Why is Bayesian confirmation theory rarely practiced?

Bayesian confirmation theory is a leading theory to decide the confirmation/refutation of a hypothesis based on probability calculus. While it may be much discussed in philosophy of science, is it actually practiced in terms of hypothesis testing by scientists? Since the assignment of some of the probabilities in the theory is open to debate and the risk of making the wrong decision is unknown, many scientists do not use the theory in hypothesis testing. Instead, they use alternative statistical tests that can measure the risk or the reliability in decision making, circumventing some of the theoretical problems in practice. Therefore, the theory is not very popular in hypothesis testing among scientists at present. However, there are some proponents of Bayesian hypothesis testing, and software packages are made available to accelerate utilization by scientists. Time will tell whether Bayesian confirmation theory can become both a leading theory and a widely practiced method. In addition, this theory can be used to model the (degree of) belief of scientists when testing hypotheses

Insights in how computer science can be a science

Recently, information retrieval is shown to be a science by mapping information retrieval scientific study to scientific study abstracted from physics. The exercise was rather tedious and lengthy. Instead of dealing with the nitty gritty, this paper looks at the insights into how computer science can be made into a science by using that methodology. That is by mapping computer science scientific study to the scientific study abstracted from physics. To show the mapping between computer science and physics, we need to define what is engineering science which computer science belongs to. Some principles and assumptions of engineering science theory are presented. To show computer science is a science, we presented two approaches. Approach 1 considers computer science as simulation of human behaviour similar to the goal of artificial intelligence. Approach 2 is closely related to the actual (scientific) activities in computer science, and this approach considers computer science based on the theory of computation. Finally, we answer some of the common outstanding issues about computer science to convince our reader that computer science is a science

How to handle risky experiments producing uncertain phenomenon like cold fusion?

Some experiments are risky in that they cannot repeatedly produce certain phenomenon at will for study because the scientific knowledge of the process generating the uncertain phenomenon is poorly understood or may directly contradict with existing scientific knowledge. These experiments may have great impact not just to the scientific community but to mankind in general. Banning them from study may incur societies a great opportunity cost but accepting them runs the risk that scientists are doing junk science. How to make an informed decision to accept/reject such study scientifically for the mainstream scientific community is of great importance to mankind. Here, we propose a statistical methodology to handle the situation. Specifically, we consider the likelihood of not observing the phenomenon after n trails so that it is statistically significant to have nil result. Consequently, we reject the hypothesis that there is some probability that we observe the phenomenon

Wigner function based propagation of stochastic field emissions from planar electromagnetic sources

Modelling the electromagnetic radiation from modern digital systems – acting effectively as extended, stochastic sources as part of a complex architecture – is a challenging task. We follow an approach here based on measuring and propagating field-field autocorrelation functions (ACFs) after suitable averaging. From the modelling side, we use the Wigner transform of the ACFs to describe random wave fields in terms of position and direction of propagation variables. An approximate propagator for the components of the radiated magnetic field is constructed for these ACFs based on a linear flow map. Field-field ACFs at aperture level are obtained from scanning measurements of complex sources. Distance and spatial resolution of the scanning plane is less than a wavelength from the source plane to capture the imprint of evanescent waves in the nearfield ACFs. Near-field scanning and efficient near-to-far field propagation is carried out and compared with measurements. Results of this study will be useful to assist far-field predictions, source reconstruction, and emission source microscopy

Wigner-Function-Based Propagation of Stochastic Field Emissions from Planar Electromagnetic Sources

© 1964-2012 IEEE. Modeling the electromagnetic radiation from modern digital systems - acting effectively as extended stochastic sources as part of a complex architecture - is a challenging task. We follow an approach here based on measuring and propagating field-field autocorrelation functions (ACFs) after suitable averaging. From the modeling side, we use the Wigner transform of the ACFs to describe random wave fields in terms of position and direction of propagation variables. An approximate propagator for the components of the radiated magnetic field is constructed for these ACFs based on a linear flow map. Field-field ACFs at the aperture level are obtained from scanning measurements of complex sources. Distance and spatial resolution of the scanning plane is less than a wavelength from the source plane to capture the imprint of evanescent waves in the near-field ACFs. Near-field scanning and efficient near-to-far-field propagation is carried out and compared with measurements. Results of this study will be useful to assist far-field predictions, source reconstruction, and emission source microscopy

Search for jet extinction in the inclusive jet-pT spectrum from proton-proton collisions at s=8 TeV

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published articles title, journal citation, and DOI.The first search at the LHC for the extinction of QCD jet production is presented, using data collected with the CMS detector corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 10.7  fb−1 of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV. The extinction model studied in this analysis is motivated by the search for signatures of strong gravity at the TeV scale (terascale gravity) and assumes the existence of string couplings in the strong-coupling limit. In this limit, the string model predicts the suppression of all high-transverse-momentum standard model processes, including jet production, beyond a certain energy scale. To test this prediction, the measured transverse-momentum spectrum is compared to the theoretical prediction of the standard model. No significant deficit of events is found at high transverse momentum. A 95% confidence level lower limit of 3.3 TeV is set on the extinction mass scale

First Results from KamLAND: Evidence for Reactor Antineutrino Disappearance

KamLAND has been used to measure the flux of $\bar{\nu}_e$'s from distant nuclear reactors. In an exposure of 162 ton$\cdot$yr (145.1 days) the ratio of the number of observed inverse $\beta$-decay events to the expected number of events without disappearance is $0.611\pm 0.085 {\rm (stat)} \pm 0.041 {\rm (syst)}$ for $\bar{\nu}_e$ energies $>$ 3.4 MeV. The deficit of events is inconsistent with the expected rate for standard $\bar{\nu}_e$ propagation at the 99.95% confidence level. In the context of two-flavor neutrino oscillations with CPT invariance, these results exclude all oscillation solutions but the `Large Mixing Angle' solution to the solar neutrino problem using reactor $\bar{\nu}_e$ sources