catdynamics | October 11, 2010There are reports from Torino about HARPS observations of Gliese 581(g)
Vogt et al reported on additional possible planets in the multi-planet low mass Gliese 581(g) system.
In particular they showed a ~ 3 sigma detection of a possible 3+ earth mass planet in a circular orbit with an orbital period consistent with a temperate surface.
The paper used a combination of historic Keck data, published HARPS data up through 2008 and new high cadence Keck data.
There was some concern when the paper came out that the False Alarm Probability was underestimated (see Cumming et al for discussion of…
catdynamics | October 6, 2010One of three best XKCD ever
No, you must click through to enlarge
A finite fraction of my online communication now consists of "XKCD:###"
where ### gives the appropriate xkcd number.
catdynamics | October 4, 2010Many years ago, as I was writing up my thesis, my advisor burst into my office with the hot news.
Someone had announced a possible discovery of an extrasolar planet!
It seems strange now, but back then we really did not know if there were any other planets around other stars.
A lot of astronomers thought that it was quite likely that there were planets around other stars, maybe even most stars, but we had no data.
We were getting there, there were astrometric and radial velocity searches underway, with people like Walker, Griffin and Latham developing techniques which would clearly,…
catdynamics | September 30, 2010So, what do we make of the NRC Rankings?
What drives the different rankings, and what are the issues and surprises?
First, the R-rankings really are reputational - they are a bit more elaborate than just asking straight up, but what they reduce to is direct evaluation by respondents without evaluating quantitative indicators.
Doug at nanoscale puts it well - the S-Rankings are really generally better indicators...
A new index W = R - S has been named the "hard work" index.
BTW - you can't take (R+S)/2 and call it a rank - you need to rank the resulting score and count the ordinal position…
catdynamics | September 29, 2010Dear Computer Science departments of the United States:
I am very sorry that commercial citation services do not adequately follow those conference proceedings in Comp Sci, in which your best work is traditionally published.
Since it is important to you to know, why do you not set up a tool to automatically do citation indexing for your own field.
We did.
You can then let the citation services data mine your tool to import the data that you want put out there, or not.
You have the tools, you have talent, you have the people.
Just do it.
Love,
Astronomy & Physics.
PS: feel free to hack…
catdynamics | September 28, 2010The NRC rankings are out.
Penn State Astronomy is ranked #3 - behind Princeton and Caltech.
W00t!
PSU doing the mostest with the leastest.
The Data Based Assessment of Graduate Programs by the National Research Council, for 2010, is out, reporting on the 2005 state of the program.
The full data set is here
EDIT: PhDs.org has a fast rank generator by field.
Click on the first option (NRC quality) to get R-rankings, next button ("Research Productivity") to get the S-rankings, or assign your own weights to get custom ranking.
Astronomy S-Rankings:
Princeton
Caltech
Penn State
Berkeley…
catdynamics | September 28, 2010Two aspects of the NRC rankings are that a) it took so long that the results are dated and people will selectively choose to use or ignore them as suits best (and then rely on the 1995 rankings instead I gather)
and, b) the process was so hard and unpleasant it will never be done again...
Hmm, that sounds familiar.
We can fix that.
See, the arduous part of the NRC was the data mining - gathering the metrics after they'd been defined.
It took a long time and required iterations and debate.
But, this is precisely the sort of thing that can be automated.
At least in large part.
eg. the…
catdynamics | September 28, 2010And BU wins the prize for being first to crack and breaking the NRC rankings embargo...
h/t Leiter Report
catdynamics | September 28, 2010With about 100,000 metrics collected on 5,000 or so program, there are bound to be errors.
In particular, a lot of the metrics are of the form:
out of N people, how many, k, do/do not have the property we are measuring
This is then reported as percentages.
These percentages must be of the form: (1 - k/N)*100
where k, N are integers.
Yet they are clearly not.
There are several explanations for this, all of which are likely correct:
First of all, there are what look like clear transcription errors; reversed digits, or duplicate or omitted digits. Somebody entered these numbers by hand on…
catdynamics | September 27, 2010We are now just 12 hours from the release of the National Research Council Data Based Assessment of Graduate Programs.
The tension is just overwhelming...
An interesting thing about the 2010 NRC rankings is the methodology, and a final version seems to have been settled upon.
As you know, Bob, the primary purpose of the new methodology is to make sure Princeton wins, and Harvard is suitably humbled provide a robust and objective ranking of US graduate programs, for the ages, which is not a subjective grossly lagging metric.
The complaints about the methodology have already started to bubble…
catdynamics | September 27, 2010
"Yet let's be content, and the times lament, you see the world turn'd upside down."
catdynamics | September 26, 2010 The National Research Council releases its data based ranking of US graduate programs on Tuesday September 28th.
NRC website with methodology and FAQ on rankings
The rankings are much perused and much abused, by anyone from prospective grads, to axe-wielding provosts.
The last rankings were done in 1995, and used the classic "reputational" method.
Basically NRC grandees called their old muckers back at the unis and asked them who was any good, starting, please, with Harvard, Princeton and Yale...
It worked, though the methodology was somewhat criticized and the results were most definitely…
catdynamics | September 25, 2010
Gonna be spending a lot of time and words on rankings in the next few days.
Interesting times and important people.
catdynamics | September 20, 2010The intertoobz have exploded over the unfortunate Dr Henderson's bemoaning of the impending Bush tax increases, and the hardship of getting by in todays society for two income families
We watch in awe as netizens arise to dissect the issue, and munch popcorn as the show goes on:
Todd Henderson's original tirade
in which he shows some misunderstanding of what constitutes discretionary spending, financial planning and marginal tax rates.
He must have known for several years that Bush's tax increase was coming in 2011. Shouldn't live on the edge like that...
(Hm. He may have taken it down, or…
catdynamics | September 18, 2010A few years ago Ball Aerospace pulled a cute stunt
Ball Aerospace logo - from telestarlogistics blog (click to embiggen)
Using the QuickBird
0.6m telescope.
Note the white dashed lines on the tarmac on the road are resolved.
Not bad.
(cf here the later WorldView-2 first light image of Dallas airport)
catdynamics | September 17, 2010Krugman is is on fire today, as he has been for a while, this time talking about the tax cuts.
But, even he makes an essential error that all the democrats seem to be making.
It is not about Bush's tax cuts, or keeping Bush's tax cuts or Obama raising taxes.
Bush, for whatever reasons, proposed and got passed tax cuts that expire this year.
That is it.
They will be no more. Any changes in the tax code beyond that are not Bush's.
So, at the end of this year, there will BUSH'S TAX INCREASES.
That is the status quo, as set in law and signed by President Bush.
If your tax increases next year, it…
catdynamics | September 16, 2010There are some things to be said for staring at scatterplots and times series plots
Calculated Risk, in case you hadn't heard, is one of the best economics and finance blogs on the Net.
Bill at CR is a demon for generating plots:
This one is Business Outlook Survey - question is, of course, what is the instantaneous second derivative.
Or look at Government Employment - Fed, State and Local, and now, with Education sector excluded!
There is the Infamous Employment vs Recession chart
and
why you should go to university... (click to embiggen)
- modulo opportunity costs of course
CR…
catdynamics | September 16, 2010"...To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
An foolish notion:"
Yes, everyone has linked the latest, greatest XKCD:
So painful, so true.
Fortunately the other thing about physicists, is that we have a great sense of humour.
And we need it.
Steve Hsu has been doing some provocative ruminating along these lines.
This of course leads to classification of physicists, there being two types:
Type I is smart.
Type II is hard working.
Type Ib/c is smart and hard working, and therefore really sub-category of Type II
while Type Ia is smart but lazy.
Type IIn is hard…