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Paper: VOStat: A Distributed Statistical Toolkit for the Virtual Observatory
Volume: 347, Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems XIV
Page: 394
Authors: Graham, M.J.; Djorgovski, S.G.; Mahabal, A.A.; Williams, R.D.; Babu, G.J.; Feigelson, E.D.; Vanden Berk, D.E.; Nichol, R.; Wasserman, L.
Abstract: The nature of astronomical data is changing: data volumes are following Moore's law with a doubling every 18 months and data sets consisting of a billion data vectors in a 100-dimensional parameter space are becoming commonplace. Sophisticated statistical techniques are crucial to fully and efficiently exploit these and maximize the scientific return. A long-standing limitation, however, on the range and capability of such analyses has been the paucity of non-proprietary software.
VOStat is the result of a cross-disciplinary collaboration between astronomers and statisticians to meet these challenges; it is a prototype knowledge-based statistical toolkit implemented within the VO paradigm for the entire astronomical community. VOStat consists of an easily extensible distributed web-based framework transparently accessed via a single science endpoint.
An exploratory science application is presented to demonstrate some of the functionality currently offered by VOStat.
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