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Coronavirus pandemic has radically changed the scientific world. During these difficult times, standard peer-review processes could be too long for the continuously evolving knowledge about this disease. We wanted to assess whether the use of other types of network could be a faster way to disseminate the knowledge about Coronavirus disease. We retrospectively analyzed the data flow among three distinct groups of networks during the first three months of the pandemic: PubMed, preprint repositories (biorXiv and arXiv) and social media in Italy (Facebook and Twitter). The results show a significant difference in the number of original research articles published by PubMed and preprint repositories. On social media, we observed an incredible number of physicians participating to the discussion, both on three distinct Italian-speaking Facebook groups and on Twitter. The standard scientific process of publishing articles (i.e., the peer-review process) remains the best way to get access to high-quality research. Nonetheless, this process may be too long during an emergency like a pandemic. The thoughtful use of other types of network, such as preprint repositories and social media, could be taken into consideration in order to improve the clinical management of COVID-19 patients.

Covid-19 in immunocompromised patients shows a prolonged course and may lead to a poor prognosis. Although data on hyperimmune plasma for treatment of Covid-19 suggest an improved outcome in immunocompetent patients, limited data are currently available in immunocompromised patients. We present the case of a 62-year-old Caucasian woman, who was previously treated with obinutuzumab and bendamustine for follicular lymphoma and showed a prolonged positive test for Covid-19. Since no improvement was observed with standard of care (including remdesivir), the possibility of hyperimmune plasma infusion was discussed. A first dose of hyperimmune plasma was administered, with subsequent onset of fever, increasing inflammatory indexes and worsening radiological findings. Three days later a second dose of plasma was administered. Within twelve hours cough and fever disappeared, and oxygen at rest was discontinued. The patient was discharged 5 days later, and nasopharyngeal swabs resulted negative 16 days after discharge.

Angiosarcoma is a rare malignancy of vascular origin, mostly originating from skin, soft tissues, and breast, but rarely also from the pleura. We present the case of a 55-year-old man who referred to our hospital for a spontaneous bilateral hemothorax. The CT angiography did not show any source of active bleeding; plus, no pleural or lung masses were observable. Cytological and microbiological analyses made on a sample of pleural fluid resulted negative. Despite numerous blood transfusions and thoracenteses, the patient deceased from hemorrhagic shock ten days later and the diagnosis of primary pleural epithelioid angiosarcoma was obtained only by autopsy. Additionally, we present a review of the literature about primary pleural angiosarcomas.

It is well known that membrane reactors are inherently two-dimensional systems in which species concentrations vary as a consequence of both the reaction and permeation across the membrane, which occurs in the direction perpendicular to that of the main gas flow. Recently, an expression for an enhanced Sherwood number was developed to describe the hydrogen concentration gradients arising in methane steam-reforming membrane reactors as a consequence of the combined effect of hydrogen production, dispersion, and permeation. Here, the analysis is developed in further detail with the aim of (i) assessing the validity of the simplifying assumptions made when developing the 1D model and (ii) identifying the operating conditions under which it is possible to employ the 1D model with the enhanced Sherwood number.