This study investigates the dynamic relationship between the built environment and travel in Austin, Texas, over a 20-year period. Using three waves of household travel surveys from 1997, 2006, and 2017, the research employs a repeated cross-sectional approach to address the limitations of traditional longitudinal and cross-sectional studies. Methodologically, it integrates machine learning and inferential modeling to uncover non-linear relationships and threshold effects of built environment characteristics on travel. Findings reveal that the built environment serves as a sustainable tool for managing travel in the long term, contributing 50% or more to the total feature importance in predicting individual travel-surpassing the combined effects of personal and household characteristics. Increased transit accessibility, local and regional destination accessibility, population and employment density, and diversity significantly reduce travel, particularly within their identified thresholds, though the magnitude of their influence varies across time periods. These findings highlight the potential of smart growth policies-such as expanding transit accessibility, promoting high-density and mixed-use development, and discouraging single-use development and peripheral sprawl-as effective strategies to reduce car dependency and manage travel demand.

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a significant public health challenge, often progressing to end-stage renal disease (ESRD) if not detected and managed early. Early intervention, warranted by silent disease progression, can significantly reduce associated morbidity, mortality, and financial burden. In this study, we propose a novel approach to modeling CKD progression using a combination of machine learning techniques and classical statistical models. Building on the work of Liu et al. (2023), we evaluate linear models, tree-based methods, and deep learning models to extract novel predictors for CKD progression, with feature importance assessed using Shapley values. These newly identified predictors, integrated with established clinical features from the Kidney Failure Risk Equation, are then applied within the framework of Cox proportional hazards models to predict CKD progression.

A task-sequencing simulator in robotics manipulation to integrate simulation-for-learning and simulation-for-execution is introduced. Unlike existing machine-learning simulation where a non-decomposed simulation is used to simulate a training scenario, the task-sequencing simulator runs a composed simulation using building blocks. This way, the simulation-for-learning is structured similarly to a multi-step simulation-for-execution. To compose both learning and execution scenarios, a unified trainable-and-composable description of blocks called a concept model is proposed and used. Using the simulator design and concept models, a reusable simulator for learning different tasks, a common-ground system for learning-to-execution, simulation-to-real is achieved and shown.

N-myristoyltransferase (NMT) catalyzes the transfer of myristate to the amino-terminal glycine of a subset of proteins, a co-translational modification involved in trafficking of substrate proteins to membrane locations, stabilization and protein-protein interactions. It has been studied and validated pre-clinical drug target for fungal and parasitic infections. In the present study, machine learning approach, docking studies and CoMFA analysis has been integrated with the objective of translation of knowledge into pipelined workflow towards the identification of putative hits through screening of large compound libraries. In the proposed pipeline, the reported parasitic NMT inhibitors have been used to develop predictive machine learning classification models. Simultaneously, TbNMT complex model was generated to establish relationship between binding mode of inhibitors for LmNMT and TbNMT through molecular dynamics simulation studies.