Panel: A call for action in tackling environmental sustainability through green information technologies and systems

In a previous paper, we have found empirical evidence supporting a positive relationship between network centrality and success. However, we have also found that more successful projects have a lower technical quality. A first, straightforward argument explaining previous findings is that more central contributors are also highly skilled developers who are well known for their ability to manage the complexity of code with a lower attention to the software structure. The consolidated metrics of software quality used by the authors in their previous research represent measures of code structure. This paper provides empirical evidence supporting the idea that the negative impact of success on quality is caused by the careless behaviour of skilled developers, who are also hubs within the social network. Research hypotheses are tested on a sample of 56 OS applications from the SourceForge.net repository, with a total of 378 developers. The sample includes some of the most successful and large OS projects, as well as a cross-section of less famous active projects evenly distributed among SourceForge.net’s project categories

The Impact of Social Netowrking on Software Design Quality and Development Effort in Open Source Projects

This paper focuses on Open Source (OS) social networks. The literature indicates that OS networks have a few nodes with a number of relationships significantly higher than the network’s average, called hubs. It also provides numerous metrics that help verify whether a node is a hub, called centrality metrics. This paper posits that higher values of centrality metrics are positively correlated with project success. Second, it posits that higher values of centrality metrics are positively correlated with the ability of a project to attract new contributions. Third, it posits that projects with greater success have a lower software design quality. Hypotheses are tested on a sample of 56 applications written in Java from the SourceForge.net online OS repository. The corresponding social network is built by considering all the contributors, both developers and administrators, of our application sample and all contributors directly or indirectly connected with them within SourceForge.net, with a total of 57,142 nodes. Empirical results support our hypotheses, indicating that centrality metrics are significant drivers of project success that should be monitored from the perspective of a project administrator or team manager. However, they also prove that successful projects tend to have a significantly lower design quality of software. This has a number of consequences that could be visible to users and cause negative feedback effects over time

Informing Observers: Quality-driven Filtering and Composition of Web 2.0 Sources

Current Web technologies enable an active role of users, who can create and share their contents very easily. This mass of information includes opinions about a variety of key interest topics and represents a new and invaluable source of marketing information. Public and private organizations that aim at understanding and analyzing this unsolicited feedback need adequate platforms that can support the detection and monitoring of key topics. Hence, there is an emerging trend towards automated market intelligence and the crafting of tools that allow monitoring in a mechanized fashion. We therefore present an approach that is based on quality of Web 2.0 sources as the key factor for information filtering and also allows the users to flexibly and easily compose their analysis environments thanks to the adoption of a mashup platform

Frequency of left ventricular hypertrophy in non-valvular atrial fibrillation

Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) is significantly related to adverse clinical outcomes in patients at high risk of cardiovascular events. In patients with atrial fibrillation (AF), data on LVH, that is, prevalence and determinants, are inconsistent mainly because of different definitions and heterogeneity of study populations. We determined echocardiographic-based LVH prevalence and clinical factors independently associated with its development in a prospective cohort of patients with non-valvular (NV) AF. From the "Atrial Fibrillation Registry for Ankle-brachial Index Prevalence Assessment: Collaborative Italian Study" (ARAPACIS) population, 1,184 patients with NVAF (mean age 72 \ub1 11 years; 56% men) with complete data to define LVH were selected. ARAPACIS is a multicenter, observational, prospective, longitudinal on-going study designed to estimate prevalence of peripheral artery disease in patients with NVAF. We found a high prevalence of LVH (52%) in patients with NVAF. Compared to those without LVH, patients with AF with LVH were older and had a higher prevalence of hypertension, diabetes, and previous myocardial infarction (MI). A higher prevalence of ankle-brachial index 640.90 was seen in patients with LVH (22 vs 17%, p = 0.0392). Patients with LVH were at significantly higher thromboembolic risk, with CHA2DS2-VASc 652 seen in 93% of LVH and in 73% of patients without LVH (p <0.05). Women with LVH had a higher prevalence of concentric hypertrophy than men (46% vs 29%, p = 0.0003). Logistic regression analysis demonstrated that female gender (odds ratio [OR] 2.80, p <0.0001), age (OR 1.03 per year, p <0.001), hypertension (OR 2.30, p <0.001), diabetes (OR 1.62, p = 0.004), and previous MI (OR 1.96, p = 0.001) were independently associated with LVH. In conclusion, patients with NVAF have a high prevalence of LVH, which is related to female gender, older age, hypertension, and previous MI. These patients are at high thromboembolic risk and deserve a holistic approach to cardiovascular prevention

Clinical features and outcomes of elderly hospitalised patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart failure or both

Background and objective: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and heart failure (HF) mutually increase the risk of being present in the same patient, especially if older. Whether or not this coexistence may be associated with a worse prognosis is debated. Therefore, employing data derived from the REPOSI register, we evaluated the clinical features and outcomes in a population of elderly patients admitted to internal medicine wards and having COPD, HF or COPD + HF. Methods: We measured socio-demographic and anthropometric characteristics, severity and prevalence of comorbidities, clinical and laboratory features during hospitalization, mood disorders, functional independence, drug prescriptions and discharge destination. The primary study outcome was the risk of death. Results: We considered 2,343 elderly hospitalized patients (median age 81 years), of whom 1,154 (49%) had COPD, 813 (35%) HF, and 376 (16%) COPD + HF. Patients with COPD + HF had different characteristics than those with COPD or HF, such as a higher prevalence of previous hospitalizations, comorbidities (especially chronic kidney disease), higher respiratory rate at admission and number of prescribed drugs. Patients with COPD + HF (hazard ratio HR 1.74, 95% confidence intervals CI 1.16-2.61) and patients with dementia (HR 1.75, 95% CI 1.06-2.90) had a higher risk of death at one year. The Kaplan-Meier curves showed a higher mortality risk in the group of patients with COPD + HF for all causes (p = 0.010), respiratory causes (p = 0.006), cardiovascular causes (p = 0.046) and respiratory plus cardiovascular causes (p = 0.009). Conclusion: In this real-life cohort of hospitalized elderly patients, the coexistence of COPD and HF significantly worsened prognosis at one year. This finding may help to better define the care needs of this population

THE RELATIONSHIP AMONG DEVELOPMENT SKILLS, DESIGN QUALITY, AND CENTRALITY IN OPEN SOURCE PROJECTS

In a previous paper, we have found empirical evidence supporting a positive relationship between network centrality and success. However, we have also found that more successful projects have a lower technical quality. A first, straightforward argument explaining previous findings is that more central contributors are also highly skilled developers who are well known for their ability to manage the complexity of code with a lower attention to the software structure. The consolidated metrics of software quality used by the authors in their previous research represent measures of code structure. This paper provides empirical evidence supporting the idea that the negative impact of success on quality is caused by the careless behaviour of skilled developers, who are also hubs within the social network. Research hypotheses are tested on a sample of 56 OS applications from the SourceForge.net repository, with a total of 378 developers. The sample includes some of the most successful and large OS projects, as well as a cross-section of less famous active projects evenly distributed among SourceForge.net’s project categories