“…Candidate features include 11 baseline neuropsychological assessment indices; MRI volumetric data of ventricles, hippocampus, whole brain, entorhinal, fusiform gyrus, middle temporal gyrus, and intracerebral volume at the first visit; and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that may have effects on the risk of developing AD. To reduce the number of SNPs, we follow the practice of Wu et al (2020), who applied sure independent screening (Fan et al, 2010) and retained the top 500 SNPs. Here, baseline neuropsychological assessment indices and MRI volumetric data are continuous covariates, whereas for each SNP, homozygous without Thymine (coded 0), heterozygous or homozygous with Thymine (coded 1 and 2 separated) naturally form a categorical covariate with three categories.…”