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Public health data, such as HIV new diagnoses, are often left‐censored due to confidentiality issues. Standard analysis approaches that assume censored values as missing at random often lead to biased estimates and inferior predictions. Motivated by the Philadelphia areal counts of HIV new diagnosis for which all values less than or equal to 5 are suppressed, we propose two methods to reduce the adverse influence of missingness on predictions and imputation of areal HIV new diagnoses. One is the likelihood‐based method that integrates the missing mechanism into the likelihood function, and the other is a nonparametric algorithm for matrix factorization imputation. Numerical studies and the Philadelphia data analysis demonstrate that the two proposed methods can significantly improve prediction and imputation based on left‐censored HIV data. We also compare the two methods on their robustness to model misspecification and find that both methods appear to be robust for prediction, while their performance for imputation depends on model specification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Classical randomized experiments, equipped with randomization-based inference, provide assumption-free inference for treatment effects. They have been the gold standard for drawing causal inference and provide excellent internal validity. However, they have also been criticized for questionable external validity, in the sense that the conclusion may not generalize well to a larger population. The randomized survey experiment is a design tool that can help mitigate this concern, by randomly selecting the experimental units from the target population of interest. However, as pointed out by Morgan and Rubin, chance imbalances often exist in covariate distributions between different treatment groups even under completely randomized experiments. Not surprisingly, such covariate imbalances also occur in randomized survey experiments. Furthermore, the covariate imbalances happen not only between different treatment groups, but also between the sampled experimental units and the overall population of interest. In this article, we propose a two-stage rerandomization design that can actively avoid undesirable covariate imbalances at both the sampling and treatment assignment stages. We further develop asymptotic theory for rerandomized survey experiments, demonstrating that rerandomization provides better covariate balance, more precise treatment effect estimators, and shorter large-sample confidence intervals. We also propose covariate adjustment to deal with remaining covariate imbalances after rerandomization, showing that it can further improve both the sampling and estimated precision. Our work allows general relationship among covariates at the sampling, treatment assignment and analysis stages, and generalizes both rerandomization in classical randomized experiments and rejective sampling in survey sampling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lipid deposition has been considered one of the key factors in the occurrence of valvular heart disease (VHD) and a great potential target for the diagnosis of VHD. However, the development of lipid imaging technologies and efficient lipid specific probes is in urgent demand. In this work, we have prepared a lipid droplets (LDs) targeted fluorescence probe CPTM based on a push-pull electronic structure for the imaging of diseased aortic valves. CPTM showed obvious twisted intramolecular charge transfer (TICT) effect and its emission changed from 600 nm in water to 508 nm in oil. CPTM not only exhibited good biocompatibility and high photostability, but also impressive LDs specific imaging performance in human primary valvular interstitial cells and human diseased aortic valves. Moreover, the dynamic changes of intracellular LDs could be monitor in real-time after staining with CPTM. These results were expected to offer new ideals for the designing of novel LDs specific probes for further bioimaging applications. A lipid droplet activated color switchable probe CPTM with color change from red to green is prepared for the imaging of lipid deposition in human diseased heart valves. [Display omitted] • A lipid droplet activated color switchable probe CPTM was developed. • CPTM showed obvious AIE effect and lipid enhanced emission. • CPTM could specifically light up intracellular lipid droplets. • Lipid deposition in human diseased aortic valve leaflet could be observed by staining with CPTM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to investigate the efficacy and safety of emergent transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) in patients with decompensated aortic stenosis (AS) by comparing the clinical outcomes with the patients who had received the elective TAVI.Methods: By searching PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane databases, we obtained the studies comparing the clinical outcomes of emergent TAVI and elective TAVI. Finally, 14 studies were included.Results: A total of 14 eligible articles with 73,484 patients were included in this meta-analysis. Emergent TAVI was associated with a higher mortality during hospitalization (HR 2.09, 95% CI [1.39 to 3.14]), 30 days (HR 2.29, 95% CI [1.69 to 3.10]), and 1 year (HR 1.96, 95% CI [1.55 to 2.49]). Consistently, the incidence of acute kidney injury (AKI) (RR 2.48, 95% CI [1.85 to 3.32]), dialysis (RR 2.37, 95% CI [1.95 to 2.88]), bleeding (RR 1.62, 95% CI [1.27 to 2.08]), major bleeding (RR 1.05, 95% CI [1.00 to 1.10]), and 30-day rehospitalization (RR 1.30, 95% CI [1.07, 1.58]) were more common in patients receiving emergent TAVI. No statistical differences were found in the occurrence rate of vascular complications (RR 1.11, 95% CI [0.90, 1.36]), major vascular complications (RR 1.14, 95% CI [0.52, 2.52]), permanent pacemaker (PPM) placement (RR 1.05, 95% CI [0.99, 1.11]), cerebrovascular events (RR 1.11, 95% CI [0.98, 1.25]), moderate to severe paravalvular leakage (PVL) (RR 1.23, 95% [CI 0.94 to 1.61]), and device success (RR 0.99, 95% CI [0.97, 1.01]).Conclusion: Emergent TAVI is associated with some postoperative complications and increased mortality compared with elective TAVI. Emergent TAVI should be implemented cautiously and individually. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]