English

Minimal Re-computation for Exploratory Data Analysis in Astronomy

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics 2017-11-17 v1

Abstract

We present a technique to automatically minimise the re-computation when a data processing program is iteratively changed, or added to, as is often the case in exploratory data analysis in radio astronomy. A typical example is flagging and calibration of demanding or unusual observations where visual inspection suggests improvement to the processing strategy. The technique is based on memoization and referentially transparent tasks. We describe a prototype implementation for the CASA data reduction package. This technique improves the efficiency of data analysis while reducing the possibility for user error and improving the reproducibility of the final result.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1711.06124,
  title  = {Minimal Re-computation for Exploratory Data Analysis in Astronomy},
  author = {Bojan Nikolic and Des Small and Mark Kettenis},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1711.06124},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

Submitted to ASP Conference Series: Proceedings of ADASS XVII, Santiago, Chile 2017

R2 v1 2026-06-22T22:48:16.766Z