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Currently, the identification of patient-specific therapies in cancer is mainly informed by personalized genomic analysis. In the setting of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), patient-drug treatment matching fails in a subset of patients harboring atypical internal tandem duplications (ITDs) in the tyrosine kinase domain of the FLT3 gene. To address this unmet medical need, here we develop a systems-based strategy that integrates multiparametric analysis of crucial signaling pathways, and patient-specific genomic and transcriptomic data with a prior knowledge signaling network using a Boolean-based formalism. By this approach, we derive personalized predictive models describing the signaling landscape of AML FLT3-ITD positive cell lines and patients. These models enable us to derive mechanistic insight into drug resistance mechanisms and suggest novel opportunities for combinatorial treatments. Interestingly, our analysis reveals that the JNK kinase pathway plays a crucial role in the tyrosine kinase inhibitor response of FLT3-ITD cells through cell cycle regulation. Finally, our work shows that patient-specific logic models have the potential to inform precision medicine approaches.

Energy consumption of the EU has a crucial environmental impact; several efforts are nowadays thus directed into massively reducing energy consumption by envelope improvement, system efficiency and smart control. On the other hand, the indoor thermal and lighting conditions significantly influence users' wellbeing and productivity, which is especially important when dealing with educational and working facilities. Strategies to enhance system efficiency are focused on design and construction aspects. These strategies ease to promote a powerful approach which is needed when focusing on existing buildings in need of retrofit measures. When dealing with new or refurbished buildings, energy saving has a further step to achieve. In the last years, research trends moved towards an increasing inclusion of human factors in energy evaluation. This allows to account for the occupancy variability in the energy analyses, considering how to bridge the performance gap between predictive models and actual consumptions due to indoor thermal settings. In empty buildings energy consumption is huge and economic efforts are wasted, due to unconscious energy-wasting behaviors. Previous studies with Interactive Virtual Environments confirmed that indoor environments illuminated by different color lights lead to the perception of different levels of thermal comfort. The results of the present paper replicate previous evidence collected in real conditions, suggesting that Virtual Reality is a valid and reliable tool to assess thermal comfort more quickly and cheaply. This paper provides a further perspective on this topic, including also the use of different fragrances to understand how the indoor environment could be enhanced and manipulated to increase wellbeing, thermal perception and finally energy saving.

Although it is noted that interpersonal sensorimotor coordination can influence several high-level socio-cognitive processes, its impact on creative collaboration is nearly unexplored. Here, we investigated the effects of a form of sensorimotor coordination, that is, sensorimotor synchronization, on a subsequent creative collaboration task. 60 pairs (n total = 120 participants) formed by previously unacquainted individuals performed a tower-building task either jointly or alone, followed by a dyadic creativity task. Tower building time in the joint condition was recorded through a sensorized platform and creativity performance was evaluated by two independent raters based on the quantity and quality of generated ideas. We controlled for gender composition and for the disposition to cooperate and to adopt a creative, analytical style. Results showed that male-male couples were more creative after the joint-action condition, whereas female-female and mixed-gender couples were more creative after the solo condition. Regression analyses of tower building time on creativity performance revealed that building time was a significant predictor of creativity dimensions in male-male and in mixed-gender couples but did not predict creative performance in female-female couples. Overall, these findings suggest that the manipulation of sensorimotor coordination can influence performance in a subsequent creative collaboration task, with the nature, and magnitude of this effect depending on the gender composition of the dyads. These results have potential implications for the design of sensorimotor-based strategies to enhance dyadic creative performance in several contexts, especially for the organizational settings.

Although it is noted that interpersonal sensorimotor coordination can influence several high-level socio-cognitive processes, its impact on creative collaboration is nearly unexplored. Here, we investigated the effects of a form of sensorimotor coordination, that is, sensorimotor synchronization, on a subsequent creative collaboration task. 60 pairs (n total = 120 participants) formed by previously unacquainted individuals performed a tower-building task either jointly or alone, followed by a dyadic creativity task. Tower building time in the joint condition was recorded through a sensorized platform and creativity performance was evaluated by two independent raters based on the quantity and quality of generated ideas. We controlled for gender composition and for the disposition to cooperate and to adopt a creative, analytical style. Results showed that male-male couples were more creative after the joint-action condition, whereas female-female and mixed-gender couples were more creative after the solo condition. Regression analyses of tower building time on creativity performance revealed that building time was a significant predictor of creativity dimensions in male-male and in mixed-gender couples but did not predict creative performance in female-female couples. Overall, these findings suggest that the manipulation of sensorimotor coordination can influence performance in a subsequent creative collaboration task, with the nature, and magnitude of this effect depending on the gender composition of the dyads. These results have potential implications for the design of sensorimotor-based strategies to enhance dyadic creative performance in several contexts, especially for the organizational settings.

We describe the implementation and preliminary validation of an interactive platform – COLLEGO – to investigate joint action in a goal-oriented collaborative task. The platform records the interaction sequence of two partners alternating their leader/follower role. Two sensitized wooden surfaces are placed in front of each participant, who can use 6 cubes to build the tower. Any time a cube is picked/released, time stamp (ms) and position of selected objects are recorded. A case study showing how data are collected and analyzed to study dyad performance during the task is described. Finally, potential applications of the proposed solution are discussed.

Joint action - the cooperation with other individuals to achieve a shared motor goal, is a crucial ability for human survival. This process takes place when actors are synchronized at a sensorimotor level. However, the experiential correlates of sensorimotor synchronization are not fully understood. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the experience of flow and social presence in a sensorimotor collaborative task. 12 female couples (mean age = 22.33; S.D. = .815) and 12 male couples (mean age = 22.88; S.D. = .789) were involved in a tower-building task across 10 consecutive trials using the COLLEGO platform [1]. Couple members alternated their leader/follower role. Platform recorded time stamp (ms) and position of each selected object when it was picked/released, providing a measure of performance. Thereafter, participants’ level of flow (Flow State Scale), an intrinsically motivating state of consciousness, and social presence (Networked Minds Social Presence Inventory), i.e., the feeling of being with other Selves in a real or virtual environment, were assessed. Flow and Social presence correlated positively at a global level. Having clear goals was negatively associated with performance, while awareness and merging with one’s own actions correlated positively with performance. Task duration correlated negatively with attentive and behavioral dimensions of social presence, but positively with cognitive and emotional dimensions. Results are discussed according to the Networked Flow model assuming a positive correlation between social presence and flow at the base of the highest levels of collaborative performance.

Luca (thirty six) and Chiara (thirty four) have been married for six years. After the first two years of marriage and having tried for a biological pregnancy, they underwent medical tests and discovered that Luca’s azoospermia was the cause of their infertility. They went to a governmental agency for family assistance as part of a standard path for the adoption of a child. There, among other activities they participated in: (a) a series of psychodynamic homogenous group meetings structured on three levels (past familial relations, current marital relations, and future possible relations) and (b)a series of individual and couple encounters. The dynamics of the case and the sequence of the events have been such that they let us see clearly that the request for the adoption of a child and the participation in the procedures of adoption could have been, for Chiara, a way to enter psychotherapy, to be contained, accepted, and recognized in the mind of the therapist so as to find in herself the way to disclose the past rape. We can think, however, that what Chiara gained in the therapy was that: a) she felt herself to be genuinely accepted, understood, contained, and appreciated b) she had become softer and also more capable of appreciating the nuances when reading her own and others’ mental states c) she starting to understand what mothering could or should be d) since a), b), and c) could be seen as indications of an increased reflective functioning one could also think that Chiara could have learned to be less controlling of herself and Luca. In the perspective of the concept of the couple-complex attachment (Fisher & Crandell, 2001) we should not under-estimate that, with the AAI, Luca turned out to be Ds3/Insecure and Chiara an F4b-E2, that is a person oscillating between a secure and a preoccupied attachment. The actual entry of a baby into their lives, after the adoption, may elicit an intense expression of the individual attachment systems of both the partners. Th