This critical review of the literature assembles and compares available data on breast cancer clinical stage, time intervals to care, and access barriers in different countries. It provides evidence that while more th...This critical review of the literature assembles and compares available data on breast cancer clinical stage, time intervals to care, and access barriers in different countries. It provides evidence that while more than 70% of breast cancer patients in most high-income countries are diagnosed in stages Ⅰ and Ⅱ, only 20%-50% patients in the majority of low- and middleincome countries are diagnosed in these earlier stages. Most studies in the developed world show an association between an advanced clinical stage of breast cancer and delays greater than three months between symptom discovery and treatment start. The evidence assembled in this review shows that the median of this interval is 30-48 d in high-income countries but 3-8 mo in low- and middle-income countries. The longest delays occur between the first medical consultation and the beginning of treatment, known as the provider interval. The little available evidence suggests that access barriers and quality deficiencies in cancer care are determinants of provider delay in low- and middle-income countries. Research on specific access barriers and deficiencies in quality of care for the early diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer is practically non-existentin these countries, where it is the most needed for the design of cost-effective public policies that strengthen health systems to tackle this expensive and deadly disease.展开更多
General noise cost functions have been recently proposed for support vector regression(SVR). When applied to tasks whose underlying noise distribution is similar to the one assumed for the cost function, these models ...General noise cost functions have been recently proposed for support vector regression(SVR). When applied to tasks whose underlying noise distribution is similar to the one assumed for the cost function, these models should perform better than classical -SVR. On the other hand, uncertainty estimates for SVR have received a somewhat limited attention in the literature until now and still have unaddressed problems. Keeping this in mind,three main goals are addressed here. First, we propose a framework that uses a combination of general noise SVR models with naive online R minimization algorithm(NORMA) as optimization method, and then gives nonconstant error intervals dependent upon input data aided by the use of clustering techniques. We give theoretical details required to implement this framework for Laplace, Gaussian, Beta, Weibull and Marshall–Olkin generalized exponential distributions. Second, we test the proposed framework in two real-world regression problems using data of two public competitions about solar energy. Results show the validity of our models and an improvement over classical -SVR. Finally, in accordance with the principle of reproducible research, we make sure that data and model implementations used for the experiments are easily and publicly accessible.展开更多
The aim of this work is the determination of regional-scale rainfall thresholds for the triggering of landslides in the Tuscany Region （Italy）. The critical rainfall events related to the occurrence of 593 past land...The aim of this work is the determination of regional-scale rainfall thresholds for the triggering of landslides in the Tuscany Region （Italy）. The critical rainfall events related to the occurrence of 593 past landslides were characterized in terms of duration （D） and intensity （I） I and D values were plotted in a log-log diagram and a lower boundary was clearly noticeable： it was interpreted as a threshold representing the rainfall conditions associated to landsliding. That was also confirmed by a comparison with many literature thresholds, but at the same time it was clear that a similar threshold would be affected by a too large approximation to be effectively used for a regional warning system. Therefore, further analyses were performed differentiating the events on the basis of seasonality, magnitude, location, land use and lithology. None of these criteria led to discriminate among all the events different groups to be characterized by a specific and more effective threshold. This outcome could be interpreted as the demonstration that at regional scale the best results are obtained by the simplest approach, in our case an empirical black box model which accounts only for two rainfall parameters （I and D）. So a set of thresholds could be conveniently defined using a statistical approach： four thresholds corresponding to four severity levels were defined by means of the prediction interval technique and we developed a prototype warning system based on rainfall recordings or weather forecasts.展开更多
Methodologies have been developed for calculating cutoffs of reservoir intervals with production capacity （RIPC） and reservoir intervals with accumulation capacity （RIAC） according to the types of pore throat stru...Methodologies have been developed for calculating cutoffs of reservoir intervals with production capacity （RIPC） and reservoir intervals with accumulation capacity （RIAC） according to the types of pore throat structures and dynamic force by using data from petrophysical analysis, production tests and mercury injection. The data are from clastic reservoirs in the third member （Es3） and the fourth member （Es4） of the Shahejie Formation in the Shengtuo area on the North Slope of the Dongying Sag, Jiyang Depression, China. The method of calculating cutoffs of RIPC is summarized as follows： 1） determination of permeability cutoffs of RIPC; 2） classification of types of pore-throat structures according to mercury injection data and then relating porosity to permeability and determining the relationship between porosity and permeability according to each type of pore-throat structure; and 3） calculating porosity cutoffs of RIPC using established correlation between porosity and permeability according to the type of pore throat structure. The method of calculating cutoffs of RIAC includes： 1） establishing a functional relationship between oil-water interracial tension and formation temperature; 2） calculating limiting values of maximum connected pore-throat radii according to formation temperature and dynamic forces of each reservoir interval; 3） correlating permeability with maximum connected pore-throat radius and then obtaining permeability cutoffs of RIAC; and 4） calculating porosity cutoffs on the basis of permeability cutoffs according to specific correlations, suitable for the type of porethroat structure. The results of this study show that porosity and permeability cutoffs of clastic reservoirs decrease with depth. For a fixed permeability cutoff, the porosity cutoff of R1PC varies because the type of pore throat is different. At a fixed temperature, porosity and permeability cutoffs of RIAC decrease as dynamic force increases. For a fixed permeability cutoff of effective hydroc展开更多
This study aims to establish a rationale for the Rice University rule in determining the number of bins in a histogram. It is grounded in the Scott and Freedman-Diaconis rules. Additionally, the accuracy of the empiri...This study aims to establish a rationale for the Rice University rule in determining the number of bins in a histogram. It is grounded in the Scott and Freedman-Diaconis rules. Additionally, the accuracy of the empirical histogram in reproducing the shape of the distribution is assessed with respect to three factors: the rule for determining the number of bins (square root, Sturges, Doane, Scott, Freedman-Diaconis, and Rice University), sample size, and distribution type. Three measures are utilized: the average distance between empirical and theoretical histograms, the level of recognition by an expert judge, and the accuracy index, which is composed of the two aforementioned measures. Mean comparisons are conducted with aligned rank transformation analysis of variance for three fixed-effects factors: sample size (20, 35, 50, 100, 200, 500, and 1000), distribution type (10 types), and empirical rule to determine the number of bins (6 rules). From the accuracy index, Rice’s rule improves with increasing sample size and is independent of distribution type. It outperforms the Friedman-Diaconis rule but falls short of Scott’s rule, except with the arcsine distribution. Its profile of means resembles the square root rule concerning distributions and Doane’s rule concerning sample sizes. These profiles differ from those of the Scott and Friedman-Diaconis rules, which resemble each other. Among the seven rules, Scott’s rule stands out in terms of accuracy, except for the arcsine distribution, and the square root rule is the least accurate.展开更多
The Litang fault is a left-lateral secondary shear zone in the Sichuan-Yunnan active block that accommodates the tectonic deformation associated with the eastward extrusion of the upper crust of the Tibetan Plateau. B...The Litang fault is a left-lateral secondary shear zone in the Sichuan-Yunnan active block that accommodates the tectonic deformation associated with the eastward extrusion of the upper crust of the Tibetan Plateau. Based on 1 : 50 000 geological mapping of active faults, the Litang fault consists of three geometric segments, the Cuopuhu, Damaoyaba, and Litang segments, in the west of Litang, which are divided by the of Haizi Mountain uplift and the wide-angle bending and branching of the fault near Jinchanggou. This study also identifies the surface rupture of the A.D. 1890 earthquake, which is distributed intermittently along the ~28 km long Damaoyaba segments and ~25 km long Litang segments. The maximum horizontal displacement is 4.1 m along Damaoyaba segments, and 4 m along Litang segments. The rupture involves typical left-lateral shear movement. The two ruptures are divided by discontinuous segments or gaps that are ~18 km long;thus, the total surface rupture is approximately 71 km long. The estimated moment magnitude was M_(w)7.3±0.1. A comprehensive analysis of data obtained from 5 trenches excavated along the Damaoyaba and Litang segments and the trench data by Xu et al.(2005) identifies age constraints of the 4 most recent paleoseimic events occurred B.C. 1468±54–1340±25, B.C. 52±25–A.D. 76±47, A.D. 1115±90, and A.D. 1890, respectively. The recurrence intervals are 1 415±80, 1 104±104, and 775±90 a, which are consistent with quasi-periodic earthquake recurrence behavior. The average recurrence interval is 1 098±112 a.展开更多
With the fast growth of Chinese economic, more and more capital will be invested in environmental projects. How to select the environmental investment projects （alternatives） for obtaining the best environmental qua...With the fast growth of Chinese economic, more and more capital will be invested in environmental projects. How to select the environmental investment projects （alternatives） for obtaining the best environmental quality and economic benefits is an important problem for the decision makers. The purpose of this paper is to develop a decision-making model to rank a finite number of alternatives with several and sometimes conflicting criteria. A model for ranking the projects of municipal sewage treatment plants is proposed by using exports＇ information and the data of the real projects. And, the ranking result is given based on the PROMETHEE method. Furthermore, by means of the concept of the weight stability intervals （WSI）, the sensitivity of the ranking results to the size of criteria values and the change of weights value of criteria are discussed. The result shows that some criteria, such as “proportion of benefit to project cost”, will influence the ranking result of alternatives very strong while others not. The influence are not only from the value of criterion but also from the changing the weight of criterion. So, some criteria such as “proportion of benefit to project cost” are key critera for ranking the projects. Decision makers must be cautious to them.展开更多
This article considers estimation of the unknown parameters for the compound Rayleigh distribution (CRD) based on a new life test plan called a progressive first failure-censored plan introduced by Wu and Kus (2009). ...This article considers estimation of the unknown parameters for the compound Rayleigh distribution (CRD) based on a new life test plan called a progressive first failure-censored plan introduced by Wu and Kus (2009). We consider the maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference of the unknown parameters of the model, as well as the reliability and hazard rate functions. This was done using the conjugate prior for the shape parameter, and discrete prior for the scale parameter. The Bayes estimators hav been obtained relative to both symmetric (squared error) and asymmetric (LINEX and general entropy (GE)) loss functions. It has been seen that the symmetric and asymmetric Bayes estimators are obtained in closed forms. Also, based on this new censoring scheme, approximate confidence intervals for the parameters of CRD are developed. A practical example using real data set was used for illustration. Finally, to assess the performance of the proposed estimators, some numerical results using Monte Carlo simulation study were reported.展开更多
In this paper, we consider discrete second order three-point boundary valueproblems. By exploring the properties of the associated Greens function and applyingGuo-Krasnoselskiis fixed point theorem, we show the existe...In this paper, we consider discrete second order three-point boundary valueproblems. By exploring the properties of the associated Greens function and applyingGuo-Krasnoselskiis fixed point theorem, we show the existence of eigenvalue intervals.展开更多
A simple recursive algorithm to generate the set of natural numbers, based on Mersenne numbers: M<sub>N</sub> = 2<sup>N</sup> – 1, is used to count the number of prime numbers within the preci...A simple recursive algorithm to generate the set of natural numbers, based on Mersenne numbers: M<sub>N</sub> = 2<sup>N</sup> – 1, is used to count the number of prime numbers within the precise Mersenne natural number intervals: [0;M<sub>N</sub>]. This permits the formulation of an extended twin prime conjecture. Moreover, it is found that the prime numbers subsets contained in Mersenne intervals have cardinalities strongly correlated with the corresponding Mersenne numbers.展开更多
Regional photovoltaic(PV) power prediction plays an important role in power system planning and operation. To effectively improve the performance of prediction intervals(PIs) for very short-term regional PV outputs, a...Regional photovoltaic(PV) power prediction plays an important role in power system planning and operation. To effectively improve the performance of prediction intervals(PIs) for very short-term regional PV outputs, an efficient nonparametric probabilistic prediction method based on granulebased clustering(GC) and direct optimization programming(DOP) is proposed. First, GC is proposed to formulate and cluster the sample granules consisting of numerical weather prediction(NWP) and historical regional output data, for the enhanced hierarchical clustering performance. Then, to improve the accuracy of samples' utilization, an unbalanced extension is used to reconstruct the training samples consisting of power time series. After that, DOP is applied to quantify the output weights based on the optimal overall performance. Meanwhile, a balance coefficient is studied for the enhanced reliability of PIs. Finally, the proposed method is validated through multistep PIs based on the numerical comparison of real PV generation data.展开更多
文摘This critical review of the literature assembles and compares available data on breast cancer clinical stage, time intervals to care, and access barriers in different countries. It provides evidence that while more than 70% of breast cancer patients in most high-income countries are diagnosed in stages Ⅰ and Ⅱ, only 20%-50% patients in the majority of low- and middleincome countries are diagnosed in these earlier stages. Most studies in the developed world show an association between an advanced clinical stage of breast cancer and delays greater than three months between symptom discovery and treatment start. The evidence assembled in this review shows that the median of this interval is 30-48 d in high-income countries but 3-8 mo in low- and middle-income countries. The longest delays occur between the first medical consultation and the beginning of treatment, known as the provider interval. The little available evidence suggests that access barriers and quality deficiencies in cancer care are determinants of provider delay in low- and middle-income countries. Research on specific access barriers and deficiencies in quality of care for the early diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer is practically non-existentin these countries, where it is the most needed for the design of cost-effective public policies that strengthen health systems to tackle this expensive and deadly disease.
基金With partial support from Spain’s grants TIN2013-42351-P, TIN2016-76406-P, TIN2015-70308-REDT, as well as S2013/ICE-2845 CASI-CAM-CMsupported also by project FACIL–Ayudas Fundación BBVA a Equipos de Investigación Científica 2016
文摘General noise cost functions have been recently proposed for support vector regression(SVR). When applied to tasks whose underlying noise distribution is similar to the one assumed for the cost function, these models should perform better than classical -SVR. On the other hand, uncertainty estimates for SVR have received a somewhat limited attention in the literature until now and still have unaddressed problems. Keeping this in mind,three main goals are addressed here. First, we propose a framework that uses a combination of general noise SVR models with naive online R minimization algorithm(NORMA) as optimization method, and then gives nonconstant error intervals dependent upon input data aided by the use of clustering techniques. We give theoretical details required to implement this framework for Laplace, Gaussian, Beta, Weibull and Marshall–Olkin generalized exponential distributions. Second, we test the proposed framework in two real-world regression problems using data of two public competitions about solar energy. Results show the validity of our models and an improvement over classical -SVR. Finally, in accordance with the principle of reproducible research, we make sure that data and model implementations used for the experiments are easily and publicly accessible.
基金University of Firenze,Earth Science Department,Firenze,Italy
文摘The aim of this work is the determination of regional-scale rainfall thresholds for the triggering of landslides in the Tuscany Region （Italy）. The critical rainfall events related to the occurrence of 593 past landslides were characterized in terms of duration （D） and intensity （I） I and D values were plotted in a log-log diagram and a lower boundary was clearly noticeable： it was interpreted as a threshold representing the rainfall conditions associated to landsliding. That was also confirmed by a comparison with many literature thresholds, but at the same time it was clear that a similar threshold would be affected by a too large approximation to be effectively used for a regional warning system. Therefore, further analyses were performed differentiating the events on the basis of seasonality, magnitude, location, land use and lithology. None of these criteria led to discriminate among all the events different groups to be characterized by a specific and more effective threshold. This outcome could be interpreted as the demonstration that at regional scale the best results are obtained by the simplest approach, in our case an empirical black box model which accounts only for two rainfall parameters （I and D）. So a set of thresholds could be conveniently defined using a statistical approach： four thresholds corresponding to four severity levels were defined by means of the prediction interval technique and we developed a prototype warning system based on rainfall recordings or weather forecasts.
基金co-funded by National Natura Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41102058 Gran No. U1262203)+4 种基金the National Science and Technology Special Grant (No. 2011ZX05006-003)Shandong Natura Science Foundation (Grant No. ZR2011DQ017)the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 12CX04001A No. 13CX02035A No. 13CX02036A)
文摘Methodologies have been developed for calculating cutoffs of reservoir intervals with production capacity （RIPC） and reservoir intervals with accumulation capacity （RIAC） according to the types of pore throat structures and dynamic force by using data from petrophysical analysis, production tests and mercury injection. The data are from clastic reservoirs in the third member （Es3） and the fourth member （Es4） of the Shahejie Formation in the Shengtuo area on the North Slope of the Dongying Sag, Jiyang Depression, China. The method of calculating cutoffs of RIPC is summarized as follows： 1） determination of permeability cutoffs of RIPC; 2） classification of types of pore-throat structures according to mercury injection data and then relating porosity to permeability and determining the relationship between porosity and permeability according to each type of pore-throat structure; and 3） calculating porosity cutoffs of RIPC using established correlation between porosity and permeability according to the type of pore throat structure. The method of calculating cutoffs of RIAC includes： 1） establishing a functional relationship between oil-water interracial tension and formation temperature; 2） calculating limiting values of maximum connected pore-throat radii according to formation temperature and dynamic forces of each reservoir interval; 3） correlating permeability with maximum connected pore-throat radius and then obtaining permeability cutoffs of RIAC; and 4） calculating porosity cutoffs on the basis of permeability cutoffs according to specific correlations, suitable for the type of porethroat structure. The results of this study show that porosity and permeability cutoffs of clastic reservoirs decrease with depth. For a fixed permeability cutoff, the porosity cutoff of R1PC varies because the type of pore throat is different. At a fixed temperature, porosity and permeability cutoffs of RIAC decrease as dynamic force increases. For a fixed permeability cutoff of effective hydroc
文摘This study aims to establish a rationale for the Rice University rule in determining the number of bins in a histogram. It is grounded in the Scott and Freedman-Diaconis rules. Additionally, the accuracy of the empirical histogram in reproducing the shape of the distribution is assessed with respect to three factors: the rule for determining the number of bins (square root, Sturges, Doane, Scott, Freedman-Diaconis, and Rice University), sample size, and distribution type. Three measures are utilized: the average distance between empirical and theoretical histograms, the level of recognition by an expert judge, and the accuracy index, which is composed of the two aforementioned measures. Mean comparisons are conducted with aligned rank transformation analysis of variance for three fixed-effects factors: sample size (20, 35, 50, 100, 200, 500, and 1000), distribution type (10 types), and empirical rule to determine the number of bins (6 rules). From the accuracy index, Rice’s rule improves with increasing sample size and is independent of distribution type. It outperforms the Friedman-Diaconis rule but falls short of Scott’s rule, except with the arcsine distribution. Its profile of means resembles the square root rule concerning distributions and Doane’s rule concerning sample sizes. These profiles differ from those of the Scott and Friedman-Diaconis rules, which resemble each other. Among the seven rules, Scott’s rule stands out in terms of accuracy, except for the arcsine distribution, and the square root rule is the least accurate.
基金This research was supported by the“China Seismic Active Fault Exploration,Central-South Segment Project of the NorthSouth Seismic Belt”of the China Earthquake Administrationthe National Science Foundation of China(No.41372114)。
文摘The Litang fault is a left-lateral secondary shear zone in the Sichuan-Yunnan active block that accommodates the tectonic deformation associated with the eastward extrusion of the upper crust of the Tibetan Plateau. Based on 1 : 50 000 geological mapping of active faults, the Litang fault consists of three geometric segments, the Cuopuhu, Damaoyaba, and Litang segments, in the west of Litang, which are divided by the of Haizi Mountain uplift and the wide-angle bending and branching of the fault near Jinchanggou. This study also identifies the surface rupture of the A.D. 1890 earthquake, which is distributed intermittently along the ~28 km long Damaoyaba segments and ~25 km long Litang segments. The maximum horizontal displacement is 4.1 m along Damaoyaba segments, and 4 m along Litang segments. The rupture involves typical left-lateral shear movement. The two ruptures are divided by discontinuous segments or gaps that are ~18 km long;thus, the total surface rupture is approximately 71 km long. The estimated moment magnitude was M_(w)7.3±0.1. A comprehensive analysis of data obtained from 5 trenches excavated along the Damaoyaba and Litang segments and the trench data by Xu et al.(2005) identifies age constraints of the 4 most recent paleoseimic events occurred B.C. 1468±54–1340±25, B.C. 52±25–A.D. 76±47, A.D. 1115±90, and A.D. 1890, respectively. The recurrence intervals are 1 415±80, 1 104±104, and 775±90 a, which are consistent with quasi-periodic earthquake recurrence behavior. The average recurrence interval is 1 098±112 a.
基金Shanghai Leading Academic Discipline Project (T0502)Shanghai Municipal Educational Commission Project (05EZ32).
文摘With the fast growth of Chinese economic, more and more capital will be invested in environmental projects. How to select the environmental investment projects （alternatives） for obtaining the best environmental quality and economic benefits is an important problem for the decision makers. The purpose of this paper is to develop a decision-making model to rank a finite number of alternatives with several and sometimes conflicting criteria. A model for ranking the projects of municipal sewage treatment plants is proposed by using exports＇ information and the data of the real projects. And, the ranking result is given based on the PROMETHEE method. Furthermore, by means of the concept of the weight stability intervals （WSI）, the sensitivity of the ranking results to the size of criteria values and the change of weights value of criteria are discussed. The result shows that some criteria, such as “proportion of benefit to project cost”, will influence the ranking result of alternatives very strong while others not. The influence are not only from the value of criterion but also from the changing the weight of criterion. So, some criteria such as “proportion of benefit to project cost” are key critera for ranking the projects. Decision makers must be cautious to them.
文摘This article considers estimation of the unknown parameters for the compound Rayleigh distribution (CRD) based on a new life test plan called a progressive first failure-censored plan introduced by Wu and Kus (2009). We consider the maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference of the unknown parameters of the model, as well as the reliability and hazard rate functions. This was done using the conjugate prior for the shape parameter, and discrete prior for the scale parameter. The Bayes estimators hav been obtained relative to both symmetric (squared error) and asymmetric (LINEX and general entropy (GE)) loss functions. It has been seen that the symmetric and asymmetric Bayes estimators are obtained in closed forms. Also, based on this new censoring scheme, approximate confidence intervals for the parameters of CRD are developed. A practical example using real data set was used for illustration. Finally, to assess the performance of the proposed estimators, some numerical results using Monte Carlo simulation study were reported.
基金Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 10371006)
文摘In this paper, we consider discrete second order three-point boundary valueproblems. By exploring the properties of the associated Greens function and applyingGuo-Krasnoselskiis fixed point theorem, we show the existence of eigenvalue intervals.
文摘A simple recursive algorithm to generate the set of natural numbers, based on Mersenne numbers: M<sub>N</sub> = 2<sup>N</sup> – 1, is used to count the number of prime numbers within the precise Mersenne natural number intervals: [0;M<sub>N</sub>]. This permits the formulation of an extended twin prime conjecture. Moreover, it is found that the prime numbers subsets contained in Mersenne intervals have cardinalities strongly correlated with the corresponding Mersenne numbers.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 62073121)the National Key R&D Program of China “Technology and application of wind power/photovoltaic power prediction for promoting renewable energy consumption”(No. 2018YFB0904200)eponymous Complement S&T Program of State Grid Corporation of China (No. SGLNDKOOKJJS1800266)。
文摘Regional photovoltaic(PV) power prediction plays an important role in power system planning and operation. To effectively improve the performance of prediction intervals(PIs) for very short-term regional PV outputs, an efficient nonparametric probabilistic prediction method based on granulebased clustering(GC) and direct optimization programming(DOP) is proposed. First, GC is proposed to formulate and cluster the sample granules consisting of numerical weather prediction(NWP) and historical regional output data, for the enhanced hierarchical clustering performance. Then, to improve the accuracy of samples' utilization, an unbalanced extension is used to reconstruct the training samples consisting of power time series. After that, DOP is applied to quantify the output weights based on the optimal overall performance. Meanwhile, a balance coefficient is studied for the enhanced reliability of PIs. Finally, the proposed method is validated through multistep PIs based on the numerical comparison of real PV generation data.
