A922 Sequential measurement of 1 hour creatinine clearance (1-CRCL) in critically ill patients at risk of acute kidney injury (AKI)

Meeting abstrac

Usefulness of bronchoalveolar lavage in suspect COVID-19 repeatedly negative swab test and interstitial lung disease

The diagnosis of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) relies on nasopharyngeal swab, which shows a 20–30% risk of false negativity [1]. Bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) is reported to be useful in patients with pulmonary interstitial infiltrates on high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT). We investigated the usefulness of BAL in symptomatic patients with positive HRCT and a repeatedly negative swab test (‘grey zone’)

Communication and visiting policies in Italian intensive care units during the first COVID-19 pandemic wave and lockdown: a nationwide survey

Background: During the first coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic wave, an unprecedented number of patients with respiratory failure due to a new, highly contagious virus needed hospitalization and intensive care unit (ICU) admission. The aim of the present study was to describe the communication and visiting policies of Italian intensive care units (ICUs) during the first COVID-19 pandemic wave and national lockdown and compare these data with prepandemic conditions. Methods: A national web-based survey was conducted among 290 Italian hospitals. Each ICU (active between February 24 and May 31, 2020) was encouraged to complete an individual questionnaire inquiring the hospital/ICU structure/organization, communication/visiting habits and the role of clinical psychology prior to, and during the first COVID-19 pandemic wave. Results: Two hundred and nine ICUs from 154 hospitals (53% of the contacted hospitals) completed the survey (202 adult and 7 pediatric ICUs). Among adult ICUs, 60% were dedicated to COVID-19 patients, 21% were dedicated to patients without COVID-19 and 19% were dedicated to both categories (Mixed). A total of 11,102 adult patients were admitted to the participating ICUs during the study period and only approximately 6% of patients received at least one visit. Communication with family members was guaranteed daily through an increased use of electronic devices and was preferentially addressed to the same family member. Compared to the prepandemic period, clinical psychologists supported physicians more often regarding communication with family members. Fewer patients received at least one visit from family members in COVID and mixed-ICUs than in non-COVID ICUs, l (0 [0–6]%, 0 [0–4]% and 11 [2–25]%, respectively, p < 0.001). Habits of pediatric ICUs were less affected by the pandemic. Conclusions: Visiting policies of Italian ICUs dedicated to adult patients were markedly altered during the first COVID-19 wave. Remote communication was widely adopted as a surrogate for family meetings. New strategies to favor a family-centered approach during the current and future pandemics are warranted

Neither in the Programs Nor in the Data: Mining the Hidden Financial Knowledge with Knowledge Graphs and Reasoning

Vadalog is a logic-based reasoning language for modern AI solutions, in particular for Knowledge Graph (KG) systems. It is showing very effective applicability in the financial realm, with success stories in a vast range of scenarios, including: creditworthiness evaluation, analysis of company ownership and control, prevention of potential takeovers of strategic companies, prediction of hidden links between economic entities, detection of family businesses, smart anonymization of financial data, fraud detection and anti-money laundering. In this work, we first focus on the language itself, giving a self-contained and accessible introduction to Warded Datalog+/-, the formalism at the core of Vadalog, as well as to the Vadalog system, a state-of-the-art KG system. We show the essentials of logic-based reasoning in KGs and touch on recent advances where logical inference works in conjunction with the inductive methods of machine learning and data mining. Leveraging our experience with KGs in Banca d’Italia, we then focus on some relevant financial applications and explain how KGs enable the development of novel solutions, able to combine the knowledge mined from the data with the domain awareness of the business experts

Polymyxin-B endotoxin removal device: making the point on mechanisms of action, clinical effectiveness and possible future applications: review

In this review, we focus on current information on the apheresis procedures for endotoxins removal with Polymyxin B cartridges (PMX). This device has been designed in 2003 in Japan in order to take advantage of the antibiotic effects of Polymyxins on Gram negative bacteria and endotoxins, by-passing the toxicity shown by the intravenous administration. Although its mechanisms of action are nowadays well-known, we felt the need to sum up all the someway scattered information giving an overall sight on the entire process that brings Polymyxins molecules to function as powerful detergents of the endotoxins from the blood flow. Since the first experiences on humans, over one hundred studies have been published about the clinical use of this device. Even if some of them were limited in number of patients and compliance to international standards, they all converged in showing a highly positive impact of PMX on the improvement of clinic condition and outcome. Recently, more significant and large experiences confirmed the benefits of this treatment on hemodynamic, PaO2/FiO2 ratio, APACHE and SOFA scores and outcome at 28 days even on different typologies of sepsis cases, such as in transplanted patients. Summarizing, this relatively new procedure has proven to be a promising tool against Gram negative and endotoxin sepsis, combining clinical and outcome improvements with a fair cost/effectiveness ratio. Given that, there's still need of wider and more structured clinical studies that could steady the use of this device and widen its fields of applications

Reasoning on company takeovers during the COVID-19 crisis with knowledge graphs

When some country takes a disproportionate hit by a large-scale turmoil—just like Italy did during the COVID-19 pandemics—the share prices of its companies plunge. Suddenly, it becomes feasible to attempt foreign takeovers of national assets, including those of strategic interest. To avert this risk, the Government can veto transactions by summoning the so-called “Golden Powers”. Or, it can work to proactively identify structural weaknesses in the control or shareholding chains of key companies, in order to reinforce them without resorting to special powers. Sometimes, vulnerabilities and attacks hide in plain sight due to how complex and intertwined the network of mutual company shareholding is. In this work, we show how to leverage Knowledge Graphs (KGs) as a representation and reasoning framework to analyze both reactive and proactive measures against takeover attempts, however intricate the setting where they take place. We formally characterize a set of reasoning tasks that define when and if to employ Golden Powers, plus others that aim at pinpointing companies prone to attacks. These criteria are exercised on the real network of all Italian companies, built for the occasion. A rich set of experiments is provided, including on several large synthetic instances, to prove the robustness of our method

Erratum: Airway management in anesthesia for thoracic surgery: a “real life” observational study

In the August 2019 issue of Journal of Thoracic Disease, the paper “Airway management in anesthesia for thoracic surgery: a “real life” observational study “(doi: 10.21037/jtd.2019.08.57) by Dr. Langiano et al. (1) was published with an error in the list of non-author contributors by missing one of the non-author contributors. The contributor Enrica Del Grande, MD should be included. Therefore, the non-author contributors list of this article should be corrected as below