Subhadeep Paul, Yuguo Chen.

Source: The Annals of Statistics, Volume 48, Number 1, 230--250.

Abstract:
We consider the problem of estimating a consensus community structure by combining information from multiple layers of a multi-layer network using methods based on the spectral clustering or a low-rank matrix factorization. As a general theme, these “intermediate fusion” methods involve obtaining a low column rank matrix by optimizing an objective function and then using the columns of the matrix for clustering. However, the theoretical properties of these methods remain largely unexplored. In the absence of statistical guarantees on the objective functions, it is difficult to determine if the algorithms optimizing the objectives will return good community structures. We investigate the consistency properties of the global optimizer of some of these objective functions under the multi-layer stochastic blockmodel. For this purpose, we derive several new asymptotic results showing consistency of the intermediate fusion techniques along with the spectral clustering of mean adjacency matrix under a high dimensional setup, where the number of nodes, the number of layers and the number of communities of the multi-layer graph grow. Our numerical study shows that the intermediate fusion techniques outperform late fusion methods, namely spectral clustering on aggregate spectral kernel and module allegiance matrix in sparse networks, while they outperform the spectral clustering of mean adjacency matrix in multi-layer networks that contain layers with both homophilic and heterophilic communities.

Min Xu, Varun Jog, Po-Ling Loh.

Source: The Annals of Statistics, Volume 48, Number 1, 183--204.

Abstract:
Community identification in a network is an important problem in fields such as social science, neuroscience and genetics. Over the past decade, stochastic block models (SBMs) have emerged as a popular statistical framework for this problem. However, SBMs have an important limitation in that they are suited only for networks with unweighted edges; in various scientific applications, disregarding the edge weights may result in a loss of valuable information. We study a weighted generalization of the SBM, in which observations are collected in the form of a weighted adjacency matrix and the weight of each edge is generated independently from an unknown probability density determined by the community membership of its endpoints. We characterize the optimal rate of misclustering error of the weighted SBM in terms of the Renyi divergence of order 1/2 between the weight distributions of within-community and between-community edges, substantially generalizing existing results for unweighted SBMs. Furthermore, we present a computationally tractable algorithm based on discretization that achieves the optimal error rate. Our method is adaptive in the sense that the algorithm, without assuming knowledge of the weight densities, performs as well as the best algorithm that knows the weight densities.

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Imagine living in one of the driest areas on the planet. What little rain there is falls over the space of a few months, yielding around 700 mm in total each year. A population of 1.2 million has to survive on 65 percent less water than the rest of their compatriots, on a traditional staple diet of corn and beans. [...]

A recent excavation located the first physical evidence of the capital of the Maya kingdom of Sak Tz'i', founded in 750 B.C.

Participants promote a family-oriented fellowship of friends who like to beat each other up while wearing skates

A new housing community in Northern California. Aerial image (photographed from a plane at sunset).

The tourism and hospitality industries, which play a large role in the economy of almost every community in northwestern Ontario, are taking a beating during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, the manager of Tourism Thunder Bay is figuring out how “dire” the situation is, and what could be done to help.

The new service will join others at the existing 811 HealthLine, helping connect people with their local food services and offering answers for those without access to online services.

People and businesses are rallying to support the Muslim community in Fort McMurray recover after widespread flooding that damaged many neighbourhoods.

Making Tierra Mía, says the director of the Smithsonian Latino Center, proved transformative in giving voice to the people

The soil is ready to be tilled and seeds wait to be planted at community gardens across Ottawa after the province reversed a decision declaring them off limits during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Seventy-three homeless shelters and other community organizations are getting extra funding to help pay for basics like extra food, cleaning and staff during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A woman found not criminally responsible for fatally stabbing a stranger in the heart at the makeup counter of a Toronto drugstore five years ago could ultimately be allowed to live in the community if the mental health facility where she is staying decides she can, the Ontario Review Board says.

After several days in which fewer than 400 cases of COVID-19 were added to the provincial tally, Friday's report was up again, with 477 new cases reported.

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As college campuses closed and the COVID-19 virus began casting a larger shadow in south central Pennsylvania, members of the nursing and physical therapist assistant programs at Penn State Mont Alto took stock of all the medical personal protection equipment (PPE) items in their labs. The two programs were supplied with hundreds of gloves and dozens of medical gowns and masks, plus other items such as disposable stethoscopes, shoe covers and safety glasses — items no longer needed as the campus transitioned to remote instruction.

OMers work with a Hungarian church to invest in relationships through every season.

The Bailie family serve with their local church as part of OM in Ireland's Philippian Project.

We visit the Grassroots Football Show in Birmingham, England.

On Feb. 3, all students, faculty and staff members at every Penn State campus location will receive an email to take the Penn State Community Survey to share their attitudes and experiences of community, diversity and inclusion at Penn State. Every 100 survey takers will have a chance to win an Amazon or Starbucks gift card.

At a recent event to build relationships, OMer Chris guides participants through the process of making juggling balls before teaching them how to juggle.

Corticosteroids inhibit the expression of many proinflammatory cytokines released during the course of community-acquired pneumonia infection. Corticosteroids have been found in some studies to be associated with improved clinical outcomes in adults with pneumonia. No studies have investigated corticosteroid use in children with pneumonia.

Results showed that corticosteroid treatment in children with pneumonia is common and its use is highly variable across institutions. Although corticosteroid therapy may benefit children with acute wheezing treated with β-agonists, corticosteroid therapy may lead to worse outcomes for children without wheezing. (Read the full article)

Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is a common pediatric illness caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae. New pediatric Infectious Diseases Society of America CAP guidelines are now available recommending ampicillin as empirical treatment of children hospitalized with uncomplicated CAP.

This study found that a CAP guideline led to an increase in the narrow-spectrum antibiotic ampicillin. Additionally, an increase in the use of amoxicillin at discharge was observed. Furthermore, change in therapy did not lead to increased adverse outcomes. (Read the full article)

Comprehensive home visits conducted by Community Health Workers including environmental remediation and office-based nurse case management improve asthma outcomes.

Implementation of a comprehensive quality improvement program as part of enhanced care of pediatric asthma patients with a history of hospitalizations or emergency department visits can improve health outcomes and be cost-effective as well as reduce health disparities. (Read the full article)

Known rates of nonsuicidal self-injury, hurting oneself without the intent to die, are between ~7% and 24% in samples of early adolescents and older adolescents, yet research has not reported rates for youth younger than 11 years old.

Children as young as 7 years old report engaging in nonsuicidal self-injury. There is a grade by gender interaction for nonsuicidal self-injury, such that ninth-grade girls report the greatest rates of engagement and do so by cutting themselves. (Read the full article)

Pediatric obesity is a prevalent public health issue that is associated with medical and physical consequences. Clinic-based interventions for pediatric obesity are effective, but they have limited reach and are costly.

This is the first examination of an empirically informed, scalable treatment of pediatric overweight and obesity delivered in YMCAs. The results indicate that a scalable, community-based pediatric obesity intervention can produce clinically meaningful changes in weight and quality of life. (Read the full article)

Prevalence of hypertension in children increased significantly over the past few decades, tracks into adulthood, and is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease. However, current prevalence estimates in children have largely been based on studies conducted in school environments.

The current study reports the prevalence of childhood hypertension in community pediatric practice, which provides a typical pediatric examination environment, unlike blood pressure measured in school. The results show a significantly lower prevalence than what has previously been reported. (Read the full article)

Amblyopia affects 2% to 4% of the US population and is preventable In January 2011, the US Preventive Services Task Force concluded there is insufficient evidence to support vision screening in children younger than age 3 years.

Results of the Iowa photoscreening program in 210 695 children older than 11 years suggest photoscreening reliably detects amblyogenic risk factors in children 1 to 3 years of age, and we recommend photoscreening children starting at 1 year of age. (Read the full article)

Obstacles to vaccine delivery, including poverty, reduced access to medical care, and incomplete understanding of vaccine safety and importance, result in suboptimal coverage rates in some populations, allowing for disease outbreaks. Multicomponent interventions are successful in increasing immunization coverage rates.

We show that collaboration with local resources, including the county health department and a large community-based organization, effectively increases immunization coverage rates in low-income, resource-poor children. (Read the full article)

Stuttering is extremely common, with 8.5% of children affected by age 3 years in a prospective community-ascertained cohort of Australian children. The natural history and comorbidities of early stuttering are uncertain at the population level.

The cumulative incidence of stuttering was 11% by 4 years. Stuttering children were similar in temperament and social-emotional development but had better verbal and nonverbal skills than their peers. Recovery from stuttering was low; 6.3% 12 months after onset. (Read the full article)

Although community engagement is considered an important professional role of physicians, there has been declining involvement of pediatricians in community child health activities. Whether enhanced training is associated with increased involvement is unclear.

This study reveals a continued decline in pediatricians’ involvement in community child health activities and is the first national study to identify a link between formal training and pediatricians’ community involvement. (Read the full article)

Socioeconomic status is known to influence health and health care utilization, but few studies have explored the relationship between community-level income and inpatient resource utilization for children.

In a large sample of pediatric hospitalizations, lower community-level household income is associated with higher inpatient costs of care for common conditions. These findings highlight the need to consider socioeconomic status in health care system design and reimbursement. (Read the full article)

Broad-spectrum antibiotics are frequently used to empirically treat children hospitalized with community-acquired pneumonia despite recent national recommendations to use narrow-spectrum antibiotics.

Narrow-spectrum antibiotics are similar to broad-spectrum antibiotics for the treatment of children hospitalized with community-acquired pneumonia in terms of clinical outcomes and resource utilization. This study provides scientific evidence to support national consensus guidelines. (Read the full article)

Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have poorer academic and social functioning and more language problems than typically developing peers. However, it is unknown how language problems impact the academic and social functioning of these children.

Language problems are common in children with ADHD and are associated with markedly poorer academic functioning independent of ADHD symptom severity and comorbidities. There was little evidence that language problems were associated with poorer social functioning for children with ADHD. (Read the full article)

Compared with their peers, pediatric residents who report exposure to community settings anticipate greater future community involvement at the end of training. The impact of community pediatrics training on actual future community involvement is not known.

Pediatricians exposed to enhanced community pediatrics training during residency report greater participation in community activities and greater related skills than their peers nationally. (Read the full article)

Children who have attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) attending clinical services have poorer outcomes in adolescence on a range of measures. However, it is unknown how early in development these impairments appear, particularly for community-ascertained samples.

At age 6 to 8 years, children in the community with ADHD have significantly poorer mental health, academic performance and social function compared with control children. Children who have impairing ADHD symptoms should be referred early for assessment and intervention. (Read the full article)

In 2000/2001, the American Academy of Pediatrics published recommendations for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) care. According to pediatricians’ self-report of adoption of these guidelines, community-based ADHD care appears to be marginally adequate.

Using reviews of >1500 patient charts, this study demonstrates that community-based ADHD care is not consistent with evidence-based practice. Furthermore, variability in much of community-based ADHD care is unrelated to the provider, suggesting that innovative, system-wide interventions are needed to improve ADHD care. (Read the full article)

The Institutes of Energy and the Environment, in collaboration with Stewarding Our Planet's Resources, announced two separate community forums aimed at providing reports on existing energy and environmental activities and strategic opportunities as well as soliciting community input and recommendations for the future.

When Penn State students were faced with the unprecedented challenge of remote learning for the remainder of the spring semester in response to COVID-19, Orlando Acevedo saw an opportunity to connect his community by organizing a 9-week fitness challenge.

Penn State Greater Allegheny student Katarina Shields wanted to help her fellow students seek creative ways to stay connected, make new friends and reduce stress during the remote learning period. The junior IST major developed “Virtual Game Night," a place to game for students attending all Penn State campuses, through the local gamer app Discord. The first event will be held April 18.

Watch Penn State Berks’ new video titled “One Community Impacting Many,” which showcases the depth and breadth of the college’s positive effects on the surrounding region.

"With unparalleled technology support, digital and curriculum innovation, a flexible structure including our Commonwealth and University Park campuses, effective outreach programming, and a wide array of top-ranked academic programs, Penn State is uniquely prepared for the arrival of the Class of 2024," wrote President Eric J. Barron in a message inviting accepted students to attend a four-part virtual series titled "Welcome to the Penn State Community."

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