Identifying progressive imaging genetic patterns via multi-task sparse canonical correlation analysis: a longitudinal study of the ADNI cohort

Motivation Identifying the genetic basis of the brain structure, function and disorder by using the imaging quantitative traits (QTs) as endophenotypes is an important task in brain science. Brain QTs often change over time while the disorder progresses and thus understanding how the genetic factors play roles on the progressive brain QT changes is of great importance and meaning. Most existing imaging genetics methods only analyze the baseline neuroimaging data, and thus those longitudinal imaging data across multiple time points containing important disease progression information are omitted. Results We propose a novel temporal imaging genetic model which performs the multi-task sparse canonical correlation analysis (T-MTSCCA). Our model uses longitudinal neuroimaging data to uncover that how single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) play roles on affecting brain QTs over the time. Incorporating the relationship of the longitudinal imaging data and that within SNPs, T-MTSCCA could identify a trajectory of progressive imaging genetic patterns over the time. We propose an efficient algorithm to solve the problem and show its convergence. We evaluate T-MTSCCA on 408 subjects from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative database with longitudinal magnetic resonance imaging data and genetic data available. The experimental results show that T-MTSCCA performs either better than or equally to the state-of-the-art methods. In particular, T-MTSCCA could identify higher canonical correlation coefficients and capture clearer canonical weight patterns. This suggests that T-MTSCCA identifies time-consistent and time-dependent SNPs and imaging QTs, which further help understand the genetic basis of the brain QT changes over the time during the disease progression. Availability and implementation The software and simulation data are publicly available at https://github.com/dulei323/TMTSCCA. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online

CHINA\u27S BID TO THE WTO— HIDTORY TASK NEEDS JOINT EFFORTS

As one of the three international institutions formed in the aftermath of the Second World War constituted the postwar world economic order, the GATT was an international treaty with its central mission promoting free trade among the contracting parties. During the forty-seven years of its existence (1947-1994), the GATT provided a legal framework within which most international trades were conducted. On January 1, 1995, the WTO was established in accordance with the results of the Uruguay Round of Multilateral Negotiations under the auspices of the GATT. The replacement of the GATT by an institutional body, the WTO, ushered in a new era in the international trade system. Based in Geneva, Switzerland, the WTO is an inter-governmental organization. Its main decision-making bodies are councils and committees consisting of the WTO\u27s entire membership. China is the second-largest recipient of foreign investment around the world. Today the Chinese economy represents between 5 to 1 percent of global output, depending on the method used to calculate national production. But up to now, China is still not a member of the WTO. In this thesis, the author likes to analyze China\u27s bid to the WTO, and make it clear why it\u27s the history task which needs joint efforts. Part II will reiterate the importance of China\u27s accession to WTO. Part III will review the major events in China\u27s bid to the GATT and the WTO since the establishment of the GATT. Part IV will analyze the major obstacles to China\u27s admission to the WTO. Part V and Part VI will state what China should do and what the WTO should do separately