As a new extension of Pythagorean fuzzy set (also called Atanassov’s intuitionistic fuzzy set of second type), interval-valued Pythagorean fuzzy set which is parallel to Atanassov’s interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy set has recently been developed to model imprecise and ambiguous information in practical group decision making problems. The aim of this paper is to put forward a novel decision making method for handling multiple criteria group decision making problems within interval-valued Pythagorean fuzzy environment based on interval-valued Pythagorean fuzzy numbers (IVPFNs). There are three key issues being addressed in this approach. The first is to introduce an interval-valued Pythagorean fuzzy weighted arithmetic averaging (IVPF-WAA) operator to aggregate the decision data in order to get the overall preference values of alternatives. Some desirable properties of the IVPF-WAA operator are also investigated. Based on the idea of the maximizing deviation method, the second is to establish an optimization model for determining the weights of criteria for each expert. The third is to construct a minimizing consistency optimal model to derive the weights of criteria for the group. Finally, an illustrating example is given to verify the proposed approach.

The prevalence estimate results were consistent with the international prevalence estimate of schizophrenia in mainland China. There was no significant difference between males and females, while prevalence for urban dwellers was higher than for rural.

BackgroundAn increasing number of extremely preterm (EP) infants have survived worldwide. However, few data have been reported from China. This study was designed to investigate the short-term outcomes of EP infants at discharge in Guangdong province.MethodsA total of 2051 EP infants discharged from 26 neonatal intensive care units during 2008–2017 were enrolled. The data from 2008 to 2012 were collected retrospectively, and from 2013 to 2017 were collected prospectively. Their hospitalization records were reviewed.ResultsDuring 2008–2017, the mean gestational age (GA) was 26.68 ± 1.00 weeks and the mean birth weight (BW) was 935 ± 179 g. The overall survival rate at discharge was 52.5%. There were 321 infants (15.7%) died despite active treatment, and 654 infants (31.9%) died after medical care withdrawal. The survival rates increased with advancing GA and BW (p < 0.001). The annual survival rate improved from 36.2% in 2008 to 59.3% in 2017 (p < 0.001). EP infants discharged from hospitals in Guangzhou and Shenzhen cities had a higher survival rate than in others (p < 0.001). The survival rate of EP infants discharged from general hospitals was lower than in specialist hospitals (p < 0.001). The major complications were neonatal respiratory distress syndrome, 88.0% (1804 of 2051), bronchopulmonary dysplasia, 32.3% (374 of 1158), retinopathy of prematurity (any grade), 45.1% (504 of 1117), necrotizing enterocolitis (any stage), 10.1% (160 of 1588), intraventricular hemorrhages (any grade), 37.4% (535 of 1431), and blood culture-positive nosocomial sepsis, 15.7% (250 of 1588). The multivariate logistic regression analysis indicated that improved survival of EP infants was associated with discharged from specialist hospitals, hospitals located in high-level economic development region, increasing gestational age, increasing birth weight, antenatal steroids use and a history of premature rupture of membranes. However, twins or multiple births, Apgar ≤7 at 5 min, cervical incompetence, and decision to withdraw care were associated with decreased survival.ConclusionsOur study revealed the short-term outcomes of EP infants at discharge in China. The overall survival rate was lower than the developed countries, and medical care withdrawal was a serious problem. Nonetheless, improvements in care and outcomes have been made annually.

Objective To systematically evaluate evidence for the use of interventions based on appied behavior analysis (ABA) to manage various symptoms of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).Methods Sensitivity analyses were conducted by removing any outlying studies and subgroup analyses were performed to compare the effectiveness of ABA and early start denver model (ESDM), picture exchange communication systems (PECS) and discrete trial training (DTT).Results 14 randomized control trials of 555 participants were included in this meta-analysis. The overall standardized mean difference was d=-0.36 (95% CI -1.31, 0.58; Z=0.75, p=0.45) for autism general symptoms, d=0.11 (95% CI -0.31, 0.54; Z=0.52, p=0.60) for socialization, d=0.30 (95% CI -0.02, 0.61; Z=1.84, p=0.07) for communication and d=-3.52 (95% CI -6.31, -0.72; Z=2.47, p=0.01) for expressive language, d=-0.04 (95% CI -0.44, 0.36; Z=0.20, p=0.84) for receptive language. Those results suggested outcomes of socialization, communication and expressive language may be promising targets for ABA-based interventions involving children with ASD. However, significant effects for the outcomes of autism general symptoms, receptive language, adaptive behavior, daily living skills, IQ, verbal IQ, nenverbal IQ, restricted and repetitive behavior, motor and cognition were not observed.Conclusion The small number of studies included in the present study limited the ability to make inferences when comparing ABA, ESDM, PECS and DTT interventions for children with ASD.

This paper considers the empirical likelihood (EL) construction of confidence intervals for a linear functional θ based on right censored lifetime data. Many of the results in literature show that −2 log(empirical likelihood ratio) has a limiting scaled-χ 2 1 distribution, where the scale parameter is a function of the unknown asymptotic variance.The scale parameter has to be estimated for the construction. Additional estimation would reduce the coverage accuracy for θ. This diminishes a main advantage of the EL method for censored data. By utilizing certain influence functions in an estimating equation, it is shown that under very general conditions, −2 log(EL ratio) converges weakly to a standard χ 2 1 distribution and thereby eliminates the need for estimating the scale parameter. Moreover, a special way of employing influence functions eases the otherwise very demanding computations of the EL method. Our approach yields smaller asymptotic variance of the influence function than those comparable ones con-