LawVerse: The Legal Framework for Clinical Metaverse Content Barbara Pasa, Alessandro Bernes, Andrea Gaggioli, Emanuele Tuccari, Fabiana Zollo, Giorgia Vulpiani, Loris Pignolo, Antonio Scala, Antonio Cerasa Journal of Medical Extended Reality, 2025 The term MedVerse has been coined to describe how the infrastructure layers of the metaverse can be adopted in the health care sector, to enable the distribution of contents and interact with patients. In the last 2 years, a large amount of proof-of-concept metaverse-based technologies and applications have been proposed in several medical realms. However, the advent of such an expensive, hypercomplex technology promoted as a new instrument with a strong incentive to invest time and money in digital items (driving revenue for some categories) poses several legal challenges. Here, we discuss the main legal issues (the so-called LawVerse ) related to their application to the clinical metaverses realms.
Persistent interaction patterns across social media platforms and over time Michele Avalle, Niccolò Di Marco, Gabriele Etta, Emanuele Sangiorgio, Shayan Alipour, Anita Bonetti, Lorenzo Alvisi, Antonio Scala, Andrea Baronchelli, Matteo Cinelli, Walter Quattrociocchi Nature, 2024 Growing concern surrounds the impact of social media platforms on public discourse1–4and their influence on social dynamics5–9, especially in the context of toxicity10–12. Here, to better understand these phenomena, we use a comparative approach to isolate human behavioural patterns across multiple social media platforms. In particular, we analyse conversations in different online communities, focusing on identifying consistent patterns of toxic content. Drawing from an extensive dataset that spans eight platforms over 34 years—from Usenet to contemporary social media—our findings show consistent conversation patterns and user behaviour, irrespective of the platform, topic or time. Notably, although long conversations consistently exhibit higher toxicity, toxic language does not invariably discourage people from participating in a conversation, and toxicity does not necessarily escalate as discussions evolve. Our analysis suggests that debates and contrasting sentiments among users significantly contribute to more intense and hostile discussions. Moreover, the persistence of these patterns across three decades, despite changes in platforms and societal norms, underscores the pivotal role of human behaviour in shaping online discourse.
A Sum-of-States Preservation Framework for Open Multiagent Systems With Nonlinear Heterogeneous Coupling Gabriele Oliva, Mauro Franceschelli, Andrea Gasparri, Antonio Scala IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 2024 In this article, we develop a general open multiagent systems (OMAS) framework over undirected graphs where the agents' interaction is, in general, nonlinear, time-varying, and heterogeneous, in that the agents interact with different pairwise interaction rules for each link, possibly nonlinear, which may change over time. In particular, assuming the agents interact by exchanging flows, which modify their states, our framework guarantees that the sum of the states of agents participating in the network is preserved. To this end, agents maintain a state variable for each of their neighbors. Upon the disconnection of a neighbor, such a variable is used to completely eliminate the effect of previous interaction with disconnected agents from the overall system. In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed OMAS framework, we provide a case study focused on average consensus, and, specifically, we develop a sufficient condition on the structure of the agents' interaction guaranteeing asymptotic convergence under the assumption that the network becomes fixed. The article is complemented by simulation results that numerically demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
The explosive value of the networks Antonio Scala, Marco Delmastro Scientific Reports, 2023 Networks have always played a special role for human beings in shaping social relations, forming public opinion, and driving economic equilibria. Nowadays, online networked platforms dominate digital markets and capitalization leader-boards, while social networks drive public discussion. Despite the importance of networks in many economic and social domains (economics, sociology, anthropology, psychology, etc.), the knowledge about the laws that dominate their dynamics is still scarce and fragmented. Here, we analyse a wide set of online networks (those financed by advertising) by investigating their value dynamics from several perspectives: the type of law they follow, their geographic scope, and the relationship between economic value and financial value. The results show that the networks are dominated by strongly nonlinear dynamics. The existence of non-linearity is often underestimated in social sciences because it involves contexts that are difficult to deal with, such as the presence of multiple equilibria—some of which are unstable. Yet, these dynamics must be fully understood and addressed if we aim to understand the recent evolution in the economic, political and social milieus, which are precisely characterised by corner equilibria (e.g., polarisation, winner-take-all solutions, increasing inequality) and nonlinear patterns.
Measuring the efficacy of a vaccine during an epidemic Antonio Scala, Pierpaolo Cavallo Plos One, 2023 The urgency to develop vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the acceleration of clinical trials. Specifically, a broad spectrum of efficacy levels has been reported for various vaccines based on phase III cohort studies. Our study demonstrates that conducting large cohort phase III clinical trials during the peak of an epidemic leads to a significant underestimation of vaccine efficacy, even in the absence of confounding factors. Furthermore, we find that this underestimation increases with the proportion of infectious individuals in the population during the experiment and the severity of the epidemic, as measured by its basic reproduction number.
Characterizing engagement dynamics across topics on Facebook Gabriele Etta, Emanuele Sangiorgio, Niccolò Di Marco, Michele Avalle, Antonio Scala, Matteo Cinelli, Walter Quattrociocchi Plos One, 2023 Social media platforms heavily changed how users consume and digest information and, thus, how the popularity of topics evolves. In this paper, we explore the interplay between the virality of controversial topics and how they may trigger heated discussions and eventually increase users’ polarization. We perform a quantitative analysis on Facebook by collecting ∼57M posts from ∼2M pages and groups between 2018 and 2022, focusing on engaging topics involving scandals, tragedies, and social and political issues. Using logistic functions, we quantitatively assess the evolution of these topics finding similar patterns in their engagement dynamics. Finally, we show that initial burstiness may predict the rise of users’ future adverse reactions regardless of the discussed topic.
Evaluating the COVID-19 impact in Italian regions via multi criteria analysis Francesca Santucci, Martina Nobili, Luca Faramondi, Gabriele Oliva, Bianca Mazzà, Antonio Scala, Massimo Ciccozzi, Roberto Setola Plos One, 2023 Italy was the first European country to be significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The lack of similar previous experiences and the initial uncertainty regarding the new virus resulted in an unpredictable health crisis with 243,506 total confirmed cases and 34,997 deaths between February and July 2020. Despite the panorama of precariousness and the impelling calamity, the country successfully managed many aspects of the early stages of the health and socio-economic crisis. Nevertheless, many disparities can be identified at the regional level. The study aims to determine which aspects of regional management were considered more important by the citizens regarding economic and health criteria. A survey was designed to gather responses from the population on the Italian regions’ response and provide a ranking of the regions. The 29-item online survey was provided to 352 individuals, and the collected data were analyzed using the Analytic Hierarchy Process methodology. The results show a general agreement in considering of greater relevance the healthcare policies rather than the economic countermeasures adopted by regional governments. Our analysis associated a weight of 64% to the healthcare criteria compared to the economic criteria with a weight of 36%. In addition to the results obtained from the Analytic Hierarchy Process, the sample’s composition was analyzed to provide an overall assessment of the Italian regions. To do so, we collected objective data for each region and multiplied them by the overall weight obtained for each sub-criteria. Looking at the propensity to vaccination or the belief in a relation between COVID-19 and 5G according to age and educational qualification helps understand how public opinion is structured according to cultural and anthropological differences.
Infodemics: A new challenge for public health Sylvie C. Briand, Matteo Cinelli, Tim Nguyen, Rosamund Lewis, Dimitri Prybylski, Carlo M. Valensise, Vittoria Colizza, Alberto Eugenio Tozzi, Nicola Perra, Andrea Baronchelli, Michele Tizzoni, Fabiana Zollo, Antonio Scala, Tina Purnat, Christine Czerniak, Adam J. Kucharski, Akhona Tshangela, Lei Zhou, Walter Quattrociocchi Cell, 2021
The COVID-19 social media infodemic Matteo Cinelli, Walter Quattrociocchi, Alessandro Galeazzi, Carlo Michele Valensise, Emanuele Brugnoli, Ana Lucia Schmidt, Paola Zola, Fabiana Zollo, Antonio Scala Scientific Reports, 2020
Measuring social response to different journalistic techniques on Facebook Ana L. Schmidt, Antonio Peruzzi, Antonio Scala, Matteo Cinelli, Peter Pomerantsev, Anne Applebaum, Sophia Gaston, Nicole Fusi, Zachary Peterson, Giuseppe Severgnini, Andrea F. De Cesco, Davide Casati, Petra Kralj Novak, H. Eugene Stanley, Fabiana Zollo, Walter Quattrociocchi Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 2020
Economic and social consequences of human mobility restrictions under COVID-19 Giovanni Bonaccorsi, Francesco Pierri, Matteo Cinelli, Andrea Flori, Alessandro Galeazzi, Francesco Porcelli, Ana Lucia Schmidt, Carlo Michele Valensise, Antonio Scala, Walter Quattrociocchi, Fabio Pammolli Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2020
Health-care inequalities in Italy: challenges for the Government Prisco Piscitelli, Alessandro Miani, Alfredo Mazza, Maria Triassi, Antonella De Donno, Antonio Scala, Manuela Pulimeno, Alessandro Distante, Fabio Pollice, Annamaria Colao Lancet Public Health, 2019
The present state of Lake Bracciano: hope and despair David Rossi, Emanuele Romano, Nicolas Guyennon, Martina Rainaldi, Stefano Ghergo, Alessandro Mecali, Daniele Parrone, Sara Taviani, Antonio Scala, Emanuele Perugini Rendiconti Lincei, 2019
Preface Lecture Notes in Computer Science Including Subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics, 2018
Self-healing networks: A theoretical approach to smart grids’ resilience Safety and Reliability Safe Societies in A Changing World Proceedings of the 28th International European Safety and Reliability Conference Esrel 2018, 2018
Equal load-sharing models of cascades in interdependent network infrastructures Safety and Reliability Safe Societies in A Changing World Proceedings of the 28th International European Safety and Reliability Conference Esrel 2018, 2018
Debunking in a world of tribes Fabiana Zollo, Alessandro Bessi, Michela Del Vicario, Antonio Scala, Guido Caldarelli, Louis Shekhtman, Shlomo Havlin, Walter Quattrociocchi Plos One, 2017
Anatomy of news consumption on Facebook Ana Lucía Schmidt, Fabiana Zollo, Michela Del Vicario, Alessandro Bessi, Antonio Scala, Guido Caldarelli, H. Eugene Stanley, Walter Quattrociocchi Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2017
Access time eccentricity and diameter Gabriele Oliva, Antonio Scala, Roberto Setola, Luigi Glielmo Lecture Notes in Control and Information Sciences, 2017
Complexity science for sustainable smart water grids Angelo Facchini, Antonio Scala, Nicola Lattanzi, Guido Caldarelli, Giovanni Liberatore, Lorenzo Dal Maso, Armando Di Nardo Communications in Computer and Information Science, 2017
Homophily and polarization in the age of misinformation Alessandro Bessi, Fabio Petroni, Michela Del Vicario, Fabiana Zollo, Aris Anagnostopoulos, Antonio Scala, Guido Caldarelli, Walter Quattrociocchi European Physical Journal Special Topics, 2016
Users polarization on Facebook and Youtube Alessandro Bessi, Fabiana Zollo, Michela Del Vicario, Michelangelo Puliga, Antonio Scala, Guido Caldarelli, Brian Uzzi, Walter Quattrociocchi Plos One, 2016
Enhancing network resilience via self-healing Flaviano Morone, Like Ma, Hernan Makse, Antonio Scala Eesms 2016 2016 IEEE Workshop on Environmental Energy and Structural Monitoring Systems Proceedings, 2016
Cascades in interdependent flow networks Antonio Scala, Pier Giorgio De Sanctis Lucentini, Guido Caldarelli, Gregorio D’Agostino Physica D Nonlinear Phenomena, 2016
The spreading of misinformation online Michela Del Vicario, Alessandro Bessi, Fabiana Zollo, Fabio Petroni, Antonio Scala, Guido Caldarelli, H. Eugene Stanley, Walter Quattrociocchi Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2016
A mean field model of coupled cascades in flow networks Antonio Scala, Stefano Sebastio, Pier Giorgio De Sanctis Lucentini, Gregorio D’Agostino Lecture Notes in Computer Science Including Subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics, 2016
Self-healing protocols for infrastructural networks Antonio Scala, Walter Quattrociocchi, Giuliano Andrea Pagani, Marco Aiello Lecture Notes in Computer Science Including Subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics, 2016
Emotional dynamics in the age of misinformation Fabiana Zollo, Petra Kralj Novak, Michela Del Vicario, Alessandro Bessi, Igor Mozetič, Antonio Scala, Guido Caldarelli, Walter Quattrociocchi Plos One, 2015
Viral misinformation: The role of homophily and polarization Alessandro Bessi, Fabio Petroni, Michela Del Vicario, Fabiana Zollo, Aris Anagnostopoulos, Antonio Scala, Guido Caldarelli, Walter Quattrociocchi Www 2015 Companion Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on World Wide Web, 2015
Knowing power grids and understanding complexity science Martí Rosas Casals, Sandro Bologna, Ettore F. Bompard, Gregorio D', N.A. Agostino, Wendy Ellens, Giuliano Andrea Pagani, Antonio Scala, Trivik Verma International Journal of Critical Infrastructures, 2015
Social determinants of content selection in the age of (mis)information Alessandro Bessi, Guido Caldarelli, Michela Del Vicario, Antonio Scala, Walter Quattrociocchi Lecture Notes in Computer Science Including Subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics, 2014
Power Grids, Smart Grids and Complex Networks Antonio Scala, Guido Caldarelli, Alessandro Chessa, Alfonso Damiano, Mario Mureddu, Sakshi Pahwa, Caterina Scoglio, Walter Quattrociocchi NATO Science for Peace and Security Series C Environmental Security, 2014
Distributed generation and resilience in power grids Antonio Scala, Mario Mureddu, Alessandro Chessa, Guido Caldarelli, Alfonso Damiano Lecture Notes in Computer Science Including Subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics, 2013
The robustness of assortativity (short paper) Antonio Scala, Gregorio D’Agostino Lecture Notes in Computer Science Including Subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics, 2013
Models for a liquid-liquid phase transition S.V. Buldyrev, G. Franzese, N. Giovambattista, G. Malescio, M.R. Sadr-Lahijany, A. Scala, A. Skibinsky, H.E. Stanley Physica A Statistical Mechanics and Its Applications, 2002
A stroll in the energy landscape A. Scala, L. Angelani, R. Di Leonardo, G. Ruocco, F. Sciortino Philosophical Magazine B Physics of Condensed Matter Statistical Mechanics Electronic Optical and Magnetic Properties, 2002
Dynamics of supercooled water in configuration space E. La Nave, A. Scala, F. W. Starr, H. E. Stanley, F. Sciortino Physical Review E Statistical Physics Plasmas Fluids and Related Interdisciplinary Topics, 2001
Unsolved mysteries of water in its liquid and glassy phases Journal of Physics Condensed Matter, 2000
Classes of small-world networks L. A. N. Amaral, A. Scala, M. Barthélémy, H. E. Stanley Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2000
Free energy surface of supercooled water A. Scala, F. W. Starr, E. La Nave, H. E. Stanley, F. Sciortino Physical Review E Statistical Physics Plasmas Fluids and Related Interdisciplinary Topics, 2000
Quasicrystals in a monodisperse system Anna Skibinsky, Sergey V. Buldyrev, Antonio Scala, Shlomo Havlin, H. Eugene Stanley Physical Review E Statistical Physics Plasmas Fluids and Related Interdisciplinary Topics, 1999
The puzzling statistical physics of liquid water H.E. Stanley, S.V. Buldyrev, M. Canpolat, M. Meyer, O. Mishima, M.R. Sadr-Lahijany, A. Scala, F.W. Starr Physica A Statistical Mechanics and Its Applications, 1998
A Computational Framework for Financial Structures A Scala arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.14378 , 2026 2026
Coalition Structure and Polarization in Parliamentary Voting Networks: Evidence from the Italian Parliament F Collu, A Scala, E La Nave arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.04088 , 2026 2026
Watzlawick in the Infosphere: Meaning, Paradox, and the Algorithmic Construction of Reality A Scala Paradox, and the Algorithmic Construction of Reality (January 01, 2026) , 2026 2026 Citations: 1
Correlating Discrete Events: A Scalable Approach for Financial Risk Assessment A Scala, A Monaco Available at SSRN 5731289 , 2025 2025
From Legal Prose to Executable Logic: Formalising Waterfall Structures in Securitisation A Scala Available at SSRN 5658730 , 2025 2025 Citations: 1
Towards global equity in political polarization research M Falkenberg, M Cinelli, A Galeazzi, CA Bail, RM Benito, A Bruns, ... arXiv preprint arXiv:2504.11090 , 2025 2025 Citations: 7
LawVerse : The Legal Framework for Clinical Metaverse Content B Pasa, A Bernes, A Gaggioli, E Tuccari, F Zollo, G Vulpiani, L Pignolo, ... Journal of Medical Extended Reality 2 (1), jmedxr. 2024.0028 , 2025 2025 Citations: 6
Inoperability Propagation in Networks with Coupled Logistic Dynamics A Scala, C Fioravanti, G Oliva International Conference on Critical Information Infrastructures Security … , 2024 2024
Persistent interaction patterns across social media platforms and over time M Avalle, N Di Marco, G Etta, E Sangiorgio, S Alipour, A Bonetti, L Alvisi, ... Nature 628 (8008), 582-589 , 2024 2024 Citations: 188
The PEAL Method: a mathematical framework to streamline securitization structuring A Pinto, A Scala arXiv preprint arXiv:2404.05372 , 2024 2024 Citations: 1
The Black Box of Advertising Investments: Assessing the role of risk assessment M Delmastro, A Monaco, A Perrotta, A Scala 2023
Modelling the Growth of the Network Value A Scala, M Delmastro http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4638939 , 2023 2023 Citations: 1
A sum-of-states preservation framework for open multiagent systems with nonlinear heterogeneous coupling G Oliva, M Franceschelli, A Gasparri, A Scala IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control 69 (3), 1991-1998 , 2023 2023 Citations: 26
Measuring the efficacy of a vaccine during an epidemic A Scala, P Cavallo Plos One 18 (9), e0290652 , 2023 2023 Citations: 5
Assessing the Effect of the Lack of Essential Workforce on the Economic Sectors During a Pandemic S Bartolucci, R Setola, A Scala, S Panzieri, G Oliva International Conference on Critical Information Infrastructures Security, 23-40 , 2023 2023
Characterizing engagement dynamics across topics on Facebook G Etta, E Sangiorgio, N Di Marco, M Avalle, A Scala, M Cinelli, ... Plos one 18 (6), e0286150 , 2023 2023 Citations: 36
Evaluating the COVID-19 impact in Italian regions via multi criteria analysis F Santucci, M Nobili, L Faramondi, G Oliva, B Mazzà, A Scala, M Ciccozzi, ... PloS one 18 (5), e0285452 , 2023 2023 Citations: 3
The anatomy of echo chambers A Scala Azimuth: philosophical coordinates in modern and contemporary age: 22, 2 … , 2023 2023 Citations: 1
Epistemic Bubbles, Echo Chambers and the Digital Infosphere: Bolle Epistemiche, Camere Dell'eco E L'infosfera Digitale F Pisano, A Scala InSchibboleth , 2023 2023
Navigating the Herd Immunity Surface: A Novel Framework for Optimising Epidemic Response Strategies G Oliva, S Bonfigli, P Cavallo, A Scala Qeios , 2023 2023 Citations: 1
MOST CITED SCHOLAR PUBLICATIONS
Classes of small-world networks LAN Amaral, A Scala, M Barthélémy, HE Stanley Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 97 (21), 11149 , 2000 2000 Citations: 4363
The spreading of misinformation online M Del Vicario, A Bessi, F Zollo, F Petroni, A Scala, G Caldarelli, ... Proceedings of the national academy of Sciences 113 (3), 554-559 , 2016 2016 Citations: 3669
The COVID-19 social media infodemic AS M Cinelli, W Quattrociocchi, A Galeazzi, CM Valensise, E Brugnoli, AL ... Scientific Reports 10, 16598 , 2020 2020 Citations: 3299
Economic and social consequences of human mobility restrictions under COVID-19 G Bonaccorsi, F Pierri, M Cinelli, A Flori, A Galeazzi, F Porcelli, ... Proceedings of the national academy of sciences 117 (27), 15530-15535 , 2020 2020 Citations: 1332
Science vs conspiracy: Collective narratives in the age of misinformation A Bessi, M Coletto, GA Davidescu, A Scala, G Caldarelli, W Quattrociocchi PloS one 10 (2), e0118093 , 2015 2015 Citations: 1008
Echo chambers: Emotional contagion and group polarization on facebook M Del Vicario, G Vivaldo, A Bessi, F Zollo, A Scala, G Caldarelli, ... Scientific reports 6 (1), 37825 , 2016 2016 Citations: 952
Echo chambers on Facebook W Quattrociocchi, A Scala, CR Sunstein Available at SSRN 2795110 , 2016 2016 Citations: 717
Polarization of the vaccination debate on Facebook AL Schmidt, F Zollo, A Scala, C Betsch, W Quattrociocchi Vaccine 36 (25), 3606-3612 , 2018 2018 Citations: 586
Debunking in a world of tribes F Zollo, A Bessi, M Del Vicario, A Scala, G Caldarelli, L Shekhtman, ... PloS one 12 (7), e0181821 , 2017 2017 Citations: 537
Anatomy of news consumption on Facebook AL Schmidt, F Zollo, M Del Vicario, A Bessi, A Scala, G Caldarelli, ... Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114 (12), 3035-3039 , 2017 2017 Citations: 508
Polarization and fake news: Early warning of potential misinformation targets MD Vicario, W Quattrociocchi, A Scala, F Zollo ACM Transactions on the Web (TWEB) 13 (2), 1-22 , 2019 2019 Citations: 498
Users polarization on Facebook and Youtube A Bessi, F Zollo, M Del Vicario, M Puliga, A Scala, G Caldarelli, B Uzzi, ... PloS one 11 (8), e0159641 , 2016 2016 Citations: 472
Networks of Networks: The Last Frontier of Complexity G D'AGostino, A Scala Springer Berlin Heidelberg , 2014 2014 Citations: 453
Emotional dynamics in the age of misinformation F Zollo, PK Novak, M Del Vicario, A Bessi, I Mozetič, A Scala, G Caldarelli, ... PloS one 10 (9), e0138740 , 2015 2015 Citations: 417
Modeling confirmation bias and polarization M Del Vicario, A Scala, G Caldarelli, HE Stanley, W Quattrociocchi Scientific reports 7 (1), 40391 , 2017 2017 Citations: 407
Configurational entropy and diffusivity of supercooled water A Scala, FW Starr, E La Nave, F Sciortino, HE Stanley Nature 406 (6792), 166-169 , 2000 2000 Citations: 399
Mapping social dynamics on Facebook: The Brexit debate M Del Vicario, F Zollo, G Caldarelli, A Scala, W Quattrociocchi Social Networks 50, 6-16 , 2017 2017 Citations: 357
Saddles in the energy landscape probed by supercooled liquids L Angelani, R Di Leonardo, G Ruocco, A Scala, F Sciortino Physical review letters 85 (25), 5356 , 2000 2000 Citations: 325
Opinion dynamics on interacting networks: media competition and social influence W Quattrociocchi, G Caldarelli, A Scala Scientific Reports 4, 4938 , 2014 2014 Citations: 320
A network analysis of countries’ export flows: firm grounds for the building blocks of the economy G Caldarelli, M Cristelli, A Gabrielli, L Pietronero, A Scala, A Tacchella Public Library of Science 7 (10), e47278 , 2012 2012 Citations: 266
