BPCoach: Exploring Hero Drafting in Professional MOBA Tournaments via Visual Analytics

Hero drafting for multiplayer online arena (MOBA) games is crucial because drafting directly affects the outcome of a match. Both sides take turns to "ban"/"pick" a hero from a roster of approximately 100 heroes to assemble their drafting. In professional tournaments, the process becomes more complex as teams are not allowed to pick heroes used in the previous rounds with the "best-of-N" rule. Additionally, human factors including the team's familiarity with drafting and play styles are overlooked by previous studies. Meanwhile, the huge impact of patch iteration on drafting strengths in the professional tournament is of concern. To this end, we propose a visual analytics system, BPCoach, to facilitate hero drafting planning by comparing various drafting through recommendations and predictions and distilling relevant human and in-game factors. Two case studies, expert feedback, and a user study suggest that BPCoach helps determine hero drafting in a rounded and efficient manner.Comment: Accepted by The 2024 ACM SIGCHI Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (CSCW) (Proc. CSCW 2024

A brief review and clinical evidences of teriparatide therapy for atypical femoral fractures associated with long-term bisphosphonate treatment

The risk of bisphosphonate (BP)-associated atypical femur fracture (AFF) has markedly increased over recent decades due to suppression of bone turnover, accumulation of structural micro-damage and reduction of bone remodeling consequent to long-term BP treatment. These medications further delay bone union and result in challenging clinical management. Teriparatide (TPTD), a synthetic human parathyroid hormone, exhibits unique anabolic effects and can increase bone remodeling and improve bone microarchitecture, further promoting fracture healing and reducing the rate of bone non-union. In this study, we briefly define AFF as well as the effects of BPs on AFFs, detailed the role of TPTD in AFF management and the latest clinical therapeutic findings. We have confirmed that TPTD positively promotes the healing of AFFs by reducing the time to bone union and likelihood of non-union. Thus, teriparatide therapy could be considered as an alternative treatment for AFFs, however, further research is required for the establishment of effective clinical guidelines of TPTD use in the management of AFF

Hospitalization Costs of COVID-19 Cases and Their Associated Factors in Guangdong, China: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background: The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has brought significant challenges to health system and consumed a lot of health resources. However, evidence on the hospitalization costs and their associated factors in COVID-19 cases is scarce.Objectives: To describe the total and components of hospitalization costs of COVID-19 cases, and investigate the associated factors of costs.Methods: We included 876 confirmed COVID-19 cases admitted to 33 designated hospitals from January 15th to April 27th, 2020 in Guangdong, China, and collected their demographic and clinical information. A multiple linear regression model was performed to estimate the associations of hospitalization costs with potential associated factors.Results: The median of total hospitalization costs of COVID-19 cases was $2,869.4 (IQR:$3,916.8). We found higher total costs in male (% difference: 29.7, 95% CI: 15.5, 45.6) than in female cases, in older cases than in younger ones, in severe cases (% difference: 344.8, 95% CI: 222.5, 513.6) than in mild ones, in cases with clinical aggravation than those without, in cases with clinical symptoms (% difference: 47.7, 95% CI: 26.2, 72.9) than those without, and in cases with comorbidities (% difference: 21.1%, 21.1, 95% CI: 4.4, 40.6) than those without. We also found lower non-pharmacologic therapy costs in cases treated with traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) therapy (% difference: −47.4, 95% CI: −64.5 to −22.0) than cases without.Conclusion: The hospitalization costs of COVID-19 cases in Guangdong were comparable to the national level. Factors associated with higher hospitalization costs included sex, older age, clinical severity and aggravation, clinical symptoms and comorbidities at admission. TCM therapy was found to be associated with lower costs for some non-pharmacologic therapies

Spatial-temporal clustering of an outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 Delta VOC in Guangzhou, China in 2021

BackgroundIn May 2021, the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant led to the first local outbreak in China in Guangzhou City. We explored the epidemiological characteristics and spatial-temporal clustering of this outbreak.MethodsBased on the 153 cases in the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant outbreak, the Knox test was used to analyze the spatial-temporal clustering of the outbreak. We further explored the spatial-temporal clustering by gender and age groups, as well as compared the changes of clustering strength (S) value between the two outbreaks in Guangzhou.ResultsThe result of the Knox analysis showed that the areas at short distances and brief periods presented a relatively high risk. The strength of clustering of male-male pairs was higher. Age groups showed that clustering was concentrated in cases aged ≤ 18 years matched to 18–59 years and cases aged 60+ years. The strength of clustering of the outbreak declined after the implementation of public health measures. The change of strength of clustering at time intervals of 1–5 days decreased greater in 2021 (S = 129.19, change rate 38.87%) than that in 2020 (S = 83.81, change rate 30.02%).ConclusionsThe outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 Delta VOC in Guangzhou has obvious spatial-temporal clustering. The timely intervention measures are essential role to contain this outbreak of high transmission