[Ifeffit] smoothing XAS data

[Mike Massey]

At this juncture, I'd like to bring up a "rule" I've made for myself regarding data quality and smoothing: I'd rather walk away from a beam run with one good spectrum than a hundred poor ones.

Meaning, for me anyway, if the data aren't smooth enough on their own, I'd rather spend more precious time counting than move on. I'd count for three days on a sample if I had to (I've never had to).

While it has been proven that, contrary to the popular saying, one _can_ polish a turd, I'd personally rather not try.

I realize this approach was more difficult when I was a grad student and everyone in the research group was clamoring for data, but even in that situation, good data > not-good data.

Apologies for the tangent, but I hope someone out there might find it useful.


Cheers,



Mike





> On Jan 22, 2020, at 5:44 PM, Carlo Segre <segre at iit.edu> wrote:
> 
> 
> Hi Daria:
> 
> I smooth (or boxcar average) the data which it is oversampled, such as in a continuous scan where the data in the exafs region is spaced closer than the usual delta k of 0.05.
> 
> I generally don't like to smooth XANES data since smoothing does tend to attenuate sharp features such as the ones which exist near the absorption edge.
> 
> Carlo
> 
>> On Wed, 22 Jan 2020, Daria Boglaienko wrote:
>> 
>> Hello,
>> 
>> In what case smoothing of the data is OK? My data have a lot of noise and
>> smoothing really helps (visually). I compared fit done in Artemis for
>> smoothed and non-smoothed data sets and the result is very similar, however
>> when I searched about it online, it looks like it is not recommended.
>> What is a good way to justify it?
>> 
>> Thank you!
>> 
>> -Daria
>> 
> 
> -- 
> Carlo U. Segre -- Duchossois Leadership Professor of Physics
> Directory, Center for Synchrotron Radiation Research and Instrumentation
> Illinois Institute of Technology
> Voice: 312.567.3498            Fax: 312.567.3494
> segre at iit.edu   http://phys.iit.edu/~segre   segre at debian.org
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