9,717 research outputs found
Discrepant Mass Estimates in the Cluster of Galaxies Abell 1689
We present a new mass estimate of a well-studied gravitational lensing
cluster, Abell 1689, from deep Chandra observations with a total exposure of
200 ks. Within r=200 h-1 kpc, the X-ray mass estimate is systematically lower
than that of lensing by 30-50%. At r>200 h-1 kpc, the mass density profiles
from X-ray and weak lensing methods give consistent results. The most recent
weak lensing work suggest a steeper profile than what is found from the X-ray
analysis, while still in agreement with the mass at large radii. Previous
studies have suggested that cooler small-scale structures can bias X-ray
temperature measurements or that the northern part of the cluster is disturbed.
We find these scenarios unlikely to resolve the central mass discrepancy since
the former requires 70-90% of the space to be occupied by these cool structures
and excluding the northern substructure does not significantly affect the total
mass profiles. A more plausible explanation is a projection effect. We also
find that the previously reported high hard-band to broad-band temperature
ratio in A1689, and many other clusters observed with Chandra, may be resulting
from the instrumental absorption that decreases 10-15% of the effective area at
~1.75 keV.Comment: 18 pages, 15 figures. ApJ accepte
The Stellar Dynamics of Omega Centauri
The stellar dynamics of Omega Centauri are inferred from the radial
velocities of 469 stars measured with CORAVEL (Mayor et al. 1997). Rather than
fit the data to a family of models, we generate estimates of all dynamical
functions nonparametrically, by direct operation on the data. The cluster is
assumed to be oblate and edge-on but mass is not assumed to follow light. The
mean motions are consistent with axisymmetry but the rotation is not
cylindrical. The peak rotational velocity is 7.9 km/s at 11 pc from the center.
The apparent rotation of Omega Centauri is attributable in part to its proper
motion. We reconstruct the stellar velocity ellipsoid as a function of
position, assuming isotropy in the meridional plane. We find no significant
evidence for a difference between the velocity dispersions parallel and
perpendicular to the meridional plane. The mass distribution inferred from the
kinematics is slightly more extended than, though not strongly inconsistent
with, the luminosity distribution. We also derive the two-integral distribution
function f(E,Lz) implied by the velocity data.Comment: 25 Latex pages, 12 Postscript figures, uses aastex, epsf.sty.
Submitted to The Astronomical Journal, December 199
Profiling time course expression of virus genes---an illustration of Bayesian inference under shape restrictions
There have been several studies of the genome-wide temporal transcriptional
program of viruses, based on microarray experiments, which are generally useful
in the construction of gene regulation network. It seems that biological
interpretations in these studies are directly based on the normalized data and
some crude statistics, which provide rough estimates of limited features of the
profile and may incur biases. This paper introduces a hierarchical Bayesian
shape restricted regression method for making inference on the time course
expression of virus genes. Estimates of many salient features of the expression
profile like onset time, inflection point, maximum value, time to maximum
value, area under curve, etc. can be obtained immediately by this method.
Applying this method to a baculovirus microarray time course expression data
set, we indicate that many biological questions can be formulated
quantitatively and we are able to offer insights into the baculovirus biology.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/09-AOAS258 the Annals of
Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of
Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org
The discriminative functional mixture model for a comparative analysis of bike sharing systems
Bike sharing systems (BSSs) have become a means of sustainable intermodal
transport and are now proposed in many cities worldwide. Most BSSs also provide
open access to their data, particularly to real-time status reports on their
bike stations. The analysis of the mass of data generated by such systems is of
particular interest to BSS providers to update system structures and policies.
This work was motivated by interest in analyzing and comparing several European
BSSs to identify common operating patterns in BSSs and to propose practical
solutions to avoid potential issues. Our approach relies on the identification
of common patterns between and within systems. To this end, a model-based
clustering method, called FunFEM, for time series (or more generally functional
data) is developed. It is based on a functional mixture model that allows the
clustering of the data in a discriminative functional subspace. This model
presents the advantage in this context to be parsimonious and to allow the
visualization of the clustered systems. Numerical experiments confirm the good
behavior of FunFEM, particularly compared to state-of-the-art methods. The
application of FunFEM to BSS data from JCDecaux and the Transport for London
Initiative allows us to identify 10 general patterns, including pathological
ones, and to propose practical improvement strategies based on the system
comparison. The visualization of the clustered data within the discriminative
subspace turns out to be particularly informative regarding the system
efficiency. The proposed methodology is implemented in a package for the R
software, named funFEM, which is available on the CRAN. The package also
provides a subset of the data analyzed in this work.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/15-AOAS861 in the Annals of
Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of
Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org
Recent advances in directional statistics
Mainstream statistical methodology is generally applicable to data observed
in Euclidean space. There are, however, numerous contexts of considerable
scientific interest in which the natural supports for the data under
consideration are Riemannian manifolds like the unit circle, torus, sphere and
their extensions. Typically, such data can be represented using one or more
directions, and directional statistics is the branch of statistics that deals
with their analysis. In this paper we provide a review of the many recent
developments in the field since the publication of Mardia and Jupp (1999),
still the most comprehensive text on directional statistics. Many of those
developments have been stimulated by interesting applications in fields as
diverse as astronomy, medicine, genetics, neurology, aeronautics, acoustics,
image analysis, text mining, environmetrics, and machine learning. We begin by
considering developments for the exploratory analysis of directional data
before progressing to distributional models, general approaches to inference,
hypothesis testing, regression, nonparametric curve estimation, methods for
dimension reduction, classification and clustering, and the modelling of time
series, spatial and spatio-temporal data. An overview of currently available
software for analysing directional data is also provided, and potential future
developments discussed.Comment: 61 page
Subsurface characterization of groundwater contaminated by landfill leachate using microbial community profile data and a nonparametric decision-making process
Microbial biodiversity in groundwater and soil presents a unique opportunity for improving characterization and monitoring at sites with multiple contaminants, yet few computational methods use or incorporate these data because of their high dimensionality and variability. We present a systematic, nonparametric decision-making methodology to help characterize a water quality gradient in leachate-contaminated groundwater using only microbiological data for input. The data-driven methodology is based on clustering a set of molecular genetic-based microbial community profiles. Microbes were sampled from groundwater monitoring wells located within and around an aquifer contaminated with landfill leachate. We modified a self-organizing map (SOM) to weight the input variables by their relative importance and provide statistical guidance for classifying sample similarities. The methodology includes the following steps: (1) preprocessing the microbial data into a smaller number of independent variables using principal component analysis, (2) clustering the resulting principal component (PC) scores using a modified SOM capable of weighting the input PC scores by the percent variance explained by each score, and (3) using a nonparametric statistic to guide selection of appropriate groupings for management purposes. In this landfill leachate application, the weighted SOM assembles the microbial community data from monitoring wells into groupings believed to represent a gradient of site contamination that could aid in characterization and long-term monitoring decisions. Groupings based solely on microbial classifications are consistent with classifications of water quality from hydrochemical information. These microbial community profile data and improved decision-making strategy compliment traditional chemical groundwater analyses for delineating spatial zones of groundwater contamination. © 2011 by the American Geophysical Union
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