Social architecture and the emergence of power laws in online social games

This paper explores the concept of the “social architecture” of games, and tests the theory that it is possible to analyse game mechanics based on the effect they have on the social behaviour of the players. Using tools from Social Network Analysis, these studies confirm that social activity in games reliably follows a power distribution: a few players are responsible for a disproportionate amount of social interactions. Based on this, the scaling exponent is highlighted as a simple measure of sociability that is constant for a game design. This allows for the direct comparison of social activity in very different games. In addition, it can act as a powerful analytical tool for highlighting anomalies in game designs that detrimentally affect players’ ability to interact socially. Although the social architectures of games are complicated systems, SNA allows for quantitative analysis of social behaviours of players in meaningful ways, which are to the benefit of game designers

Familiars: manipulating social networks with mobile gaming

This paper presents the mobile multiplayer gaming application Familiars. Familiars leverages social networking and locative technologies to create a reactive social experience for the game’s participants over extended periods of time. The game is based around the concept of each player owning a Familiar –a virtual sprite or creature somewhat similar in concept to Pullman’s dæmons - which has a visual appearance and a location in the real world. A player’s interactions with their own, and other players’, Familiars is used to directly inform the state of the game and status of the player – inviting them to become more aware of the impact of their social activity, and to discover novel strategies for becoming more socially effective in computer-mediated environments. We begin by explaining the design for the game and the unique challenges of the mobile medium as a platform for social gaming. We discuss the theoretical and technical background of the social and contextual analysis system used in the mobile mediated environment and go on to describe how this informed the implementation of the mobile and server applications that power the game. Finally we discuss the findings of the application test groups, lessons learnt during development and important design considerations for mediated mobile social gaming

Natural History of Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer with Bone Metastases

We conducted a large, multicenter, retrospective survey aimed to explore the impact of tumor bone involvement in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer.Data on clinical-pathology, skeletal outcomes and bone-directed therapies for 661 deceased patients with evidence of bone metastasis were collected and statistically analyzed. Bone metastases were evident at diagnosis in 57.5% of patients. In the remaining cases median time to bone metastases appearance was 9 months. Biphosphonates were administered in 59.6% of patients. Skeletal-related events were experienced by 57.7% of patients; the most common was the need for radiotherapy. Median time to first skeletal-related event was 6 months. Median survival after bone metastases diagnosis was 9.5 months and after the first skeletal-related event was 7 months. We created a score based on four factors used to predict the overall survival from the diagnosis of bone metastases: age >65 years, non-adenocarcinoma histology, ECOG Performance Status >2, concomitant presence of visceral metastases at the bone metastases diagnosis. The presence of more than two of these factors is associated with a worse prognosis.This study demonstrates that patients affected by Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer with bone metastases represent a heterogeneous population in terms of risk of skeletal events and survival

A cloud based architecture to support Electronic Health Record

We introduce a novel framework of electronic healthcare enabled by a Cloud platform able to host both Hospital Information Systems (HIS) and Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems and implement an innovative model of Electronic Health Record (EHR) that is not only patient-oriented but also supports a better governance of the whole healthcare system. The proposed EHR model adopts the state of the art of the Cloud technologies, being able to join the different clinical data of the patient stored within the HISs and EMRs either placed into a local Data Center or hosted into a Cloud Platform enabling new directions of data analysis

Use of metronomic chemotherapy in oncology: results from a national Italian survey

Aims and background.Metronomic chemotherapy refers to the administration of low doses of cytotoxic agents over a prolonged period of time with no or only short drug-free intervals. It is designed to overcome acquired tumor resistance to chemotherapy and reduce neo-angiogenesis despite a lower toxicity than with standard chemother-apy. The role of metronomic chemotherapy remains controversial, and its optimal therapeutic use has not yet been defined. Methods and study design.The present survey was designed as a short questionnaire and was sent to the medical oncologists registered with Medikey, a national database listing all the Italian oncology specialists linked with the Italian Council of Medica

Erratum: Natural History of Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer with Bone Metastases (Scientific Reports (2015) 5 (18670) DOI: 10.1038/srep18670)

No abstract availabl

Bone metastases in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma: Are they always associated with poor prognosis?

PURPOSE: Aim of this study was to investigate for the presence of existing prognostic factors in patients with bone metastases (BMs) from RCC since bone represents an unfavorable site of metastasis for renal cell carcinoma (mRCC). MATERIALS AND METHODS: Data of patients with BMs from RCC were retrospectively collected. Age, sex, ECOG-Performance Status (PS), MSKCC group, tumor histology, presence of concomitant metastases to other sites, time from nephrectomy to bone metastases (TTBM, classified into three groups: 5 years) and time from BMs to skeletal-related event (SRE) were included in the Cox analysis to investigate their prognostic relevance. RESULTS: 470 patients were enrolled in this analysis. In 19 patients (4%),bone was the only metastatic site; 277 patients had concomitant metastases in other sites. Median time to BMs was 16 months (range 0 - 44y) with Median OS of 17 months. Number of metastatic sites (including bone, p = 0.01), concomitant metastases, high Fuhrman grade (p 5 years had longer OS (22 months) compared to patients with TTBM <1 year (13 months) or between 1 and 5 years (19 months) from nephrectomy (p < 0.001), no difference was found between these two last groups (p = 0.18). At multivariate analysis, ECOG-PS, MSKCC group and concomitant lung or lymph node metastases were independent predictors of OS in patients with BMs. CONCLUSIONS: Our study suggest that age, ECOG-PS, histology, MSKCC score, TTBM and the presence of concomitant metastases should be considered in order to optimize the management of RCC patients with BMs