About the Authors

Jianzhao Gao

Affiliation School of Mathematical Sciences and LPMC, Nankai University, Tianjin, People's Republic of China

Wei Cui

Affiliation Department of Statistics, University of California Riverside, Riverside, California, United States of America

Yajun Sheng

Affiliation Graduate School at Shenzhen, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen, People's Republic of China

Jishou Ruan

lkurgan@vcu.edu (LK); jsruan@nankai.edu.cn (JR)

Affiliations School of Mathematical Sciences and LPMC, Nankai University, Tianjin, People's Republic of China, State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, Nankai University, Tianjin, People’s Republic of China

Lukasz Kurgan

lkurgan@vcu.edu (LK); jsruan@nankai.edu.cn (JR)

Affiliations Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, Department of Computer Science, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, United States of America

Competing Interests

Dr. Kurgan is an academic editor of PLOS ONE. The authors declare no other conflicts.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: JG JR LK. Performed the experiments: JG. Analyzed the data: JG WC YS JR LK. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: JG WC YS JR LK. Wrote the paper: JG JR LK.