Venue: Room 200-9, Run Run Shaw Business Administrative Building, Yuquan CampusSpeaker:Ronghui Xu, Dr./ ProfessorProfessor of Statistics and BiostatisticsDepartment of Family Medicine and Public Health and Department of MathematicsUniversity of California, San DiegoAbstract:Prediction and Inference under Competing Risks in High Dimension - An EHR Demonstration Project for Prostate CancerThe work was motivated by the analysis project using the linked SEER-Medicare database to predict cancer versus non-cancer mortality in men of age 65 years or older who were diagnosed with prostate cancer. We consider existing R package implementations that are computationally feasible for such data sets with up to 100,000 human subjects and over 20,000 claim codes. We carried out simulation studies to compare lasso for cause-specific hazards regression and boosting for Fine-Gray sub-distribution regression models with different approaches to choosing the penalty parameters, with the goal of prediction accuracy of the cumulative incidence rates at 2 and 5 years from baseline. Separately, we also developed methods for constructing confidence intervals of the regression effects of predictors (clinical variables and claim codes) under the Fine-Gray model in high dimensions, using the one-step estimator along the line of van de Geer et al. (2014) and Zhang and Zhang (2014). The extension though, is non-trivial under competing risks and Cox type model formulation. The results of the SEER-Medicare database analysis will be presented.

Venue: Room 250, Mong Man Wai Building, Zijingang CampusSpeaker:Rui Wang is Associate Professor of Energy, Resources and Environment at the the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. He received BS,BAand MS from Peking University and a Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard University Kennedy School of Government.He specializes in public policy analysis for sustainable development, especially on cities, the environment, and China. He teaches Applied Policy Analysis with Cases in Sustainable Development, Cities: Toward Sustainable Prosperity, and Global Environment Fundamentals. He is the inaugural SAIS China Yeung Family Endowed Scholar and a faculty fellow of the SAIS Initiative for Sustainable Energy Policy. He serves on the editorial boards of Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment and the Journal of Transportation and Statistics. He has also consulted for the Beijing Municipal Institute of City Planning and Design, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the World Bank.

Venue: Room 457, Nano Building, Zijingang Campus Speaker: Dinshaw J. Patel, head of the Dinshaw Patel Lab, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

Venue: Room 223, Mong Man Wai Building, Zijingang CampusSpeaker: W. Hugh Woodin, Professor of Philosophy and of Mathematics, Harvard University

Venue: Room 205, Administrative Building, School of MedicineSpeaker: Jeffrey A. Golden, Ramzi S. Cotran Professor of Pathology, Harvard Medical School and Chair of Department of Pathology, Brigham and Woman's Hospital

Venue: Room 245, College of Life Sciences, Zijingang CampusSpeaker: Mary Williams, Department Member, The Plant Cell, American Society of Plant BiologistsAbstract:In this presentation, I will outline the key steps in writing a paper and preparing figures. Key points include how to frame the significance of the question being addressed and how to put the results in context, as well as how much information to include in the methods. I will also discuss best practices for figure presentation, from cropping and contrast adjustment to layout and design, and provide suggestions for how to present the key findings in the abstract, title, summary figure and cover letter. The second part of the presentation will cover how the manuscript is reviewed, from initial submission to final acceptance, in order to demystify this process and help early-career researchers understand how they can ensure a smooth process. I will describe the author's roles at various stages of the review process, how editors and reviewers are solicited, how a decision is reached, and how authors can respond to reviewer comments.Contact information:mwilliams@aspb.org

Venue: Room 212, Tin Ka-ping Building, Xixi CampusSpeaker: Harm Kuper, Professor at Further Education and Educational Management, Free University of Berlin

Venue: Room A322, Anzhong Building, Zijingang CampusSpeaker:Roman Makhnenko is an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Roman received his PhD (2013) degrees in geological and civil engineering from the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities. Currently, Roman is developing the rock mechanics program at Illinois that involves modern high-pressure high-temperature rock testing facilities and new graduate courses on the topic. His ongoing projects include laboratory investigation of geomaterials and processes associated with CO2 storage and experimental and numerical characterization of enhanced geothermal systems.Abstract:Production of renewable and green energy is becoming extremely important because of the projected depletion of fossil fuels and climate change. Enhanced geothermal systems offer new perspective where man-made fractures are created by stimulation methods (primarily hydraulic fracturing) to enhance the permeability of hot rock formations at the depth of at least three kilometers. Proper rock characterization is required, as well as the upscaling that would involve laboratory experiments on size-effect on rock fracturing and numerical modeling of rock mass response. Rock mechanics group at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign performs hydraulic fracturing and three-point bending experiments to study size effect on fracture toughness and process zone. Ultrasonic waves and acoustic emission are used to track propagating fractures and the zone of microcracking in front of them. Based on the test data, we demonstrate the suitability of a theoretical relationship between the size of the process zone and specimen size. The model allows estimation of the limiting specimen size, beyond which no further noticeable increase in the fracture toughness and process zone size is observed, and prediction of in-situ crystalline rock behavior to fluid injection.

Venue: Room 224, West 2 Building, Xixi CampusSpeaker: Nianhua GuBusiness ambassador of Hamilton municipal government, Ontario, CanadaAmbassador of China and Canada in Ma'anshan, Anqing, Fuzhou and Jiaxing municipal government, etc.Deputy director of ESL teaching and Research Center, North America, CanadaVice chairman of the Canadian Kongfu Association International Exchange CenterDirector of education consultation center of new century