86,724 research outputs found
The Conceptualisation, Measurement, and Coding of Education in German and Cross-National Surveys (Version 2.0)
This contribution provides an overview of the theoretical conceptualisation, empirical operationalisation, and the measurement and coding of education in national and international survey research. In this context, the term "education" refers to the level of education attained by an individual, which must be distinguished from concepts such as competencies, performance at school, and educational disciplines. Because education is often included in statistical models in a merely routine way, emphasis is placed on the connection between the theoretical concept, the indicator, the measurement instrument, and the variable. When doing so, use is made of long-standing social science research on educational returns and educational inequality. A distinction is made between linear, ordinal and categorical concepts of education that have emerged from the different theoretical approaches, and that, to some extent, impose different requirements on data collection and coding. Indeed, it is true to say that there is no consensus as to how education should be conceptualised, measured, compared across countries, and statistically modelled. The contribution does not give a recommendation for a "one size fits all" educational variable that would be appropriate for all studies. Rather, it endeavours to encourage readers to make an informed decision on the measurement of education in the respective educational context and to support them in doing so
Photometric Redshifts with Surface Brightness Priors
We use galaxy surface brightness as prior information to improve photometric
redshift (photo-z) estimation. We apply our template-based photo-z method to
imaging data from the ground-based VVDS survey and the space-based GOODS field
from HST, and use spectroscopic redshifts to test our photometric redshifts for
different galaxy types and redshifts. We find that the surface brightness prior
eliminates a large fraction of outliers by lifting the degeneracy between the
Lyman and 4000 Angstrom breaks. Bias and scatter are improved by about a factor
of 2 with the prior for both the ground and space data. Ongoing and planned
surveys from the ground and space will benefit, provided that care is taken in
measurements of galaxy sizes and in the application of the prior. We discuss
the image quality and signal-to-noise requirements that enable the surface
brightness prior to be successfully applied.Comment: 15 pages, 13 figures, matches published versio
T-PHOT: A new code for PSF-matched, prior-based, multiwavelength extragalactic deconfusion photometry
We present T-PHOT, a publicly available software aimed at extracting accurate
photometry from low-resolution images of deep extragalactic fields, where the
blending of sources can be a serious problem for the accurate and unbiased
measurement of fluxes and colours. T-PHOT has been developed within the
ASTRODEEP project and it can be considered as the next generation to TFIT,
providing significant improvements above it and other similar codes. T-PHOT
gathers data from a high-resolution image of a region of the sky, and uses it
to obtain priors for the photometric analysis of a lower resolution image of
the same field. It can handle different types of datasets as input priors: i) a
list of objects that will be used to obtain cutouts from the real
high-resolution image; ii) a set of analytical models; iii) a list of
unresolved, point-like sources, useful e.g. for far-infrared wavelength
domains. We show that T-PHOT yields accurate estimations of fluxes within the
intrinsic uncertainties of the method, when systematic errors are taken into
account (which can be done thanks to a flagging code given in the output).
T-PHOT is many times faster than similar codes like TFIT and CONVPHOT (up to
hundreds, depending on the problem and the method adopted), whilst at the same
time being more robust and more versatile. This makes it an optimal choice for
the analysis of large datasets. In addition we show how the use of different
settings and methods significantly enhances the performance. Given its
versatility and robustness, T-PHOT can be considered the preferred choice for
combined photometric analysis of current and forthcoming extragalactic optical
to far-infrared imaging surveys. [abridged]Comment: 23 pages, 20 figures, 2 table
Application of the Iterated Weighted Least-Squares Fit to counting experiments
Least-squares fits are an important tool in many data analysis applications.
In this paper, we review theoretical results, which are relevant for their
application to data from counting experiments. Using a simple example, we
illustrate the well known fact that commonly used variants of the least-squares
fit applied to Poisson-distributed data produce biased estimates. The bias can
be overcome with an iterated weighted least-squares method, which produces
results identical to the maximum-likelihood method. For linear models, the
iterated weighted least-squares method converges faster than the equivalent
maximum-likelihood method, and does not require problem-specific starting
values, which may be a practical advantage. The equivalence of both methods
also holds for binomially distributed data. We further show that the unbinned
maximum-likelihood method can be derived as a limiting case of the iterated
least-squares fit when the bin width goes to zero, which demonstrates a deep
connection between the two methods.Comment: Accepted by NIM
SparsePak: A Formatted Fiber Field-Unit for The WIYN Telescope Bench Spectrograph. II. On-Sky Performance
We present a performance analysis of SparsePak and the WIYN Bench
Spectrograph for precision studies of stellar and ionized gas kinematics of
external galaxies. We focus on spectrograph configurations with echelle and
low-order gratings yielding spectral resolutions of ~10000 between 500-900nm.
These configurations are of general relevance to the spectrograph performance.
Benchmarks include spectral resolution, sampling, vignetting, scattered light,
and an estimate of the system absolute throughput. Comparisons are made to
other, existing, fiber feeds on the WIYN Bench Spectrograph. Vignetting and
relative throughput are found to agree with a geometric model of the optical
system. An aperture-correction protocol for spectrophotometric standard-star
calibrations has been established using independent WIYN imaging data and the
unique capabilities of the SparsePak fiber array. The WIYN
point-spread-function is well-fit by a Moffat profile with a constant power-law
outer slope of index -4.4. We use SparsePak commissioning data to debunk a
long-standing myth concerning sky-subtraction with fibers: By properly treating
the multi-fiber data as a ``long-slit'' it is possible to achieve precision sky
subtraction with a signal-to-noise performance as good or better than
conventional long-slit spectroscopy. No beam-switching is required, and hence
the method is efficient. Finally, we give several examples of science
measurements which SparsePak now makes routine. These include H
velocity fields of low surface-brightness disks, gas and stellar
velocity-fields of nearly face-on disks, and stellar absorption-line profiles
of galaxy disks at spectral resolutions of ~24,000.Comment: To appear in ApJSupp (Feb 2005); 19 pages text; 7 tables; 27 figures
(embedded); high-resolution version at
http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~mab/publications/spkII_pre.pd
Comparing Image Quality in Phase Contrast sub X-Ray Tomography -- A Round-Robin Study
How to evaluate and compare image quality from different sub-micrometer
(sub) CT scans? A simple test phantom made of polymer microbeads is used
for recording projection images as well as 13 CT scans in a number of
commercial and non-commercial scanners. From the resulting CT images, signal
and noise power spectra are modeled for estimating volume signal-to-noise
ratios (3D SNR spectra). Using the same CT images, a time- and
shape-independent transfer function (MTF) is computed for each scan, including
phase contrast effects and image blur (). The SNR spectra
and MTF of the CT scans are compared to 2D SNR spectra of the projection
images. In contrary to 2D SNR, volume SNR can be normalized with respect to the
object's power spectrum, yielding detection effectiveness (DE) a new measure
which reveals how technical differences as well as operator-choices strongly
influence scan quality for a given measurement time. Using DE, both
source-based and detector-based sub CT scanners can be studied and their
scan quality can be compared. Future application of this work requires a
particular scan acquisition scheme which will allow for measuring 3D
signal-to-noise ratios, making the model fit for 3D noise power spectra
obsolete
Constraining the Mass Profiles of Stellar Systems: Schwarzschild Modeling of Discrete Velocity Datasets
(ABRIDGED) We present a new Schwarzschild orbit-superposition code designed
to model discrete datasets composed of velocities of individual kinematic
tracers in a dynamical system. This constitutes an extension of previous
implementations that can only address continuous data in the form of (the
moments of) velocity distributions, thus avoiding potentially important losses
of information due to data binning. Furthermore, the code can handle any
combination of available velocity components, i.e., only line-of-sight
velocities, only proper motions, or a combination of both. It can also handle a
combination of discrete and continuous data. The code finds the distribution
function (DF, a function of the three integrals of motion E, Lz, and I3) that
best reproduces the available kinematic and photometric observations in a given
axisymmetric gravitational potential. The fully numerical approach ensures
considerable freedom on the form of the DF f(E,Lz,I3). This allows a very
general modeling of the orbital structure, thus avoiding restrictive
assumptions about the degree of (an)isotropy of the orbits. We describe the
implementation of the discrete code and present a series of tests of its
performance based on the modeling of simulated datasets generated from a known
DF. We find that the discrete Schwarzschild code recovers the original orbital
structure, M/L ratios, and inclination of the input datasets to satisfactory
accuracy, as quantified by various statistics. The code will be valuable, e.g.,
for modeling stellar motions in Galactic globular clusters, and those of
individual stars, planetary nebulae, or globular clusters in nearby galaxies.
This can shed new light on the total mass distributions of these systems, with
central black holes and dark matter halos being of particular interest.Comment: ApJ, in press; 51 pages, 11 figures; manuscript revised following
comments by refere
The Hyper Suprime-Cam Software Pipeline
In this paper, we describe the optical imaging data processing pipeline
developed for the Subaru Telescope's Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) instrument. The
HSC Pipeline builds on the prototype pipeline being developed by the Large
Synoptic Survey Telescope's Data Management system, adding customizations for
HSC, large-scale processing capabilities, and novel algorithms that have since
been reincorporated into the LSST codebase. While designed primarily to reduce
HSC Subaru Strategic Program (SSP) data, it is also the recommended pipeline
for reducing general-observer HSC data. The HSC pipeline includes high level
processing steps that generate coadded images and science-ready catalogs as
well as low-level detrending and image characterizations.Comment: 39 pages, 21 figures, 2 tables. Submitted to Publications of the
Astronomical Society of Japa
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