Group Additive Regression Models for Genomic Data Analysis

One important problem in genomic research is to identify genomic features such as gene expression data or DNA single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that are related to clinical phenotypes. Often these genomic data can be naturally divided into biologically meaningful groups such as genes belonging to the same pathways or SNPs within genes. In this paper, we propose group additive regression models and a group gradient descent boosting procedure for identifying groups of genomic features that are related to clinical phenotypes. Our simulation results show that by dividing the variables into appropriate groups, we can obtain better identification of the group features that are related to the phenotypes. In addition, the prediction mean square errors are also smaller than the component-wise boosting procedure. We demonstrate the application of the methods to pathway-based analysis of microarray gene expression data of breast cancer and gene-based genetic association analysis of type 1 diabetes. Results from analysis of two breast cancer data sets indicate that the pathways of Metalloendopeptidases (MMPs) and MMP inhibitors, as well as cell proliferation, cell growth and maintenance are important to breast cancer relapse and survival. Results from analysis of a set of nonsynonymous SNPs on chromosome 6 confirmed a few genes that are associated with type 1 diabetes

A Comparative Analysis of the Causes of the Heroine's Tragedy in Tess of the D'Urbervilles and A Rose for Emily

From the perspective of feminist theory, this paper absorbs and inherits the existing research results, makes a deep interpretation of the two works, and makes a richer comparison and exploration of the tragic causes of Tess and Emily, which is conducive to a better understanding of the value of the works, revealing the significance of the works, and hoping to provide a new perspective to think for the study of their works and calling on the society to recognize the female subject status and self-identity, then to get rid of the shackles of traditional thoughts and to master the fate of themselves

External uniform electric field removing flexoelectric effect in epitaxial ferroelectric thin films

Using the modified Landau-Ginsburg-Devonshire thermodynamic theory, it is found that the coupling between stress gradient and polarization, or flexoelectricity, has significant effect on ferroelectric properties of epitaxial thin films, such as polarization, free energy profile and hysteresis loop. However, this effect can be completely eliminated by applying an optimized external, uniform electric field. The role of such uniform electric field is shown to be the same as that of an ideal gradient electric field which can suppress the flexoelectricty effect completely based on the present theory. Since the uniform electric field is more convenient to apply and control than gradient electric field, it can be potentially used to remove the flexoelectric effect induced by stress gradient in epitaxial thin films and enhance the ferroelectric properties.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

A sequential iterative refinement optimization method to multiple sequence alignment

Master'sMASTER OF SCIENC

(*Review Article) Research on Privatization Reform of China's Loss-making Public Utilities

In this paper, an exposition of the background of China's privatization reform in public utilities, along with an analysis of the reform's content and effectiveness, is presented and organized based on relevant public administration theory and practice. Secondly, a thorough examination of the factors constituting the primary obstacle in China's privatization reform of public utilities is undertaken. Addressing issues arising from private companies pursuing profit while public utility entities seek to avoid losses, it is argued that the incomplete reform of government functions, the constraints of traditional ideology, and the lack of supervision in the privatization of public utilities contribute to these challenges. Finally, recommendations for loss-making public utilities in the privatization reform are put forth. These involve further reforms in the utilities' business model, the establishment of new operational and service paradigms, and the enhancement of government support,regulatory measures,and coordination during the reform process. These measures aim to address the existing challenges in China's loss-making public utilities during the privatization reform

Distributed Hierarchical Distribution Control for Very-Large-Scale Clustered Multi-Agent Systems

As the scale and complexity of multi-agent robotic systems are subject to a continuous increase, this paper considers a class of systems labeled as Very-Large-Scale Multi-Agent Systems (VLMAS) with dimensionality that can scale up to the order of millions of agents. In particular, we consider the problem of steering the state distributions of all agents of a VLMAS to prescribed target distributions while satisfying probabilistic safety guarantees. Based on the key assumption that such systems often admit a multi-level hierarchical clustered structure - where the agents are organized into cliques of different levels - we associate the control of such cliques with the control of distributions, and introduce the Distributed Hierarchical Distribution Control (DHDC) framework. The proposed approach consists of two sub-frameworks. The first one, Distributed Hierarchical Distribution Estimation (DHDE), is a bottom-up hierarchical decentralized algorithm which links the initial and target configurations of the cliques of all levels with suitable Gaussian distributions. The second part, Distributed Hierarchical Distribution Steering (DHDS), is a top-down hierarchical distributed method that steers the distributions of all cliques and agents from the initial to the targets ones assigned by DHDE. Simulation results that scale up to two million agents demonstrate the effectiveness and scalability of the proposed framework. The increased computational efficiency and safety performance of DHDC against related methods is also illustrated. The results of this work indicate the importance of hierarchical distribution control approaches towards achieving safe and scalable solutions for the control of VLMAS. A video with all results is available in https://youtu.be/0QPyR4bD2q0 .Comment: Accepted at Robotics: Science and Systems 202

Numerical investigations on interactions between 2D/3D conical shock wave and axisymmetric boundary layer at Ma=2.2

Numerical simulation and analysis are carried out on interactions between a 2D/3D conical shock wave and an axisymmetric boundary layer with reference to the experiment by Kussoy et al., in which the shock was generated by a 15-deg half-angle cone in a tube at 15-deg angle of attack (AOA). Based on the RANS equations and Menter's SST turbulence model, the present study uses the newly developed WENO3-PRM211 scheme and the PHengLEI CFD platform for the computations. First, computations are performed for the 3D interaction corresponding to the conditions of the experiment by Kussoy et al., and these are then extended to cases with AOA = 10-deg and 5-deg. For comparison, 2D axisymmetric counterparts of the 3D interactions are investigated for cones coaxial with the tube and having half-cone angles of 27.35-deg, 24.81-deg, and 20.96-deg. The shock wave structure, vortex structure, variable distributions, and wall separation topology of the interaction are computed. The results show that in 2D/3D interactions, a new Mach reflection-like event occurs and a Mach stem-like structure is generated above the front of the separation bubble, which differs from the model of Babinsky for 2D planar shock wave/boundary layer interaction. A new interaction model is established to describe this behavior. The relationship between the length of the circumferentially unseparated region in the tube and the AOA of the cone indicates the existence of a critical AOA at which the length is zero, and a prediction of this angle is obtained using an empirical fit, which is verified by computation. The occurrence of side overflow in the windward meridional plane is analyzed, and a quantitative knowledge is obtained. To elucidate the characteristics of the 3D interaction, the scale and structure of the vortex and the pressure and friction force distributions are presented and compared with those of the 2D interaction