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Memes can sway people's opinions over social media as they combine visual and textual information in an easy-to-consume manner. Since memes instantly turn viral, it becomes crucial to infer their intent and potentially associated harmfulness to take timely measures as needed. A common problem associated with meme comprehension lies in detecting the entities referenced and characterizing the role of each of these entities. Here, we aim to understand whether the meme glorifies, vilifies, or victimizes each entity it refers to. To this end, we address the task of role identification of entities in harmful memes, i.e., detecting who is the 'hero', the 'villain', and the 'victim' in the meme, if any. We utilize HVVMemes - a memes dataset on US Politics and Covid-19 memes, released recently as part of the CONSTRAINT@ACL-2022 shared-task. It contains memes, entities referenced, and their associated roles: hero, villain, victim, and other. We further design VECTOR (Visual-semantic role dEteCToR), a robust multi-modal framework for the task, which integrates entity-based contextual information in the multi-modal representation and compare it to several standard unimodal (text-only or image-only) or multi-modal (image+text) models. Our experimental results show that our proposed model achieves an improvement of 4% over the best baseline and 1% over the best competing stand-alone submission from the shared-task. Besides divulging an extensive experimental setup with comparative analyses, we finally highlight the challenges encountered in addressing the complex task of semantic role labeling within memes. © 2023 Association for Computational Linguistics.
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Introduction: Active cancer increases the odds of death among patients with COVID-19.1 Cancer patients may be at increased risk of complications and mortality from COVID-19 owing to the systemic effects of malignancy, immune suppression after chemotherapy, treatment-related complications and presence of co-morbidities.2 They may develop serious complications necessitating ICU admission. In a meta-analysis, the pooled mortality in cancer patients with COVID-19 admitted to an ICU was 60.2%.3 Our hospital is a tertiary referral cancer centre, and the ICU admitted cancer patients with Covid-19 throughout the pandemic. Objective(s): To determine the 30-day in-hospital mortality of adult cancer patients with Covid-19 admitted to the ICU. We also aimed to determine the factors associated with mortality in cancer patients with Covid-19. Method(s): After approval from the Institutional Ethics Committee, data of all cancer patients (age = 16 years) with Covid-19 admitted to the ICU between March 2020 and March 2021 were retrieved from the hospital records. In case of multiple ICU admissions, data from the first admission was recorded. Data recorded included demographic details, type of cancer (solid, haematological), surgical status, APACHE-II and SOFA scores, C-reactive protein, and interventions in ICU. The primary outcome was 30-day in-hospital mortality. Data were analysed using Man-Whitney test and chi-square test. A multivariable regression analysis was carried out to determine factors associated with mortality. Result(s): Data of 127 cancer patients with Covid-19 was analysed. The median [interquartile range, IQR] age was 55 (43-62) years, and there were 50 females (39.3%). Comorbidities were present in 46 (36%) patients, the commonest being diabetes (29 patients) and hypertension (31 patients). The median [IQR] APACHE-II and SOFA scores were 15[8-20] and 4[2-7], respectively. Overall, 62/127 patients died, and 30-day hospital mortality was 49%. There were 30 patients with haematological malignancy and 97 with solid tumours with 30-day in-hospital mortality rates of 46.7% and 49.5%, respectively;p = 0.84). Amongst patients with solid tumours, there was no difference in mortality in surgical patients compared to non-surgical patients (43.3% vs. 52.2%;p = 0.42). Table 1 summarises the parameters and interventions in survivors and non-survivors. On multivariable analysis, only the change in SOFA score from Day 1 to Day 3 was independently associated with outcome (Odds ratio 1.36 (95% confidence interval 1.01-1.84, p-0.04). Conclusion(s): In patients with cancer and Covid-19 and age =16 years admitted to our ICU, the crude 30-day hospital mortality was 47%. There was no association of mortality with cancer type or surgical status. The only independent predictor of mortality was progression of organ failure. Cancer patients with Covid-19 have a reasonable outcome and should be given a trial of intensive care.
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The World Health Organization declared coronavirus infectious disease-2019 (COVID-19) linked to the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV-2), a global pandemic in March 2020. The pandemic outbreak has led to the most unprecedented and catastrophic loss of human life in the recent history. As of January 2021, there were more than 100 million cases of COVID-19 and more than two million deaths worldwide. Compared to the general population, patients with cancer are at a higher risk of poor outcomes from COVID-19. In large cohort studies, mortality from COVID-19 in patients with cancer can be as high as 40%. In addition to clinical variables (older age, male sex, and co-morbidities) that are associated with mortality in general population, cancer patients are uniquely vulnerable to severe COVID-19 due to immunosuppression from cancer and its therapy, and disruption of routine clinical care. Among patients with cancer, the lung cancer population is at a higher risk of poor outcomes and mortality from COVID-19 for several reasons. For instance, lung is the main target organ in COVID-19 that can lead to respiratory failure, patients with lung cancer have baseline poor lung function from chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder and smoking. In addition, some of the lung cancer treatment side-effects like pneumonitis, may obscure the diagnosis of COVID-19. In this article, we systematically review the most impactful cohort studies published to date in patients with cancer and COVID-19. We describe the rates of mortality in patients with cancer and COVID-19 with a special focus on the lung cancer population. We also summarize the factors associated with poor outcomes and mortality in patients with lung cancer and COVID-19.Copyright © The Author(s) 2021.
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Background: SARS CoV 2 infection alters the immunological profiles of natural killer (NK) cells. However, whether NK anti-viral functions (direct cytotoxicity and/or antibody-dependent cell cytotoxicity (ADCC)) are impaired during severe COVID-19 and what host factors modulate these functions remain unclear. Method(s): Using functional assays, we examined the ability of NK cells from SARS-CoV-2 negative controls (n=12), mild COVID-19 patients (n=26), and hospitalized COVID-19 patients (n=41) to elicit direct cytotoxicity and ADCC [NK degranulation by flow] against cells expressing SARS-CoV-2 antigens. SARS-CoV- 2 N antigen plasma load was measured using an ultra-sensitive Simoa assay. We also phenotypically characterized the baseline expression of NK activating (CD16 and NKG2C), maturation (CD57), and inhibitory (NKG2A and the glyco-immune negative checkpoint Siglec-9) by flow cytometry. Finally, an anti-Siglec-9 blocking antibody was used to examine the impact of Siglec-9 expression on anti-SARS-CoV-2-specific ADCC [degranulation and target cell lysis]. Result(s): NK cells from hospitalized COVID-19 patients degranulate less against SARS-CoV-2-antigen-expressing cells (in direct cytolytic and ADCC assays) than did cells from mild COVID-19 patients or negative controls (Fig. 1A). The lower NK degranulation was associated with higher plasma levels of SARS-CoV-2 N-antigen (P<=0.02). Phenotypic and functional analyses showed that NK cells expressing Siglec-9 elicited higher ADCC than Siglec-9- NK cells (P<0.05;Fig. 1B). Consistently, Siglec-9+ NK cells expressed an activated and mature phenotype with higher expression of CD16, CD57, and NKG2C, and lower expression of NKG2A, than Siglec-9- NK cells (P<=0.03). These data are consistent with the concept that the NK cell subpopulation expressing Siglec-9 is highly activated and cytotoxic. However, the Siglec-9 molecule itself is an inhibitory receptor that restrains NK cytotoxicity during cancer and other infections. Indeed, blocking Siglec-9 significantly enhanced the ADCC-mediated NK degranulation and lysis of SARS-CoV-2-antigen-positive target cells (P<=0.05;Fig. 1C). Conclusion(s): These data support a model (Fig. 1D) in which the Siglec-9+ CD56dim NK subpopulation is cytotoxic even while being restrained by the inhibitory effects of Siglec-9. However, alleviating the Siglec-9-mediated restriction on NK cytotoxicity can further improve NK immune surveillance and presents an opportunity to develop novel immunotherapeutic tools against SARS-CoV-2 infected cells. (Figure Presented).
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In the first 2 years following the outbreak of COVID-19, many papers have been published regarding the impacts and adaptations of the pandemic on computer science education. As a first step towards a systematic literature mapping, this study attempts to develop a process for searching and a categorization schema for papers. The goal of this project is to produce a literature map which will be used to provide an initial assessment of the state of research, as well as a framework for future research directions. Limiting our search to papers published in the ACM Digital Library in the publications sponsored by SIGCSE, we first create and validate a query and inclusion/exclusion criteria for papers. Using a double evaluator model, we find high agreement with a Cohen's Kappa of 0.93, resulting in 42 papers across 6 conference proceedings. We further validate these findings by independent checking against all papers from SIGCSE2021 TS. We then develop categories across three dimensions: In activity: we find remote teaching, remote assessment, remote work, virtual events and general impact of pandemic. In measurement: we find grades, non-grade assessment, attendance/retention, affect/perception, and mental health. In population: we find K-12 students, university/college students, Educators, and the sub-categories of introductory/CS0/CS1 students, gender, and race. Double rater assessments initially produced a relatively low Kappa score of 0.58, but after protocol revision, and the production of additional categories, the kappa score was raised to a very high 0.94. © 2022 Owner/Author.
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The Home Appliance industry is going through an unpredictable situation due to corona virus. Customers' preferences are also changing from time to time. Authors have discussed various variables and their impact on the consumer purchasing decision and revealed how much brand influences the consumer compared to other factors while purchasing appliance products. Corona virus outbreak is continuously hitting the Indian economy and directly impacting the Appliance Industry. This research work also aims to address the change in consumer habits before and after corona virus. The convenience sampling method is used in this research to collect the sample data. The help of Quantitative methods does interpretation of research. From the end of December 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread around the world. Its spread harmed all sectors of the world, posing a new challenge to the Indian entrepreneurship ecosystem. It had an impact on the enterprise's viability and growth. Entrepreneurs must deal with social isolation, working from home, travel restrictions, and a lockdown to prevent the corona virus spread. Some businesses have had to close temporarily, while others have had to conduct small-scale operations. As a result, innovators must be visible in all aspects of entrepreneurial endeavors. This epidemic's carriers must be defeated. Businesses must find ways to survive and thrive.Copyright © 2022 Novyi Russkii Universitet. All rights reserved.
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The widespread diffusion of medical and political claims in the wake of COVID-19 has led to a voluminous rise in misinformation and fake news. The current vogue is to employ manual fact-checkers to efficiently classify and verify such data to combat this avalanche of claim-ridden misinformation. However, the rate of information dissemination is such that it vastly outpaces the fact-checkers' strength. Therefore, to aid manual fact-checkers in eliminating the superfluous content, it becomes imperative to automatically identify and extract the snippets of claim-worthy (mis)information present in a post. In this work, we introduce the novel task of Claim Span Identification (CSI). We propose CURT, a large-scale Twitter corpus with token-level claim spans on more than 7.5k tweets. Furthermore, along with the standard token classification baselines, we benchmark our dataset with DABERTa, an adapter-based variation of RoBERTa. The experimental results attest that DABERTa outperforms the baseline systems across several evaluation metrics, improving by about 1.5 points. We also report detailed error analysis to validate the model's performance along with the ablation studies. Lastly, we release our comprehensive span annotation guidelines for public use. © 2022 Association for Computational Linguistics.
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The Covid-19 has had heavily affected the global economy making several countries to a standstill. During this crisis, many people have started making use of social media platforms as a method of practicing social distancing. With this thing said, it is just the right environment for cyber attackers to conduct fraud by taking advantage of people's fear and widespread panic. This paper examines the different types of cyber-attacks conducted during this pandemic in India, with an increased time spent on social media by misleading people into releasing sensitive personal information. The paper also discusses the level of cybercrime awareness among the Indian citizens and preventive measures taken by them, which has become of utmost importance during this pandemic. Further, the research focuses on the statistical analysis, which is conducting by considering the hypothesis for the interdependence between the preventive steps taken, total duration utilized on the social platform, and the likelihood of online victimization. Additionally, future work related to the paper will determine the changes in the number of cybercrimes post Covid-19 pandemic. © 2023 American Institute of Physics Inc.. All rights reserved.
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Rationale: Recruitment for a NIH/ECHO-supported multi-center birth cohort, "Childhood Allergy and the NeOnatal Environment” (CANOE) stopped due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Redesign of study procedures emphasized virtual and socially distanced activities. We hypothesized that "virtual” recruitment methods (social media, websites, email) would surpass "traditional” methods (in-clinic, telephone, flyers/print materials) and increase enrollment of families from diverse backgrounds and communities. Methods: Pregnant women (n=439, target 500) were recruited from four academic medical centers in Detroit MI, Madison WI, Nashville TN, and St. Louis MO. We collected demographic and social information by questionnaires and examined race, ethnicity, age, parity, and employment status in relation to recruitment method using chi-square tests. Results: In-clinic and telephone recruitment comprised 55% of enrollment, followed by print materials (17%), and social media and email (15%). The cohort includes families self-identifying as Caucasian/White (63%), African American/Black (27%), Hispanic/Latino (3.3%), Asian (3.5%), and mixed races (1.2%). This reflects site demographics for White and Black patients, while other populations are not as well recruited into this cohort. Recruitment method success did not vary by race, ethnicity, maternal age, or employment status (p=ns for each comparison). Most (63%) multigravida mothers (9.1% of participants) were recruited in clinic, while primigravida participants were recruited more evenly via all methods. Conclusions: "Virtual” recruitment methods comprised a smaller proportion of cohort enrollment than hypothesized and study recruitment method did not vary by race/ethnicity;however, consideration of combined, varied, and novel recruitment methods may add to the development of best practices for more representative research study recruitment.
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The Home Appliance industry is going through an unpredictable situation due to corona virus. Customers' preferences are also changing from time to time. Authors have discussed various variables and their impact on the consumer purchasing decision and revealed how much brand influences the consumer compared to other factors while purchasing appliance products. Corona virus outbreak is continuously hitting the Indian economy and directly impacting the Appliance Industry. This research work also aims to address the change in consumer habits before and after corona virus. The convenience sampling method is used in this research to collect the sample data. The help of Quantitative methods does interpretation of research. From the end of December 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread around the world. Its spread harmed all sectors of the world, posing a new challenge to the Indian entrepreneurship ecosystem. It had an impact on the enterprise's viability and growth. Entrepreneurs must deal with social isolation, working from home, travel restrictions, and a lockdown to prevent the corona virus spread. Some businesses have had to close temporarily, while others have had to conduct small-scale operations. As a result, innovators must be visible in all aspects of entrepreneurial endeavors. This epidemic's carriers must be defeated. Businesses must find ways to survive and thrive.
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During a pandemic, the most affected aspects are the business economy and other sectors and areas globally. This research analyses the IT sector's condition during COVID-19 by taking a sample of four companies, analyzing the stock market and financial records of the previous few months, and predicting future stock market value to see the stock market graph. Random function and MS excel used for prediction of future stock market and records of the previous financial year to conclude status of the company with graphs. After analyzing a four-sample company, a conclusion for the sector is provided. Research analysis found most companies are stable even though they are going through certain losses because of their existing assets, fluctuating financial records, and stock market graphs. Sample companies can easily recover losses and still showing a bullish graph successfully. Even though suffering a percentage of error with the actual stock market price, it successfully portrayed the IT industry scenario in this uncertain situation. However, the magnitude of the impact has never been precisely calculated. This thesis suggests a COVID-19 impact calculation model. Assets gains in the COVID-19 timeframe are weighted means of prior COVID-19 standard yields and COVID-19-induced returns in the proposed model. The COVID-19-generated gains are negatively auto-correlated and extremely unpredictable, and they substitute the prior COVID-19 standard gains. During the COVID-19 era, the COVID-19-generated gains are unique natural gains.
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Background: MELD and Child-Pugh scores have traditionally been used as prognostic indicators in patients with cirrhosis. Albumin infusions in outpatients have been associated with improved outcomes, but not in transplant waitlisted patients or inpatients. This aim of this study was to assess whether low serum albumin (sAlb) on admission alone is a poor prognostic indicator among cirrhotic inpatients from a new multi-national cohort. Method(s): The CLEARED study is a global study that enrolled consecutive non-electively admitted inpatients without organ transplant or COVID-19 from 6 continents. Admission demographics, medical history, laboratory data, inpatient course, death/hospice transfer and mortality at 30 days post-discharge were recorded. Patients were divided into 3 groups: sAlb <28gm/L(A), sAlb >=28 but <35gm/L (B), and sAlb>=35gm/L (C) were compared. Multi-variable logistic regression was performed using inpatient mortality and overall 30-day mortality as outcomes. Result(s): 2429 patients were enrolled from 21 countries worldwide. The distribution was A:49%, B:39%, C:12%. Gp A patients were significantly younger (54yrs vs. 57yrs vs 58yrs p<0.0001) but with similar gender distribution, and higher MELD-Na score of 25 vs. 20 vs. 17 (p<0.0001). Gp A patients were more likely to have alcohol as etiology of cirrhosis (49% vs. 45% vs 38%, p=0.004), and were more likely to have either infection (27% vs. 18% vs. 13%, p<0.0001), HE (39% vs. 33% vs. 23%, p=0.005) or fluid related issues as a reason for admission (p<0.0001). More patients in Gp A received albumin infusion during their hospital stay (120gm vs. 100gm vs. 100gm p=0.0004), mostly for the indications of AKI (47% vs. 49% vs. 47%, p=0.79) and performance of large volume paracentesis (44% vs. 42% vs. 41%, p=0.80), followed by bacterial peritonitis indication (22% vs. 17% vs. 11%, p=0.01). Group A patients had longer hospital stays (9 days vs. 8 days vs. 7 days (p<0.001), but similar ICU transfer (23% vs. 22% vs. 20%, p=0.55). group A patients were more likely to die while inpatients (19% vs. 11% vs. 5%, p<0.0001), or by 30 days post-discharge (29% vs. 20% vs. 9%, p<0.0001). Table shows the admission variables associated with a poor outcome. Conclusion(s): Hypoalbuminemia is extremely common among admitted cirrhotic patients, with sAlb of <28gm/L occurring in almost half. Together with MELD-Na score and infection at admission, a low sAlb is associated with a poor outcome in these patients. Future studies will need to validate these findings and to assess whether albumin infusions will improve the outcome of these patients. (Figure Presented).
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Background: Hepatic encephalopathy (HE) in acute-on- chronic liver failure (ACLF) is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. There is paucity of data regarding HE management in patients with ACLF and most of the evidence is extrapolated from patients with cirrhosis. We conducted a prospective, randomized controlled clinical trial to study the efficacy of intravenous branched chain amino acids (IV-BCAA) with lactulose versus lactulose alone for improvement in HE scores at 24h, day 3 & day 7. Duration of ICU stay and survival at days 7 and 28 was compared. Method(s): CANONIC ACLF patients with HE grades >= 2 were assessed for eligibility and randomized into two groups -experimental arm (IV-BCAA -500mL/ day for 3 days + Lactulose;n=39) and comparator arm (Lactulose alone;n=37). Six patients developed COVID-19 after randomization & were excluded (4-experimental arm & 2-comparator arm). Grade of HE was assessed by West Haven Classification and Hepatic Encephalopathy Scoring Algorithm (HESA). ACLF severity was determined by CLIF-C ACLF and MELD scores. All patients received standard of care for HE and ACLF management. Result(s): Both groups were similar in baseline characteristics including grade of HE (2.85 +/- 0.75 vs 2.82 +/- 0.66;P = 0.864) and CLIF-C ACLF score (54.19 +/- 5.55 vs 54.79 +/- 5.74;P = 0.655). Overall survival was 40% at 28 days (48.5% vs 31.4%;P=0.143). Significant improvement in HESA score by >=1 grade at 24h was seen in 14 patients (40%) in BCAA arm and 6 patients (17.14%) in control group (P=0.034) which translated to a shorter ICU stay in the BCAA arm (Table 1). Median change in HESA score at 24h was significantly more in BCAA arm than control arm (P=0.006), however, this was not sustained at day 3 or 7. Ammonia levels did not correlate with the grade of HE (Spearman's correlation coefficient(rho) = -0.0843;P=0.295). Conclusion(s): Intravenous BCAA leads to early but ill-sustained improvement in grade of HE and reduced ICU stay in ACLF.
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Background: Although cirrhosis is a major cause of mortality worldwide, there could be disparities in outcomes. This needs a global consortium to study disparities in inpatient cirrhosis care Aim: Define the impact of location in prediction of outcomes in inpts with cirrhosis. Method(s): CLEARED prospectively enrolled non-electively admitted cirrhosis pts without COVID from all continents. To ensure equity, we allowed only 50 pts/site. Admission details, cirrhosis history, inpatient & 30-day course were recorded. World bank classification of low/low middle income (LMI), upper middle (UMI) & High income (HI) were used. Cirrhosis details, inpatient & 30-day outcomes were compared between groups. Multi-variable regression was performed using inpatient & 30-day mortality as outcomes. Result(s): 2758 pts from 21 countries from all continents, including Africa & Australia, were included.727 were L/LMI, 1050 UMI & 981 pts were from HICs. More men & younger pts were in LMI. Cirrhosis details: More pts in HI gp had 6M hospitalizations & infections, HE & ascites while prior variceal bleeding was higher in LMI . Prior HCC & transplant listings were lower in LMI but similar in UMI/HI. Alcohol & NASH was highest in HI. Viral hepatitis & cryptogenic were highest in UMI.Admissions: Admission MELD was highest in LMI. LMI pts were admitted more for GI Bleed, HE, & DILI, while anasarca & HBV flares were higher in UMI. Higher SBP (36% vs 24% vs 21% p<0.0001) & lowest skin/soft-tissue infections were in LMI (5% vs 5% vs 10% p=0.008);rest were similar. Nosocomial infections, driven by UTI were highest in LMI & HI pts (15% vs 14% vs 11% UMI, p=0.03). Admission diuretics, PPIs, Lactulose & statins were highest & antivirals lower in HI. SBP prophylaxis & rifaximin were highest in LMI pts. Outcome(s): More LMI pts needed ICU & had more organ failures (Fig B). Discharge MELD was highest in LMI. In-hospital mortality was highest & transplant lowest in LMI. This extended to 30-day mortality & transplant in LMI patients vs HI pts.Regression: In-hospital mortality was linked with age, infections, MELD & being in a LMI/UMI vs HIC while being on a transplant list, diabetes, & SBP prophylaxis were protective (Fig C). 30-day mortality predicted by age, ascites, HCC, discharge MELD, organ failures, LMI/UMI vs HIC but rifaximin was protective(Fig D). In-hospital transplant was higher with high MELD, admission rifaximin & listed pts &lower in LMI (OR 0.26) & UMI (OR 0.22) & age. 30-day transplant was higher in those with hyponatremia, ascites & HRS, on the list & on rifaximin and lower in LMI (OR 0.24) & UMI (OR 0.59) vs HI. Conclusion(s): In a global study of inpatients with cirrhosis, there were major differences in outcomes. Not being in a high-income country significantly increased the risk of inpatient and 30-day mortality independent of demographics, medications, in-hospital course, and cirrhosis severity likely due to disparities in access to transplant, which should be accounted for in global models. (Figure Presented).
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SESSION TITLE: Post-COVID-19 Infection Complications SESSION TYPE: Case Report Posters PRESENTED ON: 10/17/2022 12:15 pm - 01:15 pm INTRODUCTION: As the coronavirus pandemic continues to burden the global health care system, strong associations have emerged with hypercoagulability. Recent reports of Covid-19 support both venous and arterial thromboembolism, thus coagulopathy emerging as one of the most severe sequelae of the disease, which has also been associated with poorer outcomes. CASE PRESENTATION: A 71-year-old female with a past medical history of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and obesity presented with progressively worsening shortness of breath and cough. She was found to be hypoxic to 80% on arrival and tested positive for COVID-19. She was subsequently intubated and admitted to the ICU. Her D-dimer was noted to be 9.04mcg/mLFEU (0-0.55mcg/mLFEU), ferritin 256ng/mL(10-291ng/mL), LDH 707 U/L(130-270U/L), CRP 138mg/L (< 10mg/L). She was treated with a ten-day course of dexamethasone and a five-day course of Remdesivir. On Day 7, purple discoloration was noted in the second to fifth digits of the left hand, concerning acute ischemia. Left upper extremity ultrasound revealed intraluminal heterogeneous echogenicity likely occlusive ulnar arterial thrombus with no flow to mid or distal segment and normal flow in the radial artery into a complete palmar arch. This was seen to be classical for micro-embolic phenomenon attributable to the hypercoagulable state associated with Covid-19 infection. Treatment with Heparin drip was initiated along with the local application of nitro paste. The patient was subsequently discharged home but re-presented a month later for gastrointestinal bleeding. At this admission, her left second digit was noted to express purulent drainage. Imaging confirmed osteomyelitis in the second through fifth digits and was referred to a tertiary center for definitive treatment. DISCUSSION: Covid-19 has been shown to provoke catastrophic inflammatory responses by triggering a dysfunctional cascade of thrombosis in the pulmonary vasculature leading to both micro and macroangiopathic manifestations. The quick progression of ischemia to digital gangrene, despite collateral circulation and early intervention, indicates severe microangiopathy. CONCLUSIONS: Thus physicians must always have a high index of suspicion for thromboembolic complications in patients with Covid-19. The development of severe complications despite prompt anticoagulation highlights the need for alternative or newer therapies like targeted immunotherapy that would effectively manage these complications of SARS-CoV-2. Reference #1: Digital Gangrene as a Sign of Catastrophic Coronavirus Disease 2019-related Microangiopathy Jessica S. Wang, MD,* Helena B. Pasieka, MD, MS,† Vesna Petronic-Rosic, MD, MSc, MBA,† Banafsheh Sharif-Askary, MD,* and Karen Kim Evans, MDcorresponding author Reference #2: Galván Casas C, Català A, Carretero Hernández G, Rodríguez-Jiménez P, Fernández-Nieto D, Rodríguez-Villa Lario A, Navarro Fernández I, Ruiz-Villaverde R, Falkenhain-López D, Llamas Velasco M, García-Gavín J, Baniandrés O, González-Cruz C, Morillas-Lahuerta V, Cubiró X, Figueras Nart I, Selda-Enriquez G, Romaní J, Fustà-Novell X, Melian-Olivera A, Roncero Riesco M, Burgos-Blasco P, Sola Ortigosa J, Feito Rodriguez M, García-Doval. Classifications of the cutaneous manifestations of Covid-19: a rapid prospective nationwide consensus study in Spain with 375 cases. Br J Dermatol. 2020 Jul;183(1):71-77. doi: 10.1111/bjd.19163. Epub 2020 Jun 10. Reference #3: Mouhamed Yazan Abou-Ismail 1, Akiva Diamond 2, Sargam Kapoor 3, Yasmin Arafah 2, Lalitha Nayak 4.The hypercoagulable state in COVID-19: Incidence, pathophysiology, and management Thromb Res. 2020 Oct;194:101-115. doi: 10.1016/j.thromres.2020.06.029. Epub 2020 Jun 20. DISCLOSURES: No relevant relationships by Navyamani Kagita No relevant relationships by ABHIGNA KULKARNI No relevant relationships by Rajesh Thirumaran
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We present the findings of the shared task at the CONSTRAINT 2022 workshop on "Hero, Villain, and Victim: Dissecting Harmful Memes for Semantic Role Labeling of Entities." The task aims to delve deeper into meme comprehension by deciphering the connotations behind the entities present in a meme. In more nuanced terms, the shared task focuses on determining the victimizing, glorifying, and vilifying intentions embedded in meme entities to explicate their connotations. To this end, we curate HVVMemes, a novel meme dataset of about 7,000 memes spanning the domains of COVID-19 and US Politics, each containing entities and their associated roles: hero, villain, victim, or other. The shared task attracted 105 registered participants, but eventually only nine of them made official submissions. The most successful systems used ensembles combining textual and multimodal models, with the best system achieving an F1-score of 58.67.
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Background: Patients (pts) with thoracic cancers have a high rate of hospitalization and death from COVID-19. Smoking has been associated with increased risk for severe COVID-19. However, there is limited data evaluating the impact of smoking recency on COVID-19 severity in pts with cancer. We aimed to characterize the clinical outcomes of COVID-19 based on the recency of smoking in pts with thoracic cancers (TC) and all other cancers (OC). Methods: Adult pts with cancer and lab-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 and smoking history recorded in the CCC19 registry (NCT0435470) were included. Pts were stratified by cancer type (TC or OC) and further stratified into subgroups based on the recency of smoking cessation: current smoker;former smokers who quit < 1 yr. ago;1-5 yr. ago;6-10 yr. ago;quit > 10 yr. ago;and never smoker. 30-day all-cause mortality was the primary endpoint. Secondary endpoints were any hospitalization;hospitalization with supplemental O2;ICU admission;and mechanical ventilation. Results: From January 2020 to December 2021, 752 pts from TC group and 8,291 pts from OC group met the inclusion criteria. 78% of patients in TC group ever smoked compared to 36% patients in the OC group. In both groups, the majority of never-smokers were females (70% and 60% in TC and OC respectively). The burden of smoking and the rate of pulmonary comorbidities (PC) was higher in the TC group (PC 22-69%) compared to OC group (PC 12-26%) across all smoking strata. Overall, 30-day all-cause mortality was 21% and 11% in pts with TC and OC respectively. Former smokers who quit < 1 year ago in TC group had the highest rate of mortality and severe COVID-19 outcomes. However, in the OC group, there was no consistent trend of higher mortality or severe COVID-19 outcomes in specific subgroups based on smoking recency. Conclusions: To our knowledge this is the largest study evaluating the effect of granular phenotypes of smoking recency on COVID-19 outcomes in pts with cancer. Recent smokers who quit < 1 year ago in TC group had the highest rate of mortality and severe COVID-19. Further analysis exploring the factors (e.g., smoking pack years) associated with severe outcomes in this subgroup is planned.