Power analysis for RNA sequencing and mass spectrometry-based proteomics data

RNA-sequencing and mass spectrometry technologies have facilitated the differential expression discoveries in transcriptome and proteome studies. However, the determination of sample size to achieve adequate statistical power has been a major challenge in experimental design. The objective of this study is to develop a power analysis tool applicable to both RNA-seq and MS-based proteomics data. The methods proposed in this study are capable of both prospective and retrospective power analyses. In terms of the performance, the benchmarking results indicated that the proposed methods can give distinct power estimates for both differentially and equivalently expressed genes or proteins without prior differential expression analysis and other assumptions, such as, expected fraction of differentially expressed features, minimal fold changes and expected mean expressions. Using the proposed methods, not only can researchers evaluate the reliability of their acquired significant results, but also estimate the sufficient sample size for a desired power. The proposed methods in this study were implemented as an R package, which can be freely accessed from Bioconductor project at http://bioconductor.org/packages/PowerExplorer/

A survey on customer satisfaction of a chinese language newspaper in Portugal

The history of Chinese immigrating to Portugal is as long as Tejo river. But Chinese language media’s appearance in Portugal happens only in the recent decades. With the fast increasing of Chinese immigrants in Portugal after year 2000, the number of Chinese language newspapers on sale in Portugal has also increased. There were seven titles currently being sold in the newsstands. Moreover, Chinese language newspapers from Spain and Germany are also appearing in Lisbon newsstands. In this master project we have studied the perceptions of Chinese readers towards the customer satisfaction of written mass media. For this purpose, we have conducted a case study on customer satisfaction of a local Chinese newspaper: the Journal Sino. This study has four specific objectives: to understand customer satisfaction of content, customer satisfaction of delivery service, customer satisfaction of communicating with Journal Sino employees, and the last but not the least, the advertisement customer satisfaction. Journal Sino is the first Chinese language newspaper issued in Portugal. The weekly published newspaper has become the largest Chinese language newspaper in Portugal. In spite of it, the Journal is still encountering competition from other Chinese language newspapers. The management of Journal Sino is preparing a new round of reform to keep the advantage. Customer satisfaction survey is chosen as a breakthrough point to guide the reform. Based on statistics results, we identified major issues exist in content of Journal Sino, observed customers’ perceptions of delivery service, and communication issue. Advertisement customer satisfaction and customer overall satisfaction of Journal Sino also were evaluated.A história da imigração chinesa para Portugal é tão longa como o rio Tejo. Mas a entrada da língua chinesa nos mídia portugueses aconteceu apenas nas últimas décadas. Com o rápido crescimento de imigrantes chineses em Portugal após o ano 2000, o número de jornais chineses à venda também aumentou. Existem actualmente sete títulos disponíveis nas bancas. Além disso, os jornais de Espanha e Alemanha escritos em chinês estão a aparecer nas bancas de Lisboa. Neste projecto de mestrado, estudou-se a percepção dos leitores chineses em relação à sua satisfação dos meios escritos de comunicação. Com este objectivo, levou-se avante um estudo de caso sobre a satisfação dos clientes de um jornal local chinês: the Journal Sino. Este estudo possui quatro objectivos específicos: compreender a satisfação do cliente sobre o conteúdo, o serviço de distribuição do jornal, na comunicação com os empregados do jornal, e por último, e não menos importante, a satisfação sobre a publicidade. Journal Sino foi o primeiro jornal chinês a ser publicado em Portugal. O jornal semanal torunou-se o maior jornal de língua chinesa em Portugal. Apesa disso, o jornal ainda está a encontrar competição com outros jornais de língua chinesa. A gestão do jornal está a preparar uma nova ronda de renovações para manter a vantagem. A pesquisa de satisfação do cliente é escolhida como um ponto de partida para orientar essas renovações. Com base nos resultados obtidos, identificaram-se as principais questões existentes em relação ao conteúdo do jornal, à percepção dos clientes sobre o serviço de entrega e a questão da comunicação com os empregados. A satisfação sobre a puclicidade e a satisfação em geral com o jornal são também avaliadas

On the inverse Compton scattering model of radio pulsars

Some characteristics of the inverse Compton scattering (ICS) model are reviewed. At least the following properties of radio pulsars can be reproduced in the model: core or central emission beam, one or two hollow emission cones, different emission heights of these components, diverse pulse profiles at various frequencies, linear and circular polarization features of core and cones.Comment: 5 pages, no figures, LaTeX, a proceeding paper for Pacific Rim Conference on Stellar Astrophysics, Aug. 1999, HongKong, Chin

What if pulsars are born as strange stars?

The possibility and the implications of the idea, that pulsars are born as strange stars, are explored. Strange stars are very likely to have atmospheres with typical mass of $\sim 5\times 10^{-15}M_\odot$ but bare polar caps almost throughout their lifetimes, if they are produced during supernova explosions. A direct consequence of the bare polar cap is that the binding energies of both positively and negatively charged particles at the bare quark surface are nearly infinity, so that the vacuum polar gap sparking scenario as proposed by Ruderman & Sutherland should operate above the cap, regardless of the sense of the magnetic pole with respect to the rotational pole. Heat can not accumulate on the polar cap region due to the large thermal conductivity on the bare quark surface. We test this ``bare polar cap strange star'' (BPCSS) idea with the present broad band emission data of pulsars, and propose several possible criteria to distinguish BPCSSs from neutron stars.Comment: 31 pages in Latex. Accepted by AstroParticle Physic