The Cosmological Tests

Recent observational advances have considerably improved the cosmological tests, adding to the lines of evidence, and showing that some issues under discussion just a few years ago may now be considered resolved or irrelevant. Other issues remain, however, and await resolution before the great program of testing the relativistic Friedmann-Lemaitre model, that commenced in the 1930s, may at last be considered complete.Comment: 10 pages; conference proceedin

Tests of Gaussianity

We review two powerful methods to test the Gaussianity of the cosmic microwave background (CMB): one based on the distribution of spherical wavelet coefficients and the other on smooth tests of goodness-of-fit. The spherical wavelet families proposed to analyse the CMB are the Haar and the Mexican Hat ones. The latter is preferred for detecting non-Gaussian homogeneous and isotropic primordial models containing some amount of skewness or kurtosis. Smooth tests of goodness-of-fit have recently been introduced in the field showing some interesting properties. We will discuss the smooth tests of goodness-of-fit developed by Rayner and Best for the univariate as well as for the multivariate analysis.Comment: Proceedings of "The Cosmic Microwave Background and its Polarization", New Astronomy Reviews, (eds. S. Hanany and K.A. Olive), in pres

Influence tests I: ideal composite hypothesis tests, and causal semimeasures

Ratios of universal enumerable semimeasures corresponding to hypotheses are investigated as a solution for statistical composite hypotheses testing if an unbounded amount of computation time can be assumed. Influence testing for discrete time series is defined using generalized structural equations. Several ideal tests are introduced, and it is argued that when Halting information is transmitted, in some cases, instantaneous cause and consequence can be inferred where this is not possible classically. The approach is contrasted with Bayesian definitions of influence, where it is left open whether all Bayesian causal associations of universal semimeasures are equal within a constant. Finally the approach is also contrasted with existing engineering procedures for influence and theoretical definitions of causation.Comment: 29 pages, 3 figures, draf

Probe tests microweld strength

Probe is developed to test strength of soldered, brazed or microwelded joints. It consists of a spring which may be adjusted to the desired test pressure by means of a threaded probe head, and an indicator lamp. Device may be used for electronic equipment testing

Geometry of rank tests

We study partitions of the symmetric group which have desirable geometric properties. The statistical tests defined by such partitions involve counting all permutations in the equivalence classes. These permutations are the linear extensions of partially ordered sets specified by the data. Our methods refine rank tests of non-parametric statistics, such as the sign test and the runs test, and are useful for the exploratory analysis of ordinal data. Convex rank tests correspond to probabilistic conditional independence structures known as semi-graphoids. Submodular rank tests are classified by the faces of the cone of submodular functions, or by Minkowski summands of the permutohedron. We enumerate all small instances of such rank tests. Graphical tests correspond to both graphical models and to graph associahedra, and they have excellent statistical and algorithmic properties.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures. See also http://bio.math.berkeley.edu/ranktests/. v2: Expanded proofs, revised after reviewer comment

Interferometric Tests of Teleportation

We investigate a direct test of teleportation efficacy based on a Mach-Zehnder interferometer. The analysis is performed for continuous variable teleportation of both discrete and continuous observables