Scottsdale, Ariz. — In February, the Arizona Dental Association was fully prepared to host the Western Regional Dental Experience April 2-4 at the Renaissance Phoenix Glendale Hotel and Spa.

The Cape honey bee, a subspecies found along the southern coast of South Africa, reproduces without having sex. Now, scientists have identified the gene responsible for the bee's virgin births.

Rupert Grint, who played Ron Weasley in the "Harry Potter" films, welcomed his first child, a daughter, with his girlfriend, Georgia Groome.

Rapper Ghostface Killah turns 50 and actor Noah Centineo 24, among the famous birthdays for May 9.

Resettled African refugee women may experience particularly acute complications during pregnancy, birth, and the child's early infancy. Yet health care-providers and policymakers may not be aware of the particular challenges that these women and their children face. This report, examining women giving birth in Utah over a seven-year period, compares perinatal complications of the African born and a segment of the U.S. born.

Leaders in some districts say remote teaching will now be a skill they will build even more in their existing teacher corps. Others are more skeptical.

Originally published as "Her Secret Island of Sex and Torment" in 2014. Rereleased as "Her Secret Island" in 2016.

Morton, Rick -- Childhood and youth.

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919.

Leipzig : Hirt, 1878.

Jena : Fischer, 1897.

Breslau : Hirt, 1871.

[London] : E. & F.N. Spon, 1881.

London : H. Kimpton, 1893.

London : published by S.W. Fores, 1795.

[Paris] : [publisher not identified], 1782.

London (No. 29 Newman Street, Oxford Street) : Published ... by V. & R. Green, January 18th 1788

Lawmakers in Illinois are considering a bill that would require children to start kindergarten if they are 5 on or before May 31, with exceptions for summer birthdays.

Ted Leonsis, owner of the Washington Capitals, told ESPN's Greg Wyshynski about the time Jordan had a lengthy interview with the board of governors executive committee, in which late Blackhawks owner Bill Wirtz was a member of, to become the newest owner of an NHL franchise at a Palm Beach resort in December of 2000.

Flávio B. Gonçalves, Bárbara C. C. Dias.

Source: Brazilian Journal of Probability and Statistics, Volume 33, Number 4, 782--800.

Abstract:
Educational assessment usually considers a contextual questionnaire to extract relevant information from the applicants. This may include items related to socio-economical profile as well as items to extract other characteristics potentially related to applicant’s performance in the test. A careful analysis of the questionnaires jointly with the test’s results may evidence important relations between profiles and test performance. The most coherent way to perform this task in a statistical context is to use the information from the questionnaire to help explain the variability of the abilities in a joint model-based approach. Nevertheless, the responses to the questionnaire typically present missing values which, in some cases, may be missing not at random. This paper proposes a statistical methodology to model the abilities in dichotomous IRT models using the information of the contextual questionnaires via linear regression. The proposed methodology models the missing data jointly with the all the observed data, which allows for the estimation of the former. The missing data modelling is flexible enough to allow the specification of missing not at random structures. Furthermore, even if those structures are not assumed a priori, they can be estimated from the posterior results when assuming missing (completely) at random structures a priori. Statistical inference is performed under the Bayesian paradigm via an efficient MCMC algorithm. Simulated and real examples are presented to investigate the efficiency and applicability of the proposed methodology.

Jennifer E. Starling, Jared S. Murray, Carlos M. Carvalho, Radek K. Bukowski, James G. Scott.

Source: The Annals of Applied Statistics, Volume 14, Number 1, 28--50.

Abstract:
This article introduces BART with Targeted Smoothing, or tsBART, a new Bayesian tree-based model for nonparametric regression. The goal of tsBART is to introduce smoothness over a single target covariate $t$ while not necessarily requiring smoothness over other covariates $x$. tsBART is based on the Bayesian Additive Regression Trees (BART) model, an ensemble of regression trees. tsBART extends BART by parameterizing each tree’s terminal nodes with smooth functions of $t$ rather than independent scalars. Like BART, tsBART captures complex nonlinear relationships and interactions among the predictors. But unlike BART, tsBART guarantees that the response surface will be smooth in the target covariate. This improves interpretability and helps to regularize the estimate. After introducing and benchmarking the tsBART model, we apply it to our motivating example—pregnancy outcomes data from the National Center for Health Statistics. Our aim is to provide patient-specific estimates of stillbirth risk across gestational age $(t)$ and based on maternal and fetal risk factors $(x)$. Obstetricians expect stillbirth risk to vary smoothly over gestational age but not necessarily over other covariates, and tsBART has been designed precisely to reflect this structural knowledge. The results of our analysis show the clear superiority of the tsBART model for quantifying stillbirth risk, thereby providing patients and doctors with better information for managing the risk of fetal mortality. All methods described here are implemented in the R package tsbart .

Eric Beutner, Laurent Bordes, Laurent Doyen.

Source: Bernoulli, Volume 26, Number 1, 557--586.

Abstract:
Virtual age models are very useful to analyse recurrent events. Among the strengths of these models is their ability to account for treatment (or intervention) effects after an event occurrence. Despite their flexibility for modeling recurrent events, the number of applications is limited. This seems to be a result of the fact that in the semiparametric setting all the existing results assume the virtual age function that describes the treatment (or intervention) effects to be known. This shortcoming can be overcome by considering semiparametric virtual age models with parametrically specified virtual age functions. Yet, fitting such a model is a difficult task. Indeed, it has recently been shown that for these models the standard profile likelihood method fails to lead to consistent estimators. Here we show that consistent estimators can be constructed by smoothing the profile log-likelihood function appropriately. We show that our general result can be applied to most of the relevant virtual age models of the literature. Our approach shows that empirical process techniques may be a worthwhile alternative to martingale methods for studying asymptotic properties of these inference methods. A simulation study is provided to illustrate our consistency results together with an application to real data.

In what could be a trial run for more of the same, Red Hat last week held a first-ever virtual technical summit to spread the word about its latest cloud tech offerings. CEO Paul Cormier welcomed online viewers to the conference, which attracted more than 80,000 virtual attendees. The company made several key announcements during the online gathering and highlighted customer innovations.

The National Cherry Blossom Festival has moved online due to the novel coronavirus pandemic

Museums are closing their doors amid the coronavirus crisis, but many offer digital exhibitions visitors can browse from the comfort of home

The California landmark is closed, but you can explore its bizarre architectural features from afar

Visitors can get up close and personal with augmented reality versions of historic globes recently digitized by the British Library

The show ran for just five days before the London museum closed due to COVID-19

Pompeii Archaeological Park Director Massimo Osanna narrates stunning drone footage of preserved daily life in the ancient city

Sourdough librarian Karl De Smedt has traveled the world to gather more than 120 jars of starters

The sites include the 5,000-year-old tomb of Meresankh III, the Red Monastery and the Mosque-Madrassa of Sultan Barquq

"Occupy White Walls" allows players to design their own art galleries—and explore others' out-of-the-box creations

The snazzy search is part of the telescope’s 30th anniversary celebration

Armchair travelers can also enjoy 360-degree views of the city's famed Northern Lights

Catch the musical event, featuring Sting, Death Cab for Cutie front man Ben Gibbard and other artists, on YouTube tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern time

“Care Package” showcases Asian American and Pacific Islander artists, writers and scholars as sources of solace during the Covid-19 pandemic

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

Tour a gallery of presidential portraits, print a 3-D model of a fossil or volunteer to transcribe historical documents

The second installment in our weekly series spotlights titles that may have been lost in the news amid the COVID-19 pandemic

From kitsch to cool, ride the waves of undulating popularity of a tropical fashion statement

Canada Day celebrations and Live on the Waterfront programming will be delivered virtually in response to Ontario government orders, and physical distancing mandates, the City of Thunder Bay announced in a written release Thursday.

Much like a prehistoric pest trapped in amber, our summer plans remain in suspended animation.

The National Book Festival Presents series was created to provide a book festival experience to lovers of the event on a year-round basis. Because these programs can no longer be held at the Library, we are offering a virtual multipart series, with authors who have written books about widespread diseases and the worldwide response to them.

Sheltering in place doesn’t mean you have to give up the best of wine country's offerings

The Metuchen Farmers Market, like many others, has moved to online orders and drive-thru pickups during the coronavirus pandemic