Why is age always the dependent variable?

[nimirea]

https://github.com/WengLab-InformaticsResearch/GIST/blob/ef2172c9a78699f83b923eba8844753d99243208/GIST-2.0-JS/gist/index.js#L120C7-L120C7

Hi there,

I have a few questions regarding the choice of age as the dependent variable for the SVM, after reading Sen et al., 2016:

• What is the rationale behind choosing age as the dependent variable?
• Does this imply that age is always used as a trait for defining inclusion / exclusion criteria?
• How would the choice of a different continuous variable as the dependent variable affect the results of the analysis?

Thanks,
Nicole