A Common-Factor Approach for Multivariate Data Cleaning with an Application to Mars Phoenix Mission Data

Data quality is fundamentally important to ensure the reliability of data for stakeholders to make decisions. In real world applications, such as scientific exploration of extreme environments, it is unrealistic to require raw data collected to be perfect. As data miners, when it is infeasible to physically know the why and the how in order to clean up the data, we propose to seek the intrinsic structure of the signal to identify the common factors of multivariate data. Using our new data driven learning method, the common-factor data cleaning approach, we address an interdisciplinary challenge on multivariate data cleaning when complex external impacts appear to interfere with multiple data measurements. Existing data analyses typically process one signal measurement at a time without considering the associations among all signals. We analyze all signal measurements simultaneously to find the hidden common factors that drive all measurements to vary together, but not as a result of the true data measurements. We use common factors to reduce the variations in the data without changing the base mean level of the data to avoid altering the physical meaning.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures, 1 tabl

How are parental mental health and parenting practices associated with externalizing behaviors among young children with autism in China? A cross-sectional study and indirect effect analysis

Children with autism are more likely to exhibit externalizing behaviors than children without autism. A cross-sectional study was undertaken to investigate how parental mental health status and parenting practices contributed to the variance in externalizing behaviors among families of young children with autism in Chinese mainland, and whether parenting behaviors had any indirect effects on the relationship between parental mental health symptoms and externalizing behaviors. Data were drawn from the baseline assessment of a quasi-experimental study of a parent training program delivered to Chinese caregivers of children with autism aged 3 to 6 from diverse backgrounds (N = 111). Results showed that parental mental health symptoms and parenting behaviors explained the variance in child externalizing behaviors. Parental mental health problems and parental over-reactivity were linked to higher levels of child externalizing behaviors, whereas positive parenting was associated with less frequent externalizing behaviors. Positive parenting partially explained the relationship between parental mental health symptoms and externalizing behaviors. The findings of this study highlight the importance of actively attending to the psychological and parenting needs of caregivers in autism treatment programs. It points to the need for the development of culturally sensitive strategies to promote parental mental health and increase the use of positive parenting skills among parents of children with autism

Structure and function of pancreatic lipase-related protein 2 and its relationship with pathological states

Pancreatic lipase is critical for the digestion and absorption of dietary fats. The most abundant lipolytic enzymes secreted by the pancreas are pancreatic triglyceride lipase (PTL or PNLIP) and its family members, pancreatic lipase-related protein 1 (PNLIPRP1or PLRP1) and pancreatic lipase-related protein 2 (PNLIPRP2 or PLRP2). Unlike the family\u27s other members, PNLIPRP2 plays an elemental role in lipid digestion, especially for newborns. Therefore, if genetic factors cause gene mutation, or other factors lead to non-expression, it may have an effect on fat digestion and absorption, on the susceptibility to pancreas and intestinal pathogens. In this review, we will summarize what is known about the structure and function of PNLIPRP2 and the levels of PNLIPRP2 and associated various pathological states

Ultrafast Dynamics of Flavins in Five Redox States

We report here our systematic studies of excited-state dynamics of two common flavin molecules, FMN and FAD, in five redox states of oxidized form, neutral and anionic semiquinones, and neutral and anionic fully-reduced hydroquinones in solution and in inert protein environments with femtosecond resolution. Using protein environments, we are able to stabilize two semiquinone radicals and thus observed their weak emission spectra. Significantly, we observed a strong correlation between their excited-state dynamics and the planarity of their flavin isoalloxazine ring. For a bent ring structure, we all observed ultrafast dynamics from a few to hundreds of picoseconds and strong excitation-wavelength dependence of emission spectra, indicating deactivation during relaxation. A butterfly bending motion is invoked to get access to conical intersection(s) to facilitate deactivation. These states include the anionic semiquinone radical and fully-reduced neutral and anionic hydroquinones in solution. In a planar configuration, flavins have a long lifetime in nanoseconds except for the stacked conformation of FAD, where the intramolecular electron transfer between the ring and the adenine moiety in 5-9 ps as well as the subsequent charge recombination in 30-40 ps were observed. These observed distinct dynamics, controlled by the flavin ring flexibility, are fundamental to flavoenzyme’s functions as observed in photolyase with a planar structure to lengthen the lifetime to maximize DNA repair efficiency and in insect Type 1 cryptochrome with a flexible structure to vary the excited-state deactivation to modulate the functional channel

Total Cerebral Small Vessel Disease Score and Cerebral Bleeding Risk in Patients With Acute Stroke Treated With Intravenous Thrombolysis

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to investigate the association of total cerebral small vessel disease (cSVD) score with the risk of intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) in patients with acute ischemic stroke who received intravenous thrombolysis (IVT) using recombinant tissue-plasminogen activator (rt-PA). METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed clinical data from two stroke registries of patients with acute ischemic stroke treated with IVT. We assessed the baseline magnetic resonance (MR) visible cSVD markers and total cSVD score (ranging from 0 to 4) between patients with and without ICH after IVT. Logistic regression analysis was used to determine the association of total cSVD score with the risk of ICH after IVT, adjusted for cofounders selected by least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO). We additionally performed an E-value analysis to fully explain away a specific exposure-outcome association. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was used to quantify the predictive potential of the total cSVD score for any ICH after IVT. RESULTS: Among 271 eligible patients, 55 (20.3%) patients experienced any ICH, 16 (5.9%) patients experienced a symptomatic ICH (sICH), and 5 (1.85%) patients had remote intracranial parenchymal hemorrhage (rPH). Logistic regression analysis showed that the risk of any ICH increased with increasing cSVD score [per unit increase, adjusted odds ratio (OR) 2.03, 95% CI 1.22–3.41, P = 0.007]. Sensitivity analyses using E-value revealed that it would need moderately robust unobserved confounding to render the exposure-outcome (cSVD-any ICH) association null. ROC analysis showed that compared with the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) score alone, a combination of cSVD and NIHSS score had a larger area under the curve for any ICH (0.811, 95% CI 0.756–0.866 vs. 0.784, 95% CI 0.723–0.846, P = 0.0004). CONCLUSION: The total cSVD score is associated with an increased risk of any ICH after IVT and improves prediction for any ICH compared with NIHSS alone

A novel planarization method based on photoinduced confined chemical etching

National Science Foundation of China [91023043, 21021002, 91023006]A photoinduced confined chemical etching system based on TiO2 nanotube arrays is developed for the planarization of the copper surface, which is proved to be a prospective stress-free chemical planarization method for metals and semiconductors

Fractal Characteristics, Multiple Bubbles, and Jump Anomalies in the Chinese Stock Market

To consider the jump problem of the Chinese stock market, this paper takes the CSI 300 Index from April 2005 to November 2015 as the research object, uses the rescaled range analysis (R/S analysis) method to examine the fractal characteristics of the Chinese stock market in the past ten years, and deduces the possibility of multiple bubbles in the Chinese stock market. Based on this, combined with the log-periodic power law (LPPL) model, the stock market bubbles are identified in different periods. The results show that China’s stock market has some anomalies in terms of positive bubbles, negative bubbles, and reverse bubbles, as well as the cross occurrence of reverse-negative bubbles. Besides, through a comparison with the major foreign stock markets, it is found that the fluctuation range of the Chinese stock market is much larger than that of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the FTSE 100 indices in the same period and there are also more types of multibubbles, which is a connotative anomaly that makes the Chinese stock market different from other major stock markets. Furthermore, the bubble phenomenon in the Chinese stock market during the periods of 2005/4–2007/10 and 2015/6–2015/11 is studied, and it is found that there is a jump anomaly in the Chinese stock market. Finally, based on the above empirical analysis and the current state of the stock market, this paper provides some suggestions for improving the mechanism of the Chinese stock market