Improving Neural Network Generalization Ability Using Outlier Analysis and Voronoi Tessellation

The data used in this study was obtained from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), which provides astronomers with what is currently the most extensive mapping of the universe, covering 25% of the sky and cataloging the spectral properties (e.g., luminosity, color, surface temperature) of over 100 million celestial objects. Images generated by the SDSS are collected through 5 filters named u, g, r, l, and z that have respective wavelengths of 3540, 4750, 6222, 7632, and 9049 A. By measuring the photometric redshifts of the aforementioned wavelengths of a galaxy, astronomers can ascertain the extent to which galaxy is receding from which the distance to the galaxy can be calculated. Data collected for a small select group of galaxies (approximately 30, 000) contains accurate measurements of the galaxies' redshifts, in addition to measurements of their spectral properties. The above dataset containing both redshift measurements as well as spectral properties of the selected galaxies served as the training set for the purposes of this study; the data set containing only the spectra properties of a separate group of galaxies served as the test set.