Galaxy Zoo: Exploring the Motivations of Citizen Science Volunteers

ArXiv 0909.2925 (2009)

Authors:

M Jordan Raddick, Georgia Bracey, Pamela L Gay, Chris J Lintott, Phil Murray, Kevin Schawinski, Alexander S Szalay, Jan Vandenberg

Abstract:

The Galaxy Zoo citizen science website invites anyone with an Internet connection to participate in research by classifying galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. As of April 2009, more than 200,000 volunteers had made more than 100 million galaxy classifications. In this paper, we present results of a pilot study into the motivations and demographics of Galaxy Zoo volunteers, and define a technique to determine motivations from free responses that can be used in larger multiple-choice surveys with similar populations. Our categories form the basis for a future survey, with the goal of determining the prevalence of each motivation.

Probing the behaviour of the X-ray binary Cygnus X-3 with very-long-baseline radio interferometry

(2009)

Authors:

V Tudose, JCA Miller-Jones, RP Fender, Z Paragi, C Sakari, A Szostek, MA Garrett, V Dhawan, A Rushton, RE Spencer, M van der Klis

'Disc-jet' coupling in black hole X-ray binaries and active galactic nuclei

(2009)

Following the 2008 outburst decay of the black hole candidate H1743-322 in X-ray and radio

(2009)

Authors:

PG Jonker, J Miller-Jones, J Homan, E Gallo, M Rupen, J Tomsick, RP Fender, P Kaaret, DTH Steeghs, MAP Torres, R Wijnands, S Markoff, WHG Lewin

Search for anomalous production of events with a photon, jet, b-quark jet, and missing transverse energy

Physical Review D - Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology 80:5 (2009)

Authors:

T Aaltonen, J Adelman, T Akimoto, BA González, S Amerio, D Amidei, A Anastassov, A Annovi, J Antos, G Apollinari, A Apresyan, T Arisawa, A Artikov, W Ashmanskas, A Attal, A Aurisano, F Azfar, P Azzurri, W Badgett, A Barbaro-Galtieri, VE Barnes, BA Barnett, V Bartsch, G Bauer, PH Beauchemin, F Bedeschi, D Beecher, S Behari, G Bellettini, J Bellinger, D Benjamin, A Beretvas, J Beringer, A Bhatti, M Binkley, D Bisello, I Bizjak, RE Blair, C Blocker, B Blumenfeld, A Bocci, A Bodek, V Boisvert, G Bolla, D Bortoletto, J Boudreau, A Boveia, B Brau, A Bridgeman, L Brigliadori, C Bromberg, E Brubaker, J Budagov, HS Budd, S Budd, S Burke, K Burkett, G Busetto, P Bussey, A Buzatu, KL Byrum, S Cabrera, C Calancha, M Campanelli, M Campbell, F Canelli, A Canepa, B Carls, D Carlsmith, R Carosi, S Carrillo, S Carron, B Casal, M Casarsa, A Castro, P Catastini, D Cauz, V Cavaliere, M Cavalli-Sforza, A Cerri, L Cerrito, SH Chang, YC Chen, M Chertok, G Chiarelli, G Chlachidze, F Chlebana, K Cho, D Chokheli, JP Chou, G Choudalakis, SH Chuang, K Chung, WH Chung, YS Chung, T Chwalek, CI Ciobanu, MA Ciocci, A Clark, D Clark

Abstract:

We present a signature-based search for the anomalous production of events containing a photon, two jets, of which at least one is identified as originating from a b quark, and missing transverse energy (E T). The search uses data corresponding to 2.0fb-1 of integrated luminosity from pp̄ collisions at a center-of-mass energy of s=1.96TeV, collected with the CDF II detector at the Fermilab Tevatron. From 6.69747×106 events with a photon candidate with transverse energy ET>25GeV, we find 617 events with E T>25GeV and two or more jets with ET>15GeV, at least one identified as originating from a b quark, versus an expectation of 607±113 events. Increasing the requirement on E T to 50 GeV, we find 28 events versus an expectation of 30±11 events. We find no indications of non-standard-model phenomena. © 2009 The American Physical Society.