. Laidler and R.L. White -- 50. Wavelet Analysis of Heteroscedastic, Unevenly Spaced Data : The Case of OJ 287 Revisited / Harry Lehto -- 51. Estimating Large-Scale Structure From QSO Absorbers : Using Across-Line Information / J.M. Loh et al. -- 52. Point Source Detection on the Sphere Using Wavelets and Optimal Filters / E. Martinez-Gonzalez et al. -- 53. Constraining the Cosmological Constant from Large-Scale Redshift-Space Clustering / Takahiko Matsubara and Alexander S. Szalay -- 54. Multivariate Monte Carlo Methods with Clusters of Galaxies / J.R. Peterson et al. -- 55. A New Tool for Automated Classification of Astronomical Images / Ninan Sajeeth Philip et al. -- 56. Parameter Estimation via Neural Networks / Nicholas G. Phillips and A. Kogut -- 57. Correlations at Large Scale / M.J. Pons-Bordera et al. -- 58. Constraining Cosmological Models by the Cluster Mass Functions / Nurur Rahman and Sergei F. Shandarin -- 59. Analysing Cosmic Large Scale Structure using Surrogate Data / C. Rath et al. -- 60. Delaunay Recovery of Cosmic Density and Velocity Probes / W.E. Schaap and R. van de Weygaert -- 61. A Large Proper Motion Survey of the Pleiades Cluster / J. Souchay and E. Aleshkina -- 62. Bayesian Spectral Analysis of "MAD" Stars / Nondas Sourlas et al. -- 63. Stellar Membership in Open Clusters Using Mixture Densities / Antonio Uribe et al. -- 64. Comparison of Object Detection Procedures for XMM-Newton Images / Ivan Valtchanov -- 65. Astronomical Aspects of Multifractal Point-Pattern Analysis : Application to the DENIS/2MASS Near-Infrared and BATSE Gamma-Ray Data / Roland Vavrek et al. -- 66. Higher-order Correlations of Cosmological Fluctuation Fields / Licia Verde -- 67. Bayesian Multiscale Deconvolution Applied to Gamma-Ray Spectroscopy / C.A. Young et al.
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Digital sky surveys, high-precision astrometry from satellite data, deep-space data from orbiting telescopes, and the like have all increased the quantity and quality of astronomical data by orders of magnitude per year for several years. Making sense of this wealth of data requires sophisticated statistical techniques. Fortunately, statistical methodologies have similarly made great strides in recent years. Powerful synergies thus emerge when astronomers and statisticians join in examining astrostatistical problems and approaches. The book begins with an historical overview and tutorial articles on basic cosmology for statisticians and the principles of Bayesian analysis for astronomers. As in earlier volumes in this series, research contributions discussing topics in one field are joined with commentary from scholars in the other. Thus, for example, an overview of Bayesian methods for Poissonian data is joined by discussions of planning astronomical observations with optimal efficiency and nested models to deal with instrumental effects. The principal theme for the volume is the statistical methods needed to model fundamental characteristics of the early universe on its largest scales.