VOStat: A Statistical Web Service for Astronomers

Abstract

VOStat is a Web service providing interactive statistical analysis of astronomical tabular datasets. It is integrated into the suite of analysis and visualization tools associated with the international Virtual Observatory (VO) through the SAMP communication system. A user supplies VOStat with a dataset extracted from the VO, or otherwise acquired, and chooses among $\sim 60$ statistical functions. These include data transformations, plots and summaries, density estimation, one- and two-sample hypothesis tests, global and local regressions, multivariate analysis and clustering, spatial analysis, directional statistics, survival analysis (for censored data like upper limits), and time series analysis. The statistical operations are performed using the public domain {\bf R} statistical software environment, including a small fraction of its $>4000$ {\bf CRAN} add-on packages. The purpose of VOStat is to facilitate a wider range of statistical analyses than are commonly used in astronomy, and to promote use of more advanced methodology in {\bf R} and {\bf CRAN}.